Beijing, 2019-18: Yuanmingyuan Park, Dragon Boat Races

The reason I was able to take a long weekend trip to Beijing was because that Thursday was Memorial Day in Korea. TB was able to take the whole day off on Friday, it turns out, because it was the Dragon Boat Festival in China. After asking around, we headed toward Yuanmingyuan Park on the north-west side of the city. Chinese parks, Korean parks and Japanese parks have differences, but they are all beautiful.


We calculated that the park would be busy, but not as busy as the zoo, but it certainly got more and more crowded as the morning went on. And there were other things to do besides just finding the lake with the dragon boat races.


… like having a hand-made candy Doraemon.

It's a very large park, loaded with lakes and manicured flowerbeds, along with ruins and the like.


At first we thought this massive lake might be the one with the races, considering the flag in the middle, but we never saw any boats.


And now, with no further ado, the dragon boat races:


20 Y memento, this big map of the park--you can see it is loaded with lakes: