Advertisement
Published: March 30th 2020
Edit Blog Post
Jingsghan Park had been on my to visit list for quite a while. It is in a great location in central Beijing, just behind the Forbidden City. I was a bit gutted when I turned up, as there were quite a lot of tours groups outside of the park. I hoped they wouldn't all be heading in there. I went to the ticket office and was happily surprised that the entrance fee was only 1 or 2 RMB. A very cheap outing! Jingshan Park was opened to the public in 1928 and is popular with locals and visitors. There are quite a few things to see in Jingshan Park, the most famous being the view of the Forbidden City. I decided to look around some of the lesser known sights first. The first point of interest that I came to was the Two General Junipers. These trees that were planted in the 9th century look like the claws of a dragon. I couldn't see it myself, but they did look nice with the sun behind them. There was something just up the way from them, some kind of exhibition I think, but there was no sign in English so I didn't
enter and thought I would do it later, but when I went back it had closed. I walked through the gardens and enjoyed looking at the pagodas up on the hill and watching the water sprinklers dancing as they watered the grass.
I followed one of the paths and most people were heading up the hill to the viewpoint, so I decided to stay on the flat and there seemed to be a large sightseeing area. This was the Shouhuangdian Group Halls. There was an information board which explained that these were a group of royal halls that honoured the ancestors of the imperial Ming and Qing Dynasties. Ceremonies were held here to mark the beginning and end of the year, important festivals, birthdays and anniversaries of deceased emperors. Like most places in China, you had to show your ID to enter the group halls. First, there were some grand ornate looking gates around to look at before entering the main compound. These were beautiful. Then I entered the Brick Gate. I wandered around all the beautiful red buildings. These were very similar to those I had seen in other places like the Temple of Heaven and the Summer
Palace. I love how beautiful and well maintained everything is.
Once I had finished in the Shouhuangdian Group Halls, I made my way up to the viewpoint. The halls had been really quiet in comparison. There were quite a few step and I was definitely out of breath climbing them as I am really unfit. I did stop a few times to take in the view. I really liked the view north over the wider city and the Shouhuangdian Group Halls. It was really pretty. I loved seeing the bright red and gold halls peaking out of all the greenery. When I got to the top and saw the view of the Forbidden City, I was actually pretty disappointed. It really didn't look like anything special. I'm not sure if it was because of the sun, but I couldn't believe that people were actually enjoying this view as to me it was a bit meh, especially when the view the other way was so much better. Needless to say, I didn't hang around at the top for too long and made my way down the hill but I took a different path. This part of the park was filled
with tour groups so I quickly made my way to the exit. I loved the dragon statues at the entrance/exit. I also enjoyed my walk through the hutong back to the subway, checking out some of the murals on my way.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.055s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0323s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb