30/12/2015 by photosbyhank

So much to see, so little time

Monday, October 12th dawned as a calm and sunny day. It was also the day I would be saying goodbye to Lucille, Curtis and Beijing. I was a bit sad to be going home with still so much to be seen, but I was missing my family and I was looking forward to seeing them again.

But there was still time to see a few things before I left.

Curtis left for work and I thanked him profusely for having me over.

After breakfast Lucille and I headed for our daily walk.

Tonic is looking more like toxic now

We crossed the river and walked along the path. A lot of people fish along there and you really have to watch your step as there are no washrooms in the area.

I was looking for rusty stuff to take photos of and luckily, there is a lot of that kind of stuff to be found in Beijing.

Flowers

Flower

As usual, there were plenty of sights to be seen along our way.

A lot of massage places claim to have a blind masseurs

New business going in

Plenty of rust

Along the way we passed by the American Embassy and there was a protest going on. We decided it was not a good idea to accept any of the pamphlets they were handing out.

We walked through the Kempinski Hotel and through the garden out back on our way to the Liangma Flower Market.

It was a big market full of flowers. I would of loved to bring some home for Lynda but that wasn’t an option.

We continued to the Solana Mall.

It was a much nicer day for our visit than my first time there.

Children’s art

All the walking made us hungry so we walked down the road to the German Bakery for a very early lunch.

The tomato soup and bread was just as good as the first time and I ordered a pretzel to ease my disappointment with yesterdays pretzel. I was right to order it as it was delicious. I’ve never had a buttered pretzel before but it’s my new way to have them now.

We could either take the subway home or walk back as we had time before I had to go to the airport. Walking was my decision as we had lots of time.

We found something I have missed here for a while now – a drive in.

I found another example of rusty along the way.

Rust and a couple of buses

Traffic wasn’t heavy when we approached one of the ring roads but watching it was fun.

We made it back to the apartment and I started packing up to go to the airport.

My well used transit pass

Casper didn’t care I was leaving

We headed downstairs to head over to the subway and there was a cab out front of the building. He was available so we took it instead. I rode in cabs 3 time while in Beijing and each time it was just like catching a cab anywhere else. Lucille and Curtis told me how hard it was to get a cab in Beijing but I never saw that at all.

Soon we were at the airport. I said goodbye to Lucille and went to catch my train to the terminal.

We had done 16,000 steps in our 1/2 day and Lucille was going to take the train part way home and walk the rest.

I was at the back of the plane but at least I had an actual window this time.

My view from the back of the bus

Soon we were taxiing out from the gate.

And then it was our turn to take off.

Beijing boot camp was over. We had done 269,861 steps in my time there or a daily average of 19,276. Its a good thing I like to walk or that would of been rough.

A flight taking off on a parallel runway as my last view of Beijing

My last view of Beijing was towards the Olympic Park area and soon we were heading north east.

The last photo I took on my trip was the huge dam on the Miyun Reservoir.

Being at the back of the plane meant the contrail from the engine streamed right past my window and blocked some of my view.

I watched the most incredible sunset but because it was partially blocked I just enjoyed it. Later I opened my blind and couldn’t believe how bright the moon was up above the clouds. It was just a partial moon but it was like a spotlight shining in my eyes.

I watched movies, read my book and tried to sleep. I slept for about 2 hours like my flight over but the time I slept meant I totally missed seeing the sunrise.

I was pretty tired when I got to Vancouver but having some lunch helped a bit.

I was at the back of the plane to Calgary and I looked out the window most of the way. It was pretty windy in Calgary so we did a rough crab landing but it wasn’t as rough as my flight at the start of my holiday.

I had a 5 hour layover in Calgary and staying awake was becoming challenging. I paced a lot to keep awake.

The flight to Red Deer was short and sweet. Lynda and Adam were there to meet me.

I had survived my grand holiday. I had such a good time but it was nice to be home.

I am forever grateful to Curtis and Lucille for bringing me over to visit and for putting up with me for 2 weeks. I could never have afforded to go otherwise and while I never imagined I’d spend any time in Beijing, let alone my birthday, I enjoyed it immensely.

