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Published: November 8th 2016
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The CCTV Headquarters
The CCTV Headquarters is a truly spectacular building. It is 234 meters high and consists of two towers connected by a section which looks like a large bar suspended in mid air. From Tiananmen Square via the Marco Polo Bridge to an apartment I used to live in
In the previous two blogs (click
here or
here if you wish to read them) from the trip my mother and I did to Beijing I have covered several great historical places. Now in this the third and last entry I'd like to write a bit about some of the other things we saw. Well, one historical site has managed to squeeze itself in into this blog entry as well. I hope that is OK?
In the last two decades or so there has been a building frenzy in Beijing. All this modernisation brings many fabulous new buildings with it but also destroys much. First time I visited Beijing was in the mid 1990-ies. Many of the places I saw then I can't recognise today. Sometimes the modern buildings makes the cityscape more interesting than it was before and sometimes the inevitable destruction of the old to give way to the new is just tragic when irreplaceable objects or environments are destroyed. Personally I miss a wonderful little noodle shop just off the Tiananmen Square. It had no particular
Tiananmen Square
If you haven't visited Beijing before Tiananmen Square is a must-see. It is one of the largest squares in the world and is also Beijing's centre. value other than being a hidden gem known by very few. There were always small old men and women sitting there eating noodles and when I came by they giggled, possibly because I am close to two meters tall, and let me sit down with them. Well, that noodle shop is gone. It was torn down about a decade ago when they wanted to remodel some parts of central Beijing when preparing for the Olympic Games. Wonder what happened to the old people who used to sit there...
I don't think I have any photo from that noodle shop so I can't show you what it used to look like. It has been replaced by a parking lot. For obvious reasons I haven't uploaded any photo of that either. What I have added is two photos of a few examples of modern interesting architecture.
The CCTV Headquarters is a truly spectacular building. It is 234 meters high and consists of two towers connected by a section which looks like a large bar suspended in mid air. The unusual construction has resulted in locals referring to it as the Big Trousers.
The other building looks like
Monument outside Mao Zedong's last resting place
Lot's of heroic people portrayed in that monument the skyscraper's version of the Bat mobile. It is black and doesn't have straight edges anywhere. I have no idea why they decided to build it like that but it sure looks interesting.
I mentioned Tiananmen Square above and if you haven't visited Beijing before that is a must-see. It is one of the largest squares in the world and is also Beijing's center.
North of Tiananmen Square is the Tiananmen Gate with the famous photo of Mao Zedong hanging from it. Tiananmen Gate is the first gate you have to enter to get into the Forbidden City.
In the southern side of the square is the Zhengyangmen Gate, one of the city gates to Beijing when it had a city wall.
To one side of Tiananmen Square is the imposing National Museum of China and on the opposite side of the square is the equally imposing Great Hall of the People.
In the middle of the square is Mao Zedong's Mausoleum. If you visit the mausoleum you can have a quick peek at the stuffed corpse of the former president of China. Is it interesting, fun or just morbid? It is up
National Museum of China
To one side of Tiananmen Square is the imposing National Museum of China to you to decide.
My favourite building around Tiananmen Square, now that my noodle shop is gone, is neither of the ones mentioned above. It is the old railway station in the southern end of the square. It was built in the early 20th century. The trains stopped going to the station a long time ago but the station building is still there. I like it because it looks out of place.
Not that it has anything to do with this trip but I actually had a beer once with Mao Zedong's grandson. I had no idea at the time we were sitting in the bar. But a few days later his friend told me about him being related to the former leader of China.
On the second day we were in Beijing we visited the Forbidden City. After that we went to Jingshan Park because from there it is possible to get an interesting birds eye view over the Forbidden City. But it turned out that the park was hiding one more treasure - the former home of the last emperor of China, Puyi. After he was ousted from the Forbidden City
Great Hall of the People
On the opposite side of the square is the equally imposing Great Hall of the People he for a while lived in a house in that park. Parts of that house is now a teahouse, an overpriced one if you ask me, and a souvenir shop.
We visited several hutongs while we were in Beijing. Hutongs are residential areas with low houses and narrow streets. Some of these districts have looked more or less the same for many hundreds of years. Today the hutongs are rapidly vanishing to give place to multi-storey buildings. I guess that in a way it makes sense that they replace the one story building with more space efficient dwellings. But when it comes to the cost of destruction of invaluable and irreplaceable cultural heritage it makes me wonder if it really is worth it.
Just outside one hutong is an apartment building I for the fun of it go and visit each time I am in Beijing. I once lived in a flat in that building. I rented a room from a colleague at my job. I don't think it was permitted for me, a foreigner, to live there. But I never asked for permission and nobody asked me to show one. The first week
The old railway station
The old railway station in the southern end of the square. It was built in the early 20th century. The trains stopped going to the station a long time ago but the station building is still there. I like it because it looks out of place.
or so people looked at me very strangely when I walked through the area up to the house. But after that the word had spread that there was a "bignose" living there. But now that we walked up to the house to have a look at it we got the familiar "what on earth are you doing here"-look again. It was fifteen years since I lived there so there so of course they don't remember me. It is obvious that there still are almost no westerners venturing into that area.
If you are not squeamish when it comes to food Donghuamen Night Market is something special. You typically buy the food raw and on a skewer. They then deep fry the food for half a minute or so and it is ready to eat. What makes the market so special is the size, it is big, the crowds, there are lots of people there, and the crazy variation of food they have for sale. I can recommend the snake and the squid. They are simply lovely. The scorpions and the crickets aren't bad but they take most of their taste from the oil they were fried in.
Zhengyangmen Gate
In the southern side of the square is the Zhengyangmen Gate, one of the city gates to Beijing when it had a city wall. But my advice is that you should avoid the starfish whatever you do because it is one of the three most horrible things I have even eaten.
According to Wikipedia the Donghuamen Night Market was supposed to be shut down in late June this year due to neighbours being disturbed by the noise. It was still up and running when we were there in early July so the information on Wikipedia is not entirely correct.
In the outskirts of Beijing is Marco Polo Bridge, named so because it was mentioned in the chronicles of Venetian merchant's travels in Asia in the 13th century. They have clearly given the area around the bridge a facelift since last time I was there. Last time it was a pretty dull place. Now there is shopping street in one end and they have tidied up around the bridge.
Finally I have to mention the Beijing subway system. When I was in Beijing in 2001, only 15 years ago, the subway had two lines. Line 1 ran in the east-west direction and line 2 ran in a circle around central Beijing. From 2002 until today they have opened
Tiananmen Gate
North of Tiananmen Square is the Tiananmen Gate with the famous photo of Mao Zedong hanging from it. a total of 17 new lines, so that today the Beijing subway is the second longest in the world after Shanghai. That is very impressive! This massive extension of the subway system has really revolutionized the transport situation in Beijing. It is so much easier to get around now than it used to be not very long ago. But sometimes they build faster than they think. Take a look at the last two photos and you will see what I mean.
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Rainyb
Lorraine Brecht
Great monument!