Day Two Beijing – The Summer Palace, VIPKid Headquarters, The Legend of KungFu

Day two in Beijing was a little bit harder to get up in the morning. We had walked a lot the day before and jet lag was still causing us trouble sleeping through the night. Our first stop was The Summer Palace. On the way from where our bus left us to the entrance, there was a stand that had a selection of “snacks”. There were the typical Beijing candied hawthorns and strawberries, but there was a table full of scorpions, worms, snakes, sea horses, starfish, and all sorts of other oddities. A couple teachers were brave and tried the scorpions! I did try one of the hawthorns and I do recommend them (although I have a fruit allergy so I only took a taste). The Summer Palace, as the name suggests, was the summer home of the ruling family of China during the Qing Dynasty. It is situated along a lake and the views are stunning!

One of the highlights of the Summer Palace is the Long Corridor. It is a walkway along the side of the lake that gets a beautiful breeze. There are paintings on every cross beam – every painting is very detailed and none of the paintings are repeated! The paintings show landscapes, animals, and scenes from traditional stories. We walked down the long corridor and took a boat across the lake. Then we walked back across the 17 arch bridge.

I must note that as an American tour group, we seemed to be the entertainment for many of the other people visiting this site. It was not unusual for them to be taking pictures or video of us. They would often come ask to take selfies with us. Be prepared if you are in a group to feel like you constantly have paparazzi following you!

After the summer palace, we had lunch at a popular restaurant Jin Ding Xu. The food was again served family style and was very delicious. It was interesting to see the video of the kitchen staff preparing the meal on a monitor on the wall.

Our afternoon was set aside for a visit to the VIPKid headquarters. We were greeted at the bus by Eric Chong and Bryan. We first visited the building where our beloved firemen work. (The Firemen are the IT support at VIPKid. They help us when we are having trouble connecting with our students). They welcomed us and took us on a short tour around the building. Then they surprised us with goodie bags each with a handwritten note. From the “Firemen Headquarters” we went to the main office of VIPKid just a short drive away.

First, I must say, the VIPKid office is amazing! We were greeted by several of the Learning Partners and Dino! We were treated as very valued members of the company. We were surprised again with goodie bags. We got to visit the Dino exhibit were there were all sorts of Dinos available to be seen. We toured the building and then were treated to presentations by several of our beloved staff (I got to hear Feifei tell us about the new option for teacher to apply on the phone app). Then we got the surprise that Cindy Mi (VIPKid founder and CEO) was going to visit with us!

After our visit, some of us opted to see a Kung Fu Show at the Red Theater. It was titled: The Legend of Kung Fu Return of the Dragon. It was the story of a young boy who wanted to become a Kung Fu Master. (This show was also not included in the original budget and cost 380 CNY ($55) each. If you want to go to this show, you may want to add it to your budget). The show was very good, but I was also very tired. The theater was quite cold so I didn’t enjoy the show as much as I would have liked due to the cold and my tiredness. I do recommend this show however! It was very interesting to see the high level of training being demonstrated.

This night we were so exhausted that we really didn’t even want to eat. I grabbed a few things at the convenience store in the lobby of the Penta hotel and took them to the room. My phone says we walked a total of 4.1 miles this day.

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