Some Pictures from Friday

A Chinese Bike Repair Shop

Josh, being a bike mechanic at our local bike shop, thought this was really cool. We happened upon this during an early morning walk near our hotel.

And who said stone doesn't float?

A boat made of stone at the Summer Palace.

The Summer Palace

Actually, only a small part of it. This place occupies nearly 3 square kilometers, including a large man-made lake. The temple pictured above sits on a hill created when the lake was dug. We didn't have time to cover the entire compound, since it is so vast, but we did see a lot of the architecture in our walk halfway around the lake (which took nearly two hours).

Lunch

On contrast to yesterday's cacophony in a large noisy room, lunch today was in a private room with at least two attendants swarming the table at nearly all times. Take a sip of tea, someone would fill up the cup again. Take another sip, the cup would get filled. They even changed our plates halfway through the meal. The man on the right is Mr. Gao, our driver, an extremely patient and unflappable man who made driving in downtown Beijing look easy. I only ever heard him honk his horn once.

Tienanmen Square

This place can fit a million people, so there was no possible way I could fit the entire place in one small camera. The building in the background is the entrance to the Forbidden City.

Forbidden City

A walled compound serving as the palace for the emperor during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (built about 600 years ago)

Our nerve and information center. What would we do without the Internet?