China is a must see destination for every traveller, especially for those who has leveled up some points in travelling. So I always thought one day I’ll see China and in 2015 I was able to do so twice including capital Beijing. So I have not only Beijing guide for you but also some other observations and tips about China as well!
On my first trip to China, I could only see Ningbo and Shanghai. So when I went there a second time, I tried hard to add Beijing to my route. I can hear you saying you went all the way to China, of course you have to add Beijing to your route and I agree. But just so you don’t do the mistake of underestimating how big China is, let me tell you this; on my second trip which included one local and two international flights, the local flight took longest because that was me trying to get to Beijing from inside China!
Anyway China has much to offer. You have to decide which part to go first because geography, culture and things to see and do changes significantly depending on which part you choose to go. But I’ll start with beginner’s China and cover Beijing guide and Shanghai guide. (By the way, tgeneral info part is the same for Shanghai guide)
My trip’s highlight in Beijing is undoubtedly, after all my tools to navigate, communicate and take pictures are gone thanks to heavy rain, I was taken care of by a young couple who cannot speak English and as I later found out were on their honeymoon! Think about it in their honeymoon picture there is a tourist in plastic raincoat making a peace sign in the middle of them.
Details are as usual later, first a summary version of Beijing guide and later you can find a very detailed Beijing guide!
Travel: There are many direct flights as Beijing being the second most busiest airport in the world, depending on your location if you flight is above 10 hours expect a 500-600 dollars ticket at least.
Visa: Unlike many other Far East countries, China applies visa to many countries, chances are you need a visa too. Check out their website before you hop on a flight.
Food: Oh gosh, it’s just so many! First of all China kitchen has many offerings as you will find out once you enter a traditional restaurant, you choose from a huge selection including different variations of vegetables, meat and sea products. But for a general guide, just order anything with their long thin mushrooms in it, chao mian (Chinese noodle) , dumplings, tu dou si (a potato dish), shou si bao (legendary cabbage dish but do try because I don’t even like cabbage and I can eat this all the time) and many street food starting with street barbecue stands.
Sightseeing: Tiananmen Square, The Great China Walls, Forbidden Palace, Jingshan Garden, Temple of Heaven, Wangfuijing Street, Dong Hua Men Night Market and if you still have time Summer Palace, Lama Temple and Ming Tombs
Where to stay: In Beijing I looked for a boutique hotel near center which is not too expensive but can give me feeling of authentic classic China. Frankly I thought prices would be cheaper but I booked only a week before so early reservations might be much better. I preferred one of the classic alley hotels. When they say alley hotel, imagine a chasing scene in an action movie in China. You thought of narrow streets filled with small shops of all kinds from food to cleaning, shoe making to hair dresser but with a “not so luxurious” conditions, men sitting in their “once it was white” top tanks in front of them and somehow chickens or other animals run across as the chasing disturbs them, right? Yeap, similar 🙂 Ok maybe there weren’t any chase but narrow streets really felt like that. In center area many hotels exist in parallel streets. Many tourists chose these areas since its center and budget friendly. You will see if you attend to a Great Wall tour that service bus picks up many guests around this area. I chose my hotel looking at authentic decor in lobby and thinking “aww this feels like China”. Well decor was good and really felt Chinese but my room was very small and it was basically on the street as it was street leveled and a window opened to the alley I stayed. Normally not a problem but remember how I mentioned Chinese people loves to keep their throat dry with spitting every once in a while doing it with a hearty sound, yeah, sleeping was hard.
So before we dive right into Beijing guide, I’ll mention couple of my observations about China in general and go into details of my trip in Beijing.
I spent near a month in China but most of this time was about work so I added additional off days to rightfully explore it. Travelling China is really a different experience. First of all, chances are, like me, you don’t know Chinese and spending time in a country in which you can’t read and speak is challenging. Although most people don’t know English, even yes/no means nothing to them, generally they are friendly and want to help you even if they don’t understand you.
