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.

30/11/2015 by photosbyhank

From Hutong to tennis

It wasn’t raining on October 5th but it certainly wasn’t a bright sunny day by any means. Air quality wasn’t what I would call good as it had a white, hazy look to everything in the distance.

All I knew of today’s plan was were going to The China Open to watch tennis with tickets Lucille and Curtis had acquired from a manager at Element Fresh. It pays to be regulars.

We headed to the subway as a usual start to adventure.

Seems pretty quiet this morning

We were heading to the Bell and Drum Towers via the Yu’er Hutong. In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences.

Just a little busier than the subway.

Not as many interesting things to see here as 798 but some stuff for sure.

Either that is a scrawny Smurf or a big blue rat.

Old meet new

Map makes it look so organized

Man selling paper sculptors

The Bell tower came into view and I realized that meant there would be some stairs.

Continue reading →

29/11/2015 by photosbyhank

Temples and kungfu fighting

It wasn’t a totally sunny day on Sunday, October 4th but it looked like it might get there.

I was still in search of a gift for Lynda so I was pretty excited to go check out Tea Street.

We left the apartment to go look for a cab. Lucille and Curtis had told me it was almost impossible to get a cab in Beijing. We walked down their block and out to the main road where there is usually lots of taxis. After walking about 20 feet we saw a cab coming and flagged it down. The lady driving stopped right away and she knew the area we wanted to go to. Didn’t seem to hard to me but I was just a tourist.

It was about 25 minutes by cab to Tea Street so it would of been a long ride by bus/subway.

Tea Street is a long street lined with stores and stalls that sell everything tea. Tea sets, loose leaf tea, tea tables and other stuff that I have no idea what it was for.

At the start of the street it has plenty of modern stores, some of them were pretty fancy. I found a couple of tea sets that I liked but I wasn’t too happy with the prices so I thought I’d keep looking.

As we walked along the street the shops got smaller and older. Soon we came to the original area of the Teajoymarket area.

We checked out a few shops in the older area and I found a set that to me said “China” without actually saying “China.” When I asked how much it was I was surprised how little it was so I never even tried to barter. I was very happy with the price he gave me.

We went back to another store that I’d seen the same set in earlier and asked how much but they realized I already had a the same one and wouldn’t give me a price other than saying, “About what you paid.”

So I had what I came for, now I had a bag to carry around. Oh well, mission accomplished as far as I was concerned.

As we were leaving Tea Street to head over to the Lama Temple I spotted this.

I’m not a Lamborghini fan but a Huracan is not something I see everyday.

I had to go to China to try Papa John’s Pizza. Wasn’t bad pizza. I’ll have to try it at home one of these days to see if it’s consistent.

After lunch we went to the Lama Temple.

It was a fairly busy place but I never did see any lamas.

Lucille carrying my tea set

They do burn a lot of incense

That’s a lot of Buddhas

A really really big Buddha

After checking out some of the Buddhas we went back outside where it was less crowded.

Just resting

Having lunch

Rosie and I at the Lama Temple

Prayer wheel

That’s a lot of incense

Leaving the Lama Temple

Token bus shot for Steve Parkin

It was temple day as we left the Lama Temple to go to The Temple of Heaven

A bit of a crowd

Big lineup, must be important

I’m not sure what the line was for

Time for a rest

Posers

Poser

Just a few people

At least Curtis has my tea set

The Temple of Heaven was a pretty interesting site in a rather large site with plenty of things to see. We started making our way out and walked through a nice park area.

Curtis is just a blur

This guy was dancing to his own tune

He was enjoying himself

From The Temple of Heaven we went to the Hongqiao Pearl Market to see about some more shopping. It was a nice big indoor market but nothing jumped out at us to buy.

Directly behind the Pearl Market is another market that Lucille wanted to check out as she had heard a lot about the Knock Knock Store. It is a store just for foreigners. You approach an unmarked door and knock on it for entry. We never even got to knock as they have video surveillance and just opened the door when we got to it.

They had quite a bit of stuff there ranging from purses to shoes and clothes to sunglasses – which we all bought – to watches. Lucille replaced the sunglasses she lost at the Great Wall and I haven’t had any sunglasses in years but at least I hadn’t lost any down a squat toilet like she did. I really liked the look of the watches but didn’t bother to ask the prices. I don’t know what a Breitling knock off cost there but I probably still couldn’t afford it.

