Oct 8 Tues. Back to Beihai Park

Because we had only visited one side of the Beihai lake, Oda and I decided to explore the other side. The parks here are used for many things. We came across a group singing in a pagoda on the lake. The acoustics were fabulous and you could hear them from across the lake.



Nearby 3 couples were practicing ballroom dancing.



Oda was back to taking pictures. She had taken thousands yesterday of a white pagoda that sits on top of a hill on an island. Today we were going to climb the sucker.

First we have a few more shots of the typical buildings. This park has been in existence for 1000 years.
This is a bell Tower.

So we climbed up the the second floor and rang the bell.





It has a deep tone and vibrates for a long time. Touching it doesn't stop the vibration.

There are large water pots outside of all of the temples. (I think that originally they were for fighting fires, but now they have another purpose. Collecting money. There are always many people gathered around them dropping in coins. I discovered that they have a small pot inside so it is kind of a challenge.


The white pagoda is up many steps.

I climbed them all!!

Then we came down the back way:

There is a ferry boat that goes from one side of the lake to the other.

When we got off of the island we came across a stand that rents imperial costumes. We passed, but came across two young girls that were posing. They were very pleased to have us take pictures of them together and then wanted pictures with us.






We saw some peking ducks:

It was getting late, so we were pleased to see taxis waiting right outside the exit. They were very friendly and said that to the university would cost 80 RMB. No Way!! We didn't just fall off the turnip truck. We knew it shouldn't be more that 50 which we offered. Then I said "Meter!" They laughed because they knew we really knew what was going on and they weren't going to accept the meter. They kept saying 80, so we walked away. They followed and a new guy said 150 - he was trying to scare us into accepting 80. We finally left the area and went across the street. We flagged down a taxi (took us about 3 minutes) and it cost 44. I gave him 50 anyway.

Chuck and I ate in our hotel. The food is really good and the menu is extensive.

We had lotus root pickles and broccoli:


And pork ribs cooked in a pumpkin. You eat the pumpkin too.

We really eat early here. 6 o'clock is the prime time. The hotel dining room closes at 8:30. This works well for us. We are tired and go to bed early.