Day 60: Beijing, China

This was our one day on our own without our trusted guide Julia, although she did give us some excellent suggestions for places to visit. Our first stop this morning was the Lama Temple, which is actually named Yong He Gong which means "The Palace of Peace and Harmony". It is a massive temple complex filled with people praying and burning incense in the many incense burners in front of each temple building.




The coolest thing about the Lama Temple is that it has a hall (Wanfu Ge, "Tower of Ten Thousand Happiness") that contains an enormous Buddha statue that is approximately 60 ft. tall which was carved from a single trunk of white sandalwood. Apparently 8 meters of the statue is below ground too.




Then we took a taxi to Jing Shan hill which is part of a park area behind the Forbidden City. It was built using the dirt from the construction of the moat around the Forbidden City and was put there for feng shui purposes - a mountain behind is for protection, apparently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingshan

This is a view of the pavillion we climbed up to on the top of the hill.




Here is the excellent view of the Forbidden City from the top (although it was a little bit hazy today).




This is the inside of the pavillion.




Then we walked to nearby Bei Hai park. Here are some street photos on our way.






Bei Hai park is huge and surrounds a beautiful lake that was made in the 12th century. It has a small island that you can reach by bridge and tons of shaded paths and areas to walk around the lake.

Here is the bridge to the small island, which has a large white "dagoba" on top which was built to commemorate the visit of the first Dalai Lama to the capital in 1651.



Here is the lake:




To join in with the rest of the locals enjoying their Sunday on the lake, we decided to rent a "battery boat" (very slow motor boat) and cruise around for a while.

Here is Frank steering:




This is a view back towards the little island:




One of the bridges:




One of Frank's famous one-handed photos of both of us:




After returning the boat, we wandered all through the park and walked all around the lake.








There are numerous older men who seem to be writing poetry with huge brushes and just water on the dusty pavement. This one did some drawings in addition to the poetry.




More views around the lake:






This is a Buddhist temple in the park called the Hall of Great Bliss and Anticipation. It dates from the Ming Dynasty and contains two copper towers that each are inlaid with 712 tiny bronze Buddhas.






After that, we walked to the Lake District which was very close to the north end of the park. The two lakes Qian Hai and Hou Hai are surrounded by tons of bars, restaurants and shops. The whole area was probably my favorite in Beijing - very festive and so peaceful to sit on the edge of the lake having dinner.

Here was my view from the restaurant where we had dinner:




Here was my other view:




This is an interesting looking duck that swam by:




This is the part where we ate viewed from the other side of the lake.





We walked around the entire path surrounding both lakes, which took about an hour and a half.






Some men playing Chinese chess:




More of our walk around the lakes:








It was a fabulous day and a perfect way to end our stay in Beijing. Now we just have to pack up and get ready for our journey to Helsinki tomorrow! Hopefully we will back to regular blog updates now too.

ILM