welcome to the next station of my beijing travels – Shichahai, which is a famous scenic. It is a little like two worlds met. The Old and the new and mostly the tourist. It is an amazing scenic and fun to visited at day but the best way to walk around the lakes is the night.
Two worlds
The area is around three lakes Qianhai (前海), Houhai (后海) und Xihai (西海). The way around these lakes is full with little shops, bars, cafes, restaurants. You can almost find everything here. At light it is full lights and music and life. It is full of people and has just an amazing atmosphere.
But also this area has the best instand Hutongs. Hutongs is the name for the small alley with old houses. The look really beautifull i think.
Actually i think there is no more to say about it. Shichahai is something you has to see and feel not to read about.
If you want to visited Shichahai the simplest way is to just drive to the station ‘Shichahai’. This station is still in the built but can already be used. It starts at end of the lovermost part of the three seas and start with a beautiful view.
here comes the second point on my list the summer palace. The summer palace is an amazing palace. The most important thing to know for this trip and i would advice to make it a whole day adventure, you need something like sport shoes. You have to talk any stairs and something like climbing… a little bit. Has you can assume now is that the summer palast is built on a hill what makes it so much more beautiful than the other temple.
Few first infos
If you want to have an audio guide you can take one on the start. You have of course chinese as a language and english. This is a big sightseeing so you have a lot of other languages for example german.
Of course you have to pay for the inlet. No matter if you visit the summer palast or the forbidden city it is all the same way. You can only pay for the main attraction here it would the summer palast or for the whole area.
Than you have to different price one for the peak season – that would be summer – and the low season – Winter. So for summer it would be 50 yuan and 40 yuan in winter. (For germans 1 yuan divide through 7 and you got Euros – in this case it would be 7,14 € and winter 5,71 €). So yes buy a ticket for everything.
Summer Palace
The area
The area is really big. With the through ticket there are for 6 buildings you have entred to. Summer Palace, Garden of Virtue and Harmony, Wenchang Gallery, Suzhou Street and Tower of Buddhist Incense. But there is way more to see like the mamor boat and the kunming sea.
Kuniming Sea
The sea is taking the most of the area. It is a beautiful sea and you can get with about over it. The boat is driving you around a area with the look at a few pavilions. Sadly i hadn’t that look because we started at the wrong side and lost to much time at searching for the Tower of Buddhist. But my friend told us that it is absolutely worth it.
The buildings close at 17:00 o’clock. But the area is longer open. So we sit there in the park with the look at the sea. It is quite nice.
Kunming sea
Garden of Virtue and Harmony
We think when we read garden about green grass and flowers, but this is not what you will find here. Actually you will only find a tree in the middle of it and a theater, what is actually the one thing that is to see their. The theater is really beautiful.
Garden of Virtue and Harmony Garden of Virtue and Harmony – Theater
But you can find in the area a garden that is a little bit more like a garden. It is a really beautiful place is a little away from the main road so there are not so much people. So this is a good place to make pause.
Garden
Wenchang Gallery
‘The exhibits include bronzeware, jewelry, chinaware, furniture, paintings, calligraphy, ancient books, enamels, clocks, handicrafts made of gold, silver, bamboo, wood, ivory, horn and lacquer, and other miscellaneous items, representing almost all types of Chinese antiques.’
This is what you can read everywhere and you find there really beautifull things. But if you expect something like the juwelry in London for example you will not find them there. There is alot with jade in many forms. You should totally take a look in there.
Suzhou Street
My friend likes this part the most. This is a street around the moat with alot of little businesses. It is a sweet street. The way is really small but it has a nice atmosphere.
Suzhou Street
Tower of Buddhist
You can see the Tower from any points of the area but we had a few problems finding the right way into the building. It is on mountain/hill and you have to ‘climb’ many stairs to get to it but it is totally worth the sight.
Tower of BuddhistTower of Buddhist 2
So this is an amazing place and totally worth visiting. Hope this was hopefull. If you have questions you can always write me.
here is my list of things that you should do or see in Beijing. Afterwards i will go into detail of the things in other articles. Soo the hardest part about it is to decided what i like the most. Everything we did was fun… okay except the Temple of Heaven. But i will talk about too. Sooo first things first what was my highlight of the vacation. It is really hard. But i decided for Food. My number one is:
1) Hot Pot
Hot Pot is a special way of eating food. It is little like fondoue. There are a lot restaurants for it. My friend visited two friend restaurants but we just got one of them, but it was amazing. It was super delicious and funny. But it is totally a group activity. You should be at least three persons. More infos will follow here.
2) Summer Palast
Of all the Palast and temple this was the one that i found the most beautifull. Mostly it looks like all the other places but the palast and everything what counts to this whole area is built on a mountain. Which means good shoes and it gives you a totally differnet view of the buildings. More infos will follow here.
3) Sport place at the Uni of my friend
Yeah, this one is weird one. But it was actually the place we spend the most time in Beijing. It is really chilly there. Of course i and my friends too didn’t make sport there. It is like a big stadium and when it gets dark all the students and other people came out to run or walk. We just got to sit at the tribune and watch them. It really were best nights out.
4) ShishaHai
It is the toury area but it is so amazing. The area goes around three sees and are little shops and restaurants. At night everything is colourfull and everywhere os live music. If you need a place to go, go there. More infos will follow.
5) Peking Duck
Okay, eating is really important and that peking duck is amazingly delicious. I never ate peking duck before. So i had no idea what to expect and it looked a little suspious when my friend showed me but it taste really good. More infos will follow.
6) Lamma Temple/ Confusius Temple
I love this temple so much because it is still used as a place to pray. What makes it really make special place in Beijing. More infos will follow.
7) The Forbidden City
It is the sighting in Beijing and i really love this place. It is so huge and beautifull. I could stay the whole day there and just watch the building. But there is just so much that makes the other places just a tiny bit more amazing for me. More infos will follow.
so i was two weeks in Beijing and it is definitly something else and i wanted to share a few parts of it with you. I searched for sites that tell me more of personal experience of place you should see – not the standard you find everywhere. But i didn’t find much. So I thought that i should write a few words about it, about things one of my best friend told us (who we were visiting).
This is a blog about Doctor Who and i will never forget that. But that is how i understand Doctor Who. It is about adventures about seeing the world with different eyes, about trying something new, about seeing every little bit of the world, of the culture. It is about people and about their lifes. So my TARDIS was that airplane that brought me there and i hope that you are a little bit interesst in this.
My plans are to write to list. One about things you should see or try in Beijing and the other things you should be ready for when you visited Beijing.
Also of course i want to write about the places i was visiting like the standard places like Olympic park, Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City, Summer Palast, Great Wall and places i liked the most.
Also i will start watching ‘Person of interest’. I watched three episodes of the third season on the plane and couldn’t say if i like it. We will see.
I will try to see the Musketeers and Dark Matter somewhere this season, but i have the late-shift and so not much time. Back to work and everthing.
Also at my vacation the last part of big finish Torchwood arrived. I will listen and write about it as fast i can. I really hope we will get another season after the big special with all three of them in september?
So see you/ Read you sometime this week.
For the people who don’t follow me on tumblr. Here you find a few picture of my travles: Beijing!
