Northern Capital

Beijing, or 北京 in Chinese, literally means "Northern Capital". The name was bestowed on this ancient city after the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty decided to make Beijing his primary home, taking the top spot from Nanjing, 南京, which appropriately translates to Southern Capital.

That same emperor, who had overthrown his nephew to get the throne, is responsible for one of the most iconic and impressive sights in Beijing - the Forbidden City. This massive complex was constructed in the early 1400s and housed Ming and Qing Emperors until the early part of the 20th century. The palace was off limits to the public for five hundred years, but now, visitors can enter through the Gate of Heavenly Peace, adorned since 1949 with a big picture of a rosy-cheeked Chairman Mao.

Gate of Heavenly Peace

From there, it can take half a day or more to explore the 7,800,000 square feet interior, containing  hundreds of buildings with evocative names like "Hall of Mental Cultivation" and "Palace of Heavenly Purity".

Forbidden City

It gets seriously crowded in there, especially on a sunny Saturday morning, but the tour groups tend to follow the same path straight through the central halls so it is easy enough to find moments of solitude in the less tour-choked parts. And even the constant squawking and shoving at the more popular buildings could not take away from the magnificence of the Forbidden City.

Inside the Forbidden City

The Yongle Emperor didn't stop at building his palace. He also started construction on the Temple of Heaven, a place for the emperor in his role as Son of Heaven to pray for good harvests. The buildings are now tourist attractions while the surrounding park throngs with a delightful mix of mahjong players, card sharps, amateur musicians, tai chi practitioners and Sunday strollers.

Temple of Heaven

As far as actual temples in Beijing, the city is home to one of the most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries outside of Tibet - the Yonghegong Lama Temple.

Yonghegong Lama Temple

The temple contains a series of elaborate buildings, each holding sacred Buddhist statues and paintings, surrounded by worshippers burning incense and praying.

Tibetan Buddhist Monks chanting

Inside one of the temple buildings, I was fortunate enough to see the Buddhist monks in action, chanting from sacred texts, banging on drums and blowing giant tibetan horns. It was very loud, and not exactly melodious, but strangely spiritual regardless.

Confucius Temple

Across the road from the Lama Temple is the much quieter, and emptier, Confucius Temple. No worshippers here, just an orderly and harmonic garden, and exhibits extolling the life and virtues of China's most famous philosopher.

Ghost Street

There are plenty of places to grab food in Beijing, including the famous Ghost Street lined with restaurants above. But I eschewed the spicy offerings there in favor of the most famous dish in town - Peking Duck.

Peking Duck

The well-regarded duck at the Quanjude restaurant was tasty, though not as crispy as its western counterpart, and came with the standard pancakes, scallions and sauce. Much to my amusement, the waiter, who spoke as much English as I speak Chinese, decided I was clearly too incompetent to compose my own pancake. With a blur of chopsticks and a roll of the eyes, he perfectly wrapped up a sliver of duck, scallion and sauce for me before I'd even registered what was on the table.

Walking the Great Wall

What better way to work off a belly full of roast poultry than a visit to the Great Wall of China? After reading horror stories about tours that spent most of the time herding tourists into crappy trinket shops, I was fortunate to find a perfect tour with the Beijing Downtown Backpackers Association. The minibus dropped us off at the Great Wall at Mutianyu about 56 miles northeast of Beijing, then picked us up for lunch three hours later and drove us back. Not a trinket in sight!

Great Wall at Mutianyu

Chairman Mao once said "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a man", which I guess means I've now grown a pair. The wall at Mutianyu, especially for the first 6 watchtowers or so, was surprisingly steep. My calves protested for days afterwards, and my hamstrings went on strike. Anyone with mobility problems would find it difficult if not impossible to become "a man" here, though other sections of the wall are more friendly and step-free.

Steep Steps at Mutianyu

The Great Wall was started in the Qin dynasty more than 2200 years ago. It is not one continuous structure, but rather a series of walls and natural impediments stretching across China. Hundreds if not thousands of workers died making the wall, and much of it was later torn down for building material, or left to erode. It is no longer visible from space, if indeed it ever was, but the parts that are left are more than testament to this incredible piece of Chinese engineering.

Beijing Hutong

The Great Wall isn't the only piece of historical China to suffer through neglect or active dismantling in favor of modernization. Much like New York replaced the beautiful old Penn Station with the monstrosity of Madison Square Garden, and took out whole neighborhoods to build wide roads, Beijing is currently tearing down huge swathes of the old town and its distinctive "hutong" alleyways and building skyscrapers instead. This is nothing new, the Beijing city walls were torn down decades ago to make room for traffic, but for this visitor, who wishes the old Penn station was still around, it was a shame to see Old China subsumed so quickly into New China.

Haze over Tiananmen Square

One constant in most of the cities I visited in China was the air pollution that turned the sun hazy most days. The first day I was Beijing, it was so bad that I could literally taste the chemicals in the air. It was amazing to me that just a month after my visit, when the U.S. embassy rated the air quality as "hazardous", 30,000 people actually ran a marathon through Beijing. I didn't even ride a bicycle for fear of wheezing.

Bird's Nest Stadium

Beijing did manage to curb pollution during the 2008 Olympic games. Today, the famous Bird's Nest Stadium is a tourist site that hosts occasional special events. Visiting it did make me wonder just how many of the new buildings in China, the visible signs of the country's impressive and rapid leap into the 21st century, are also mostly empty. And just what happens if and when the country takes a breather from its break-neck transformation to modernity to deal with the unintended consequences. For an interesting look at what that might entail, I highly recommend reading "When a Billion Chinese Jump" by Guardian correspondent Jonathan Watts. I've read it twice so far on this trip alone.