Summer Palace Beijing, Pictures

Click on the following link for pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/sarahemoloney/SummerPalaceBeijing

Hello again

I went to Kirsty and Yuan Yuan’s school the other day. I manned the bouncy castle. A teacher won the castle for a day and gave it to the school for a fundraiser. Kids could buy a max of three tickets for 15 minutes each ticket of bouncing in the castle. All the money went to an orphanage they help out. The kids had a great time and me too.

The school is an international school and it very nice. The grade sixes had an exhibition of their projects they spent the last month working on. They were very sophisticated projects. It was an action based inquiry research project. The work produced was impressive. We went out for traditional Chinese food after school.

I went again to school with Yuan Yuan in the morning again the next day. A taxi comes to pick her up each day. There was a book and cookie sale that morning. They again raised money for the orphanage. From there I walked to the Olympic Center. It is still under construction but was cool to check out. I watched the women’s softball team practice. The school is really close to the site. There is a building that they call the Bird’s Nest, I am sure it will be all over the news when the Olympics are on. It has metal pieces around the structure to make it look like a birds nest.

I went to the Traditional Chinese Museum. It has many different houses and old buildings of 56 tribes represented. I got some neat photos with old versus new, as there are a lot of high rises in the background or cranes and construction. From there I went to the Summer Palace. The Empress built this as an oasis. It is over 30 square km’s and I walked around it for 5 hours and did not see it all. There are many cool buildings and it is nice to walk down the paths lined on both sides with willow trees. It is a nice place to just relax and people watch. The locals go to fly kites and chill out too.

Yuan Yuan and I went to The Legend of Kungfu show last night it was spectacular. The acrobatics, kungfu, ballet and marshal arts were amazing. It was about a boy becoming a monk and his struggles. They were swinging from cloths hanging from the ceiling and jumping, rolling, bouncing and kart wheeling all over the place. It was so cool to watch. It was a professional show and the set was really well done too. So cool, highly recommend going to it.

Today I went to a market that had your traditional souvenirs but it also had lots of antiques. During the war and revolution the people buried their possessions and they are just now being dug up. So eyeglasses, pots, bowls, jewelry etc are being dug up.

I got an old wood carved window today. They have really neat wood windows everywhere with lots of carving and detail. Kirsty has four on the walls of her house for decoration and they are also around the city still in use. Kirsty has offered to bring it Ottawa for me as she is going in a couple of weeks. Then I will have to work something out to get it to Peterborough.

There is a party in the complex tonight and it is catered by the chef of the French Embassy. You can rent him for parties for $50. He is using Kirsty’s kitchen right now as it is a surprise party so he is working/hiding out at her place. Roast beef and chocolate cake what more can you ask for?