Sunday - Fragrant Hills - Tiananmen - Wang Fu Jing
Sunday we went even further out of town to see the Fragrant hills park. (Xiangshan park)
Pictures are here.
The park is best known for its fall colors. In spring however, there were many cherry blossoms that were equally as impressive.
Some girls even wore wreaths of cherry bloosoms in their hair.
This park was even more amazing. If you ever go, bring good shoes. This day we probibly walked 12-15 miles easily.
Next door is the Azure temple. It climbs the hill with many gates. Each gate had a buddist temple/altar of some kind. There were many prayer ribbons throughout the park.
You walk around the temple and then there is another. At the top is a memorial hall to Sun Yat-sen.
Despite the dust, the view was really good.
From here we went to Tiananmen square. Downtown Beijing is huge and the square is pretty breathtaking. Not a lot going on as far as statues or what not, its just BIG. At the top of the square is the Chinese flag.
Pics are here
I saw several folks stare up admiringly and salute the flag. We got there in time to see the flag lowering ceremony. Several of the auxilary colorguard troops were out of uniform. It was pointed out to me that they were probibly really in “uniform”…just plainclothes officers that would normally be walking
the square. No wonder there is no trash to be found anywhere.
There was a checkpoint where they checked bags, but we were waved through. Seemed odd that it was the Americans were not checked, but it sounded like types of folks they were looking for were usually native. I ometimes felt this strange feeling like I was in a spot that an American was not supposed to be in. Sorta like when I was in East Berlin in 1990. Thirty years ago this would definately be the case. Instead I was greeted by many folks wanting to try out their English skills (and sell me stuff). I felt very welcome.
From there we went to the famous WangFuJing shopping district.
Pics are here. It looks like Vegas with all of the lights. The Oriental Plaza has South Coast Plaza beat hands down. The mall was huge, but all the items were western (Rolex, Hugo, Levis, Eddie Bauer, Swatch) and legit. There were no deals to be had here.
The food court here though is a MUST visit. Packed with people and just about every cuisine you can imagine. Very clean and cheap too.
This is also where famous night market is. The eating experience here is a little different. More more of a “dare you to eat this” tilt to the offerings.
Here you can get seahorse on a stick, scorpion, “stinky tofu” or a deep fat fried starfish (blech). I didnt try any of it yet. But I still have two weeks to go.
