The onslaught of the umbrella's never ends here!!! It was around 90 degrees today with the sun!! It is surprising to note that some of the governments steps to cut pollution (albeit temporary) seem to be working. It only took shutting down 200 factories in and around the city, ban over 1.5 million cars from driving everyday, and shut down all construction sites. I finally battled through the umbrellas to get a ticket to get into the Old Summer Palace grounds.
This is home to an enormous amount of Lotus. The Lotus is very important to the Chinese. Lotus covered all the lakes/ponds on the grounds.
You can actually see the mountains to the West. This week was the first week I realized that mountains actually exist! I guess when you are constantly shrouded in smog you can't see the mountains! 
I didn't have time for a boat ride through the lotus, but this sure looks like fun!
This was a 1:150 scale model of what the whole place used to look like before it was destroyed in 1860 by the French and Brits. My buddy Moose would've spent all day in here trying to figure out where to set up his train set to service all the buildings!
These are the only remains from the destruction in 1860. All other buildings were made of wood, so they were burned down. The marble still stands, but I was shocked by the amount of climbing on all these pieces by the public. We could never imagine climbing on relics that are 250 years old in the US. We would be kept 20 feet away!!
Here is the foundation of an amazing building. Too bad we can only imagine what it had been like.
To end the day I couldn't tried this maze around the gazebo, unfortunately the burrito from the night before was calling my name, so I had to high tail it back to the Somerset!
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