Today we do our last big tourist trip in Beijing, we go to the Summer Palace. Now easily reachable by subway line 4 we arrive there and take the 15min walk from the subway station to the entrance. In order to start the day out right we decide to rent a electrical boat and enjoy some silence on the lake. That was really a great idea and we really enjoyed a bit of silence on the lake. Charlotte showed that she has definitely Dutch blood and took command, immediately saying we should visit Aunt Ineke soon and take Marietje – the boat – out for a tour when we’re back in Europe :o)

After the boat trip we walked a bit through the palace area and there were two artist performing Water Calligraphy. As soon as Manu talked to one of them she was invited to also write something, quite an experience and a lot of Chinese stopped to watch this strange foreign lady to an old Chinese art.

Afterwards we found a quiet spot for “Lunch” with apple and cookies, but when we watched the masses of people in the famous long ally we decided to leave the palace and head back to the city. As our little girl already lost the bag we bought here on the silk market and did not like any of the ones we saw in normal shops we headed back there and wanted to buy the same one again (Totorro)… of course exactly that one was sold out, so then we had to switch to a new happy comic animal for Charlotte and resulted with Stich, some kind of Disney monster we did not know but Charlotte somehow did and liked. Ok, that was settled.

As it was already late and we really had enough of crowded subways we had diner in the Silk Street food court and then headed back to the Hotel. And then we were lucky, there was a big group of ladies dancing at the square near the subway exit of our hotel, and even some Chinese children with which Charlotte could play a bit. Now that was a good ending of this day.