Hungry from all our shopping and sightseeing, we headed to. Wait for it….

McDonalds. I know, I know. I don’t even eat at McDonalds at home but unlike Curtis, I just had fries and a drink. Fries tasted pretty much like the fries at home.

We were ready to go to next stop – The Legend of Kungfu show at the Red Theatre.

We had seats in the 4th row and unlike the acrobat show, cameras were allowed as long as there was no flash used. I was good with that.

It was a good show and interesting enough, in English with the Chinese shown on the screen about the stage.

Excellent show over it was time to go home. 16, 424 steps today. Didn’t beat yesterday but seems to be consistent now.

26/11/2015 by photosbyhank

The Great Wall and back

As was getting typical for me, I was up at dawn again. It looks like a nice day out so I might as well do something productive before we go see the Great Wall.

The view from my window

My room faced north so I don’t really get to see the sunrise so I went to the balcony to see how it looked from there.

Sunrise Panorama1

No colour to be seen except for the glow on some of the buildings.

Today we were going to see one of the 7 wonders of the world – The Great Wall of China. Well, part of it anyway as it’s more than one wall and covers over 5500 miles. We are going to the Mutianyu section which is considered to be one of the most beautiful sections and as such it has been fully restored.

Tony, our driver, picked us up at 7:30 am and we were soon on the highway. Traffic flowed pretty good until we hit the toll booths. It was interesting watching the traffic move in and out of their lanes going on to and off of the shoulders trying to get ahead. It’s not like they put booths on the shoulders so they had to fight their way back in line. It took us longer to get through the toll area than it took to drive the miles to get there.

Tony dropped us off and we walked in to the ticket area.

A ticket for admission, one for the chair lift and one for the toboggan ride back down.

Once you leave the ticket area you board a bus and it drives you up to a long flat area that is full of shops and restaurants.

Panda’s and sheep are friends?

Once you navigate past all the shops and vendors it’s a short walk up the hill to the chairlift.

It’s a long way up.

There was no waiting at the chairlift so we were on our way in no time.

Nice view on the way up.

Up, up and away

After about a 5 minute ride we arrived at the base of the wall. Just a couple sets of stairs – again with the stairs – and we are standing on top of The Great Wall.

We are lucky enough to have a good air day and you can see for a long way.

I never in my whole life expected to be able to do something like this. It was awesome to see.

Selfies over, we walked up to the first lookout.

View from the top

There goes the tour

The Moffat’s

We could walk along the wall if we wanted but it involved a lot of climbing and none of us wanted to do that. So it was time to hit the toboggan run.

Whee!

Zoom zoom!

It’s a lot harder to lean back on the toboggan and take pictures than you’d think. Having to hold the brake handle to keep going didn’t help.

The fun over, we got back on the bus and headed down to the exit.

The guy in the yellow hat’s job is to hand out flyers.

He’d doing a good job. When Lucille got close to him, he started giving her one, looked at her, the pulled it back. I think we were racially profiled.

As we waited for Tony to pick us up I grabbed a couple of shots near the entrance.

The flowers still looked pretty good for the time of year.

Great Wall Panorama1

It’s not even noon when we get back to the apartment. Took an hour and a half to get to the wall but only an hour to get home.

Must be time for lunch so we head over to the mall and Element Fresh.

After lunch we went to one of the places I had on my list of places to go see – 798 Art Zone.

I had read that 798 was full of art galleries, shops and restaurants so I really wanted to go see it.

Another selfie

When pigs fly

Some of the children’s art

I knew we were in the right place

There were a lot of booths and activities for kids along the street.

I took this because I know Samantha Burns would be so jealous

They were sure having fun

Looks like so much fun

She is really in to it

I found some grafitti but a little late for my photo club assignment.

Just down the street we saw some more painting going on.

A bit further along the same street is a shop that actually sells grafitti supplies. It was pretty cool.

There was so much neat stuff to see that it was hard to walk as I stopped to take pictures so often.

The whole area is a former industrial area and the mix of old and new is intriguing.

Everywhere you looked you’d see something different.

Painting his pottery

Making pomegranate juice.

Very focused on her work

Even more things to see as we walked around.

Gum?

