Even though I would say Beijing is pretty flat, but the city is just next to mountains, small hills of Taihang Mountain chain touch the suburb of Beijing in the north and west direction, they are visible in the clear days, beyond the mountains in the north (where are famous for the Great Wall), there stretches the Inner Mongolia Plateau, in very hot summer days, just drive alone with the Jing-Zhang Express Way, 3 hours you can feel the cool breeze from grassland.
The Temple of the Reclining Buddha is located in the Western Hills at the southern foot of Jubao (also called Shou’an) Mountain, about 20 kilometers from Beijing downtown. It is inside the Beijing Botanical Garden, so if you want to visit this temple, you have to pay the garden ticket first.
Temple of Azure Clouds is inside the Fragrant Hill Park, it is close to the north gate, after paying the park ticket, another temple ticket (10 yuan) will be needed.
This temple was initially built during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and was reconstructed during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The interior buildings almost retain the style of the Ming.
National Library of China, includes: the Library of Ancient Books which locates at Wenjing Street, west of Beihai Park, and the Main Library which showed here in 3-D rendering.
I just visit the Beijing Botanical Garden before the May holiday, the weather is not perfect compared with 2 days ago, maybe I should visit here again in a nicer day.
Beijing Art Museum is located in Wanshou Temple(the Temple of Longevity). Wanshou Temple was built in 1577 under the reign of Wanli Emperor of the Ming dynasty to store Buddhist scriptures in Chinese. It gradually became a temporary imperial dweling and a place of birthday celebration for the imperial family during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Beijing Art Museum has collected and preserved the precious historical relics such as bronze and jade articles of Shang and Zhou Dynasties (17th-3th centuries B.C), and the ancient art treasures as potteries, porcelains, enamels, carved lacquer ware, ivory carving ,wood carving, etc of the past dynasties.
There was about a month since the National Library (New) put into operation, and it said to be the 3rd biggest in the world…
That is a big reading room, once check in from any entrance, you will be able to look around everywhere. The glass roof saves a lot of energy, and winter days should be very warm inside, just by sunshine.
Free water!
Laptops can be taken with you, and power outlets are available just close to the table.
And this tablet TV for reading some of the Chinese Newspaper.
The room for newspaper
A 5-minutes walk, just south of the New one, that is the old National Library building, where was built-up in 1990s.
And here is the lobby of the old library.
The old facilities.
And just before the Olympic games started, this just renovated Qianmen street was opened to public, and this is my first time to visit it, now it is not busy, and many of the buildings at the both side of the road are just empty, waiting someone to rent.
The new trolley, just going to be in operation someday.
Some places don’t match with its neighbour, so has to put a picture there to hide the behind.
A view from the south to the north.
and further going to the south
The shop of “Duyichu”, it is famous for making steamed Dumplings, or “Shaomai” (烧卖）.
A last-week photo, and a 100-year-old photo, below…
And after the Qianmen street, I walked into the Dashilan shopping street, see if there are some change there…
Always busy and noisy…
A photo in a small community close to Liulichang Street.
A little hostel in a hutong, below the room, on the ground floor, that is a public toilet.
The Beijing Botanical Gardens are situated in the western outskirts of the city between Xiangshan Park and Jade Spring Mountain. Although the gardens are not large, with only some 3,000 different plant species, many famous and rare plant specimens are on display. The hothouse exhibition, in 13 different rooms, is the highlight of the gardens. The first room is filled with evergreens and members of the palm family.
The second room is given over to tropical aquatic plants, including water lilies and flowering taros.
The third room displays commercial plants and their breeding and propagation. Here there are specimens of the triple-leaved rubber plant, cocoa and coffee trees and the sugar producing sweet-leaved chrysanthemum which has been introduced into China from abroad.
There are rooms for demonstrating medicinal plants, aromatic plants and succulents. The exhibition of ornamental plants is spectacular with its countless varieties if flowers and grasses. There are over 300 different varieties of orchid, among them a rootless one relies on fine hairs to absorb water vapor and nutrients from the air.
Besides the hothouse, there is also a national plant specimen hall with a floor space of 11,000 square meters. Specimen houses, plant classification laboratories, research rooms and a lecture hall are arranged around a courtyard linked by arches and trellises.
The Peony Garden was open to the public in 1981. It covers an area of 10 hectares and is divided into three sections. The Peony Grove is the most important, covering an area of 3.5 hectares.
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The Five-Pagoda Temple is situated about 200 meters to the northwest of Beijing Zoo. Its original name, the Temple of True Awakening (Zhenjuesi), was later changed to the Temple of Great Righteous Awakening (Dazhengjuesi). Today, however, it is popularly referred to as the Five-Pagoda Temple.
