The Mutianyu Great Wall is about 75 kilometers northeast of Beijing. It's the most famous section for foreigners .  Unlike Badaling Great Wall, Mutianyu has a beautiful landscape all the year round, but less tourists there. It was built in the Ming Dynasty, served as a very important  and  strategic pass in the old days.  There are two unique features of the Mutianyu Great Wall.  The other parts of the Great  Wall have battlements on the outer sider only. But  the surroundding wall of the Mutianyu section with merlons on both sides. So, you can image  how  important strategic place it was .Sometimes,  the enemy came from  either side.  Another feature of Mutianyu Great Wall is the branch walls. Which was built on the mountain ridge but connected with the main wall. There was the watch tower on the branch wall also. 

   It's accessible by cable cars from below, and use the toboggan to slide down.

Bus No. 926 to Huai rou Country , and take a Mini bus ( 10 RMB or 20 RMB ) to the Great Wall.

The Summer Palace is located on the northwest outskirts of Beijing, about 20 kilometers away from the center of the city. It is formed mainly of Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake ，covering a total area of over 290 hectares while Kunming Lake occupies three quarters of the whole area. As the best preserved imperial garden in the world and one of the largest of its kind still existing in China today, it was placed on the List of World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 1998.

According to the legend ,there were supposed to be 3 islands called Penglai, Yingzhou and Fangzhang to the east of Bohai Bay, where people believed that the Gods lived. One of the island-Penglai Island was where a kind of Chinese herbal medicine grew which was supposed to prolong people’s lives. Emperor Qin Shihuang ,the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty and Emperor Wu Di in the Han Dynasty both sent lots of people to look for the herbal longevity medicine in Penglai Island but both of them failed . After the failure, Emperor Wu Di ordered people to dig a big pool at the back of his palace with 3 artificial hills representing the 3 Fairland Mountains of Penglai, Yingzhou and Fangzhang. Since Han Wu Di built a big pool with 3 artificial hills in his garden, this layout became a traditional legendary style of gardening followed by one dynasty after another. The Summer Palace was also built in this traditional style.

“Although it is artificial, it looks like the masterpiece from the hands of God.” This is a basic construction theory in our ancient Chinese Architecture . And the Summer Palace has been the most beautiful illustration of it.

East Gate of the Summer Palace (Dong-gong-men Stop):
Bus 330、331、332、346、394、712、718、726、732、737、801、808、817、826

North Gate of the Summer Palace (Bei-gong-men Stop):
Bus 303、330、331、346、375、384、393、634、716、718、737、801、808、817、834、Express 5

South Gate of the Summer Palace ( Xin-jian-gong-men Stop):
Bus 374、437、481、952、704、992

West Gate of the Summer Palace ( Xin-jian-gong-men Stop):
Bus 469

The Ming Tombs are located in Changping District, about 50 kms to the northwest of Beijing. This imperial cemetery covers an area of 80 km2 with 13 Ming emperors, 23 empresses, many imperial concubines, princes and princesses buried here. These tombs are the best preserved of all Chinese imperial tombs. There are a total of 13 Ming emperors buried in this area, so it is called the “13 Ming Tombs” in Chinese. In 1961, the Chinese Government listed the 13 Ming Tombs as one of the important monuments under special preservation, and in 2003, the 13 Ming Tombs were listed as a world cultural heritage site by UNESCO.

So far, only 3 tombs are open to the public- Chang Ling, Ding Ling and Zhao Ling. And only the underground palace in Ding Ling was excavated.

The initial section of the wall has been restored to original condition, so I was totally amazed by its historic beauty and landscape. Unlike the bareness of Simatai section, Jinshanling is the real Great Wall in my heart. There was nobody on the Wall when we were hiking. The Great Wall is all yours! More pictures in my mini-album in Synotrip.

Cable Way: CNY 50 (round-trip) ; CNY 30 (one-way) By Bus 1. Take a bus to Miyun County at Beijing Dongzhimen Long Distance Bus Station, and take the local tourist bus to Jinshanling Great Wall in Miyun County. 2. Take a bus to Chengde at Liuliqiao Long Distance Bus Station, the bus leaves at about every one hour between 08:00 and 18:00, and get off at Jinshanling Intersection, and take a taxi or walk to Jinshanling Great Wall.

The Beijing National Stadium, also known as the bird's nest will be the main track and field stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics and will be host to the Opening and Closing ceremonies. In 2002 Government officials engaged architects worldwide in a design competition. Pritzker Prize-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron collaborated with ArupSport and China Architecture Design & Research Group to win the competition. The stadium will seat as many as 100,000 spectators during the Olympics, but this will be reduced to 80,000 after the games. It has replaced the original intended venue of the Guangdong Olympic Stadium. The stadium is 330 metres long by 220 metres wide, and is 69.2 metres tall. The 250,000 square metre (gross floor area) stadium is to be built with 36 km of unwrapped steel, with a combined weight of 45,000 tonnes. The stadium will cost up to 3.5 billion yuan (422,873,850 USD/ 325,395,593 EUR). The ground was broken in December 2003, and construction started in March 2004, but was halted by the high construction cost in August 2004.

In the new design, the roof of the stadium had been omitted from the design. Experts say that this will make the stadium safer, whilst reducing construction costs. The construction of the Olympic buildings will continue once again in the beginning of 2005.


In depth
The stadium's appearance is one of synergy, with no distinction made between the facade and the superstructure. The structural elements mutually support each other and converge into a grid-like formation - almost like a bird's nest with its interwoven twigs. The spatial effect of the stadium is novel and radical, yet simple and of an almost archaic immediacy, thus creating a unique historical landmark for the Olympics of 2008.

The stadium was conceived as a large collective vessel, which makes a distinctive and unmistakable impression both from a distance and when seen from up close. It meets all the functional and technical requirements of an Olympic National Stadium, but without communicating the insistent sameness of technocratic architecture dominated by large spans and digital screens.

Visitors walk through this formation and enter the spacious ambulatory that runs full circle around the stands. From there, one can survey the circulation of the entire area including the stairs that access the three tiers of the stands. Functioning like an arcade or a concourse, the lobby is a covered urban space with restaurants and stores that invite visitors to stroll around. Just as birds stuff the spaces between the woven twigs of their nests with a soft filler, the spaces in the structure of the stadium will be filled with inflated ETFE cushions. Originally, on the roof, the cushions were to be mounted on the outside of the structure to make the roof completely weatherproof, but the roof has been omitted from the design in 2004.

While the rain was to be collected for rainwater recuperation, the sunlight was to filter through the translucent roof, providing the lawn with essential ultraviolet radiation. On the facade, the inflated cushions will be mounted on the inside of the structure where necessary, e.g. to provide wind protection. Since all of the facilities -- restaurants, suites, shops and restrooms -- are all self-contained units, it is possible to do largely without a solid, enclosed facade. This allows for natural ventilation of the stadium, which is the most important aspect of the stadium's sustainable design.

The sliding roof was an integral part of the stadium structure. When it was to be closed, it would have converted the stadium into a covered arena; however, the sliding roof was eliminated in an effort to cut costs and increase overall safety of the radical new structure.