Beijing Off the Beaten Path Tips by mke1963

The North Lake Park was originally the private pleasure gardens of the earlier Chinese royal dynasties.
The lake, and surrounding parks, allow you to get away from the noise and pollution of the city streets.
You can hire a boat for an hour or two and just cruise the lake, perhaps heading up the steep steps to the White Dagoba to watch the skillful kite flyers, their creations soaring high above the city rooftops.
On the southern edge is the old Round City - once an island in the lake, with its views over the private government compund of Zhongnanhai. Below the Dagoba the Temple of Eternal Peace descends down the hillside in steps, right to the bottom.
Jingxinzhai (The Study of the Tranquil Heart) is still the quietest spot in the park, a small network of gardens, pools, rockeries and shrubs - a garden withinh a garden - where lovers come for a little peace.
Nearby, further pavilions, temples and courtyards provide space for teahouses, for contemplation and even a small art gallery.
In the spring, the park is awash with colour and fragrance, especially the stately magnolia trees.
The finale for your afternoon should be to sit in the Five Dragons Pavilion and listen to the old men and women play their ancient instruments. As the music gets going, elderly couples get up to dance in the small pavilions. These performances are better than any you will pay to see.
The best time to visit was during SARS, when the crowds stayed at home, hiding under their beds, but Beihai Park is a pleasure at any time of the year.

Leave a Comment

Just metres away from the crowds of Tiananmen Square lies the spacious tranquility of one of Beijing's best kept secrets, Zongshan Park.
Originally the site of an early temple, then the Temple of Earth and Grain in the Qing Dynasty, the park is best known by Beijing people for the small museum commemorating Dr Sun Yat-Sen, the father of Chinese democracy.
He was born in 1866 and died in 1925, and only visited the northern capital three times, but a special place is reserved in Chinese hearts for this thoughtful and passionate man. The simple museum (entrance RMB2) is held in the former emperor's hall (from where the emperors could oversee the religious rituals if the weather was bad). The basic outline of Sun Yat-Sen's life is explained in English panels, and the intelligent visitor will also be able to link some of the photographs (captioned only in Chinese) with the events mentioned. Note especially the autopsy report (in English). The wooden building itself is beautifully austere and a superb example of classic Chinese architecture, and dates from 1421.
The park is much larger than it looks on the map, and is divided into many different areas. The ancient cypress trees are a legacy from the earlier days as a temple, and in the north-east corner of the 'front garden' note where a scholar tree has grown up right through a cypress tree.
Other small gardens are well landscaped, and there are many pavilions, including one little octagonal one, where junior court officials would practice the elaborate and complicated court rituals.
You can get away from the Beijing crowds for hours or even a whole day in this rather special, secluded park.

Leave a Comment

Close to the Summer Palace and Fragrant Hills is another well-kept Beijing secret - ther Botanical Gardens.
During SARS, parks and gardens were about the only places you could go, and this very special park has remained a favourite for our family.
China builds botanical gardens better than anything else, and the one in beijing is no exception. It is not a natural landscape, but the park is surrounded by the Western Hills and the park landscaping complements them.
Children can run free in huge expanses of meadow, can fish for tadpoles in spring and feed big fat lazy carp all year round.
Little glades, gardens and gasshouses show off the Chinese talent for making plants grow.
If you like gardens, you will not be disappointed, if you want a bit of space to leap around, then you will also enjoy this great big Beijing lung.

Fresh air, peace, a picnic, snoozing in the sunshine. Love it!

Leave a Comment

It may seem odd to Beijing residents to describe Houhai as 'off the beaten track' but you can hardly stick it up with the Forbidden City and The Wall as 'must see'.
Houhai is the collective name for the two most northerly of the four lakes that run up from Zhongnanhai through Beihai Park and right up to the Second Ring Road.
Although a generic name, the hub of Houhai is at the Silver Ingot Bridge which is the bridge at the narrow channel joining the two northern lakes.
In all directions there are quiet hutongs, slowly disappearing from Beijing as the developers put up new skyscrapers. Actually, there are still thousands of hutongs in and around Beijing, but as most of the hip journalists and commentators can't get more than 200 metres from the Buddha Bar, they focus on the demolition of hutongs in this area. Many hutongs are being restored and renovated. There are good hutong tours by pedicab, but you can get a lot by just walking in any direction, around in circles and just exploring. People are friendly, but laowai will attract a lot of attention.
Look for the architectural details, doorway design, the way people live out in the street as well, the community spirit, the frequent public toilets (most hutongs have no plumbing), the use of bicycles everywhere, the old stones used for dismounting from horseback.
A little tip: if you get lost and it is hazy or you just can't tell directions from the position of the sun, look which way houses are facing. Most (but not all) houses face south (but remember that the main doorway could be on any of the east, south and west facades). Not infallible, but good as a rule of thumb.
Getting lost in the hutongs is easy and actually part of the attraction.
houhai has some very good restaurants, many good cafes and bars, and a very transient scene. It is becoming "passe" for the cool, trendy Beijing cognoscenti, but it is a definite step up from the crap on Sanlitun.
Houhai is a good place for lunch after the Forbidden City or the Drum and Bell Towers.

