Water Lilies at the Summer Palace, originally uploaded by kdt.

The Summer Palace site is enormous and is best to use the many ferries to get around. We thought we’d be clever and take the boat from the Zoo to the Summer Palace. Not so sure it was a clever idea long waits and a boat change made it a slow way to get there and when we got there we had no idea where our boat had landed us and no signs in English. If there is a motto that has served us well, at least at major tourist sites, it is GO WITH THE CROWD. We did this time and we landed at small pier at which a small boat took about 20 or so passengers across to the South Island from there we followed the crowd over the 17 arches bridge and then we followed the crowd to the long corridor…. but then the crowd stopped. It stopped because the thunderstorm had started…. we need to keep moving so we could catch our overnight train so we did with our tiny umbrella’s up. It is amazing how upwardly flexible taxi prices are when the rain is falling!