More Beijing exploration

After we got back from the Big Wall, we continued our exploration of Beijing. So much to see, so little time...

The next day, we woke up to a totally different Beijing compared to the previous days. The famous pollution had reached peak levels, with the famous smog rolling in. Pretty scary actually, not something I could imagine living with all year around... Anyway, we decided to brave the warnings and head out to explore town anyway.

We started with another one of the main sights of Beijing, the Summer Palace. It's quite a long metro ride to get out there, as the place is 9km outside of town. The palace complex, which is actually the largest and most well-preserved Royal Park in China, dates back to 1750, when it was constructed as a place for the Emperor and his family to enjoy and entertain guests. Empress Dowager Cixi actually embezzled navy resources to make the place as splendid as it is today.

It's a huge place, and to really see it  all in one day is a pretty challenging task. We did manage to see most of the highlights. We probably preferred the Tower of Buddhist Incense, which sits on one of the highest spots in the Summer Palace. The views from there towards the Royal park are pretty amazing - even if the smog did admittedly ruin the view a little bit.

We were also treated to the spectacle of some Chinese theatre at the Grand Theatre, which is located in the poetically named Garden of Virtue and Harmony (most famous historic places in Chinese palaces seem to have grandiose names like that).

All in all, I was a little bit disappointed by the Summer Palace, actually. I mean it's an impressive place, for sure, but I just didn't enjoy the visit as much as say the Forbidden City. I'm sure the tourist masses had something to do with it (but then again, they were at the Forbidden City too...), and even more so, the pollution. Perhaps the best time to visit the place is during summer, when the pollution is less oppressive... Still, the Summer Palace is obviously worth a visit, no question about that!

We then made our way to the town centre, where we decided to check out one of those famous Hutongs we'd read so much about. Hutongs are basically small historic alleyways, lined up with historic stone house complex, with inner courtyards. As we quickly discovered, they are basically the heart and soul of Beijing, just great areas to have a walk around. They are becoming rarer and rarer, sadly, as Beijing continues to raze them in its mad rush for modernization.

Thankfully, they are becoming very popular with tourists, with trendy cafes, restaurants and bars lining up the alleys, which I suppose gives some intensive to preserve them. If you ask me, the Hutongs of Beijing are just as much a most-see "attraction" as the Forbidden City or the Summer Palace!

For dinner, we decided to try out the Beijing Branch of my favourite steamed bum dumpling restaurant chain, Din Tai Fung, located (as they often are), in a fancy modern shopping mall, not to far from our youth hostel. As always, the dumplings were nothing short of amazing - I tried truffle-flavoured as well as chocolate dumplings this time around. Yummie!

The next day, we checked out the third absolutely must-see Beijing attraction - the modestly named Temple of Heaven. This Imperial temple dates back to the Ming Dynasty, or 15th century - it was mainly used by the Emperor to pray for good harvests. It's actually not a temple in the ordinary sense in that normal people do not come here to pray.

The temple is surrounded by a huge park, which was actually a very fascinating place to observe Chinese people in leisure mode. There were people doing jogging there, people doing sports, people playing go, people playing cards, people doing Tai Chi, choirs singing communist hymns, people walking their dogs. So we actually spent a good hour just walking around, watching people going about their routines. Fascinating!

The temple itself was, as expected, overrun by tourists - and for good reason! I definitely enjoyed the Temple of Heaven more than the Summer Palace - I found the architecture more impressive here. The highlight of the temple complex is definitely the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests - this is where the emperor came to pray. This 36-meter high circular, tower-like building must be one of the most magnificent wooden buildings in the world.

Almost equally beautiful was the Imperial Vault of Heaven, also circular, and just perfect. There is plenty of more to write about the Temple of Heaven, its buildings, and just the important the complex used to have in Imperial China, but I shan't bore you with the details - please read wikipedia or something if you want to know more ;-).

Anyway, I would say that if there is one place you need to visit in Beijing, I would say it's the temple of heaven (even more so than the Forbidden City) - I just loved the place. In spite of the touristy hoards and the pollution that was still very much there, ruining my photos...!

Isabelle absolutely insisted on doing a bit of souvenir shopping, so we decided to check out a proper Chinese antiquities market. We decided to go to the big daddy of Beijing antiquities markets - Panjiayuan. What a massive place it is - and actually I found the whole experience rather fascinating (that's saying a lot from a guy who dislikes shopping as much as I do!). I mean, there is so much beautiful stuff on display here! We also ate duck head soup here - now that's something that doesn't happen to me very often! I even gave in and bought a couple of souvenirs myself there...

This was actually Isabelle's last night in Beijing, so we decided to have a rather fancy meal at a nice boutique hotel located in the same Hutong as our hotel (anyway, I felt like a proper meal, after that Duck Head soup - there just ain't that much meat on the duck heads to dig into!). Anyway, excellent meal, and a nice way to end our common journey together.

So, one more day for me to explore Beijing solo, before it was time for me to head back as well (argh, was already starting to get a bit fidgety about going back to the office after 4 months off work!)

I started off with a visit to the Yonghe Temple (aka. the Lama Temple), which is biggest Tibetan Buddhist temple in Beijing. And an impressive one it is. What's nice about this one is the fact that it's also a temple mainly for real worshippers, rather like camera-wielding tourists like myself. The main place to check out here (apart from the peaceful Tibetan atmosphere) is the 26 meter Buddha statue sculpted from a single piece of sandalwood (now that's what I call an impressive piece of engineering!). It was a gift from the 7th Dalai Lama to the Qinglong emperor, and took no less than three years to transport from Tibet! It was also quite interesting to read all the official party jargon about how the temple promotes unity and harmony for Tibet as a part of China...

There's an interesting Confucian Temple  near the Lama Temple, that I decided to check out as well. As other Confucian temples I've been to, it's a rather austere place, not a place of worship in the traditional sense. The main thing to see here is the huge collection of stone steles here, upon which the 13 Confucian classics have been engraved. Wow, that's impressive, I guess, to the initiated... What was more fascinating was the beautiful Confucian University, located just next to the temple, with its beautiful gardens and ponds.

I spent the rest of the afternoon Hutong-hopping, just enjoying the local life and atmosphere in those atmospheric back alleys. Yep, I would say the Hutongs are definitely the part of Beijing I prefer. I even came across the oldest microbrewery in Beijing (interestingly, operated by an American). The cherry on the cake for my Hutong tour.

I ended up my Hutong walk by checking out the famous Bell and Drum towers. As mentioned before, all major Chinese cities seem to have their Drum and Bell towers, usually pretty impressive historic buildings. The Drum towers are usually located at the symbolic centre of a city. They were originally used for musical purposes, and later on to keep track of and announce the time. IN Beijing, they stand facing each other along the Northern end of the central axis cutting through Beijing (the Forbidden City is directly to the South of the towers).

I decided to finish my visit of Beijing with a big bang - so I went to check out the Legend of Kung Fu show. It tells the somewhat tacky tale of a young and innocent boy who goes to a monastery to learn about Kung Fu, but alas, he's led astray by a beautiful girl, only to refind his way and become a master of Kung Fu. So, like I said, the storyline is tacky (told in a badly dubbed English voice over), but boy is that Kung Fu impressive. Most of the show consists of beautifully choreographed spectacular sequences that are a bit like a mixture between martial arts and dancing. Pretty impressive!

That, alas, brought an end to my Chinese adventure, and my 4-month Asian adventure as well. China was certainly a fascinating place to visit. There is so much history, nature and culture to visit. I think China gets a lot of bad press - for sure some of it is deserved, but I think if people actually travelled around China a bit, they might also discover another side of the coin...