Most visitors to Beihai Park mainly stroll around the lake and visit the island located at its south end. The latter has a small hill and one passes through a number of temples before reaching the Tibetan Buddhist-style Stupa at the top (on a clear day, you have a swell view of Beijing from this vantage point).
However, my favorite part of Beihai Park is its north end. This part of the park not only has the famous Nine Dragon Screen--I'll talk about this sight in another post--but a number of attractive temples, pavilions, small ponds, rockeries, and halls.
The latter includes a hall built by the Qing Dynasty Qian Long (both names are a rising tone) Emperor. Qian Long reigned for 61 years during the 18th Century, from 1735 to 1796. He not only was a generous patron of the arts, but was himself an artist. So whenever Qian Long tired of his official duties in the Forbidden City, he would escape to this place and paint and do calligraphy (the Chinese word for calligraphy is shu [flat tone] fa [falling/rising tone]). The emperor also wrote poetry, and I'll be saying more about him in a future post.
For now, I'll note that while the studio's interior is off limits, one can still get a good view and take nice photos of its inside through the building's large windows. Since the weather was still warm, the windows were open on this day, making it possible to get some decent shots with my digital camera. These three photos were among the pictures I took during my 2008 National Day Holiday visit to Beihai Park.
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