Hi All,

I will be living in Beijing for the next year and a half. I was hoping to get a bunch of suggestions for places to go, things to do, food to eat while I am there. I have never been to China or SE Asia before and am hoping to travel all around that region during my time living there. If anyone knows of any unique, more off the beaten path places to visit or eat please let me know! I'm obviously going to try to do all the main tourist attractions, but would love suggestions that are more personal or less well known! Thank you so much!!

You should invest $20-30 in a book about travel to China. If your jobs allows you to travel often, the book will be very useful.
Your question is too broad. As I said, whole books have been written to answer this question. For one thing, Beijing will keep you busy for a while.

I agree with CanadaChinaTraveler: DEFINITELY get a good guidebook or two!

You might find some useful in my now out-dated and VERY long trip report:
http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...na-amazing.cfm

Thank you, I already bought a couple of books! I was hoping to get suggestions for things that might be off the beaten path and more locally known than giant tourist attractions. For those that have traveled to China/SE Asia what was your favorite part?

That's why I directed you to my trip report. ;-)

Here are some walks that will take you into obscure corners even in the city centre (subject to change due to continuing reconstruction):

http://bit.ly/2e0LMMy

And here's an alphetical directory of sights in Beijing, many unknown to most other guide books:

http://bit.ly/2jldqHZ