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Stopping off point for Zhengding
Shijiazhuang is the capital of the province of Hebei and is located about 283km south-west of Beijing. The city is very modern as it grew from a small town when the Beijing–Wuhan (Hankou) railway came through the area in 1905. This connection immediately transformed the town from a local collecting center and market into a communications center of national importance on the main route from Beijing and Tianjin to Shanxi province. The city, therefore, is a bit on the bland side and has next to nothing in the way of tourist sights - the Hebei Provincial Museum was actually closed when I visited, is really the only thing worthy of a visit. Because of this, you hardly see any foreigners around. The main reason to visit the city is to use it as a base for visiting the nearby town of Zhengding - the founding place of several major schools of Zen Buddhism and home to four nice pagodas.
