Beihai Park with Angela Hsu

Alright! Here we go, from the beginning. We started off near the forbidden city and headed towards the park. There were some awesome streets along the way. I thought I had taken more pictures.... *regret* Oh well. There was this one time when we were walking along and I was talking to Angela, and say "Ai ya." There was this huge row of those bicycle taxis next to us, with some drivers in a few, and one of them must have heard me, because he said back, "Ai ya!" It was pretty hilarious. XD Anyway, we wandered the streets for a bit trying to find our way and talking about what we would do for lunch and stuff.

Enter the park!

They had these awesome lily pad boat rides. I really want to go sometime, but they were pretty expensive. Romantic date at twilight? I should keep a scrapbook of these ideas. Like Ryuusuke. XD

We got rained on!

So we took shelter here for a bit. As usual, there was a group of older people playing some music and dancing. I talked to Angela about the writing on the posts. I don't remember what it was, but I remember it being pretty.

Look, all the little lily pads!

Angela was really excited to see the White Pagoda. That is, until we found out that you can't actually go inside. Bitter disappointment.

But there were cannons! 

Wishes around the temple.

One ticket to ride!

Cool boat dude.

It started sprinkling again after a bit, so we moved inside. There was a family there with two kids, who were extremely impressed when they heard me speaking some Chinese.

We decided to try out some new drinks. We each got a flavor and tried each others. 

Screen of the Iron Shadow. O.o

You have to be careful taking pictures in any temple, because you don't want to be disrespectful. But these figures were beautiful. 

Nine Dragon Screen. There are actually supposedly 635 dragons on this thing. I'm pretty sure a lot of those included the small dragons carved on the roof tiles.

These screens were used to show status and to hide the main house from the view of the street, to add some privacy.

Kitty!!!!! *freaks out*

We went to a food place on Angela's suggestion. :) It was fun. We also went to a tourist info center to get directions.

I .... actually... don't remember what this park was called, unfortunately. But I'm sure I still have the ticket somewhere. I'll find it and put it in my scrapbook. but anyway, this was a lot of fun. It was a beautiful park with all kinds of things to see. It overlooks Tiananmen and Beihai Park, and has an incredible view from the top of the hill.

The Forbidden City from behind and above.

Yeah, that thing.

Panoramic shot!

Angela told me a really interesting story about these towers, but I can't remember it very well now. Apparently they were designed around the concept of a bird cage.

This is at the top of the hill. It's where we went back to later to see the sunset. I'll have pictures further on.

Came back down and explored the park some more.

There was a wedding photo shoot or something going on here.

They had these cut-outs everywhere. I was arguing with Angela over whether to take a picture or not, and a group that we passed encouraged us to do so. XD

So cute...

I was so surprised. The ice cream. It was purple. PURPLE. WHAT.

sad... 

AND KITTY!!!! We saw this guy on our way back up to the top of the hill, and I obsessed over him for about 10 minutes.

View from the top.

There were..... a lot of photographers....

Finally we decided to end the day, I think it was at Houhai Lake. Actually, apparently Byron and some other people went swimming here at around the same time as we were there, but I didn't see them. You're not actually supposed to swim, but.... They do rent out boats for you to paddle around in. Yet another romantic night trip.

The lake

We got dinner at the far North part of the lake. There were all kinds of shops and food places. Someone attempted to coerce us into one, but we pulled our way away from him. 

As you keep walking around the lake you get to the clubbing area, with bars, karaoke and dancing. I guess it's kinda in the order, shops, food, clubs, then more older people dancing and singing traditional music. They had what was kinda like line dancing at one point. We continued our walk all along the lake (almost getting lost) and wandered through the neighborhood until we found a subway station to take us home.

We stopped for awhile along the water and talked about how soothing it was here.

I'm really glad I got this time with Angela. It was a lot of fun, especially after being in big groups constantly. And I learned a lot. :) We're actually almost done with China. Crazy, huh? Now I just have to get my scrapbook done too... What's left is basically a bunch of last days and farewell dinners, so that's most of the next post. And then we're moving on... to Japan!