So I am changing the MO for posting a little bit. I am going to use the date I actually publish posts as opposed to the day that I post it to Blogger. You may have no idea what I am talking about and that is fine. Basically it will not look like such large gaps in between the days I am posting which has led to some "are you still alive mails?"

Here is the Summer Palace where Yachi and I went on a beautiful Saturday. The Summer Palace is not really a palace but a 700 acre park built / reserved? during the Qing dynasty. I am going to be kind of lazy and let the pictures mostly speak.

Here is the entrance with tons of tourist groups and their really cool hats. One day i am going to get one of these hats. Every time I see a group like this I try to get a hat from someone in the group but no one understands what I am asking or is willing to give up their hat.

Can't have the railings going to shit.






Many boats that later in the afternoon were all being used out on the lake. They were paddle boats which brought back fond memories of my wee years.


People catching up on their rest. I imagine that it would be hard to get all the homeless people out of this park due to the size, if they even wanted to.


Yachi imitating the woman we saw earlier. I could not understand why you would turn sideways and bend slightly forward to take a picture. It seems close to the worst position possible.

I really liked this flowery tree. Liked it so much I took about 30 pictures of it. Ask me when I get back for the slide show.

This guys were not very happy with me cause i walked right in front of their wheelbarrow. So I took a picture of them just to make them even happier.

This was the way most of the bridges were here. You can see the normal bridge in the background aka the one that is not 10m high.

An island that I really wanted to get on to.



Me enjoying the beautiful flowers.







You can never escape the city.









i am amazed they could not move these boats in time to avoid beaching them.











A half naked man. If you will notice in any other picture of people they are wearing coats because it was pretty cold still.

I used Yachi as a front to allay the man's suspicions.

Yachi in front of CiXi's marble boat. CiXi was the mother of an emperor and parlayed that into a 74 year reign as the power behind the curtain which is longer than anyone else in the Qing dynasty except for maybe KangXi. She was not very well liked as she had a tendency to push people down wells and such. She also drank human breast milk to stay young.

She convinced her nephew (I believe) to build the boat in the background instead of a navy. The boat is marble which does not float, doesn't even come close to floating. The navy would have been useful in the next decade as China was taken over by everyone including France (which has to be humiliating). This boat marks the beginning of the end for the imperial system in China.

Our lunch which was 5 dollars. I love China and i love those dumplings. One bag was a dollar and was awesome.