Beijing: Best 3-Day Itinerary for Must See Landmarks and Must Eats!

Beijing, China's capital, is one of the world's most historical cities documenting the country's long and complex backstory. In this episode, we're taking you through our three-day quick trip to some of the world's most iconic landmarks and of course show you all the mouth-watering local foods that you can't miss when you're here. Let's go! This time we'll be flying from Hong Kong to Beijing and the flight time is around three and a half hours. Before we start the trip, the first tip I want to share with you guys is that if you usually take the Airport Express to the airport, you can now get half price on the Airport Express by taking a taxi to the Airport Express stations. As long as your taxi fare is over HK$50, you can redeem this discount at the Customer Service Centre at the station and the discount will be applied onto your Octopus Card. Hi everyone! We're off for a very different trip this time because we're at the Hong Kong International Airport. We're flying off to Beijing and Xi'an for a seven-day family trip. Super, super excited because I haven't been up north in such a long time but it's gonna be so cold which is nice because we haven't had a cold Christmas in a long time too. See you guys later! Bye! Once we got to the airport, we met up with our parents and Nick did some last-minute work before we went off. We landed in Beijing in the evening time so naturally we were hungry. We quickly got through immigration and customs because our family friend was already waiting for us to take us to dinner. They didn't tell us what we'd be eating for dinner but we soon found out that it was one of the fanciest and most delicious dinners we've ever had. The restaurant was at Legendale Hotel which was absolutely stunning too. Don't ask us how much the dinner costed because we lost the fight to the bill but if you're ever looking for a fancy meal in the city, this is definitely a good one. P.S. we were told the chef used to serve former presidents of China. After dinner, we finally started to make our way to the hotel. I had booked a boutique hotel located in the Wangfujing area inside Hutong which are traditional narrow streets commonly found in northern cities of China. The hotel was beautiful and staff were so friendly. Our room was quite standard, clean and simple and our parents' room came with their own little entrance and patio too. Anyway, time for bed. See you guys in the morning. Good morning, this is our official first day in Beijing. I'm so excited. We have planned a lot for today but also for the next couple of days. It is a very jam-packed three days that we have here especially because Beijing is such a big city and there's so much to see and so much good food to try. So yeah, so excited to share with you guys what we get up to. Go find my parents. Oh, the hotel looks so pretty. The hotel served coffee and breakfast. So while we're waiting for Nick, I did a bit more research to our agenda and made some changes based on what our family friends told us last night. Once Nick was back from his run and everyone's had their coffees, we headed straight out to search for some local Beijing breakfast. The first place I want to take you guys to is a local stall that sells only one thing. Miancha is a type of porridge that uses millet as the base and then adding a thick layer of sesame paste on top. We took a DD from our hotel straight to Daxing Hutong where I've heard from locals that there's a really popular place that there that makes good miancha. It's ours. Oh, okay. 12 yuan. Okay, thank you. It's Korean porridge. Interesting. The miancha definitely grew on me. You can think of it as a simple filling sesame butter porridge that will definitely keep you full for hours. We walked around the hutong afterwards and saw some people queuing up. So of course we joined in. Turns out they make dianbing, a type of crepe that's popular in the region too. I looked up this unassuming stall afterwards and guess what? It's actually been voted as one of the best in town. It's good. Spicy. How do you tackle this guy? Okay, now that our bellies are full, it's finally time for the main agenda. Forbidden City. We grabbed a DD and a tip is to get dropped off at Donghua Men because there's a lot of security checks at the main gate in the Tian'anmen area. Plus you also get a really nice walk around the park. The Forbidden City was the main residence for 24 emperors across the Ming and Qing dynasties, making it an important political landmark for over 500 years. Construction first began in 1406 and it houses an extensive collection of artwork and artifacts. It is also huge with over 8,000 rooms and just being here you can really feel the opulence of the emperors and it definitely makes you feel