Empress Dowager Cixi's Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill (60 meters high) and the Kunming Lake. It covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water. This wasn't the fact that impressed me the most, the below is impressive...

The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometers was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill..... YUP! All because the empress wants so, back in the olden days, this was feasible I guess in all country. As log as you rule the throne, your wish is the bumble servant command.
It served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi, who diverted 30 million taels of silver, said to be originally designated for the Chinese navy (Beiyang Fleet), into the reconstruction and enlargement of the Summer Palace. This is like super rich those days, same scenario as Shah Jehan of India whom wanted to use country money to build a black Taj Mahal mausoleum for himself. I blog about it here as well. I wonder how crazy will I get it I have the money and power like them.... slap my face if I do anything silly ok!

The lake was awesome (my sis favourite word these days) BUT not sure whether you guys felt the same, Beijing cky/weather are always misty, dull, foggy and grey... INSTEAD of clear blue sky. Is it me or is it the season I was in when I was there?!!??! Abit frustrating whe I was there, no many pic turns out great. Sigh...

The Long Corridor, a covered walkway along Lake Kunming at the Summer Palace, runs for almost 2400 feet to the famous marble boat. But it was sooooooo crowded when I was there, I have to take a stroll OUTSIDE the corridor, sob sob...

Here's the story of the super LOOOOOOONG corridor:

The long corridor of the Summer Palace (Yi He Yuan, 颐和园) was said to be built for facilitating Emperor Qianlong’s mother to view the snowy and raining landscape of Kunming Lake. For celebrating his mother’s 60th birthday, Emperor Qianlong mobilized massive manpower and resources to expand Kunming Lake and built Qingyi Garden as well as Da Baoen Temple on Wen Mountain. Hereafter, Wen Mountain was named Wanshou Mountain (Longevity Hill, 万寿山). Emperor’s mother often appreciated the snow view in garden. For pleasing his mother as well as for avoiding his mother suffering from raining and snowing, Emperor Qianlong built a long corridor as well on the border between Wanshou Mountain and Kunming Lake.

And all I got my mom was a fridge magnet from oversea... sigh... he set the standard so high... ahhahha.....

On order of the Empress Dowager Cixi, this marble boat/pavillion was set for restoration, a new two-story superstructure was designed which incorporated elements of European architecture. This new superstructure is made out of wood but it was painted to imitate marble. Oh! By the way, it doesn't sail....ehhehe... tooo heavy I supposed.

Oh yah, in December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. Another one to my LIST!

One of the alleyways with nice green pond plant.

Next entry I will write about my experience in Malaysia doing a China Chinese fire therapy on my belly, yeah! they burn my belly with fire and I have pics to prove it.

Hyperlink credits : Wikipedia, China Absolute Tours