The many other charms of Ritan Park:

Ritan Park's charms extend well beyond its spring blooms, which last from around late March through about the first two weeks of April. Even before the blooms come out, if the weather isn't really cold, a fair number of people will be out about in the park. So it's usually a great place to watch ordinary Chinese people, who are called here “Laobaixing” (老百姓), relaxing and having fun.

Ritan's sacrificial alter (祭坛) is surrounded by a lengthy circular wall. Since the space within the confines of this wall is fairly large and open—there are no trees and bushes here, as the surface is all stone—the area is a favorite spot for people to practice playing badminton (打羽毛球). I took some photos of a mother (母亲) and her daughter (女儿) doing that on a relatively warm early winter day in early February. Two of these photos are at the top of the post.

Other people, mainly older folks, were playing cards and Chinese encirclement chess, “weiqi” (围棋), better known in the West as “Go”. The photo below is a shot of a group of seniors (老年人) playing cards (打纸牌).

Once the weather begins to warm up around the end of March, even more people go to the park on the weekend. One area that always has a crowd is Ritan's recreation area, which is located at the northeast corner of the park. This spot has some exercise equipment (健身器材) as well as ping pong (乒乓球) tables. As the photo below indicates, people use the equipment more as a place to play (玩) and have some fun, rather than for doing some hard-core exercise (锻炼; 运动).

This is definitely not the case for the park's state of the art climbing wall (攀岩 墙). The people who use it are definitely very serious about improving their vertical climbing and scaling technique. When the weather warms up, there are always at least three people scrambling up the wall all through any given Saturday or Sunday. And while all of the routes are fairly challenging, one is especially so. It features an overhang, with a 30º backward inclining slope, jutting out from the vertical wall.

Whenever I go here, I always see a pair of young and rather attractive Chinese gals at the climbing wall. One of them will be scaling up the wall, while the other will be handling the safety rope/pulley. If my memory serves me correctly, one of these ladies actually once made it up the climbing wall's most difficult route. I shot these the photos of them below on my last trip to the park, when I took the spring bloom pictures that appeared in the previous blog post.

Many younger couples with small children bring their kids to Ritan Park, even during the winter, provided the weather isn't too cold. The top two photos below were shot on such a day in early February (in fact, the same day the earlier shots in this post were taken). And of course, when the weather warms up, more families with small children are out and about. The other two photos below were shot duirng a rather nice afternoon in the middle of March. As the Chinese would say, these youngsters were “非常非常可爱”, or “really, really cute”.

As was noted in my previous blog post, there's small hill at the center of Ritan Park. If it's a relatively clear day, you'll have swell view of the Beijing Central Business District (CBD) highrises from the top. The tallest structure in the photo below is the soon to be opened Traders Hotel. The new CCTV tower is just over to its left in the picture.

Once you've had your fill of enjoying Ritan's spring blooms and other flora, gazing at its older historic buildings, looking at the locals, and observing Beijing's new skyline, you can stop and rest and have a drink at the Stone Boat Café.

As the café’s photo indicates, the building really does look like the famous stone boat moored at Kunming Lake (昆明湖) in the Summer Palace (颐和园). This particular stone boat sits on the west side of a shallow pond. Ritan's small hill and rockery (假山) rises above the north of the pond. The Chinese word for “rockery” literally means “fake (假) mountain (山)” because a rockery was meant to be a mountain in miniature. The photo of this particular miniature mountain below was shot from one of the Stone Boat Café’s windows.

An attractive pavilion graces the other side of the pond (its southeast corner). This structure is set amidst some very nice willow trees. There's a photo of it below.

Ritan Park is located a bit north of the Nr. 1 subway line. You can walk there in about 20 minutes from the Jianguomen (建国门) subway station. It's also very near a restaurant that is a long-standing Beijing expat institution, Paul's Steak and Eggs American style diner. Ironically, the fellow who owns it, Paul, isn't actually from the US, but is instead a French Canadian from Quebec.

In any case, his restaurant serves big and hearty American-style breakfasts that come with a bottomless cup of coffee. And when the weather is nice, they put plenty of tables out on the sidewalk, so patrons can dine outside and enjoy the warmth and sunshine. The restaurant is very easy to find: just walk around to the back of the very prominent Friendship Store (友谊商店). You can't miss the latter when walking down the wide Jianguo Dajie Boulevard.

This part of Beijing is home to many foreign diplomatic embassies (大使馆). Among them are the the Sri Lankan, Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Singaporean Embassies (the US Embassy used to here as well, but has since moved). I think the last embassy is housed in a rather cool building, so there's a photo of it below. The two towers poking above it are the Twins Mall, which is one of the many high rises lining this part of the Jianguo Dajie. This Embassy neighborhood, however, is a very quiet area with lots and lots of big and leafy trees.

So here is my suggestion for a perfect way to spend an early April Saturday or Sunday. Begin with a leisurely breakfast outdoors at Paul's Steak and Eggs. After breakfast, head over to Ritan Park, stroll about, look at and enjoy the blooms, do some people watching, and take in and get a feel for the history of the place from its older buildings and structures (see the photo below). Then top it off by having sitting down and having a leisurely drink at the Stone Boat Café. It just doesn't get any better than that!!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

老百姓 (lao3bai2xing4). As noted in a previous post, “老百姓” literally means “old (老) 100 (百) name/ed (姓)”. There are just 100 old and common family names in China, such as “Liu” (刘), “Zhang” (张), “Chen” (陈), and the like. Hence “old 100 names” came to be a slang term for very ordinary people.
祭坛 (hu4tan2).
打羽毛球 (da3yu3mao2qiu2). “打” is the word for “play”, while “羽毛球” means “badminton”.
母亲 (mu3qin1). The word for “mum” or “mom” is “妈妈” (ma1ma5).
女儿 (nü3er2).
围棋 (wei2qi2). “围” on its own means “encirclement/surround”; “棋” is the “chess” suffix character.
老年人 (lao3nian2ren2). “老” of course means “old”, “年” is the word for year, and “人” is the word for “person”.
打纸牌 (da3zhi3pai2). “打” is the word for “play” here, while “纸牌” means cards, i.e. in the sense of a deck of playing cards.
健身器材 (jian4shen1qi4cai2). This literally means “fitness (健身) appliance (器材)”.
乒乓球 (ping1pang1qiu2). If you look at the first two characters, they together form a picture that rather resembles two people playing ping pong.
玩 (wan2).
锻炼 (duan4lian4).
运动 (yun4dong4). This is also the verb “to move about”.
攀岩墙 (pan1yan2qiang2). “攀岩” means “rock climbing”, while “墙” means “wall”.
非常非常可爱 (fei1chang2fei1chang2ke3ai4). “非常非常” is “really, really/very, very”, while “可爱” is the word for “cute/adorable”.
昆明湖 (kun1ming2hu2). “昆明” is the name of the Yunnan (云南) Province’s capital city; “湖” is the Chinese word for “lake”.
颐和园 (yi2he2yuan2).
友谊商店 (you3yi4shang1dian4). “友谊” means “friendship”, while “商店” is the word for “store” (as in “shop” or “business”).
大使馆 (da4shi3guan3).