Some things about China were hard to get used to, like the lack of sugar in so many things. We had chocolate cake on my birthday but it wasn’t like any chocolate I’d ever had before. It wasn’t as hard to get used to all the people as I thought it might be.

My new motto is “It’s not Beijing busy” next time I’m shopping or in a line up.

I saw so many wonderful places and yet I feel like I barely scratched the surface of what Beijing offers. I think you could visit a park a day for a whole year and not see them all.

While I was in awe of the Great Wall and so many places really, I think the Summer Palace was my favorite place to visit. If I ever make it back to Beijing, that will be the place I go visit again for sure.

24/12/2015 by photosbyhank

Looking for fall colour

Sunday, October 11th looked like another nice day but a bit windy.

Today we are going to The Fragrant Hills Park to look for some fall colour. The Fragrant Hills are west of the Summer Palace and contains many maple trees and every year there is a red leaf festival there.

Tony picked us up early so we could beat the rush.

It was quite windy and cool as we walked around.

It was so windy that the cable car was shut down. We took a unanimous vote and decided we were not walking up the 1800 foot hill. We wandered around the base area to see as much as we could.

Fall colour

Unfortunately there really wasn’t much for fall colour yet. Or maybe it was fortunately as I would of felt bad going all the way up the mountain and not seen the colour.

There are quite a few temples and pavilions in the area.

As we walked around I finally found some colour.

This was the bulk of the colour I found

I even found a panda.

There were some quiet areas to be found too.

Since we were’t climbing the hill it was time to make our way out. We noticed some interesting head wear in the crowd.

There were more and more people arriving as we were on our way out but the chair lift still wasn’t running.

Checked out the street on the way back down to the car.

I bought a selfie stick for Adam from a roadside vendor. (It broke the first day. I should of got a receipt.)

The parking area seemed a little sketchy.

We spent all of about an hour at The Fragrant Hills. As disappointed as I was about not getting to the top of the hill, I was looking forward to lunch more.

Tony dropped us off at the apartment and we headed over to Lake Rhine German Restaurant over at Lodu Gardens Park.

The food was pretty good but I was a little disappointed in my pretzel that had all of 2 grains of salt on it.

We wandered back towards the apartment.

Car cozy

Rust and rose

And we kept walking through their neighbourhood.

After a bit we came to the best use of a minivan I’ve ever seen.

As we walked we found a good posing spot.

I found the mix of old and new in Beijing fascinating at times.

Sitting on the side of a main road

The derelict car sit on one side of a fence along a main road and the Toyota dealer with the older model car on the steps sits on the other side.

Toyota dealership’s entryway

Along our way we passed the Canadian Embassy.

One thing I noticed about the Canadian Embassy compared to all the other embassies we had seen was the lack of a secondary metal fence surrounding it. All the embassies we had passed over the past 2 weeks had a metal fence near the sidewalk with a brick and or metal wall surrounding the whole complex. All of them except the Canadian one. Another thing they all had in common was no matter the nationality of the embassy, Chinese guards manned the gates.

I think I found where Mario gets his lives from.

Farther along our walk we came to the Lamborghini dealership.

A Lamborghini stalking us as we look at it’s home

On the other end of the building there is another pricey car dealership.

Lucille promised Curtis a treat so we stopped at Cows Creamery Ice Cream.

Surprisingly, I didn’t feel like ice cream but was happy to sit and rest for a bit.

Curtis’s ice cream craving satisfied, we headed over towards the Sanlitun area.

Sanlitun is a shopping and bar district that has a lot of high end stores and restaurant there. Of course, that doesn’t mean you won’t find some interestingly named places.

The area we were in was pretty interesting and it was easy to people watch.

We headed upstairs to the patio at Cantina Agave looking for the best margarita yet. (It was ok).

Lucille sat in the sun so she had her back to the table Curtis and I could see. It was interesting watching the couple that came along.

She helped him take off his jacket and scarf and fussed about constantly. I didn’t think she was nearly as hot as she thought she was and found them quite amusing to watch.

