I’m happy to introduce our new personal tour “To Be a Beijinger for a Day”. This 1 day tour focuses on the axis of Beijing. The tour will guide you through the various periods of Beijing’s history, from the 1400’s to present day.

The itinerary includes:

1. Temple of Heaven
2. Tian’anmen Square
3. Forbidden City
4. Olympic Park

Transportation: Taxi

Price: USD $60 per person, including transportation by taxi. I can pick you up from your hotel or meet at another rendezvous point. The price doesn’t include lunch and entrance fees to the attractions on the tour.

The price is on sale now, takes at 20% off, the promotion price is USD $48 per person, group price is also avaible, contact with me for further information.

Entrance Ticket :

Temple of Heaven: RMB 35 Yuan per Person;
Forbidden City: RMB 60 Yuan per Person.

Notes: There is about 3.3 miles of walking distance in the tour. You can have lunch around Di’anmen Street (Marked on the Map), as there are restaurants big or small, or if you like, KFC and McDonald’s are near by as well.

For more details of the tour, please check the Map and download the Brochure in PDF.

Preview of the PDF Brochure:

For booking please contact with me at: waddebye at gmail.com, or feedback me here:

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Temple of Heaven, or “Tiantan”, “the Altar of Heaven” in Chinese, was built in 1420, same time as the Forbidden City. It was opened to public in 1918, after 1945, during the civil war of China, the wall at the south part of the park was destroyed to setup a small airport.

Temple of Heaven is not a single temple actually. There are many buildings, basically there are three parts inside, and there is an local axis going along with the most important buildings.

Large space in the park is just occupied by trees, most of them cypress. This design was based on the ancient thought, that the worship done in the forest wasthe most sacred and also the cleanest. Today if you visit here early in morning, like 6 am, you can see many people are here, not for praying…but for morning exercise.

Temple of Heaven was placed on the list of the World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 1998, as the “largest building complex for worshipping heaven in the world”.

South Part: the Circular Mound Altar and the Imperial Vault of Heaven.

The Emperor would visit the Circular Mound Altar every year on the day of winter solstice, this ceremony was called the “Worshipping to Heaven”. To the north, in the little round courtyard, there are three buildings, the middle one is the Vault of Heaven, it was the place for storing the tablets of God of Heaven and the ancestors of the royal family. There are two flank buildings, in the east is for the tablets of the Gods of Brightness and Stars, in the west is for the tablets of Gods of Wind, Thunder, Cloud and Rain.

Though it was not likely for the Emperor to go through all the buildings in one time, there is a bridge to connect the south part to the north part. The Red Stariway Bridge is about 3 meters above the ground.

North Part: the Altar for Praying for Grain and the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest.

If we keep the south part in mind, it is easy to recoginzed the buildings in the north part, you can say that the same story repeated again, but note this time, the temple and the altar were built together, that is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest was built on the Altar for Praying Grain. In the Ming and Qing Dynasty, the Emperor would visit here on the 8th day after the Chinese New Year. In the sense of architecture, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is the crown of the whole complex, very likely you have seen it in some other places, in photos or maybe even in brand logos.

West Part: the Palace of Abstinence
Before any of the ceremony, the Emperor would have to go fast for 3 days, first 2 days in the Hall of Abstinence inside Forbidden City, and the last day here, therefore the palace is walled and moated like the Forbidden City, during the occupation of the Eight Allied Force in 1901, the British headquaters was here.

Interesting acoustics phenomenon can be found at the round shaped buildings. First spot locates at the Circular Mound Altar, there is a piece of stone in the center, on that piece of stone, your voice can be echoed loudly, I tried and it works most of the cases, even when there were many visitors around. The second spot (the Echo Wall) and third sport (the Triple Sound Stones) are both inside the courtyard of the Imperial Vault of Heaven, and both of them don’t work in the daytime.

View Tourist Attraction Spots in Beijing in a larger map

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The 2nd Ring Road started to constructed in 1960s, it finished in 1992 with 29 flyover bridges online, from then on, the city’s growing pattern fixed at ring after ring, till the latest 6th Ring. According to recent report, the City will stop at 6th Ring, no more no less. Why? because the 7th will be out of the range of Beijing.

The 6th Ring will be a toll way, it will be the detour drive way for vehicles transpass Beijing, without driving into the 5th Ring, which is already busy enough.

With the space bigger, the axis is extended as well, the Red line was the old axis inside the 2nd Ring, and the Green line is the new axis to the Olympic Park.

