Andy (Fei Yao) was there on time this morning at 8.30am. Today is tomorrow's programme, as it's a public holiday.
We drive out of the city past a colourful mix of tall concrete buildings and low old houses. It is spring. The magnolias are in their full splendour. Trees with small flowers are awakening from hibernation in pink, rose or white. The beautiful bright yellow forsythia can also be seen again and again. The vegetation is similar to that in Switzerland.
We visit the new Summer Palace, an imperial palace from the Qing Dynasty that has already been rebuilt several times. The park covers an area of 2.97 square kilometres, of which around 70% is Kunming Lake.
The bridge railing is decorated with 544 different little dragons of fortune.
Most of the visitors were at the home of Cixi, the empress dowager. Cixi loved the scent of the fruit trees, now with the young blossoms, absolutely understandable.
The gentlemen dressed in black come from the south
There is so much to see. A real local recreation area.
After about 2 hours in the park, we have a little refreshment, a noodle soup as a snack.
And now it's on to the Great Wall of China.
We arrive after 1.5 hours. As always, there are market stalls with various unnecessary things to buy. Also Pizza Hut, Subway and Burger King...well
Yes, there are a lot of people, but we didn't have to queue anywhere. The timing in the afternoon was perfect. Andy told us that around 30,000 people come to see the wall every day.
We take the cable car, which is also a bit of a walk. Once at the top, you can see the mountains and the Great Wall of China winding between them. And WE are standing right in the middle of it. It's a sublime feeling. The uneven stones are challenging. But we spend some time on the wall and enjoy the view. It's almost surreal.
Markus was once again able to unpack his camera. And used the gimble to make his mobile phone float above everyone's heads. A small stumble „only“ grazed his hand. Thank God the technology remained intact. The videos don't work, the internet connection is sometimes hopelessly overloaded. The videos will be added when we have a fast connection again.
Now we are driven straight to the restaurant. Today we're having Peking duck. Our guide and driver eat with us, luckily 🙈
The food was simply great. So really good. Four of us ate.
Kung bao chicken, Peking duck, roo duan, moo shu beef, fried rice and so on...
It was a great day, spring sunshine, no rain, a manageable number of people and a good atmosphere. We are thrilled and tired.
