Beijing: Beihai Park (北海公园, Běihǎi Gōngyuán)

Entrance to Beihai Park

Another imperial garden! Actually, this was not in our itinerary, but we were walking towards a subway station to get to lunch place.

From the map, we found out how the easiest and quickest way towards a subway station. What we didn't know was the route cut through a garden, and being a garden in Beijing, we need to pay even if we are just passing through. A detour would take up more time and we didn't want to risk reaching the restaurant at the peak of lunching hour as we did not make any reservation. So we gladly paid up the entrance fee of RMB 5 (per person).

You must be thinking what's with this restaurant that we had to get to. Oh well, we were pretty determined to have Manchu cuisine and this was our last chance before leaving Beijing. :)

So back to this garden that we paid for passing through, it was Bei Hai Park - an imperial garden for more than 1,000 years. It was associated with Kublai Khan, who redesigned it during the Mongol Yuan dynasty.

This park is named after its extensive lake, Bei Hai. The obvious landmark of Bei Hai Park is a white Dagoba, a Tibetan-style stupa built to honour the vist of the fifth Dalai Lama in 1651.

Side note: I could do with onsen now...