1 day in Beijing
 

I was just checking out one of the "fox's" ;) stickies and noted that "1 day in Beijing" had yet to be created.

For starters, Beijing warrants more than one day, but since many people like to do that 23 hour TWOV thing, I suppose this is a relevant topic.

Furthermore, I often entertain business guests who only have one free day during their travels, and I have developed a nice routine.

I either ask them to sleep in or go to Wangfujing and meet me at "Made in China" for lunch. We typically order a duck, a beggar's chicken, and a few other side dishes (their Hainan chicken is also quite good). This really isn't very expensive.

Next, we walk to Tiananmen, but don't cross the street; you can see the square perfectly well from Tiananmen itself.

I've done the Forbidden City 50+ times and am sick of it. However, it's certainly worth seeing once... so I continue to bring people there. I like to do it in one hour because I feel that anything more deprives my guests of the chance to experience Beijing culture (imo, modern Beijing is more worthwhile than a replica of a Beijing 500 years ago).

After that, we head to Beihai Park. Some people thing Jingshan Park is better because it is due north of the Forbidden City (nice view), but I prefer Beihai because it is a really nice place (to the extent that is almost a proxy for the Summer Palace), and because it's possible to walk through it.

The north gate of Beihai is directly across the street from Houhai (similar to Beihai, but with lots of restaurants/bars). Sometimes I go there straight away (Yan Dai Hutong is worth a look-see), but I usually prefer to explore the nearby hutongs instead. I recently started a thread about the area, based on a Time Out article; there are lots of interesting places to see in the neighborhood.

By this point in the day (5p), my guests are typically exhausted, and just want to drink beer. However, sometimes I tack on 798 or Wudaokou.

Apart from my dislike for morning adventures, the main reason I don't start out early is that this drill entails a lot of walking.

Nice drill. ^

You should collect some fee as a effective tour guide. :D

Thanks moondog, I'll update the FAQ. PS, please use my FT handle. ;)

I personally would not do the forbidden city if you only have 24 hrs or so in Beijing, but that is just my opinion. The park north of it is nice though and is probably the park you mention here. There is a nice funfair park on line 1 I think the station is Baijiaoccun with some great rollercoasters. However I could barely manage to hold on at one of the rides there. Luckily that was a small sized ride. How I ventured into that? Well it was Monday and the military museum was closed and I saw on the map on metro that it was marked fun fair park at that station. So I just took line 1 out there. There were hardly any people there!

Great leap forward?
 

Moondog

I know you mentioned some 'adventures' trying to find the great leap forward brewery as an appropriate finish for your day-trip in a previous post.

I was just wondering whether a non-mandarin speak completely unfamiliar with China has any chance of finding the place? (i.e. after WFJ, the FC and BeiHai park.)

Well, I think the article I posted contained maps; if you print the Nanluoguxiang map, you should not have any major problems. I feel somewhat embarrassed that I had such a hard time finding it during my second attempt, but I will take responsibility for that (mistakenly assumed that my taxi driver at the time was capable of reading maps and/or grasping the "N/S/E/W" concept). The maps alone should be sufficient for any of us (IQ>100) folks to navigate the area.

Different thread.
 

Aha- I had been looking at a thread about combining the brewery with your FC tour - which only contained a link to the www.greatleapbrewing.com site.

I found your 'hiddem hutongs' thread and link to the very helpful timeout article, thanks.

Ok, linked to main faq, now to start populating this thread.

TimeOut link is another "current" resource to refer to. -- I am busy working on travel plans. Hoping to return to BJ & possibly SH in November with in-laws some who have yet to visit BJ...maybe a 6/4 split.

I wouldn't either, but almost all of my guests from foreign lands disagree, so I try my best to accommodate. Furthermore, they tend to like it (pretty much unanimously). The admission fee is only y60 and it fits nicely into my aforementioned plan, so why not pass through it? To me, it's just part of the "walk", but my visitors definitely appreciate the opportunity to experience it, so I usually comply.

I would be happy to craft an "alternate day in BJ" post for those that are interested. This would likely focus more on the Summer Palace, Wudaokou, and 798. But, as far as walking tours are concerned, the OP is honestly the best I've been able to muster (I've done it many times).

Why not? I'm putting together my 36 hour itinerary and figured a walk through would be part of it.

Takes too much time?
Nothing good to see?
Likely to be standing in line rather than seeing stuff?

I thought getting a sense of the place and its scale was impressive. But the individual halls/ rooms not so much. Unless you plan to sprint from one end to another, you'll need a couple of hours to just walk through.

tb

While I wouldn't say that I sprint through it, my average time there is under an hour per visit. As I've suggested many times before, the vast majority of people that I bring to the Forbidden City are actually more impressed by Beihai Park (we often spend 2+ hours there when the weather is nice).

Please post your details when you finish! I will be there for 2 1/2 days in October and trying to get my details sorted out!

I plan on renting a driver for one day to head to the wall and tombs. I would also like to try the toboggan sleds down the hill!! :)

If you've never been, just visiting the complex is impressive enough. I think you should do it. I pushed a group through in July in just over an hour. :p Didn't get to see anything inside the buildings, but a few of my group did manage to take a couple of snapshots of the buildings, since I did see some photos they posted on their FB pages. :D