When planning Beiing tour during Spring Festival or Chinese Lunar New Year, many first-time visitors would ask the same question “How to spend Spring Festival in Beijing”. Spring Festival or Chinese lunar new year starts on Jan 23, the start of the Year of Dragon accoring to the Chinese zodiac.
The official 3-day Spring Festival holiday plus 2 connected weekends make 7 consecutive day off from Jan 22 to 29, 2012. There are many choices to celebrate the new year in Beijing. Different people have different taste in terms of sightseeing, events, shopping, entertaining. etc.
You may check my personal suggestions for spending Spring Festival in Beijing as follows:.
1. How to spend Chinese new year’s eve in Beijing
1) Participate in the new year activities at your hotel, such as making dumpplings…
2) Find a comfortable bar to kill your time during the new year’ eve
3 Spend Chinese new year’s eve with a local family
4) Stay up for the TV gala
5) Purchase some fireworks or firecrackers at the local outlet
6) When new year comes, go out for viewing the fireworks and join in them
2. Beijing Temple Fairs
Visiting one or two temple fairs is a must for spending Spring Festival in Beijing. Though temple fairs in Beijing don’t have much change every year, people still flock there to sense and feel the new year, which main activities including special local food and snacks, plentiful products of arts and crafts, souvenir stalls, food vendors and recreation places for the games. At a temple fairs, you will eat local flavor, view or buy local arts and crafts and play games at a temple fairs.
Major temple fairs in Beijing
Period: Jan 22 – 29, 2012
Opening Hours: 8:30am – 5:00pm
Entrance Fee: RMB 10 ( non-temple fair time: RMB 2 )
Children under 1.2 meter high: free
Bus lines:
North Gate: 743、822、35、41、957、750、705 get off at Guangminglou
Northwest Gate: 60、8、116、6、12、352、958 get of Beijing Amusement Park
East Gate: 122、51、T3 Get off at Beijing Tumor Hospital
Add: No.8, Longtanhulu, Chongwen, Dongcheng District, about 1km east of Temple of Heaven
Complaint Tel: 67144310, 67185980
Longtan Park Temple Fair
Ditan Park Temple Fair
Period: Jan 22 – 29, 2012
Opening Hours: 8:30am – 5:00pm
Entrance Fee: RMB 10
Children under 1.2 meter high: free
tel: 6421-4657
Bus lines:
13, 116, 62, 44, 117, 909, 800, 807, 820, T2, 27, 104, 358, 119, 407, 328, 803, 18, 850, 113, 858, 644, 643 or Subway Line 2 at Lama Temple
Chaoyang Park Carnival
Period: Jan 23-28, 2012
Entrance fee: 10 RMB
Add: 1 Chaoyang Gongyuan Nanlu, Chaoyang District, Beijing
Bus Lines: No. 31, 117, 302, 406, 608, 703, 705, 731, 758, 750, 815, 831, 834, 847
There are a number of open-air ice skating rinks inside some lakes in Beijing. Shichahai Lake and Kunming Lake in Summer Palace are two of the most impportant outdoor ice skating rinks for many local skaters.
There are a few top indoor ice skating Rinks such New World Champion Skating Rink, all Star Ice Rink, New World Champion Skating Rink and more.
Ice Skating on Shichahai Lake
Chunhuiyuan Hot Spring Resort and Jiuhua Spa & Resort Actually have the same springhead – Xiaotangshan hot spring. Xiaotangshan has been famous for its hot springs for over 300 years. Local legend has it that the imperial family of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) went there to relax.
Skiing has become increasingly popular with Chinese. There are over 10 ski resorts around Beijing which are suitable for both beginners and advanced skiers. To meet the various needs from customers, most of the the Beijing ski resorts offers snow related activties such as stimulative Motorcycle on snow land, snow flying disk, romantic sleigh drawn by dogs or houses, Ice garden, and Snow garden
