Day 274 Fragrant Hills

Saturday, Len and I made a gallant attempt at exploring the west side of Beijing.  We consulted the map, bus routes, subway routes, and decided that given the beautiful day, we'd just walk.  That was the first mistake.

We walked.

and we walked.

and we walked some more.

We walked so far out of the city we saw peasants driving
horse drawn carts and wagons.  Still, on we walked.

We were trying to get south west of town, to the Garden Expo Park.  It looked interesting; it had a river, lots of green space...but we just couldn't get from here to there.  We ended up on a greenway, which seemed interesting if we only had bikes.  We got hungry and caved in to a street vendor for some type of sesame flat bread.  In the end, we FINALLY found a subway stop and boarded for the Garden Expo Park.

By the time we arrived close to the park, the pollution
was on it's way up, my cheerful demeanor was on it's way
down, and the park was close to closing time.  I took
a picture from the train platform of the buses that also
run in the area, and we boarded the next train for home.
Oh well, at least we got some exercise for the day.
Correction, a LOT of exercise for the day.

I woke up the following day with a renewed spirit to spend
an afternoon in a park. This time we headed to Fragrant
Hills Park packed with a picnic lunch :)
 

As we entered through the gate, some sassafras pointed out to
me that the ancient temples and architecture was starting
to all look the same.  I reminded him of the delicious
sandwiches that were in his near future, which was way more
than I had to look forward to on yesterday's wild goose chase :)

Fragrant Hills is a former imperial garden
that sits at the foot of the Western mountains.
These are the mountains visible from my
apartment windows on a good air day in Beijing.

The park was established in 1186 in the Jin Dynasty.

The Pagoda of the Zongjing Monastery was
the only structure left standing after the attack
in 1900 by the Eight Nation Alliance.

If the hills are anything, they are fragrant :)

The clean air smelled like perfume :)

I stuck my nose in every flower :)

                                           

And I climbed a few trees :)

We walked around the park and pond, and
settled upon a shady spot behind the pagoda
to spread the blanket and have our lunch.
And then, of course, a nap- it's the Chinese way!

It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon :)

On our way back to the bus stop, we saw this
guy making noodles, and it was the coolest thing.
He had this weird shaped blade that he scraped
along the dough and into the boiling broth.
It reminded me of making German spaetzle- yum!

Several stalls had this spinning hot stone. We
then saw a mixture of eggs and flour that was
spread ultra thin with what looked like a
drywall spatula! I later learned they are called
jian bing, which they add green onions,
spices and hotdogs to make a sammich. So weird.

But you know, it wasn't nearly as weird as
seeing a male poodle with pink ears and
a pink poofy tail hiking his leg on car tires.
Either he suffers from gender dysphoria,
or his owner does- I'm not really sure.
What can I say?  It's the Chinese way. 

G'nite, y'all!