Lying at the center of Beijing, the Forbidden City, called gugong, in Chinese, used to be the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is called the Palace Museum now. It lies 1 kilometer north of the Tian'anmen Square, with its south gate, the Gate of Devine Might (Shenwumen), facing the Jingshan Park. 960 meters long and 750 meters wide, the world largest palace complex covers a floor space of 720,000 square meters, having 9,999 buildings. The rectangular city is encircled in a 52-meter-wide, 6-meter-deep moat and a 10-meter-high, 3,400-meter-long city wall which has one gate on each side. There are four unique and delicate structured corner towers overlooking the city inside and outside on the four corners. Generally, it was divided into two parts, the northern half, or the Outer Court where emperors executed their supreme power over the nation and the southern half, or the Inner Court where they lived with their royal family. Until 1924 when the last emperor in China was driven out of the Inner Court, 14 emperors of the Ming dynasty and 10 emperors of the Qing dynasty had reigned here. About 500 years being the imperial palace, it houses numerous rare treasures and curiosities. It is now listed by the UN as World Cultural Heritage in 1987 and is the hottest tourist magnets.

Construction of the palace complex started in 1407, the 5th year of the Yongle reign of the third emperor of the Ming dynasty, and was completed 14 years later in 1420. It was said that a million workers including 100,000 artisans were driven into the long-term hard labor. Stones needed were quarried from Fangshan, suburb of Beijing. It was said a well was dug along the road every 50 meters in order to pour water onto the road in winter to slide huge stones on ice into the city. Huge amount of timbers and other materials were all freighted from faraway provinces. Ancient Chinese people fully displayed their wisdom in building the Forbidden City. Take the grand red city wall for example, the ladder shaped wall has an 8.6 meters wide bottom and a 6.66 meters wide top. The shape of the city wall totally frustrate attempt to climb onto the wall. The bricks of the wall are said made from white lime and glutinous rice while the cement is made from glutinous rice and egg whites, and these incredible materials make the wall extraordinarily strong.

Locates 11km away from Juyongguan Pass and 60km north of Beijing, Badaling, which means "giving access to every direction", is the best-preserved section of the Great Wall. First built in 1505 with an elevation of 600 meters, the wall average 7.5 meters high, 4 meters thick, 6.5m wide on the base and 5.8m at the top.

tretching out for 4,770m among the rolling mountains, Badaling section of Great Wall is dotted with 19 strategically located watchtowers, which were used to protect the capital against attack in ancient times, bringing Badaling the name of "key to the north gate."

On the top of the wall is a road paved with square bricks, wide enough for six horses or ten soldiers to march side by side. On both sides of the road, outer parapet and inner parapet were set. The outer parapet is crenelated with merlons almost two meters high. The crenels were used as peepholes and the embrasure below each crenel was used as loophole. The inner parapet, which is 1 meter high, was used to prevent the horses and gharries from overturning from the mountains.

Along the wall, there are many signal towers, which were used to transmit military message. In those pre-electricity days, probably fire and smoke were the most efficient ways for communication (normally fire was used at night and smoke during the day). In 1468, a series of regulations were set to give the specific meanings of these signals: a single shot and a single fire or smoke signal implies about 100 enemies, two shots and two signals warned of five hundred, three shots and three signals warned of over a thousand and so on. In this way, a message could be transmitted over more than five hundred kilometers within a few hours.

Badaling fortress, with an elevation of 600 meters, was built in 1505. The walls, built in 1571, are 10meter high, 4meters thick and over 1km long in circumference. The fortress has two gatetowers. A tablet inscribed with "outpost to Juyongguan Pass" is hung on the eastern gate and another one "the Lock on the Northern Gateway" on the western gate. As the entrance to Badaling, this fortress is an important defensive spot on the north side of Juyongguan Pass. If Badaling were seized, it would be difficult to defend Juyongguan Pass. In the Ming dynasty, strong force was garrisoned there.

East of the fortress lies a huge rock, 7 meters long and 2 meters high, which is named Watching Beijing Rock. It was said that the Empress Dowager Cixi once passed here as she fled to the north when the Eight Allied Forces invaded Beijing in 1900. Making a short stop there, she looked toward Beijing and recalled her comfortable life in the Forbidden City. Hence the name.