I laughed as she hand fed him and then put her scarf around him. It was the best entertainment of my visit I think.

Finishing off our drinks, we headed towards the 1949 Hidden City district. Saw a cool looking bookstore along the way.

Since it wasn’t far we arrived at 1949 fairly quickly.

I got to see more of 1949 this time than the last time I was here but I still didn’t see all that much of it.

1949 can only mean 1 thing – Duck de Chine. It was my favorite restaurant of my trip and Lucille and Curtis had told me whichever one I liked the best we would go back to it before I left to go home.

We didn’t order the duck this time – it was way too expensive and I only liked it, not loved it but I did love the Kung Pao Chicken. So we got an order of that and we tried the Lemon Chicken.

I was not disappointed with supper as it was as good as the first time I tried it.

We headed back to the apartment for my ritual games beating.

18688 steps today but it sure felt like we did more.

Headed to bed for my last night in China.

17/12/2015 by photosbyhank

Parks and a turkey dinner

Woke up October 10th feeling a lot better than the day before. My muscles still hurt but at least my head was better. Popped a couple of ibuprofen before heading out for the days adventure. Curtis had to work on the Saturday to make up for the week off so it was just Lucille and I again today.

We walked over to Lidu Garden Park as our first stop.

German restaurant

Rosedale Hotel

The park was pretty quiet but we did see a few people.

Little girl was pretty excited

We walked back over to Side Park to check it out during the daylight.

Side Park is fairly flat as was Lido Park so the walking was easy. We stopped to watch musicians and dancers for a while.

We left the park walking towards a lunch spot.

We found the twin towers

After about an hour and a half we came to Great Leap #45. This made it all three locations that we had eaten at. Too bad I don’t like beer as they have a whole lot of varieties.

This location specialize in pizza. I should of tried it as my sandwich was fairly tasteless.

We had a ways to walk to go catch a bus to our next destination.

Sidewalk isn’t as wide as it should be

We were in an area with a lot of little shops but one in particular caught my eye.

All film, all the time

It was such a cute little store

He had way more lomography stuff in his little store than we have at work. It was really neat to see.

Ok, I found a few more interesting stores.

A huge book store and I probably can’t read anything in there

By now we were at the bus stop waiting for the right bus to come along.

Nope, not our bus

Here comes the right one

Our bus wasn’t even all that crowded.

Our stop meant that we had to walk through a hutong to get where we were going.

Delivery truck?

Soon Gong Wang Fu (Prince Gong or Prince Kung’s Mansion) came into view and we were at our destination.

The mansion was built in 1777 but it wasn’t until 1851 that it was named for Prince Gong; Xianfeng Emperor’s sixth brother.

Seems to be a popular place

There were still plenty of flowers here.

Even here it was possible to find interesting things.

Incognito fire hydrant

The mansion grounds are quite large with a lot of things to see.

So much detail

Another interesting gate

We had made our way back near the garden area by this time.

There were lots of small temples in the rocks.

Not all the mansion has been renovated yet.

There are some pavilions around the pond area.

We found a bit of a quiet area.

It was quiet until we looked down the hill.

Umm, which tour am I with again?

We came upon a few bamboo gardens

Lucille and bamboo

We had walked around enough to wear the grips off my new shoes.

They still look new

We’d seen enough and started our walk towards our supper spot.

Reliable looking transportation

We had quite a ways to go so I found a few things to photograph along the way.

Cute little cafe

Cleverly disguised electrical box

Just doesn’t look like they take it seriously.

He tilted his head down just as I went to get the photo of his helmet

Saw another little something on the street.

Saw yet another interesting name for a business.

Farther along we saw a small load of recycling being loaded on to a truck.

We arrived at Lily’s American Diner to wait for Curtis and his friend Kyle from work. I only met one of Curtis’s co-workers while I was there, but nobody new as I had met Kyle at Curtis and Lucille’s wedding when he was in the wedding party.

Lily’s was doing a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner for about $22.00 and it was really good. The pie was fabulous.

