Beijing Photo Essay

As of lately, I’ve been putting in a lot of effort into my photography, hence why I’m really proud to share with you this Beijing photo essay. While China was one of my least favorite countries I’ve visited, it doesn’t mean it has some seriously stunning sites.

In this photo essay, I’ll take you to my favorite moments and places in Beijing. You’ll get to know my thoughts and the behind the scenes of what went down. As much as I love helping you all travel and figure your shit out, I also love to talk about my travel experiences and my thoughts about the places I’ve visited. If this is something you’re bored with, feel free to skip what I write and just look at the pretty pictures.

But legit I’m excited to get the chance to show you what I’ve been using to edit and write about what seriously excites me.

Table of Contents

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Temple of Heaven

I love finding pretty places and seeing gorgeous things. While I was looking through photos on Instagram, I seriously almost drooled at how pretty the ones at the Temple of Heaven were. I thought it wouldn’t be that crowded since it’s located around the second ring of the city. On my first day in Beijing, I was actually shocked to find out that the sky was blue and the air was clean.

Living in Korea with the factories on the Chinese coast blowing the pollution over, I’m no stranger to unclean air. I even brought my mask in order to help me with the air quality. It was a heck of a shocker I didn’t need it. (But seriously, if and when I go back to America, I will cherish clean air in my lungs with every fiber of my being.)

What I completely forgot was that most of the old people in Asia still tell time using the lunar calendar. This means that the Mid Autumn Festival in China and Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) in Korea match hand in hand. It was a nightmare to try and take photos with so many Chinese tourists from other provinces hanging around. Luckily, my friend Alexis is a gem and waited for the perfect moment to capture this. You can follow her on Instagram for her adventures in Korea.

After wandering around this temple for awhile, we found some place to eat. Usually in Korea, there are pictures of the food and you can take a gander at what you’re looking at. In China, everything is in Chinese and there are no pictures. Whomp. Whomp. I can’t read Japanese kanji worth a shit, but I am efficient in about 100 basic characters. I’m so glad I paid somewhat of attention in Japan, because it actually helped in China.

Related: Four Day Beijing Itinerary

Forbidden City

When in Beijing, you must visit this beautiful palace. It was the main residence of the royalty for about 500 years and the center of all familial and political encounters. Let me tell ya… This palace is enormous and no wonder the name has city in it. My feet hurt from walking the entire way through, but that wasn’t the biggest of my problems.

Trying to get into the damn museum was a feat within itself. Most Chinese cannot speak English (or don’t speak it well enough). There were various tents set up along the entrance but you needed Weechat in order to do it digitally. My friend and I didn’t have the app nor wifi so we were in a serious pickle.

After asking many people where to buy tickets and the repeated phrase, “Small House” we found the tiny booth in a corner tucked away from the main entrance. Even though we went early, there were a butt load of people there. I’m also not one to leave you out of an inside joke. Whenever we needed to find something in Beijing the answer always was, “Small House.”

As for this picture? How did it get so amazing do you ask? Alexis has mad skills, the wind blew just right and the morning sun was just perfect. I also edited the heck out of it using the Perfect Greens Preset Pack from Travel in Her Shoes.

Related: Beijing’s Most Beautiful Hutongs

Playing Dress Up

Call it cultural appropriation or whatever you want, but honestly, I love trying on the traditional outfits of the countries I visit. I have photos in yukata and hanbok from living in Japan and Korea. I also have tried on chut thai from Thailand so why not wear a beautiful Chinese style dress too? I’ve always been attracted to vibrant and gorgeous colors—especially the color red.

Fun fact about me. When I was younger I always used to go up to this store in the local mall called Too Cool and spend hours in there. It had cute stationary, DVDs, action figures, and random stuff from Japan and Korea. After I was done, I’d walk across to the Chinese antique shop and look around. Hell, even my best friend growing up was Asian. Her parents were from Hong Kong. Another fun fact: She enjoys Latin American culture. Fancy that. 😛 Asia has always fascinated me to no end and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

It brought me to Japan and to Korea and made me live a beautiful life of travel in many Asian countries. Life is pretty darn good on this part of the globe.

So back to the main point… Remember how there were so many Chinese tourists in Beijing because of the Mid Autumn Festival? Well… I had to queue for this, but the photo was totally worth it. The ladies taking the photo also helped me hide my tutu skirt and bag.

This photo was edited using the Cozy Warm Preset Pack from Travel in Her Shoes.

Related: Wander Wulai, An Escape from Taipei

The Great Wall of China

I can’t even begin to tell you how long the Great Wall of China has been on my bucket list… Maybe since I’ve been living in Okinawa? So that would put me at six years? Well, I’m pleased to tell you, bucket list item achieved. Was it as every bit of awesome as I thought it would be? Hell yeah. Was I super mind blown? Hell yeah! It’s the Great Wall, fam. Why wouldn’t it be awesome?!

