Things to do in Xi'an, Beijing and Shanghai?

[mdgirl]

We're going to those 3 cities next month. It's a work trip for my husband so I'll have a solo day in each one and then we'll have a day or two together. I've never been to any of them (although I have been to China before), he's been to Beijing and Shanghai. 

Xi'an: I know the Terracotta Warriors are a must, but anything else? Any tips for seeing them?

Beijing: I'm thinking I'll do the Forbidden City on my solo day and we'll do a Wall visit together, so the days will be set. Always open to good food suggestions though!

Shanghai: Any good street markets?

And for any of the cities if anyone knows of any good food tours/markets/cool bars I'm all ears. 

TIA!

[thebulldog]

We went in April 2015 and i can write a novel for you when i get home tonight.
Best trip ever.

We did had a full day in Xi'an in addition to the warriors and actually could have stayed another day. Pm me and I can send you a link to our Blurb album.



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[thebulldog]

Also i got a lot of advice from the well traveled ladies here if you do some searches.

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[mdgirl]

Thanks so much thebulldog!

[thebulldog]

Feb 11, 2016 11:14:57 GMT -5 mdgirl said:

We're going to those 3 cities next month. It's a work trip for my husband so I'll have a solo day in each one and then we'll have a day or two together. I've never been to any of them (although I have been to China before), he's been to Beijing and Shanghai. 

Xi'an: I know the Terracotta Warriors are a must, but anything else? Any tips for seeing them?

Beijing: I'm thinking I'll do the Forbidden City on my solo day and we'll do a Wall visit together, so the days will be set. Always open to good food suggestions though!

Shanghai: Any good street markets?

And for any of the cities if anyone knows of any good food tours/markets/cool bars I'm all ears. 

TIA!

So Xi'an. The Terra Cotta Warriors are amazing. It is crazy to walk through a door and see things that are THOUSANDS of years old. We just worked with our hotel to take a cab there. This is the most common thing people do so everyone knows how to get there and we had zero problems. We have a friend teaching in Beijing and he hooked us up with a tour guide for the warriors complex itself. This was very useful. The complex is not THAT big but we liked having someone who knew his way around. Since it was just the two of us, he figured out a way for us to get ahead of the bigger groups, which was nice. After the Terra Cotta Warriors, I recommend a stop at the Hot Springs. It is not far from the Warriors at all, and was a nice break from the cityscape of Xi'an and Beijng we had been in for days before. There is a mountain in that area to where you can take a cable car up. We did not do that but it looked like it would be interesting. 

www.thexianguide.com/Huaqing_Hot_Spring.htm

We did a full day before the Warriors in Xi'an itself and it is was so great. 

I highly recommend a bike ride along the city wall. en1.xian-tourism.com/xiantraveldetail.asp?listID=358

this is really fun and a great way to cover a lot of ground at once. 

We actually really didn't eat at a real restaurant in Xi'an besides breakfast at our hotel...the rest of our "meals" were in the Muslim quarter. I don't care how touristy it is the food was cheap, delicious and the people watching was just awesome. I am a blonde white woman and people stopped to take their picture with me like 50 times. it was crazy. We hung out there for hours one night just sampling things and soaking it in. You have to go there. 

Our warrior guide said that Xi'an is a big intra-China tourist destination so a lot of people come from all over the country to visit there. There is a museum and some other places we just didn't hit too. 

Beijing...the Forbidden City is HUGE. like MASSIVE. We were there for about two hours and covered the highlights but that would be a good way to kill some time. You can get a guide book but tour guides will offer their services to you as you walk in. They should have a license and their English might not be the greatest but it might be worth it. the place is huge and hard to navigate if you don't know where you are going. Our friend living there has been there numerous times so he was our guide. it would have been tricky without him. 

Tiananmen Square is right across the street from the Forbidden City. You can get off a subway stop right there. Our friend recommend we visit the Chinese National Museum which is right there too. We got in free with our passports and there is a special entrance for foreigners. We didn't do the whole museum but it was very interesting to see history from the Chinese governments point of view. 

We did our wall visit to Mutianyu and it was so worth it. We took a ski lift up and a toboggan ride down. We walked about six miles along it, including a steep super climb in one area. It was an exhausting day. Make sure you have very good walking shoes. i had a jacket I kept taking on and off but glad i had it...fun fact: we bought a beer at the top of the stairs mainly because we felt for the poor man who had to walk up there everyday to sell them.

I also recommend Da Dong for duck dinner (omg so good) and getting long in the Hutongs...because you WILL get lost. We walked around Houhai Lake too which had a lot of interesting things to see. We also did the Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace too.....both are massive and full of interesting things to see. 

