Chinese Magic and the Summer Palace

On Thursday Lori and I decided that we were going to the Summer Palace. However; one task had to be completed first, I needed some painkillers for my arm.

After our little game of hacky sack on Monday night, I managed to strain a groin muscle and, much worse, damage a tendon in my left shoulder. My shoulder was bad on Tuesday and got worse as the day progressed. On Wednesday, my arm was almost non functional. I had to lift my left arm with my right hand to put it on the dinner table or to do anything that required me to use my left arm.

We made our now usual week day trek to Starbucks at Nanlishilu for our morning coffee. On our way to coffee we remembered that there was a pharmacy in a street of stores near the Nanlishilu subway stop.

Once our liquid gold had been consumed and our cigarettes extinguished, we made the trek across the busy street (crossing the street in Beijing is an extreme sport) and went on to the Pharmacy.

As we entered the shop with its glass cases displaying all types of over the counter medicines, I pulled out my handy dandy Mandarin phrase book, given to me by Eddie gave me before I left for China, and pointed to the Chinese characters for 'I need some painkillers'. After reading the phrase I was pointing to, the lady pointed to her head indicating a headache, of which I did have as well from the pain of my shoulder. I responded with the affirmative but also pointed to my shoulder.

The lady in the Pharmacy proceeded to pull out a box of Ibuprofin with a picture of a man on it and various parts of the body highlighted by red and yellow dots indicating the pain relief points. After becoming terribly excited at the prospect of some pain relief, she then started pointing at her shoulder as a request for me to indicate where my pain was. She also wanted to see my range of motion. I was happy to show her that, although I could bend my arm at the elbow, I could not raise my arm to any degree, perhaps a 5% range of motion remained.

With my right hand, I indicated the spot on the front of my shoulder where I could feel the greatest amount of pain. She then began poking at my shoulder to discover the exact source of the pain. With a grimace of pain from me, she was satisfied. Then, unaware of the connection, she requested, through body language, that I try to put my arm behind my back. I was successful in reaching the small of my back, but that was the extent. She sat me down, grabbed my left arm and put it up behind my back until I was doubled over in pain. With a giant smile on her face, she rushed over to a display case, retrieved a box and pulled out two discs that looked to have a heap of Tiger balm on them. As I revealed my shoulder, she poked at me again to obtain the correct spot on the front and had no difficulty locating the spot on my back, right on the shoulder blade.

Once the discs were applied, she gave me two perscription like receipts and sent me off to pay. With payment settled, I returned to this goddess of pain relief and presented my two stamped receipts. With a smile she placed the Ibuprofin and the remaining discs in my hand and sent me off on my way.

Lori and I walked about 100 meters and stopped for a cigarette in the shade before heading back onto the subway. As I was smoking, I realized I was smoking with my left hand and bringing my cigarette to my mouth using my left hand. By the end of the day, I could grab the overhead bar on the subway. Thursday morning I was able to wash my hair without bending over to bring my head down to hand height.

Chinese magic is wonderful and I will never forget that wonderful woman and what she did for me.

On to the Summer Palace........

After a dismal attempt to find Bus 808 to take us to the Summer Palace earlier in the week, Lori and I decided to return to the area we were staying in and take a taxi from there. The Summer Palace is in the North West of the city and we are staying in the West. We hopped into the taxi, showed the driver where we wanted to go and in no time, we were at the gates of the palace. I would estimate the gates at being 24 kilometers away, the taxi starts at 10 yuan and charges an additional 1 yuan for ever 3 km travelled.

Queueing up to purchase the all inclusive tickets (entrance to all buildings) we noticed a fellow Canadian in front of us (it seems as though only Canadians stayed behind after the Olympics were over).

With tickets and souvenier maps in hand, off we went through the gates to Summer Palace.



Once inside, the grandeur of the Palace was immediately evident. There was an expansive lake (Kunming Lake) that was completely man made and had been enlarged and deepened during the Empress Dowager Cixi after the Palace had been raped and pillaged by the Anglo French Allied Forces, twice, once after the Second Opium War and the second time after the Boxer Rebellion.

Cixi used 100,000 workers to enlarge the lake with the removed soil being used to construct hills on the site.

The first marvel we came across was the 17 arch bridge, so named because there are 17 arches on the bridge that link the mainland to the island, South Lake Island (Nanhu Dao).



Once across the bridge and after a wander through the temples and halls, we came by a rather busy area with boats coming and going, dropping off and picking up tourists. We took a boat over to where the Marble Boat and the Tower of Buddhist Incense were.

The first object you see is the Marble Boat that the Empress Dowager had constructed. The Boat is said to represent the solid and unsinkable strength of the Qing Dynasty.



Walking past some more Temples and Halls, there are too many to see in one day, we happened upon a Hall that was used by Cixi to accept Birthday gifts, the majority of which were very unusual and interesting, others were just very beautiful.




On to the Tower of Buddhist Incense. What an amazing place, there were 5 sets of 59 stairs to climb once you were through Cixi's dressing room she used when going up to the Hall. Each landing provided a very unique view of the Palace grounds and the surrounding city.






the Summer Palace was a very spectacular sight that provided a glimpse into the beauty of the surroundings Cixi made sure that she had. She used money set aside for a modern navy to redo the Palace.

With the park closed and twilight coming on, it was time to head back into the city for some dinner. As we left the park, a taxi driver asked us if we needed a taxi, he would only charge us 50 yuan to take us to the nearest subway, we then asked to go to the subway stop close to where we were staying, he wanted to charge us 80 yuan. I laughted at him and said it only cost us 19 yuan to go to the Palace, why would I pay 4 times more to get back. After laughing this off, we headed for the busses. Discovering the buses, we soon found bus 690 that would drop us off at Quinan subway station across from Tian' anmen Square.

Standing on the bus, someone got on at another stop and asked if the bus went to Xidan, the collector said yes and we changed our plans and got off at Xidan.

After an hour and a half bus ride, standing, we decided to have a seat before venturing in to the malls. As we were sitting there, bus 808 came by, and then a second one came by. Oh well, we were not meant to take this bus we were only meant to see it.