We woke up EARLY in the morning the next day to visit the Summer Palace. Luckily, our hotel had a complimentary breakfast with a combination of western and Asian foods available, so hopefully everyone was well energized for the long day ahead. One of the biggest distinctions between Asian and western breakfast foods for me is yogurt. If you visit China, I suggest trying their yogurt (or yoghurt, as they spell it), because it has a more sour taste than American yogurt. : )
I have attached a picture of the view from our hotel room that I took around 7 or 8 AM in the morning. You can once again notice the lack of visibility because of the smog. : (
Amy, our tour guide, gave us a thorough run through of Summer Palace, which was a little summer retreat that the imperial family often visited, because the temperature at the Summer Palace was almost always several degress lower than the temperature in downtown Beijing. However, I suspect that the weather during the days we were in Beijing was absolutely horrid and not a good representation of the weather of China. The humidity was as high as Houston’s, except we couldn’t see the sun because of all the smog and we had to walk around everywhere.
At Summer Palace, we learned about the importance of the number 9 in Chinese culture. I forget why, exactly, but there was even a bridge with exactly 17 arches because no matter which end you began to count from, the center arch would always be number 9. We were also able to take a ride in a dragon boat across the water. From there I was able to take pictures of the structures and buildings high up on the hill which we were not able to visit. Apparently, it was common in ancient Chinese architecture to always build a hill higher than the most important building in order to block out evil spirits.
This is a picture of the Marble Boat. It doesn’t move and remains stationary – a symbol of the stability of the dynasty that built it.
The view of the hill and structures on it in Summer Palace. (Notice the smog, again.)
From there, we met the students attending Beijing University, as well as the next president of the environmental club there. They were all very courteous and showed us around the campus, along with the park that was also on the Beijing University campus. For those that do not know, Beijing University is equivalent to the Harvard of China while Tsinghua University is equivalent to the MIT of China. The best and brightest of China’s emerging youth attend these two schools.
We managed to discuss shortly during the walk around campus with the Beijing University students about current conditions in China. It seems that summers in Beijing are always hot but autumn is probably the best season to visit China.
Below is a picture of the library of Beijing University, which according to one of the students is one of the largest libraries in China.
I have also attached a picture of Tsinghua University’s gate with its name on the top. We visited Tsinghua second, so by this time, everyone was completely tired out.
As an interseting point of info, on most Chinese name plaques on buildings or locations (like the above), the words are read from right to left.
Ruoxi
p.s. Please expect Day 4-6 reports tomorrow!
Filed under: Day 3 (7/28): Beijing, Eco Tour of China, Green Ambassadors of Houston, Project GLOBE
Living with smog is not a good way of life. Did you discuss this with the students from the universities?
I believe we discussed it shortly. It seems that on most days, the smog is there to some degree (i.e. the sky is not as pure blue as it is here). The days we were initially there had even worse smog than usual.