My Chinese Adventure – Part Three (Beijing)

Hello Hello! Day three of my wonderful trip to Beijing brought me to picturesque Bei Hai Park.

Today I had no one to bring me around. So it was quite scary! The chinese people are quite impatient and loud-speaking. They seemed rude and unfriendly to me. Maybe they didn’t mean to portray that since I guess their culture is such. Anyhow, I was excited and scared all at the same time. This is the first cab I took on my own. He was quite irritated when I made him repeat his question to me slowly.

One thing I noticed about china cabbies, they need quite detailed information about your destination. I said Bei Hai Park, he asked which gate. China being China, humongous as she is, everything esle is also big! One park can have several entrances and gates. But it doesn’t matter which gate you enter from. You’ll still be at the same attraction, exploring everything from another sequence.

Say Hello to Bei Hai Park.

Beautiful isn’t it? Oh yes, the picture below is one of the ticketing booth. Ticketing booth also so pretty. You can’t really see from this picture but the patterns are quite intricately drawn.

The STAR” of this park is this pagoda at the top of a hill, right across that lake.

Apparently this white pagoda was destroyed twice in earthquakes and later reconstructed. This white pagoda was built by the first emperor of the Qing Dynasty to show his desire and belief in unifying the various chinese enthic groups.

I took a boat across the lake. I could walk one biggggg round and get there but I chose to take this pretty boat. Such grandeur awaits me.

Here I was at ground level. The pagoda was on top of a hill. So I made my way about going up there.

T_T!!! The stairs I had to conquer to the top. But but, what I found at the top of the hill was amazing. Really.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! Cherry Blossoms!! What luck!! Before I left Sg, I saw many advertisements shouting about the Cherry Blossoms season in Japan. In the back of my mind, I was wondering when will it be before I get the chance to make my way there to see it for myself. You can imagine my joy when I saw these at Beijing!

There were white and pink ones. All very pretty! I couldn’t stop taking pictures of them! There were absolutely no leaves on these trees except for the flowers which makes the whole tree look very very stunningly lovely! I even made a special post here for my encounter with Cherry Blossoms!

Moving on, here are some other parts of the park.

A little passage way that was grand too!

I love this picture. It’s so beautiful. The lake is so green, and the willows, those really make a picture dreamy.

The Five-Dragon Pavilions (though you can’t really see it very well from this picture)!This is actually five connected pavilions. From a distance, they appear together like a huge dragon.

There are many exquisite carvings and paintings on the girders and pillars of the pavilions which make the Five-Dragon Pavilions a delightful place for the royal members in ancient China to relax and appreciate the natural beauty.

The other parts of this park consists of the imperial living and working areas. Bei Hai Park is a perfect integration of magnificent imperial palaces and solemn religious constructions.

I refuse to believe Kings and Queens of the past tolerated climbing so many steps! A friend of mine said that they had servants to carry them. I would these stairways are too narrow for a sedan no?

I would imagine princesses many centuries ago, sewing and having a cuppa tea at this little pavillion at the top.

One of the many many little paintings on walkways all over the park. Such indulgence.

The King used to read and rest here. It was his study room. Kind of eerie to imagine an emperor of olden times with his head gear and gold robe reading here.

Oh I love pictures like these. A long path neatly lined by tall trees. The Koreans made scenes like this romantic… Awwwwwwwwwww

=) The lake so nice.

Next I came upon this Nine-Dragon Screen. It says on
the sign that there are nine huge coiling dragons on each side of the screen and plenty more others in different postures on the screen, making total number of dragons 635! O.O Even after 200 years, the Nine-Dragon Screen is still bright in color and complete in appearance, showing the high techniques of Chinese arts and crafts in ancient times.

Magnificent isn’t it?

So that marks the end of my little tour at Bei Hai Park. I walked abit outside the area and sat at the little area where many locals were gathered for their evening activities. There were people playing er hus, chaptek (picture below) and walking their dogs. Very community like!

Entrance Ticket: RMB15 (All attractions ticket)
Time spent: 4 hours. To see everything, you will need 5 hours.
How to get there: I took a cab to this place. But there are buses that bring you there as well.
From the South Gate: 101、103、109、812、814、846
From the North Gate: 107、111、118、701、823
From the East Gate: 5