The summer palace filled our afternoon. Like the title suggests, the summer palace was where the emperor spent his summers. It's absolutely beautiful. Lots of trees and the lake make it quite comfortable too.
We spent some time walking the "long corridor," from one end to the other. It's properly named because it is, indeed, a long corridor. The ceiling is beautifully painted and many people simply sit and relax along the way. Sara got caught up in the scenery and missed a step, which sent her crashing to the ground pretty hard. (She's got a pretty decent bruise from that little misstep. ).
Before we left, we took a the dragon boat cruise across the lake to the island that houses the dragon king.
Dinner was the famous Peking duck. They carve this bird table side, and it looks like a tiny version of the thanksgiving turkey. However, you actually eat Peking duck in a wrap with duck sauce, cucumber and bamboo shoots, Despite its similar appearance to turkey, Sara wouldn't touch it . The rest of us enjoyed dinner. Honestly, I think we were just happy that nothing jiggled like the pork dish from lunch.
Following dinner, we headed out to the Red theatre for the Kungfu show. Again- the name is pretty descriptive.
And I'm pretty sure it was a good show. Jet lag and sleep deprivation got the best of us; Dan and I nodded in and out of consciousness for the entire show. 😳 The scenes that we did see were amazing - it was live acrobatics and kungfu combined. About half dozen young year old boys with shaved heads performed forward and back head springs over and over again. No. That's not a typo. They didn't perform HAND springs. They performed HEAD springs. Literally - they used their heads not their hands. It was fascinating and a bit painful to watch. Our guide, Vivian, tells us that the boys can only perform here from about 7-8 years old.
After the show, we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep!
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