Beijing

All hotels in China I have booked through www.elong.net

Beijing

October-November 2008

Beijing airport. Terminal 3.

The new Terminal 3 of the Beijing airport is huge, spacious and because of this, it seemed half-empty to me. Nevertheless, they could not find a «sleeve» for the flight from Moscow (as well as back). Passport control did not take much time. And then inter-airport electric train takes passengers to the opposite side of the airport, where your suitcases are already rotating at conveyor belt. Before going out to the city you can change dollars/euros to yuans. However, they charge 50 yuans ($7.4 USD) as a commission from any amount. Possibly there are Automated Teller Machines where you can withdraw money from the card.

In the upper right corner of the picture «viewer» there is a button

which spreads the viewer program to full screen.

I decided to take a train from the airport to the city. Right in front of the air terminal above the round green lawn there is a futuristic turtle shell of a railway station.

The train fare is 25 yuans ($3.7 USD). There is only one train: first to Terminal 2, then to the city subway station Sanyuanqiao and then to the terminal station Dongzhimen. From there the train again goes to Terminal 3.

It takes you 25 minutes to go to the city and 15 minutes back.

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Beijing subway

By the Olympiad 2008 in Beijing they built several new subway lines and reduced fare to 2 yuans ($0.3 USD). The travelling card can be bought in such ticket machines (there is an English menu) or in the booking office. Most of the bags and all suitcases-bags are X-rayed before entrance to the station. The station names in the subway carriages are first announced in Chinese and then in English. Subway diagrams are also bilingual. It is almost always hot and stifling on the platforms and crossings, and air-conditioners are working in the carriages, at certain lines are very powerful.

There are so few pictures of the Beijing subway and Beijing itself because on the way my photobank started to fail and in Moscow I managed to download just some pictures before it completely broke down.

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Forbidden City

Forbidden City — is a giant palace ensemble in the very center of Beijing, the place of rule of 24 emperors of the Celestial Empire. For majority of tourists this is the second (after Tiananmen square) place to visit. You can walk around the complex the whole day.

Entrance is 40 yuans ($5.9 USD) from November through March, from April through October — 60 ($8.8 USD).

Official site of the «Forbidden city»: http://www.dpm.org.cn

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Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square — is really very large. But despite crowds of tourists it still looks rather deserted. In order to accentuate its size, along its Northern side from the East and West the Chinese made subway stations Tiananmen East and Tiananmen West. So if you are lazy to walk, you can always go one station on a subway.

On the square there «graze» some «students» who'll definitely say hello to a tourist and start to invite to take tea or see pictures. Don't go.

There is a Qianmen Gate (Front gate) behind the Mao Zedong mausoleum from the right side.

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Summer Palace

Another attraction of Beijing — is a Summer Palace of Emperors. I decided to get there by subway. For this I came to the terminal station Bagou of the 10th line of the subway. From there one has to go about 500 meters to the west to the river Wanquan and along it under the bridge of the 4th transport ring another 500 meters to the north-west. There you will see entrance to the Yihe yuan park, but remember that it is another 3 km from it to the Longevity Hill, on which the palace is standing, if you go along the dyke, and along the eastern shore of the lake Kunming — it is 2.5 km. There were very few people near Bagou station but I met a couple of foreigners that was looking for the road to the Summer Palace.

If the southern part of the park was calm, beautiful and cosy, its northern part just crowded with tourists in euphoria. I think that Sunday is not the best day for visiting the Summer Palace.

Site of the park: http://en.summerpalace-china.com

For 1 yuan I took a bus 718 to get from the park Yihe yuan to the subway Haidian Huangzhuang. In the bus I got acquainted with an Egyptian radiologist doctor, with whom we discussed Chinese and basic religions of the world. At the same time on his camera he produced to me his own pictures in Beijing for the last 6 days and his family in Egypt. It is pleasant to find someone in China who understands you.

