Beijing Olympic park

The Beijing Olympic park includes some modern architectural designs, such as the "Bird's nest" (National stadium) and the Watercube (National Aquatic stadium). Today the park is still fenced off since the park hasn't finished its final construction. I could only take a picture from the outside the fence.

Nonetheless, I was still marveled by the creativity and engineering of the Bird's nest. Every single stripe is bent in the exact right angle to form a smooth structure.

The Watercube doesn't look as fancy as the Bird's nest, but according to Beijing's official guide book, the ceilings of the building uses solar energy to adjust the pool temperature. Unfortunately I couldn't get a close shot of the Watercube.

Shi Cha Hai Park

Shi Cha Hai is another popular tourist destination. Before the Qing dynasty collapse, while Beihai was designated as the royal park, Shi Cha Hai was already a public park. Today Shi Cha Hai is famous for its Hutong tour, pub street, and restaurants. Many tourists enjoy taking a Hutong tour or sitting outside a pub. The place is especially busy at night when it's lit up by thousands of lights.

Beijing Hutong

One of the most memorable places to visit in Beijing is Hutong. Hutong is a narrow and deep alley and was a common architecture in Old Beijing. A typical Hutong can barely fit a ricksaw or two bicycles side by side. Residents live behind the Hutong wall through a small door on the side of the Hutong.

Most of Beijing residents lived in Hutong before 1980's, including my family. I grew up in a small Hutong until age of 3 when my family moved into an apartment building. My grandmother continued to live in the same Hutong until the mid 90's when my mom exchanged the place with a bigger apartment. Today, my mom and I went back to look for this Hutong. Unfortunately it has been demolished and replaced with a government office.

Later in the day, we took a Hutong tour behind Beihai Park by a tricycle. Many of the Hutongs in that area have been well preserved and open to public. I learned that one can tell the type of people who live in the house simply by looking at the decorations on the door frame and the lion statue in front of the door step. For example, the number of blue studs indicate the rank of the government official. The more studs, the higher the rank. Also, the lion statue at the door step means that the owner of the house is part of the royal family. The shape of the stand underneathe the lion indicates the type of the government official: round means art and the square means army.

Wangfujing Walking Street

Wangfujing is a popular place to shop. The walking street features many shops and department stores, ranging from fashion, electronics, to Chinese silk and jade jewelry, to Beijing snacks.

The new Dong An department store is similar to Macy in the US or the Eaton Center in Canada. A simple dress costs CNY 1000. It's a comfortable and luxurious place to window shop.

On the other hand, you can find many jewelry shops that sell silk, jade, ruby, and Chinese traditional clothes, and Chinese art and handcraft. The price covers a wide range and suits all types of tourists. I bought a couple bracelets for only $4 CDN each.

The Wangfujing bookstore is one of the biggest in Beijing. You can get books on traveling and language at fairly low prices (much lower than books in North America). Most of the books are in Chinese, but there are a few in English. For example, I bought a Beijing Travel Guide in English for CNY 32 and a Beijing map in both Chinese and English for CNY 15.

Another must-not-miss place to visit at Wangfujing is the Wangfujing snack street. After a busy morning shopping, you can sit down in front of a snack booth to relax and to savor some of the original Beijing and Chinese snacks.

One day visit in Tianjing

Tianjing is a beautiful coastal city. It's famous for its opera house, standup comidy, and street snacks. My family (my uncle, aunt, cousin, mom, and I) went to visit my grand uncle by train. At a speed of almost 100km/hr, the train arrived in Tianjing shortly after an hour.

After meeting up with my grand uncle, grand aunt, and my cousin at the Tianjing train station, we took the light rail to Tang Gu - the new economic development center in Tianjing.
Tang Gu is comparable to Pudong in Shanghai and is considered to Northern economic area in China. The entire area was once upon a time the salt factory and its soil is unsuitable for planting trees. Twenty years ago when Tang Gu was chosen as the Northern economic center, soil was manually brought to the region at a price of 10 RMB per kilogram. Today the area has become a green city with high rise business and residential buildings being built everywhere.

