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

Oodles of Noodles

As you can imagine, noodles are a pretty big deal in asia. They love their noodles here. They've got steamed noodles, fried noodles, noodles in soup, cold noodles, hot noodles, noodles with chicken, noodles with pork, shrimp noodles, spicy noodles, rice noodles, buckwheat noodles, thick noodles, thin noodles, soft noodles, hard noodles, and every kind of noodle in between. 

If you want to eat decent and cheap and you don't mind a little carb intake, noodles are the way to go. Here, I will share some photos from a little visit I payed to a place called "flying noodle", which allegedly prepares dishes in the Shangxi style. As is usually the case, I was perusing through their maddeningly thick menu and having many WTF moments as I read. Some of them were pleasant WTFs, some were reviled, and some were just plain old WTF…here, see for yourself!

The normal noodles…except for the chicken giblets. 

The usual suspects in the veg section of a Chinese menu. 

Noodles with Spicy meat smell of urine…srsly…WTF!?

This one is out of focus, but these items are appealing enough, it's just not real clear what they are.

Homemade pork skin jelly… lowercase "wtf" for this one.

Mushrooms with halogen peanuts (whatever that means)…it looks good enough.

I'll chalk this one up to a translation error…the dish is actually quite good, although its name leaves something to be desired.

Vinegar Pickled Eggplant…haven't tried it, but it could be good!

WTF!? Probably very good though I assume…
So that's it for flying noodles. I ended up ordering the thick noodles with pork (that one's for you Ali Richardson!) and some thin noodles with oil and garlic…tasty!

Next, is a place I paid a visit to that's nearby the apartment. It has been a bit of a challenge to find a tasty eatery that is both reasonably priced and better quality than street food. I'm not sure what the name of the place is…it's got something to do with a mountain and a fish and a house haha…the fish character is missing off to the right. The sign below it says "cold noodles, welcome". 

I ended up ordering the eggplant with potatoes (left), something which is like sweet and sour chicken (top) and "Tan tan mien" (which I always say wrong) which is basically spicy noodles (right.) The eggplant and chicken were great. The noodles were WAY too spicy. 10 dollars US…not bad!


The next place is our favorite place in Beijing. It's called Mei Zhong Dong Po (I think). It is a Si Chaun style restaurant. The pictures here are a mere smattering of the fantastic variety of food you can get at this place. I also threw a fish dish in from a different Si Chuan place in the mall. 

Pureed mung beans (left), watermelon juice, and cold noodles tossed with chicken, scallions, soy sauce and LOTS of garlic. Fantastic!

Two steamed veggies, plum juice, and sweet pork buns that are open in the middle (cha xiao bao). 

Left Sliced Fish in cilantro sauce, middle Yu San Eggplant, Right Hong Kong style buns

Pumpkin bread with brown sugar molasses. 

This is sticky rice (glutinous rice) with dates. 

The mighty Kao Yu (from a different restaurant). Whole fish, splayed in the pan with many spices  and delicious additives.  IE, cilantro, black beans, spicy peppers, garlic, soy sauce, onion, scallions, tomato, cumin and I'm sure, MSG. Heavenly.

We came for breakfast to Mei Zhong Dong Po as well and had some more of their pastries.  We ordered some Oo Long Tea but didn't realize that the pot was 10 dollars US! It was some damn good tea though. To the right are buns filled with something like molasses.

I will be sure to retail you with more of my culinary tales of delight so that you may enjoy Beijing's cuisine vicariously through me. I will think of each one of you as I indulge!

-Sloppy