Exploring the summer palace by subway
Today I went to another top tourist attraction, the summer palace. I had never been there before. Parts of it are modeled on the famous west lake of Hangzhou, where I have been before and will soon be at again. That means its a great place to go for a long walk around a picturesque lake. I am sure no one cares about the geography lesson, so lets tell some stories, then I can talk about the lake and palace in the photos, of which I took far too many.
I had to take 3 subway lines to get to the summer palace. That is easy, its well sign posted, and it goes everywhere, and a subway train comes every few seconds.
Getting into the station means going through airport style security, except its a huge joke. You have to put your bag on a conveyor to be x-rayed, except no one is ever looking at the screen. If you forget to put your bag on the conveyor they will get angry at you. Its like the handbook said make sure bag go on conveyor, but forgot to mention look at screen to check for bomb.
No one, me included, empties their pockets, so you walk through the magnetic body scanner thing and it goes beep, for absolutely everyone. Every Chinese person has at least 2 phones and 3 backup batteries. So what was the point of installing the magnetic scanner gate thing?
So now someone quickly waves the hand held scanner thing that beeps wherever you have something metallic. They wave this over you, and yes it beeps. And then you just walk off without even showing them why it beeped. There are generally 5 people manning each entrance keeping up this charade. Every station has 4 entrances, so thats 20 people per station. There are currently 370 stations in the Beijing metro network, so 1850 people are right now employed to choreograph a pointless dance routine involving pointing at a conveyor and waving a body scanner.
Before even getting to the palace I went for a long walk on the search for coffee and ended up walking around Houhai lake, just in case I didnt get to do enough walking later. People fish in this lake, brave people. There are also numerous heavily amplified karaoke sessions going on to wake up everyone withing a 5 mile radius.
Unfortunately I was too early to rent one of these boats, but the attendants in their blue overalls stood to attention and sang an old sea shanty as their boss corrected their posture.
I found a place nearby for breakfast, obviously not Chinese style, it even has Chia seeds, with yogurt and banana. Coffee was terrible!
Still not at the summer palace, but I did find a newly restored old street. Newly restored old streets are the newest sensation in the old parts of Beijing.
Now I am at the summer palace, and its very popular with domestic tour groups. The few foreigners that I spotted all had guides. Why would you want a guide? Everyone I see who has a guide is busy trying to educate their guide on how their country compares favorably to China. The guides pretend to care, because they are guiding Americans, who will tip at the end of the day based on how well you have received criticism.
Instead of going to the palace, I went the other way, because I am a fool, and walked the entire perimeter of the lake. I am always securing the perimeter of something.
Here is an old bridge to an island. I needed a zoom lens today (my camera is a fixed prime lens), and of course it would be good if the pollution disappeared.
Here is another bridge. The water was very clean, in some of my photos it looks greener than it was. Possibly reflections from all the awesome trees.
And here are the awesome trees, it was very pleasant walking along under them looking at the blossoms and making Chinese children anxious.
Another bridge. Old people were actually swimming in the water near here! I couldnt really get a photo that looked like anything other than debris floating in the water. Old people love to parade around like proud peacocks in their bathing suits.
There are many snack stores along the path that look like ancient temples. Water was not ridiculously over priced like it was on the great wall. Probably because there are a lot less foreign tourists here.
Another bridge, most of them were built in the 1700's.
Here is every color of blossom, white, red, pink, yellow. I guess orange is missing, I have definitely seen orange before.
This family of swans have even constructed a small house for themselves with a nice view of their pond.
Here we have a touching scene. Nanna has been brought to the lake to look at the blossoms once more, before her daughter rolls her into the lake for becoming too much of a burden.
A different kind of bridge.
This is the man made causeway thats a couple of miles long. There actually was a sign saying it had been constructed specifically to mimic the west lake at Hangzhou. There is actually somewhere in Japan where they did the same thing, I went there and took a photo of that too. I have now been to all three Hangzhou west lakes.
NO ROMPING!
A bit more of the green lake.
Now we leave the lake and head into palace world, here is a gate and some ladies who have dressed up for the occasion.
If you suffer from hay fever, do not come here
This ancient boat is made from solid ivory. It must have been a huge elephant!
Now I entered the land of the Buddha. Everything from now on had some kind of ridiculous name. The grand hall of indeterminable incense for divine predictions.
Looking out over the effervescent courtyard of the 7 truths of the condor. Looks like a computer game.
