China Day 9- Sunday morning in Jingshan Park

Day 9… our last day (and not even a full day at that) ended as any busy trip should- with a lazy Sunday morning stroll through a park.

Not just any park though. Jingshan park.. which I hadn’t even known was a thing until we arrived in Beijing and our first tour guide mentioned it to us. Luckily our hotel was an easy 5 minute walk from the East gate of the park.

View of the park hill from our hotel breakfast

It costs a couple of coins ( I suspect to keep beggars and homeless out) and is well worth the visit. We bought our tickets easily at the windows by the gate and headed in. The major draw of this park are the pavilions at the top of the hill, from which you have a sprawling expansive view of the Forbidden city. As we started our trek up a hill we passed a choir singing traditional music which we heard almost the rest of the way up.

At the top there were a few photographers setup with props you could pose with for a fee, and several others milling about but on this particular Sunday morning at 10, it wasn’t crowded at all. We snapped a few photos from the top pavilion we got the best view of the Forbidden city in all its symmetrical and colorful glory. But it’s also to note how cool all the other directions are to see. You can see the temple to the North, West, and East, as well as city sky scrapers a little further out. It was peaceful up here among the small temples with view of ancient and modern combined in one.

The best views of the Forbidden City

 View to the West with the city in the distance 

 Temples to the North of the park 

But my favorite view is still of the Forbidden City

We headed down the hill to the West side of the park thinking we’d make a circle. At the bottom we passed a group of seniors perfecting the art of the Chinese yoyo, called a Diabolo which is a single or double string that the performer uses a stick in each hand to manipulate. The movement is like a dance and the performers were more graceful than I think I could ever be. The coolest part for me was the sound that comes from the Diabolo… the combination of sound and grace were mesmerizing and Braden had to practically drag me away from the group.

Luckily as walked we passed another group of seniors dancing in a square with a boombox playing more traditional music and it seemed that no matter how far we walked,  we were surrounded by music. The park has so many paths and gardens intertwining that you could wander it for hours, especially on a sleepy Sunday morning when families young and old wandered hand in hand.

As we continued back toward the East gate to exit where we entered, we passed a historic marker of memorial plaques and the tree planted on the spot where the Emperor Chongzhen hung himself rather than suffer the humiliation of surrendering to an insurrectional army in 1644. While a little grim it was interesting to read about and see the spot itself.

We spent about 2 hours wandering around before we headed back to our hotel to pack our bags and prepare for the long day of travel ahead of us.

Unfortunately the hotel we stayed was not convenient to a subway stop and as I detest buses, we had about a 25 minute walk to the closest stop. Once we made it though we were set with only a few transfers before we were on the airport express train back to Beijing (PEK) international airport. As you enter the airport it lists the flight numbers with the ticketing counters you should go to for check in so we spent about 45 minutes in a line to check in with Chinese Airways before being informed we had to go to a different counter for United (even though the sign had TOLD us to go to that counter) luckily United had no wait at this point but we lost a lot of our airport time for final shopping and lunch which was sad. From the counters we crammed onto the inter-terminal train (barely avoiding being guillotined by the doors) and had another 40 minute wait or so to go through customs and a higher security (which was combined though again super cautious as they take more pictures and finger prints as your leave..)

Once we were finally through all of security,  the shopping options were limited (as were the eating) and we had quite a bit of cash to burn and only about 45 minutes before boarding. We grabbed sandwiches that were ok  and pastries from a coffee stand and since I couldn’t find any descent souvenir shops (they were all expensive designer shops) I ended up with way too much chocolate. So word to the wise.. don’t end up at Beijing airport with more cash than you need. Haha

That's it! It was a wild ride but I hope my posts help you travel to China! 

Day 9 costs: 
Breakfast included in hotel stay
Jingshan Park entry: $0.58
Train to airport $8.16
Lunch at airport $19
Day 9 Total: $27.74

Total costs in country: $2,220 for 2 people

Overhead Costs:
Plane tickets: $860
Visa Cost: $490
Dog Sitter: $120
Phone Bill: $100

Total Trip Costs for 2 people: $3,800