Beihai Park 北海公园

My mother and I visited the Beihai Park (北海公园) after Forbidden City. Beihai Park is located at North West of the Forbidden City. We walked to the Beihai Park from the Gate of Divine Might. In front of the Gate of Divine Might, tourists can either choose to walk or use the buses, taxi and also tricycles to travel to the Beihai Park. 

Lotus Lake Garden

Willow by the Lotus Lake

Bridge to Qionghua Island

The weather of Beijing gets colder during evening. We went in to the Beihai Park through the South Gate. Tourists can buy BBQ Chinese sausages, steam corns and drinks at the entrance of the park. Entrance ticket and Combo ticket can be bought at the South Gate. The Combo ticket includes the entrance ticket, the Qionghua Island (琼华岛) ticket and the Tuancheng City (团城) ticket.

Tuancheng City

Introduction Board for Tuancheng City

Back of White Dagoba

White Dagoba (白塔) is the main focus of Beihai Park. It is a temple located on Qionghua Island. Many tourists come here to visit the White Dagoba. We need to climb up few hundreds steps, passes through Falundian (法轮殿), Zhengjuedian (正觉殿), and Pu’andian (普安殿) to reach the White Dagoba. We can enjoy the nice scenery around the lake on top of the dagoba. It is really a great time to climb up to the White Dagoba during evening.

Falundian

Zhengjuedian

Pu'andian

Long Stair to White Dagoba

Front of White Dagoba

After that, we leave the White Dagoba from the behind entrance of the temple. There is a Qionghua Cave (琼华古洞). The entrance ticket is not included in the Combo ticket. The entrance ticket cost 5RMB per person to visit that cave. From my opinion, this is not worth to visit. There is nothing much to see in the cave unless you are interested to the Chinese Traditional Celestial Stem and Earthly Branches (天干地支).

Huanbilou (环碧楼）

The famous Nine Dragons Wall (九龙壁) is at the north side of the Beihai Park. Tourists can take boat to across the lake to go to the north side of the park from the north point of the Qionghua Island. Tourists can choose to use the north gate to leave the park and continue the journey. Else you can walk back to the south gate along the lake enjoying the view of the Baihai.

Jicui (积翠）

From the Beihai Park, I feel that people in Beijing have a lot of leisure facilities. There are a lot of nice lakes in Beijing, Beihai is one of them. People can choose to walk around the lake, boat on the lake, enjoy the nice scenery or take up a big brush and showing the writing skill.

Shu fa

Po Shi Zha Gen

Writing with brush is a traditional Chinese practice，called Shufa (书法）. Using the big brush is really testing the skill and the strength of hand. In Beihai Park, there are people leisurely writing big words on the floor using water. The nice writing can be kept for few minute and it will be dry after that. Look at one of the writer, he is writing the words that people is asking for; idiom, proverb, saying are written on the floor. These interest and hobby should be our practice in one day.

Looking at Beijing, we should really have more of these leisure facilities instead of building more and more of the shopping center around. Give some time to spend with family and the nature, doing interesting and fun practice just like Beijing’s people do.

Reference Map:



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Travel Tips:

The Beihai Park combo ticket price:
RMB20, include entrance ticket, the Qionghua Island ticket and the Tuancheng City ticket

(Qionghua Island is formally called the Jade Flowery Islet, and Tuancheng City is called the Round City)

Islet Opening hour:
9.00 - 17.00, 1st April - 31th October
9.00 - 16.00, 1st November - 31th March

Entrance:
The South Gate
The East Gate

Little Tips:

The price of F&B in Beihai Park is averagely around 10 to 20 RMB per person, it is quite convenience to get F&B here.
Beihai is a nice lake for boating and a recommended freelancing activities attraction. (Boating price is  around 40 to 60 RMB if not mistaken)

Forbidden City 紫禁城 Part2

I can still remember the crowd on that day in the palace. I gave up on taking the photo of the decoration in the Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony. Continue walking, behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony, it is the Palace of Heavenly Purity (乾清宫), or called the Qianqing Palace. There is a small square in front of the Qianqing Palace; it is the boundary line of the inner and the outer court.

The Square and the Palace of Heavenly Purity

West of the square is the so called RongZongMen (隆宗门), it was one of the important pass ways to the inner court. However, it is now renovated as a restaurant. We have a break here, hot and cold food, drinks and desserts can be found here, but it is expensive to spend around in the palace.

The RongZongMen

The Qianqing Palace is sitting on the central axis of the palace. To it west is maintaining the original decorations which include the Hall of Mental Cultivation (养心殿), the Emperor’s and his wives’ bedrooms. On the other hand, to the east, it is where most of the exhibition halls are. The exhibited items include clocks and watches, china and ceramics, paintings, and jewelries.

When I was in the inner court, I notice that the painting and the pattern on the beams, and roofs are so much different from the outer court. There are more dragons and complicated drawing at the outer court, whereas more flowers and simple tile design at the inner court.

The Roof on the inner court

The flower tile on the wall (inner court)

I saw a lot of the big size copper tubs all the way from the main gate. At first, I thought it might be the cookers people used to prepare food for big event or some tub to cook criminal during the olden days, until I saw the description board for the tub. It is actually used to store water to put off fire in case of emergency. As in the winter, water will become ice; therefore, it needs to be heated up.

