{"id":1301,"date":"2010-12-06T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T00:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/?p=1301"},"modified":"2010-12-06T08:00:50","modified_gmt":"2010-12-06T00:00:50","slug":"the-summer-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/?p=1301","title":{"rendered":"The Summer Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>The Summer Palace
\nLast time I visited the Summer Palace I entered from the south via water. This time I entered from the north gate which is more elevated and hilly than the lakeside entrance.<\/p>\n

I walked down the hill until I reached the Tower of Buddhist Incense, an impressive building overlooking the lake and rebuilt around 130 years ago after being destroyed by foreign soldiers. It is a major religious site within the garden. It contains a Ming Dyansty thousand arm Buddha cast in bronze and gilded.<\/p>\n

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The Tower of Buddhist Incense from above.<\/p>\n

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A pagoda above it.<\/p>\n

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One of the distant pagodas and the mythical creatures atop a temple.<\/p>\n

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Beijing skyline and part of the garden.<\/p>\n

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The temple complex beside the Tower of Buddhist Incense which was not open to the public.<\/p>\n

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Industry amidst the hills to the west of Beijing.<\/p>\n

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Bronze Pavillion built in the 1700s and located high \u00a0on the hill.<\/p>\n

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One of the buildings lower down the hill.<\/p>\n

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Painting near the rafters<\/p>\n

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Rich decoration on walls and ceiling of a corridor.<\/p>\n

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Some of the bronze statues were covered in mesh.<\/p>\n

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Purple Heaven Hall<\/p>\n

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The only garden in the palace\u00a0resembling a western domestic garden.<\/p>\n

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Male lion statue outside a gate guarding the building.<\/p>\n

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The lakeside level was full of\u00a0 tourists and tour groups.\u00a0 Hordes of them.\u00a0 The\u00a0palace must have been on the afternoon itinerary.\u00a0 It was hard to take a photo without them being in the way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is where Cixi the Dowager Empress lived.<\/p>\n

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This is where Dowager Empress Cixi put the emperor under house arrest in 1889.\u00a0 A brick wall is visible through the doorway.<\/p>\n

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The theatre built forDowager Empress Cixi’s enjoyment.\u00a0 Some of the emperor’s vehicles are found inside including a very old car. <\/a>The buildings around it are part of the theatre complex.<\/p>\n

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Bronze dragon outside the hall where Emperor Guangxu and Dowager Empress Cixi attended to government business.<\/p>\n

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Locking up for the day.\u00a0 Some staff was in period garb including hand muffs.<\/p>\n

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One of the small palace buildings was used to display items from the time that telephone was introduced to the palace.\u00a0 This photo was one of the exhibits.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Dried lotus seed pods on the lake.<\/p>\n

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A dragon pot on a snack and drink stall.<\/p>\n

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Sunset on Kunming Lake<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Summer Palace Last time I visited the Summer Palace I entered from the south via water. This time I entered from the north gate which is more elevated and hilly than the lakeside entrance. I walked down the hill until I reached the Tower of Buddhist Incense, an impressive building overlooking the lake and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[57,93],"tags":[14,33,100,9,20,36,38],"class_list":["post-1301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beijing","category-china","tag-architecture","tag-art-and-craft","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-food","tag-religion","tag-temple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1301"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1333,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301\/revisions\/1333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}