During the holidays, my family and I went on a trip to Beijing, China. As we have a few relatives residing there, we decided to pay them a visit, and also to go to a few tourist attractions for some extra knowledge on the history of China.
The first tourist attraction that comes to mind in Beijing is undoubtedly The Great Wall Of China. Even though I have went there before, it was a few years ago and my memories of the trip were vague. However, my aunt suggested that since it is winter, there are strong winds at that height and is very cold. Instead, she suggested we go to the Summer Palace, (颐和园). It is also a quite famous tourist attraction due to the long history of this place. Since our relatives were there to guide us along the trip, we did not have to follow a tour guide and we could stop at anywhere to take photos without the need to be rushed.
(Overview of Summer Palace)
There were three highlights of the places in the Summer Palace that we visited, one of which was the long corridor (长廊). It is a covered walkway in the Summer Palace first built in 1750, and is known for its length of 728 meters. The highlight of this long corridor was that on the beams and ceiling of this corridor, there were illustrations which depict scenes from famous Chinese classical literature, folk tales, and both historical and legendary figures. In total, there are about 14000 paintings. I found this very fascinating, and I also saw a painting depicting 孙悟空, also known as the Monkey King. It was quite shocking and also interesting at the same time. Even though the painting was quite small, there was intricate detail in the painting.
The next was the Marble Boat, also known as the boat of purity (石舫). The original pavilion was made from a base of large stone blocks which supported a wooden superstructure done in a traditional Chinese design. Unfortunately, it was destroyed during the second opium war and was thus rebuilt after. One surprising fact is that the Marble Boat is actually made of wood but painted to imitate marble.
The last attraction I saw was the Jade Peak Pagoda (玉峰塔). Although it does not have as many interesting points as the other two attractions, I found out that it also dates way back into history, and still looks quite nice even after so many centuries.
(Jade Peak Pagoda)
I would say that this trip was a meaningful one as i have saw and found out some really interesting things about the Summer Palace. Hopefully, i would be able to go on more trips like this one to further my understanding of these interesting historical landmarks.
2E 2014
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