Beijing

Hi!

Some basic Beijing Info:

We are staying at the Beijing City Central Youth Hostel on the nights of May 13th and 14th.
We will arrive in Beijing late on the night of the 13th and go directly to the hostel. Those of you who are sleepy can go right to bed. If you want a walk before you go to bed we'll go to the night market on WangFuJing for snacks or a proper dinner and maybe to TianAnMen Square.

(This is a map of the area around the Hostel. The Hostel is marked by the blue triangle).


MAY 14

On the morning of the 14th we will have breakfast at the hostel (you will eat while Dr. Tserenpil and I go to get your train tickets) and then do two of the following excursions. We will vote on the excursions while we are all in the airport awaiting our flight. We will travel IN A GROUP on all of the Beijing excursions. I know this is not fun for some of you, but it is even less fun (and pretty easy) to get lost in Beijing.

Excursion options (note I did not write any of the following descriptions):

TianAnMen, Forbidden City, and Beihei Park
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, and the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government.

Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square meters. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Summer Palace
The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill (60 meters high) and the Kunming Lake. It covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water. The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometers was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. In its compact 70,000 square meters of building space, one finds a variety of palaces, gardens, and other classical-style architectural structures.

In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace an "outstanding expression of the creative art of Chinese landscape garden design, incorporating the works of humankind and nature in a harmonious whole." It is a popular tourist destination but also serves as a recreational park.

Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven in the southern part of Beijing is China's largest existing complex of ancient sacrificial buildings. Occupying an area of 273 hectares, it is three times the area of the Forbidden City. It was built in 1420 for emperors to worship Heaven. The principle buildings include the Altar of Prayer for Good Harvests, Imperial Vault of Heaven and Circular Mound Altar. The Altar of Prayer for Good Harvest, 38 meters in height and 30 meters in diameter, stands on a round foundation built with three levels of marble stones. This towering triple-eave hall is under a three-story, cone-shaped glaze-tile roof in blue color crowned with a gilded knob. A circular wall of polished bricks known as the Echo Wall encloses the Imperial Vault of Heaven. The Circular Mount Altar, south to the Imperial Vault of Heaven, is where the emperor prayed to heaven. At the center lies a round stone called the Center of Heaven Stone that echoes when a visitor speaks loudly when standing on the stone. The Temple of Heaven was entered into the world cultural heritage list in 1998

Panjiayuan Antiques and Art Market

FLEA MARKET AFICIANADOS, Beijing history buffs and junk collectors alike were in jitters two years ago as rumors swept through the dusty stalls of Panjiayuan about official plans to clean up the capital’s infamous, largely unregulated and delightfully chaotic "Dirt Market."

Fast-forward to this year, and Panjiayuan is still open and, by practically any measure, bigger and, better, with bargains galore. China’s capital flea market remains chock-a-block with beads, bangles, jade, jewelry and, well, junk. If there is a trinket - however tacky - found anywhere in China, rest assured you will also find it here. From Mao caps to Ming pottery, Yinxing teapots to military binoculars, Panjiayuan has everything, including Tibetan trunks, bronze door knobs, antique locks, wooden puppets, even actual kitchen sinks.

Eating:
Breakfast - at hostel
Lunch - picnic location to be determined by excursion option selection
Dinner- HouHai lake used to be part of the Imperial gardens, now it is surrounded by upscale restaurants. It is touristy, but not too bad. We will have dinner at the Chinese restaurant that has tables along side the lake and then you will have about 2 hours to visit the shops or rent a paddle boat (either paddled by you, a motor, or a Chinese teenager) to explore the lake. You can read about the lake here, http://www.gluckman.com/BeijingHouHaiLake.html but be warned, we are not eating at any of the restaurants he reviewed.




May 15
We will depart Beijing via train for Inner Mongolia. The train leaves early, so we will go to bed early on the 14th. (This picture was taken out of the Hostel's window and is here as a warning, it will be CROWDED and SMOGGY).