First we visited a school, really more like a day care center. It kept the neighborhood children all day so the parents were free to work. The kids were darling and very well behaved. They marched, danced, recited and sang for us. Next we went to a widow's home. She told us (through a translator) about her life and her family. We asked her additional questions that she readily answered. Her home was small but comfortable, and she seemed quite happy with her life.

Hutong school

Jane in yard of hutong

Cycle truck passing through hutong

By this time we'd had ample opportunity to observe Beijing chaotic driving patterns. There was one in particular that fascinated me. We've been all over the world and have never seen anything like it. I call it "echelon turning." When one car was waiting to make a left turn, the next car wanting to make the turn would not stay behind the first car so as to follow in its path. Instead it would cut just inside the first car. The third car would do the same to the second car, and so on. When the first car finally started to move across the oncoming lanes, the second car turned inside the first and parallel to it. When there were a dozen or more cars waiting to turn left, this was quite a sight because some of them were starting their left turn in the middle of the block. Then they just drove on the wrong side of the street until they reached their corner.

When we left the hutong, the bus took us to the Summer Palace. This was probably the most delightful place we visited in China, and we had lovely weather to help us enjoy it. Although there was an earlier summer palace on this site (burned by British and French forces in 1860), the present complex was built by Empress Dowager Ci Xi in 1885-1895. It is more of a park than a palace. Building it was a tremendous undertaking that involved excavating hundreds of acres to create an artificial lake, then using the excavated material to build a high hill on the north side of the lake. It is said that the Empress used funds that had been set aside to modernize the Imperial Navy and, in a gesture of contempt for her critics, she had a huge marble boat built on the lake. (Probably not by coincidence, in 1895 China was defeated in a war with Japan after a disastrous naval defeat.)

Our tour group was given 90 minutes on our own to explore the grounds on the north side of the lake.  There were many Chinese families enjoying the beautiful day.  We came across one family with a little girl wearing a period dress.  She looked like a little princess.

"Little Princess"

Gate at Summer Palace

Darrell by the lake

We walked the entire north shore of the lake, mostly in an ornately decorated, half-mile long covered walkway. 

Summer Palace buildings

Pagoda on the hill

Covered walkway

We ended up at the Marble Boat where our tour group reassembled. We had lunch at a lovely restaurant on the grounds before taking one of the "dragon boats" to the south side of the lake. 

The Marble Boat

Jade Belt Bridge

Dragon boat

Our bus was waiting there and took us directly to the West Beijing train station. There we caught the 5:10 p.m. overnight train for Xian. All of us were expecting the train trip to be awful. As it turned out, though, it wasn't bad. Each couple had a separate compartment. There was a toilet at each end of the car, as well as a sink room at one end. We each had a box lunch and bottled water for supper. We went to bed (in our clothes) about 9:30 and slept fairly well.