Beijing: The Summer Palace & The Temple of Heaven

 The boys had a 3 day work conference in Beijing so after they were done with meetings for the day, that's when we would go out and sight see. We stayed in a super nice, beautiful hotel located in the heart of Beijing. 

We were able to eat an awesome buffet lunch with the boys during their lunch break and Justin loved eating his pork noodles at night. They are really good! 

After their conference was over, we headed out to the beautiful Summer Palace. 

The Summer Palace was built by the Quianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty (1644- 1911) as a birthday present to his mother. This is quite the birthday present folks...this place is gorgeous. 

 The lake, the bridges, the cherry blossoms (or whatever they are called in China), just made this place so picturesque. 

The Long Corridor is one of the longest covered walkways in the world, at almost a half a mile long! 

The 14,000 drawings covered the ceiling the whole length of the corridor. 

                                        

 These Chinese guardians lions can be seen everywhere around China, usually surrounding doorways. The male lion is on one side and the female on the other. They are believed to have powers to protect the dwelling. The male is suppose to protect the outside and the female the inside. 

 BioHumNetics' China distributor, Sam,  lives in Shanghai but brought his wife, Helen and daughter, Sune (pronounced- Soon-ay) out to Beijing to be with us. They are such kind people. I wish I could speak Mandarin to get to know them better. 

 It was so fun having a cute kiddo like Sune to pal around with us. It made me miss our own kids!

 It was quite a long walk over to the palace and so we took a boat back to the entrance. Across from us sat these adorable ladies who were loving taking pictures of all us gringos. They just about died of excitement when we asked if we could take a picture of them.

 The bridge on the way out is SO beautiful. Each lion on the posts are different and they span the whole bridge. 

 Next we traveled to the Temple of Heaven. This temple was visited by emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. They would come here and pray for a good harvest. I think it is now known to be a Taoist temple. 

On the walk up to the temple, I got asked to take a picture with this girl. I think this has to be my favorite stranger picture of all time :) And yes, those three girls all had those matching jumpsuits. Pretty awesome, right?!

Unfortunately, we got there too late and were unable to enter into the temple. There were still cool things to see on the outskirts of it though. 

 Justin and I saw this err.. vehicle... on our way out and we were dying to ride in it! The picture seriously doesn't even do this contraption justice!!

 One of the nights, we ate at a famous Peking Duck restaurant. I think maybe it was called Quanjude?? 

Apparently, if you come to Beijing, you just have to have Peking Duck.

 They slice and dice that duck right there in front of you! I could do without duck. It wasn't bad, just a little too greasy for my taste. It was a super cool restaurant though and I'm glad we had that experience!

 I think on our last night in Beijing, we went to an acrobatic show. It was pretty cool and of course it is always fun to see those Chinese contortionist!

 Next stop.... Shanghai!!

I got to give props and a huge thanks to Wikipedia for reming me of all the cool facts about China!