China Spring 2016-Part 4

Day 3 of our China Trip - In the morning, we visited the Summer Palace, a World Heritage Site. The Summer Palace was built in 1750 during the Qing Dynasty, burned down by French Anglo forces during the Opium Wars, and rebuilt by Dowager Empress Cixi from 1884-95. It consists of 70,000 sq. meters of lakes, palaces, and residences. It was full of families and tourists enjoying the fine day and many activities. In a pavilion partway around the lake there was a community band of some sort playing nationalistic and folk songs. They were joined by people in the surrounding crowd with song books, singing along with gusto. Afterwards we visited a tea factory, learned how to prepare tea, and of course, we were given time to buy all the tea, teapots and accessories we wanted. There are a lot of interesting teas in China. In the afternoon, we caught a flight to Xian where we'll see the famous terra cotta soldiers. We had Chinese food on the flight to Xian. We will never complain about American airline food again. Very bad.

We saw several (usually old) men practicing their calligraphy
and/or characters with plain water and long handled paint
brushes on the pavement.

looking across the lake to the left

looking across the lake to the right

A music book open on a stand

The Community Band with a female director

Another of so many interesting vehicles

I bought a handful of the funny paper sun hats from this enterprising salesman. As we had been
warned by Geoff, he tried to rip me off by replacing my good bill with a counterfeit one and trying to
insist I trade him for a different one. I refused but another woman on the tour was not so brave.

It was another of the many, many bus rides to the Tea Room for our formal demonstration. Luckily, there was always something interesting to see as we drove. In Beijing, particularly, the streets have been lined with plantings to serve as a barrier from buildings and to help clean the air. Sometimes the drives were fairly close together but took a very long time because of the traffic. In larger cities we could drive for two hours and never leave the city itself, but pass by miles and miles of towering apartment buildings as far as the eye could see.