The imperial palace complex at the heart of Beijing, home to Ming and Qing dynasty emperors for nearly 500 years — nearly 1,000 buildings across a walled, moated compound, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the best-preserved ancient palace complexes anywhere.
Several sections are reachable as a day trip from Beijing — Badaling is the most-visited and most restored, Mutianyu is quieter and considered by many to have better scenery, Jinshanling is further out and less crowded still. A December visit means real cold but also thinner crowds than the peak-season rush.
A Ming-dynasty complex where emperors once performed annual ceremonies to pray for good harvests — the circular Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, built entirely without nails, is the site's most photographed structure.
My first memory of China is the sheer size of Beijing's airport — even now, years later, I can still feel how vast it was walking out of it. My friend Zhao Ming ("Ming") was there to pick me up with a few other friends, and I ended up staying at his place. We'd met back at VIT University in India, where I volunteered with the International Relations cell and led the Study Buddy programme — that's how I made so many friends from the UESTC exchange (University of Electronic Science and Technology, Chengdu). In a year (2026) when I've lost touch with almost everyone, Ming is the friend I still think about.
Beijing, for me, is a string of shared meals: a first dinner with Ming and mutual friends, a quieter second meal just the two of us, a New Year celebration at a friend's place, and a night cooking together at a mutual friend's apartment. I can't name the exact restaurants anymore, but I remember the warmth of every table — and a bread-like snack, "like a momo but not a momo," that I loved. And then, of course, the Great Wall: an experience that lived up to every expectation. Ming drove me around the city and dropped me at the railway station for the train south.
We met as exchange-programme friends at VIT University, where I was a study buddy and later led the programme. In Beijing, Ming picked me up, hosted me at his home, fed me at table after table, and drove me around the city. Of all the friends I've drifted from over the years, Ming is the one who stays with me.