Impressive Entrance to the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity 仁寿殿
It is important to note that the entrance ticket to the Summer Palace come in certain packages, you can have a plain jane entrance fee which gets you inside the grounds, while the through ticket gives you access to more places. Naturally, I didn’t go all the way here to get the ordinary ticket. This is after all a world heritage site. The day was drizzling and it didn’t seem to be a good day to take photos, but I don’t have all the time in the world to wait for a better day to come here. Come to think of it, I always thought that it does not rain in Beijing anymore what with all the news about water shortage here but it seems that I was mistaken.
Interestingly Shaped Rock at the Entrance
The rainy day didn’t stop hordes of tourists from descending into the Summer Palace, I was quickly reminded of this when there were busloads of Chinese tourists at the entrance with their flags and their megaphones. When visiting China, this is something you’ll have to live with. Upon entry into the Summer Palace grounds the challenge starts, how do you avoid tourists in your photos, answer is, you don’t. It is simply impossible.
People Seem to Like it Here
The first point of interest in the Summer Palace is the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity 仁寿殿. You’ll have to be quite familiar with Chinese history (which I’m not) to be able to appreciate these structures. Most of these information are given by the tour guides but a lot of these information might be beyond most of us. This hall was used by the Empress Cixi 慈禧 when she came here for vacations. This is the place where she would be receiving guests and accepting gifts from foreign dignitaries. This also served as her place of work. Work was started on the hall in 1750 and was reconstructed several times until the present. It is a fine example of Chinese style architecture.
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