Beijing 2024 - BeiHai Park (北海公园) - Walking Around

 

After visiting the White Pagoda temple, I was so glad to see that there was another path to go down which does not involved steep stairs. It was a pleasant walk down with some pavilions along the way. Like this bright red one. It was closed to the public though, and you can view it from the outside.

A unique twin gate in the middle of the path down. I hate seeing things like this without sign board. it's like, which path do you walk through? This is not an RPG game! This is real life!

Eventually we made it to ground level, and found some gardens at the bottom. We explore around and found some rock garden and this stone memorial?

Walking around leisurely, we saw this drum gate and headed in that direction.

It leads us to more pond walkways.

Seriously, BeiHai park is so freaking huge!

Souvenir shot of BeiHai Park Banner. Love that it's green in colour.

Beijing 2024 - BeiHai Park (北海公园) - Upper Temple White Pagoda

 

At the top of the White Pagoda! Yay! Zoom in to read more about it! I made it! 

The structure here was so different. I figure if I ever managed to make it to Tibet one day, this would be what it might have looked like. Until that day arrive, I'll settle for this view instead. So excused me while I spam this post with similar photos of the white pagoda.

A close up view of the stairs and the top of the pagoda. I can't remember if we were allowed to climb up. I think not, else I would have had more photos from up there!

Steep stairs up. 

Souvenir shot! My husband was still lost at the middle temple when I reached the top. After waiting for a while and not seeing him, I had to on my mobile to text and ask where he was. Apparently he couldn't find the stairs up, so I had to tell him and show him photos of what the stairs looked like, lol. 

Beijing 2024 - BeiHai Park (北海公园) - Middle Temple

 

Ah, the middle temple, the Hall of True Enlightenment! 

A grand guardian statues is found here. 

And inside the temple, lots of Tibet style deities can be found. I like it here, cause it's different from the usual Chinese style temple that I am used to.

More interesting deities.

The altar of what looked like Goddess of Mercy?

And a lot of interesting paintings of guardians. Just like in the lower temple, there were 2 on each side of the door, but instead of statues, they were of paintings here.

Love the vibrant colours of the paintings. 

Interesting thing about the temples here is, you have to go to the back of the altar to find another the path to proceed on in your journey. This was slightly different from the usual temples I was used too the altar is usually against a wall, or that you could only walk around it. Here, the path forward is always at the back of the altar. And to find it, you usually have to go through these narrow dark walkways. This kinda explained why my husband couldn't find his way up the white pagoda until I texted him from the top, lol. Yes, only the enlighten ones can see the path! Lol. Kidding. I'm just the curious one who likes to walk into every corner of a temple.

And here is what the path to the upper white pagoda looks like..... Luckily, I've climbed worst path than these before. So frankly, almost nothing could have been worst than that. This, was nothing to me! Onward I went!

Beijing 2024 - BeiHai Park (北海公园) - Lower Temple

 

Venturing into the temples, they are separated into different levels. the lowest one was the Hall of the Wheel of Dharma. Wow, reading the sign, apparently we were visiting the Temple of Eternal Peace. Lol. Warning, this place is not very friendly to people who hate stairs. 

Very Chinese looking guardians of the temple. 

A total of 4 guardians, 2 on each side. A pretty standard features in the more Chinese temples.

The main hall with Buddha statues.

And so we start our climb up after paying respect to the Buddha. The sign on the gate says Light Dragon! Perhaps you will see the light once you reach the very top! I mentioned that this place is not friendly to people who hates stairs because not only are there a lot of it, but there are no hand rails to help you up either. So if you have vertigo, good luck to you! I cannot imagine walking down all those stairs! Luckily, I didn't have to! Cause there is another alternate way down from the top.

My goal was to reach that white pagoda! But before that, we have to reach the middle temple first....

Here's me at the lower temple area, a souvenir shot before climbing up.

Beijing 2024 - BeiHai Park (北海公园)

 

Another long walk from the Forbidden City area to find BeiHai Park. The roads here are so freaking long! Luckily the view can be rather pleasant. I love it when there are water involved. Not only is it more cooling, but the view just seems to be so much more peaceful.

Perhaps it's because we were still considered inside the inner city area. Beijing is divided into squares of city district from inner to outer, the Forbidden City being the most inner square. So the areas around the Forbidden City tends to look more polish and grand. I guess maybe so many high ranking officials lived just outside? Or maybe the Emperor can roam around outside for a walk?

The tree leaves hanging over the water was one of the nicest view that I admire. It's almost like a painting to me. With the wind blowing and the leaves swaying above the water, I can imagine why people write poetries about it's beauty, lol. 

