During my stay in China I had to of course visit the capital Beijing (北京). I didn’t really plan my trip, just booked one night in a hostel and took the train to the city. Later on my arrival night my three week-old iPhone broke down, so I had to came back to Shanghai already the next day. Two or three nights would have been enough time to see all the essential places, but with my Chinese skills, without internet or phone I just couldn’t do it. I recommend planning better than I did.

I didn’t know much about the city before going, I just wanted to see the great wall, which I had to pass due to my very limited schedule. But I got a couple of cool pictures to show. 🙂

Some Chinese flags at Tiananmen square.

Some kind of buildings.

 

Garden expo had all kinds of plants, trees and different styles of buildings. The admission fee was about 100 yuan, a bit pricey, but we only live once…

This was on my to do list right after the Great wall, the great Beijing duck! There was another one in Hong Kong before and now they’re everywhere. Since Chinese people love to copy, I’ve heard that they’ve made a lot of diffrent ducks for promotional purposes but I’ve never seen another big one besides this. A lot of stuffed animals with the same design are sold all over the country though.

Beijing is definitely worth visiting while in China. It’s often packed with (Chinese) tourists, but if you want to see something very Chinese, then Beijing is the place. In many ways Shanghai is like any big city, except for the location, but I could imagine living in Shanghai is more fun than in Beijing.