Day 2 (Part 2): Summer Palace & Peking Duck

Our first stop was the Jade gallery; Jade is considered the Chinese diamond and comes in 36 different colours, not just green. We were given a short introduction by a girl named Ida; she liked to speak in the third person and was pretty terrifying. We got to look about the factory and had the opportunity to buy something; green is not really my colour though!

After an hour or so, we had another Chinese lunch; I have a feeling I am going to come back about a stone heavier! Tony chooses various dishes and we get to try around 10 different options every meal as well as the obligatory rice accompaniment. After lunch, it was back to the bus and around an hours drive to the Summer Palace. On the way, Lili was telling us lots of stories. She passed around her phone with a picture of her and one of the people she had taken to the Great Wall; it was Tom Cruise! She was also telling us about her family and particularly her husband, who is apparently not very handsome (she doesn’t have to worry about him finding a new women when she is giving tours!) but a very man. Secretly though she is still holding out for Tom...


Our guide Lili

We arrived at the Summer Palace where we got to walk around for an hour. This is where the Emperors went to relax as there is a huge man-made lake in the centre of it. We wandered around the palace and then along the side of the lake until we got to the marble boat; it was stunning but obviously can`t sail. Apparently created instead of a real navy by the ‘Dragon Lady’ Empress. On our way back to meet the group, we decided to have another ice-cream, all of this touring is thirsty and hungry work!




It was already 4.15pm and we had to head back to an area near our hotel to see an acrobatics show. It was really entertaining, particularly the motorbikes in what looked like a hamster ball. They started with one motorbike driving round, before adding more and more. In total, there were six in a tiny ball; it was amazing. There was also to guys on what can only be described as two hamster wheels on either end of an elevated metal bar, making it look like a figure of eight. They were also outstanding, hopefully you will get a better idea from the pictures but they ran around the inside and also the outside of the wheels; I`m considering a new form of exercise now!






Unfortunately, we couldn’t avoid the woman in front of us.

After the show, we headed to a restaurant for dinner; it was time for Peking Duck! I was really looking forward to this as I have never had it before. Basically, they cut up the duck into small bite size pieces, you take a pancake (we had 3 types to choose from including spinach), a bit of cucumber, spring onions and some thick Soy Sauce and roll it up like a fajita. It was really tasty and the duck was beautiful; we actually had 2 ducks between 9 of us! There were also a few more Chinese dishes which were fantastic too; all of us left with Buddha bellies.



After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to pack...Next stop Xi`an

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