Chinese architecture. The wooden palace
was built between 1406 and 1420, and the
huge museum also holds the largest collec-
tion of imperial artefacts in the country. Do
not expect to see it all though because, as
the holdings are so large, only a fraction of
the collection can be shown at any one
time.
Summer Palace was built in the 18
th
cen-
tury as an escape for the royals from the
sweltering Beijing summer heat. The
palace is no longer off-bounds to foreign-
ers, and I nipped in for culturally-infused
cool down. Unlike the name would have
you believe, it is not a palace, but instead a
complex of pavilions and temples. It is
made up of Longevity Hill (where there are
temples, a theatre and many other grand
buildings expanding across the land) and
Kunming Lake. The beauty of the place
cannot go unmissed, it is even said that
when Anglo French troops stormed the
palace during the second opium war, they
were so awed that they forgot their orders.
Make sure you see the western corridor to
capture that same feeling!
ACCOMMODATION
There are many luxury hotels in Beijing.
With five star accommodations you will be
likely to receive an immaculately clean
hotel with friendly, polite, English speak-
ing staff, and funky modern rooms, right in
the heart of Beijing. Courtyard hotels have
a good level of service and traditional
Chinese style rooms with the popular
Eastern red and green colour scheme dom-
inating a lot of the hotels. Many of these
courtyard hotels in Hutong are popular.
Motel style chains are a good mid-range
choice as services are clean and modern.
Hostels in central Beijing have English
ture, traditional Chinese buildings tend to
use the space around them and have
many beautifully ornate long buildings,
only one or two storeys high. Buildings in
Beijing that have been designed by for-
eign architects are also worth checking
out, and will impress you even if you do
not know a thing about architecture.
Beijing’s National Stadium (also known
as The Bird’s Nest) was designed and
built for the 2008 Olympics. The shooting
curved metal bars weaving in and around
each other looks beautiful at night when
the backdrop of the inside lighting shows
shards of light bursting through. Beijing’s
National Aquatic Centre (The Water
Cube) is also very aesthetically captivat-
ing, again especially at night, when the
big blue bubbles that make up the whole
of the outside are lit up to form an amaz-
ingly eye-catching spectacle.
If you’re more of a nature lover, you
must visit Juizhaigou National Park in the
north of the Sichuan province, which is
around 1,500km from Beijing. It is defi-
nitely worth travelling to this valley
nature reserve, as it is full of amazing
multi level waterfalls and colourful lakes.
Whilst you’re in Sichuan, there’s also the
Giant Panda Sanctuary, which is home to
thirty per cent of the world’s giant pan-
das. At a massive 3,570 square miles, this
enormous playground for the pandas is
one of the world’s most important sites
for the captive breeding of the endan-
gered species.
The Great Wall of China was original-
ly built for military defence and spans
over 5,500 miles! (Now I like a walk as
much as the next girl, but I had a small
breakfast and was fine just moseying
along a few of those miles, thank you...).
The Great Wall has been rebuilt, modified
and extended at various points over 2,000
years from its first construction in 7 th cen-
tury B.C. and offers a lot if you’re a histo-
ry buff (or simply want to challenge your
calves of steel).
The Temple of Heaven in Chongwen
was built in 1420 as a sign of respect to
heaven. Throughout the Temple of
Heaven Park there are temples which are
round with square bases, a pattern chosen
to reflect the ancient Chinese belief that
heaven is round and earth is square. You
can centre your chi at the Temple of
Heaven Park if you get there early
enough! You will be surrounded by many
others undergoing this ancient Chinese
practice if you arrive in the early morning.
Forbidden City was home to twenty-
four different Chinese emperors, and
holds the best preserved collection of