Beijing, China - Day 3

When it was this soul-crushingly hot in ancient times, the emperors would go to the Summer Palace to escape; today we tried to follow in their noble footsteps - to little avail but much amusement.

The Summer Palace was built by the imperial heir more than 300 years ago in an attempt to lure the Empress Dowager off her throne. It didn't work in the slightest, but a lovely grounds resulted. There are definite themes to the Palace: almost everything is devoted to the idea of longevity. A large rock formation shaped like a man with a peach on his head greets every entrant; peaches are the fruit of longevity.
Crane and deer statues flank every doorway: the air and land animals of longevity. The Chinese characters for longevity are carved at the end of each pipe of roofing and painted on every mirror. The man-made lake is in the shape of a peach and the palace boasts the longest walkway in the world: 728 m...rather long-evinous, wouldn't you say? The other main theme was good fortune which is represented by the bat. The dirt from the man-made lake was moulded into a bat-shaped hill where the Temple of Buddha Incense/Incest/Incompetence now sits. (One of those names is right, I'm sure.) The entire palace seemed like a desperate message to the fates: long life and good fortune. The heir died at 38, by the way, after being imprisoned for 10 years in the Summer Palace. Someone up there sure liked laughing at this guy!

I know all these fun facts because an Olympic volunteer gave us a free tour. These people are all over Beijing, and are put in the streets to help the incoming flood of tourists that the Olympics will bring. Each volunteer gets to see the Olympic Games for free and tourists get a bit richer experience. The idea of volunteering is somewhat foreign to the Chinese, according to our guide, and so most of them are younger, more westernized citizens.

After our guide left us, we took a ferry to Suzhou Street, a venetian-like market divided in two by a canal. The ferry was a long boat powered by a single oar and oarsman at the back; it tipped side to side with each stroke but carried us through the willow trees at a good pace. Suzhou street was enchanting and I explored it while Andrea and Dorothy got pictures taken in traditional garb; way too hot for me to do that! Banners attached to dragon-headed poles fluttered above and a lone flute player filled the with haunting music. On my way back to the girls, a father asked me to take a picture with his two sons...both of whom seemed terrified of me. But, I smiled and the picture was taken. What do they do with these pictures of foreigners? "Here we are at the Summer Palace, and here my sons are with a random white chick, that was a good day!" It's rather like how we act with touristy things; we all became part of the scene: great wall, summer palace, white girls....it's all very exciting. Would you like to buy Sarah tickets?

We tried to eat a traditional dinner tonight and experience the cuisine. I had spicy frog soup and beer pancake. The frog tasted like salty chicken but the bones were a big turn-off; something about the way dogs suck the marrow out of bones makes me a bit squeamish about eating around them. Yuck! The beer pancake was good though.

Tune in tomorrow for the Great Wall!