Kyle, Curtis and Lucille

We sat for a couple of hours visiting before we headed back towards the apartment.

We took the bus again and we were over a kilometer away from our stop when traffic came to a standstill. Our bus would move about 10 feet and stop for a couple of minutes, then move about 20 feet and stop again. We got off with a few other people and started walking. Traffic was lined up for as far as we could see and there were lots and lots of buses in the line.

It was fascinating watching the drivers all try to go at once from every direction. No one would let someone go to make a space. I took a few video clips but I can’t link them to my blog.

We walked along until we arrived at the mall near their apartment. Curtis needed to hit the bank machine. It was pretty interesting to be in a place where cash was king. There were very few signs saying debit or even credit cards were accepted.

With the grips worn off my shoes, I felt like I was skating on the smooth tile floors.

As we left the mall there was a group of people dancing on the lawn and again I took some video but I never thought to take some stills. There was a little girl dancing on the sidelines, she looked so adorable.

We crossed the street through the traffic jam again and headed to the apartment.

I lost all the evening’s games as per usual.

We had done 25,505 steps today.

13/12/2015 by photosbyhank

Aliens and Blue Frogs

Woke up on October 9th feeling like I had a bad hangover. I’d only had 1 margarita so that wasn’t it. All that walking had started to catch up to me. The plus side was the sun was shining again but it looked windy out.

Lucille and I left to go find me some new shoes. We doubted that most Chinese markets would have my size so we headed downtown to the Russian Market at Alien Street.

As we left the apartment building there was a light, cold wind blowing; good thing we brought our jackets.

It was quite a ways to go to get to the market and when we got out of the subway the wind was blowing like a mini hurricane. We walked a couple of blocks and the wind almost disappeared.

We took a guess on which way to go on Lucille’s phone map and after a couple of minutes saw we were wrong. Quick turn around and we got to the market about 20 minutes later.

We headed downstairs to the clothing section. Lucille was looking for some boots for her granddaughter Austin. She found a pair of Uggs she liked. I didn’t see any shoes so we went to another stall and she found more boots. I found a pair of shoes that looked like they would work for me so I spent about $35 dollars on them.

As we walked around Lucille found some mittens for Austin that has strings holding them together. She hadn’t been able to find any like that in Canada so she scooped them up.

There weren’t many people shopping compared to most of the Chinese markets we’d been too.

As it was lunch time now we headed down the street to U-Town Mall in search of food. Lucille and Curtis used to eat at the Blue Frog quite a bit and since there was one at U-Town, we decided to try it.

Lucille knew some of the staff and lunch was served pretty fast. Food was not bad at all. As we left I saw something I had not experienced during my time in Beijing; I saw a bunch of Chinese lined up orderly and waiting their turn to get into a restaurant. All I’d seen and been part of was a lot of pushing and shoving to get places.

We had nothing else planned so we headed back to the apartment.

Lucille’s housekeeper was there when we got back and my back hurt quite a bit so I went and tried to have a nap. After an hour of not sleeping I got up to find my back was a whole lot better. That hard bed was good for something.

Bella looking all sweet and innocent

Decided to take a few photos off the deck while we waited for Curtis to get home from work.

Lots of action going on by the old Tonic

Deck is pretty full at the new Tonic

I found the Mona Lisa!

Once Curtis got home we walked over to the Park Side Bar & Grill.

My food was pretty good; teriyaki beef and rice. Curtis had club sandwich and a whole lot of fries. Lucille had nachos that seemed to have spaghetti sauce on them. Food was better than the average margaritas however.

Don’t know who was playing but I liked the well stocked bar

As we were leaving we saw another interesting sign for the washrooms.

We laughed pretty hard over that one.

The place is called Park Side and it’s located at Side Park. Tricky.

We walked around the park before we headed back for the night.

As was the current trend; I lost all the games we played before bedtime.

It was a pretty slack ass day with us only doing 13,009 steps. I took some ibuprofen and went to bed.

