Rugs, the Summer Palace, and Lama Temple

Thursday, September 27, 2012
Beijing, Beijing, China
Back to more of Beijing's traffic jams. Because moving Even short distances can take over an hour, when we leave our hotel in the morning, we usually don't return until after dinner. It makes for very long days, but because of my many years of commuting by bus, I frequently fall asleep on the bus,

This morning our first stop was at Beijing No . 1 Silk Rug Factory. The name or title "No. 1" means that it is the best of its kind. I'm not sure how the ranking is determined, but it was an interesting visit. The actual factory is now located in the suburbs and the downtown location is merely for demonstrations and sales. The work was very beautiful and very expensive, but I did not add to my rug collection although I was tempted by a small rug/wall hanging would have been perfect in my bedroom.

Our scheduled visit to the Beijing Opera School was cancelled because the students are practicing for National Day, so we visited the Yonghe Temple, a Buddhist Lamasery. Built in 1670, it was the official residence for Prince Yong. When he became Emperor, half of it became a Buddhist Temple, the other half remained an Imperial residence. Later the monastery became a residence for a large number of Tibetan Buddhist monks and the National Center for Lama administration.

In the afternoon, we visited the Summer Palace. It is one of the largest royal gardens in the world. First built in 1750, burned by the British-French Allied Army in 1860 and restored in 1888, it contains numerous structures and gardens that are well preserved and restored. the man made Kun Ming Lake, occupies about 3/4 of the area of the gardens.
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Comments

diane miller
2012-10-01

Your pictures bring back some really good memories of my visit to China.

Marilyn
2012-10-01

Linda and I are back from the Amazon and starting to follow your blogs. China traffic sounds like Lima. We could only do a couple of visits in our extra day there because it took so long to get places. :(

2025-02-16

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