Kirk's Trip to Beijing, Summer Palace & Great Wall

Kirk and a good work friend, Sean McGuire from Dura were in Beijing over a weekend for an Automotive Conference and to visit the Beijing Autoshow. On Saturday they were able to get away to visit the Summer Palace and a section of the Great Wall.

The Summer Palace was constructed during the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234). It was set up as a luxurious royal garden providing royal families with rest and entertainment. It was originally called 'Qingyi Garden' (Garden of Clear Ripples). Like most of the gardens of Beijing, it was taken by Anglo-French allied forces and was destroyed by fire. In 1888, Empress Dowager Cixi embezzled navy funds to reconstruct it for her own benefit, changing its name to Summer Palace (Yiheyuan). She spent most of her later years there, dealing with state affairs and entertaining. In 1900, it suffered again, being ransacked by the Eight-Power Allied Force. After the success of the 1911 Revolution, it was opened to the public. These days it is a popular park for people to visit to get away from the congested city as you can see from the photos and video.

Sean and Kirk then visited the Juyongguan Pass section of the Great Wall. This area was a miltary stronghold going back to 770BC. This area was connected to the Great Wall as early as 389. During the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (1368) the first emperor Zhu Yuanzhang instructed that the wall in this area be rebuilt for protection from the Mogolian Tribes. The structure of the wall is much the same as it is today though it has been restored several times, most recently in 1992 and 2000. This section of the wall does not have a cable car to take you up to the top so Sean and Kirk had to climb all of the way up. They both soon realized they were out of shape.