China Adventure Day 3

Today some of our activities reminded us of the Kung Fu Panda, an epic movie! First we visited the Imperial Palace. Shenyang is the birthplace of the Qing Dynasty. The Palace was the home of the Chinese Emperor in the early 1600s. Later a Palace was built in Beijing and these are the only two ancient Chinese Palaces still standing. The carvings and paintings in the Imperial Palace are beautiful and remarkably well kept for being 400 years old.

As we wandered the 60,000 square meter grounds, we were once again the only white people to be visiting the Palace today. The boys were more aware of people looking at us and smiling or whispering. And we were all surprised when one Chinese family wanted their picture taken with us. Tricia says this is a common request for visitors.



 

For lunch we went to a restaurant that served dumplings! Dumplings are a favourite food of the Kung Fu Panda. We like them too! Dumplings, called Jaozi, come in many flavours and styles. We had steamed, fried, and boiled filled with pork and cabbage, shrimp and spinach, radish and chicken.

We all agreed that the boiled ones, being somewhat slimey, are the hardest to pick up with chop sticks. And we can only get one in our mouth at a time (not 40 like the Kung Fu Panda).

We ended the day with some souvenir shopping.  Fancy chop sticks, Russian dolls (because we are relatively close to the Russian border), Russian chocolates. Simon bought a rice pickers' hat -- another favourite of the Kung Fu Panda!