The Eastern Discovery Tour
Day 8

On Day 8 I headed over to the Summer Palace. To do this I got the metro to Beigongmen (line 4) which takes you to the North Gate, and some nice scenic areas. You can also get off the metro 1 stop further East, from where you can walk West to the East gate, which is near some of the main tourist facilities and musuems.

After that I headed back to the zoo for a few hours in the afternoon (the photos of which are in the main zoo report on day 3) and then headed over to the Chaoyang theatre for an acrobatics show.

If you come in via the North gate you cross over Suzhou shopping street, with various shops and cafes in this beautiful river location.

After crossing Suzhou street you come to the base of Longevity Hill. The hill with most of the main buildings.

This is one of the more famous areas of the Summer Palace on the other side of the park called the Long Corridor.

The largest feature of the whole Summer Palace complex is a collection of lakes. The largest of which is Kunming Lake.

This is a view of Longevity Hill taken while walking around Kunming Lake. The walk around the lake areas is a pleasant one, although there aren't any must see things around it. If time or stamina won't allow you can skip most of the lakes and stick to Longevity Hill, and the area on the North-East quarter of Kunming Lake.

The North-East corner contains some of the main sights and temples. as well as the main visitor facilities. It's also home to a very nice museum.

I'm not sure why, but I enjoyed the museums here more than the ones at the Forbidden City.

I think the most prominent building of the Summer Palace Complex was the impressive Temple Of Incense.

It's located near the top of Longevity Hill, which means a long climb if you start down on the shore of Kunming Lake. It's worth the climb though.

Overall the Summer Palace was one of my favourite tourist spots in Beijing. If I knew someone who was visiting Beijing I would say this was the number one tourist spot they should visit, ahead of even the Forbidden City.

If your missing Western cuisine, outside the North gate is this place serving traditional American fare.

In the evening I got the Metro to Hujialou (line 10) and used exit C1. I then went to the Chaoyang theatre on the South-East corner of the crossroad there.
I was a little disappointed with this show. For a start the tickets were on the expensive side, especially for Beijing. Despite this the show was only 75 minutes, minus a 10 minute interval.
Another reason I was personally disappointed was I saw the Chinese State Circus in the UK earlier this year, which has it's own acrobatic troupe. Given the amount of hype around this place I was expecting a big step up from that. This place though had fewer acts, and wasn't that big a step up skill wise. This one though was still impressive, and is well worth catching, especially if you've never seen a show like this before. I wouldn't prioritise it ahead of the Red Theatre if I had to chose between the two though.