Badaling is one of the more popular parts of the wall, but we went to the just as beautiful Mutianyu. Alas, we got up before the butt crack of dawn in order to go, but again, the Mid Autumn Festival was going on. We had to otherwise it would have been crawling with people later on in the morning. Yes, there were people but not as many by 11am when the rest of the tour buses and vans were coming. Our tour guide was also pretty awesome and he was very informative of where and how we should go about the Great Wall. Book your own Mutianyu Great Wall Tour and prepare to be wowed.

I’m also a bit of psycho and my friend Alexis is a saint. She took so many photos of me and we ended up getting so many wonderful shots. This one just happened to be my favorite. This photo was edited using the Happy Blues Preset Pack from Travel in Her Shoes.

Beihai Park

Not gonna lie, I do a lot of things up in here for the ‘gram, but also beause I like to gawk at stunning locations. Some of my favorite things to do when I travel are find really scenic parks and walk around them. I’m rather fond of walking because sometimes your feet take you to off the beaten path locations.

Surprisingly, parks and gardens are the only places I actually shut up. I’m a chatter box and I can talk all day long. Something about a park just relaxes the inner fibers of my being. Despite this we had been walking for quite a long time and I was running low on energy because I hadn’t eaten properly.

I heard you could get afternoon tea at the Summer Palace but when we arrived there, no one could direct us about where to go and I was so hungry it was actually painful. Learn from my mistakes. Pack some snacks when hanging around China because a lot of food places are few and far in between main tourist attractions.

This photo was edited using the Cozy Warm Preset Pack from Travel in Her Shoes.

Old Beijing Food Tour

Fun fact: Chinese don’t drink cold water. They only drink room temperature or hot water.

I knew room temperature water was more healthy for you, but for some reason drinking warm water made me feel more thirsty instead of satisfied. Anyway, that’s besides the point. I seriously gotta give a ten out of ten star rating to the UnTour Old Beijing Dinner Tour because it was seriously delicious. Every stop we went to, every food we tasted was fresh and to perfection.

I love to eat and I thoroughly enjoyed everything I ate on the tour. Of course whenever you’re on a food tour, it’s important to check out the local spirits. We had a great tasting at Nuo Yan Rice wine and the plum flavored one was so sweet. As you can see, I’m cheesing really hard because… booze.

This photo was edited using the Cozy Warm Preset Pack from Travel in Her Shoes.

Related: What to Eat in Beijing

The Lama Temple

The Mid Autumn Festival ended the day before so I found us to be very lucky when visiting. Even though there were a lot of people there, it was manageable and we were able to get good shots. The temple is in use for Buddhist practitioners and I found some monks there.

The last day of my trip was the best because it was so laid back and we were just hanging out and taking photos to our heart’s content. This is one of my more favorite photos because I was so relaxed when taking it.

For the majority of the trip I was wearing skirts, dresses, or shorts so it was good to just wear a nice pair of stretchy jeggings. And in case you were wondering… Yes, my bum really is that big. I don’t do squats nearly as much as I should. I got lucky in the genetic pool.

This photo was edited using the Magic Sunset Preset Pack from Travel in Her Shoes.

The sites in China are one of a kind. I can see how and why Japan got their inspiration from them. They’re stunning, clean, and well maintained. I was pleasantly surprised to find there are trash cans everywhere especially after living in Japan and Korea where they are super scarce.

While China is a very beautiful country, I can confidently say it was my least favorite country I’ve visited so far. One of the reasons I kept going back to Taiwan was that it was so pretty and the people were super friendly and kind. They made me feel really welcome in their country and I was always so happy to go back. In my opinion, the friendliness of the people is what makes your stay in a country so much better.

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that way in China because no one wanted to talk to us. Other Chinese tourists had very ignorant moments where they just walked up to us and took photos without permission. I gotta hand it to the Koreans, because they’re a tad more sneaky. If you’re gonna take a photo, at least ask or do it when I’m not looking directly at you shooting razor blades from my soul through my eyes.

Also, if I didn’t have Japanese as a background, my trip to China would have been 10 times worse. At least I can make out 100 basic characters and have somewhat of an idea of what was going on. There weren’t even signs in English while we were walking around. No one could even speak Japanese or Korean either. I honestly felt stuck as to how to ask or communicate with people.

Would I go back to China? Well, I’m not so sure, but I was glad to have the experiences I did there. It really made me appreciate Korea and Japan more than I already do and my fondness for both countries definitely grew a bit more. If you have a chance, explore China, just be aware that there might be some things like unfriendly people and photo taking that don’t sit right with you.