Sauna...

Yes, today it has been like a sauna here... I literally refused to wake up this morning... I am usually grumpy upon waking up but today it was even worse. But I was lovingly dragged out of bed and made to face another day in the City.

We had some fun at breakfast when we saw our friend again... Our "friend" is a Chinese guy (we have never talked to him, of course, but imagined a lot of things about him) and he was having breakfast too. He had a grey suit on, black shoes and.... white socks!! Yes, apparently this is considered fashionable here, we saw lots of men dressed like that! The reason why we found him to be so special is that he is able to eat enormous quantities of food (for breakfast, anyway). As I was watching him having the third omlette I felt like I had enough and urged Alex to leave. We imagined that he belongs to a sort of secret police of the hotel. In fact I imagined that and Alex was of the same opinion.... :-)

We thought our plans for today were modest - we just wanted to visit the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven (the one that we missed the other day because we arrived there too late). However, these two attractions proved to be very courageous targets for an extremely hot and humid day. We found a taxi and, after 1 hour journey, we arrived at the Summer Palace. The taxi driver explained (using his hands and his watch) that he would like to wait for us (for 3 hours!!) and drive us back to the hotel for the sum of RMB 200. He would take a nap while we visit the Palace and would wait for us in the parking place. We agreed and left him to his nap.

The Summer Palace is a huge compound, containing lots of pavilions, a few exhibitions and a huge lake. It used to be the imperial garden and residence during the Quing Dynasty. It was constructed in 1750 and burnt down by the Anglo-French Allied Forces in 1860. It was then restored in 1886 only to be devastated again in 1900 by the Allied Forces and rebuilt in 1902.

Apart from the park which is really nice, there is nothing really interesting to be seen in the pavilions. We saw an exhibition of imperial objects (clothes, personal pots and other stuff used by the empress who reconstructed the palace in 1886 but nothing spectacular. Everywhere there were funny instructions such as " Help protect the historical relics" and, right behind it, "Help protect the railings"!!. Also, all pavilions had delicious names such as "The Hall of Benevolence and Longevity", "Heralding Spring Pavilion", "Hall of Happiness in Longevity", "Sea of Wisdom Temple", "Heart Purifying Pavilion", etc. We also saw a marble boat (yes, a huge boat made of marble!) which was constructed on the order of the above mentioned empress. Apparently, for having this boat built, she sacrificed the budget meant to be used for an entire fleet!! That's what I call intelligence!!

The place was packed with Chinese tourists, we hardly ever saw an European face. It was very crowded and everything was rendered worse by the absolutely terrifying heat. Everywhere adolescents of indefinite sex and badly dressed grown ups. I promised I would write more about the Chinese dressing style but I don't feel up to it now.... Apparently it's very trendy for women to wear socks with their shoes (when wearing dresses or skirts!) - the nylon ones are the preferred ones, of course. They even wear these socks with sandals!! I saw some very strange things today!!!

We cut our visit short (2 1/2 hours instead of 3), found our taxi driver (who was snoring happily in his car on a sort of radio play / monologue) and we were off to the Temple of Heaven, extremely happy to be in the air conditioned car. Of course I slept for the entire 1 hour journey back, despite the Chinese play on the radio. Alex made me laugh saying that it was probably a drama, judging by the angry intonation!

The Temple of Heaven was really disappointing, personally I felt it was a waste of time to go back there again. It simply is a round temple, beautifully looking on the outside but there was virtually nothing inside. And, again, some side pavilions with photo exhibitions, with explanations mostly in Chinese. So disappointed, sweaty, dirty and very tired, we found another taxi and got back to the hotel.

We are off to Xian tomorrow. I am afraid that it's going to be even hotter there... :-( I hope we will survive otherwise this may be my last blog post ever... Should I say "farewell"?