Badaling Great Wall

Badaling Great Wall is the site of the most visited section of the Great Wall of China, approximately 50 miles (80 km) northwest of urban Beijing city in Yanqing County, which is within the Beijing municipality. It is the best preserved and the most magnificent. Badaling means "giving access to every direction". The name itself reminds us of its historical and strategic importance.The portion of the wall running through the site was built in 1504 during the Ming Dynasty, along with a military outpost reflecting the location's strategic importance. The highest point of Badaling is Beibalou, approximately 1,015 meters above sea level.

It is made of large blue bricks. The sides are covered in stone, the top in layers of brick. Inside the stone in brick is a mixture of soil and rubble, painstakingly tamped into place. The wall was made wide enough for five or six horses to be ridden abreast on its top. At regular intervals are window embrasures and castellated crenels. Beacon towers, originally for relaying military information, offer a respite from the weather. In peacetime, the Wall has proved useful as a highway, transporting people and supplies over large distances.

The portion of the wall at Badaling has undergone restoration, and in 1957 it was the first section of the wall to open to tourists. Now visited annually by millions, the immediate area has seen significant development, including hotels, restaurants, and a cable car. The recently completed Badaling Expressway connects Badaling with central Beijing. Line S2, Beijing Suburban Railway, served people who wanted to go to the Great Wall from Beijing North Railway Station. People can buy tickets at Beijing North Railway Station to Badaling Station. A bus also runs frequently from Deshengmen to Badaling.

It was here that President Richard Nixon and his wife, accompanied by Vice Premier Li Xiannian, visited on February 24, 1972, during his historic journey to China.

Badaling and the expressway were the site of the finishing circuit of the Urban Road Cycling Course in the 2008 Summer Olympics. Laps of the circuit passed through gates in the wall.

Set in a steep, forested mountain range, Badaling offers superb views and for those willing to travel beyond the restored sections, worthwhile hiking. The climb is so demanding, especially in the summer heat, that the crowds thin out after a few hundred meters (unless you take the cable car to the top, which some think spoils the experience). However, the guard towers are uniquely constructed so that the cool mountain breezes naturally air condition the interior. Weary travelers can literally "chill" in the guard towers before continuing along.
For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com

The Olympic Green (Beijing Olympic Park)

The Olympic Green is an Olympic Park in Chaoyang District, Beijing, China constructed for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Since then, the streets around the park have been used for an exhibition street race of the FIA GT1 World Championship in 2011, after a race at Goldenport Park Circuit in the vicinity.

The Olympic Green is centerpiece for the 29th Olympic Games, held in China for the very first time. Located in the northern tip of the city, it covers a total area of 1,215 hectares (3000 acres), of which 760 (1878 acres) are wooded areas and greenery.

 A forest park, a central area including 10 competition venues, the Olympic Village, the Main Press Center (MPC), and the International Broadcasting Center (IBC) are a few of the important buildings and regions for the Olympics that can be found at the Olympic Green. The most spectacular of all is the newly built National Stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games were held.

A 60-meter-wide road penetrates the public region from south to north. In the center, an 11-meter-wide road is paved in imitation of the axis of the Forbidden City, which embodies the passing of the Chinese traditional culture. The largest venue at the games in terms of seating capacity was the Beijing National Stadium, also known as the "Bird's Nest", which can held some 91,000 spectators for the opening and closing ceremonies. The Olympic Green was a smashing success, flawlessly hosting the competitions of some 15 Olympic sports as well as serving millions of foreign visitors, tourists, dignitaries, and athletes.

Near the Olympic Cauldron, on the northwest side of the Bird's Nest Stadium is the Linglong Pogoda. The Ling Long Pagoda or Linglong Tower (Multifunctional Studio Towe) houses a part of the International Broadcast Center (IBC). "Ling Long" means delicate, and is referred to as the Delicate Tower in Chinese. The permanent structure is a three-sided tower. The tower contains 6 occupiable pods with open space in between. One of the pods displays the Olympic rings. It is 128m tall, with 7 occupiable floors, each an equilateral triangle. The floors are subdivided into two levels. The glass-walled pods are held up by three supporting ribs at the three corners. The tower is operated by Beijing Olympic Broadcasting. Some international broadcast studios are located in the pods of the tower, offering skyline views as backdrops of Olympic broadcasts. CCTV, BBC, CBC Television for both French and English networks, France Télévisions - France 2 & France 3, Televisa, and TV Azteca share use of the tower's studio facilities. CBC occupies the fourth pod from the bottom. BBC occupies the second pod from the bottom. France Television is also on the third floor. NBC's Today Show tapes from the ground floor.