For Shanghai, our random splurge was a sidecar motorcycle tour. I stumbled across this during one of my 10,000 searches. we laughed it off at first but then DH and I were like what the hell....i can honestly  start a story with "this one time we rode in a sidecar motorcycle in Shanghai." Our guide was awesome and took us to all kinds of interesting places. 

shanghaiinsiders.com/datas/ 
insidersexperience.com/

We did the dumpling tour which was great. We could never have found any of these places or read signs of anything so it was useful to have someone show us what was what. We visited a food market but did not do a street market in the same vein as the muslim quarter in Xi'an. 

This is a start but let me know if you need more details on anything. everyone has been so helpful with my various trips on this board so a I am very happy to return the favor. 

[thebulldog]

also i pm'ed you back with the photo album too.

[katfco]

Suzhou isn't far from Shanghai and would be a good day trip. There are some nice old-town canal sections and beautiful gardens. Zhujiajiao is on the outskirts of Shanghai and is also pretty cool for architecture.

We enjoyed taking a day trip to the Summer Palace in Beijing. For your trip to the Great Wall, you have a few options, depending on what you're looking for. Badaling is the most popular, closest and most restored. Simatai, Jiankou and Jinshangling are the least restored. If I remember correctly, we did Jinshangling.

[thebulldog]

Feb 13, 2016 19:39:04 GMT -5 katfco said:

Suzhou isn't far from Shanghai and would be a good day trip. There are some nice old-town canal sections and beautiful gardens. Zhujiajiao is on the outskirts of Shanghai and is also pretty cool for architecture.

We enjoyed taking a day trip to the Summer Palace in Beijing. For your trip to the Great Wall, you have a few options, depending on what you're looking for. Badaling is the most popular, closest and most restored. Simatai, Jiankou and Jinshangling are the least restored. If I remember correctly, we did Jinshangling.

We did a day trip to Zhujiajiao and it was pretty. A little touristy but still glad we went. It was a nice change of scenery.

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[GilliC]

I wrote a longer response right before my browser died and took my post with it, so here is a shorter follow-up.

Xian

The terra cotta soldiers are obviously a must-see. I went on a tour once, because my parents were with me, and I would definitely recommend just haggling for a taxi for a day and going on your own. You can still visit the other outlying sights if you want, but I didn't find that the guide added enough information to make up for having less flexibility.

If you like natural scenery and are not afraid of heights, Hua-shan is pretty stunning. We took the cable car up and did some light day hiking (really just walking along stone paths and carved steps). Even though the visibility wasn't great while we were there, I still really enjoyed it, since the mountains are so much different than what I'm used to from other parts of the world.

If you'd prefer staying in the city, the city walls are kind of interesting, but the Muslim Quarter is my top pick in town. It's a great place to wander around and there are lots of places to try paomo, Xian's signature dish.

Beijing

The Forbidden City is obviously one of the must-sees, and if you explore some of the side areas, you can spend quite a lot of time. For the Wall, I'm not a fan of Badaling at all, because it's much more crowded and confusing than other parts. I find that even Mutianyu is far less crowded and more enjoyable. If you want fewer crowds and less restoration, Simatai, Jinshhanling, etc. are definitely the best choice.

In the city, beyond the main highlights, my top suggestion for visitors was to spend half a day doing a self-guided walk between the Drum & Bell Towers and Houhai Lake, because it's a fun area to wander around. There are a lot more options now for visiting the hutongs, which is something I'd suggest looking into.

Here are the rest of my Beijing recs:
www.tripadvisor.com/GoListDetail-i17565-An_Unofficial_Travel_Guide_to_Beijing.html

Shanghai

The Shanghai Old Town is worth a visit. I also agree with the PP about the water towns outside Shanghai. Visiting one of the small water towns was at the top of my China wishlist, and it didn't disappoint. We had considered going to Zhujiajiao, but ended up going to Wuzhen, which is a bit less visited by western tourists. It's still a tourist town (mostly for domestic tourists), but it was very picturesque and a great little daytrip.

[pittpurple]

Just another vote for Mutianyu for your Great Wall trip. We went with our 18 month old who wanted to walk, so we only covered a mile or so but it was lovely and quiet (went first thing in the morning). It was really, really hot in June so March sounds much better.

I actually loved the Summer Palace more than the Forbidden City so if you end up with any extra time in Beijing it's really worth it.

[thebulldog]

How was this trip?

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[mdgirl]

Excellent! I debated writing a blog post for it but it wouldn't be too exciting. I did a day trip to Zhujiajiao from Shanghai, and the Terra Cotta Warriors and a food tour in Xi'an. Unfortunately I sprained my foot in the Xi'an airport on our way to Beijing so I didn't do the Forbidden City, but I did do the Temple of Heaven and toughed it out through the Mutianyu section of the wall because I wasn't going to skip that! Probably the most interesting thing I did was attend a banquet for the meeting my husband was there for where everyone was drunk before the food even came out and the three oncologists who organized it got up on stage to sing and dance.