Sunday, July 6, 2014

The Summer Palace (Yi He Yuan)

Take a look at the beauty of the summer palace. This is a picture I took at around sunset from the bridge inside the southern gate.
 The royal summer place of Ming and Ching dynasty Emperor's was built in the 1700's, burned down and rebuilt once and is now a national park in Beijing. Like the Forbidden Palace, the summer palace is breathtaking in expanse. 


We live right next to this place and have still only seen maybe half of it. These pictures are from two separate visits I made. One was by myself briefly after work one day where I entered the south gate. The other is with Judy where we entered the east gate.

 Both visits were on beautiful weather days in Beijing. The day Judy and I went was bright and sunny and clear and clean, the city at its best. We first hiked around the inside perimeter and through some smaller buildings and gardens.




Then, we hiked through what seemed like miles of highly refined nature trails, lined with lanterns and stone benches. The trails meandered gradually uphill until we overlooked Kunming Lake.

This is the entrance to the Buddhist Tower of Incense, which is boasted as an architectural achievement of the day. 
This is the tower from the south side of Lake Kunming.

And from right outside. 



These are the buildings located behind the tower in the mountain. I think it was a sanctuary for monks.

And this is why the Buddhist Tower of Incense has such a name. The great bronze and gold gilded"Thousand Handed Buddha" (Chien Shou Guan Ying)
Then it was down and back up the stairs on the exterior facade to the next pavilion, the "Bronze Pavilion". You can see how far away the west side of the palace is if you look at that tower in the distance. 
 




The Bronze Pavilion. The doors were stolen when the place was burned to the ground and then later returned to China as a gift.

We then descended from the pavilion through narrow and ornately decorated hallways that looked like this: 




The roofs are fashioned the same as in the Forbidden City.

After hiking through that bit and pounding up and down steps for a few hours in the dry summer heat, we were ready to get inside. On our way out we saw some of the bronze items, including a very strange mythical creature peculiar to Chinese culture. 

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The obligatory lion to guard the entrance.

During my days at work, sometimes I go out for lunch. I always pass around the Summer Palace, around its outer moat, which is choked with mighty lotus flowers stretching towards the sun's blazing glory.



 
 
The day I visited alone, I crossed the bridge to a little island that can only be accessed from the south. Some nice parting shots.





Go ahead, you can look again.  You deserve it! I hoped you enjoyed the pictures and also that you enjoy the rest of your day or evening!

-Sloppy