Baoding

Baoding is a city with history dating back to thousands of years. The city is located between Hebei capital Shijiazhuang to the south and Beijing to the north. Like most major cities across China, Baoding enjoyed tremendous economic growth due to its close proximity to Beijing. More and more Beijing residents are moving and relocating to Baoding. It takes 2 hours train ride from Beijing to Baoding and roughly 3 hours ride by car. The train ticket cost less than a hundred Yuan while most Beijing cab drivers asking for 800 Yuan or above to go to Baoding.

It’s been almost a year and a half since I last visited Baoding. I will be traveling to Baoding this coming May.

The best time to visit Baoding though is September to October. Baoding has long cold winter and short autumn and spring. Lake Baiyangdian, better known as the Pearl of the North also the largest lake in Northern China and is within 2 hours drive from Baoding city. As usual, most of the China lakes and rivers are heavily polluted. Of late, the Hebei government has disembarked on an ambitious plan to clean up the lake, an important source of water catchments and source of fish for its northern regions.

Baoding is well known for its exercise balls, also better known as meditation health balls. It is believed that the Baoding balls, usually comes in a pair; when placed on the palm of one’s hand and rotated to orbit could help to improve one’s health. Baoding balls come in all sorts of colors, patterns and sizes. I am an avid collector of home decorators, the Baoding balls makes a nice gift to friends and families though. Attached are photo shots of some of the Baoding balls that I brought back home from mythe previous Baoding trip.





Below are links to Baoding Balls.
Enjoy reading and cheers!
http://www.baodingballs.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baoding_Balls