It opened to the public for the first time during the National Holiday in October of 2008. Post-Olympics the Olympic Green has become a center of cultural, recreational, and sporting activities in Beijing. Thousands of people, both Chinese and foreigners, have taken the chance to visit the grand site and flocked to see the sports venues as well as watch a number of special exhibitions and performances. It is expected that the site will continue to attract many visitors and will also serve as an excellent place for China to host more intra-country sporting events in the future.
For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com

Peking University

Peking University is a major Chinese research university located in Beijing, and a member of the C9 League. It is the first established modern national university of China, founded as the "Imperial University of Peking" in 1898 as a replacement of the ancient Guozijian. By 1920 it had become a center for progressive thought. Today, Peking University is frequently listed by many domestic and international rankings as one of the top universities in China. In addition to academics, Peking University is especially renowned for its campus grounds, and the beauty of its traditional Chinese architecture.

Throughout its history, the university has educated and hosted many prominent modern Chinese thinkers, including figures such as: Lu Xun, Mao Zedong, Gu Hongming, Hu Shih, Li Dazhao, and Chen Duxiu. Peking University was influential in the birth of China's New Culture Movement, May Fourth Movement, the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 and many other significant events

The university campus is in the former site of the Qing Dynasty royal gardens and it retains many traditional Chinese-style landscaping including traditional houses, gardens, pagodas as well as many notable historical buildings and structures. There are several gates that lead into campus — East, West and South gates, with the West Gate being the most well known for the painted murals on its ceiling. Peking University is known throughout China, with its neighbour, Tsinghua University, for their beautiful campuses. Weiming lake is in the north of the campus and is surrounded by walking paths and small gardens.

The university hosts many museums, such as the Museum of University History and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology. Notable items in these museums include funerary objects that were excavated in Beijing and date back thousands of years from the graves of royalties of the Warring States period. There are ritual pottery vessels as well as elaborate pieces of jewelry on display. There are also human bones set up in the traditional burial style of that period.

A performance of Kunqu at Peking UniversityIn 2008, the THE-QS World University Rankings ranked the Peking University as the 23rd best university in the world in arts and humanities; it is also the highest ranked university from Asia in this field. The Peking University was ranked as the 18th (2007 rankings), 10th (2006 rankings), 6th (2005 rankings), and 7th (2004 rankings) best arts and humanities university in the world.

For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com

Acrobatic shows in Beijing

Acrobatic shows in Beijing are definitely worth seeing. There are many world class acrobatic troupes. The amazing feats showcase strength, skill, and dexterity that literally boggle the mind. Some of the more popular acts include: a lion dance, where two acrobats work together doing stunts in a lion costume; Chinese yoyo tricks, gravity-defying body contortions, juggling, unicycling, chair-stacking, and more.

Acrobatic show is one entertainment that must not be missed by the young and old on a visit to Beijing. China has many world class acrobatic troupes because practically every province and major city will have its own acrobatic troupe, and children are selected to be trained as performers from a young age. In Beijing one can see breath-holding acrobatics, some of which can be so demanding in the timing and balancing skill as to verge on the impossible.

Chinese acrobatics is said to have started during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) two thousand years old, though some claim it is four thousand years old on the basis of the mythical Yellow Emperor, Huangdi, having started a martial form of acrobatics at a victory celebration in Wuqiao some 300 km south of Beijing. Since 1987, Wuqiao has held the Wuqiao International Acrobatics Festival which is an event for the international acrobatic fraternity. In the Tang Dynasty (618-907), acrobatics received royal patronage with shows performed for the imperial court as depicted by a Dunghuang Grotto mural. By the Song Dynasty (960-1279) acrobatics become upstaged by opera as an entertainment for the literati and the ruling class. As it descended to be an entertainment for the ordinary folks, it was continually sustained and nurture by the commoners into the fascinating Chinese acrobatics of today.