Beijing's pros and cons

From my past 4 days visit in Beijing, I found many impressive improvements on city development, but at the same time some negative impacts that came along with it. I abbreviated the pros and cons below.

Pros:
- Great public transportation. Subway system has expanded from one west-east line (from 5 years ago) to five lines (no. 1, 2, 5, 13) and light rail. Buses are new and fuel efficient. The public transportation network is equipped with a IC smart card. Bus and subway riders simply swipe the card to get on and off. Money is deduced automatically when swiped and can be refueled at any subway station. Also, bus fare is greatly discounted when using the IC card, which costs from 0.40 RMB to 2.00 RMB one way) compared to normal pay-per-ride fare. It's very much like using debit card and makes the public transit more convenient and efficient.

- Buses are clean and environmentally friendly. Each bus is equipped with one or two mobile LCD TV, provided by China Northern Film company and China Mobile TV Corp (GAMC).

- During rush hours, every major bus stop is equipped with volunteer or non-volunteer traffic control workers. They are dressed in bright yellow uniform with red sache to navigate buses and bus riders to be in the right order.

- The city is cleaner than 5 years ago. Many streets have added recycling bins next to garbage bins to encourage recycling. Plastic bags will be banned from public places (restaurants and stores) starting from May 1.

- Construction sites are much cleaner than 5 years ago. Construction workers now receive much better pay, under the protection of "Labor law" that was passed last year. Workers who were paid under 100 RMB per month are now paid at least 800 RMB per month. This is very encouraging from perspectives of social status and political stability.


Cons:
- Traffic jam. Too many people (especially white-collars) own private vehicles. The speed at which the number of cars increases is far greater than the speed of city development.








- Crowd. People are everywhere and at anytime. This photo is taken at a subway station during morning rush hour (8:30AM). This phenomenon is so common in Beijing that people take it for granted. It's also on buses, overpass bridges, underpass links, sidewalks, shopping malls. If you want to live Beijing, you have to get used to the crowd first.






- Air quality. The sky in Beijing is always greyish white on a normal sunny day. You can spot the sun through the foggy sky, also in a greyish white color. The only time you can see blue sky is after a heavy rain that washes down all the dust in the air and the wind that blew away all the CO2 clouds.

Visit to Beijing capital museum

The capital museum in Beijing is a great place to learn about Beijing history and culture. Below I summarized some tips and guide from my visit.

1. The museum is free to public, but reservation is required. You can't just show up on any day. Instead you need to make a reservation at least 5 days in advance. Reservation can be made either by telephone or online. The reservation number is 63393339. To reserve online, the website is www.capitalmuseum.org.cn.

2. The newly constructed glass building has six floors, where a unique chapter is presented on each floor. The entrance hall is spacious and bright, where the middle stands a gate to Jingde street. The basement shows temporal exhibition and the rest of the floors are reserved for permanent exhibitions.

3. You can purchase an audio tour handset at the front entrance for 30 RMB, in either Chinese or English. You need to deposit your ID or 500 RMB, which will be returned to you when you return your handset. The handset is very easy to use. Many permanent displays provides a earphone symbol and a unique number next to the display. You simply enter the number on the handset keypad and press play, an explanation for that particular display will be given, accompanied by music in the background. It's very much like using your cellphone.

4. The second floor's exhibition is on the chapter of Beijing history and culture. As explained in the preface, "this exhibition displays the historical process through which Beijing rose from a number of primitive settlements to its emergence as a city development into several dynastic political centers, and was further upgraded to the national capital of a unified multi-national state and an international metropolis". This exhibition is an excellent place to learn about the evolution of the city.



5. The fifth floor displays Old Beijing culture and Beijing opera. A brass sculpture demonstrates an man carrying a ricksaw. Another one shows a artisan making sugar figurine, surrounded by a curious kid. An old opera house is set up with stage, audience, and a play of a Beijing opera from the big screen to mimic an real opera experience.