After the Forbidden City we went to the Summer Palace. It was pretty smoggy today and actually pretty cold but bearable. In fact it was great for lighting purposes except for some landscape shots I wanted to get. ANYWAY, the Summer palace was where the emperor would stay …. wait for it... in the summer! It wasn't even that far away from the Forbidden City but it was over a lake and quite nice actually. I think it would have been way pretty if It was in the summer all green etc. but even still it was pretty. Im sure I already said that but o well. It was pretty ;) there wasn't really much to say about the Palace that wasn't different than the Forbidden City, don't let the evil spirits in, make sure enemies don’t come in and don't break the rules or you will get your head taken away.
After the summer Palace we went to get lunch but we were next to a bank so Sam and I needed to exchange our U.S. Money and others needed to use the ATM. Well at the Airport in korea all we did is hand them money and we got it right back in 2 seconds flat no problem. But at the bank holy crap it took ages!! sam and I felt so bad! Sonya, (our native coordinators friend who came on the trip with us to be sort of a chaperone) she doesn't speak much english but enough that she can still help and she did at the bank thank goodness! We had to sign this, copy that, turn around and bark like a dog before we could get our money back, or at least it felt like it! But it seriously took so long that by the time that we got to lunch, the group who didnt wait was already done eating! But good ol Carl came to the rescue and he made sure that we got Warm food and enough to eat (he send back the rice to get it warmer just to make sure it was good for us,) which was nice cuz that meal was actually pretty yummy! :) after wards, we went to the silk factory and saw how silk things were made! They had the silk worms in the cocoon and everything. Pretty legit. I wanted to get Morgan a cool silk tie, but they were all ugly. Bummer dude.
After the Silk factory we went to the Pearl Factory. That was pretty cool. Remember the lake I talked about at the summer Palace? Well in the lake is where they get the pearls! They also do this thing to them so that they make more pearls like 6 or 7 pearls at one time! Wahoo!
We went to dinner after the Perl factory and I need to explain this, If you remember ..Carl got up the first night and told us because we got the tour so cheap, our food budget was next to nothing, he said the place that we were scheduled to eat was not a good place to eat. He said he wouldn't even eat there. So we all pitched in $6 and got a good dinner last night. But tonight some of the people wanted to “be adventurous” and eat there. If you ask me, there is a fine line between stupid and adventurous. I mean yes, eat authentic food. But don't put yourself in a situation where you are gambling with food poisoning . But thats just me. However, we had to stay with the group so at the place I only ate the rice, cooked veggies and drank out of my own water bottle. It was alright. To be honest it wasnt all that bad because not many people liked the sprouts so I could eat rice and sprouts. Man, its a good thing I love rice.
On the way home, we passed the Water Cube and the Birds Nest! Used in the Beijing olympics! That my friends is where Phelps won all his medals. Not going to lie they looked really cool at night. I was very impressed and quite jealous because we returned back to our negative 3 star hotel afterwards. Pretty sure the health department would have a heart attack if they came in and saw what im living in! Just saying....
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