We braved the Beijing subway to reach the starting point of our walking tour of the Back Lakes area north west of the Forbidden City. The first part of the walk started with us taking a wrong turn and having to backtrack! We then started the walk at Xihai Lake. It was a cool walk under beautiful willow trees alongside a hutong and there were many locals along the lake fishing with long fishing poles. We continued along to Houhai Lake and enjoyed watching locals play table tennis, exercise on outdoor exercise equipment, and later, people swimming laps across the lake. It was just before this lake when we encountered the Hutong Salesmen pushing rickshaw rides through one of the many hutongs in the area. It's a safe bet to say we were "asked" if we wanted a ride at least 20 different times before we reached Behai Park. We had to be rude and either ignore them or say no and keep walking…they were very persistent.
At the Silver Ingot bridge between Houhai Lake and Qianhai Lake we took a small detour to see the Drum Tower. It was quite an impressive building, but we didn't feel like trying to cross the street with all the traffic so we just took pictures. We backtracked to the Silver bridge and continued along Qianhai Lake until we came to another major intersection. We crossed the busy street using an underpass to reach the gate of Behai Park where we paid a 20RMB fee each to enter. I think we were robbed with that price, but that's a story for another time! Behai Park was created in 1115 during the Tartar Jin dynasty. It is adjacent to the Forbidden City and used to be the 'imperial playground.' Behai was only opened to the public in 1925. Many people were exercising as is common in Chinese parks and we enjoyed watching people tap dance, paint calligraphy on the sidewalks, and just enjoying each other's company. We walked along the Behai Lake until we reached the White Dagoba on the Jade Isle where we took pictures of the beautiful scenery. We exited the park and continued to walk along the outside of the Forbidden Palace until we came to the front gate of the palace. There we found ourselves very out of place and quite the tourist attraction…apparently people are not used to seeing Americans. We were stared at a lot.
After passing the Forbidden City (we will tour it with our tour group 3 days from now) we walked to Wangfujing Street where there is plenty of shopping. I believe it is the trendy shopping center of Beijing. We ate lunch inside the Oriental Plaza at the Paris Baguette where a very sweet Chinese lady helped us figure out what we wanted…we had a chicken panini that was wonderful. We did a little window shopping and then braved the metro again to come back to our hotel. We think we walked about 7 miles today so we can eat Baskin Robbins tonight after dinner with no remorse!
So far we are really enjoying our journey here in Beijing. Tomorrow we hope to do a little shopping!
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1 comment:
Wonderful! I love the pictures. Thanks for sharing
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