You may think I’m joking but finding “cold water” to drink in China is really a problem. They drink their water warm if not hot which is like a kind of torture for me especially if you are visiting China in spring or summer. Even if you manage to ask for “cold” water, they don’t have it. Best chance may be asking for ice and trying to cool your water yourself, and good luck asking for ice. Unfortunately same thing goes with beer, but situation is better than water. In some places you can find cold beer. But don’t be surprised if you beer comes warm or not cold enough. So which means after “Xie Xie” (read like “shi shi” ) meaning thank you, next Chinese word you might wanna learn is how to say cold water and cold beer. By the way while teaching me how to say various versions of saying cold water I was told to be careful with my pronunciation as it might mean “handsome”, of course I didn’t mind as long as they brought me some “cold water” or “handsome” but unfortunately I didn’t came across both L Alas you should note “bingshui” and “bingpijiu” anyway, as you might suspect bing means cold, shui means water and pijiu means beer. (Good luck trying to order a beer like “beeer, biiiir, biiruuu”, either say the beer’s brand or learn word pijiu) Seriously you will thank me a lot including this info on this Beijing guide 😉
Ice tea really comes cold as ice though! They seriously have a thing for tea. People love tea and by tea I mean all kinds of it, you will see many people carrying their own mixture of tea with them. Also it is likely that the cups you see on your meals is filled with tea instead of water, and since they bring water approximately same degree why not drink tea!
Internet has many limitations in China. You can’t use Google, Facebook, Twitter and many sites unless you use a VPN to pretend you are not connecting from China. People mostly use Chinese versions of these popular services. Especially WeChat application is a huge hit. Everybody has it; if you meet someone there first thing they ask is what your WeChat ID is. It is like Whatsupp and Facebook combined and also has other uses to make it easy to meet someone new nearby. And it can help with translations. That’s why they use it a lot.
When you want to buy something, you must do haggling. Otherwise you pay like almost ten folds of its appropriate value. Seriously I thought ok maybe some haggling to get I don’t know maybe %20 percent since I hear its extreme, but thanks to a friend with me I saw they sold it to “1/10 of the first price they say” all the time. I guess it is like an attraction, as tourist you know they will decrease it and they know they will decrease it, you just play a sketch with each other saying “noo, too expensive” which they usually answer “you are joking or killing me” but you got your discount when you walk away. Well at least most sellers know enough English! Of course this info is valid for not only Beijing guide but for Shanghai guide as well!
Air pollution wasn’t an issue when I was there, so I’m not sure about occasional news that shows Chinese people walking with masks under a grey sky, but it may be my luck.
And lastly, unfortunately they have a very disturbing habit of spitting anywhere with all the sound effects when they feel like it. Of course “disturbing” is subjective, I meant according to my culture and personally. It is not a judgment just a statement because it is a very normal and healthy habit for them, but it is not for me 🙂 You will come across this so much that if you are not used to it may upset your stomach a lot. Let’s just say I saw many people do it even inside Forbidden Palace and in some decent looking restaurants. Like I said it is a normal behavior for Chinese culture, but for outsiders who don’t hold same habits it may feel uncomfortable, just a friendly heads up.
Alright let’s get to city guide part, here is the Beijing guide, for Shanghai check out here because I don’t want to extend this any longer!
Food-Drink: China kitchen is really vast thanks to its ancient history. You can find many vegetables, meat, sea product dishes or combinations of them. You are sure to find something that will fit your taste buds. But since there are too many options it may be hard to find out something you will like in your first tries. In classic China restaurants your table is a spinning round table, in which you and your group orders many dishes, they all served from common plates to this round table. And you eat from these common plates, spinning the table to reach other dishes as you eat. So you get to eat and try many things in general, but it might be overwhelming for one person because dish sizes are heartful as they meant to be eaten by multiple people 🙂 Menus include so much variety and people order so many things that you will see they hand you a photocopy of the menu with checkboxes and you just tick what you want to get. It is actually easier way to order but sometimes names are all in Chinese and you have no idea what to choose. Chinese people like to order a main dish of fish with vegetables and still boiling soup that comes with under heating tools to your table (black rectangle dish in the picture). They also like fish head dish. But even if you don’t love fish, there are many things to order, I would especially suggest chao mian (read like shao miyen) which is Chinese noodles, tu dou si (a potato dish), shou si bao (a cabbage dish but you should totally try, even a not a cabbage lover person likes it), dumplings (steamed or fried) and hot pot (my all-time favorite).
Obviously any decent Beijing guide has to include street foods of China for a taste of traditional cuisine. Actually generally street food level is really high in Far East and Beijing is of course one of the best places to try it. I especially liked late night skewers barbecues in which you can select what you want to barbecued from a large selection of vegetables and meat and made them cook there for you. Of course not so common types of meats are available as well for the adventures traveller. (Check out night market in sightseeing)
If you are tired of Chinese food you can find many other restaurants that offer other world cuisines from Italian to French, from burger to kebab, you can find anything. I should add that their favorite global chain seems KFC though, since they really like chicken here.
