Summer Palace

The Summer Palace consists of a huge lake called Kunming Lake. The palace itself rests on Longevity Hill. Kunming Lake is man-made and on average is about 5 feet deep. In the winter, when it ices over, people use it for ice skating. In 1990 and 1991, the government dredged the lake for the first time in 240 years. They removed a shitload of sludge and found 205 Japanese bombs that were dropped during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Summer Palace

To get to the top of the palace you have to climb through a rock maze.

And sometimes thorough the mountain itself!

Another of these circular doors. I really love them even though they are so simple.

At the top of the hill, you get a great view of the lake. It is fashioned to resemble West Lake in Hangzhou where we went in July. 

At the bottom of the hill are many different sites to see. Above is one portion of the Long Corridor. The corridor itself is 2'388 feet long and has more then 14'000 paintings covering it. The corridor was originally built in 1750 by the Qianlong Emperor for his mother so she could take relaxing walks by the lake and be sheltered from the weather. It was heavily damaged during the Second Opium War and had to be reconstructed.

One of the many painting in the Long Corridor.

The Marble Boat. It's actually made out of wood and painted to look like marble.

You can walk around the entire lake or you can take one of these dragon boats above.

There are many halls that you can go into along the path. Inside of each of these halls are many old paintings.

A huge rock I thought was interesting. I forgot the entire story behind it but I remember reading that the guy had it brought here from another location far away in China and went broke in doing so. If I was going to go broke moving something, it sure as hell wouldn't be a rock!!

There's nothing interesting about this photo except for the fact that there is no one in it. I always feel like I should take the opportunity to take photo's like these. With 13 billion people in this country, this is a rare site.

On the eastern side of the lake is a sculpture of a bronze ox. In ancient times, a bronze or iron ox was used to prevent flooding because it is believed that they have flood controlling powers. It is angled toward the Forbidden City and was most likely placed here to prevent flooding into the city.

The Seventeen-Arch Bridge. It is the only connection to Nanhu Island. On the Island are several halls and temples where Emperor's would come to pray. The bridge is lined with 544 stone lions.