Walking on Water

The setting sun at the Summer Palace, Beijing. Winter is a wonderful time to visit places such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, etc. There are hardly ever any crowds, lines are very short or non-existent, and I'd much rather be bundled up in cold weather than sweating in hot Beijing summers. You can't tell it in this photograph but there are many people walking across the lake (which was frozen solid) in the far background. I observed one lone ice-skater. The one negative about visiting Beijing this winter or next winter is that many "cultural relics" or "beauties," as the Chinese call them, are being refurbished, renovated, painted, spruced up, etc., for the massive influx of tourists during the 2008 Olympic games. We were not able to visit parts of the Summer Palace and also the Temple of Heaven due to scaffolding surrounding the temple. Still, the sights were amazing. I do wish, however, to sometime in my life go to China in the Spring. In many places I imagined how much more beautiful it would be when all the trees and flowers are blooming.