11/12/2015 by photosbyhank

Oh sunny day

Thursday, October 8th dawned as a bright sunny day. It felt a bit strange after the smog days we had but also because Curtis left for work and Lucille and I headed out on our own.

We started walking south and were soon were heading to Chaoyang Park (Sun Park).

Slightly used

Chaoyang Park is the biggest park in Beijing at about 2.8 kilometers long by 1.5 kilometers wide and hosted the beach volleyball events for the 2008 Olympic Games. It is also the same park that I saw in my first full day in Beijing when Lucille and I went to Solana Mall. Granted, we were at the other end and it was raining.

I finally found some local exotic wildlife on my trip.

Well, they did have an accent.

Solana across the lake

Love the sign

There is a really nice walking path in the park so we walked for quite a ways checking out different aspects of the park.

By now we were at the amusement park area.

Washrooms

It was already getting close to lunch time so we headed to the subway to go back to Niuge Jiaozi Dumplings near the Forbidden City.

Not even that busy on the subway

When we got to the dumpling place it was a lot less busy than the first time we tried it. But the food tasted just as good.

Only customers

We were going to head to Tian’anmen Square but decided to go revisit Jingshan Park to see the view in the clear air.

We came in the east gate this time and found a path that climbed up about 3/4 of the hill without any stairs.

The only stairs to the top today

I found another cool tree trunk to shoot

Visibility was much better today so I decide to take a few more photos to compare to yesterdays.

Forbidden City

Forbidden City Panorama

We walked around to the west side to get a look at Beihai Park.

There’s mountains back there

Since we could see so much today I went to the north side too.

Towers at Olympic Park in the distance

We were done checking out the view so we headed back down the hill to go visit Tian’anmen Square.

Along the way we stopped to smell the flowers.

Since it is a fairly long walk we made a pit stop before leaving the park.

I thought the sign was cute but I wasn’t taking photos of the squat toilets.

I stopped to grab a few shots of the moat and wall of The Forbidden City since we had to pass right by it.

Almost an hour later we arrived at Tian’anmen Square.

It is a huge area; intended to hold up to 600,000 people and yet there isn’t a bench to be found.

North Gate

Mausoleum of Mao Zedong on the left and The Monument to the People’s Heroes

Big flower basket

The Monument to the People’s Heroes is 125 feet tall and is has a single guard on each side.

You can not get very close to the monument as they have it chained off some distance away.

National Museum of China

Security guard with surveillance tower behind him

The flowers were starting to look a little worse for wear but not bad considering the date on the calendar.

Back to the subway to head off to our next stop

Nice quiet station

Traaaaaaaaaaain! He turned off his lights as he got to the station

Olympic park was to be our next stop and it was a couple of transfers to get there but we found it ok.

Getting from the station to Olympic Park proved harder than the journey there. We found ourselves walking on the scenic route.

IBM has a pretty cool building

Saw a small load being put on the truck

Finally we made it.

You are Here “G3”

I’m not sure what services they actually offer

Like so many places we had been, Olympic Park was a rather large area. Olympic Stadium; The Bird’s Nest, is the most impressive building there. It sits on the east side of Pangu Plaza and the Beijing National Aquatic Centre or Water Cube is on the west side.

Bird’s Nest in the late afternoon sun

Water Cube

We walked around for a while more while we waited for Curtis to come and meet us.

Beijing is trying for winter Olympics

Rosie’s sister made this leg. Rosie was too worse for wear to travel

Water Cube close-up

Looking west

By now Curtis was leaving work so we started to make our way back to the subway station to meet him.

We met up with Curtis and took started our subway journey towards food.

The subways were a lot busier by this time.

We had Italian for supper at Annie’s Italian Restaurant. It wasn’t terrible but it certainly wasn’t the best Italian I’ve ever had. From Annie’s we made our way to Peter’s Tex-Mex in search of a good strawberry margarita. I didn’t think we found it. It was a pretty average drink.

We flagged down a cab with no problems and headed home.

It was so much walking today that I wore out my shoes. We did 37,197 steps today but very little stairs.

We played some aggravation; I got my ass kicked and it was bedtime.

