Beijing after Olympics

This trip to Beijing proved to be exciting!

We spent 4 nights in Beijing, staying in Tian-an Rega Hotel just five minutes walk from Beijing Hotel/Raffles Hotel. The rent RMB550 is affordable compared to RMB1300(Beijing Hotel) and RMB950 at Wangfujing Hotel. Nearest Underground station is the Tiananmen East, a walking distance 10 minutes away.

We had a good opportunity to explore the city on 2 spare days. On the 18th, together with Mak Leong, Yeap Leong, Yoke Eng and the couple of Kweng Hooi and Poh Chuan, I was able to be the guide taking them to The National Theatre, The Confucius Temple/Ancient Scholar Institution (called 国子监)。

After which, myself and the couple of Kweng Hooi/Poh Chuan went to visit the 798 Art Zone near the Zuixianqiao/Tashanzi area. This is a very exciting place with all the art galleries and studios. It so happened that there was an Arts Festival going on and we had a wonderful time admiring all sorts of art works.

At night we managed to find the Lao She Teahouse (老舍茶馆) where we enjoyed a performance of Chinese traditional art forms including Changing face, kungfu, Beijing opera, tea pouring gimmicks and shadow plays. That was a good evening spent although the admission of RMB180 is a bit stiff and the seats given to us after much pleading by Poh Chuan was far from satisfactory. This was my second visit to the place which is located at Qianmen(前门).

Now that we had covered more grounds, I am quite confident now I could cover Beijing free and easy style in the future.

This is a target which I set for major cities in China and elsewhere. Now the next major target is Shanghai!