14 Fabulous Things To Do In Beijing

Want to go beyond the basics in Beijing? Check out some of these trendy hotspots and amazing things to do,

1.  Enjoy a banquet on the Great Wall at Jinshanling, complete with white-toqued chef and  server.  While there are surviving sections closer to Beijing like Bedaling, their very convenience has made them overcrowded and less rewarding for visitors looking for the ‘dragon’s back’ of stone walls and towers running across the rugged northern hills.  Jinshanling is a 2-hour drive from the city but is almost empty of visitors.  Local Mongol farmers, ironically the very people the wall was built to keep out, will offer to help you up the steep stone steps that climb straight up from the parking lot.  Imperial Tours owned by Westerners Nancy Kim and Guy Rubin and operating in Beijing can arrange a deluxe tour including a multi-course banquet among scattered rose petals on a turret of the wall.  Listen to the cicadas and drink in the view.  A once-in-a-lifetime experience.

12.   Take a walking tour of Beijing’s trendy new art district, 798 Art Zone, housed in 50-year-old factory buildings designed by the former East Germans.  Taking their architectural inspiration from the Bauhaus, the buildings are strikingly contemporary.  From the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art through a branch of New York’s prestigious Pace Gallery, the zone is a window on the artistic fusion of east and west.  Trendy shops and cafes have sprung up linking the exhibition areas.  Contact Megan Connolly to arrange a  viewing.  A great place to wander on Sunday afternoons.

13.  Check out the ceramics at Spin (6 Fangyuan W. Road, Chaoyang).  On a street of brick buildings that looks more US East Coast than central Beijing, designer Gary Wang turns fine    white porcelain clay into works of delicate beauty.  Buy a coffee mug or a nested set of lotus bowls.  They’re reasonably priced and invoke China’s age-old reputation for producing the best ceramics in the world.

14.  Have dinner at the Green T House (No. 6 Gongtixilu Chaoyang) with cutting-edge interior design and a fusion menu that includes some form of tea in every dish.  Through the  intercommed outer white door, you enter a fantasy world of white on white with free form chairs, soaring tree branches and hanging bird cages.  Owned by musician and artist Zhang Jin Jie, the restaurant has a pan-Asian vibe and an airy ambiance.  The serving dishes are art forms and the tea ingredients in the food are subtle.  Try the hong pao chicken with crispy oolong tea leaves and the delicate pancakes with lamb, followed by – what else – a dizzying selections of teas.