Wanting to see a different area compaired to our first visit, we checked into our hostel to the north of the center near the very impressive Lama buddist temple. Not wanting to push things too much and making the same mistake as before we restricted our sightseeing on this first day to this temple which refreshingly turned out to be by far and away the most impressive we have seen to date (and we have been around a fair few already). Not only were the actual buildings, statues and other "exhibits"
impressive but there was also a large number of chinese burning incence and praying at every budda which I found very interesting considering the governments not so distant heavy handed approach towards all things of a religious nature. Then again I may just have been taken in by all of the western propaganda about China's past! The following day we were up early to catch the metro and bus to the Summer Palace. The haze was significant meaning that it was impossible to see even to the other side of the g
rounds, let alone of the city from the various viewpoints. Around 80% of the palace is occupied by a lake which did have the effect of lowering the temperature by as couple of degrees. We were finding the heat more bearable than before but still pretty opressive at the peak of the day. We had a good wonder around at it was not difficult to see why this was a retreat from the heat of summer for the emporers. Much of the modern site was reconstructed after being destroyed in the late 1800's and it is the extreme amount spent here by
the then empress that some people blame for allowing Japan to make inroads into the country a few years later. We jumped into a cab to take us to the metro having thought it would be a good idea to walk the entire perimeter. Having to think a few days ahead, we booked our train ticket to Xi'an with the intention of taking the so-called hard sleeper class. Unfortunately, being the countries summer holiday, the only tickets were for hard seats but we had no choice so the booking for the 14 hour journey
was made with some trepidation as we had heard this class (the cheapest) was possibly going to be a bit of an endurance event. In the evening we went to the Olympic area to see the Birds Nest stadium and Water Cube. We were lucky to arrive 15 minutes before the lights illuminating the stadium were turned off at 9:30 and had a pleasant stroll in a good atmospere with lots of kite sellers flying strings of around 40+ small kites.
Wanting to see a different area compaired to our first visit, we checked into our hostel to the north of the center near the very impressive Lama buddist temple. Not wanting to push things too much and making the same mistake as before we restricted our sightseeing on this first day to this temple which refreshingly turned out to be by far and away the most impressive we have seen to date (and we have been around a fair few already). Not only were the actual buildings, statues and other "exhibits" 
impressive but there was also a large number of chinese burning incence and praying at every budda which I found very interesting considering the governments not so distant heavy handed approach towards all things of a religious nature. Then again I may just have been taken in by all of the western propaganda about China's past! The following day we were up early to catch the metro and bus to the Summer Palace. The haze was significant meaning that it was impossible to see even to the other side of the g
rounds, let alone of the city from the various viewpoints. Around 80% of the palace is occupied by a lake which did have the effect of lowering the temperature by as couple of degrees. We were finding the heat more bearable than before but still pretty opressive at the peak of the day. We had a good wonder around at it was not difficult to see why this was a retreat from the heat of summer for the emporers. Much of the modern site was reconstructed after being destroyed in the late 1800's and it is the extreme amount spent here by 
the then empress that some people blame for allowing Japan to make inroads into the country a few years later. We jumped into a cab to take us to the metro having thought it would be a good idea to walk the entire perimeter. Having to think a few days ahead, we booked our train ticket to Xi'an with the intention of taking the so-called hard sleeper class. Unfortunately, being the countries summer holiday, the only tickets were for hard seats but we had no choice so the booking for the 14 hour journey 
was made with some trepidation as we had heard this class (the cheapest) was possibly going to be a bit of an endurance event. In the evening we went to the Olympic area to see the Birds Nest stadium and Water Cube. We were lucky to arrive 15 minutes before the lights illuminating the stadium were turned off at 9:30 and had a pleasant stroll in a good atmospere with lots of kite sellers flying strings of around 40+ small kites.
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