I snuck in two half-day trips while attending a conference in Beijing. I only visited one place—Jingshan—once on a slightly hazy overcast day, and again on a beautiful clear day.
Overcast Jingshan Park
A fringe tree. Jingshan Park had raised its admission to ten yuan because of the ongoing peony exhibition.
The hill at Jingshan Park is very small—it only takes a few minutes to go up and come down, passing five pavilions along the way.
I’ve forgotten which of the five this one is.
From the summit you can overlook the Forbidden City and Beijing’s central axis—the contrast with the clear day later is quite striking.
On the other side is the Shouhuang Hall and the Drum Tower, with the Olympic Tower faintly visible in the distance.
There are cats on Jingshan—they’re not afraid of people. Many of the side paths are closed to visitors, but the cats can use them.
Walking out of Jingshan Park to the north side of the Forbidden City, there’s a corner tower on each side—east and west—a must-photograph spot.
Clear-Day Jingshan Park
On a clear day, the visibility is completely different. Apparently it was a rare stretch of exceptionally good air and weather in Beijing.
The National Museum and the Great Hall of the People are also clearly visible in the distance.
In one direction, you can see buildings like the CCTV Headquarters and China Zun.
The Wanchun Pavilion at the very top.
The same angle looking north—this time the Olympic Tower is clearly visible. It was raining to the north at this point, and before long that dark cloud drifted over.
The corner tower on a clear day. The overcast one was the northwest corner tower; this is the northeast one. Quite a few photographers were on site shooting with medium format or even large format cameras.
Capital Airport
The following images were processed with ACES 2 ODT.
The triangular natural skylight at PEK Terminal 3.
Air China’s first C919, registration B919X, about to fly from Beijing to Hangzhou.
An A350 next door, about to fly to Shanghai Hongqiao.