As for the drinks, their beer is very light in sense of alcohol so especially very light ones don’t taste much like a beer but just a beverage. Though there are some good brands. They also have another alcohol drink that includes highly concentrated alcohol like around %60, you drink it as shots and effects are like absent, even most veteran drinkers won’t hold much.
Sightseeing: Beijing truly deserves being the capital with its historical places and beautiful gardens. I didn’t felt much I’m in China feeling in Shanghai but I did feel the authentic feeling in Beijing.
I think best place to start exploring Beijing is Tiananmen Square. This place is one of the biggest squares in the world and holds much historical significance such as being the place where Mao announced China to be “People’s Republic of China” in 1949. Forbidden Palace is also close by so you can head to there once you finished hanging around in the square.
Usually first item on any Beijing guide is Forbidden Palace. It is incredibly big, and you really need to spend at least half a day here. So plan accordingly. You can explore its many streets once inside, and stumble upon building that once served in many various palace activities. Some of the buildings now serve as museums and exhibitions. When you reach the end, Imperial Palace Garden awaits you. Palace itself is a hard work of details. When you consider the time it was built, the conditions, tools, methods needed to do many simple things today was extremely hard and they did it anyway even though it cost them money and lives. For example if you explore the palace without a guide or at least a voice guide which you can buy at the entrance, you may not notice a big deal about the engraved stone between stairs. But if you know the story that the stone had to be one piece and to find a stone that’s big enough they have to bring it from kilometers away. Since it was too heavy, they used ice they got from mountains to use it as a slide under the stone to carry it to the palace.
At the end Imperial Palace Garden will await you where you can see really old trees and interesting volcanic stones brought from other places and oriental architecture style of pavilions where you can catch up your breath. But it is unlikely that you will find a place to sit because it’s always crowded. I went on a weekday with heavy rain and it still was crowded. Check out the umbrellas in my pictures 🙂
There are some small cafes to grab a snack and a drink but you may pack yourself a sandwich as well since it will took you at least half a day to walk around. When you exit Forbidden Palace, just across it you will see Jingshan Park. I like this park because not only it is a beautiful park which has 5 Pavilions inside, from its peak point you can get a good view of Forbidden Palace and Beijing. It is a good spot for photographing Forbidden Palace from up. Unfortunately when I was there, I was soaked with heavy rain and my electronic equipment were not working including my phone, so I couldn’t take any picture 🙁 But even though I was completely wet head to toe from rain and knowing fixing my tools will cost me good, I really enjoyed the feeling of this park. It kind of made me relaxed and optimistic even in that “I’m wet and cold, my phone is broken, I can’t access to any navigation, let alone my rest of the trip reservations, can’t chat or phone my friends to even ask for help, and I’m thousands of miles away from home in a place where I can’t speak the language and I don’t even know how to get to my hotel from here, I can’t even took a photo on my Beijing trip” situation. I walked inside this park a while, enjoyed the views and finally decided time to face my problems :). I thought to go nearest bus station and try my chances there. I figured if I can get to Tiananmen Square or somewhere central I might get a paper map for the time being. I found a bus station nearby and tried to ask the young couple whose also waiting if any bus to center is passing through here. Of course they didn’t know English but they tried to understand me with translation programs and from my face and hand mimics I guess 🙂
I was told a bus number and waited about 20 minutes with the couple there. In the meantime I was able to tell them that my phone was broken and I didn’t have any other navigation. My original plan was to go Temple of Heaven after Forbidden Palace but since I don’t know where or how I was planning to return to hotel to fix other things. After 20 minutes, they asked me where do I want to go probably a tenth time (I give them an answer, they seem to understand but ask the same againJ) and this time I told them Temple of Heaven. Then they look up their phone and told me I need to go another nearby station and they told me “ok, let’s go together”. I was like, thanks but you were waiting some other bus, you already helped me, but they insisted! Anyway we went to another station, luckily this time after 5 minutes we get on. They called an “English speaking” friend of theirs by phone and asked me the same questions J Anyway we somehow managed to get to the Temple of Heaven, by the way all three of us had cheap plastic raincoats on us. We walked around the Temple and they even made me took selfies with their ipad since I don’t have any means to take a picture there! That’s also when I learned that they were on “HONEYMOON”. It was their first time in Beijing as well. And there I was smiling and cracking a peace sign in the middle of them with my raincoat on their honeymoon pictures 🙂
They were really helpful and even send me these pictures later. They genuinely worried about me and tried to help me, I don’t know if I could be that kind and helpful to random tourist for a long time on my honeymoon trip. But even if you don’t have a lovely honeymoon couple with you Temple of Heaven is lovely enough to walk around. You can see oriental architecture with perfect shades of brilliant green and blue among 600 years old trees. It may take you 1-2 hours to enjoy this temple.
