Just touching the northwest corner of the Forbidden City lies a piece of paradise about half as large as the Forbidden City itself - Beihai Park, a residence for emperors more than a millennium ago.  Over half of the park consists of water: the land around the edge of the park surrounds Beihai Lake, which in turn surrounds Jade Islet shown here.  My trip this day was along the park’s northern and western edges.

The view from a courtyard onto Beihai Lake.  This was a very hot day, and many park visitors could be seen hiding under the willows and carrying umbrellas to shade themselves.

In that courtyard, the park was hosting a lotus festival this day.  The courtyard was home to dozens of huge pots holding professionally grown lotus plants like the one shown here.

Even when a lotus festival is not taking place, Beihai Park boasts gardens with many other unusual flowers.

Another lotus blossom at the festival.  Though it’s an aquatic plant, no water was to be found in the courtyard this day - just large pots containing one lotus each, and plenty of heat and sun to keep the plants happy.

Beihai Lake and the northern edge of Jade Islet.  The lake, only a couple of meters in depth, was manmade over a thousand years ago when the park was an imperial residence.  The excavated dirt was used to create the mound that is Jade Islet.  Over the centuries, palaces and then religious structures were constructed atop the islet, the most recent being the White Dagoba shown here on the right.  The dagoba, a Tibetan-style Buddhist shrine, was built over 350 years ago in honor of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Beijing - an effort by the first Qing emperor to unite China’s many nationalities under the new dynasty’s rule.  Despite the many changes over the last thousand years, Beihai Park remains much as it was two centuries ago.

A highlight of Beihai Park - and as shown here, a popular site for tourists - is the Nine Dragon Screen.  A different nine dragon screen appears nearby in the Forbidden City, and a third appears in Datong, Shanxi Province.  The screen is basically a wall covered with ceramic tiles - but what tiles!

On either side of the screen, elaborate tiles show nine dragons floating on a sea of clouds, playing with pearls, and looking menacingly at one another.  The dragons on the opposite side of the screen are the same as on this side.

Another of the nine dragons.  Nine is the largest single number, representing the emperor’s supremacy, hence the number of dragons.

To show the stunning detail and three-dimensional nature of the tiles, I took this photograph from directly underneath the center dragon, looking straight up.  Stunning too was my being able to walk right up to this Qing dynasty structure unimpeded.

Back in the rest of the park, the courtyard with the lotus plants was getting ready to close for the day, so I decided to take a few more photographs there in the late afternoon sun.

More flowers in the gardens of Beihai Park.

A final lotus blossom, in full bloom.

Jade Islet, viewed from the western edge of the park.  Four centuries before the construction of the White Dagoba, another notable structure sat atop this hill: the Palace in the Moon, where Kublai Khan lived.  It was supposedly in this palace where the Khan received Marco Polo during his journey to China.

Jingxinzhai, one of a number of traditional Chinese gardens within Beihai Park.  Large goldfish hid under lily pads in the pond, apparently looking for some shade themselves.

Rooftops along the northern edge of Beihai Park.

The last light of day falls on the willow leaves along the western edge of Beihai Lake.

A last look at the top of Jade Islet before sunset.  This was considered the center of Beijing for many centuries before the construction of the Forbidden City.  As a result, Beihai Park contains far more than what I have shown here, and I do hope to return for more photographs.