Day 3: The Summer Palace

The next day we decided to go to the so-called Summer Palace. We decided to take a regular bus. These are a couple of photos of the trip there.

Apparently it was not the best possible time of the year to visit the Summer Palace because the water in the canal was almost completely drained (and mostly frozen). It seems that in the summer the canal is full of water and a much nicer sight.

There was a rather peculiar artist which used a technique I had never seen before to paint letters formed with all kinds of shapes (such as bamboo, birds, dragons, sunsets, etc) and incredibly fast. We all bought a painting from her. In the photo she is making a painting for Juhani.

I also bought a xiao flute (or at least that's what it claims to be) from a nearby store (I didn't photograph it).

Like the Imperial Palace, the Summer Palace itself was also a huge area. This is only the entrance.

Inside the Summer Palace area there was a rather big lake. The area extends all the way around it and it would have been possible to walk around it, but we decided it was way too long, so we decided just to go to see what's on the right side of the image you see here (on the left) and then come back and go to the small island you see in the photo (which is connected to the mainland with a bridge).

This was actually the first time during the trip that I saw genuine bamboo plants. These seemed either very young, or a rather small species.

It was a pitty that the lake was so drained at that time of the year. These photos would probably have been a lot nicer in summer when the water is high...

This was the bridge to the small island in the lake.

Those things on the sky of the photo on the left are kites. There were people flying those and some of the were flying really high.

In our way back there was this beautiful sunset. Even though the haze is created by all the pollution and smog in the city, it was still beautiful to watch.

Back at the area where our hostel was we went to a Japanese restaurant (or at least I think it was) to eat. It was delicious.

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