Beijing Travel Bug

Archive for August, 2007

It was plain Gluttony.

With so many choices, who wouldn’t want to try everything out even if it won’t even fit inside your stomach? Ahhhh….I was astounded by the variety of food inside Golden Jaguar. It’s located at the end of Wangfujing road. We waited for an hour that day (don’t know if it’s because it was Valentines). We thought that there won’t be much food left since it’s past 12nn but to my surprise, the food was still overflowing. From salmon, steaks, lambs, beef, prawns, tuna, oysters, crabs, roasted duck…almost everything you can imagine. Drinks were free flowing, that includes alcoholic ones. My favorite part was the dessert section! UNLIMITED HAAGEN DAZ ICE CREAM! Read the rest of this entry »

That was what I thought when we visited the Old Summer Palace in Beijing near Beida University. This attraction is not usually famous spot for tourists but it serves a very sound reminder of the humiliating past of China.

It was originally the Imperial Garden that was built by the Emperor Kangxi in the early 1700′s for his son. It was greatly expanded during 1725 by Emperor Yongzheng, adding up ponds, lakes, streams to compliment the gardens.

The Imperial Gardens were made up of three gardens: the Garden of Perfect Brightness proper, the Garden of Eternal Spring (Simplified Chinese: 长春园; Traditional Chinese: 長春園; Pinyin: Chángchūn Yuán), and the Elegant Spring Garden (Simplified Chinese: 绮春园; Traditional Chinese: 綺春園; Pinyin: Qǐchūn Yuán); together they covered an area of 3.5 km² (865 acres). They were almost 5 times the size of the Forbidden City, and 8 times the size of the Vatican City. They had hundreds of halls, pavilions, temples, galleries, gardens, lakes, etc.From: Wikipedia

There were European styled Palaces built inside with thousands of national treasures once a sight to behold.

Sadly, this astounding beauty was destroyed during the Second Opium War when troops of the Great Britain and France launch to full force to destroy where it would hurt China the most. It took almost 3500 soldiers to destroy this in just three days. They looted the place and let it to rut. Sad sad….This would have been the grandest sight that China can boast around the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a random update about Beijing Olympics 2008:

* Beijing is said to pledge US$ 13 million to clean up the city and advocate itself to launch a “Green Olympics” campaign. Relocating steel factories to outer provinces, planting more trees, replacing old buses etc. Since Beijing has a hazy city line due to smog, the government is still pushing itself to reach its goals.

* Originally, Beijing has 4 main subway lines, but in the next year, it aims to make 4 more to improve accessibility to other areas of the city. Simultaneous constructions are underway and most of the workers work seven days a week to be able to finish with a tight deadline.

* Water Cube is a big dome stadium currently in construction in Beijing. The outer membrane of the dome stretched over the pentagonal and hexagonal steel beams to simulate the look of an ice-blue cube with a water-like surface. The membrane allows the Water Cube to use solar energy to heat the pools and light the interiors.

Source: Strait times
Img: Plasticsnews.com

One of the main attractions of Beijing is the Summer Palace (Yi He Yuan), located at the other end of the Haidian District.

The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value.

Beauty in every level can be seen in this place. Would you believe that the Longevity Hill was made out of dirt taken out of the Kunming Lake? Behind every step, every temple, every corridor, I sense its history. It’s not just an “imperial garden” to me where you can take a lot of good photographs.

There are a bunch of sports activities you can do in Beijing. But one of the famous seasonal sports is Skiing. Usually, resorts start to open around end of November or whenever the year’s winter season starts.

Nanshan Ski Resort is one of the biggest and popular ski resort in Beijing. It’s located on the outskirts of the city, around 2 hours drive away from the city. During weekends, people flock the area to ski, snowboard, snow mobile, toboggan etc. Having 13 runs that is about 1500 meters long, the ski resorts boast to offer the best ski/snowboard experience. They also have the flying thing, where there’s a cable that connects to a glide that you can ride to enjoy the spectacular view from above.

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