At the Summer Palace there were a lot of rules to follow. Luckily without even trying we were pretty sure we did not brake any of them.

There are beautiful paintings of scenes from all over China painted along the "Long Corridor" that makes its way through the gardens along side the man made lake Kunming. This palace was used by Chinese royalty during the summer months when the Forbidden Palace and it's 9000 rooms were just too hot. The last Chinese Dynasty was the Qing, they ruled from 1644 to 1911. After seeing the opulence of the palaces it is easy to understand why they lost power.

This was one of the largest rock sculptures we saw. I love rock sculptures.

This building was built by one of the last rules in China, actually she was the mother of the last ruler, but she was the one who wielded all of the power. Her name was Empress Dowager Cixi and she oversaw the construction of this building to be used for her birthday parties.