Wanping Fortress was built in 1638-1640, in the Ming Dynasty for defending Li Zicheng (李自成) peasant rebellion. At the beginning it was named as Circumpolar Town “拱极城”, in 1928, it was renamed as Wanpingcheng “宛平城”. It has only two gates, the east gate named Ever Prosperous Gate “永昌门” , then renamed as “威严门” Majestic Gate, the west gate named as Favorably Govern Gate “顺治门”.
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.
As part of the canal running from Summer Palace, Beihai Park (namelly “the North Sea”) is the last section of water opened to public, other two more lakes Zhonghai and Nanhai (the “Middle and South Sea”) occupied by the central goverment.
The Beijing Coking-chemical Plant was built in 1958, and has been in operation for almost 50 years since.
Its main production was gas distilled from the coal,the gas from this plant goes to Beijing through the pipe system, which saved a lot of pollution downtown, and its byproducts was fuel for Beijing Steel Corporation (首钢 ShouGang).
From 16th July of 2006, the plant was shut down, and moved to another City Tangshan, and after a diversification of the workers, now the challange is how to deal with this mammoth ? First plan was easy: just tear down everything, and after two office buildings were blowed up, more research founds that the best way is to preserve the whole complex, turn it into a Industry Relics Park.
Now from 10th to 24th of Oct., 6 out of more 50 cantidate plans was selected out, and waiting to be polled at Beijing City Planning Exihibation Hall.
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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Located in Xuanwu District southwest of Beijing, the present Grand View Garden is a replica of Daguanyuan the magnificent garden of an imperial family described in the well-known Chinese novel “A Dream of Red Mansions” by a Qing Dynasty writer Cao Xueqin (17l5-l763).
The site used to be a park dotted with willows and pines. In l984, the China Television Film Production Centre decided to use it as the setting to shoot garden scenes for the TV series “A Dream of Red Mansions”. The Xuanwu District Government then suggested that the temporary garden be turned into a permanent scenic spot. Thus the plan to build the Grand View Garden faithful to the writer’s description has come into being.
The Fragrant Hills Park, about 30 kilometres northwest of Beijing, is one of the most favorable resorts in the city’s outskirts. It covers an area of 160 hectares. In 1186, in the Jin Dynasty, the Fragrant Hills Temple was built and terraces, pavilions and pagodas were added by the subsequent dynasties.
The Summer Palace landscape, dominated by Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake, covers an area of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water surface. Its 70,000 square meters of building space features a variety of palaces, garden and other ancient-style architectural structures. Well known for its large and priceless collection of cultural artifacts, it was among the first group of historical and cultural heritage sites in China to be placed under special state protection.
The Summer Palace, originally named Qingyi Yuan or the Garden of Clear Ripples, was first constructed in 1750. The Anglo-French Allied Forces destroyed it in 1860. The Government of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) started to rebuild it in 1886 with funds misappropriated from the Imperial Navy and other sources. Renamed two years later as Yihe Yuan or the Garden of Health and Harmony, it served as a summer resort for the Empress Dowager Cixi. Known also as the Summer Palace, it was ravaged by the Eight Power Allied Forces in 1900. The damage was repaired in 1902.
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Just northeast of Summer Palace is the Ruins of Yuanmingyuan (the Perfection and Brightness Garden). It was also called the Old Summer Palace by Western tourists, and is distinguished from the Summer Palace in this way. With an area of 346 hectares, it had been built into the largest and most magnificent garden during the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing period.
The Coal Hill Park lies right to the north of the Palace Museum. It used to be a private garden of the imperial family. When the Imperial Palace was built in the early Ming Dynasty, the earth excavated to make the moat was piled up, and five peaks took shape. Coal was once heaped around the foot of the hill, it is therefore also known as Coal Hill. In Qianlong’s time, fruit trees grew and birds were raised in the grounds, the place was then called the Hundred Fruits Garden.
