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Tiger Hill
In the far northwest of town, Tiger Hill is popular with local tourists. The beacon drawing the visitors is the leaning Cloud Rock Pagoda (云岩塔; Yúnyán Tǎ ) atop the hill. The octagonal seven-storey pagoda was built in the 10th century entirely of brick, an innovation in Chinese arc
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Rockbund Art Museum
Housed in the former Royal Asiatic Society building (1933) – once Shànghǎis first museum – this private space behind the Bund focuses on contemporary Chinese art, with rotating exhibits year-round and no permanent collection. One of the city’s top modern-art venues, the buildings i
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Rìtán Park
Meaning ‘Altar of the Sun’, Rìtán (pronounced rer-tan) is a real oasis in the heart of Běijīngs business district. Dating back to 1530 and one of a set of imperial parks which covered each compass point – others include the Temple of Heaven and Temple of Earth (Dìtán Park) – the al
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Dorje Jigje (Jikji) Lhakhang
The murals in the smaller chapel are painted red and gold, and are almost solely devoted to wrathful deities such as Demchok (Chakrasamvara), Hevajra and the buffalo-headed Dorje Jigje (Yamantaka), to whom the chapel is dedicated. On the left as you look back at the door is Namtöse
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Great Hall of the People
On the western side of Tiān’ānmén Sq, on a site previously occupied by Taichang Temple, the Jinyiwei (Ming-dynasty secret service) and the Ministry of Justice, the Great Hall of the People is the venue of the legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC). The 1959 architecture
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Xiǎntōng Temple
Xiǎntōng Temple – the largest temple in town – was erected in AD 68 and was the first Buddhist temple in the area. It comprises more than 100 halls and rooms. The Qiānbō Wénshū Hall contains a 1000-armed, multifaced Wenshu, whose every palm supports a miniature Buddha. The squata b
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Three Gorges Dam
The huge Three Gorges Dam hulks away upstream. The world’s largest dam due to its length (2.3km) rather than its height (101m), it isn’t the most spectacular dam, but is worth a peek. You can’t walk on it, but there’s a tourist viewing area to the north. The view from the south is
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Béthanie
Perched on hilly Pok Fu Lam, a college and residential area northwest of Aberdeen, this beautiful restoration is a highlight in this part of town. The complex, which now houses a film school, was built by the French Mission in 1875 as a sanatorium for priests from all over Asia to
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Běijīng Police Museum
Propaganda aside, riveting exhibits make this a fascinating exposé of Běijīng’s dà gài mào (local slang for the constabulary). Learn how Běijīng’s first Public Security Bureau (PSB) college operated from the Dōngyuè Temple in 1949 and find out how officers tackled the ‘stragglers,
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Shílín
A conglomeration of utterly bizarre but stunning karst geology and a hell of a lot of tourists, Shílín, about 120km southeast of Kūnmíng, is equal parts tourist trap and natural wonderland. A massive collection of grey limestone pillars split and eroded by wind and rainwater (the t
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Zhou Enlai’s Former Residence
In 1946 Zhou Enlai, the much-loved (although some swear he was even more sly than Mao) first premier of the People’s Republic of China, lived briefly in this former French Concession Spanish villa. Zhou was then head of the Communist Party’s Shànghǎi office, giving press conference
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Chun Yeung Street Market
Hop on an eastbound tram, and past Fortress Hill you’ll turn into an old narrow street teeming with market stalls and old tenement buildings. This is the famous Chun Yeung Street Market, and at 5pm it’s so busy you wonder why no one ever got hit by the tram. Flanking the tram track
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Tángyuè Decorative Archways
This astonishing row of seven elaborate, decorative stone arches is quite a bizarre sight, marching off in a slight curve from the village of Tángyuè towards the fields. The stone monuments form one of the most famous collections of memorial archways in the land. There’s also the a
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Húguǎng Guild Hall
You could spend several hours poking around the beautifully restored buildings in this gorgeous museum complex, which once served as a community headquarters for immigrants from the Hú (Húnán and Húběi) and Guǎng (Guǎngdōng and Guǎngxī) provinces, who arrived in Chóngqìng several h
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Wèi Jìn Tombs
These tombs date from approximately AD 220–420 (the Wei and Western Jin periods) and contain extraordinarily fresh brick wall paintings (some ineptly retouched) depicting scenes from everyday life, from making tea to picking mulberries for silk production. There are thousands of to
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Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware
At Hong Kong park’s northernmost tip is the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware. Built in 1846 as the home of the commander of the British forces, it is the oldest colonial building in Hong Kong still standing in its original spot. The museum, a branch of the Hong Kong Museum of Art
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Bànpō Neolithic Village
Bànpō is the earliest example of the Neolithic Yangshao culture, which is believed to have been matriarchal. It appears to have been occupied from 4500 BC until around 3750 BC. The excavated area is divided into three parts: a pottery manufacturing area, a residential area complete
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Sera Monastery
About 5km north of Lhasa, Sera was founded in 1419 by a disciple of Tsongkhapa as one of Lhasas two great Gelugpa monasteries. About 600 monks are now in residence, down from an original population of around 5000. The half-dozen main colleges feature spectacular prayer halls and ch
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Tiān Chí Lake
Two thousand metres up in the Tiān Shān range is Tiān Chí, a small, long, steely-blue lake nestled below the view-grabbing 5445m Peak of God (博格达峰; Bógédá Fēng). Scattered across the alpine pine and spruce-covered slopes are Kazakh yurts and lots of sheep. It was a paradise describ
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North Temple Pagoda
The tallest pagoda south of the Yangzi, the nine-storey North Temple Pagoda dominates the northern end of Renmin Lu. Part of Bàoēn Temple (报恩寺; Bàoēn Sì ), you can climb the pagoda (塔; tǎ ) for sweeping views of hazy modern-day Sūzhōu.The complex goes back 1700 years and was origin
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