I got up bright and early this morning (as in before the sun) to try and make the most of the day. I'm not sure how I feel about walking around here at night yet, so figured it was better to get my hours in while it was light!
I headed to the Summer Palace, one of the biggest attractions in Beijing, but on the way got caught up in a huge crowd of hundreds of people who all looked like they were headed somewhere interesting.
Turns out it was a weird sunrise flag rise in Tienanmen Square. There were hundreds and hundreds of people, and dozens of soldiers and police, and the whole thing was over in less than 5 minutes. Still not sure what it was all about, but the coordination of the troops doing the flag raising was incredible, and the sunrise made everything look beautiful.
After that small detour, I headed to the Summer Palace. It was bloody cold today too, only negative 8 when I got out of bed! So everything there was frozen, including the giant lake.
I got a ticket to get into the park, plus all of the buildings in it, and it was totally worth it. I ended up spending my whole day there!
The park itself was really nice, and had a lot of people doing group activities that I would have thought was weird in Australia, but here, someone doing a choreographed dance with badminton rackets, or a sword seemed pretty cool.
The first place within the park I went to was the Summer Palace. The building was HUGE! Following on from that, was the very literally named "Garden of Virtue and Harmony"
Inside that area was a whole three storied opera stage, with intricate detailing and seperate seating where nobles would be allowed to sit and watch the opera. There were a lot of oddly named places in the park, my favourite being "The Temple for Excess Moisture". Yep
One of the coolest places I saw was the Tower of Buddhist Incense. It's a huge 5 storied building up on a hill above everything. You can see it from just about anywhere in the park If If I was ever going to have a religious awakening, It would have been there. Inside there was a huge 12 faced, 24 armed Buddha, and it was spectacular, surrounded by flowers and brightly coloured walls.
The next room was even more impressive, dimly lit, with thousands of small Buddhas inlaid in the walls, and 3 huge golden statues looming out from the darkness.
All of this was instantly ruined by the overpriced gift store just around the corner, still in the same building... Pretty cool none-the-less, but no epiphany.
Next I went for a walk around the huge lake. It's around 8km around, but what I didn't take into account was how cold it would be with the wind coming across the water. I have never been so cold in my whole life!
Regardless, I made it around, and seeing people skate on the frozen lake, with centuries old buildings as a backdrop was unforgettable.
In the middle of the lake is an island with a single bridge leading to it. I didn't stay long, because I was a popsicle by this point, but the bridge in particular was amazing.
To try and warm up a bit, I went into the Wenchang Gallery. It wasn't massive, but they had some artifacts from over 3000 years ago, which was pretty crazy.
Before I left, I headed to the final destination, Suzhou Street - a street built entirely on the river's edge. The colours and the frozen lake were beautiful, and I loved it. I was only slightly scared of falling in from the narrow footpath.
Tomorrow, either the Wall or the Square xx