Success of acrobatics depends also on good stage arts like stage images, music, choreography and costumes backed up by props and lighting. The frequent local competitions in China for acrobatic excellence have made China a nation unique in an oriental form of acrobatics that is second to none in the world. Tickets can be obtained in Beijing at the Chaoyang Juchang and the Tiandi Juchang.

We recommend that you to sit in the lower seating area so that you will have the best vantage point. The show is usually performed at night and lasts about one and a half hours. After it is over, you will be allowed to go onto the stage and take photos with the performers.

For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com

National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA)

The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), and colloquially described as The Giant Egg, is an opera house in Beijing, People's Republic of China. The Centre, an ellipsoid dome of titanium and glass surrounded by an artificial lake, seats 5,452 people in three halls and is almost 12,000 m² in size. It was designed by French architect Paul Andreu. Construction started in December 2001 and the inaugural concert was held in December 2007.

With an excellent location to the west of Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall of the People, it is very near the Forbidden City. The exterior of the theater is a titanium accented glass dome that is completely surrounded by a man-made lake. It is said to look like an egg floating on water, or a water drop. It was designed as an iconic feature, something that would be immediately recognizable.

The dome measures 212 meters in east–west direction, 144 meters in north–south direction, and is 46 meters high. The main entrance is at the north side. Guests arrive in the building after walking through a hallway that goes underneath the lake. The titanium shell is broken by a glass curtain in north–south direction that gradually widens from top to bottom.

National Centre of the Performing Arts of Beijing, stands the highest level of performing house in China, counterparting with famous Broadway Theatre of New York city. As the most bright spiritual symbol, National Centre of the Performing Arts once was highly praised by USA Today as a strong evidence for increasing comprehensive strenghs of China for its perfect modern architecture and highest status in Performing Arts and Music.
For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com

Beijing Capital Museum

Although Capital Museum in Beijing pales in comparison to the visitors received in other major attractions, such as Forbidden City (Palace Museum) and Badaling Great Wall, it has became more and more popular among home and abroad. With its incomparable cultural function, the museum offers systematic presentation and knowledge to visitors on China history and culture.

Located on Chang'an Avenue of Xicheng District, Capital Museum began its initial work at 1953, and till 1981 it opened to the public. In 2001, the museum started to develop its construction with taking Beijing Confucian Temple as its precursor, and finished in May 2006. By adopting advanced technology and first-class management, the Capital Museum collects over 200,000 cultural relics and exhibits in several different theme halls. Good news for us that since 2008, the museum has been free to visitors with a limit of 4000 per day.

The majority of exhibits at the Capital Museum are cultural relics unearthed in Beijing. The Museum is a modern exhibition center with unique Beijing characteristics representing Beijing's history, cultural relics, archaeological discoveries and cutting-edge research results of relevant disciplines. The Museum has cast out dull exhibition modes of the past and offers an experience-based tour fully capitalizing on modern exhibition techniques.

The museum opens several major exhibition halls according to different themes, such as bronze, jadeware, chinaware, painting, calligraphy and buddha, etc. Famous for the oval-shape Bronze Exhibition Hall and Jade Ware Exhibition Hall, also, museum's some temporary exhibition halls often accept a amount of relics and collections from other museums or private exhibitions to exhibit for a short term.

The most distinctive feature of the Museum is its unswerving focus on the transformation and development of Beijing and telling the story of an ancient Chinese city with a multi-dimensional interpretation involving such aspects as geography, folk customs, antiques, etc. Permanent exhibitions at the Museum include Ancient Capital - History and Culture, Ancient Capital Beijing - Urban Construction, and Old Stories of Beijing - Exhibition of Old Beijing Folk Customs. The core purpose of the exhibitions is to meticulously display Beijing's history and culture. These exhibitions are like a history book by which we can try to decipher Beijing.

In addition to the above, other permanent exhibitions at the Museum include seven exhibitions on the Fine Art of Ancient Chinaware, Bronzeware, Calligraphy, Paintings, Jade Ware, Buddhist Statues and fine articles of the scholar’s study. The exhibitions assist and reinforce the visitors’ understanding of Beijing culture.
For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com