Great Wall and Summer Palace

At the Great Wall once again

Today we had an OCDF tour booked to the Great Wall Badaling and Summer Palace. Our guide was Cecelia and she came and picked us up at our new hostel--which we've moved to and booked into at 8am. We had an hour 45 min drive to Badaling and we enjoyed seeing Beijing again after 7 years. It is so much more modern than it was. It is amazing how much this city has changed! Cars everywhere, few bicycles, modern buildings. BJ has really jumped ahead by a couple of decades in the 7 years.

Badaling Great Wall and Olympic sign

Badaling was much as we'd seen it during the Olympic road cycling races where it was the turn around point. Very well laid out, paved, nice shops, etc. We climbed the stairs to the wall and took a family photo at the top. Then Cecelia left us to climb the wall for an hour and a half or so. We took off in the opposite direction to the main crowd, as recommended by our friend Mara. The way was steeper but the views were great and there were no crowds at all. It was terribly, bitterly cold however as you can see from the way I'm dressed.

Rugged up to the eyeballs

The cold and wind was a bit much for Jade who was a bit too overwhelmed by it to really appreciate the moment. She had seen photos of Paul, Jarrah and I on the Great Wall before we came to get her and used to ask why she wasn't in the photos. This was one moment she had waited for. But as an 8 year old the conditions outweighed the event.

After our climb--which BTW wasn't nearly as ardulous as what we'd done at Juyong Pass in 2001--we hit the Starbucks at the foot of the wall for warm drinks and snacks/lunch. We juggled these on the twisting road down the mountain our way to the Summer Palace.

Entrance to the Summer Palace

Cecelia was very cluey in how she took us through the Summer Palace. We entered by a small gate and managed to take various paths through the complex away from the main tour groups. She was very good about filling us in on the history of the place. While we were walking through one of the various courtyards all of a sudden Jade cried out that someone from her school was there! It was a boy named Roderick from the grade level behind her! We chatted with his family and were all shocked how we could have met up in a city so far away!

Roderick and Jade--Grade 2 & 3 students from the same school meeting in Beijing!

People walking on Kunming Lake

Longevity Hill

The Long Corridor

The Summer Palace is full of history and is very interesting. It was last restored in 1986 and it appears it is time now for many parts of the complex to be repainted. Not only the buildings but also the paintings on the Long Corridor are in need of restoration. They were all destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and have only been repainted twice since then. Dowager Empress Cixi's Marble Boat also needs a bit of a clean up.