Ni hao!New blog from my visit to Beijing in China. Long and very hot day beginning with the Beijing Zoo and ending with the Summer Palace. We made a stop for rest and eating near the 17-Arches Bridge. This area is really very large! The Summer Palace or Yiheyuan 颐和园 (literally "Garden of Nurtured Harmony") is a palace in Beijing, China. The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill (60 meters high) and the Kunming Lake. It covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water. The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometers was entirely man made and the escavated soil was used to build
Longevity Hill. In its compact 70,000 square metres of building space, one finds a variety of palaces, gardens, and other classical-style architectural structures. The Summer Palace started out life as the Garden of Clear Ripples 清漪园 in 1750 (Reign Year 15 of Emperor Qianlong). Artisans reproduced the garden architecture styles of various palaces in China. Kunming Lake was created by extending an existing body of water to imitate the West Lake in Hangzhou. The palace complex suffered two major attacks, during the Anglo-French allied invasion of 1860 (with the Old Summer Palace also ransacked at the same time), and during the Boxer Rebellion, in an attack by the eight allied powers in 1900. The garden survived and was rebuilt in 1886 and 1902. In 1888, it was given the current 
name, Yihe Yuan. It served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi, who diverted 30 million taels of silver, said to be originally designated for the Chinese navy (Beiyang Fleet), into the reconstruction and enlargement of the Summer Palace. 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. Kunming Lake 昆明湖 is the central lake on the grounds of the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. Together with the Longevity Hill, Kunming Lake forms the key landscape features of the 
Summer Palace gardens. With an area of 2.2 square kilometers, Kunming Lake covers approximately three quarters of the Summer Palace grounds. It is fairly shallow with an average depth of only 1.5 meter. Since the lake develops a solid ice cover in winter, it is used for ice skating. History: Kunming Lake is a man-made lake. Its predecessors were called Wengshan (Jar Hill) Pond and Xihu Lake. They were reservoirs which had been used as sources of water both for the city and irrigation of fields over a period of 3,500 years. Guo Shoujing, a famous astronomer and engineer in his time, developed it into a reservoir for the capital of the Yuan Dynasty in 1291. The conversion of the area into an imperial garden was commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor with the work 
being carried out between 1750 and 1764 . In the course of creating the gardens, the lake area was extended by a workforce of almost 10,000 laborers. In the year 1990 and 1991, the Beijing Municipal Government undertook the first dredging of the lake in 240 years. A total of 652,600 cubic meters of sludge were removed in the work. 205 Japanese bombs dropped during the Sino-Japanese War were also found. Garden Design: With its three large islands, Kunming Lake represents the traditional Chinese garden element of the "fairy hill within the sea". The three islands are named Nanhu (South Lake), Tuancheng, and Zaojian Island and are modelled after the three famous fairy tale islands Yingzhou (瀛洲), Penglai (蓬莱), and Fangzhang (方丈), where Immortals 
were said to live. Many features of Kunming Lake are inspired by natural scenery form the region south of the Yangtze River. In particular, the West Dike is a recreation of the famous Su Di Dike on the West Lake in Hangzhou. It cuts diagonally through the southern part of the lake. Like the Su Di Dike, the West Dike is connected through six bridges, each with its own distinctive style: Jiehu, Binfeng, Yudai, Jing, Lian, and Liu Bridge. The largest bridge on Kunming Lake is the 17-Arch Bridge, it connects the eastern shore with Nanhu Island, which represents the mythical Penglai Island. Close to the bridge on the eastern shore stands a bronze ox sculpture. According the Chinese legend, Yu the Great used an iron ox to prevent flooding. Since the bronze ox is located on the 
eastern dike of Kunming Lake in the direction of the Forbidden City, it was probably erected in order to protect the Forbidden City from the Lake's floods. Longevity Hill 万寿山 is a 60-meter-high hill in the gardens of the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. Together with Kunming Lake, it shapes the basic layout of the imperial garden's landscape. History: When the Jin Dynasty emperor Wanyan Liang moved his capital to the Beijing area, he had a Gold Mountain Palace built on the site of present-day Longevity Hill. In the Yuan Dynasty, the hill was renamed from Gold Mountain to Jug Hill (Weng Shan). This name change is explained by a legend according to which a jar with a treasure inside was once found on the hill. The loss of the jar is said to have coincided with the fall 
of the Ming Dynasty as had been predicted by its finder. The Qianlong Emperor, who commissioned work on the imperial gardens to which it belongs in 1749, gave Longevity Hill its present-day name in celebration of his mother's 60th birthday. Buildings: On its southern slope, Longevity Hill is adorned with an ensemble of grand buildings: The Cloud-Dispelling Hall, the Temple of Buddhist Virtue, and the Sea of Wisdom Temple form a south-north (lakeside - peak) oriented axis which is flanked by various other buildings. In the center of the Temple of Buddhist Virtue stands the Tower of Buddhist Incense (Fo Xiang Ge), which forms the focal point for the buildings on the southern slope of Longevity Hill. The tower is built on a 20-meter-tall stone base, 
is 41 meters high with three storeys and supported by eight ironwood (lignumvitae) pillars. Entering from the northern gate, the visitor first comes across Suzhou Street, designed to replicate the scenery of south-eastern China. At the top of Longevity Hill stands Duobao Glazed Pagoda. From the top of the hill one can see Kunming Lake to the south and southwest. The Marble Boat is at the southwest foot of the hill, and the Long Corridor runs east to west along its southern edge. Most of the other notable buildings (17-Arch Bridge, which has over 500 engraved lions, 十七孔桥) run along the eastern edge of the lake, directly south of the eastern end of the Long Corridor. Other features of the Summer Palace include the Cloud-Dispelling Hall, the Tower of 
Buddhist Incense and Jade Belt Bridge, and the Garden of Harmonious Interests. Location: The Summer Palace is easily accessible from most parts of Beijing. Head north at Suzhou Bridge on the north-western 3rd Ring Road, north at Sihai Bridge on the north-western 4th Ring Road, or south at the northern 5th Ring Road at the Zhongguancun/Beiqing Road exit. Public transportation also reaches the Summer Place. The journey home went first by bus and then by taxi. Well at home we had dinner late at night, and after that I went out to the local 19 Club for some bears! Summer!Zai jian!
Peter
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