Behai park

There is one major park of Beijing I haven’t visited yet: Behai park. So today I took my bike and rode there. On the way I made a stop at one of those guys fixing bikes on the street as the back light from my bike fell down (my bike is made in China, so what do you expect?). 5 min and 2 RMB later it was fixed and he even checked the pressure in my tires. Again great service in China for almost nothing.
With my bike fixed I rode to the park. 45min later I arrived at the North gate. I parked my car in the bike parking lot which cost me 0.5 RMB (by the way the woman guarding the parking lot moved my bike through out the day so it would stay in the shadow... again, what a service!). I spent most of the day in the park, walking around, visiting the temples and pagodas, resting in the shade, watching people passing by… just a relaxing time in the park :) I have to say that after several months in China and as many temples or palaces, after a while all the temples look pretty much the same. So this time I did not spend much time in the temples but rather in the park or by the lake.
Take a tour here.
Once done with the park I biked in the Hutong nearby. Biking in the Hutong is a very nice way to discover them as you can access all the small streets where cars cannot go. This time I used the suggested itinerary from TimeOut as a guide for directions. After 1 hour going through the Hutong, I can tell you my biking skills have seriously improved thanks to maneuvering between the cars, the pedestrians and the other bikes.
On the way back, I stopped for a Frappuccino at Starbucks, after all it’s 30C outside and headed home for a well deserved shower: I’m covered by a light layer of black dust… pollution I guess :(

PS: after roughly 3 hours of biking, my bottom hurts… My legs are fine, but sitting is getting painful :)