View Ring Roads and Axis of Beijing in a larger map

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Qianmen (Front Gate) Street named after the Zhengyangmen Gate (正阳门), alias of which was the Front Gate by the locals, the reason was simple, it was on the axis of the city, and was the formal entrance into the inner section of the old Peking, while the Qianmen Street was in the outer section of the City. The street also functioned as a passway when the Emperor was on his visit to the Temple of Heaven.

Due to its special location, it soon came to be a combination of every thing from the Ming Dynasty, little inns for the royal examinees and merchants, restaurants, in 1855 opened the first Pianyifang Roasted Duck (便宜坊), and in 1864 came the first shop of Quanjude Peking Duck (全聚德), and the famous steamed Dumpling restaurant Duyichu (都一处). Many famous Peking brands started their business around here, the famous Dashilan (大栅栏) locates just at the west side of the street in a wandering hutong alleyway, even today, it is still one of the major shopping streets for traditional Beijing stuff.

The Qianmen Street and Dashilan Street Area, was generally called as Qianmen Wai, or Ch’ien Men Wai (前门外), was a whole-sale trading market from the high-end jewellery, jade, banking, to daily stuff like fishes, coal, commissariat, pigs, even today the names of the closeby alley remind us its local history. By the way, the area was also famous for many other entertainments, opera houses, tea houses, night clubs …

In 1900, the north part of the street was destroyed in a big fire set by the Boxers.

From 1980s, some of the old shops kept and many new shops moved into the street, with more and more old buildings demolished, the street lost both its customers and most importantly original tastes gradually. In 2006, the area was in renovation, and it was almost ready done before the Olympic Games in 2008, sure, it regains attention, even now most of the buildings are still in decorations, many visitors come just for taking photos, fancy shops like H&M, Zara are already here, and more will move in.

After the renovation, the street becomes a pedestrian street, the trolley bus is the only way to go through north to south, the ticket charge is 20yuan/person, and very likely that is only the one-way ticket.

Two comparison photos taken in Sep. 2006, and in Sep. 2009, roughly at the same spot.

Most of the buildings are renovated according to their historic records in the 1920s to 1930s, but as most of them came together in a “natural process”, to rebuild them overnight again, not surprisingly some of the details of the buildings are just handled in a much easy way.

A panaromatic view of the street.

A view from north looking to south.

A view to the north, the end building is the Arrow Tower of the Zhengyangmen Gate.

There are many Beijing elements to decorate the street, from the bench, trash bin to the design of the street lamp (in shape like a bird cage).

At the left side, the archway leads into the Quanjude Roast Duck restaurant (全聚德).

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During the Ming and Qing Dynasties grand ceremonies were held at Tian An Men. Composed of the rostrum and gate tower, the building is 34.7 meters high and has five watchtowers. Supported by nine huge columns, the building has a splendid colorful roof of glazed tiles. With painted pillars and carved beams, the hall of Tian An Men Rostrum looks majestic. Sixty huge columns, representing the Earthly Branches designate years, months, days and hours and the Heavenly stems to designate marks of order, stand in perfect harmony to demonstrate the permanent stability of the nation. Tian An Men, a masterpiece of China’s ancient architectural art, represents the superb skill and artistic talent of the Chinese people.

As one of the largest city squares in the world, Tian An Men Square occupies an area of 440, 000 square meters–spacious enough to accommodate half or even 1 million people. Many annual and special celebrations and assemblies are held here.

In the ancient time, the square was in T-shaped and was much narrow, it was surrounded by red wall, along the axis there was “Thousand Step Corridor”, with two gates (Dragon Gate in the east, Tiger Gate in the west side) opened to the now day Chang’an Avenue, just outside the corridor there were government offices (civil east, military west)

On October 1st, 1949, Chairman Mao Ze Dong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China on the Tian An Men Rostrum. On the oncoming 60 years anniversary of P.R.China, there will have a national parade centered in the square. VIP guests could be seated at the reviewing stands close to the Tian’anmen Gate, and there will about 1 million people to take part in the celebration.

Important Buildings:

Monument to the People’s Heroes(人民英雄纪念碑), erected in 1958. On the north side of the monument, carved an inscription “Eternal glory to the people’s heroes” in Mao’s hand writing. The base of the monument is not opened to public.

Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall, constructed in 1977, inside the hall people can visit the Mao’s crystal coffin, it is free of charge, but normally have to wait in queue for hours.

Zhengyangmen Gate and its Arrow Tower (functions as its guarding building), these two buildings was joined together by a wall, and altogether they constitute the front gate of the inner city of Peking, as we know, the wall were gone in 1960s, so these two buildings are now just standing apart.

The Great Hall of the People, it was built in Oct. 1958 and was completed 1 year after. There are more than 300 reception rooms and conference halls of various sizes.

