Mo

Hi Peter,<BR><BR>Caught your info on this web site and wonder if you could email me<BR>the two walking tours in Beijing.<BR>While I have your attention, we will be in Beijing for 3 days before our<BR>cruise. The first day we are on our own and we have hired a Chinese<BR>guide for 1 day. As<BR>part of the group tour before we are boarding the ship, the cruise line<BR>will take us on a group tour to the Forbidden City, Great Wall, Temple<BR>of Heaven, the Summer Palace and the Ming Tombs.<BR>Where would you recommend we have our &quot;private guide&quot; take us to enjoy<BR>the &quot;flavor&quot; of Beijing and worthwhile places to see, in addition to the sites on the group<BR>tour. We have about 8 or 9 hours.<BR>I would think that since we are visiting the &quot;Great Wall&quot; with the group<BR>and it is about 1 hour outside of Beijing, this would not be using our<BR>time wisely. We have heard that we should skip the Ming Tombs. What about sights or things inside of Beijing???<BR>Thanks for your assistance.<BR>Mo<BR><BR>

Peter N-H

A general question such as &quot;What else is good to do in Beijing?&quot; can surely be answered differently by lots of different people, and is very hard to answer without knowing your interests, previous China/Asia travel experience, mobility, etc.<BR><BR>If I could please both you and myself under the conditions described, I would take you to the Confucius Temple/Capital Museum (because the temple is little visited and has a pleasantly decrepit air, and the museum is well-lit if not well-labeled, and more digestible than the mammoth museums on Tian'an Men Square). <BR><BR>I would also take you to the recently re-opened Dong Yue Miao Daoist temple for a giant view of the Daoist (under-)world picture (statuary of the gods and demons ruling the various departments of hell, their shrines hung with votive offerings whose quantity at different locations gives away what's on the minds of modern Chinese); the Altar of Agriculture (for some very grand but little-known halls on a Forbidden City scale housing a good museum of Chinese architecture, models of old Beijing, etc.--free English-speaking guide, to boot); and to the insect market tucked behind the Guanyuan Shichang, where you can see all kinds of crickets/grasshoppers/katydids on sale for use as pets, as well as the paraphernalia for looking after them (tiny feeding bowls, miniature cages, etc.). There's also a bird market and goldfish market here, and no more &quot;real&quot; corner of Beijing exists--birds, fish, and insects are three out of the four traditional Beijing pastimes. You might even see organized cricket fights with heavy betting on the outcome. But hurry because it's going to be knocked down later this year.<BR><BR>In the weather is fine, I'd take you down to the Guangqu Men Qiao in the second half of the afternoon, to stand for a while with the old men flying home made kites, including the traditional shayanr (sand swallow) design, and in the autumn I'd take you to the Yuting Bird and Flower Market to see the training sessions for the wutong (grosbeak) and jiaozui (crossbill) birds, who fetch little balls thrown into the air for them, and perform other tricks.<BR><BR>I don't know, perhaps I should be hiring myself out as a guide.<BR><BR>But you might, of course, hate all of this, and wide reading to make your own choices would be best. Beware of your guide telling you that any of the above are inconvenient, closed, or otherwise unavailable, and suggesting somewhere else instead.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

jane

I would add visiting a Houtong area. It is very interesting. You can take a pedicab tour that includes visiting a family home.If you would like more information about this, try this link http://www.geocities.com/janelp2/Bei...of_Heaven.html Go to middle of page.

Peter N-H

At the risk of being repetitive, these hutong tours are hugely overpriced tourist traps made especially for foreigners. <BR><BR>By all means take them on that basis, but why bother when you can easily walk round by yourself, and entirely your own speed, taking any turning which appeals, stopping at anything which interests you, and do so without paying mammoth charges?<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Elaine

Absolutely agree that the Houtong tour is tourist trap. But going to the Bell Tower was interesting and I don't think we would have know to go there without the tour. But with car and guide we could have gone on our own.

Peter N-H

The bell and drum towers are only a short walk south of metro Gulou Dajie, on the metro's circle line (Y3), so really very easy to reach, as surely any guide book should reveal. Or, as with everywhere else in Beijing, showing the characters to any taxi driver would have got you there easily, and for only Y10 very likely. To hire a guide and driver would have been phenomenally expensive in comparison, and really quite unnecessary.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html