10 days of Beijing

snorsorbet

6 Posts

June 18 2014 11:46 GMT

Dear TL,

I'm going to Beijing in a little more than a month for the ILO 2014 and will be staying 10 days afterwards. Any tips on what I might want to see? I generally enjoy exploring gardens and small towns, I have many fond memories from travelling and eating on the Italian country side.

Sincerely,
Stan.

endy

Switzerland8970 Posts

June 18 2014 14:21 GMT

Great Wall (Mutianyu site), Summer Palace, Beihai Park, and Forbidden City.

Bring a mask to filter dust/pollution.

ThomasjServo

15244 Posts

June 18 2014 14:23 GMT

I lived in Zhuhai (well south of Beijing) for 9 months in 2009-2010, I would recommend getting outside of Beijing ASAP if at all possible/once you check off any site seeing prerequisites you may have for yourself.

I am rather capitol-city-phobic with my travels in general, but Beijing with the pollution isn't where I would stay. Tianjin is worth a stop, and I would get to Qingdao if you can.

ThomasjServo

15244 Posts

June 18 2014 14:23 GMT

On June 18 2014 23:21 endy wrote:
Great Wall (Mutianyu site), Summer Palace, Beihai Park, and Forbidden City.

Bring a mask to filter dust/pollution.

(and stay away from DaTong :X)

Carnivorous Sheep

Baa?21247 Posts

June 18 2014 14:59 GMT

On June 18 2014 20:46 snorsorbet wrote:
I generally enjoy exploring gardens and small towns, I have many fond memories from travelling and eating on the Italian country side.

Not sure if Beijing is going to be the most satisfying experience for you then haha...

Basically everything there is to do in Beijing is pretty much big metropolis focused, and anywhere away from Beijing would require you to commute either by car or train a few hours, and I'm not sure if you'd have the time to do that.

Vanka

China1336 Posts

June 18 2014 16:59 GMT

I haven't been there yet, but something slightly away from the whole tiananmen/forbidden city/preserved chairman mao/etc is Yuanmingyuan, an old imperial garden. It used to be the imperial palace before it was destroyed, but part of it was restored about 140~ years ago because an army general wanted to impress the empress. He ended up spending the money allocated to building up the Chinese navy in order to rebuild the place so the empress could have a place to stay in the summer.

It's going to be a bit tough considering you're a foreigner presumably and also presumably your chinese isn't great, but if you like small town stuff stay out of Chaoyang district (east side/downtown area) because as foreigner you're going to be roped into all kinds of standard big city touristy stuff, but if you go into Haidian district and wander around a little, you'll find plenty of small sketchy food places and shops to be interesting. Also something you might consider is going around Tsinghua and Peking University (also in Haidian) and just wandering around, they're pretty good looking places and also will be pretty different from standard tourist fare. You might also meet some students, whose english is often passable and talk to them about university life, which is pretty different here than in the west.

Titusmaster6

United States5937 Posts

June 18 2014 17:07 GMT

Forbidden city, think 10 days you'll be able to see about half of it. I don't think Beijing will be anything like the Italian countryside

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