Enchanted Walmer Castle

Early in December Jemma, Ruby and I managed to get tickets for 'Enchanted Walmer Castle' where the grounds of Walmer Castle were decorated with lights, it was a magical experience which we all enjoyed very much :)

It was a lovely night to walk round, above is the Broad Walk beautifully lit up :)

The Broad Walk again, with the children's funfair lit up in the background.

The Queen Mothers Garden, fountains playing which changed colour :)

Just gorgeous!

So pretty :)

The trail then went through the woods, above is one of the two talking trees we found :)

Fairy Dell, complete with toadstool houses, 

...a Fairy Castle,

and numerous doors showing where the Fairy houses are.

Musical trees that changed colour.

The children's play area lit up, near here was a stall which sold drinks and giant marshmallows, which you could toast over a brazier, delicious!

The second talking tree :)

The cafe area well lit up 

The light tunnel leading into the Castle.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the event, and we all agreed that if they do it all again next Christmas time we would all love to go again :) 

Merry Christmas :)

Street Scenes, Beijing

The amazing Confucius Cafe, where they serve the best vanilla coffee and blueberry muffins in Beijing. :)

This is my last Beijing Blog, I can't believe it has taken me so long this year putting these blogs up. I am now retired so I am hoping that there will be more frequent blogs in 2020 :)

A Hutong, I love these wonderful little streets :)

Buildings with carvings everywhere you look.

Two statues at the entrance to a building, wonderful :)

Attention to detail on buildings, something we simply do not see in this country.

A Hutong with the Drum Tower in the background.

Enormous yellow ducks by the shops? Why not??

This looked like a cat face :) Part of a roof decoration.

This little park is literally as wide as you can see, it is Sandwiched between houtongs on the right, and an eight lane road on the left, it was so lovely walking through there :)

The view over the Hutongs from my daughters flat, with the Confucius Temple in the background.

A closer view over the Hutongs, this was my 'television' while I was there, there was always something interesting going on :) Notice the blue roofs in the centre of the photo, these are added on structures to a basic Hutong home, a close up in the next photo...

Yes on top of the Hutong roof is a pigeon loft! Also in the photo is 'Roof Dog' he seemed to spend a lot of time up on the roof, walking along the ridges of the roofs. On top of one of the other buildings, accessed by a ladder, a lady used to feed some of the stray cats in the area. 

Typical street scenes, which I love :)

And a peek into another Hutong building.

These Hutongs are tidy in an untidy way!!

Outside a shop, I didn't actually have a ride in one of these, they are expensive, but I think this one was just for decoration.

The Gourd Shop, an Aladdin's Cave of lovely items :)

Just another building with lovely decorated roof tiles.

Finally a photo  of the gardens in the Compound where my daughter had her flat.

If anyone had told me 10 years ago that I would be visiting China four times in the future I would never have believed them, but each and every time I had a holiday there I loved it more. Although I have only seen a very small part of this country, I am thrilled to have been able to get to know Beijing just a little bit. I have so many photos to remind me of all the fantastic places I have visited, and many more fantastic memories :)

My daughter is now living in Japan for a year, I am not sure yet if I will be able to visit her there next year, we will have to wait and see, but if I do I will take lots of photos and write more blogs.

Beihai Park, up those steps!

On my first visit to Beijing in 2011 we visited Beihai Park, had our lunch in a Restaurant by the lake, and then I wanted to explore the steps going up towards the White Dagoba. Unfortunately we were running out of time on that visit, but I was determined to see where those steps led to one day.

After our wonderful Mother's Day lunch we walked along to Beihai Park, my last opportunity to finally find out where those steps led to.....my daughter had told me that they led up to the Dagoba, but there was a better way to get up there. We arrived in the park quite late in the afternoon, paid our entrance fee and asked if we could have tickets to go up to the Dagoba, the answer was that it was too late in the day :(

Undeterred by that answer we went to the entrance to the Jade Flower Island inside the park leading up to the Dagoba, and my daughter managed to get tickets for us. Finally I would be able to get up the hill, and see where those steps led to :)

As it was late in the day we virtually had the place to ourselves, we both love sightseeing that way! It was so pretty and very, very peaceful as we climbed up to the Dagoba. Beautiful courtyards surrounded with buildings with Buddhas in, little shops, and surprises every where we looked.

Going up :)

The beautiful little pagodas in the side courtyards.

Looking back the way we had come,

but getting closer to the top :)

The roofs of many of these buildings had beautiful dragon decorations, all a bit worn but simply amazing to see.

Roof furniture close up :)

Amazing Buddhas :)

Getting closer....

closer still....

and finally there we were right underneath the Dagoba :) The Dagoba itself was not open, but I was very happy to get this close :)

The view from the top looking out over the lake and some of Beihai Park.

We had time enough to have a good look round, then a bell rang and we were asked to make our way down the hill to the exit. 

We were not rushed, but slowly made our way back down the steps.

Most people had already gone by this time, it was lovely :)

Looking out over The Forbidden City to Tiananmen Square in the distance.

Going down....

but still time to look back up to the top.

Back down to street level, I am so pleased that I finally got up to the top of the hill, it was an amazing place to visit, made nicer by the lack of lots of people!

That day with the special lunch, followed by the climb up to the  Dagoba has got to be one of the most special days I had in China, it was just amazing :)