Life with the Three Crazy Dogs

Ok, it’s about time I get this going, continuation from here.

After our whole day walk at the Wall, Ming Tombs, Temple of Heaven and then to Wangfujing St, the next day my bro and his gf didn’t join mom and I to Summer Palace.  So, both she and I ventured out on our own by public transportation.  We asked the hotel receptionist to write “Summer Palace” in chinese for us and asked what bus to take.  Initially we wanted to take a cab but it’s way too far for cabs to get there.  They will but will cost a bomb.  So we took bus No 3 from where we were at to another stand, cross the street to catch No 83, 86, 89 or 93 to directly to Summer Palace.  Communication with the bus attendant was mainly limited, just showed her the chinese words of our intended destination, she says how much and we find a place to sit if we can find one since it was a work day and at 7:30 in the morning.  But i have to say, the Chinese folks really give great respect to the elderlies.  Some of them saw my mom standing, holding on tight to my arm and on to the railing, they got up and offered her the seat, on all bus rides we took.

The ride took us almost an hour or more, plus minus and dropped us off right infront of this.

Then we took a 5 minutes walk to the entrance, got our tickets (we always get the through tickets so we don’t have to buy tickets at that particular area we are at). My mom said it’s better to get those through tickets plus my mom received a big discount as she is an elderly, however, at the Summer Palace, they don’t accept senior citizen discounts. So we paid RMB120 for both of us.

An example of one of the many entrances of places of interests in the Palace grounds where a ticket is needed on top of the main entrance ticket.   This is the entrance to the temple where the Empress Dowager receives her guests, celebrate birthdays and where she goes for her prayers.

The pics taken at Summer Palace were really bad.  The sun was completely hidden for the day.  Only haze and more haze, or smog, whatever you want to call it.  The sun popped around noon-ish but soon disappeared.  So all these pictures I have to doctor them up to make them look a little brighter; damn tedious and time consuming job!

Again, this place has a lot of climbing of stairs and walk  till you drop that sort of tour.  Speaking of tour, there were tons of tour groups at the hour we were there.  What my mom and I did was we followed a specific group since we, kiam sup, we didn’t buy the map! :)  This was my mom’s second trip.  She wanted to come here this time around coz when she and my late dad came here the first time it was winter, and they arrived late and didn’t see much.  The Kunming Lake was frozen and a lot of skaters skating on the late.

Anyways, there were so many Halls as usual and side rooms inside a Hall.  Plus the gardens.  The interior decorations at the Summer Palace is just lovely – mixture of western and eastern.  Just love it.  To get a decent picture is damn difficult.  The among of people at this Palace were insane.  Wish I could just tell these people to move away so I can take a nice picture.

Here is where we need to climp up the steps to see where the Empress pays her respects at the Buddhist temple. The steps are narrow and a lot of them.  I keep thinking of the poor fellas who had to haul the Emperess on the sedan chair. 

This is my favorite building in the Summer Palace.
The temple where the Empress prays to the many Buddhas stored in there.  This temple sits on all rocks.  How the hell did these people built this temple is beyond me!  And the carvings of individual little Buddhas on the outside.  Before the Empress goes into the Temple, there is a hall with rooms where she changes to her prayers’ clothing.   The very top building with the Buddah carvings is where the Buddhas and dieties are placed.  No pictures were allowed in there.  The statue of the Buddha was humongous.

 The many many Buddhas carved onto the building and the 2 “Loongs” (dragons), I was awed.

 Another view of it.

We got here at around 9-30-ish a.m. Food and drinks here selling double the prices.  We didn’t bring much food with us, whereas most of everyone who came here brought along their own food and beverages.  It was here along the Long Corridor mom and I bought our instant noodle in a bowl, or the locals call it “fong pian mien”.  Damn convenient.  The vendors have the bowls in their store, you pick one, pay him and he will tell you open, put in the accompanying seasonings, and lastly using the hot water in a flask provided, pour the hot water into your noodles.  The one bowl of noodles is huge but that day, mom and I had one each.  And from that day onwards, the “fong pien mien” was our life saver!

We didn’t get out of the Palace till almost 5 p.m.  This Palace is huge.  We covered, I would say, 85% of the grounds; every nooks and crannies, gardens, halls, courtyards, we touched them.   The only remaining area we didn’t cover was the other part of the Palace gardens where the Marble is located.  There are more gardens and gardens, endless.  We finally walked out and took the No 93 bus back to the cities.  Long tiring day but so worth it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Vacation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.