Beijing - Summer Palace

Our last big event in Beijing was a visit to the Summer Palace.  The "new" Summer Palace is known as the best imperial garden in Beijing and boasts the famous scenic sites such as Kunming Lake, Shiqikong (Seventeen Arch) Bridge, Chang Lang (Long Corridor) and Changshou (Longevity) Hill.  The original Summer Palace was built in 1751, but was demolished by the foreign legions following the Boxer Rebillion.  The "new" Summer Palace was built in 1886 and covers about 290 acres.  This was one of our favorite sites in Beijing ... with the exception of the haze.  The worst haze of the week (by far), which made for many pictures to look black and white, cloudy, etc.  Additionally, we had the girls wear masks to ensure their asthma didn't flair up.

This section of the Summer Palace was built to look like Suzhou, China.  It's called Suzhou Street, and is built on a little water way.  Since the empress wasn't allowed out of the Palace by herself, she set this up to be her "shopping and dining" experience.  These shops would be run by the servants to make her feel like she was at the local mall.

I'm sure the shopping looked different way back then.

Cute little Chinese girl posing for pictures.

Emily here is blowing a sugar pig.  And yes, he was edible.