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!
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