Hi everyone, I am sitting here at Lawes Road, Port Moresby and struggling to work out whether I have just come out of a beautiful dream.
You see, I have just returned from a week travelling in China and as I try to tell my usual stories of my adventures in Papua New Guinea, the places I visited in China keep coming back to me.
And I am going to share one of this beautiful experience with you all by telling you about my trip to Beijing`s Beihai Park.
Beihai Park was once an imperial garden for the Emperor and has now been remade into a public park.
Helpful tip for those travelling to China as tourists; keep your passports in your purse and walk around it. If you need to buy a ticket to go anywhere, you need it.
When you first enter the main entrance, you will be greeted with a flower sculpture of a peacock. This magnificent sculpture is bright and huge, you will definitely need to take an extra minute to gaze upon it before taking a picture next to it.
Moving on to the bridge, it looks like it was carved from stone and it is important to note the details on it while keeping in mind that this kind of carving was done in the ancient times before machines. Man made these magnificent bridges.
When you look down on the lake, huge water-lily plants lay in clumps. Though they are not in bloom, these plants are so much bigger than the ones up at Pacific Adventist University ponds. As you cross the bridge and look up, you can see in the White Pagoba in all its glory. A pagoba is a long Buddist temple that was commonly built during the Qing Dynasty that the Ancient China.
To enter the first temple, we had to pay for our ticket before we entered the first temple hall and were take a back but a set of statues on both sides of the temple. They were statues of four kings. King of the North, South, East and West. The statues still looked like they were in their prime which let me know that the people in charge of preserving this temple were doing an amazing job.
After going through that temple, we went around the back and climbed up a set of stairs that honestly looked a little steep. In the courtyard of the second temple, there was huge bowl with a wire covering and inside were several Chinese yuan notes and coins.
One of our guides and fellow journalist explained that you can drop some money into the bowl and wish for more wealth. Wanting to have a try, I took out my purse to search for a note but then realized I have no yuan on me. I then asked if there was a rule against using foreign currency. They simply told us no so I slipped in a K2 note with a smile. That was my imprint inside the ancient temple.
After that, we had to climb another flight of stairs, that were seriously very steep. I just kept my eye fixed on the steps and took my time. At the top, we took in the White Pagoda Temple. Behind it, the view of Beijing city was just phenomenon. So breath-taking. You just want to have a moment to take it all in.
We bought some popcorn before making our descent to the other side of the park. The entire temple itself is on an island and you can only go across it on the either of the two bridges on either side of the island.
Once at the bottom, we crossed the second bridge before we walked around the perimeter of the place. The entire park itself was clean, the air is fresh, the leaves were either brown or green and the view is just astonishing. The lake was so clear that you could see the bottom and even the fish that was swimming through it.
It was worth the experience to see these amazing sights.