09/12/2015 by photosbyhank

Bad air; part trois

More smoggy air greeted us on the morning of October 7th. The temperature was pleasant but it would be nice to see the sun.

We started our day by checking out the local market near Lucille and Curtis’s apartment. I don’t remember what they were looking for but it was a pretty varied market.

Unlike them, I found something to buy. Now I had something to carry, luckily, we were heading back to the apartment before we went for an early lunch.

The market was located along the river so it was a nice relaxing walk to and from.

There was a lot of activity along the river. People were exercising, others were set up to cut hair and I think there were even some dentists there as well.

A hairdresser in the park gets her tools ready for customers

As we headed back to the apartment I took some photos of Lucille and Curtis’s neighbourhood.

Zoom zoom

The new location for Tonic – Lucille and Curtis’s apartment in the background.

Note the stairs

Original Tonic just across the street from the apartment – stairs to balcony missing.

After we dropped of my parcel we headed over to the mall for lunch at Element Fresh.

The tan coloured bricks are for the blind. Good luck following it.

Just a little tight

We arrived at the mall.

The mall wasn’t very busy but it was way busier than Element Fresh was.

Lucille and Curtis said they weren’t all that hungry so they had something small (I got their olives)

Their lunch

My lunch

Since it was just lunch time and I was starving I decided on an omelette. It was delicious.

Lunch finished, we took the subway and bus to Beihai Park.

Bicycle lane

On the bus

Funny looking Beemers.

Beihai Park is a former Imperial park located just northwest of the Forbidden City. (I didn’t know that while I was there as we used the subway so much I hardly ever knew what direction I was facing).

Beihai Park surrounds a good size lake and there was a lot of activity on and around the lake.

Boats for rent

All my ducks in a row

The White Dagoba

We walked around the park finding things to look at. We found the 9 dragon wall. I’m not sure what it’s all about but it was pretty cool.

9 Dragon Wall Panaorama

As we walked we found a nice quiet little area.

It was quiet as apparently we weren’t supposed to be in it. We saw a few people working in an office and no one seemed to concerned about us but we saw a Chinese couple get chased away from the same area. We went down to the lake to blend in.

Soon we were walking through the beautiful Five-Dragon Pavilions.

I think I found the Ogopogo.

Came across an interesting diorama.

We finally made it to the west side of the lake.

Fall colour

Two thirds of the way down the west side of the lake is a water taxi to the island. As we walked along we realized we’d have to take the taxi or walk all the way back as the park ended. Taxi it is.

The White Dagoba on the island.

The taxi holds about 16 people and once enough people are there, you board and go. The route to the island is a straight line of about 1/2 a kilometer or so and our driver made it seem like we had the right of way. As we were leaving the dock he bumped into a rental row boat as the people in it were putting their oars in the locks and almost threw the lady in the lake. On the way across; not one but 2 boats had to change course so not to hit us. When we got to the island we bumped into another rowboat that was apparently in our way.

Our “menace to society” water taxi driver

This family dodged death

Our taxi leaving the island

Maybe the visibility was the problem

Dodged the rowboat on his way back

We walked around the base of the island for a bit.

Soon it was time to head up to the top of the hill.

Oh look; stairs.

We aren’t at the top yet but at least it’s flat.

That is a lot of prayers

I guess that could be talking politics

More, steep stairs to the top.

I suspect that the view from the top can be stunning, not so much today though.

I love how the roof tiles are in different colours.

Seemed bigger from down at the lake

As we walked around the top of the hill I notice the really cool looking trees. The bark looked like it was some kind of birch tree with a puzzle pattern to it. I thought they were beautiful and judging by how many of them are propped up with steel poles they must hold some significance.

Since I couldn’t just stare at the trees all day it was time to start making our way back down the hill. We took a different route back down the hill and found a few interesting things.

Roof detail

The gate to nowhere

Not sure what it is but he looks happy

It was time to say goodbye to Beihai.

Leaving the park

We walked through a hutong on our to our next stop.

Soon we were at Jingshan Park.

Jingshan Park is due north of The Forbidden City.

