Top Beijing Shi hotels
Forbidden City Beijing
465 Reviews A very serious advice: Pay attention to every detail of the explanation done by our guide (person or book), during the visit: that way you will find out that "peace and harmony" is the dominant...
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Great Wall Beijing
203 Reviews In our way to Badaling we passed in another segment of the wall, with an interesting look - I think it was Nankou. Our guide took us further, to Badaling, I don't know exactly why. Maybe because the...
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Tiananmen Square Beijing
345 Reviews The square is so big that even the important buildings at each side seem irrelevant. At the southern side, an austere building flanked by statues in the typical Chinese revolutionary style is the...
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Temple of Heaven Beijing
209 Reviews A large (and discreet) platform was, in the old days, considered the center of the world. There is a long story about stone in circle, multiples of nine, and so on, but you will have to listen to it...
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Great Wall - Mutianyu Beijing
77 Reviews I learned that Mutianyu has less crowd than any other great wall. So, I decided to go there with great expectation of natural beauty surrounding the great wall with less tourist. I went there during...
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Summer Palace Beijing
182 Reviews Summer Palace is the largest historical imperial garden in Beijing. It has 290 hectares of land, the Kunming Lake covers three quarters of the entire garden. Others include Longevity Hill on the North...
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Lama Temple - Yonghegong Beijing
80 Reviews This is a Tibetian Lamasary. This is a beautiful example of Chinese temple. You can see the Green, Gold, and Blue of the Red Pagoda's. It was built in 1694 and inside you can see an 18meter high budda...
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Hutongs - Bell and Drum Towers Beijing
97 Reviews Da Jiang Hutong is a preserved hutong district located east of Qianmen. A lot of the buildings are newly restored. They all have unique traditional architecture with the combination of east and west....
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Great Wall - Badaling Beijing
97 Reviews Great part of the Great Wall to visit. It's not in Beijing central so it will take an hour or more to get there by car. There are plenty of photo opportunities from high up. They have cable cars that...
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Ming Tombs Beijing
89 Reviews At the entrance of the tombs there's a small museum displaying some artifacts collected in the tombs, and description of their conception. The collection is not very rich, but some pieces are really...
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Wangfujing Street Beijing
50 Reviews The liveliest street of Beijing is also the most commercial one. That means that, instead of one hour we would need… one week (or several...). In its beginning there are looooots of shops. … Well…...
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Acrobats Show Beijing
29 Reviews We enjoyed the Acrobat show so much that we asked Alvin to buy us some Kung Fu Show tickets also - this was even better than the Acrobat Show. 150rmbs p/ticket. The Legend of Kung Fu follows the...
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Beihai Park Beijing
110 Reviews Loved this area - the old hutong shopping district was so quaint and the Lakes were amazing - Qianhai, Houhai and Xihai Lakes. Definitely should not be missed. We hired tuk tuks for a treat and...
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Zoo & Aquarium Beijing
36 Reviews China has the exclusive of the remaining animals of this nice species, and that’s reason enough to include a visit to the zoo in all packages. Be prepared to see more heads and backs than pandas, and,...
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Olympics 2008 Beijing
28 Reviews This sprawling stadium was built for the 2008 Summer Olympics and was nick-named the Birds Nest due to its unusual design. It can seat 80,000 people. Following the Olympics, it was used for other...
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Shopping Beijing
40 Reviews I love to hang out here at night. The tour bus from the Great Wall stopped here to end the trip. So, we had dinner and walked around here after the Great Wall trip. The shopping street has a lot of...
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Confucius Temple Beijing
21 Reviews This china's second Confucius temple and is set amongst century old tree's. It was built in 1302 and is lined with rows of steles. those at the entrance immortalize the prize-winners in imperial...
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Peking Opera Beijing
33 Reviews We enjoyed an evening of "Opera" at Beijing's oldest tea house. The performances included both Farewell My Concubine and The Monkey King. The first is a classical dramatic performance with some tricky...
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Jingshan Park Beijing
32 Reviews The park consist of a large hill just north of the Forbidden City. The park gives great views of the Forbidden City, Behai Park and Beijing in general. The earlier picture overlooking the fordidden...
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Forbidden City - Imperial Garden Beijing
19 Reviews On the East side of Imperial Garden, I started from the North to the South. That way I could exit the garden to continue visiting Palaces on the west of Forbidden City. 1) Pavilion of Deposited Jade...
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Great Wall - Simatai Beijing
28 Reviews We hired the driver Wang Ping (Private Beijing Taxi website), cost 900RMB. Wang picked us up from the hotel in Beijing at 2pm and we were dropped off at the Jinshanling entry point at around 4pm. We...
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Teahouses Beijing
9 Reviews If you are traveling to Beijing and want to combine both the traditional and new China, you cannot miss going to the Green Tea House Restaurant. Although I like the red lanterns and old architecture,...
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Yuanmingyuan Beijing
24 Reviews Tantan Dandang is one of the historical site in Yuanmingyuan, further west. I found it very interesting as the ancient fish pond still remains. It was a very intelligent way to build such pond with...
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Palace of Prince Gong Beijing
17 Reviews Prince Gong's palace. This palace was built during the reign of the Qianlong emperor. It was originally built for Heshun who was a Manchu official and the emperor's favourite. The residence was...
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Parks Beijing
32 Reviews Red leaves in Beijing Fragrant Hill, one of the most magnificent scenes in Beijing, enjoy the international fame and attract thousands of visitors annually. In every autumn period, crowds will cover...
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The Yuyuantan Park is a huge park located at the north-west portion of Beijing city. You will see lots of local people visiting this park to exercise, walk around and relax especially during the weekends. There are 2 very large lakes in this park as well as a cherry blossom garden (best time to see the folowers is in mid-April every year).More information and photographs are at part 2 of this tip.