The National Museum locates at the east side of the square, it houses a permanent exhibition displaying Chinese history from 1.7 million ago, the building is now in renovation, and will be finished in 2010

At the south east corner, stands an European style building, and that was the first Beijing Railway Station, it was in the Legation Quarter, so to the east of the square, there was a large piece of field occupied by foreign embassies before 1949.

How to get here

Taxi cannot stop close by, and there are 2 lines of Subway stop at the square, but there is a long distance to go to the center. Security scan is a must before going into the square.

View Larger Map

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A copy of traditional courtyard house in the Olympic Park.

Linglong Tower was the boardcasting tower for the game, it is about 132 meters high.

Bird Nest, offically as National Stadium. A panaroma view of its inside you can find Here.

Fencing Hall of National Convention Center, as we can konw from its name, it is transforming into a convention place.

Some more Chinese element.

A view to the Olympic Forest Park, it is very huge, take a tour of it on foot is impossible, it is free to visit, electric vehicles provided at the south part of the park, ticket costs 20 yuan.

A photo of the lake and the hill. The hill locates at the axis of Beijing as well, I am going to climb up that hill, but how to get across the water is a problem, I have to go right from here, and it takes quite a long distance before I found a bridge.

A View to the north part of this park, it is too big, cannot go that far.

A View of the lake.

A view to the Bird Nest and Linglong Tower.

The best way to visit here is subway, you can transfer from Beitucheng Station on Line 10 to the Olympic Branch, there are only 3 stops on this line:

1. Aoting Zhongxin Station (if you want to take pictures all the way from the entrance to the north), you will need to get off at this stop.
2. Olympic Park Station, drop you off just in the center of the main venues, very close to the Water Cube, and the Bird Nest.
3. Olympic Forest Station, that is the end of this line, drop you off at the entrance of the Olympic Forest Park, the park is free to visit, closed at 5 PM.

View Larger Map

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That is a big reading room, once check in from any entrance, you will be able to look around everywhere. The glass roof saves a lot of energy, and winter days should be very warm inside, just by sunshine.

Free water!

Laptops can be taken with you, and power outlets are available just close to the table.

And this tablet TV for reading some of the Chinese Newspaper.

The room for newspaper

A 5-minutes walk, just south of the New one, that is the old National Library building, where was built-up in 1990s.

And here is the lobby of the old library.

The old facilities.

And just before the Olympic games started, this just renovated Qianmen street was opened to public, and this is my first time to visit it, now it is not busy, and many of the buildings at the both side of the road are just empty, waiting someone to rent.

The new trolley, just going to be in operation someday.

Some places don’t match with its neighbour, so has to put a picture there to hide the behind.

A view from the south to the north.

and further going to the south

The shop of “Duyichu”, it is famous for making steamed Dumplings, or “Shaomai” (烧卖）.

A last-week photo, and a 100-year-old photo, below…

And after the Qianmen street, I walked into the Dashilan shopping street, see if there are some change there…

Always busy and noisy…

A photo in a small community close to Liulichang Street.

A little hostel in a hutong, below the room, on the ground floor, that is a public toilet.

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I try to explore this axis on a bright autume day, hope though these photos and my brief introduction, you (maybe you are living in Beijing or not) could have some general idea about this central line.

This is Yongdingmen (Gate of Ever Peace), rebuilt in 2003. It was the front gate of the old Beijing City. We start the exploration from here.

This is from the back side of the Yongdingmen, the meddle of this road is the central line of the city, so this picture is directly facing to the south.

Looking to the north, the far end is the Qianmen (Front Gate), the used to be front gate of the inner city. I am now at the outer city, there is still a long way to go.

Here is Tianqiao, where was the slum at the old times.

A china store near Tianqiao.

At the cross of Zhushikou, here there were many jewelry shops. From here we can see the Qianmen,at the not too far end of the street.

Cross the street, turn left, here is called Dashilan, always busy, shops, restaurants, and sure lots of people.

Going to the end of Dashilan street, we can see the Qianmen (nearer) and Zhengyangmen.

Here is Qianmen, the front gate to the inner city of old Beijing. Those little windows on the building were for shooting arrows.

I am passing through the gate.

Here is the main gate, Zhengyangmen Gate. This two-gate system played an important role in repulsing enemy attacks. If the fist gate was breached, the enemy would find themselves outside the city wall and would be fired upon from the tower over the inner gate. Both of these two gate were built in 1420 in the early Ming and renovated in 1977.

Looking to the right, there is the old Beijing Railway Station. Now it is used as a complex of shopping and restaurants, like McDonald???s.

