Absorb these Beijing Must Dos into your itinerary and we guarantee your experience will be at least 30% more authentic and joy filled.
1. Go to Jingshan Park at 6pm, or 10am on a Sunday
Test Your Beijing Winter Knowledge
Are you a fair weather friend? Or have you lived through Beijing in all seasons? Whether you’re a Newbie or an Old China Hand, take our One Minute Winter Quiz to test your knowledge – then challenge your friends! Email us your answers for the chance to win a prize. We’ll announce the winners on Facebook in January (and let the losers down gently…)
Reason to Celebrate: These Newly Opened Sections of the Forbidden City Are Ace!
When we heard that the Palace Museum had opened up a whole new section of the Forbidden City, we weren’t expecting much. After all, previously reopened sections tended to reveal yet more rooms filled with, well, not a lot.
Bespoke’s Big Fat Beijing Gift List
Are you already feeling a little bit panicky about everything you’re supposed to do before the holidays? Is the stress of sourcing unique Beijing gifts for expectant friends and family weighing on you like the third sofa on an overloaded flatbed rickshaw? Well we’ve just the list for you! Read on for a few ideas…
For a stocking that needs filling (Part I):
Hip coasters
Whether your friend suffers from a Monica Geller-esque fear of water rings on their coffee table or just wants to look especially cool when they have friends over, we think these colorful coasters are ace. This City Art’s designs draw inspiration from all of Beijing’s quirkiest features – then make them pop.
30RMB/coaster (choose from over 38 designs to make a pack). Available from Plastered (see below for address) or TCA’s WeiDian store.
Super Sneak Peak: Ahn Luh Zhujiajiao
Honestly, we’re not frequent visitors over in Zhujiajiao, one of Shanghai’s closest watertowns – the crazy tourist numbers and indentikit stores mean we’ve been heading further afield. But we’ve just been introduced to something that might help to change our minds.
After much delay, the new Ahn Luh resort is finally ready to swing open its hefty doors in the first week of January 2016. Counting Aman guru Adrian Zecha among its founders, Ahn Luh is aiming to be the first Chinese company to make a name for itself in the world of super luxury resorts. Will they succeed? The gorgeous main building, a 600 year old Huizhou-style structure that’s been painstakingly moved here from Anhui Province, and the promise of a year-round outdoor pool (the first in Shanghai?) have certainly piqued our interest. We’ll be heading over when it’s fully open to find out more.
Rendering Change at The Long Museum
We’ve been fans of the Long Museum West Bund from the get-go, its vast halls make for a truly remarkable space and the variety of exhibitions we’ve enjoyed there have been second to none – and that’s before we even get into the eccentric antics of the museum’s owner.
The latest exhibit to open is one of our favorites yet. If you’ve found Chinese ink painting inaccessible in the past, Rendering Change is a rare and wonderful chance to see some paintings from a recent era, all drawn from the private M K Lau collection, and the vast majority were created between 1949 and 1979 as a ‘new China’ emerged. As such, the paintings contain traditional landscapes combined with new themes such as communes, industrial development and political leaders.