Badaling, the essence of the Great Wall, in 1987, was listed as the "World Cultural Heritage" by UN. In recent years, this section of Great Wall was repaired and Great Wall Museum, Badaling Great Wall Cableway and other tourism facilities were built near the wall. So far, about 80 million visitors from all over the world, including 300 heads of state and other celebrities from foreign countries visited there. The wall, as the witness of the history, today serves as the friend bridge between the Chinese people and people from other countries.

The Wall extends for a good 3,000 miles from its origin at the seaside in Shanhaiguan (the Old Dragon Head), a seaport along the coast of Bohai Bay in the east, all the way to Jiayu Pass in Gansu Province. Stretching from the eastern part of Liaoning in Northeast China to Lintao (in modern Minxian) on the desert in the northwest of China, it passes through Liaoning, Hebei, Beijing, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Gansu. The Chinese li equals 0.5 kilometer, so the Great Wall is 10,000 li long in Chinese measurement and hence it is known in Chinese as the Ten-Thousand-Li Long Wall. Serious readers who measure it on the map will find out that the actual distance is only about 3,000 kilometers since the wall zigzags along the mountain ridges!

The Great Wall was a gigantic defensive project used in ancient times as early as in the 7th century B.C. For self-protection, rival kingdoms built walls around their territories, laying foundations for the present Great Wall. When Qin Shihuang (First Emperor of the Qin) unified the whole country in 221 B.C., the existing walls were linked up and new ones added to counter attacks by the remnants of the defeated states. The undertaking of such a huge project over difficult terrain at that time without any machinery was an extraordinary feat. A workforce of nearly a million, representing one fifth of the whole labour force of the country, was used to build it. Hardship and cruel treatment brought death to many of the laborers, and tragic stories were told, from which folk-tales and legends came into being.

Subsequent dynasties continued to strengthen and extend the wall. In the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) about 500 kilometers were added to the west, bringing it to present-day Jiuquan and Dunhuang. The Tang empire (618-907) expanded its territory and pushed its frontier further north, so the Great Wall ceased to be needed as a barrier against invasions. In the Kin Dynasty, a massive system of earthworks was constructed to check the invasion by the Mongols, and remains can still be found in Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia. However, the Great Wall did not stop the invasion of the Mongols who conquered the whole country and set up the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). In 1368, when Zhu Yuanzhang drove the Mongol Yuan rulers from the throne and established the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), he started the construction of a new Great Wall to the north of Beijing to secure his northern territories from the remnant Mongol forces since he had established his capital in Nanjing. The wall was built of stone blocks and bricks instead of the rough stones and clay used on the old walls. The size of the Ming wall was much bigger and it stretched from the Yalu River in Liaoning in the east to Jiayuguan in Gansu in the west for a distance of 12,700 li. The part between Yalu River and Shanhaiguan was damaged because of its less solid construction, but the rest has remained until now because it was solidly built. The Manchus had long-time ambitions to conquer the whole of China but they were held back by the Great Wall until a Ming general helped them enter the Shanhaiguan Pass. The Manchu Qing rulers felt it unnecessary to build the wall so very little reconstruction was done.

Today, barbarians from the eight directions all flock to the Great Wall to walk on the only man-made structure visible from space. To look out from one of the guard towers out at the barren mountains and the Wall snaking off into the distance is a view not to be forgotten. Standing on the Wall, you can get a good feel for what the Wall was all about.

The section closest to Beijing city proper is Badaling. This section offers awesome views, but it is also the most crowded, as it is the main Wall featured on all tour routes. Mutianyu is another restored section to the east of Badaling. This section requires a more rigorous climb, however, both Mutianyu and Badaling have cable cars to help you reach the top.

A wilder and less crowded option is to go to the section known as Simatai. This section is much farther away, over 100 kilometers northeast of Beijing, so you will have to make a whole day of a trip here. All of these sections have tours which go there, but the most popular is Badaling, as it is closest.

Beijing's hutongs, lanes or alleys formed by lines of siheyuan (a compound with houses around a courtyard) where old Beijing residents live, witness the vicissitude of the city.

