China ~ Beijing (2011) : Jingshan Park & the Forbidden City
"Let me take a photo of you!" told me one guy while I was admiring the Forbidden City from the top of the hill in Jingshan Park... in this way I got my tourist photo.
My video featuring Tiananmen area, Jingshan park and a bit of couchsurfing in Beijing.
The whole area around the Forbidden City is amazing, too many places, beautiful parks and things to see. I've heard you can have a good view from Jingshan, the park north of the City so I headed that way.
One of the corner towers while going around the moat surrounding the Forbidden City.
Jingshan park has a mere entrance of 元2 (totally worth it), as soon as I got in my ears caught the sound of some traditional organ.
This guy was busking, nice music and big smile.
Going up the artificial hill of the park named "Prospect Hill". Im expecting some nice views on the top.
View of the park facing towards Di'anmen inner street. Jingshan is an imperial park covering 23 hectares. Formerly a private imperial garden attached to the grounds of the Forbidden City, the grounds were opened to the public in 1928.
Closer view on the north entrance to the park, through Di'anmen inner street.
The view of the Forbidden City from the park. It was the Chinese imperial palace from the year 1420 to 1912 (Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty). It served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government for almost 500 years.
Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings with 8.886 bays of rooms. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.
I really love these roofs!
The Forbidden City, the culmination of the two-thousand-year development of classical Chinese and East Asian architecture, has been influential in the subsequent development of Chinese architecture, as well as providing inspiration for many artistic works.
Eastern view from the park, towards Qionghua Island which has the Beihai park and the White Pagoda.
Girls dressed in traditional Chinese dresses have set up a business here, you pay a small fee and you can take photos with them to take home.
Many tourists here but many locals as well, dressed up nicely to have the photograph with the Forbidden City on the background.
Walking down I see some people having picnic on tables and reach an open area with four gates full of local people and kids running around. A bit further a woman is playing some kind of traditional flute while others are practicing tai chi.
Most of the groups were playing hacky sack, caught this middle aged guys who really surprised me with their agility and technique! Walked towards the Bell Tower and passed by many restaurants. Was tempted but then I saw a convenient store. A girl greeted me and to my surprise I found vegetarian instant noodles, she made it for me with hot water and gave me also a mini fork to eat!!! Only 元4 and another 元4,5 yuan for four pieces of small chocolate bread, a real bargain. Waited a bit until the noodles were ready and went outside on the pavement to enjoy my lunch. Rain had started and I saw people running with their umbrellas, bicycles and moto-bikes with their waterproofs, others waiting for buses. Food was delicious, opened my umbrella open and went on my way. Found a nice hutong and went in to have a look, so beautiful small narrow streets, felt like forgotten in time. A little girl with her pink umbrella was playing in one alley with the rain, the perfect picture, if I had a waterproof camera on my neck. For the finish of my lunch I got some vegetarian dumplings only 元1,2 each!!
Before the rain started I walked into another hutong which -at some point- looked abandoned and ran down. Hutongs are a type of narrow streets or alleys. In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences.Many neighbourhoods were formed by joining one siheyuan to another to form a hutong, and then joining one hutong to another. The word hutong is also used to refer to such neighbourhoods.
Since the mid-20th century, a large number of Beijing hutongs were demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. More recently, however, many hutongs have been designated as protected, in an attempt to preserve this aspect of Chinese cultural history. Nevertheless, my host and many more people told me that there were more plans for hutongs to be demolished giving way to lucrative businesses...
Previous days dinner with my host Tian (right) and another couchsurfer, a Polish girl staying for a night (left). Tian is a great host, very friendly, easy-going, lots of fun and tons of information to share about culture. She had three female hamsters, she was thinking to rent her place and move to Tibet to live there. Coming back home that night I found two mooncakes waiting for me, a gift from my host, so sweet!
Additional information
GPS coordinates for places in this post, click on them to be redirected to the exact point in google maps. Click on the names to be redirected to their official websites (if applicable).
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