Beijing Diary: April 2006

Ride to Summer Palace Area

Shopping Center and Old Houses
Today we road our tandem to the Summer Palace area. Our route was due west along Xueyuannan Road, which is the south border of the Beijing Normal University Campus, and further along turns into Weigongcun Road. Then we wiggled over to Kunminghu Road running up the Beijing Canal to the Summer Palace (Google Map). This turned out to be a quite a pleasant route, without too much traffic. There was alot of construction alongside the canal road, but again not too much traffic. We only had one near miss with a taxi the whole way! An old guide book to bike rides in Beijing says there was an interesting Uyghur community in the Weigongcun area, but more recent guides say this has all been knocked down, to be replaced by buildings like the shopping center in the photo above.

We decided not to go into the Summer Palace, since we have been there twice before, and it wasn't a clear day for good photos. Near the summer palace Beijing is beginning to thin out into farmland, and so we explored this a little. The people working in the fields were very friendly, and unlike the Beijing city-folk were quite curious about our "small handsome" tandem as one described it, and the idea of two people pedalling a single bike.

Orchard near the Summer Palace
One thing we found was a source of the white seed fluffs that fill the air on windy days in Beijing like gentle snow. It had always been curious that these fluffs were everywhere, but we could never see what tree they came from.

Willow Trees: "Spring Snow" Source

Spring Snow

Fishing Pond
You might be able to see some of the floating fluffs in the last picture above.

After riding some more (walking on the dirt roads) we came to an open air market. It was fun to wander around and have gestured (me) and spoken (Lynn) conversations with the stallholders, who were happy to talk with us at the primitive level we could manage, and to have their photos taken.

Open Air Market

Fruit Stalls

Sweet Noodle Stall

Leeks

Bike Repair Man
No, we didn't have bike trouble! This is Lynn asking directions from a roadside bicycle repair man on the way home.

Bikes in Beijing

There are still many bikes on the streets in Beijing - the difference from 10 years ago is that there are now many cars as well. Here are a few pictures that give some idea of this, although I haven't caught the most impressive scenes of massed bicycles yet!

Bikes on Xianjiekouwaidajie

Waiting for Green, Jishuitan Bridge
In many ways Beijing is an ideal city for bikes. It is flat, and almost all the main roads have wide designated cycle lanes, may fenced off from the rest of the traffic. It is also probably the quickest way of getting places in the rush hours. On the less pleasant side are the very cold winters, the smog, the dust and sand, and the crazy driving conventions.

Here's one more picture that doesn't show many bikes but is for me an iconic picture of bikes and Beijing.

Cycling Past Tiananmen Gate

Dinner on Lake Xihai

Fishermen

It was a nice warm evening again, so we decided to have dinner at a restaurant on Lake Xihai. This is just a mile or so north of where we had dinner last Friday on Lake Qianhai, but unlike that area is not inundated with western tourists. Just next to the restaurant fisherman were using long poles fish in the reeds near the inlet to the lake. They were catching quite large fish, as you can see in the next picture. The restaurant we went to is in the background.

Caught One!
The restaurant was right by the lake, with some tables on jetties over the lake, some on floating barges, and even some on boats that were paddled out into the center of the lake after all the dishes had arrived.

Restaurant by the Lake

At many of the restaurants we have been to, a waiter will come with the menus, and then stand by patiently for however long it takes to order, occasionally adding helpful suggestions. Ordering can take a long time even if the menu is in English, since there are usually so many dishes to choose from. The hovering waiter is a little hard to get used to after the American way of doing things!

We ordered a cold dish of "peeled bamboo shoots". It arrived looking like quite inedible 3 inch sticks of bamboo, but eventually we found that you could squeeze out the edible inside by biting down from the center, which turned out to be very good. We also had a mixed vegetable dish including green soy beans, fried noodles with a variety of tidbits, and steamed fish in a brown sauce. Lynn seemed to find all the tiny bones that many of the fresh water fish have, so I didn't get many!