The word "hutong" originates from the word "hottog" which means "well" in Mongolian. Villagers dig out a well and inhabited there. Hutong means a lane or alley, in fact the passage formed by lines of siheyuan (a compound with houses around a courtyard) where old Beijing residents live. Be care not to lost in it! It was recorded that in the Yuan a 36-meter-wide r blind hutongs" cul-de-sacs. The gray-tiled houses and deep alleys crossing with each other in identical appearance like a maze, you will find it much fun to walk through but be care not to lost yourself. oad was called a standard street, a 18-meter-wide one was a small street and a 9-meter-wide lane was named a hutong. In fact, Beijing's hutongs are inequable ranging from 40 centimeter to 10 meter in wide. The longest has more than 20 turns. Either in east-west or north-south, Beijing's hutongs varied as slant, half or " blind hutongs" cul-de-sacs. The gray-tiled houses and deep alleys crossing with each other in identical appearance like a maze, you will find it much fun to walk through but be care not to lost yourself.

Located 50km from Beijing, in a ravine hemmed in between two mountains, Juyong Pass (Dwelling-in-Harmony Pass) provided impregnable protection to northwest Beijing and was one of the most important fortifications of ancient China.

Walls descend from the top of mountains on both sides of Juyong Pass to link with the stronghold of Juyong Pass, a bone of contention between warring strategists of bygone days. Two gates are built into the pass, Nankou to the south and Badaling Pass to the north, and a walled-in enclosure is built at the southern gate. Genghis Khan, or Emperor Taizu of the Yang dynasty, had once been here during one of his many battles. Besides its strategic significance, this pass was also famous for its beautiful scenery. In fact, in the Kin dynasty (1115-1234 A.D.), this place was listed as one of the Eight Best Scenic Spots in Beijing. The gully in which the pass stands stretches 20 or so kilometers. It is heavily wooded, and the scenery is captivating. A famed scenic spot, known as "Juyong Verdure", is right situated here. Inside the pass is a marble platform, finely built in 1268, or the fifth year of the Zhiyuan Reign of the Yuan dynasty. It is 9.5 meters tall and 26.84 meters wide at the base and 17.57 meters long. Inside the passage way under the platform are the bas-relief sculptures of the four Heavenly Kings, and Buddhist incantations in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Mongolian, Uygur, Han and Xixia. Niches are scooped into the wall that are enshrined with more than 2,000 Buddhist
sculptures done during the Yuan dynasty.

Historical records show that Juyongguan Pass was not only a strategic pass but also a trading place flourishing hundreds of years ago. In the center of the pass is an elevated stone platform called the Yuntai (Cloud Terrace). Originally it was probably the plinth of a gate-tower, the upper part of which has collapsed. All that left is a balustraded terrace above an arched passageway, covered with carvings dating back to the Yuan dynasty. On the terrace are the remains of four stone pillars, and the balustrade and corner posts are richly decorated with dragon heads, wreathes and other carvings. The walls are carved with bas-relief devaraja (heavenly kings) and between the devaraja are inscriptions of dharani (charms) in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Xixia, Uygur and Han. It is rare to have inscriptions in so many languages. The archway, which is large enough to allow the passage of carriages and horses, has carvings of many small Buddhas and mandala patterns on its ceiling. The carvings on Yuntai have high artistic value and are also very unusual in that the surface is composed of stone blocks rather than a single slab of stone. Visitors to the Great Wall should not miss the chance to see the fabulous carvings on Yuntai.

Kunming lake was originally called Wengshan Lake. In 1749, Emperor Qianlong ordered the construction of Qingyi Garden, the predecessor of the Summer Palace. Involving nearly 10,000 laborers, the lake was expanded and turned into a peach-shaped reservoir, the first of its kind for Beijing.

From 1990 to 1991 , the Beijing Municipal Government ordered the first dredging of the lake in 240 years. Involving 200,000 men and hundreds of dredgers and other tools, a total of 652,600 cubic meters of sludge was dredged and 205 bombs dropped by the Japanese during the Anti-Japanese War were removed.

The Western Causeway and a shorter dike divide Kunming Lake into three areas that contain South Lake Island, Seaweed-Viewing Island and Circle City Island. The three islands represent three mountains in ancient Chinese mythology, i.e. Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou.