Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is the archetypal Chinese garden and is ranked amongst the most noted and classical gardens in the world. It was constructed in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1235) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and had become a luxurious garden providing royal families with rest and entertainment. This Palace has over 3000 structures including pavilions, towers, bridges, and corridors. QUITE THE SITE!!!

This is the entrance with the man made lake...Kunming Lake in the background.The famous "Marble Boat". I hadn't heard of it before, but it was awesome to see.

We took a little boat ride in our dragon boat back to the entrance.

Us on the boat with the "Hill of Longevity" behind us.

On top of that Hill is the "Tower of Buddhist Incense".

This is our tour guide for our entire Beijing trip...her name is Shelley. Very sweet lady. Her sister lives in the US now and has become a US citizen. One of her dreams is to see the Grand Canyon. She was explaining how hard it is to get paperwork to leave China so she doesn't know if she ever will. After the Palace we went to the Pearl Market to do some shopping but it was closing as we got there so we didn't get to do much. Between the late arrival to Beijing and the traffic, we just ran out of time. But to make up for the "drama" of delays and airline time changes the agency gave us all a free massage. VERY NICE!