Beijing III

The next day was still rainy but it didn't hinder me to do a bit of sightseeing along the mainstreets in Beijing. I walked for several hours and stopped every now and then at Starbucks or had lunch somewhere. I was impressed by the way buildings were built everywhere. And they all were huge! Really huge!

One problem I had was to stop a taxi. I never succeded and if I saw one standing near the sideway it already had a customer or was supposed to pick up somebody. So I decided to walk to the official taxi stoppoints. In the afternoon I wanted to go to the Summer Palace which is northwest of Beijing.

In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace an "outstanding expression of the creative art of Chinese landscape garden design, incorporating the works of humankind and nature in a harmonious whole." It is a popular tourist destination but also serves as a recreational park but I could not really enjoy the beauty as it was still rainy that day. However Lake Kunming and Longevity Hill are even marvellous at such a cloudy and foggy day.