Beijing Day 4

Today was the Summer Palace and Silk market. Everyone was fairly tired so the bus had less energy. It took about an hour to drive to the palace, and we have lost our blue skies. The famed pollution has set in, due to the rain clouds are now over our heads. Despite this the Summer palace was on a beautiful lake and the architecture was gorgeous. We watched a small performance on a stage, first dancing girls then a face changer and some instruments. It was really neat. Then we walked down the Long Corridor which was about 700 meters. It the longest hallway in the world according to Wentao. We all met at the large marble boat and spent some time playing unicorn. People were constantly taking our picture and staring as though they had seen mythical creatures. We eventually all made it back together and headed to the lunch place.

    Lunch wasn’t as good until the end, when they brought out the vegetarian dishes, those were fantastic. Spicy tofu, fried potatoes it was awesome. We then headed off to the the silk market, but it took us nearly two hours to do so due to traffic. I finally made my first purchase at the Silk market I haggled a scarf from 1350 RMB to 200 RMB. According to Wentao it’s a very good Hermes knockoff and the price I got was the price I would have gotten if I was Chinese. It’s soft and beautiful. Everyone was so tired we just went back on the bus. It took another hour to drive back to the hotel. The amount if ninja car maneuvers in Beijing driving was completely batty. We went up to the room to freshen up, the Karen, Jose, Brennan, Cassidy and I all decided to go to hot pot for dinner.
    We left with Crystal and Zach in addition to the original people. We then headed out with hopes that we would find the hot pot restaurant. As we walked it began to rain. We never found the hot pot food.So after to sky walkways we turned back and went to somewhere closer to our hotel. We found a Dongbei food place essentially across the street from out hotel. We ordered six plates of food and rice. It was awesome and only 159 RMB for all 7 of us to eat(about 4 USD each). It was rich northern food and I am so very full. I walked with Crystal to withdraw money from the bank and took her to the convenience store to grab some Kele (or Coca Cola ) for her. Went back into the room and now it is time for sleep. Tomorrow is our free day and we have some places we want to go, we’ll see how far we get.

Left to Right: Zach, Crystal, Karen, Brennan, Jose, Cassidy