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Monday, 27th September
1999
The Summer Palace + Pandas!
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It was a 7:00
call today, so that we could leave
at 8:00 for the Summer Palace: a huge
complex of buildings built around
a huge, man made, lake.
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Another load of
superlatives: the biggest carved rock, the biggest
corridor, largest man made lake and so on. Francis
told us stories of the Dowager Empress - what an
evil woman. Unfortunately, my camera battery decided
to die, but with the aid of Sue's Swiss Army knife
to unscrew the battery, we got a replacement in
a shop in the Palace. |
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We got as far as
the Marble Boat. Liz told us that this had been
hidden under scaffolding for a year, but it was
finally revealed today in time for the 50th anniversary
celebrations. |
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We saw some little
kiddies practicing for the celebrations. Sweet! |
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Today's factory visit
was to a cloisonné factory. It was
more interesting than we feared, and we
actually saw them make something. We saw
the girls wind the fine copper wire into
patterns on the copper vases, other girls
filling in the colour, and then the vases
being fired until they were cherry red.
Finally, the finished article was polished.
We bought one for David's Mum. |
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Back to the coach
for the Zoo. We had lunch at the zoo (scope for
tasteless jokes about eating endangered species)
before going to see the pandas. Very cute and cuddly
- and very idle. The lay there, inert, sometimes
scratching, sometimes yawning, most mostly just
lying there. Just before we left, the two cubs woke
up and decided to gambol about. Very, very cute. |
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Back to the hotel
for a "free afternoon" It was now 3:00
pm and we did what most others did - had a nap.
I think Chris and Sue went back to the Forbidden
City, but we were exhausted. We also had to pack
for tomorrow's departure.
The last meal was our Peking Duck
banquet. We went by coach to the original Peking
Duck restaurant and had the best meal we'd had on
this trip. We had a small glass of sweet red wine
- nice as an appetiser or a digestive. We had a
room to ourselves and it all went very well, with
the best of company (Ros, Adrian, Dorothy, Michael,
June and John). Michael read his very witty poem
about the holiday so far and (Scottish) John made
a very good speech thanking Liz for all of her help
and sense of professionalism. He then presented
Lizzie with an envelope from us all, containing
a card which I'd made using a paper cut and some
money collected from all of us (well, probably all
of us...) And , surprise, surprise, no water melon
but ice cream and Chinese apple - delicious! |
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