Virtual SiteSeeing: Beijing Municipality
Today we are taking a look at what people have done when visiting Beijing.
Journey to Anna Kathryn
— Walking through history
— We conquer the Great Wall
Waiting for you
— August 26, 2007
— August 28, 2007
— August 29, 2007
Many Lives
— February 2007
— February 2009
— September-November 2009
We have a thread in the forum if you’ve visited somewhere other than Beijing and want your blog listed as above. For those who have visited Beijing and didn’t enter your blog into that forum post, you can enter one blog entry into Mr. Linky below. Please link to the specific blog entry you want people to start with, do not just link to your blog in general. Links not pointing to Beijing siteseeing will be removed.
October 4th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Since I don’t see anyone talking about it on a blog yet, I’ll point out the Hongqiao Market – near the Temple of Heaven. The first time I went we were part of a group and were given something like three hours in the market. When we go back now I allow for a lot more than three hours in the market. There is a pearl market on the top floor, and as you’ll see from the link below you can buy just about anything else there, as well. Try to take a Chinese person who is used to haggling with you if you aren’t accustomed to haggling.
http://www.thebeijingguide.com/shopping/hongqiao-market.html
One thing to know about pearls – the best deals in saltwater (round) pearls are generally found in Beijing, and the best deals in freshwater (oddly shaped) pearls can generally be found in Guangzhou. I’m sure there are exceptions, but generally speaking, that’s been my experience.
October 5th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I am going to love this series! Seems like a perfect way to pass the days while we wait for the next batch….3/29/06, I am going to drink in every word of these blogs over the next week! Thanks for sharing everyone!
October 8th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I just posted about Heilongjiang. We adopted our second daughter from Jiamusi CWI, at the age of almost 4.75 years old. It appears most of the kids adopted from this province are older, and special needs. Our daughter was a “healthy” child.
In November, when we went, it was terribly cold (I had a down filled coat with a fur collar and I was still shivering, and the really cold weather hadn’t set in yet). Very, very few people in Harbin spoke English – so a lot of pointing and hand signals were used, as well as having our interpreter with us. However, there appears to be a lot of students from all over the world in Harbin (Heilongjiang and Harbin especially, from what I can gather, is a great place for students to go to experience China and Chinese life).
The food was the best we had in the entire trip – from our hotel, we walked around the corner to a small little restaurant and the steamed dumplings were outstanding, as well as a potato and eggplant dish they fixed.
There is a strong Russian influence in the architecture around the city, and it has some interesting places to visit. I would have liked to have had more time to see some of the shopping places, but we didn’t have the time for it. However, the Tiger Park was interesting. Our family especially loved the Acquarium – I can’t get over how close you could get to the animals and to see how large these animals really are. it was amazing.
I also have a Youtube video showing some of the city (the first part when riding to the hotel shows off the architecture and we had a blast). The video is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kOpAbkAnC4
We are looking forward to going again, and the next time we will go visit the orphanage in Jiamusi.