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Going to China (Beijing)

CauldCauld Registered User regular
edited June 2009 in Help / Advice Forum
So, My wife and I will be going to China again for around a month or so, maybe more. We'll be staying in Tianjin, where her family lives, which is near Beijing. We'll probably go to Beijing for at least a few days since many of her friends have moved there. We'll also probably go near Hangzhou for a few days, so anything near that would also be nice.

Day trip type things would be perfect, but I'm also willing to take a week or so if there's something pretty cool elsewhere. I'm looking for some interesting things to do/see. I've seen the Great Wall and Forbidden City a couple of times and probably won't go to those again. I haven't really seen much else though.

I looked into going to Tibet, but it looks pretty expensive. If I were to go to Tibet I would likely extend my stay so I could spend more time there. I would appreciate it if anyone who's been there would describe their experiences, and what they liked and didn't like.

I'm not sure how to describe things we like. We're not really into bars/clubs though if there was a pretty cool unique one we'd probably consider it. I guess we like places where we can walk around and see things, for this reason we generally like large cities or interesting neighborhoods. We're pretty open to suggestions I think, so even if it doesn't fit exactly what I've described, I'd like to hear about it.

We'd especially like restaurant suggestions if anyone knows of any specifically unique places, especially if they're in Beijing/Tianjin as we could pretty easily go to those.

Cauld on

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    HypatiaHypatia Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    If you haven't had it yet, make sure you go to the Peking Duck House in Beijing!

    Have you seen the terracotta soldiers in Xi'an yet? If you're into martial arts it's pretty fun to travel way out of the way to Luoyang to see all of the kung fu schools there and they put on lots of demonstrations too.

    I know those are all really touristy but they're all really fun and cool :D

    Hypatia on
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    SweetmeatSweetmeat Registered User new member
    edited June 2009
    My girlfriend and I went to China last summer. If you are like us and tend to not like always sticking with a tour group and rather enjoy walking around by ourselves, I suggest the following:

    Beijing Opera (Many selections)
    Guilin (one of the most scenic places in southern china)
    YunNan province, there are a lot of really beautiful mountains to hike and you can see those famous rice paddy terraces.

    Good luck!

    Sweetmeat on
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    CauldCauld Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Thanks for the advice so far! I've looked at going to Xi'an before. Both my wife and I would like to do that. I found some pretty cheap airfare to Malaysia and from there to the rest of SE Asia so it looks like we'll be extending our stay. My wife really wants to go to Chengdu, but its pretty far out of the way from everything else we're looking at.

    Any specific places you went to in Yunnan? Guilin looks very beautiful, so I'll be checking that out some more.

    Cauld on
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    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    I hate to say I haven't actually been, but what I've read of Dali, Yunnan has interested me. The area itself is supposed to be beautiful with the expected lake and mountains with old Chinese buildings still scattered about. The part that always interested me though is the rather large western population that's become something of a tourist attraction for the Chinese themselves.

    Quid on
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    Funguy McAidsFunguy McAids Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    I live in Beijing and other than the wall or the palaces I can't think of anything great to go see that you wouldn't have in any other city.

    Living here however is fucking awesome.

    Funguy McAids on
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    GrobianGrobian What's on sale? Pliers!Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Hypatia wrote: »
    Have you seen the terracotta soldiers in Xi'an yet?

    While it is pretty far from Beijing, I can second this. The emperor graves (including the one with the Terracotta army) are very interesting. Also Xi'an has a large Muslim population, so I found it neat to see a Mosque with Chinese architectural style.

    Grobian on
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    PongePonge Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Eat as much Xaio Long Bao as you can (shee long ba-ooh).

    Ponge on
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    OrogogusOrogogus San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Ponge wrote: »
    Eat as much Xaio Long Bao as you can (shee long ba-ooh).

    Is that a regional pronunciation? The standard Mandarin pronunciation isn't really close to that at all.

    Regarding Hangzhou: The obvious thing to do is see the Westlake, but something to look into are the rental bikes that they have all around the lake now. There are kiosks where you can rent them for a pittance, like 3 RMB or something (with a 200 RMB deposit), for an hour or so.

    When my coworkers in Hangzhou have a day off or something I think they usually go to Huangshan, which is all scenic and everything.

    Orogogus on
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