The Far East: Day 6

Another scorcher of a day in Beijing, with the temperature apparently peaking at 35 Celsius. After a leisurely morning catching up on my blog, I got a bite of lunch before heading to the Summer Palace.

The Summer Palace in north-western Beijing is the Windsor Castle to the Forbidden City's Buckingham Palace. It's a sprawling park set on the shores of a beautiful lake, with a maze of paths and passageways connecting a multitude of halls, towers and palaces.

Having spent the previous day seeing round the Forbidden City in some detail I must admit I was suffering from architecture fatigue - I enjoyed looking round some of the halls, but they are all really rather similar.

Nonetheless, there was more than enough to occupy me for an afternoon. The Wenchang Gallery contains an amazing collection of vases and bowls, some of which date back as much as 3,000 years. There were bronze vases dating from the Shang Dynasty, which ran from approximately 1600 BC to 1100 BC, in perfect condition. One can imagine that perhaps they may have originally been painted, but any such paint has not been preserved.

There was also a great collection of jade vases, some over 700 years old, and of pottery which, while not being quite so old, was exquisitely decorated. All in all, it is a great testament to the longevity of the Chinese civilisation that such things have been preserved in such good condition. I can't imagine anything remotely similar having survived in Europe, thanks to wave after wave of invasion.

The shores of Kunming Lake are home to some of the best views in Beijing, with a seventeen-arch bridge being the focal point. However, by this stage the heat had started to take its toll on me, so I didn't see perhaps as much as I should have; I could have climbed up Longevity Hill and got even better views, but by this stage even the shade was too warm and I couldn't physically eat an ice lolly fast enough to stop it melting.

As such, I decided to call it a day and headed home after a fairly short look round the Palace. The subway again proved to be refreshingly cool; this time I used line 10 from Sanyuanqiao to Haidianhuangzhuang, and thence line 4 to Xiyuan, from which it's just a ten-minute walk to the palace. 

That ten-minute walk, however, was quite eye-opening: unlike the centre of Beijing the streets were cracked and the people were obviously poor. What you can't prepare for, however, is the smell. I can't really describe it, but the Chinese people and streets just smell very different. I imagine that a Chinese visitor to the West would think us just as smelly; that doesn't make it any less unsettling.

Dinner was another baptism of fire in a proper Chinese restaurant, this time with a bunch of teachers that Martyn had gathered to say goodbye to a student teacher who departs this Friday. The ten of us ate for, in total, Y260 - about £30 - sharing a variety of lamb skewers, pork and beans, sizzling beef, crispy noodles and chicken with peanuts. Fantastic food at fantastic value, especially considering that price includes the beers.

The evening was cut short by an incredible thunderstorm at around 9pm. As we'd been eating outside, we headed home to escape the worst of it, but by the time we'd walked home the rain was coming down quite heavily. We were treated to an incredible son et lumière looking out from the balcony at forks of lightning hitting buildings all round, and sheets of lightning lit up the sky like nothing I'd ever seen. Sunday's thunderstorm had served up much more rain, but on this occasion the lightning outdid itself and had to be seen to be believed.

Knowing that Wednesday would be just as hot, as well as being a public holiday in China (the Dragon Boat Festival), I planned for a quiet day, so I didn't rush to bed and spent the evening chatting and reminiscing.