Getting Around Beijing

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After visiting Yuanmingyuan, I think ridding the boat to cruise around the Yuanmingyuan is the perfect way to see the park. This giant park is linked by water with canals or lakes. You could see the spectacular views of the gardens, lakes, birds, and trees. If you plan well, ridding the boat could save your time to shortcut your travel between South and North. You could see the boat ticket counter near the important sites. You have the flexibility to travel from one site to another sites because they have stations on major stops.

Two Routes Available:

1) From South Gate (Near Canqiao) --> Transfer stop --> Ruins of European Buildings

Fare: Y20 per person.

2) Within Chanchunyuan, please refer to the map, A--> B--> C--> D

Fare: Y10 per person (A --> B only)
Y15 per person (A --> B --> C --> D)

Opening Hours: Spring/Fall (8:00-17:30); Summer (7:30-19:00)

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If you are visiting Summer Palace, you might be interested to hire a boat to cruise around Kunming Lake. You will find their booking counters near a dock at Kunming Lake. I have checked out the rate and regulation for your references:

Rate:

4 persons boat ( Y40/hour ; Deposit: Y300)
6 persons boat ( Y60/hour ; Deposit: Y300)

Rules and Regulations:

1) Business Hours: 8:30 - 16:30

2) Minimum one hour rental: Over ten minutes counted as half an hour; Over forty minutes counted as one hour.

3) Deposit is collected when hiring a boat. Fee is calculated when return of boat.

4) The deposit card is the only certificated for fee calculation. This card is valid for one day only. If the card is missing, the deposit will not be refunded.

5) Mind the deep water. Over-capacity is prohibited on the boats.

6) Boats should be returned to the original dock of hire.

7) No drinking, swimming, standing and rough behavior while on boat.

8) Compensation will be required for boats damaged during hire.

If you have time, cruising around Kunming Lake is the perfect way to experience the beauty of Summer Palace.

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I had been told that the best way to see the Great Wall of China was by way of a personal guide, and Alvin had come highly recommended by many fellow VTers and so this was our preferred way to do this. By using a guide, you can tailor make your day or days, including only the places YOU want to visit. If you go on a group tour, not only do you get to spend less time at the places you want to, you also go to several places you dont want to, usually shops where you are expected to buy something.

After several emails with Alvin, our day had been settled upon, at a very reasonable price. Alvin is your car driver as well as your tour guide, so this brings his price down, as you are not also paying for the services of a driver.

For me, the Great Wall the highlight of the whole trip. I had wanted to visit and walk the Great Wall for many years and, finally, the time had come. After much research mainly on vt, we decided that Mutianyu was the best place to go and that Alvin was the best guide to take us there!! Alvin was recomended by many VTers, he was discovered by Homer and Eddie many years ago, and highly praised word of mouth on VT has gained him many followers. I have also recommended Alvin to many of my VT and facebook friends, who have booked him and been 100% satisfied with his services. It does seem that word of mouth is the best form of advertising!!!!!

Our day included pick-up at our Hotel at 8am, 2hr drive to Mutianyu, cable car up to the top, walking the wall for several hours (3hrs in total spent at the Wall), then lunch in a local Dumpling Restaurant, we then drove back to Beijing and spent one hour at the Lama Temple. We then went back to our room for a shower and reflection time! Then, pick-up by Alvin once again and off to our Acrobatic Show, pick-up after that at 8.30pm, dinner at the Loft Restaurant and back to our rooms by about 10pm. It was indeed a very busy and tiring day, but one I will remember for the rest of my life.

Along the way, Alvin will pay all fees payable, such as tollway fees (if you elect to go via the tollway to save time), entrance fees and then he will tally up the total for you to pay at the end of the day. I found this to be easier for us and he was 100% honest with his tally!!! Alvin also very very kindly purchased our overnight train tickets to Xian for us, as I had been told that this could be a difficult process for foreigners to do. He did not charge us a cent to do this, even though we offered to pay him. Your Hotel will more than likely do this for you if needed, but they will charge you for their services. Alvin also purchased our Acrobatics Show tickets at a heavily reduced price, about half price I think of the people that were sitting right next to us, so they were not too happy about that, but we were!!!!!

