Summer Palace

Somewhere halfway through our journey, I started being so lazy that I forgot to write anything for the blog. So now that I'm back and have access to Blogger again, I'll post some more. I'll keep this entry a bit short, since it's a bit late.

I want to give you an overview of the Summer Palace. It was the residence of Empress Cixi, and a very beautiful place. The Empress liked luxury, and that was obvious judging by the size of her palace and how beautiful everything was. Ornaments and paintings covered the whole place, and there was barely an inch on walls or columns that wasn't covered in bright colours.

It's a place I definitely want to see again and spend some time exploring. The park was huge, and we didn't really have time to see it as a whole, since we had a guide and a schedule that didn't leave a single second to spare.

Stay tuned for the next post, and see you soon!

Climbing (or at least trying) the Great Wall

Hello again!

I know I should be updating this blog a lot more, but since I don't have access to Blogger from here, I'm having a dear friend of mine post everything for me. I have no means of uploading pictures either, so that just makes everything more difficult, because I have to write a text document with what I want to say, send her the pictures and tell her exactly where to put them.

So, here, have a somehow big update. We climbed the Great Wall a few days ago and survived to tell the tale, and while we were at it, I recorded a few videos. These are the first two, only in Spanish because when you're there, the last thing you think about is translating your thoughts of "I'm dying, someone carry me".

I hope you enjoy the videos, stay tuned for more updates, hopefully soon, since I have caught a horrible cold (yes, in the middle of summer) and I stay at the hotel a lot of time, resting.
Good bye!

Confucius & Earth Temple.

I've been a few days without updating the blog, so I'll make up for it now with some tourism talk. We had only been to markets and such, so yesterday we decided to visit the Confucius Temple and Academy, and the Earth Temple in Ditan Park. It was raining quite a bit, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the view of the huge temple and building.

The street is a rather big one if you take into account that youre in a hutong, and streets there are always more narrow than wide. As you get closer to the temple, a lot of little shops start to appear, selling inciense and figurines of whatever pseudo-deity you might be looking for. Finally, you get to the gate of the temple. It's absolutely huge and beautiful, full of colors and with an astonishing gold glow. As you enter, you're greeted by some minor buildings on the sides hidden between trees that stand there protecting everything from the tourists.

We kept walking and passed by a statue of Confucius himself, crossing the Gate of Great Fortune and pausing to take some pictures and chek the exhibition halls that told us the story of Confucius, his teachings, his doctrine and his disciples. I already knew most of it, since I have studied Asian religions, but it was intereting to learn it from their point of view.

We then had lunch and visited the Temple of Earth, situated in the middle of Ditan Park. The park was so beautifully kept that I wished I had some hours to get lost in it. But it was raining and we had to go back eventually, so I didn't get to explore it as I would have liked. The garden was a beauty in itself, I wish I had taken some pictures of it, but it had started to rain and I didn't want to take out my camera with such a weather.