Beijing - Racing Ahead
Recent years have seen increased investment in Beijing maintaining and restoring such well-known historic sites as the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace and lesser known sites, such as the Lama Temple and the Temple of Heaven. Similarly, a booming tourist enterprise has now evolved around Badaling, the nearest outcropping of the Great Wall to the capital (90 minutes drive away). More modern attractions abound too, with Tiananmen Square, now-relatively tank free and open to visits by all but the most zealous and revolutionary of students, whilst the nearby mausoleum of Chairman Mao offers more patient visitors an opportunity to view (at a distance) the desiccated corpse of the controversial communist leader.
Navigating your way around the city is also relatively easy, with all street signs now in English and Mandarin. The recently expanded subway is the easiest way to get around the city, with all announcements and signage now jointly in English and Chinese. A ticket on the subway costs 2RMB (about 14.5p) for any one-way trip across the network.
As for culinary attractions, Beijing is a big international city and all manner of food is available – from the many different traditional cuisines available from China’s 33 different provinces (think counties but each one bigger than the entire UK), as well as an increasingly vast array of international cuisines, notably French, Japanese, Italian, Thai and Korean.
“Old China” still persists in Beijing, but may have to be sought out beyond the higher profile tourist attractions – but no more so than visitors to London, Paris or Rome have to look beyond Buckingham Palace, the Eiffel Tower or the Coliseum to get a genuine feel for a country, its heritage and its contemporary reality. Greater freedom and relaxation of travel restriction means that visitors will have every opportunity to visit a more unchanged China that lurks outside the major cities.
For those in search of the China of myth and legend, leave a little leeway in your itinerary to explore beyond the Northern Capital.
Article courtesy of cloudnine