Exploring Beijing

Our Trip to Beijing, China

In 2011 I took my son, Na’il, then age 12, on a trip to Beijing, China (26 Nov – 6 Dec). The main reason for the trip was to provide a means for him to practice speaking Mandarin which he started learning when just five-years-old.

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Beijing is one of the four ancient cities of China (together with Xi’an, Luoyang, Nanjing), the best preserved, and famous around the world. The city is also known as a cradle of humanity. As early as 700,000 years ago, Peking Man lived in the Zhoukoudian area of this city.

Beijing City was established over 3,000 years ago and was called Jin City in the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC – 771 BC). Ever since Emperor Qin united China in 221 BC, Beijing has played an important role in north China. It was the capital city in the Liao (916-1125), Jin (1115-1234), Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. During these 800 years, 34 emperors lived and ruled here. The world-renowned Forbidden City was built during this period.

Discovering Beijing City

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, World War I broke out. Beijing became the focus of the war which caused great social disruption. Many residences of royal families were robbed and burned down. After that, the whole country was reduced to the status of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. It wasn’t until the first of October in 1949 that the People’s Republic of China was founded. Beijing is now the capital city of the prosperous country which has achieved great importance in Asia.

Sightseeing

Experiencing the beauty, history, and heritage of important places in Beijing and its environs.

*Note: Click on photo to enlarge, click on ‘Title’ for additional information, and click on ‘View” for more images. Project is incomplete, updates continue.

Hundreds of photos were taken along with a few videos that remained stored until now (June 2019). I now have time to complete proper editing and to design a format for quality presentation. Hopefully, my efforts using Elegant Themes and its modules have paid off.

Because of a significant time lapse since our trip, I had to refer to my notes and also do additional research in order to ensure the correct match of names and information with places visited and where the photographs were taken.

Also, note that Beijing is undergoing rapid physical change and that seen in my photos may not be true today. One example is the Golden Jaguar, seen at the top left of the Night Market photo below, once a thriving restaurant enterprise operation in several city locations is now closed due to indebtedness.

Tiananmen Square

Lao She Tea House

Yiheyuan (Summer Palace)

Jingshan Park

Lao She Teahouse Video

Lao She Teahouse, named after the celebrated writer has shows mostly in Chinese which blend any number of traditional Chinese performing arts that include Peking opera, folk art, music, acrobatics, and magic. There are also tea ceremonies, frequent folk-music performances, and daily shadow-puppet shows.

A Look Inside Forbidden City

Forbidden City (Palace Museum), and Gu Gong in Chinese, lies at the city center of Beijing. It once served as the imperial palace for 24 emperors during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368 – 1911).

Now known as the Palace Museum, it is to the north of Tiananmen Square. Rectangular in shape, it is the world’s largest palace complex and covers 74 hectares. Surrounded by a 52-meter-wide moat and a 10-meter-high wall with a gate on each side, it contains more than 8,700 rooms. There are unique and delicately structured towers on each of the four corners of the curtain wall that afford views over both the palace and the city outside.

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More Places

View our accommodations, visits to various Hutongs, and travels around the city to see interesting places.

Donghuamen

Night Market

Food vendors at the Donghuamen Night Market near Wangfujing Street in Beijing. Wangfujing is a 700-year-old street, dates to the Ming Dynasty, and still with commercial activities in the area. Because the majority of the main area is now pedestrianized there are many restaurants and street food stalls located in hutongs just west of the main street and known locally as Wangfujing ‘snack street’.

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