Visiting Beijing for a few days: any advice?

[lindentree]

Obviously I'm going to try to make it to the Zhongguo Qiyuan, but are there any other weiqi places/things I should check out?

(I'll also stop in Hong Kong for two days, so any tips there would be appreciated)

[HermanHiddema]

Beijing go club: http://beijinggoclub.com/ (mostly expats here, L19 user cdybeijing is a regular)

Tiandijian go club: http://herminator.imgur.com/tiandi_jian_go_club (Mostly Chinese players)

Wangfujing Bookstore: http://tenholt.nl/sites/tenholt.nl/file ... G_1925.JPG (this shows the entire selection of go books)

[Koosh]

While "Go in the streets" is pretty rare these days, you can still find it around at some places. Ritan Park always has several boards going. It seems to be the place to go as a retired go player Be sure to bring a board.

[dankenzon]

In the books stores of Wang Fu Jing you can get a lot of books for a very cheap price. Look for tchan001 blog he has a nice list of chinese books. Consider tsumego collections and tesuji. I got there big packages of collections for 10th the price I would have spend in internet.

Chinese food may be quite an experience and in Beijing it's hard to get western medicine there. Please consider taking some diarrhea pill, anti-acid or a small bottle of pepto-bismol with you. Just in case.

Going to the Forbidden City or Summer Palace may easily take the whole day: don't make big plans those days.

Get ready to WALK: don't trust the map says "there are only two blocks"... Beijing Blocks are LONG. And crossing streets will be funny. Take care of the bikes.

Enjoy

[cdybeijing]

I am still in Beijing and I met both Herman and Koosh while they were visiting the city.

Beijing Go Club mentioned above meets on Tuesday evenings from 7:30 - 10:30 in the Dongsi area. You can PM me for details.

Tiandi Jian is also worth checking out if you don't mind a smoky environment; the players there will all be at least 1 dan but are usually happy to play with guests of any level from out of town.

Ritan Park is worth visiting even if you can't find any go players. That said, they typically are there playing in the afternoon beginning after lunch.

I've lived here 5 years but I've never set foot in the qi yuan. I think there may be a public bookstore but the playing areas are private.

[lindentree]

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys; I'll be with a non-Go playing friend, so I probably won't have much time to actually play many games, but I will try.

@cdybeijing: I figured as much about the Qiyuan , but I still want to see it up close. Maybe the bookstore will be nice.

@dankenzon: Thanks for the tips. I've actually been in China for several months now, and ordered several books off Dangdang (virtually no shipping cost here), although I'll see if there's more to add to my current collection.

[cdybeijing]

In the books stores of Wang Fu Jing you can get a lot of books for a very cheap price. Look for tchan001 blog he has a nice list of chinese books. Consider tsumego collections and tesuji. I got there big packages of collections for 10th the price I would have spend in internet.

Chinese food may be quite an experience and in Beijing it's hard to get western medicine there. Please consider taking some diarrhea pill, anti-acid or a small bottle of pepto-bismol with you. Just in case.

Going to the Forbidden City or Summer Palace may easily take the whole day: don't make big plans those days.

Get ready to WALK: don't trust the map says "there are only two blocks"... Beijing Blocks are LONG. And crossing streets will be funny. Take care of the bikes.

Enjoy

To me the Forbidden City is a yawn; 2 hours is enough and you've seen it all. The summer palace, on the other hand, is worth a full day.

Another fun idea to consider is renting a bike and riding around the Tsinghua and Beida campuses.

[Koosh]

To me the Forbidden City is a yawn; 2 hours is enough and you've seen it all. The summer palace, on the other hand, is worth a full day.

I guess the time you spend at the Forbidden city depends on if you take their 8 hour self guided audio tour or not. I think I saw the whole thing in 2-3 hours as well, but my artist friend spent a few days roaming around and taking pictures.

[tchan001]

when are you in HK?

[lindentree]

June 18-21.

[tyuiop]

If you have the space, and can read Chinese, go books are dirt-cheap (i.e. fancy hardcover books are $10 USD max, most books in the 4-8 dollar range).

The Qiyuan is sometimes hard to get into - when I visited, it was closed due to professional training.

The Tiandi Jian, if I'm not mistaken, is the World of Weiqi magazine club/store. There's nothing to special there; several players and a nice shop.

Books can be found at nearly any bookstore. An especially famous one is the Haidian "Book City" - there's a tremendous amount of bookstores there, with quite a few go books.

[cdybeijing]

If you have the space, and can read Chinese, go books are dirt-cheap (i.e. fancy hardcover books are $10 USD max, most books in the 4-8 dollar range).

The Qiyuan is sometimes hard to get into - when I visited, it was closed due to professional training.

The Tiandi Jian, if I'm not mistaken, is the World of Weiqi magazine club/store. There's nothing to special there; several players and a nice shop.

Books can be found at nearly any bookstore. An especially famous one is the Haidian "Book City" - there's a tremendous amount of bookstores there, with quite a few go books.

I think Tiandi Jian is a highlight of Beijing's go scene, especially for dan level players. The venue is very nice, the players are strong and polite (many speak English) and the equipment is very nice, quality boards and slate and shell stones. The only drawback is the smoke.

[gogameguru]

You want to see all the big sites mentioned above. After walking through the Forbidden City you can keep going along the path and see some temples and gardens at the Beihai Park, if you have time. You'll be able to spot it by the unusual looking white palace on the horizon.

Also, if you have the time and interest, it's worth going to one of the food streets. They have everything from glazed hongguo (like a toffee apple, but with a sour hawthorn fruit inside) to scorpions and seahorses on skewers. I didn't eat the latter, but it really was something different. Here's a site that lists some food streets, courtesy of Google http://www.beijingtrip.com/dining/foodstreet.htm the first one they list is good.

If you're finding yourself pressed for time and want to pick up some go books, don't worry too much about going somewhere specific. In Beijing (or other big cities) you could easily walk into the nearest 图书大厦 (tushu dasha, which literally means picture and book big building, in other words, huge bookshop) and you should find quite a big selection of go books. Just go to the sports section (which could be on the 6th or 8th floor) and there's normally an area full of xiangqi and weiqi books. Google 北京图书大厦 and you'll find something. Actually, it's almost worth going just to see the enormity of one of those book shops. (I figure you can probably already read some Chinese from your bio, but I'm spelling it out just in case someone else visits Beijing and reads this later. And if you're in China already, maybe you've already bought all the go books you want?)

This is going back quite a few years now, but I remember the first time I was in Beijing I'd planned to go to the Qiyuan. We rang them up and asked if we could visit. The guy on the phone said "Oh no, don't come. There's nothing to see, it's just offices." I still don't know if that's true because I've never been there .

[daal]

Books can be found at nearly any bookstore.

[istealth]

I am currently in Beijing for a few days, and I was planning to bring some souvenirs back home, such as yunzi stones, nice bowls, etc.....but unfortunately i cannot find any shop that sells them. On the web i saw that apparently there are no special shops with go equipment in Beijing and one has to look for sport shops. Could some one point me to the right shop/street/direction so i would not waste my time looking for them with taxi or metro:) i am staying very close to Guomao subway station. Thanks in advance!