HAIDIAN - Living Abroad in Beijing - page 472

In the inner city, you can take advantage of a variety of facilities. The MasterCard Center
( www.mastercardcenter.com.cn ), beside Wukesong subway station (Line 1, exit B1), hosts
international basketball matches as well as international concerts and other performances.
Elton John has performed here, as have Westlife, Akon, and the Cranberries. More en-
tertainment can be found at Haidian Theater (28 Zhongguancun Dajie, 中关村大街28号 ,
Lines 4 and 10, exit B, www.bjshdjy.com ), located beside Haidianhuangzhuang subway sta-
tion. The theater not only screens the latest box office releases, but also presents concerts,
opera, ballet, plays, and other performances.
Reading and immersing yourself in Chinese culture can be done at the National Library
of China (National Library subway station, Line 4, exit A or D, tel. [phone], ht-
tp://nlc.gov.cn ) , the second largest library in the world (second to the Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C.), and among its more than 26 million books it has a wide range of
books in English. It's free to register for a reader's card, and this will give you full access
to the public areas of the library. To do this you will need to show your passport when
you apply. You can also borrow up to three books at any one time, for up to 31 days.
English books can't be renewed, while Chinese books can be if not already reserved. The
library is open weekdays from 9am to 9pm and on weekends from 9am to 5pm. The lib-
rary is open to readers who are aged 16 and above, and the Children's Library is suit-
able for kids aged 6-15. Also along educational lines is the Beijing World Art Museum
( www.worldartmuseum.cn/sjysg_en ) , on the south side of Yuyuantan Park, a short walk
north from Military Museum station (Line 1, exit B). Rather than housing ancient Chinese
relics, the museum pays homage to relics from elsewhere around the world, including an-
cient Egypt and Rome. It regularly curates fascinating exhibitions of different artists or
periods of history from around the world. If it's the local culture that you want to delve
into, however, there are several interesting Buddhist temples within the district, including
Five Pagoda Temple (Wutasi), which is just east of the National Library subway station
(exit C), and the Big Bell Temple ( http://dazhongsi.org ), which is a walkable distance from
Dazhongsi subway station (Line 13, exit A), Zhichunlu subway station (Lines 10 and 13,
exit B), or Renmin University subway station (Line 4, exit B).
For something more lively and just on the east side of the Five Pagoda Temple, there
is the Beijing Aquarium. Unfortunately this is part of the Beijing Zoo (tel. [phone],
www.bj-sea.com ) ; fortunately the two are nothing alike as a lot of money and care was put
in to making this a special environment. You also don't even need to go through the zoo
to get here as it's by the north gate of the zoo off the Gaoliangqiao Byway, just north east