Lynn Choosing from the Menu

The food was maybe not the best we have had, but the location on a warm spring evening was perfect, with an interesting view over the lake. Nearby was another floating bird residence, this one presently occupied by a goose couple.

Goose Residence

As the evening got darker, the lights and lanterns came on, making a pretty scene. Here you can see one of the small boats preparing to leave for the dinner paddle cruise.

Night Scene

Forbidden City

Crowds Approaching the Meridian Gate

Corner Tower and Tour Group
My afternoon excursion this week took me to the Forbidden City. (Lynn didn't come, and hasn't been there yet, so I'm sure I'll go again later on.) From my short visit in 1997 I remembered it as a rather soulless place, and my impression wasn't different this time. For my taste, there is too much concrete and too many wide open squares. Many of the building are closed, and others contain dusty displays that you can peer at through dirty windows. Some of the displays in the newly renovated buildings on the west were nice, including one of old musical instruments, although there was no information in English. But I prefer the shade and color of the various palace gardens.

One of the Central Halls and Large Courtyard

Dusty Interior
The features of the Forbidden City that I find most attractive are the the metal (bronze?) statues of guardian beasts and the colorful eaves and patterns of yellow tiled roofs.

Colorful Eaves

Yellow Tiled Roofs

Guardian Statue

Mythical Beast

Parts of the Forbidden City are being renovated under the massive Olympic preparations plan, including the centerpiece, the Hall of Supereme Harmony.

Renovation: a Thorough Job!

Scaffolding on the Hall of Supereme Harmony

30 cent Breakfast

Sometimes I go and have breakfast in one of the campus canteens. This is my standard breakfast which costs 2.4 yuan (about 30 cents). The buns are steamed meat buns, and the other thing on the plate is a sort of pickle. There are four choices of gruel: soy milk, rice, corn, and bean. I don't think they cost anything. I'm having the bean (the best one) and rice this day.

I have a favorite canteen for breakfast, chosen for the English speaking server. The first morning I went through my usual pantomime of pointing and waving, and the sever dutifully fetched everything and put it on my tray. After I paid she said in perfectly accented English, "And where do you come from?" So now I go to that one, and she smiles cheerfuly and asks me if I would like an egg today.

Notice Board

Wisteria

I'm beginning to think warm spring weather is finally here. I keep thinking that, and then it gets cold and miserable again. The heat in our apartment was turned off promptly on April 1, and it has never really been warm inside since then. It's been nice to go to the office in the mornings and warm up in the heat from the students' computers! The locals say this has been the worst spring for decades. But today the temperature was over 70F, and the forecast is for temperatures rising to 80F by the end of the week. And the apartment, which is on the ground floor of a high rise and so takes time to adjust to the weather like an underground cave, is finally beginning to seem less chilly.

The flowers here seem to express their welcome for spring after a long, cold winter with great exuberance. The flowering fruit trees provide splashes of pinks and whites everywhere, and beds of poppies, bulbs, and other flowers in the parks are dazzling. For the past couple of days the Wisteria has been in profuse bloom. These pictures are of a plant over the entrance to the campus kindergarten.

Wisteria spray

Botanic Garden

On the way home from Fragrant Hills yesterday we stopped off in the nearby Botanic Gardens. The blooms were spectacular, particularly the tulip beds, the peach and crab-apple trees, and the lilac.

Tulips and fruit trees

Tulip beds under the trees

I was not the only photographer!

Peach garden

Crab apples

There were many visitors at the park, so the bus home was very crowded.

Bus No. 331 home

Fragrant Hills

Fragrant Hills is a park just outside Beijing to the north-west. It is both an ornamental garden, with bright flower beds, lakes, and temples and pavilions, and the gateway to the more rugged hills behind. After the hour long bus ride from our apartment the final walk to the park entrance is up a friendly, low-key street lined with snack and souvenir shops.

Road up to Fragrant Hills
The summit of Incense-Burner Hill is the destination for many of the Chinese visitors. It's quite a climb, but most, both young and old, seem to like the hike. We took the chair-lift...