A complete guide to traveling in Beijing with kids for 8 days and 7 nights, Day 1 Qianmen Street + Tiananmen Chapter

Last month I went to Chongqing, which my brother has always been thinking about, and this month I have to go to Beijing, where my brother wants to go, so that they feel: it’s fair...

In fact, we also feel that after my brother entered elementary school, he usually has no time to travel far away. He can only go out during the winter and summer vacations. However, the weather during the winter and summer vacations is not good, the summer vacation is very hot, and the winter vacation is very cold. It is also the peak travel period, so people will be more cautious. There are so many, so I thought about it and took advantage of the last stage of kindergarten to go on a trip!

This time we were in Beijing for 8 days and 7 nights. The itinerary is as follows. In some places, we made a route along the way as planned, but we did not achieve it due to various reasons during the actual activity, but I still wrote it down for your reference.

6.6: Arrive in Beijing in the afternoon, Qianmen Street + Tiananmen Square

6.7: Badaling Great Wall

6.8: Summer Palace + Old Summer Palace (actually the two places are together, but we didn’t have the energy to continue visiting the Old Summer Palace after visiting the Summer Palace) + Sanlitun + Shimao Tianjie

6.9: Forbidden City + Jingshan Park (it rained heavily that day, so I didn’t go to Jingshan Park)

6.10: National Museum of China + Temple of Heaven Park

6.11: Prince Gong’s Mansion + Nanluogu Lane + Shichahai + Dongjiaomin Lane

6.12: China Railway Museum (Eastern Suburbs Branch)

6.13: One-day trip to Daxing International Airport (the flight was delayed for more than 7 hours), Beijing-Shanghai

About staying : The closer to Tiananmen, the more expensive the hotel price, so we chose a location on the East Fourth Ring Road, which is relatively close to the subway. Although this arrangement is a bit far from the center, the transportation is still very convenient. You can also choose a hotel with better conditions at the same price.

So my suggestion is, considering the economy, you don’t have to live in a very central place. As long as you live close to a subway station, a place with convenient transportation is actually a good choice.

Since there is a lot of content, I will write a separate article based on the daily play content.

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Day1: Visit Qianmen Street to eat Peking duck + watch the flag lowering ceremony in Tiananmen Square

It was already afternoon when we arrived in Beijing. After resting at the hotel, we planned to go shopping around Tiananmen Square and have dinner on Qianmen Street.

Qianmen Street is a very famous commercial street in Beijing. Before the construction of the Outer City in the 29th year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1550), it was the royal road for the emperor to go out of the city to the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Mountains and Rivers. After the construction of the Outer City, it became the main north-south street of the Outer City. It was called Zhengyangmen Street during the Republic of China, and was officially named Qianmen Street in 1965.

When you go to Qianmen Street, you will see that it is actually an antique pedestrian street.

This Qianmen Street is a little different from the Qianmen Street I imagined. I don’t know if it’s the classical buildings that look very new and deliberate that make me feel that they are missing some charm, or if this street is just for tourists. It felt like there were not many locals coming here, so we had no intention of strolling around slowly. Instead, we quickly walked by and came to Bianyifang to eat roast duck.

Peking duck is indeed delicious, but it will make you tired if you eat too much, so green onions are indispensable. My brother thought it was amazing, so he ate a lot that day and got tired of it. As a result, when he ate Peking duck in another restaurant a few days later, he didn’t even eat much. He said he was tired of it~ I almost couldn’t laugh or cry~

When eating this Qianlong cabbage dish, even the children said, why is this dish so sweet? [Face covering] We also explained that sugar was an ingredient that was difficult for humans to obtain in the past, so eating a lot of sugar was also a status symbol. If you were an emperor, you would eat it very sweetly to show your noble status. Although we are interpreting it as we take it for granted, we feel that it should be the same ~ hahaha~

This meal of Beijing food made us all think that Beijing food is just so sweet! At that time, I told Hu Xiansen, who will say that Shanghai food is sweet next time? I was worried with him, how can Beijing food be as sweet?

Fortunately, a few days later, we met up with an old classmate from Beijing for dinner. She took us to eat more delicious Beijing food, which finally stopped us from misunderstanding that Beijing food is so sweet.

After eating, we walked around slowly and arrived at Tiananmen Square.

I visited Beijing about 10 years ago. Tiananmen Square at that time was different from what it is now. There was no security check at all. This time, I had to go through two security checks before I could enter.

The two little ones came to Tiananmen Square for the first time. They felt a little excited because they had seen and heard about Tiananmen many times in books, songs, and electronic media. This time they came to the real Tiananmen Square. , it can be seen that they are quite excited in their hearts.

There are flag-raising and flag-lowering ceremonies every day in Tiananmen Square. The flag-raising time this week is basically 4:35 in the morning. The flag-lowering time will be slightly different. This day it is 19:40. When we were playing in the square, there were already many people waiting in front.

Although it is a bit far away, you can still see the super handsome steps of the honor guard. Especially when doing some actions, the neat and loud sounds will come over. It can be heard clearly despite the hustle and bustle of the scene. As you can imagine , how exciting it would be to hear it near them!

At the moment when the national flag was lowered, all the lights in Tiananmen Square lit up instantly. At that moment, it felt very romantic and magnificent!

After the flag-lowering ceremony, the square will be cleared immediately, so if you want to take photos, you have to hurry up. We didn’t know this at the time. I wanted to wait until there were fewer people around before taking photos, but it was too late, so I could only take them casually. The two little ones only took a few pictures...

This first day gave the two children a preliminary impression of Beijing. The following trip will give them a more profound and three-dimensional experience of Beijing. We will continue tomorrow!