The Summer Palace

I spent the entire Friday at the Summer Palace just outisde of Beijing city, by the Kunming Lake. Practically a small city outside of the city walls, it holds everything your mad-as-a-hatter Emperor or Empress needs. Story has it that the craziest of Empresses kept her son locket up in a building here for 10 years while executing his will. The same lady apparently also had 108 dishes prepared for every dinner. No wonder the palace gounds also hold a god-knows-how-many-stories Buddha temple, which is actually the main structure seen on most photos from the palace. A good four steep staircases are needed to reach it, and it wasn`t all that impressive once inside--but the building is amazing. I had two boat trips on the Kunming Lake just because it was such a lovely thing to do, and as I finally walked towards the Garden of Harmony (such a lovely garden!) and the exit, I aquainted a Chinese logistics student who wanted to talk in English. I took the rare occasion that has proved to be so far--and though I never learned his name (Chinese people never introduce themselves to me by name), I found out he had a most wonderful day because he had seen so much lovely scenerey and had been able to practice his English with three different people. I suppose that`s a good standard for any day.