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.