Endless Summer Tiny World

Our last day in Beijing Chelsy and I visited the summer palace. It was very nice with a huge lake. We walked around the whole lake, which had 8 unusual bridges, one with 17 arches. We also saw cixi’s concrete boat. This was the place that was built using money intended for the navy and this concrete boat was the only boat built with the money. I think this place would be beautiful in the summer when all the plants and trees had leaves on them.

From there we went to the temple of heaven park. It is huge!!! But we saw the few temple center pieces and the echo wall.

Yesterday we headed by bus to pingyao. We would prefer to go by train, and preferably sleeper trains, as some journeys are very long, but getting train tickets is very difficult because Chinese new year is right around the corner. The bus ride was long and uneventful but when we finally got to our hostel in pingyao it was worth it. Pingyao is the old china people think of. It is a walled city, all of the old wall is almost completely intact and is around 600 years old. Also inside the walls many of buildings are old concrete or brick and they have red lanterns hanging everywhere and all down the streets! It is so cool! Today we are going to head out and see the town and walk the city walls.
It feels much colder here than Beijing and it is supposed to snow on weds and thurs when were in Xian. But after Xian we are going to start being far enough south that it will be in the 50’s and only get warmer the further south we go!

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