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Beijing streets at day and at night

It is difficult to walk along Beijing streets for want of habit (though after other Chinese cities, it seems easy - the other way round). It is important to memorise that vehicles moving along the nearest to the bicycle lane have the right to ignore the red light for making a right turn. And Chinese drivers are not in favor of slowing down before making a turn. And when at the cross-roads you have already crossed most of the road and only one vehicle lane remained (before the bicycle lane) suddenly a taxi or a bus may tear along at you. One should be very cautious!

Even after you have crossed all roads and lanes and stepped on the pavement, still be on your guard — cyclists and scooters may rush along the pavement as well.

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To tell the truth I got an opinion that in the evening in Beijing they save too much on the light. At some, by far not the smallest streets, the light on the lamp posts was off and the only illumination was coming from the moving traffic and house windows.

It, of course, does not relate to Wangfujing tourist street, which is crowded with foreigners, shops with souvenirs, whose prices have got nothing to do with reality. The street, as it turned out, is rather short, but during your stay there, someone will approach you a couple of times, saying «hallo» or «lady massage».

DongZhiMen Nei street, filled with little restaurants of all kinds, seemed to me more interesting. There is also a Russian tavern called Pushkin.

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Jialong Sunny hotel

Jialong Sunny hotel has several advantages.

It is situated close to the Chaoyangmen subway station. It is at the next subway stop but one (or 10 yuans ($1.5 USD) by taxi) to the south from the Dongzhimen station, from where you can get to the airport by a railway express train and where the bus terminal to go in the direction of Chinese Wall is located. The bus 916 can take you to Huairou, from where it is only 20 km to the section Mutianyu of the Great Wall of China. Over there, in Dongzhimen, there is a street of restaurants.

From the hotel you can directly get to the northern entrance to the Forbidden city or entrance to Jingshan Park by public transport or walk 3 km (or for 10 yuans by taxi).

For those, who came to Beijing for shopping, it is even convenient — it will take you 10 minutes to walk up to the Ya Bao Lu street (or 10 yuans by taxi:)

Single room with windows facing the yard cost me 268 yuans ($40 USD). The hotel food is very hot and there are no forks. The room itself was very tiny, but it did not matter to me at all. But the room had a free internet, that, on the contrary, mattered a lot to me.

I booked the hotel at the site: http://www.elong.net

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Three Beijing railway stations

There are more than three railway stations in Beijing, but I have visited three of them. But almost all pictures remained in photobank, which was broken.

First I started to the Central railway station of Beijing, and to tell the truth, was slightly shocked because of the hive in front of the station. By the way it was the only railway station of all I was present in China, where even to get to the booking offices one had to X-ray the bag. Although you don't have to come inside, as some of the booking offices are located outside.

There is a vegetarian restaurant across the road along the right overhead crossing (if you stay with your back to the station). Has anybody been there?

I would like to mention that although the lines to the booking offices (not tourist ones) for train tickets are long, but they move rather fast.

I started for train tickets to Zhengzhou to the Western railway station of Beijing. Over there, in the booking offices for foreigners I quickly bought a ticket. Though I made a mistake — I didn't tell that I need a 1st class ticket. Because of this I had to sit in a narrow seat (it's OK) and next to a by far not very pleasant passenger. Besides I could hardly find a vacant space above to put my suitcase. I was lucky to have a window seat in the row with 2 seats (in the 2nd class there are 2 seats on one side and 3 — from the other side).

By the way, it is 689 km to Zhengzhou. The CRH train rushed me there for only 5 hours. Praise Chinese speedy railroad.

I remind that train schedule and prices are easy to see at this site: http://www.chinatravelguide.com/ctgwiki/Special:CNTrainSearch

I also returned from Jinan to the Beijing Southern railway station in the 2nd class carriage, but with a normal neighbour in the next seat. And there was sufficient space for everybody's luggage on the racks above. The Beijing Southern railway station has recently been built and looks quite modern. There was no line to the booking offices! It was difficult to find a taxi stand if you follow the signs. Automated Teller Machines did not function.

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