xi's moments
Home | Featured Contributors

An ongoing passion for historic Beijing

By Bruce Connolly | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2018-05-12 09:48

Houhai and Beihai 2014 [Photo by Bruce Connolly/chinadaily.com.cn]

Many boats unloaded close to the Silver Ingot Bridge, while others continued to the Jade River Ca-nal. The restored Fire God Temple sits at its entrance from Qianhai Lake. That channel allowed navigation east around the former Imperial City to serve the Forbidden City close to today’s Chang’an Avenue.

The northern lakes (Xi, Hou and Qian) are collectively known as Shichahai or “The Lake of Ten Temples”. Today it provides a unique and beautiful water landscape for the city. Cafes and restau-rants along the willow tree-lined banks are particularly popular on weekends. It has long been a de-light for me to take friends on walks around this area — many of whom are surprised to see such beauty right in the city’s heart. I started getting to know the area from 1995, when it was so totally different — indeed, an almost isolated spot with mostly poor-quality buildings. It was, however, a place I would go to walk, cycle, relax and let time drift away in a small cafe or bar with no name near the bridge. And yes, it was referred to as “No-Name Bar”. When I was at Shichahai with friends, we wandered through a quiet back alley with several good Muslim restaurants to visit the delightful Guanghua Temple. Later, time was spent chatting in a modern teahouse close to a lakeside pagoda-style tower before wandering through pages of history and ultimately reaching Nanluoguxiang Metro Station.

Global Edition
BACK TO THE TOP
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349