like you're in a TV show. You can walk around the palace for hours with different exhibitions and gardens. But one thing you cannot miss is getting a bird's eye view of the Forbidden City. Before you leave the area, make sure you go across the road to the garden opposite. From there you can walk up a small hill and you can see how big and grand the city really is. Now that we've done some walking, it's time for some food. I've been craving Beijing style jjajangmyeon for the longest time so I'm so excited for lunch. I've booked my noodle chain for a while so we hopped onto a taxi and off we went. But when we arrived there was a queue so while we waited we took a stroll to grab some snacks. Jjajangmyeon is a dry noodle that you mix with minced meat sauce and a variety of different toppings and different provinces have different tastes on it too. There's so many things here. This is also good. So first step, they said, put the oil from the sauce in here. Then we can put the sauce in there as much as we like. After lunch, we took a stroll around the area as this is also a popular tourist area. It's a modernized hutong shopping street with a lot of traditional architecture maintained. We also stumbled on a famous coffee shop located inside a hutong. A good cup of coffee was just what we needed after that meal. Right, we shouldn't digress though. Next up on our agenda is to visit the Temple of Heaven. The Temple of Heaven, built at a similar time to the Forbidden City, was a site for emperors in the Ming and Qing dynasty to perform annual ceremonies of prayers. It is a world heritage site and is praised as a masterpiece of architectural design. Similar to Forbidden City, it's best to book your tickets beforehand. I like using the official WeChat mini program to buy the tickets as it's usually the cheapest. But if that's not accessible, you can also look up online travel agencies. But just make sure you purchase tickets for both the garden and also the landmarks because that's what I actually missed to buy. Apart from the main attraction, there's actually quite a few other things you can check out in the garden using the same ticket. One being the Echo Wall and the other the Circular Mound Altar. The altar in particular was so grand and fairytale-like. It definitely made me think of the Chinese mythical TV shows. So apparently this is the Echo Wall and we're gonna try and talk to my parents via this wall. Let's see if it works. Merry Christmas! I can't hear anything. The sun is setting which means it's nearly time for dinner. My parents took a quick nap back at the hotel while I tried to get in line for the restaurants that I bookmarked. Tonight is the night for Peking Duck. I'm actually quite tired. We went to quite a few sites, saw a lot of things, walked a lot. We're just gonna take a bit of a rest before we grab dinner. We're currently queuing up at multiple restaurants via the app. The one that we really want to go to, we still got 87 tables in front of us. But it's progressed because about 30 minutes ago, it was about 120 tables in front of us. So yeah. While we're waiting, we are going to grab a snack. We finally got our table at one of the restaurants that I bookmarked. Thankfully, it was just a quick 10-minute DD ride, so we got there in no time. Restaurant had very traditional interiors and maybe because it's a weekend, they also have performances throughout the night. We ordered some of their assiduatures including a beef pastry and of course, the Peking Duck. Everything was so good which made me wonder how the other Peking Duck restaurants would taste like. Mmm, this is good. What a nice meal. Another super cold day here in Beijing. We have an early start today because we're going to the Great Wall of China. Because of that, we're probably not gonna go out for breakfast and just grab some quick food from the hotel before we head off. So excited, but it's so cold. It's minus four degrees right now. So excited. Our family friend had booked us a car to take us to the Great Wall, but it is also recommended that you ask your hotel to book private transfers or to join a tour because the Great Wall is quite far away from the city. There are also a few different entrances for the Great Wall, the most popular one being Badaling, but to avoid the crowds, we've decided to go to Mutianyu which is a bit further away from the city, but hopefully less busy. Similar to all the sites, please make sure you book your tickets beforehand. For Mutianyu, you should also book the tickets for the transfer bus as well as the cable cars. The climb? Yep, the proper climb starts now after the cable car ride. It's crazy to think how people back then even got up here thousands of years ago. The Great Wall of China dates back to the 7th century before Christ. It was initially