Another celebration of the end of WWII

The gate by the west side entrance

I liked the colour of the reflection

A walk in the garden

Jingshan is one of the smaller parks we’d been to at only 57 acres but the amount of gardens in it is stunning. In the spring or summer it would be well worth the 2 RMB admission.

Found an interesting piece of art.

It was quite big so….

We found the spot where the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty hung himself in 1644. Amazingly, there was no tree there.

We continued our walk through the gardens. I might not be seeing any fall colour but at least the flowers are still around.

By this time we had made our way to the south entrance.

The Forbidden City’s north gate from inside Jingshan through the south gate

Looking up Prospect Hill

It was time to climb the 150 foot hill to see what we could see. More stairs. I didn’t take any photos of the stairs – you seen 1000 stair; you’ve seen them all.

North gate of the Forbidden City from the top of Prospect Hill

Forbidden City Panorama from the top of Prospect Hill

With all the smog The Forbidden City didn’t look anywhere near the size it is. I checked other directions to see if visibility was any better. (It wasn’t)

Zooming in made it worse

Upped the contrast to see if it helped

Beihai is hard to see and it isn’t very far

So visibility sucked in all directions.

There are 5 peaks to Prospect Hill and the building were hard to photograph so I took pictures of a few of the plaques.

We started down the hill on the west side and I still like the look of the trees.

As we got near the bottom of the hill we saw another interesting sign.

By now it was getting to be late afternoon so we headed out of the park to go in search of food.

Would be easier to park in the lot to recharge

We walked through another hutong. I really liked walking through the hutongs as you got to see people going about their lives without a care of who was around.

Across from a school. Their yard was paved – not a blade of grass to play on

Suspicious characters eyeing up the bicycles

Supper was at Yaodianzi Sichuan Restaurant. I didn’t take any photo of the food but it was pretty good. The shredded potatoes tasted like hot chips. It was good and spicy food.

Once we got home we played a round of Chinese Checkers on the board game I’d made a few years ago for Christmas presents. I was pretty happy to win.

Lucille looks impressed

We turned the board over and played a couple games of Aggravation – I lost both. (That 1 game of Chinese Checkers would be my only glory during game nights).

By now it was bedtime. Tomorrow Curtis would be going back to work so Lucille and I would be without our tour guide. We’d done 21193 stairs; I mean steps today. Not bad at all.

03/12/2015 by photosbyhank

Palaces and ice cream

October 6th was another hazy day in Beijing. It wasn’t really haze though as you could taste the air and it didn’t taste good.

One of the things I had on my short list of things to go see was the Summer Palace and today was the day.

It is a long way from Lucille and Curtis’s apartment to The Summer Palace and by the time we got out of the subway the taste was gone from the air but it was still not good for visibility.

It’s just a short walk from the subway to the Summer Palace and entered through the Northern Palace Gate and were soon climbing stairs to go explore.

Not far from the entrance is Suzhou Street. Ironically, it’s down some stairs. It’s a rather interesting name as it’s not a street but full of shops and old residences around a canal.

It would qualify more as an alley than street to me as the walkways are quite narrow around the canal.

Obviously not a “Secret Escape Hatch”

Just a few people

Water lilies and a bridge

Typical of Chinese Royal areas, the building are stunning and there is a lot of detail in everything.

Big enough for tour boats

Oh look, tourists.

More tourists.

Still more tourists.

The Summer Palace seemed to be a popular place to be.

I loved the peace of Suzhou Street and could of spent hours sitting by the canal watching the people but there was a lot more to see.

Through the gate and up more stairs to The Four Great Regions area. Didn’t seem so great, nice maybe but not great.

A big tree held up with steel poles

Nice but not great

We still weren’t quite at the top of the hill and headed towards The Sea of Wisdom Temple. I stopped along the wall to take a photo of The Tower of Buddhist Incense.

I’d call that great

We started working our way down the stairs towards the lake.

A statue of Guanyin inside the Tower of Buddhist Incense (cast in 1574, five metres tall)

Pavilion of Precious Clouds

I found another quiet spot near The Hall of Moral Glory.

Looking up the stairs

Looking down the stairs

We finally found a flat spot.

We made our way down to Kunming Lake. It is a rather large man made lake of about 2.2 square kilometers. The soil from the lake’s construction was used to build Longevity Hill. That was the 200 foot hill we just descended to get here.

A lot of boat with the Seventeen-Arch Bridge in the background

We headed to the left and started to walk around the lake.

A window in a lakeside cafe

Getting closer to the Seventeen-Arch Bridge

It looks like a big bridge but with the haze it is hard to really tell.

Wide angle view of Longevity Hill from the Seventeen-Arch Bridge

Full zoom on Longevity Hill

Nanhu Island

As we walked around the lake the crush of people became less and less. We were heading towards the West Causeway and it’s 6 bridges.

I loved the look of this bridge

View from the top

We soon came to another bridge. I entered this photo in my camera club’s monthly competition for “Old Buildings.” One of the comments was, “Not a building.”

This was as good as I could do with this photo in Photoshop

After we got our results back for the competition (I didn’t do so good) I posted the original image on our club Facebook site to show what I had to work with.

DSC01731 Original

Like all the photos in my blog from this trip I only edited the jpegs as I don’t have any RAW software yet.

About as crowded as the path got.

Since I like bridges, I took pictures of another one.

Pavilion of Bright Scenery

I’m pulling for the left one – she looks like she’s into it.

I found another bridge.

This will look stunning in the spring.

And I found another bridge.

Considered the most beautiful of the bridges on Kunming Lake

Just to remind you that you are still in China.

Last bridge along our walk.

Poser

Real boats and the Marble boat

Tour boats at the dock.

Dredging machine that looks abandoned.

We were on the north side of the lake now and decided to leave by the north gate.

70th Anniversary to the end of WWII

As we were walking out we realized that the path was flat and we didn’t have to climb back up the hill to leave.

I saw this sign and realized just how big The Summer Palace grounds were.

It was 2:00 pm when I took this one so that many people were probably there and around the lake you would of never guessed that.

Gratuitious bus shot for Steve Parkin.

Since it wasn’t far, we walked over to The Old Summer Palace.

The flowers at the entrance were beautiul.

The Old Summer Palace is mostly ruins as it was destroyed in 1860 by British and French troops as the last act of the Second Opium War.

I’m not sure what they are made out of but they are popular.

I found more flowers.

We came to a canal and I really liked the look of it

Selfie

As we walked along we found the bridge to nowhere.

She’s not blonde

Walking around the grounds had me wonder how beautiful it must of been back in it’s heyday. Some of the grounds have been rebuilt but sadly it isn’t much and as it sits it is part of history and probably won’t ever be finished.

Lucille being brave

Look at her go

Curtis staying safe

It’s not that hard

There were a lot less people here than at The Summer Palace.

This fellow was making circuits at a leisurely pace.

An almost empty park

Not all of Beijing is crowded

Historic drawing of Haiyantang

Ceiling detail above the drawing.

It was time to go get some food. The Oreos and water I’d had at The Summer Palace were wearing off.

Our exit gate.

We made our way back towards downtown and ended up at Great Leap Brewing #12.

I honestly don’t remember what I had for my late lunch. I do know that each Great Leap specializes in different things. One does pizza and one does burgers and I don’t remember what the 3rd one does the most. I know the food was decent in all of them though.

As a treat/bribe to Curtis, Lucille agreed to eat here so we could go to Cows Ice Cream on the way home.

Maple Walnut and it tastes just as good as at home.

Now we have to walk those calories off.

The Summer Palace was as beautiful as I had hoped and I enjoyed my day as much as when we went to The Great Wall. I am having the best time on my vacation and 2 of the days have been fabulous.

20,313 steps today.

I would of liked to have visited the Summer Palace on a sunny day, but it would of been a lot warmer (and it was warm enough for me as it was) and shadows would of been a concern for photos.

Hank's Blog – Musings of a Wandering Mind

Month: December 2015