Beijing Day 5 (Summer Palace & Tiananmen Square)

Getting ready to leave the apartment and go to the Summer Palace...waiting for the slower adults and playing with his newly acquired rhythmic ribbon

Summer Games. We're ready.

No matter how developed the city is...we still saw construction crews using not pickup trucks, but these older bicycle-driven carts as their work vehicles (to store tools, haul away rubbish, etc).  

I was ecstatic to find a sweet potato cart outside the Summer Palace just like the ones I used to patronize in Japan...although these were thankfully cheaper. I used to pay about $5-6 for a sweet potato, but I think we only paid about $4-5 for two potatoes there.

Though it was our second time to the Summer Palace, we entered through a different gate then and missed out on seeing this gorgeous waterway. The Summer Palace is a vast park-like environment, with waterways, bridges, temples, pavilions and a large, man-made lake. I think it offers landscape scenery that best reflects how China looked hundreds of years ago.

I believe these people were Tibetan monks, they were on the same 'track' we were and kept bumping into them at every main site at the palace.

There was no way to capture how large and looming the palace was...it felt like what I'd imagine Potala Palace looks like in Tibet (but of course on a much smaller scale).

See?! I told you the monks were following us.  

Someone covertly scrambled up on the rocks above the crowd so he could finally see what this woman was painting.  

The marble boat that I just *had* to see ages ago was such a disappointment. I didn't know what I was expecting, but I remember thinking it looked like a riverboat casino. :-) 

See what I mean? (And yes, I'm well aware that it looks like I ate the boat...I'm wearing the free Mongolia t-shirt I got for booking Tran-Siberian railway tickets a few days prior. It had pictures of horses of it. I'm surprised I didn't get a single marriage proposal while wearing that shirt.).

The Long Corridor...I wish you could see the detail of the paintings on the beams...each one is unique and tells a story.

Ryan standing at the exact spot I sat at 14 years ago writing in my journal (and attracting a crowd of interested people who stood and stared at me until I stopped). :-) On this trip, I was ignored...I didn't like it one bit.

Because mommy is classy, she suggested that Ryan slide down the stone walkway to amuse himself (poor kid was bored pretty much everyday there...this was not a trip tailored to his preferences).

After eating lunch at the Summer Palace, we headed back to Tiananmen Square so we could tour the Museum of China.

The Museum of China

Standing in front of Mao's Mausoleum  in the Square

Power to the People

I liked this painting of Mao. I thought it did a fantastic job humanizing such a polarizing figure in history.

I thought this painting best captured most Mao propaganda...I also like how I managed to take a couple of pictures inside the Museum so that I look cultured and intelligent. When really, what I mostly did was sit on the steps inside the main lobby (I was still sick/coughing) and sneak bites of a smuggled in Luna Bar since the coffee shop was crazy expensive. I was willing to risk my freedom for food. Because that's just who I am- a warrior for what I believe in.