Day 4: Summer Palace & Panda!

It's strange how a long weekend usually makes us more exhausted than well rested.  Just had a long weekend here in Malaysia for we had Tuesday off as a public holiday; Sat, Sun, Mon (took off) & Tue.  And, I felt like dozing off while driving to work this morning!  It was so hard to keep my eyes open plus the gloomy weather outside is not helping at all.

Let's see, besides the exciting Friday 'Fuel-less' experience, participated a two day course for something interesting (shhhh.... secret) on Sat & Sun, attended a colleague's wedding dinner and got most of the boys drunk on Sunday night, had a mild hangover myself the next day and still went for 3 hours dance practice at night and followed by an outing to the elephants sanctuary on Tuesday.  Seriously, is this normal?  What do you guys do usually?  Is it all packed like our's?

Back to Day 4 in Beijing after a short interval of two non-related post.  ;)  Was outside the hotel people watching second thing in morning (first thing being breakfast) while waiting for the rest of the group to finish their breakfast.  It was interesting.  For those of you who doesn't know yet, 'people watching' has been one of my favourite pastimes. :)  

I simply love this people watching thingy especially in this cold weather.  It makes the whole experience, hmmm... cooling?  Lols... hehehe... See people from all walks of life going about their life on a usual Tuesday morning.  In cars, bicycles and even in tricycles.  Some just walk.  When I am at it, I like to wonder, where are they going?  What do they do?  Observed their fashion sense and imagine the life they might be living in.  And if there is any interesting character that caught my attention, I would just watch at her/him until he/she is out of my view.  Lols...  I know, mundane hor?  Hahahaha...

First on our itinerary for the day was to visit the famous Summer Palace (颐和园), another UNESCO world heritage, which served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi in 1888.  The palace was commissioned to be built by QianLong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in celebration of his mother's 60th birthday.  It was built on a 60m high hill, known as the Longevity Hill, which was built from the soil excavated while making the Kunming Lake which cover 3 quarters of the palace. Years later, Empress Cixi actually diverted 30million taels (which was originally designated for the  Navy) for renovations and enlargement of the palace despite of downhilling economy... tsk! tsk! *shaking head* such extravagance!

It was indeed a very nice place indeed.  As what Unesco said, a masterpiece of chinese landscape design.  Truly.

Engraved more than a 120 years ago.  

Dried out water lilies on Kunming Lake.  I can imagine how it look like in full bloom.  Green leaves, pink flowers filled the edge of the pond.  Breathtaking!

Another shot omitting the lilies.  Nice right?  Very zen-tifying.  Apparently one of the excuse Empress Cixi used for diverting the 30million taels from the Navy was that the lake was built for the Navy as a training ground.  Unbelievable. The lake was too shallow for the navy junk-ship to even be in it.

An old man practising chinese calligraphy with a big fat brush and water (as ink) in the garden.  His strokes were so beautiful.  There were so many onlookers marveling at his work.  I don't know what he wrote. :p

An ancient tree in the garden.

Plenty of willows too all over the palace.

Here's picture taken as we walking back to our bus after the Summer Palace. ;)  There were plenty of houses outside of it.  I guess over time, these people have set up businesses outside the palace to cater for the imperial palaces or tourists (later years).

Our next stop was the silk factory.  :)  Standard la... everyone who visited China surely will visit one of this and brings back together with them, silk quilt, sheets, pillows and etc.  Hahahaha...  And I, brings back none.  I am just not so interested with all these things.  I am still very much happy with my quilt at home that is filled with duck's down. Lols...

 Remember my entry on Cambodia prior to this one?  The Cambodian's silk cocoon is yellow in colour whereas the Chinese' ones are white in colour.  Strange eh?  Different breed of silk worm perhaps.  Or different kind of mulberry leafs.

Here, they show us how a silk quilt are made.

And I took a picture of the prices for you guys in case you are visiting China next and are interested in getting one.  The prices goes by weight!  And they would throw in lots of freebies too if you are interested.  And as usual, the more you buy, the more freebies you get! :)  Of course that depends on your haggling skills too.  :p

The husband and I decided to head outside have a breather.  The whole haggling process inside was just too suffocating.  Even if you tell them politely that you will not be buying anything, they will just keep persuading and follows you around. Lols, very persistent!  In the end, we just have to pretend we are deaf or something and ignore everyone as we walk out... hahaha.  

Imagine this, while one sales person explaining the process to us, 10-15 others will be waiting outside ready to attack anytime.  Scary huh?  Lols...  I tell you, they are so good that they will assign the right sales people to tackle the right country.  They speaks in your lingo and slang which somehow will make you feel comfortable talking and buying from them.  Remember the teahouse we visited the day before this?  I saw a young pretty chinese sales girl  speaks in fluent Russian or something.... amazing!

The husband and I found something else better to do outside.  We found an old man pushing a cart of hot freshly roasted sweet potatoes.  YUMMEH!  I don't remember how much exactly but it was cheap la... hehehe...  Picture above shows the potatoes being roasted in the drum.  :)  Happily we sat outside, munching down, enjoying the coolness the weather has to offer.  Nice!

If I remembered correctly, it was 'pearl' after that before it was lunch and later, the Pandas!  At the pearl's outlet, others in our group stocked up so many of their 'pearl cream' which apparently was extremely good.  No, I didn't buy too.  :p  I don't know.  I simply do not have much faith in products of China for I am very doubtful of the ingredients they used.  And secondly, especially at places like these where tourist buses arrives in throngs.  The samples may be fantastic, but what we bring home may not be.  They know we won't be complain when we gets back to our country. So what's the big deal of swapping the genuine thing with a fake?  Well, this is just my perception la.  If any of you had bought anything like these, do share with me on your experiences so next time I can buy too if it is really genuinely good!  Hehehe...

So, it was Panda next.  The official mascot of China!  No, not my husband.  The 'Panda' really.  Lols...  We were pretty lucky for we caught the Pandas in their 'active' mode that afternoon.  They were all snoozing lazily when we arrived but just before we were about to leave, they woke up!  It is interesting to see a real panda in it's habitat for once (besides on tv).  A black & white bear with prominent dark patches over it's eyes.  Super cute when they start rolling around in the yard too.... *love*.  The credit for such luck, again, has to go to our guide who reshuffled our itinerary cause he finds that pandas are usually active-er in the late afternoon and he was right!

Check out the amazing colours of autumn that was still very much visible everywhere we go when we were there.  Love!  And from this picture, I suddenly realized that I am almost a head shorter than the husband. ;)  I know I am shorter, but I didn't know I was that much shorter.  Lols... Probably cause I was in heels most of the time, that's why!  I like standing next to him.  He makes me look petite, small and cute (hahaha) which I would never be, standing at 1.66m in height and weighing 57kg.  I am, most of the time, the one who makes my friends look petite, small and cute... hehehehe....

Beautiful bamboo bushes all over the vicinity of the panda zoo.  The pandas feed on them.

Another picture of a gingko tree and this is a really huge one.  If you click on it for the bigger picture, you might be able to spot some gingkos.  I think I had fell in love with gingko trees.  Simply love the vibrant yellow colour of it's leafs!  I even brought back some leafs as memento!  Hehehe...

We left for Chengde after dinner that night.  It was a crazy cold place.  Now that the rain had stopped, I need to go home already.  Will write them in another entry.  Tata!