Summer Palace in Beijing

Every time I get bored at home, I would just take out all the old photos I had and browse through them. Sometimes I would take notice on good photos I had, but never really shared them. What, that's a shame.

Summer Palace in Beijing, an enormous combination of Imperial Garden and Kunming Lake, with the built of ancient palace in the middle. The total size of this area could reach up to 3 square kilometers, which most of it is covered with water.

I went to visit this place on my first and second trip to Beijing. I liked it there. Back in Southeast Asia, the only location that this place reminded me was Thailand. Tiny river in the middle of the markets and streets, whereby you could see people commuting from one place to another using boat. But in Summer Palace, you could enjoy the awesome view of old palace, with some canals running in between.

Just in case if you had some extra cash, I would recommend you to take the tiny boat cruise across the little canals. If you were just like me, meaning a budget

traveler, just take you time to enjoy the view while strolling across the big castle.

As I said, the size was huge. It took us around 4 hours just to cover the whole area. We started from the back of this palace and slowly we climbed up to the top, and we walked down toward the main entrance. The photo below, that was the view we saw the moment we reached top. It was exactly like how they showed the palace in some old Chinese movie.

Aside from the architecture attraction, Summer Palace in Beijing also offered some other fun stuff to explore, such as these odd-looking relics. You could find stuff like these in every room inside the palace. Most of the were beautifully preserved over hundreds of years and you could only view it from the back of thick glass.

And of course, the souvenirs. I did see these adorable Chinese dolls and I was frantically attracted bu them. The were carefully carved and it would worth a fortune if I took it back to Malaysia. But you know what, it was freaking expensive.

Well, this castle was certainly huge. Some times you could just walk around and decided to take photo of anything. Even the electrical box. And perhaps this particular type of photo, regardless of any trip, sad and exhausted faces after non-stop walking.

If you were lucky enough during the morning, you could see some of the little shops there would offer you could drinks, served right inside a block of ice. That was pretty cool.

The trip was indeed fun. But mostly, it wasn't caused entire by the palace itself, it was my friends. These two lovely souls, they brought up the mood even when I kept whining on how tired I was.

But hey ! That lady seems familiar, doesn't she? Yeah, that's Hannah, the Canadian girl who paid me a visit last year. And the guy over there, he's the Russian teacher I met in college. I didn't study Russian, but somehow we were very close.

I uploaded these following photos, specially made for them. I certainly know that Hannah would read this, she reads all my writing. But the Russian guy, in the other hand, I am not so sure. I'm not going to tell him directly, though. Allow him to find out himself.

A little quote I'd like to share: "When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable - Cliffon Fadiman".

This is exactly why I love China. It gives me an unsavory vibe every time I stepped my foot there, but it never backs me down from having more.