Visit Beijing - 5 Things You WIll Love & Hate about Beijing, China

The Best & Worst of Beijing.
Heading to Beijing, China? The capital city is amazing with the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall and so much more to see. However, there are some things you will not like about Beijing, like the Smog, the Taxi drivers and the hordes of people. Here we have the Best & Worst of Beijing, China.
Filmed in Beijing, China
Copyright Mark Wolters 2014

[michaelchen]

1:10 still find it hilarious that great wall is thousands of miles long and people still squished in one place.

[mlemmerman]

Loved Beijing, and the best tip we got was to hire a guide in advance, for a few hours per day. A lovely young man who made things a lot easier for us (and his fee was not expensive) - we told him what we liked, and what we wanted to do, and he showed us around, acting as an interpreter now and again.

[jiuzhouqingyantiaoshizhuang]

thank you for sharing my hometown with the world :) and what you've said is very truthful

[neolightproductions]

I spend 4 months in Beijing for a study abroad program. I want to go back so bad but my student loans kicked in an i'm dying in student loan debt. I spent 4 semesters studying chinese language, life, and culture. You are right about a lot of that. The language barrier was still there. I got very discouraged, frustrated, and wanted to go home because of it but I stuck with it and my language ability escalated so quickly. There was a lot of people but less than I thought sometimes. I crossed streets in groups most of the time. If taking a taxi, make sure to have them run the meter or else they try to take advantage of you. They will tell you 100 when the trip will only cost like 25. I used an iPhone app for looking up train stations and how to get to the location. It would tell you how to transfer from one to the next. Very helpful. When at the great wall... pace yourself. I tried climbing way too fast and got dizzy and winded. I bought cat food for he fat cats at Baihai park. Chuar was my favorite for street food. Hot pot was awesome too. I definitely recommend doing Karaoke with friends while there. I felt pretty safe too. I'd walk around and tour by myself all the time. I toured more than I did homework. haha. Great video. I still need to post my videos from china. I have tons of pictures and videos but have only posted pics. :(

[michaelchen]

3:17 this is very true. Many places don't have websites even

[MyCatFooed]

Your videos are fantastic Mark! There are so many countries that should pay you for promoting tourism! As always, another great video -- Thanks Mark!!

[kylecho]

2:03, that man is not an ordinary police officer he is a member of the Armed Police corps (similar to Russian Internal Troops)

[hidyho]

Homeschooling mom here! Thanks so much! Great videos! Much appreciated!

[simplywonderful]

The sixth dislike would be internet censorship. Sure, get a VPN but even then it frequently cuts out...

[Phlegethon]

It's actually that Beijing is so huge it's almost impossible for these taxi drivers to know anything too specific

[soipowell]

Thanks for posting your video. Very helpful!

[tijuanagringo]

"The Great Wall of People" oh man you FUNNY

[takentoosoon]

Also, road trip for anyone visiting Beijing... no matter what colour the street light is on, anything turning RIGHT has the right of way.

[takentoosoon]

My biggest hate is the way people stare and take photographs. I have been here over two years and, even now, it still makes me mad. I have had so many arguments with my Chinese husband because he doesn't understand the problem haha.

[ChristianLue]

actually, most cab drivers are local beijingers, it used to be exclusive to beijingers until 2 yrs ago.

[jryan]

Was in China for a few weeks last month and spent six days in Beijing. I agree with almost everything you said and had the same experience. One thing I would note though is I believe taxi drivers are required to take you to wherever you need to go until about 10pm to midnight or somewhere in that range and after that time they can decide whether or not they want to accept the fare. So at night after a certain time its almost impossible to get a cab in the popular nightlife areas if your hotel is not far enough away for them to get a decent fare. This made life very difficult so you will want to setup an uber account to use while there for those times (the chinese have a different service that is more popular that is like uber but you need to know chinese to use it).

[AnthroPterodactyl]

Actually I thought taxi drivers in Beijing were wayyyy better than their Shanghai counter parts...then again i speak Chinese so I didn't think getting around was that difficult (by taxi or otherwise)..buses are awesome...if you speak Chinese.. but it is totally true that there aren't many people who speak English...

[yuchenwei]

hi, I am sorry to hear that all the bad things in Beijing, but one thing you got wrong. it's not the taxi driver don't know the beijing's place, when they can not find where you want to go, that is because beijing is so big and some area's people doesn't know all the streets of beijing, if you are going to the other places people will recognize the stress very well.

[birlis]

Do visit Macao SAR of China! It's right next to HK! You can take an hour if ferry ride from HK to Macao!

[DavidJJames]

What I liked was the good prices for custom made clothes. I didn't like getting pestered though.