A fixer upper

Good use of a phone booth

As we moved into a different area stuff just got weirder.

Close-up of the moon.

I thought it would be bigger.

Planes and balls.

I’m not even sure what that is all about.

Moon creatures?

Red, white and blue cup mounds?

We had been in 798 for about 3 hours and started to make our way out. I could of spent a couple of days there but Lucille did have a list of things for us to see and do.

I thought I’d shoot some “normal” stuff.

Metal fence

A row of valves is normal. Right?

And some not so normal stuff.

It’s a…..?

He doesn’t look that impressed considering he’s riding a dinosaur.

As we approached one of the gates I noticed a familiar sign on a building in the distance.

Pit stop

Biggest one wins?

Rosie and I on the way out of 798

Leaving 798

The 798 Arts District is huge and if I had 2 full days there I would not be able to see everything. It flows into the 751 area that appears to have more of the same kind of stuff as well as fashion shops.

This was the best day so far on my trip. I was in awe at The Great Wall and in total wonderment at 798.

As we made our way to find supper we saw a small traffic jam.

Not sure what was causing the hold up but was glad we weren’t going in that direction.

Just a few cranes.

As we got near Peter’s Tex-Mex I saw something that reminded me of my friend Steve Parkin and I just had to take a couple of photos.

Short bus

It was around 6:00 pm when we got to Peter’s but it was feeling like a long day. The food was ok and for a Tex-Mex place the strawberry margarita wasn’t great as they had run out of strawberries and substituted mango instead.

We had a toast to my dad on what would of been his 75th birthday. He would of never gone to China in a million years but I was very happy to be able to go.

Considering all the things we saw today 16635 steps seemed low but we did take a car ride for a good chunk of it. Tomorrow’s another day maybe we’ll do better.

26/11/2015 by photosbyhank

Shopping and a show

Friday, October 2nd dawned as another nice sunny day.

We headed out looking for adventure.

I love the bicycle lock on the back tire.

I was told the plan was to go to the dirt market which is properly called Panjiayuan Market. Apparently it’s been called the dirt market as cheaper goods can usually be had there.

I was on the hunt for something nice for Lynda. I had a tea set in mind and thought I’d have luck finding one for her. I was wrong.

I did see beads; lots and lots of beads. Any colour or size of bead you could imagine or dream of and you’ll find it here. Bracelets were abundant as well. I really would of liked to buy one for Lynda but without her there to make sure I got the right size it was pointless.

There was also a noticeable lack of vendors in some isles.

It is quite a big market and there was a lot of stuff to see but just not what I was hoping to find.

Apparently it’s a popular market.

Disappointed with my shopping efforts we left in search of a lunch spot.

Along the way I spotted a few scooters.

We went to Home Plate BBQ for some American burgers. The burgers weren’t bad, not the best I’ve ever had by a long shot, but pretty good for Beijing.

One of the nice things about being in a restaurant in China is you are never pressured to finish up and leave. No matter if the place if busy or not, no one ever comes and brings you a bill or hovers nearby. When you are ready you have to wave them over to pay. Even paying the bill doesn’t mean you have to get out. This worked out nicely as we had some time to kill before we were going to go a late afternoon acrobat show at the Choayang Theatre.

We still had some time when we got to the theatre.

Not our tour so we wandered around a bit more to kill some time so I looked for some interesting building to shoot.

The tallest building in Beijing at 88 stories

On the way back to the theatre I saw some guys installing lights along a fence. They looked to be welded steel cages or aluminum and they were putting them up by hand. I missed the best action as I couldn’t get a good angel to shoot from, but it was impressive to watch them lift it into place.

It was a nice little theatre with balconies but unfortunately no photos were allowed during the performance. We had 4th row seats and I know I would of been able to get some nice shots. The acrobats are very good and it is an impressive show that they put on. It is over in what feels like no time at all.

Supper time found us at Ganges Indian Restaurant over near where Lucille and Curtis live. It was good food but I’ve never been in an Indian restaurant where rice didn’t come with the entree.

Feeling full it was safe to stop at April Gourmet for some groceries. Where they come up with the names of things is beyond me. I found it hot in the store so I wandered out on to the sidewalk and grabbed a shot of the building.

That was the end of our day. Only 10596 steps today.

Hank's Blog – Musings of a Wandering Mind

Author: photosbyhank