Beijing Travel Bug

Archive for the ‘Tourist spots’ Category

“How can something so beautiful be destroyed?”

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 »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Houhai is one of Beijing’s bar hot spots. It is located near Behai. Though in the morning, it looks like an ordinary restaurant strip, at night, it will look livelier. I visited this place only twice. Once when my friend Jessica toured us back in 2005, and we got lost looking for Hutong Pizza. The second time, when I was studying and my friends and I went to eat at Hutong pizza after touring BeHai.

The lake looks serene day and night. But at night, the bars around the area will be the highlight. It’s famous getaway for expats. During winter, the lake will freeze thus you can skate! Read the rest of this entry »

Forbidden City is a famous tourist spot in Beijing. Though it may be a bit crowded during weekends, you should at least have a peek at a historical palace and behold the beautiful artifact of history. If you can imagine a bull’s eye target, the map of Beijing is similar to that, with Forbidden city and Tiannanmen Square being the one in the middle.

The complex consists of 800 buildings with 8,886 rooms and covers 720,000 square metres. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 as the “Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties”,[1] and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Read the rest of this entry »

Haerbin (or Harbin) is a place where famous ice festival are held annually starting early January. This is located Northeast China and is the capital of HeiLongJiang. Because it’s near Russia, the architectures are very different than those in mainland China. Influence by Russian colonization, the place has still a lot of Russian translation in stores, billboards.

The Old St. Sophia Cathedral is still well preserved but already made into a museum that shows the civilization of Russian Colony.

It’s supposed to have the coldest temperature with longest winter however when we went there, it was said to have their hottest winter so to speak. Read the rest of this entry »

Beihai park is one of the ancient imperial gardens in Beijing that is still well-preserved. We visited the place to be able to exhaust our time in Beijing.
Interestingly, there’s a serious history behind every scupture, temple, place we visited. We often just take pictures and walk away, but then, looking back..I was really amazed by the ancient artifacts that were still in good condition.

The weather wasn’t on our side that windy cold day..it was almost gloomy everywhere. The White Dagoba would have looked better on the sunny day.

Read the rest of this entry »