As for the main street to walk around and shop is around Wangfujing Street. It is like the modern face of Beijing with high end brand shops and local boutiques lined up with nice looking eating places. Also at night you should definitely visit the night food market near this area called Dong Hua Men Night Market. This is the place where you can find all kinds of sweet or sour, spicy or weird street foods of China, and the place to answer “are they really eating insects and scorpions there” question. Don’t worry even though you can find skewered scorpions and various insects here, there are much more less adventurous eats like delicious dumplings, vegetarian options, fruits, skewers..etc. All cheap and good.
Of course along with Forbidden Palace there is an atraction that every Beijing guide has to mention. Visiting the Great China Wall. First choice you should make is to decide which part of the Wall you are gonna visit. I thought people were going to one same place but boy I was wrong! Because you have 8 different options depending on closeness to city, restoration level, scenery..etc. Most popular choices are Badaling, Mutianyu, Jinshangling and Simetai. Badaling is the closest to city and crowded with tourists, Mutianyu is still close enough but less crowded and has the best restoration. So if you want to keep your trip to half a day you should choose between one of these two, personally I chose Mutianyu. If you have more time you can chose Simetai or Jinshangling for much less crowd and rumored to have much nice views. But they are more ruined situationed as they have not been restored much. Don’t worry, no matter where you choose it will be a unique experience and you will certainly get to enjoy good views. (Except for Badaling maybe because check out pictures from there, looks too crowded to enjoy…)
The Great Wall of China is in top three most visited places in the World for a reason. It certainly is impressive and if you know the history behind it, conditions it has been made, like thousands of people died working to build it, it becomes even more fascinating. Walls are really high and geography they have been build gives no visible weakness to climb or get over them. They have also build archer towers between them just enough to cover every part under archer distance. Seriously how did it was not enough to stop enemy raids at the time!
By the way, it is tiring to walk on The Great Wall of China, steps are uneven and sometimes gets too step. I heard Simetai part is especially challenging, so for fellow travellers who are not in good physical conditions be aware of the walking and steps challenges.
Cheapest way to go to The Great Wall of China is to find community bus and use it, but it may be hard because you need to change bus and it may be even harder to find someone to ask who can understand you. A better way is to join a tour which you can or your hotel book for you. You can join a private tour, it is not that expensive but if you are one or two people, it is better to just join an everyday standard tour. These tours start in the early morning, and they pick you up from your hotel. In minivans or buses you are then taken to The Great Wall of China with a tour guide. You spend 2-3 hours at the The Great Wall of China, and before return you eat a lunch in the nearby traditional Chinese restaurant. Lunch is included in the price, and it was much better than I expected. Also if you are a solo traveller it is a good chance to experience real Chinese cuisine since it is supposed to be eaten from round spinning tables with multiple dishes with a crowd 🙂 One more thing, when you arrive at The Great Wall of China, you can chose to walk the initial climbing steps or you can buy the elevator tickets. Of course they are not included in the tour but I suggest you get them, because you have limited time there and it may be better to enjoy it on top of The Great Wall of China not while trying to climb it and tire yourself.
Another Beijing guide checklist item is spending an evening by going to a famous Beijing opera or a Kung Fu show. I went to the Kung Fu show. Yes it was beautiful, with masters showing various skills and some scenes really had visuals combined with floating fabrics, bubbles and lights. But I found it too Hollywood style, probably for tourists. I rather had a more Chinese style show but it may just be my expectations, after all it was running for over 10 years every night!
If you have done all of these and still have time, (which unfortunately I didn’t), you can visit Summer Palace and Lama Temple. Also like The Great Wall of China there is a nearby location that has Ming dynasty tombs which is also a popular touristic area. In fact you can plan Ming dynasty tombs and The Great Wall of China on the same day and in one trip so you save time. But you will probably need the whole day then.