Summer Palace

We went to the Summer Palace on Saturday. Phew! Crowded!

But we love the hike up and down the hill through narrow passageways. Rocky steps lined with christmas trees. I guess I mean pine trees.

Occasionally we spotted beautiful plump birds the size of a chicken (but not chicken). They sing. They went down the path to take a sip of water or peck at the ground. The back is blue but the wings are black. We love spying them.

The stairs leading to the temple on top of the hill is magnificent. You can see it on the photo above. It zigzagged up and up and up. We felt like Po in Kungfu Panda (coming up soon to a theater near you!) when he had to climb the stairs up the mountain.

But the view from above is very rewarding. We could see the Beijing skyline.

For lunch, we sat under a shade of trees on top of the hill. It was very quiet there. We could peek at the lakeview in between the trees. The plump blue bird came back for a visit. But she did not eat bread or anything we entice her with. In fact she declined to stay. (Hence, no photographs of her.) That's nice, I thought. They are independent. Not used to begging people for food like city birds in other places.