Eric's Beijing Diary

I actually think I missed the first bloom on the mountain this year, because I was really busy last week.It would be quite a late spring if that were not the case. Generally, I expect to see at least one little flower on the mountain by the middle of March. And I took this from across the lake, so it isn't a very good view of the flowers, but they are there. Behind them is the old Qing Dynasty training tower used for teaching soldiers how to scale walls. Interesting, since the Qing Dynasty was started when the government minister opened the gate and let them in, not because they were able to scale the Great Wall. The Fragrant Hills area was mainly the resort of Qian Long, from the Qing Dynasty, which is the most recent dynasty, so it is relatively new when viewed from the perspective of China's history as a whole. Still, that old tower has been standing there since a quarter of a century before the Declaration of Independence was signed, so that is a few winters back.