The Eastern Discovery Tour
Day 10

Like I did with Badachu yesterday I'm going to point out these directions were what I used in October 2009. They could have changed since then, so if possible check, perhaps when visiting the Zoo before you plan a visit to the Botanical Gardens or Xiangshan Park.
If you get the metro to Beijing Zoo (line 4) and use the south exit you should come out near a large bus station. The easiest way around it is to use the basement to find steps up to the stop you want, I think I used stop 4. From there you can catch bus 360. The sign should have the number 360, and the final stop (Xiangshan Park) in English. The Botanical Gardens is one stop before the last stop, there was a route map, plus a display telling you the stops on the bus, so you'll need to keep an eye on this if you want to go to the Botanical Gardens.

I was disappointed with the Botanical Gardens. I have since learnt that the there are several areas calling themselves the Botanical Gardens, and the ticket office at the bus stop where I got off only lets you in to a small part. There is a larger area, which looked like you got to it by walking 1KM North from the bus stop you get to using the 360 bus.

This is one of the greenhouses in the area I visited.

Another shot of the greenhouse.

The guide books I read did rate this as one of the most impressive places to visit in Beijing. The area I found was nice, but it wasn't overly impressive. It didn't seem worth the journey to get to it. Hopefully I'll get to explore the rest of the Gardens properly if I visit Beijing again.

One of the streams passing through the gardens.

A natural rock like structure.

A path going through some of the trees.

One other problem I had was there weren't many visitor facilities in the area I visited. I saw one sit down cafe, but nowhere you could go just to but a snack or a bottle of water to take around with you.

Having made my way around this part of the gardens pretty quickly, and not knowing about the other area north I decided to get the bus the rest of the way to Xiangshan Park.