The Eastern Discovery Tour
Day 10

The walk up to Xiangshan Park from the bus stop was interesting. It was down this very crowded road, with a bazaar like atmosphere. On either sides were shops selling both food and some of the more unusual souvenirs I saw.

This beautiful structure is just outside the parks main entrance.

Having already done a lot of climbing at Badachu and the Summer Palace I didn't get to explore all of Xingjian Park. Instead I stuck to the areas near the bottom of the hill.

I did find Xingjian Park to be more touristy than Badachu, with the shopping street running up to it, and these pleasant eating areas.

The trouble with it being more touristy was it was a lot more crowded than Badachu, and even the Summer Palace, which did take something away from the experience.

That's not to say it didn't have some beautiful areas to explore though.

A photo from behind the waterfall.

What Chinese Garden would be complete without a Goldfish Pond?

Unfortunately there was a large queue for the cable car. Normally I wouldn't say it was unbearably long, but at this point it was late afternoon, and I knew I had a long flight back the next day, so I decided not to go to the top.

Getting the bus back was an experience. Not surprisingly there was a large queue. In fact there were 3 queues. I just joined one at random, not being able to read Chinese, but soon discovered one queue was for a seat on a coach, one coach was for standing, and the queue I ended up in was for a seat on a Bendy Bus. Luckily the buses were frequent, and they had people doing a good job of organising the queue, so the wait wasn't as bad as it could have been.