September 12, 2025
The Summer Palace is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces from the Qing Dynasty. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The palace was inspired by the gardens of South China and contain over 3,000 ancient buildings housing a collection of over 40,000 valuable relics. We went early to avoid crowds and heat again, and probably only walked thru a quarter of it in 3 hours before the heat and crowds got to be too much. All the Chinese were avidly watch the Military Parade on their phones as they walked around.
When we got back to the Hotel, we were able to see on TV the recap of the Military Parade for the anniversary of China's 80th Victory Day. Photo's show all their new weapons of mass destruction, and the size of the square with thousands of invite only guest. They actually stop all manufacturing around Beijing for weeks ahead of the Parade, to make the air quality better. It turned out to a hazy & stink hot day, I felt bad for all those soldiers who were out there, at attention, for hours!
Some of the World's scariest players in a row! Was so weird to be in town so close to them all!
