The next week we went to the Summer Palace.
Which made for some good sight seeing and some one really sad story (see below)
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| Teh Summa Pahliss |
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| Gate Thing |
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| Water Lillies, not Monet's |
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| This lady was doing some traditional Chinese dance while some other retired-looking people played the music. Kind of cool |
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| Me! |
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| Artist (non-hipster) |
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| Being a hopefully-future-engineer, the traffic flow design of this place was attrocious |
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| pretty. |
SAD STORY ALERT!
So our tour guide (the same one from Forbidden City, so check the last post if you wanna see him :)
was kind of hustling us along, but every now and then I would hear a whole group of people singing songs off in the distance some where and I really wanted to see who they were and what they were doing. Well not to long after this bridge (see above^^^) we had a bathroom break. Nature called and so I went to use the bathroom (this is the 3-star mentioned in the Forbidden City post).
When I was a missionary in Madagascar I remember missionaries talking about eating spicy food and "if it burns going down, it'll burn going out". Well I guess I never had enough spicy food in Madagascar, b/c I never really experienced this.
... welcome to China. So I'm on the squatter (literally) and let just say... liquid fire... is a fairly accurate description haha. 'Twas bad. So naturally that took a little bit longer than normal, AND to my dismay I discovered no toilet paper in the stall or my backpack. Luckily, I found some paper of some sort... but it wasn't quite the same.
By the time I got out, all the group was gone. I wasn't actually too sad b/c this gave me an excuse to go exploring on my own, which I did. So I set off in the direction of the singing, and look what I found:
So that was cool. Then I went to go see the Big Pagoda On The Hill because the tour group wasn't going there and it only cost like... a dollar or two more. This part had been under renovation when I visited with my dad in 2005, so it was nice to actually see it and see it all cleaned up.
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| This might be the Buddha that had a very prominent "No Pictures Sign" in front of it which everyone was blatantly ignoring. |
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| See how HAZY it is?! This is how the weather was about 90% of the time I was there. Aw-Ful. |
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| Symmetry |
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| Again. Le Haze. Le Yuck Le Health Problems |
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| Cool |
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| I've always (since I have such a long history with China and the Summer Palace) been confused as to why this Marble Boat thing is such a big deal. It's just a marble building shaped like a boat next to the water... I could do the same thing too if I was an Emperor of a vast empire and nothing better to do. Heck I could probs do it if I had like a million dollars or so. Eh, whatevs. |
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Marble Boat? nah.
DRAGON BOAT! ... of doom. |
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| Chinese Family. Magazine Cover. or something. |
SAD STORY CONTINUED:
So by this point I'd completely lost the group because I was meandering at my own pace and taking copious pictures in the smog. At about this point I was realized (cuz I called some groupies on the phone) that I'd have to find my own way home (take the subway, BeiDa wasn't too far) and so I slowed down even more. It was also about this point that I realized that my bum was ON FIRE. Lack of toilet paper was really starting to have caused a problem. And naturally I had decided to take the long adventuresome way around the park and was about half way there (meaning I was the further I could possibly be from any useable exit). And so I plopped down on the 'grass' in a relatively quiet spot, munched on some munchies I had in my backpack... I think it was dried mangoes, and some nuts and crackers or something and probs some water I had. While I listened to soothing music on my iPod, and then took a nap. I'm pretty sure this was a way weird sight for Chinese people, but I didn't really care, I was enjoying myself (and not in pain!). Eventually though, I got up and kept walking. Oooh how it hurt.
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Umbrellas. Typical.
But this bridge is pretty nifty. |
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| Those bridges look pretty cool, but danged if you have a disability, cuz them steps are steeeeeeeeeeep. |
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| Y U so sideways? |
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| This Bridge Is Really Famous |
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| not sure why, but it makes for decent pics |
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| haha I thought this was funny cuz it kinda of looks like an amphibious assault of paddle boats against the Pagoda |
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| LION. |
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| So Famous. |
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Baby Soup* Machine
*Forbidden-City-post reference |
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| Rawr. |
The End!
But wait.
FINAL SAD STORY!
So after literally several hours of walking around the park with a burning... yeah, so after walking around for hours, I finally got back to the entrance and went outside.
I tried to get a taxi back to BeiDa (Beijing University) but all of the taxi's were being skanks (or more likely I didn't understand what was going on, but all I know is they wouldn't take me anywhere). So I guess I had a map or my iPod still had a beijing map saved on it from Google or something, but eventually I ended up walking to the subway station (Oh, totally forgot to mention I was wearing my worn out flip flops this whole time). Which didnt look very far on the map, but I think it was probably 20-30 minutes after all. Which isn't too bad,
unless you just walked around a lake for 2 hours with molten diarrhea.
FINALLY I made it back to the subway (never have I ever been so excited to see one). A couple stops later I was back "home" at BeiDa and a short (but painful) 10 min walk across campus to my dorm, where I promptly took a shower, noticed my terribly sunburn (but the sun was hidden by the
smog!!!) and took a nap.
The End!
for realz.
