On Tuesday El and i visited the renowend Summer Palace and Lama Temple in Beijing. After the nght previous escapades (torrential rain and lack of mandarin skills to order a cab) we were happy to be greeted by blue skies with not a cloud to be seen. We thought however tis was a trick by the Chinese Govt because we actually didnt believe the sun existed in China having not seen it for the past 3 days. We soon realised that Beijing under fog was hot and humid, but clear skies Beijing was really hot and humid with the temperature hovering around 40 for the day. Wang came to pick us up where we apologised for calling him so late the night before. With a smile on his face to brushed off the apologies saying 'No worres, but ill drive you anywhere you dont need to take a taxi'. We felt like we offended him by telling him we had wanted to try and catch a taxi and the train network. So that day we waited in the car for us while we did our sight seeing always ready to come and get us at the drop of a text message.
We arrived at the summer palace with the hoards of other travellers (all asian). El and i are both in agreement that it was the best place visitied so far on the trip. The place was huge but it wasnt just building like the Forbidden City it also has a massive park land and lake, with little estuaries running through the town. I think thats why we both enjoyed it more because it was colourful and a bit of everything to offer (the sunshine would have also helped its worth). We spent 2 hours in the palace taking photos and trying some local sweet delicasies before we got Wang to pick us up and take us to a famous dumpling house for lunch.
Easily the best dumplings iv ever had (sorry Dodgies), which i guess youd want them to be seeing tough we were in the heart of China. We had a feast and as a thankyou invited Wang to eat with us, which he was cautious about at the start but warmed to the idea when the plates started coming out. After the massive meal which only cost us around $20 a head for El and i we ventured to the Lama Temple.
I didnt realise the massive Buddhaism following in China, and this temple had a huge following. We walked throughout the temple looking at the range of colours and architecture used to build the little temples. Throughout all of these little temples we large carving of a variety of Buddhas which the locals were praying to with their incense sticks before they put them in the fires to be burnt. We came to the last temple and walked in to see the largest Buddha i have ever seen in my life. The Buddha was carved out of one piece of Sandlewood spanning a massive 18m tall. They apparently carved out the Buddha then built the temple around it, as their would have been no other possible way for it to have gotten in the temple. It was huge!
That night after dinner, Wang dropped us off at the train station (which looked like an airport) so we could catch the over night train to Xi'an where the terracotta warriors are. We got on the platform walked all the way down to carriage 16 passing carriage with 1 bed per room, then bunk beds per room until we got to our carriage which had triple bed bunks side by side....... Thanks for booking that one el! Luckily we had the two bottom beds until one of the passengers (who ended up being a professor at a Xi'an university) asked if i could sleep in the nose bleed section because his 60 year old father inlaw couldnt get up that high. I cold really say no so i donned the hike boots and clambered to the top of the triple bunk bed. Anyone who wants to come and teach english in China hit this guy up.