Big copper tub

Small copper tub

Description Board

The Hall of Mental Cultivation is kept very well. The structure and design of the building is very detailed and well presented. The wood craft are so amazing. Look at the window rail, it seem like it is made from metal, but it is actually crafted from wood.

The view of Hall of Mental Cultivation

My mother and I cursory walk though all the bedrooms till the Imperial Garden (御花园). The Imperial Garden is located at the central axis behind the Qianqing Palace. The Hall of Imperial Peace (钦安殿) is located in the garden on the central axis. In front of the hall, there is a significant pine tree. Its root is being separated in to two and being planted back to the floor. It is called the LianLiBo in Chinese (连理柏). There are a few of these pine trees in the Imperial Garden.

The Rock Park (御花园景山公园)

The YuJingTing (御景亭)

The YangXinZhai (养心斋)

The Hall of Imperial Peace

The special pine tree (连理柏)

Behind the Imperial Garden, that is the north gate of the palace, called the Gate of Divine Might (神武门). On top of the gate, it is labeled as GuGong Museum. It is really a hard day walking through this huge palace under hot sun. We left the palace through this gate about 4pm.

The Gate of Divine Might

Knock knock

The dock nail (门钉) on the Gate of Divine Might

After the Forbidden City, we continued the next destination to the Beihai Park (北海公园). Look out for Trip to Beijing – Beihai Park for more photos and tips.

Travel Tips:

Around Forbidden City:

North Gate:  Jingshan Park (景山公园), Beihai Park (北海公园);

South Gate: Zhongshan Park (中山公园), Taimiao Temple (太庙),

                   Gate of Heavenly Peace - Tian'anmen (天安门)

East Gate: East Glorious Gate Street (东华门大街)

Little Tips:

As the palace is huge, choose to visit places you wish to visit first if limited time.

Expenses in the palace for F&B is high, get some water before entering from convenience store.

Forbidden City 紫禁城 Part1

The first day when my mother and I reached Beijing, we took express train to the city from the airport terminal 3. When I look around the city from the train, it is so beautiful. There are trees along the road, farms located round the countryside. The air in the morning is fresh and mist cover around the earth. Our trip in Beijing started with the well-known Forbidden City (故宫).

We stayed in Golden Palace Silver Street Hotel(金府银街大酒店) for the whole journey in Beijing. The hotel is at the east of the Forbidden City and near by the Wangfujing  (王府井) Shopping Street. Before we check in to hotel, we had steamed bun and dumpling for breakfast.

The HangZhou Steam Bun Shop

Steam bun and Dumpling

After checked in to the hotel, we took a walk to the main entrance of the Forbidden City, the Meridian Gate (午门). On the way, we passed by the East Glorious Gate (东华门) of the palace. There are lot of hawkers selling honeydew at this gate. Eating a stick of the long and sweet honeydew in the hot summer day can quench the heat and thirsty.

The East Glorious Gate

Willows by the Moat

Moat is surrounding the palace and willows sleep by the moat. This scenery is beautiful and only can be felt with your own eyes.

The Meridian Gate

In the afternoon, the city gets hot and hazy but the people visiting the Forbidden City do not get reduced. We spent around 20min to get the entrance tickets. The Meridian Gate has five arches. The centre arch is for exit purpose; and the other two next to the centre arch are for entrance. There is security check at the entrance, begs are scanned.

The Gate of Supreme Harmony

Behind the Meridian Gate, that is the Gate of Supreme Harmony (太和门). It is tall and painting is on the ceiling and beam, none of the spot is left blacked. The colour of painting on this gate is well maintained. After this gate, that is the Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿). The hall is a building by itself. It is big and three levels up on the sky. The emperor’s seat is well kept in the hall. I spent tremendous efforts to get myself into the crowd to snap a picture of the seat.

The Emperor's Seat

The three Halls of Harmony

Behind the Hall of Supreme Harmony, there are another two halls, the Hall of Central Harmony (中和殿) and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (保和殿). The paintings on these building are not repainted, and the original colour is almost gone.

The roof is the nicest part of the hall. The speciality is on roof levelling. The outer layers is yellow tile, and then follow by square shape of long wood, then round shape… Under these three layers is few layers of cow-face kind a structure. Then after that is the beam of the building.

The Hall's Roof

Cow-face Structure

The palace is really huge. The previous paragraphs are just about the journey to the outer court (south) of the Forbidden City. In part 2, I will continue on the inner court, north of the palace, goes into the ‘house’ of the emperor and his wives.

Travel Tips:

The entrance ticket price:
RMB60, 1st April - 31th October
RMB40, 1st November - 31th March

Opening hour:
8.30 - 17.00, 1st April - 31th October
8.30 - 16.30, 1st November - 31th March

Last entry:
16.10, 1st April - 31th October
15.40, 1st November - 31th March

Entrance:
The Maridian Gate (South Gate)
The Gate of Divine Might (North Gate)

More History Information can search from wikipedia for english, from BaiDuBaiKe (百度百科) for chinese.