Summer Palace and on our Way to Shanghai!

Monday morning we said a sleepy goodbye to Ben and Vinny when they left at 6am and then went back to sleep. We had planned on getting up around 7 or so so that we could pack up, eat and then head out to the Summer Palace which is about 45 minutes to an hour away. We got up around 7:30 and started to pack up and get ready and we ended up leaving the hostel after breakfast around 10 o clock.

We took the subway, switched lines twice and we got to the station. We asked around and found out that we needed to take Bus No. 930 which would take us all the way to the gates of Summer Palace. The bus was only one yuan. Fantastic! We made it there alright, bought our tickets with our student IDs and then made our way into the park area.

My first thought was "This is absolutely gorgeous!" It was nothing like the rest of Beijing. It was absolutely clear skies (probably because it rained the night before) and there was a beautiful lake surrounding the area. (See Picasa Pictures). You would look one way and see an amazing bridge that connected the side we were on to an island in the middle of the lake and then you would look to the other side and see a light house type building set in the mountains. It was magnificent.

We walked along side the lake towards the main area where the temple was located. We found some other sites along the way and we were able to weave our way through the many crowds to see inside the old areas. The architecture looked midly like that of the forbidden city but the paintings on the pillars were more unique and colorful than that of the forbidden city or anything else that I had seen in Beijing.

We walked around and got to people watch for a little while. There were people selling corn at every stop and people that were playing with their kids who were also running around with each other. I took a picture of this little boy who seemed to be pulling along his little sister in every which way that he wanted to go and I saw another another little kid that was pushing his sibling (I don't remember if it was a sister or a brother) in a stroller and it reminded me of pictures that I have seen of my brother and I. Definitely made me wish that he could have been there with me (even though I think he has already been to the Summer Palace). Maybe it was more that I wish that I had a close friend or family member or someone from home that would be able to take in these amazing views and would completely understand what I have been seeing through these adventures. I digress...

We walked around Summer Palace and we bought a map of the area (that you could essential frame because its so pretty) and we discovered that the Summer Palace is absolutely HUGE. You could definitely not see it in the amount of time that we allotted for it. However, we made the best of it and took some pictures and then headed back towards the entrance to get back to the station.

Once we got back to the entrance we realized that we didn't quite know which way to go to catch the bus back to the station. We assumed that we would have to get on the bus on the opposite side of the road from where we got off so we headed in that direction. Wrong. We ended up asking a mechanic of some sort and he pointed us in a different direction. The two of us set off in that direction and found ourselves at the wrong bus stop. After using our lovely phrase book we went off down the street and got to the correct bus stop that was actually in a little alleyway. Who knew.

Anyway, we asked the bus driver whether the bus went to the right station but he said a different station. A station is a station so we got on the bus and we got off where the driver told us to. We didn't see the station anywhere so we chose a person off the street showed him the map of the subway station and gestured to figure out where the nearest station was. He tried to explain in Mandarin, realized that we had no clue what he was talking about and then decided to have us follow him because he was heading in that direction. Really nice of him. He spoke to Sumana in Mandarin and asked her where we were going to which she interpreted to be where are we from (Everyone is shocked when they see us) and she said India as a normal reply and he got really confused/excited/shocked. After a little while he showed us on our subway map about how to get to the airport. Hilarious.

We got to the station, thanked him profusely and then headed on our way to the Silk Market to argue with some of the shop keepers about the shoes that Sumana had bought (which had started to wear out the first day she wore them) and to try and get some name drawings redone or fixed. We had to argue for a good while to get people to fix things (with Sumana also demanding that her shoes be changed and standing at the shop and warding off customers..good work!) and in the end we got everything fixed up. She had to be stern with them because they tried to make it out to be like she was dumb and didn't know what she was talking about when she said that she got them from a specific store. Ha. We knew. She even talked to the girl that we bought them from who definitely recognized Sumana.

We bought a couple of trinkety things and then headed back to the hostel to get our bag and check Shanghai stuff, eat dinner and set out on our way to the train station!

After lugging our suitcase to the train station, we quickly found our platform and queued up to be let inside. We found out compartment and our beds and put everything away before settling in for the night. There was a little baby in our compartment that was definitely really cute and he would play hide and seek with his blanket and would roll around and kind of play with Sumana. It was cute.

The train left promptly at 9:40 and Sumana and I fell asleep, quickly, around 10:30ish. Soon it was morning and we were in Shanghai!