This morning we went to the Summer Palace. The Palace was a summer retreat for the Empress Cixi. Cixi was not very popular because she spent a lot of China's money on luxuries for herself!
We thought it would be busy but not as busy as it was. There were thousands of people. We wanted to hire a boat but the queues were so big that we decided not to. The smog also spoiled the beauty of the place - it was difficult to see things in the distance. It was also fearsomely hot and the crowds of people made it even worse.
Despite this we thoroughly enjoyed our visit. One of the highlights was Suzhou Street which is a shopping street which was built for the Emperors/Empresses to stroll down so they could pretend they were in an ordinary shopping street. Another enjoyable aspect was that I got my name written in Chinese which I will hang in my room at home.
After the Summer Palace we went to the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium. Again (as you can see from the photo) the smog made the Bird's Nest difficult to see. But it was huge. The Water Cube was a fantastic piece of architecture. What surprised me was that the Chinese don't seem to be using these great facilities. I hope we don't make the same mistake and spend lots of money on things that ordinary people don't use!
We went back to the hotel for a swim and a shower before flying back to Hong Kong. When we got to the airport our flight was going to have a 90 minute delay. That meant that we would set off from Beijing at around 8.00 pm. We would get back to Hong Kong at 11.30 pm and didn't get home until very late. We were all a bit fed up but we played Uno in the airport and the time when fairly fast.
When the cabin crew got on they looked pretty fed up with the delay too!
Speak soon.
Lots of Love Meganxxx
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