Beihai Park and the Drum Tower

The drum tower was used for telling time until 1924. It was built in 1272 during the reign of Kublai Khan and was rebuilt after two fires during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Beginning in the Han Dynasty, the system of the “morning bell” and “dusk drum” necessitated towers to be built. The Drum Tower was used to keep time during the night hours.

Many very steep stairs to get to the tower.

In the tower are many relics used to keep time through Chinese history.

The Kalou used the movement of water to tell time and was very accurate. Of course the water had to not freeze and later mercury was used instead of water for clock movement.
The beilu uses movement of little balls to accurately tell the time.
The bell tower was under construction.

From there I searched for Beihai Park and the white tower I have seen from time to time. It is a large park with half being covered with water. In the center is the Jade Flowery islet with a large white dagoba.

The Tibetan lama suggested to the first emperor of the Qing Dynasty to build the Tibetan dagoba to show his belief in Buddhism and his desire for the unification among various Chinese ethnic groups. It is a beautiful park and while walking around the dagoba you could smell the numerous pines there. It has been two years since I smelled the pines and miss that.

This Reading Cloister houses tablets kept from 220 to 1644 and had important history of Chinese calligraphy. You can see the tablets on the lower floor (they look like windows).

After that I went back to the hotel. It was a very long day with a lot of walking. Quite interesting to be on the Great Wall, then see innovations in how they measured time, and walj in a beautiful park.