Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
future, it's also laughably old-fashioned - and, on occasion, unintentionally hilarious. Head
up the escalators, manned by bored staff, and you'll find the “interactive” area; here you
can sit in a boat in a mirrored room, where a giant TV screen will attempt to convince you
that you're navigating Beijing's waterways and (weirdly, given the nature of boats, and of
Beijing's air) flying through azure-blue skies.
The non-ironic highlights of the museum are all map-based. First, and visible on a wall
from the escalator, is a fascinating bronze model showing the city as it used to look in im-
perial times, back when every significant building was part of an awesome, grand design.
Then comes another TV screen, which slowly spools through a digitized version of an ancient
scroll, heading through Old Beijing from south wall to north wall, via the Forbidden City.
The star attraction, though, is an enormous and fantastically detailed underlit model of the
city that takes up the entire top floor. At a scale of 1m:1km it covers more than three hundred
square metres, and illustrates what the place will look like once it's finished being ripped up
and redesigned in 2020.
23 Ch'ienmen
前门东大街二十三号
, qiánmén dōngdàjiē èrshísān hào • 23 Qianmen Dongdajie • Open 24hr • Free •
chi-
enmen23.com
• Qianmen subway (line 2)
If you have time it's well worth popping in to the
23 Ch'ienmen
complex, which used to be
the American legation, and has now been redeveloped as a fine-dining complex. Splash out
at
Maison Boulud
or get Yunnanese-style food on the cheap at
Lost Heaven
.
Beijing Railway Museum
北京铁路博物馆
, bĕijīng tiĕlù bówùguǎn • Off Qianmen Dongdajie • Tues-Sun 9am-5pm •
￥
20, high-speed
Appropriately located in the old Qianmen Railway Station, itself a fantastic structure con-
structed in 1906, the
BeijingRailwayMuseum
- officially the Zhengyangmen branch of the
China Railway Museum, which is based at Chaoyang in the northeast of the city - details the
advance of China's national rail system, and the vehicles using it. Train buffs will love it for
sure, while others may find the various photos and models only mildly interesting; the high-
light is a full-size replica of the driver's cabin on a high-speed train.