built across northern Chinese states for protection against nomadic groups. The wall was extended across different dynasties with the best-known sections built in the Ming Dynasty. It spans over 20,000 kilometers and is voted as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. The defensive system of the Great Wall has regularly been praised as one of the most impressive architectures in history. You really have to come here to feel how impressive it really is and I'm sure if you came in the summertime, it'll be even more beautiful with all the forestry. You can walk for hours along the wall, but do be careful as certain parts are really quite steep. After about an hour of walking, we were all getting a bit hungry so we decided to head back down. But on the way out, we noticed there was a place for tobogganing. Tickets were a bit expensive, but sliding down the Great Wall, it had to be done. We are taking the chairlift up. Yeah, oh you can actually go quite quick. Oh my god, I'm scared. You can go for a round in China. Yeah, expensive. Fun things cost a lot of money. Get in the camera. I hate him so much. That was fun. I'm so frozen. Now we're properly hungry. There are limited restaurants in the area as you can imagine, but our driver took us to this one restaurant and it was surprisingly good. The dumplings were so good actually. Definitely not a tourist trap. My agenda after the Great Wall was to check out the Summer Palace, but I was told that there won't be much to see since it's wintertime, so we decided to skip it. Instead, on the way back, we asked the driver to take us to the Olympic Park to see the Bird's Nest Stadium. After that, I wanted to check out Shi Ta Hai for its sunset. It is an area made up of three lakes and is a historical district with former residences and monuments scattered around. In the summertime, you can go for a boat ride on the lake and when it's cold enough, it turns into an ice rink. There are lots of bars, restaurants and snacks all around too. My dad has been asking to try Dou Zhi, which is a type of fermented green bean juice from Beijing. It's meant to be great for the body, but the taste from what I remembered was not nice at all. But I'm willing to give it another try. For dinner, we couldn't leave Beijing without having the Beijing-style Xuan Rou hotpot. Main difference between this and the Cantonese-style hotpot is that the Beijing-style specializes in thin, paper-sliced lamb meat. This restaurant was recommended by our local friends and it really was that amazing. We had all types of top-quality lamb and beef, like this one meter-long platter of lamb slices, as well as some seafood and snacks. Would also highly recommend these bamboo shoots and the sesame pastry. I'm drooling as we speak. Our friends also brought some Chinese Bai Jiu. I don't normally drink, but wanted to give it a go and it was very strong. The last challenge of the night is to try stinky tofu. Not the deep-fried ones that you see in Hong Kong, but this grey, patty-like paste. It really was very stinky. Smells kind of like public toilets, if I'm honest. But if you cover your nose, it doesn't taste as bad. Morning, everyone. It's our last day here in Beijing before we head off to Xi'an. So we have a very chill day today. We're gonna go off first to grab breakfast and then we are off to see one last landmark before we leave. And then we have a super long train ride to Xi'an, which will be nice. But yeah, anyway, see you guys in a bit. Breakfast was a local eatery that seemed to have good ratings online. It was very basic with buns and porridge. It did the job, but I wouldn't say it was amazing. After breakfast, we walked around the local neighborhood, checked out some bookshops, found a cool pastry shop before making our way to Tiananmen Square. Biggest tip for those looking to visit the square is to take the metro rather than a DD. There is so much security around the area, you'll end up walking for ages. We didn't book to go inside the square because I was told with all the security, it's not really that worth it anymore. So we just admired it from afar. Nick and I then went to check out a famous coffee shop, Metal Hands, for one last cuppa before we leave. We had their signature pistachio coffee and an oat latte, and it was pretty good. We bought some greens home and off to the station we went. Being us, we picked up some snacks at the train ride and that's the end of our Beijing trip. It's been such a nice trip and I love just walking around hutongs and seeing all the historical landmarks that are so important to Chinese history. So sad that it was so short, but hopefully this gives you an idea of how much you can still do in just three days. See you guys in our next episode where we go check out Xi'an and the Terracotta Warriors.