Summer Palace, the Great Resort

For my first destination of my China trip, it is Beijing. And for Beijing, the first to visit, it is the Summer Palace. The Old Summer Palace known as the Gardens of Perfect Brightness, were destroyed and burned down by Anglo French forces in 1860. The Garden of Clear Ripples (renamed the Summer Palace after it was destroyed by Anglo French forces) was constructed between 1115-1234 during the Jin dynasty, was a luxurious garden of horticulture and architecture that the Emporer would frequently visit during the summer. We visited both the old and new Summer Palaces of Beijing today and had a lot of fun seeing them both. Definately my favorite gardens so far. The Summer Palace was situated around a lake, (not polluted! the first body of water in China I have seen yet that was unpolluted!) and you could walk all the way around it. We didn't have time but I'd like to see the rest of it if I ever come back. It wasn't too crowded because it was pretty big and it wasn't too overcast either. My guide told me the Forbidden City, which was my next destination, is also very vast. First we went to the Old Summer Palace and spent about 2 hours there walking around. It had some interesting buildings and was a nice relaxing place, like all the gardens in China haha. After that we had lunch at a cool little (at least it looked little) restaurant. But it was actually a very long building in the back, just the front was crowded between two buildings. The restaurants specialty was dumplings, which have been one of my favorite chinese foods so far. When we finished we caught a cab to the new Summer Palace and had a nice tour of it. You could pay to take a boat ride out onto the lake but the lines were enormous so we decided just to walk. It had a huge island in the middle with a long bridge that we walked to get out to. Overall it was a great attraction to see, especially since it wasn't as crowded as some of the others. For the next day, I would hike up to the top of the Great Wall.