Continuing... After lunch we took a taxi ride to the Summer Palace
The
Summer Palace is a palace where emperors would escape the heat of the city to relax. It has been described as...
"...a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value."
Once we bought our tickets and passed through the entrance pictured above, we saw a beautiful lake...
...and saw the Hall of Dispelling Clouds, where we wanted to go.
So we decided why not rent a boat to get over there to save time!
This boat was powered by One BigMike, so you know, it was about 10 time faster than any other. It was pretty cool, due to how much Mtn Biking I do, I WAS TEARING IT UP!! hahaha Other people were starring at us (probably because I was the whitest person they had ever seen) and I could pedal so fast that water was splashing on Misato! hahaha it was fun. The only problem was that the distance between the seat & pedals was designed for someone about 5 feet tall.
Here is looking south to our left. Yes, the air quality really is this bad!
The "Seventeen-Arch Bridge"