Relying on my husband to use the Chinese map app 百度地图 to find the park since I often panic using a mandarin app. Well, guess what, I have to learn to use it this year since I'll be traveling solo in Hangzhou on my own. Hope I won't get lost! Anyway, we finally arrived at one of the entrance of the park! Yay!

I couldn't purchase a ticket via WeChat for the park, but I read from the internet that there was no need to. So we got our tickets at the entrance. It was a combination ticket, so we have to hit all the attractions included to get our money's worth! Every trip is like a station game for me, lol. I guess some people might find that stressful, but I find it a challenge and very rewarding when I manage to get what I planned completed successfully at the end of the day!

First impression of BeiHai Park, WOW! I mean, it wasn't even in my initial plan to visit this place. It just so happens that I needed a place to spend the day before we move to another hotel. I also read that the park was beautiful yet tourist often give it a miss as compared to the other more heavy weight attractions in Beijing. But the view here is really WOW! 

One of the happy point of this park when we stepped in must be the luscious lotus leaves in the pond! So super big and green, with beautiful lotus flowers in bloom. Pair that with a marble bridge decorated with red lantern, it's like something out of a movie or dream. Unreal!

I also love the white pagoda at the top of the small hill. The structure was very Tibet like, and it kinda made up the disappointing trip we had the day before to YongLe Temple. This was more what I was hoping to see when people mentioned Tibetian style temple.

Besides the stunning bridge and pagoda, the other side of the pond was filled with boats and lotus just growing everywhere. It was so spacious that instantly you just feel relaxed looking at the scene. 

What a scene from a dream. Imaging cruising through the pond in one of the boat. I guess you don't have to imagine it, you could rent a boat or paid to get a ride here. I'm just to stingy to do so, and felt like it was just too cheesy. But that doesn't stop me from enjoying the view. I will however get on a cheesy boat when I make the trip to Hangzhou's West Lake (Xihu) since the boat is the only way you could view some of the attractions there.....Looking forward to that! By the time this post is published, I would have completed my visit there! Hahahaha. 

Lotus flowers so big that they looked like one of those manmade lanterns! I felt so fortunate to be able to experience and see them here :)

In order to visit the temples and pagoda, we needed to cross the marble bridge and go thru these gates. Tickets were required to enter the temple ground. 

The signs on the gate, something about cloud gathering? Or a pile of cloud? After going in, it's pretty much up hill all the way until you reach the white pagoda. But before we blog on that, here are some happy selfies we took at the pond :)

Good hair day for me. Taken slightly further from the marble bridge with the white pagoda behind us.

Me in front of the entrance gate, with red lanterns and beautiful lotus flowers in the pond. 

So much lotus flower! So happy to be here! Weeeeee!

Beijing 2024 - Tiananmen Square (天安门)

Tiananmen Square, a controversial place to visit. Fun fact, before doing the research to visit this place, I always thought it meant South of the Sky Gate, instead of Peace Under the Sky Gate. I hate reading Chinese place's name in English. Cause it's hard to tell what they meant. But once I see the name in Chinese, I would go, ooooooh THAT was what it meant! So, visiting this palace was actually free. But what I didn't know was, you still needed to make a reservation before they even let you near the place. So it was only on our third try did we managed to actually go in. First was when we tried to visit it on our first day and can't even get closed to it due to all the security detour. Second time we made it to  the entrance but then realised we needed a reservation. So this was the third time. 

After getting though security, we walked towards the gate with huge fountains by it. It was pretty impressive. For me anyway.

Security was pretty chill once you made it through. People were just wandering around taking photos. Unless you were in a narrow path area, you could just linger around. At the narrow path area, the guards would ask you to keep walking so as not to hold up the traffic.

A view of Tiananmen with the fountain.  

People walking in. The portrait of Chairman Mao at the center. I didn't managed to visit the Mao Mausoleum. Based on my survey, both sites was free entrance and near to each other. Well, guess what, you needed a separate reservation to visit the mausoleum!!!!! UGH!!!!!! Oh well, that was the only thing I didn't get to do on my itinerary list. I was ok with it, a little sore, but I could accept it since I didn't know what it looked like. It was more important for me to see Tiananmen Square instead. So I'm glad I made it here after three tries!

I guess most local Chinese would visit here. Perhaps it's on par with visiting the Great Wall, or the Forbidden City. I wanted to visit because of the historical significant. And to actually see Chairman Mao's portrait hanging there. It was so surreal for me. 

Couldn't get enough photos of this place, lol. It's actually pretty small area. The front was the main attraction. But once you've taken the iconic photo and made your way through the gates, it was already the exit. A good 20 minutes was all it took to visit this historical site!

At the back exit, there is a tall marble pillar. A guardian of sort.

A souvenir shot of us in front of Chairman Mao! I'm so glad I managed to visit this place!