South gate of Chairman Mao???s Memorial Hall. It was first built on Nov. 24th, 1976 and opened to the public on Sep. 9th, 1977 to mark the anniversary of Chairman Mao???s passing away. On the eastern and western side of the building are the memorial rooms for Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun.

The Monument to the People???s Heroes. It was built in accordance with the resolution of the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People???s Political Consultative Conference adopted on Sep. 30th, 1949. The 37.94-meter-high monument was designed by Mr. Liang Sicheng and was started to build on Aug. 1st, 1952. It was completed in Apr., 1958. It is made of 17,000 pieces of granite and marble slabs. On the front of the monument is an inscription in Chairman Mao’s handwriting, Eternal glory to the people’s heroes !

The Great Hall of the People. This building was built in Oct., 1958, and was completed before the Oct.1, 1959. It was one of the ten major projects in the decade 1949-1959. It has a total floor space of 171,800 square meters.

The museum of Chinese History and the Museum of Chinese Revolution. These two museums were built in Nov., 1958 and finished in Aug., 1959. The History Museum displays a history from 1.7 million years ago to the year of 1919, while the Revolution Museum covers the time from 1919 to 1949, the year of the founding of New China.

The flag pole is made of seamless steel tubes. The pole has four joints, weighing 7 tons and as high as 32.6 meters. The material used was treated by a special process, which would allow it to last for more than 20 years. Since May 1st, 1991, the daily ceremony of national flag raising and lowering has been practised. The time for this ceremony is in accordance with the sunrise and the sunset. The national anthem is played by the military band during the holidays and a tape recording is played for ordinary day ceremonies.

Tian’anmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) is the entrance of the royal city, but not the Forbidden City. Lots of people mixed them, so going through, you don’t need to pay anything.

Duanmen Gate is another passage way to the Forbidden City.

Meridian Gate. In the emperor’s times, this was also a place where grand ceremonies of accepting prisoners of war and annoucements of the new calender took place. In the Ming Dynasty, this was also a place where the emperor punished high officials with sticks. There are three openings in the middle of Meridian Gate and two side ones at the left and right side.

Here is the one of the corners of the Forbidden City.

There are Corner Towers at the four corners of the Fobidden City

Eastern gate, also called Donghuamen. Along this road, you will get to the Wangfujing shopping street, the main shopping street of Beijing.

The moat around the Forbidden City is connected with the moat of the city, which is going back from the lake at the Summer Palace, and going to the Great Canal east of Beijing.

Just behind the Forbidden City, there is the Jingshan Park, or somebody also calls it as ???Coal Hill???. Here was the royal garden. According Chinese Fenshui theory, the hill is protecting the Forbidden City. There is a big budha In the temple on top of the hill, sorry, it is forbidden to take picture inside the temple.

On top of the Jingshan hill, there is no other better place to over look the Forbidden City.

A bird view of the Beihai Park.

The central line going through the Jingshan Park. At the end, there are two major buildings ahead, they are: the Drum Tower (for evening timing) and the Bell Tower (for morning timing)

You may also take a picture like this.

Well, here is the place where the last of Emperor of Ming, hanged himself.

Local people excercise in Jingshan Park.

Drum Tower, where every evening, the drums would be beaten to annouce the end of an official day. Business had to be closed, and people had to stay at home.

Want to climb up it ? there 75 steps waiting for you.

Drums displayed in the Drum Tower, if you want to beat the drums, you can, but you have to pay some money to do so.

An bird look of the axis, on top of the hill by the far end of the picture, is the temple of Jingshan, where I just took a picture towards this building.

If we say the Jingshan is the best place to overlook the Forbidden City, then here should be the best place to overlook local houses, you can compare the difference between these old houses with those new building at the far end.

Bell Tower, if you have good eyesight, you can take a look of the giant bell, and that is the end of the central line, not far behind it, is the Second Road nowdays, which used to be the City Wall.

Looking to the east of the Drum Tower.

At the western side of Drum Tower, there is a very tourist-attacting play, Shi
shahai Lake. We have a map from Mr. Yang Xin, which indicates most of the spots.

Pipe Alley gets its name because of it shape. Look at the Taoist Temple neighboured with a bar

A pipe shop at the Pipe Allay.

Here is the famous Yingding Bridge, a busy place.

Qianhai Lake. You can boat on this lake, or rent a bamboo boat with someone playing music on board for you. Feeling hungry, you can even order a meal from the nearby bars or restaurants.

Many bars at the bank of the lake, in the night, here could be a nice place for relaxing.

By the time of about 6 clock, I went back to the Drum Tower Street. Sun is setting, and I am tired, and very hungry!

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