Day #94: 798 District

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The 798 District is a small area of suburban Beijing with a high concentration of art galleries (in fact, practically every shopfront within a square mile or so is a gallery or trendy cafe serving wraps and ciabattas). A taxi journey is required to get there as it isn't on a Subway line and this seems to put a lot of tourists off - it was much quieter than other parts of Beijing, and because you can pop in and out of most galleries for free and the streets are relatively leafy and shaded, it has a much cooler, more laid-back vibe (no requests for photographs here). It felt like being in another city altogether.

The majority of the art on show was by Chinese artists and generally edgy and of high quality, priced in the thousands of pounds bracket, although there were shops selling knock-off versions of classic paintings for inflated prices. The District is interesting apart from the art itself as it used to be a factory (hence the name, which is the factory number) and there are remnants of its past life everywhere: pipes traversing the streets, concrete and iron alleyways, stark, industrial-sized interiors (like the Tate Modern, perfect for displaying art) and just walking around you come across strange installations, such as dinosaurs in stacked cages, and a series of pillarbox-red "798" statues.

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