At the back and side portions of the Forbidden City are the houses of the officials, concubines of the emperor, servants etc. You can visit the houses, some of which have displays of various ancient monuments inside them. Another interesting feature of the Forbidden City are the famous walled walkways which link the varous parts of this ancient city.Overall, the Forbidden City is really very impressive. This place was exclusive only to the emperor of China and his officials for many generations, so no one else gets to see it until it was finally opened to the public at the turn of the 20th century. In order to appreciate this place, allocate enough time and at the entrance area, you can obtain the information recording devices (in several languages) which you can bring along during your tour. This device is very good and will tell you the history and architecture of the different...
Besides the impressive main halls, there are several other buildings at the Forbidden City for various functions during the old days such as worship etc. You will see lots of cravings of the dragon (which represents the emperor) and other mytical creatures such as phoenix, unicorn etc on the building and wall architecture. Please go to part 4 of this tip.
The Forbidden City is huge and is essentially rectangular in shape, which huge and tall walls which block off the common people during that time from the emperor and his officials. There are a few main halls at the front of the city with huge open spaces for the officials to stand during the daily sessions with the emperor. The halls are very impressive, with huge architecture. In order to have a detailed trip of the whole Forbidden City, you need one full day as it is really that big! Please go to part 3 of this tip.
The Forbidden City is one of the most impressive monument I have ever seen during my years of travel. This is a huge palace located at the centre of the city, which is now a museum opened to the public. The main entrance is a huge walled tower with the famous portrait of the late Chairman Mao Zedong.The Forbidden City was built during the Ming Dynasty of China (around 1300BC to 1644BC) as the office and residence of the emperor of China and his officials. Since then, it was home to about 24 emperors of the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty (1644BC to around 1910BC) before it was finally converted to a museum when the monarchy system of China was abolished at the turn of the 20th century. Please go to part 2 of this tip.
I visited the Wangfujing area again in April 2008 and enjoyed my trip there. Besides doing some shopping and having my meal at one of the street store serving Chinese food, I managed to visit the souvenir shop of the Olympic Games 2008 and bought some souvenirs home.Wangfujing is at the heart of Beijing city and not to be missed when you are there (but take care of your belongings and watch for pickpockets).
Chinese Acrobatics is famous all over the world. I am sure some of you have seen it on TV. If you got a chance to Beijing, that is authentic show there which is quite different from TV. It is great, it came from people's labor and self-defense skills. As the world is getting smaller and smaller, it has travelled abroad. But to enjoy it in Beijing, it is cool, besides it is cheaper and by your naked eyes.
Tucked away from the sound of jackhammers and blaring car horns are little pockets of the past, charming remnants of the old way of life, threaded together by narrow lanes called hutongs. Some of the hutongs are so narrow that only a thin person could walk though it, sideways. The best way to navigate this charming tangled mess of alleys and doorways is on foot. Walking makes it easy to stop whenever you feel like. But if walking is not your thing or you are pressed for time, there are rickshaws for hire and you can even request for an English-speaking guide to show you around, which is what we did. We climbed into our rickshaws at the junction of the Bell and Drum Towers and hired a nice lady guide. It was a very pleasant and leisurely journey, a far cry from the usual sounds of traffic, being taken around in bicycle-powered rickshaws. Pedaling her own bicycle alongside us, our guide...
This universe within a universe is a massive complex of courtyards, bridges and halls guarded by watch towers on every corner, and with the Imperial throne at it's center. In the old days, eunuchs dominated the population in the hundreds of thousands followed by the Emperor's numerous concubines dressed in swishing silk and tottering on shoes mounted on eight inch platforms. Here are a few facts about the Forbidden City: construction began in 1406 and lasted about fifteen years; it lies right in the center of ancient Beijing and is the world's largest surviving palace complex, covering an area of 720,000 square meters or 74 hectares; there are about 980 buildings and 9,999 rooms within those red walls; it was home to 24 emperors during the Ming & Qing dynasties; the walls are made with white lime and glutinous rice cemented together with glutinous rice and egg whites; red being the...
The hotel we were staying in was centrally-located at Wangfujing Rd., walking distance to the two most prominent sites in the heart of Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. When we arrived at Tiananmen Square early one morning, there were already lots of people there. Most were tourists who wore buttons or bright colored caps that distinguished them from other groups. Tour guides were everywhere speaking in various foreign languages to visitors from around the world. The square was immaculate despite the crowd and the grass surrounding the Monument to the People's Heroes bore neatly mowed stripes. The weather was pleasant and there was not a cloud in the sky; only more of those dancing kites I'd seen at the Temple of Heaven. It was the picture of peace. I found it difficult to imagine that it had seen so much violence and bloodshed when several hundred (some say even...
Park Plaza Beijing Wangfujing Beijing
5 Reviews and 909 Opinions Well, unbeknownst to me when I booked our stay at the Park Plaza Hotel during the Olympics that it...
Beijing Huakun Manor Hotel Yanqing
2 Opinions
Shangri-La Hotel Beijing Beijing
6 Reviews and 1032 Opinions I stayed there in April of 2007 and was at first disappointed when the driver approached the...
Reviews and photos of Beijing Shi attractions posted by real travelers and locals. The best tips for Beijing Shi sightseeing.
Q: I have booked a tour which includes Juyongguan Great Wall. I heard it's a steep climb though my kids are already 10 & 12. Is this...
A: We did a day tour to the Great Wall. Unfortunately I don't remember the point where the tour started. But though it was an organised tour, we were not taken to those...
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