Looking back up from my vantage point at the former site of the well where the prince king ascended and transformed into a sacred ghost.
This is actually a garden according to the signs, without any plants. The garden of divine gratitude, that is its real name. How can it be a garden!
This grandma is posing in the sun, in a rain coat with an umbrella. They were having a great time. Everyone was! I posed for 5 photos with random middle aged Chinese women who insisted I be in their photos.
This is another garden, I forget its name, something harmonious. There were goldfish.
After walking through the actual garden areas, I arrived at the last stop today inside the summer palace compound, Suzhou street. Suzhou is a famous water city (think Venice) near Shanghai. I have already been there twice!
A bit more Suzhou street, I wonder how many people fall in when this place is crowded? There is no guard rail and the path is very narrow in places.
Second to last photo, Suzhou street with a bridge.
And one more for good measure with a lantern. The summer palace was an excellent place to go, accessible by subway, entrance fee about $10 that gets you into everything, opportunities to walk an epic distance, a hill to climb, all it needs is a proper place to sit and enjoy a coffee - the Hangzhou west lake has lots of places!
Walking to Sanlitun from Wangfujing
Tonight I went to the nightclub and drug dealing area of Beijing, Sanlitun. It is located near all the embassies and the theory goes that all the sons of diplomats were importing drugs to sell knowing they had diplomatic immunity, the worst that would happen when they got caught is they would be thrown out of China.
I went there last time I was here, and indeed there were a lot of guys insisting I buy heroin / cocaine etc off of them, and I could see people openly buying stuff in the street. That all seems to have changed.
The only thing on offer tonight was 'girly bar?' and that was being offered by Chinese guys, not relatives of African warlords. Actually there didnt seem to be many foreigners there at all, perhaps everyone moved somewhere else or just left.
Despite its former notorious reputation, it is also the most upmarket part of Beijing, full of things Russians like to buy, and the streets are full of Lamborghinis driven by princelings who dont know how to drive who enjoy revving the crap out of them while stuck in traffic.
I remembered that the last time I went to Sanlitun I struggled to find anywhere to eat that I could afford or get into, however this time it was pretty good, the area under the intercontinental hotel has a street food street, perhaps the closest to street food I am likely to experience as I hate eating on the street, instead I had gentrified street food - 2 levels under a 5 star hotel in an air conditioned well lit shopping mall.
I am staying in the old city, very near the forbidden city. Tonight I walked towards the new city, where the buildings start to get taller and more modern. However the even bigger buildings are still a long way off in the distance in the smog. The CCTV 'pants' building is still a few kilometres away from here. Beijing is enormous.
The worlds largest bank by every measure (I think or is it their competitor ICBC?). Either way, Bank of China is huge and has a huge building. Actually they have lots of huge buildings.
Here is a line. Everyone has seen a line before. Maybe you have also seen youtube videos of crowded Chinese subway stations. Well this is a line to get into the station, and the platform is a long way underground, so presumably that platform is full, as are all the stairs and escalators, resulting in a line out into the street. Glad I decided to walk.
A whole street full of dubious clubs and karaoke bars. They dont want me as a customer, my awesome singing would intimidate the other patrons into leaving.
In the up market mall area now, and here is the biggest advertising installation I ever saw. The screen behind everything here is easily 4 floors high.
Its a giant monkey, hanging off a building, shooting laser beams out of its eyes.
Here, have a bit more mall.
I have absolutely no idea what this store was selling, it also does not seem to be an art gallery. The guy running the store was asleep.
I like it when they light up the trees.
This is the awesome intercontinental hotel. It has an LED exo-skeleton that can be lit up in any color of full motion video. You would have to see it to understand.
Sorry about the blurry vision, it was a moving subject in the dark. In amongst the parade of Lamborghinis this went past. A husband and wife transporting plastic crates on their bicycles. The lead bike is electric, pulling the second one with a rope. They were adding to the general traffic chaos.
I found my dinner under here somewhere.
OMUSOBA! Its an omelet filled with soba noodles. I think I have eaten too many noodles. Presentation was lacking but it was delicious.
Nearby is a car dealership for future electric cars that dont exist yet. You know they are electric because they have used an exciting electric blue pattern, blue being the globally recognized color of electric car.
If you saw cola flavored potato chips with a black colored pug dog on the packet, would you buy them? Of course you would. The cola flavor was really very strong too!
And now as I was typing this, some cards appeared under my hotel room door. Another day over, another 45,000 steps today, many more tomorrow!