the Summer Palace and swimming pools

Day 5 in Beijing

Our last day of touring Beijing. the only thing on our agenda is the summer palace. Our plan is to let the kids burn off some energy by getting in the hotel pool afterward.

Our driver and guide picked us up at 9 as usual and we battled through the Beijing traffic. During the olympics drivers of private cars have been assigned odd and even days drive based upon their liscense plate number. I can only imagine how gridlocked it would be if all the private cars were allowed on the road during these two weeks. It has been 5 days of being driven around this city by our driver and by taxis and I still have no bearings what so ever. The roads all look alike, the street and bridge names seem too similar. Usually after a few days in a city I am fairly competent at navigating my way around, but here, not at all. Maybe because I have not been out walking the streets like I usually am.

The Summer Palace as its name suggests was a summer resort of sorts for the emporer and his family. Think the Hamptons with no noisy timeshares next door. It was also the home of the last emporer during the time of his exile. The entire compound wraps around a lake and there is a long covered walkway that stretches the length of the grounds. There is a peace there that is apparent even with the hordes of tourists, one can only imagine what a haven it would have been a few centuries ago. The dragon lady of China was supposedly very fond of the Summer Palace. The most imposing part is the marble boat. It apprently goes back to a fable about water giving life, but also death, since people can drown and boats can capsize. The marble boat was meant to show the emporers dominance of all, even the water. It cannot capsize. It also cannot sail, but that apparnetly is a minor detail.

We took a dragon boat across the lake. As we were getting on there was a little boy about Mac and Liam's age. He was very obviously one of China's "little emporers" - an only son, very coddled and spoiled. Instead of walking back to where he was supposed to sit he helped himself to the co-captains chair. His mother said nothing to him, just found a seat nearby to keep an eye on him. Devlin looked at him and said in that great 5-year-old way that children have, "look at that fat little boy." I shushed her and told her she was being impolite. Luckily neither he nor his mother appear to have understood. Over the course of the boat ride his mother took notice of us and asked our guide about us. "She looks like Chinese girl?" Yes, she is from Jiangxi. "how old are those boys? are they twins?" Yes, they are twins, they are 8. "Oh my," the mother says, "he (gesturing to the chubby boy) is 7 and a half." In translation I am not sure if this was said with pride or chagrin not sure if she was insulting my boys for being short or complimenting them for being thin. I guess it really doesn't matter. One does see a surprising number of chubby boys here in China.

After lunch we told our guide we were just going to return to the hotel and give the kids a chance to play in the pool. We had neglected to do this all week and they are definitely playing a little too much nintendo. I had a quick nap and then we headed over to the pool. There we learned there is a law in Beijing that everybody must wear swim caps in the pool - men, children, long hair, short hair, doesn't matter. Everybody must wear one. We did not have any caps with us and they did not offer us the opportunity to buy them, so we returned to our room.

The children were definitely way too keyed up and needed to burn some energy off. Since i was still not feeling my best Bill took the kids to a local playground. It is sort of half playground half health club. Much of the equipment looks like completely manual versions of cardio machines at the gym. The children had fun.