We’re about to depart from Beijing after a week in this glorious(?) city, and we’ve certainly managed to keep ourselves busy while here. More extensive blog posts on some of our experiences will follow in the coming days (thanks to our impending 6 hour train ride!), but we wanted to give the people (aka: you) what you want in the interim: photos.
Check out our quick take and then scroll down for photos at some of the popular, and less popular Beijing sites that we managed to visit along the way:
- Temple of Heaven: A large park with several temples/altars that were used for offerings to the heavens (and probably lots of other stuff, but the audio guide was a little hard to follow). It contained beautifully manicured gardens and large, majestic cypress trees. Henry Kissinger once said that the U.S. could certainly recreate the structures at the Temple of Heaven, but would never be able to replicate the beautiful cypress trees. Totally nailed it, Henry. This park was a great way to spend a sunny afternoon walking around, with a nice mix of ornate buildings and long, deserted pathways through extensive trees.
- Jess rating: Go if you have an extra day to spare and the weather is decent.
- Rorie rating: Definitely go. It’s super accessible via the subway system, has beautiful grounds and enough non-temple stuff to keep your interest.
- Summer Palace: An incredibly beautiful palace, and series of buildings, bridges, and altars located outside of Beijing where the emperors would spend their summer months. The park includes a massive manmade lake that is supremely picturesque, while the palace is also the site where China’s first telephone was installed and where the first vehicle in China is housed. Quite cool, but also just an incredibly scenic and delightful reprieve from the oppressive industrial nature of Beijing. We took a boat across the lake, wandered through the maze-like pathways up the hill for views out over the city, and strolled along the water under the willow trees. Subway accessible, too!
- Jess rating: Must go – my favorite sight in Beijing.
- Rorie rating: Go if you have extra time, but be prepared for more of a commute (it’s further out of the city) and a larger gaggle of people to navigate through.
- 798 Art District: This used to be a complex of large, industrial buildings built by the East Germans 60+ years ago for manufacturing electronics. Subsequently abandoned, it has recreated itself in recent years as a funky art district full of exhibitions by established and amateur artists. It was a very cool place to see a different side of Beijing that’s a little funkier in nature, including a random DJ spinning U.S. hip hop music while little kids sprayed graffiti onto a canvas (awesome at so many levels). Think of this as the SoHo of Beijing, and a good place to see stylish twenty-somethings and get a hipster coffee.
- Jess rating: An interesting, different side of the city if you’re here long enough to get beyond the standard tourist sites, but maybe not worth it if you only have a couple days.
- Rorie rating: Definitely not a mandatory sight, but I encourage people to go if they want to see what younger Beijing is like. Probably my favorite site in Beijing.
- Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City: This is the notorious public square and adjacent palace where state affairs were conducted for several centuries. Both of these were simply massive sites that really made it difficult to comprehend scale at any meaningful level. While the site is meaningful, we have to admit that this was probably our least favorite attraction in Beijing. They just didn’t resonate with us. Sorry, that happens from time to time.
- Jess rating: Go because you sort of have to, but spend almost no time in Tiananmen Square and save your time for the Forbidden City. Leave when all the temples start to look the same.
- Rorie rating: Jess said it well. I think this is quite overrated, a hassle to get in/out of and a bit too one-dimensional of a destination. Part of our problem is that we didn’t have a full understanding of the historical significance of the temple while there, so maybe that would help?
Finally, note that these are mainly just photos of us from my iPhone the past week. Soon we’ll be able to pull pictures off of Jess’s super fancy camera, at which point we’ll circle back with a post of beautiful pictures of more scenery and sights from Beijing.
Jess taking pictures at Temple of Heaven
Street art in 798 Art Zone
Hip-hop DJ spinning Common in front of a graffiti wall in 798 Art Zone
In a café at 798 Art Zone
Triple-layer T-rex sculpture in the 798 Art Zone
A pathway at Temple of Heaven
Jess getting asked to take a photo (and for a hug) from some strangers at Temple of Heaven
A temple (technically an altar) at the Temple of Heaven
A panorama of the Summer Palace
The names of the temples at the Summer Palace were pretty amazing.
In front of the man-made lake, dragon boats, and main buildings of the Summer Palace
Rorie’s crowning achievement so far: being drawn as the head of a dragon onto a plate at the Summer Palace (no, we did not ask for this, and no, we did not buy it). Shout out to the woman photo-bombing the background too.
The Marble Boat at the Summer Palace. Not actually made of marble, and definitely not a functional boat, this was built using embezzled Navy funds by an Empress.
Communism!? At Tiananmen Gate
Rorie and Mao at Tiananmen Square
