{"id":867,"date":"2010-10-06T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T14:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/?p=867"},"modified":"2010-10-06T21:50:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T14:50:00","slug":"bei-hai-park-and-the-hutongs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/2010\/10\/06\/bei-hai-park-and-the-hutongs\/","title":{"rendered":"Bei Hai Park and the Hutongs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bei<\/a><\/p>\n

Bei Hai Park is to Beijingers what Central Park is to New Yorkers – it’s a large park in the center of the city where locals go to relax and find respite from the hustle and bustle of the city. \u00a0 Located northwest of the Forbidden City, it’s often missed by foreigners who are rushing around the sites. \u00a0While it’s not a “must see”, it’s nice to walk through as a follow up to Jingshan Park (just north of Forbidden City) on the way to Shichahai Park where there’s a bar district and the famous hutongs (narrow alleys that offer a glimpse into life in Beijing as it used to be).<\/p>\n

The White Dagoba is the landmark at Bei Hai Park (pictured above) and it’s a short climb up to the top where you can get a nice view of the park.<\/p>\n

\"Going<\/a><\/p>\n

The view from the top:<\/p>\n

\"Bei<\/a><\/p>\n

The Park features many ornate temples and buildings. \u00a0Here’s the Five Dragons Pavilion. \u00a0The locals use the pavilions as a way to showcase their dancing or singing. \u00a0Fun to see people gathered around to watch spontaneous performances. \u00a0More on this later.<\/p>\n

\"Bei<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Bei<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Bei<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the interior of a temple where I snapped a photo. \u00a0They said no photography, but I wasn’t technically<\/em> inside the building. \u00a0\ud83d\ude09 \u00a0Pretty impressive.<\/p>\n

\"Bei<\/a><\/p>\n

Beijingers Unplugged<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since it was still the Golden Week Holiday, there were tons of domestic tourists lurking about. \u00a0But this park also had lots of locals. \u00a0Below are several older folks practicing their Chinese calligraphy with sponge-tipped water brushes.<\/p>\n

\"Chinese<\/a><\/p>\n

This lady brought her boombox and started playing Chinese ballroom dance music. \u00a0She’s a totally stylin’ granny. \u00a0 Look at them shoes! \u00a0SWEET! \u00a0She saw I was taking photos so she got up and danced around a bit. \u00a0Love it!<\/p>\n

\"Bei<\/a><\/p>\n

This guy was belting out the tunes. \u00a0He wasn’t good, but he was passionate.<\/p>\n

\"Karaokeing<\/a><\/p>\n

And finally, we found this little guy hanging out in the middle of a courtyard, gnawing away on some skinny bamboo. \u00a0Gotta take pics of cute puppies no?<\/p>\n

\"Bei<\/a><\/p>\n

The Hutongs<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Beijing<\/a><\/p>\n

Hutongs<\/a>, are narrow alleyways lined with traditional courtyard residences called siheyuan. <\/em>They represent what’s left of old Beijing, since much of the city was torn up to build new roads and modern buildings. \u00a0Locals still live in these hutongs and while some of it is now commercialized, you still see restaurants appear out of nowhere as you walk along the alleys – it’s where the locals eat. \u00a0 \u00a0Here’s a lady firing up the grill with a hair dryer in preparation for grilling chicken skewers that were being prepared out on the street as we walked by.<\/p>\n

\"Beijing<\/a><\/p>\n

We peeked in to a few courtyards – these guys were playing Chinese chess.<\/p>\n

\"Beijing<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the more commercial hutong called Yandai Xiejie. \u00a0It’s packed to the gills with tourist souvenir shops and restaurants above, but has a cool vibe nonetheless. \u00a0I’m not surprised that there’s a bar district near by.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Beijing<\/a><\/p>\n

A note to future travelers, we had trouble finding a good online guide for how to get around Shichahai aside from wandering (which we also did). \u00a0This is the best we found:\u00a0http:\/\/www.travelchinaguide.com\/package\/beijing\/shichahai-bike-tours.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also just give in and pay 100-200RMB for one of the pedicabs to take you around. \u00a0But it’s kind of expensive. \u00a0Easier to just follow them on foot, but if you’re in a rush, just make sure you negotiate.<\/p>\n

Finally, here’s the Drum Tower with accompanying Bell Tower (not pictured) built in the late 1200s. \u00a0It was used up until the end of the last Chinese dynasty (the Qing Dynasty) in 1924 to keep time. \u00a0We arrived just as it was closing, but it was still neat to see the ornate building rise above the hutongs and picture in our minds what life might have been like.<\/p>\n

\"Drum<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the full set of photos:<\/p>\n

[flickrslideshow acct_name=”tony-chen” id=”72157624990416223″]<\/p>\n

We’ll be returning to the hutongs in a couple of weeks to do a cooking class (surprise!) and a “tea safari”. \u00a0Look out for that post!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bei Hai Park is to Beijingers what Central Park is to New Yorkers – it’s a large park in the center of the city where locals go to relax and find respite from the hustle and bustle of the city. \u00a0 Located northwest of the Forbidden City, it’s often missed by foreigners who are rushing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}