Beijing/China Thread

>>1256556
forbidden palace - must see but full of people which will ruin your experience

great wall of china - almost the same thing as the forbidden palace

olimpic bird nest stadium - very nice thing

You can take the fast train to shanghai which will arrive in 4 hours.

People are saying that the food markets especially the markets with exotic things like scorpions, snakes etc. are mainly for the tourist , regular chinese are not eating it. Altough eating a silk worm is fun (it tastes like meh) I wouldn't advise you to eat any other things, especially scorpions because it is very hard for the human stomach to process.

Has anyone here stayed at a hostel worth recommending in Beijing?

I'm thinking of doing a DPRK tour and a week in Beijing this coming September or October. It will be my first time in Beijing but my second time in China.

>>1256612
>the food markets especially
Several of those are closed now. I think the night one is still open.

>>1256637
>Has anyone here stayed at a hostel worth recommending in Beijing?
I stayed at the drum tower one, it's...ok.
The bar and menu aren't bad, I stayed in a private room which I couldn't stand up in but ok otherwise. Dorms might be normal.

>>1256637

Stay in a hutong 胡同 if you arent there during high tourist season

>>1256910
I was thinking of that but read that Hutongs are now gentrified af and full of cashed up expats wanting that traditional Chinese experience

>>1256884
Thanks will look into it

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>>1256637
yeah try ming courtyard, the location is good and so are the facilities. It's in a hutong that is in a popular area that has a few foreigners here and there but will always be local. The street right outside of it is a popular local nightlife area.

http://www.mingcourtyard.com/

Don't worry too much about gentrification in Beijing, they try but it doesn't really take hold there.

>>1257029
Thanks heaps mate

>>1256556
>I'm going to be in the Haidian district

districts pretty much mean nothing. taxi drivers (who btw dont speak or read english) usually go by the names of the locations, not addresses unless it's an obscure place.

protip: if you're arriving by yourself, make sure you have the address of your hotel/dorm printed in chinese, unless you're VERY confident of your spoken chinese.

>what sort of places would you recommend

beihai and gulou hutong (pretty much next to each other)

one of my favorite restaurants: (even has english on the menus despite barely having tourists because the building is intimidating as fuck): jin ding xuan 金鼎轩 (地坛店)

there's a nice tea shopping center/mall where you can get scalped if you bother to buy tea. but first the shopkeepers are obligated to serve you the tea. just tell them you want to look around some more when you want to leave... or that's what i did because i can speak somewhat fluently. it's not the best place for tea culture, but it's free and you won't get scammed like those tea ceremony shit.

>>1256556
>which places are tourist traps

agruably, the entire city is a tourist trap.

i've been to the great wall and forbidden city 3 times, so maybe i'm just jaded.

just off the top of my head, wangfujin is touristy as fuck, but i remember it being fun the first few times. you should go, especially to the night market. but just be wary of the street food prices. fucking 30快 for a half-day old stick of lamb?

also, when you're buying street food in general, make sure you pick EXACTLY what you want. vendors have a nice system of putting fresh stuff up front and then when you order give you the shit that's been in the back for a few hours.

>Also the knockoff goods seem interesting.

they're extremely amusing.

the dongwuyuan market is great to just stroll around.