Beihai Park, Beijing

 

My daughter wanted to take us to Beihai Park, which lies to the North West of the Forbidden City, so we made our way there one very hot afternoon. It is a very large Park, we didn’t see all of it, but what we did see was lovely. Its main feature is a very large lake, and one of the attractions for us was the restaurant at the edge of the lake.

The view from the restaurant

Dressing up as an Empress

As I have already said it was a very hot afternoon, so as soon as we arrived we headed straight onto the restaurant terrace for a nice cool beer. On the table next to us were an extremely nice American family who were very interested in the fact that my daughter and her friend were studying Chinese in Beijing. We had a lovely long chat with them, and swopped experiences and tips, and just relaxed and enjoyed the peace of sitting by the lake.

Love the circular gateways, wonder if Tolkein got the idea for his hobbit homes from China??

Suitable refreshed we wandered round the Island, through the covered walkway, which was beautiful, and through the lovely gardens.

The walkway is just beautiful, every one of the pictures on the cross beams is different, on both sides!! Amazing!

The outside of the walk, I could have spent hours taking photos of all the paintings!!

I did not realize at the time that we stayed on the main Island, there is a lot more of the Park to see, but we were feeling rather lazy that day! We could see the White Daboga, which holds the Buddhist scriptures, but we did not have the time or the energy to climb up to it.

Apparently a very expensive restaurant!

Kites

We made our way back to the restaurant and had a lovely meal sitting by the lake. The park is very peaceful and calming, and I could have stayed longer. If ever I go back to Beijing I would love to spend more time there and explore it all.

The restaurant by the lake