Beihai Park

The white pagoda, a landmark in Beihai Park

Last night Jarrah woke up with a fever and he seems to be coming down with a cold. Luckily I have plenty of medicine to cover this! In the morning Jade complained that her feet were tired from all the walking so Paul and I decided to leave the two of them in the room while we went out. I wanted to have a look at Beihai Park as it has been one of the talking points in my Chinese classes over the years and we hadn't seen it last time. We took a taxi to the northern gate of the park. About 60% of the park is covered by a lake and there are quite a few buildings within it as well. Many were built by the Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century. He seems to have done quite a bit of building in many areas we've visited.

The main focus of the park other than the lake is the white pagoda on the top of the hill on Jade Islet. The pagoda was presented to the Emperor by the Dalai Lama in the 1700s. At its base is a Tibetan Buddhist Temple.

There is limited chair ice skating at the base of the pagoda and we also had the option of using an ice bicycle to cross the lake. We opted out because we weren't sure if we had to return the bike to where we rented it. We also thought that 30Y just to cross the lake was a bit expensive.

It was about 1:30 when we finished seeing the park and were then faced with the usual situation trying to get a taxi to take us back to the hostel. The ones parked in the car park outside the park gate were all on a break and they sent us across the road. We ended up walking to the back of the Forbidden City where we tried a couple of taxis there and were also refused. A motorised rickshaw (like a motorbike with a box with a benchseat inside it on the back) came along and told us 30Y. I bargained with him and clearly said 15Y in Chinese and he motioned for us to get in. This was our first experience in this type of vehicle. When we got to the corner of our street I gave him the money and thanked him. He started to argue that we owed him 30Y and got out of this vehicle to argue further. We just walked off. How predictable and tedious!

Back at the hostel we met up with our friend Chris, the English teacher who is also going to Harbin, and I had a chat with him. We exchanged phone numbers and are going to try and catch up with each other at the Ice Festival.

We rested for the remainer of the day. We still don't have our train tickets but are being reassured that we will get them tomorrow. How last minute can things get? If the Chinese government want foreigners to come to China then there have to be better arrangements for those of us who book trips 7 and 8 months ahead of time. Surely we have priority in getting our tickets over the locals who are trying to get them on the spot? Fingers cross for tomorrow!