I was intrigued, but I had a difficult time finding information about it online, especially addresses and details. That's when my roommate Paul pointed out to me that The Insider's Guide to Beijing is a really good source and has pretty much everything. I had been quite curious about the tunnels in the first place, but after reading the Insider's entry I was hyped.
I should illustrate some of the most interesting points I found. First of all, the tunnels were built in the late 60's and early 70's, as a paranoid backup in case of tensions (nuclear or other) with the USSR. 70,000 workers were employed for the task, the tunnels could hold 300,000 people (40% of the population at the time) and covered 85 km². Within the complex, aside from the bomb shelters, were living quarters, theatres, schools, barracks, infirmaries, arsenals, granaries, chicken and mushroom cultivation facilities, and others. The tunnels are also very extensive, reaching past the airport in the NE and the summer palace in the NW (here, just E of the Fragrant Hills), and reportedly, even to Tianjin (roughly 100km SE of Beijing). Large portions of the tunnels have been converted into civilian uses, including subway lines and stations, mall parking lots and the sort, but many parts of it remain unused and closed off. Only in 2000 did the government open up some parts of it to tourism. More info can be found here. Cool, right?
My experience didn't really touch on most of the cool things I had read. To begin with, I have no idea most regular, non-chinese-speaking people are able to find the entrance. Paul and I wandered around for almost 20 minutes in the general area, asking people if they recognized the address, and having no luck. Finally, a traffic-worker understood what we were talking about, and didn't just point us in the right direction, but led us straight to the entrance (about 10min walking from where we had wound up). On the way, we had conversations about Da Shan and Dr. Norman Bethune... the two most famous Canadians here. If you say that you're Canadian to a taxi driver or a civil servant of any kind, there's a 90% chance they'll bring up either or both of those names. Paul, who's Scottish, doesn't have to go through that because the locals don't seem to know much about Scotland.
The entrance is a shabby, narrow building in the middle of a hutong, an old-style neighbourhood, with nothing fancy about it at all but for a sign that reads Beijing Underground City. In the first room, there are about three or four tour guides waiting for customers. The fee was 20Y each, which is a bit expensive for a tourist site in China, and definitely expensive for what we got. The portion that they've opened to the public is short and disappointing. It took us less than 20min to walk around the designated loop, and all side-paths were locked (though only with some crummy looking padlocks on gates). The only side rooms which were open were a few storage rooms and a classroom. We saw one vent. There are supposed to be thousands. The only redeeming fact was that the tour guides english was pretty good, though her knowledge of the history and facts of the tunnels was only mediocre.
Overall, not nearly as cool as it has the potential to be. The best part may have been seeing all the women tour guides wearing army fatigues.
The only ventilation opening on the tour.
Some relics from the 70's... actually, most of these were just plastic replicas.
A buddhist shrine. This was clearly put in after the Mao era, during which all religious activities were banned.
The widest portion of tunnel.
Some more mostly-fake "periphenilia".
An interesting relief image in the wall, nicely maintained by the exit sign plastered over part of it.
I tried to translate this, but freehand chinese is such a mess.
After the Underground City, we checked out Wangfujing, a happening shopping district within walking distance. The main strip is a road, which is now closed off to cars, and so more like a plaza. There are many western stores and restaurants and book stores, and some pretty popular chinese clothing stores. As well, it houses one of the famous Beijing Duck restaurants, Quanjude, but it's supposedly not nearly as nice and traditional as the original location just a few km W of it.
A walk along the main strip.
This is a famous hotel in Beijing, the Raffles Hotel (aka. Beijing Hotel). There's a bar inside known as the "Writer's Bar", so-named because many famous authors have attended, before attaining fame.
Can't go anywhere without Brad.
