...After luging down from the Great Wall, we were at the halfway mark of our trip. For the afternoon, we continued on with tour guide Skye to get some lunch at a very local place in a small village on the way back to Beijing. On the menu and sampled by us, big steamed buns with donkey meat in them. It did not taste like ass (joke courtesy of Alana S-R), but rather good, actually.
After lunch we went to the Summer Palace on the outskirts of Beijing. It's a large park complex with gardens, temples, pavilions, living quarters and a big lake that was the summer getaway for the Empress Dowager Cixi in the 1880's, but various parts are much older than that, and various parts have been ruined, ransacked, rebuilt, etc. over years of various wars.
Skye told us many interesting things throughout our walk through the park, but now I don't remember much except that that Cixi also went by Dragon Lady (dragons are lucky so she was complimenting herself, not deprecating) and at one point she house-arrested the emperor, her nephew, in the Summer Palace for several years since she didn't like what he was doing.
The frozen lake was open for ice skating and various other fun ice activities that the Land of 10,000 Lakes should totally get on board with. There were chairs on runners, ice bikes, and ice bumper cars!
The big boat is made of marble and is only for show since it doesn't really float.
After the Summer Palace (in winter), we said goodbye to Skye....
She dropped us off at the gates of the Temple of Heaven for our second attempt at entry (that totally sounds like a teenager's euphemism), which was only partially successful. We made it into the main grounds, but the entrance to the most famous part had just closed for the day so we could see the temple, but couldn't get all the way up to it. Boo. But it was still very pretty what we could see and the sun was going down so we stayed long enough to see the buildings get lit up.
Aside from games and snacks, once we sat down at our dining table, the restaurant also provided aprons and hair ties for a better hot pot experience. Our boiling pot of two broths and all the ingredients we chose to cook in it were very good, though the red one was so spicy we ended up rinsing off everything we cooked in that side in the non-spicy side so we could handle it.
We didn't figure out how to order the super noodle for our hot pot, but enjoyed watching the noodle guy whipping around the dough to make one gigantic noodle at other tables.
Then it was time for bed and in the morning we squeezed out one last sight as we arrived at the Forbidden City just as it opened and had enough time to speed walk through the long compound and to the airport train to catch our flight. Skye had given us the low down of how long it would take and shared that while it's big and famous, really after you've seen the first big main building, they're all about the same after that and so we wouldn't miss out by speeding through.
And that's it! Beijing's greatest hits in 48 hours. Thanks, Tanya, for being such a fun travel buddy (and for flushing timely)! You are the best. :)
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