Leave a Comment

Zhengyi Lu is a little known street running south from Dongchang'an, opposite the Beijing Hotel.
It is a quiet avenue with a small park running down the middle, but just as the Forbidden City brings back memories of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, so Zhenngyi Lu brings back more recent memories of the foreign powers' influence on China at the beginning of the twentieth century. This is the heart of the Foreign Legation Quarter, the area where foreign countries built their diplomatic compunds.
Suddenly, you are transported from China to the old streets of London, Paris or Moscow. Many of the original buildings have been converted and many have been demolished, but there is enough remaining to reveal the opulent lifestyles of the foreign ambassadors and traders one hundred years ago.
Many of the buildings are now the offices of gipvernment ministries and authorities, so photography needs to be discrete: most entrances are guarded by unsmiling, heavily-armed soldiers who are not accustomed to tourists...this is "Off the Beaten Track" remember!
The concession area grew quickly, but was very badly damaged by the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, and the area never really recovered, although many of the remaining colonial-style buildings date from the rebuilding at that time.
Walk from Zhengyi Lu, turning right into Dongjiaomin Xiang and then north again to return to Dongchang'an by Taijichang Dajie for a ten minute glimpse of old colonial Beijing.
The Insight Guide to Beijing has a good little map and explanation of which building used to belong to whom.

Leave a Comment

I have already posted a review about Houhai, but it is worth adding to that, recommending that the visitor takes a boat trip on the lake at sunset.
Hiring a boat provides a leisurely end to the afternoon. Electric (battery) powered motorboats cost from RMB60 (with RMB240 deposit) for an hour, with rowing boats less.
There are maybe ten different places to rent boats.
Many of the boats have a table in the middle, and whole families and gangs of people rent a boat, head out with a few beers and just play cards, drink or read on the peaceful waters.
The southernmost lake, which for many people *is* Houhai is usually more crowded, especially the bottleneck through the bridge. The much larger northern lake opens out and provides plenty of space to slowly motor or row around.
Watching the sun go down over the lake is just great!

Leave a Comment

"Blue Zoo" is a small, but very well laid-out underground aquarium at the southern end of the Worker's Stadium complex.
The main feature is a huge marine tank, with a slow moving pedestrian walkway that goes through, round and back under this huge tank. It is a fascinating and exciting experience, and the kids absolutely love it. Strangely it inever seems to be crowded, but it is educational and makes a change from watching 'Shark Week' on Discovery Channel.

Leave a Comment

The municipality of Beijing is more than just Beijing city. It is very easy and very rewarding to get out of the city, especially if you are a visitor and able to do it during the week. At the weekends, tens of thousands of Beijingers head for the hills, to the west and especially to the north, where the whole economy relies upon this weekly influx of city people.
The Great Wall is in rural Beijing, and in Hebei province nearby, and I have put tips in the Beijing Shi/Huanghuacheng, Miyun and Haizi sections for the Great Wall at Huanghuacheng, Jiankou and Mutianyu areas.
There are the silver pagodas and silver mountain at Haizi, and the great deep valleys north of Hairou and Miyun that lead into a fascinating mountainous area just an hour from the city. You can reach both Hairou and Huangcheng by city bus from Dongzhimen (forget about the train: although the Chifeng line passes Hairou and Miyun, it takes more than two hours to get from Beijing Bei to Hairou!).
It is easy to rent a taxi for half or a fullday.
Remember that once you get off the beaten track around Beijing, no English is spoken and no English will appear on sign-posts: you really will need to make sure our phrasebook has Chinese characters as well.
However, it is worth the effort - just as New York is not the USA and London is not Britain, so Beijing is not China, but you will find China nearby, just an hour away by bus.

Leave a Comment

The far end of the Beijing Botanical Gardens is tranquil, and the Temple of the Sleeping Buddha is hidden among the trees as the slope rises up to the hills behind.
Not many people make it this far, preferring to stay near the glasshouses and the huge flower gardens nearer the gate.

This whole area is great for a picnic.

Leave a Comment

Beijing Zoo is one of those places that is *just* off the beaten track, but one which is often on that secondary list of places once visitors ahve seen the main sights of Beijing.
I am not a great supporter of zoos or safari parks in general, but in Less Developed Countries they can play an important role in educating people about the environment. Of course they usually do nothing of the kind, and in China it is common to see ignorant people feeding fast food to the animals.
For a long time, zoos here demonstrated one of every animal, and each was housed in a small bare cage. It made a pathetic sight and was really a commentary on man's inhumanity to other species on the planet.
Things are slowly changing and some zoos in China are developing a more humane approach. At Beijing Zoo, the appointment of a specialist enrichment officer has paid dividends for the welfare of many animals. Dr Corinne Harrington has been working with the zoo authorities and local groups to create better living environments for the inmates.
Combined with a new policy of sharing animals between different zoos to create groups rather than single specimens has also resulted in better conditions for all.
The Giant Pandas are obviously the star attraction at Beijing Zoo and they have a big compound and a big indoor centre.
Our children have mixed feelings about the zoo, as hey get harassed a lot by people wanting to take their photographs (sometimes queuing up to take their photograph which is pretty pathetic).
The zoo is not as bad as some of the guidebooks make out, and if the weather is good it is an enjoyable place to visit.

Leave a Comment