Day 4 is change hotel day. For the rest of the trip, we are moving to the Renaissance Wangfujing. It’s a take it easy day, which our legs very much needed after the Great Wall.
Checking In At Renaissance Wangfujing
We arrived before our room was ready, so we checked out the lounge while waiting. The lobby alone is quite something, with a whole wall of books behind the check-in counters.
High tea at the lounge runs from 2.30pm to 4.30pm, with pastries and fruits. A good way to kill time.
The room we booked has the palace view, looking out over the old courtyard houses towards the Forbidden City.
Compared to Blossom House, the unit is more roomy, but overall the furniture is a lot more dated.
Sunset Over The Palace Museum At Jingshan Park
After high tea, we walked to Jingshan Park (景山公园), a 20 min stroll from the hotel. I bought the tickets on the day itself, so no need to plan ahead. The ginkgo trees along the red walls were in full autumn yellow.
The park has a vantage point where you can see the entire Palace Museum. We went in at 4pm, and sunset was at 4.50pm or so. As you can see, we were not the only ones with this idea.
If you want the best spot, go a bit earlier and push your way in. Then hold firm and defend your ground. Don’t be afraid of being embarrassing. If you act nice, you see nothing. They will do everything they can to nudge you aside, so just be prepared for it, else you will be shocked lol!!!
Lounge Dinner, Then A Foot Massage
After the park, we walked back to the hotel. Had a bing tang hulu (冰糖葫芦) on the way back. Not a big fan of it, and it’s everywhere…
For dinner that day, we settled for the buffet provided in the lounge. The cooked food was good.
There’s free flow liquor too. The lounge was full. Seems like many groups just wanted to chill and relax after a long day, away from the crowd.
From the room, the palace area was all lit up at night.
Before we called it a night, we found a nearby place for a foot massage. It wasn’t as easy finding a decent place for a foot spa here compared to Shenzhen. A lot of the massage places in Beijing are just spas, or maybe ear picking services. We went past some others, but they did look a bit shady, so we opted to skip them.
So in the end, this was our one and only foot massage this trip.
So that was Day 4. If you missed Day 3 at the Great Wall, it’s here.
Hotel: Renaissance Beijing Wangfujing Hotel, palace view room
Park: Jingshan Park (景山公园), a 20 min walk from the hotel
Foot massage: 良子足浴 (Liangzi foot spa), near the hotel
