Blogs from Dongcheng, Beijing, China, Asia

For the Eid al Adha break, I was joining our Trekkup trip to Mongolia, connecting through Beijing. Since it did not start until late Tuesday, my friend and I decided to take advantage of the 144-hour visa for many foreigners at various entry cities across the country. The first section goes into the process since I know China has only just started to open up again and people are unfamiliar with some of the requirements. Arrival procedures Our flight left super early Friday morning and we arrived at the airport at 9:15 pm on Thursday; it took us 2 hours to check-in - it was busy but it was also apparently difficult to get confirmation that we could land and stay in Beijing. The first of many times this question was asked. The flight itself was ... read more

Summer has arrived and the heat has led me to look for indoor things to do. After some searching online, I came across the China National Museum of Women and Children. It sounded quite interesting, although there were few reviews of it online. The museum is a fairly recent addition to the Beijing museum scene, only opening in 2010, and isn't on most people's itinerary when visiting the city. From Dongdan Station, on Line 1, it was a short walk to the museum. The museum is large and looks pretty grand and modern from the outside. I headed to the ticket office, where ID was required to get a free ticket. Then after a quick few steps back out in the heat, I headed into the main building and through security. The museum has six floors. ... read more

The subway leading to the Temple of Heaven was packed. I took exit A2 from Tiantan Dongmen station and it was a short walk to the entrance gate. I queued up to buy my ticket to find out that they only accepted cash, WTF, everywhere usually accepts mobile payment and some places don't even accept cash. Annoyed, I headed off to find an ATM. Then made my way back to the ticket office. I bought the through ticket which covers entry to the park and the three main attractions: the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, The Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Circular Mound Altar. The ticket cost 28 RMB, as it is off season so cheaper, I don't know how much it would be in the high season, but probably not too much more. ... read more

Another hostel breakfast set us up for the day and we headed out to see some more of Beijing. We decided to head to the Forbidden City. What should have been an easy journey wasn't. Becuse Beijing becomes so crowded with tourists in the National Day holiday the roads were roped off and there is a one way system in place for pedestrians. And I had thought Tiananmen Square was busy the previous evening, it was even busier today. It took ages for us to get to the Forbidden City, but we managed to get there in the end. Tickets for the Forbidden City sell out super quick in the holidays and by the time we got there, the ticket offices had long been shut. We joined the queue for tickets to Tiananmen Gate and after ... read more

. Today we began the adventure of train travel 800 miles across China to hanoi In 3 days on train will arrive Hanoi Saturday morning at 6 am, probably not get much sleep. so it's buy to China and hello Vietnam. china is one of the cleanest country I have ever been too not a speck of litter. each block has a street sweeper who keeps Thier area spotless. The people's clothes are spotless clean . Some of the ladies look like fashion models. All in the latest fashion .The teenagers dress like American teenagers. There are huge modern malls. There are police and security every where never felt so safe like this. Hardly any crime . the people look straight ahead and very few look at us. a few wanted a pic with us. This ... read more