If you would like more details about our day with Alvin, including phone number, email address and costings, please email me :)

Hello

Just introduce the airticket booking website to you. I also use it a lot to book the ticket.

Yoee.com, best real time air ticket booking website in beijing, they provide the ticket delivery service after you booked, or you can book E-ticket to get the most best discount.

I have been to Beijing twice. Once in 2007 and now in 2010. Alvin Jiang, a local guide, never fails to impress me on both my visits! His service attitude is A+++. I will recommend him to ANYONE who is serious about having a good and decent time in Beijing. Alvin is honest, realiable and totally NICE! Drop me a message for his email and mobile, and I will gladly share it with you. I don't know how else to thank this great guy except to recommend him onwards.

According to Internet, international train between Beijing and UlanBator runs only on Monday. The tickets cannot be sold at stations. Check with the agency CITS.

http://www.cits.net/citsonlineWeb/online/homepage_EN/transportation/2009_inttrain.htm

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Tracy and I had wanted to do an overnite train trip in Vietnam but didnt get around to it. So we were determined to do it in China, although we had received many warnings about Chinese Trains. Having done my research on vt and asked many many questions, I had decided to go "first class" and opted for the soft-sleeper tickets. Basically, (as far as I understand) there are 4 classes of tickets, starting with the dearest which is soft-sleeper, then hard-sleeper, then soft-seat and then hard-seat.

Soft-sleeper means there are 2 double bunks in a separate room, the room is not large, but big enough for yourself and your luggage. We were lucky enough to only have one other chinese man in our room, and he spoke good english and was very friendly and helpful.

There are 2 advantages to doing an overnight train trip, and both of them save you money. Firstly, you save on the cost of one nights accommodation. Secondly, the cost of the train trip is a fair bit less than the cost of an internal flight. Alvin was kind enough to buy our train tickets for us, lower berth was 400rmb I think and upper berth was 417rmb, or the other way around. It worked out to about $72AUD each for the train ticket. Our 2 internal flights cost us about $250AUD each, so there is a huge difference in price.

And, furthermore, it is a very pleasant trip, the gentle rocking of the train very quickly lulls you off to sleep and when you wake up, you are at your next destination. Tracy and I both had a great nights sleep on the train, and we would definitely do it again in the future.

Another advantage to booking the soft-sleeper tickets is that there is a special waiting area at the Train station for only people with soft-sleeper tickets. We were glad to discover this, as when we walked into the main waiting area, it was packed to the rafters and pretty unpleasant place to be. The other waiting room had nicer seat, Im assuming the toilets were nicer and not as crowded. This was great, as we had about 4 and a half hours to kill at the Train Station, we ate a bit and played cards for a while. We had to be out of our Hotel by 4pm as there were National Day rehearsals and if we had left any later, the roads would have been blocked. Our train didnt leave until 9.18pm so we had a lot of time to kill at the station.

Our train left from Beijing West Train Station, and when we were approaching the station in the taxi we were like OMG!!! This place was HUGE (I seem to use that word a lot when describing China!) Im sure it was bigger than our main Sydney Airport. Our train was called the Z19 and it was about the only recognisable thing on the HUGE board we saw!

Overall, I would definitely recommend doing an overnight train trip in China, I will be doing it again one day.

We used taxis in Beijing several times and always found them to be very cheap. Although very few, if any of the taxi drivers spoke any english, they always managed to get us to our destination. It is imperative that your get your Hotel staff to write your destination on a Hotel card in Chinese to give to the taxi driver, and you then also have the name of your Hotel in Chinese for your return. NOTE - very few taxi drivers knew where our Hotel the Days Inn actually was, as it was in a small alleyway, off a main road.

Taxis always had their meter on in Beijing, and always printed out a receipt, you just need to say "far peow" when you are getting out to get the receipt. Im told the receipt comes in very handy if you actually leave something in the taxi, as it can then be tracked down.

All Beijing taxis were two-toned coloured and their number plate always started with the letter B. We did not use the subway in Beijing at all, so cant comment on that.