Sight-seeing in Beijing

This past weekend was filled with sightseeing since there isn’t much time to travel except during the weekends, so I try to utilize the free time we have. On Friday night after work, I met up with a fellow intern at Wangfujing to explore the snack street packed with skewers of scorpions, spiders, starfish, etc. that fill up tourists’ blogs when you search up the keywords ‘Wanfujing’. We stayed in the safe lane and tried out corn on the cob, Beijing style crepes/Chinese pancakes 煎饼, Taiwanese strawberry bubble tea 台湾泡泡茶 (not the milk tea with tapioca pearls kind but literal bubbles flowing from the bottom up), mango smoothie 芒果雪冰, and baozi 包子(or Chinese buns with varying fillings). Apparently the Wangfujing snack street starts at higher prices than other night markets and also targets foreigners since there were plenty of tourists walking around. After eating our fill, we walked around Wangfujing with both older, traditional shops that have been around for a century, and newer, foreign brands like Zara, H&M, and Forever 21. After ending our night with some green tea ice cream, we headed back and had an early night in preparation of more exploring on Saturday.

 

I almost regretted visiting Tiananmen on Saturday because of the scorching hot sun and resulting weather that almost hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but the emptiness of the square and view made up for the sweat. Since we needed somewhere to cool down and find a place to eat, the Indigo Shopping Mall at exit C of Jiangtai station turned out to be a perfect getaway. Our diverse dinner of McDonald’s and Chinese black bean sauce noodles, or 炸酱面, turned out to be perfect as the salty and sweet balanced each other out.

Lastly, Sunday was the big day for our group who went to the Great Wall (Jinshanling section, not the typical Badaling section where tour groups go). The two hour bus ride each way paid off because the wall was empty and the view was great. By the way, make sure to eat before you go and to stock up on water and snacks for the trip because there aren’t any restaurants, and the little shops only sell overpriced water, chips, and hats. I believe we hiked a total of 2,200 meters of the actual wall, which took less than 3 hours, and rested until 3pm when the bus took us back to Wanjing West Station in Beijing. The Great Wall is an amazing feat of architecture, and I definitely recommend going to the Jinshangling section if you want to avoid the crowds and don’t mind the two hour bus trip there and back. This past weekend was jam-packed with sightseeing and now it’s time to get back into the weekday routine at the office.

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