After a long journey via Abu Dhabi and Wuhan, we finally arrived in Beijing in the evening of June the 9th. Seeing as it was our second time in Beijing, and that we only had one full day there, we thought we’d check out the sights that we missed on our previous trip.
Our first stop was Panjiayuan antique market, where we arrived pretty early in the morning. This place was phenomenal, and it was much bigger and diverse than expected. There were old Chinese wooden sculptures and carvings dating back to to Ming Dynasty, as well as beautiful artwork, calligraphy, and remnants of China’s history under Mao.
We were lucky enough to be in Beijing on the weekend, when the market is at its full capacity. It’s something I’d highly recommend to any visitor in Beijing. The vast majority of visitors there also seemed to be locals, and it was largely an authentic market as opposed to a tourist trap.
After Panjiayuan, we walked our way to Beijing’s Temple Of Heaven, another major sight which we missed last time we were in Beijing. This was also very impressive, with a beautiful park complex filled with other temples and ancient structures. The view of the surrounding areas and skyline of Beijing is also fairly impressive from up there.
We then headed to an old refurbished Hutong area to the south of Tianenmen square, which had been transformed into modern shops and tea houses. We wondered around for a couple of hours here before heading back to our hotel to prepare for a show of Chinese Opera.
We got back to the hotel pretty late, and we were extremely excited for the following day, which was to be spent meeting our tour group to North Korea, and then heading on the over night train to Tumen, a Chinese city on the North Korean border.