Subject: [79attendees] Summer Palace by Subway (longer)

From: "Bjoern A. Zeeb" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 22:49:46 +0000 (UTC)

Good morning,

based on my yesterday's experience if you like walking, getting to the
Summer Palace by Subway is doable.
http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/Travel/Sightseeing/Summer_Palace/

Path to the subway (pictures of the bridges were posted already).
Walk out the Shangri-La, turn right, cross the bridge a bit further
down, get off left back in directions of the Hotel you'll find another
bridge rightish you want to cross to head eastwards.  Then you should
be able to take any of the next three to your left crossing Zizhuyuan Rd.
Taking the first one gets you to the Purple Bamboo Park which even if
you are following only from the street can show you some local dancing
lessons, ... You could possibly walk through, left as an exercise to
the OSPF of the reader.  If you get to a pedestrian underpass you turn
left before that and it'll be another ~400m to the station.  Takes you
probably half an hourish to get there.  People staying at the Nikko
might know this, as it's partly the way to the Shangri-La for them
(reverse direction).

You can find pictures of the national library and a map from
around there as well here:
 	http://labs.chinamobile.com/wiise/meeting/venue

I found this in addition to a dual-language Beijing Subway map
helpful:
http://www.explorebj.com/subway/pedia/station/national-library/

Getting tickets is easy; if you cannot handle the machines just go
to a counter and use your fingers.  Tickets seem to be 2RMB per person
and trip. Everything inside the station or on the subway was bilingual.
If you have a bag, throw it on the xray pick it up and walk through.
Then make sure you know the end station of the direction you are going
and check LED maps they have at the platforms at the train entraces
gates.  You want direction Anheqiao North.

It'll be a ~15-20 minutes ride.  Enjoy the hundreds of meters of digital
ads on the tunnel walls;)

You can get off at either Xiyuan or Beigongmen.  The former will get
you to the main entrance.

http://www.explorebj.com/subway/pedia/station/xiyuan/

If you get out of the station on the wrong side, either use the
station to cross or cross at the traffic lights.
You want a west exist of the subway and need to go a bit north and then
follow the long straight road going west with wide sidewalks on both
sides for about 10min. At the end of that road walk around the busses
and you'll get to the East Gate entrance, where most of the booked
tours seem to hit the place.
If you want to go back to the Subway from that East Gate entrance
you can get a lift with a rickshaw for an unknown amount of RMB.
Do not follow the masses of people heading to their bus.  They are
most likely not going in the direction of the subway station, as there
are a lot more busses along the outer east side of the park.

If you decide you want to walk more and enjoy the quiter parts of the
park (first or at all), go one stop further as I did:

http://www.explorebj.com/subway/pedia/station/beigongmen/

You want exit C or D I think and there may be a paper sign on the wall
at the exist saying "Summer Palace".  If you get out turn leftish and
follow the road past the bus stop and some locals selling stuff to get
to the North Gate entrance.

For either stop, for the route from the station to the entrance,
there are usually no signs so that's the most adventures part of the
trip, especially if you start at the North Gate and go back from Xiyuan;)

At either gate you have multiple options for tickets and you'll
probably be approached by someone asking if you need a guide.
There seem to be electronic guides as well and people sell maps of the
park for 10RMB or such.  For tickets it'll depend on what you want to
see.  An entrace ticket should be 20RMB but several places inside are
another 10RMB usually.  Not sure if you want the 50RMB combined ticket
(Summer Palace, Garden of Virtue and Harmony, Wengchang Gallery [near
East Gate entrance], Suzhou Street [North Gate], Tower of Buddhist
Innocense) unless you want to see everything. Will also depend on
whether you just want to walk around or visit all the places.
There are signs leading you to the main attractions inside once in a
while (dual language).

Again, in the quiter spots of the park you'll find locals practising
or making music or singing which can be enjoyable if you want to sit
down and rest a bit.  The 'taste' of the air in the garden was different
to the city and if you get down to the lake and the groups you could
also try to find the idle paths off.  I have seen small groups of
people 2-4 with private English speaking guides there as well.  For
sure different to the groups with megaphones.

It might be advisable to have a bottle of water with you if you don't
do the lake-only thing but also climb up to the Tower of Buddhist
Innocense and it's a warm day.  There are shops inside as well, mostly
at the East Gate entrance side.

You can easily spend half a day at this world heritage site or walk
through in 2 hours.  Opening hours seem to be 9am to at least 16pm
currently.

Enjoy!

/bz

-- 
Bjoern A. Zeeb                              Welcome a new stage of life.
         <ks> Going to jail sucks -- <bz> All my daemons like it!
   http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/jails.html

---

From: Hui Deng <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2010 23:04:02 +0800

cool

2010/11/6 Bjoern A. Zeeb <[email-masked]>

> _______________________________________________
> 79attendees mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/79attendees
>