It was sad to leave the Ritz Carlton - I miss it already haha. But after we checked out, we went to a Japanese noodle restaurant for lunch. (I had miso soup, curry pork, and some chocolate covered/stuffed frozen strawberries - all very delicous) From there, we caught a taxi and headed to the Summer Palace, which was a good 45 minutes away.
Unlike most of the cab drivers we've encountered, this guy was actually really friendly and tried really hard to chat with us in English for a while. Of course, this turned out to be all a ploy to get us to hire him to be our guide/interpreter for the day...sigh. The constant pushy sales tactics here geared for tourists are really off-putting. In fact, as I got out of the taxi at the Summer Palace, I was immediately accosted by three men trying to sell me souveniers - one even put a souvenier hat on my head and tried to make me buy it!
Anyway, upon first impression, the Summer Palace didn't seem like anything too special. But boy was I wrong! It turns out that it is this HUGE park filled with amazing structures, trees that are hundreds of years old, ancient ruins, and a gigantic lake! It was definately a highlight of our trip so far. I especially liked the parts of the grounds that had all of these awesome pagoda like structures built into the side of a rocky mountain that we actually got to hike and climb. I think I somehow wandered someplace I wasn't supposed to also and ended up surrounded by these treacherous ruins of former structures that were destroyed during the anglo-french invasion, on this cliff overlooking a snow/ice filled riverbed. There was nobody else there, and it was just the perfect chance to spend some time out in nature. It made me really happy :) It was sort of an oasis from the craziness that is happening all around it in Beijing.
Unfortunately, Katie and I had our first big fight today, and it was a real doozie! While normally I wouldn't describe myself as the most macho of guys, every once in a while I guess I get a big burst of testosterone or something that makes me want to do really manly things like paint houses, watch sports, drink beer, and build things. And it turns out that today was one of those days. As soon as I saw all the rocks and hills and ruins, I became like a 7 year old boy and just wanted to run around and play on them - and I did. This made Katie pretty mad :(
In reality, we've both just spent too much time together during the past week so little things are starting to get on each other's nerves. Plus, I'm sure that the culture shock isn't helping either. Eh...we were bound to fight eventually haha.
Anyway, after we were done with that, we had a few more taxi adventures while trying to find a place to eat dinner and ended up only having time to quickly grab some McDonalds. Then we headed to the airport and took our flight (which was delayed for 2 hours) to Shanghai.
The flight was pretty nice (and short) and a woman and little girl sat next to me that spoke decent English and wanted to chat with me, which was a delight and definately helped pass the time.
Our hotel in Shanghai is pretty nice, but it definately isn't the Ritz Carlton haha. Actually, it almost wasn't even our hotel, since the taxi driver accidentally dropped us off at a totally different hotel haha.
Tomorrow, we will explore Shanghai (seperately) and I hope it will be a really fun day. Here are some pictures of the Summer Palace:
1 comment:
u dun like to drink beer??
and um why did she get mad at u trying to play around?
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