Pocket Beijing 4 (Inglés)

Used this for a weeklong trip to Beijing. I found this incredibly helpful for choosing which sites to see - I checked off all the major sites minus one, and would not have been able to do so in such a short time without this guide. I found the restaurant and hostel recommendations to be spot-on. Maps were incredibly helpful and easy to use and the size was perfect for my jeans back pocket and a discreet peek at contents when needed.My only gripes are that some of the shopping locations are out of date (the awesome t-shirt joint appears to no longer exist), and that the recommendations for areas of the Great Wall are limited to Badaling and Simatai - what about Jinshangling (the location I went to)? Badaling is crazy crowded, and Simatai is for serious hikers only, but Jinshangling is a good compromise. Seems outright bizarre to not include it! I'd also note that a word on how to cope with Beijing smog would be good - N95 filter masks are available at most pharmacies, which would be a nice note for a guide like this as the air quality can make you feel VERY ill.Also, other guides (Nat Geo) offer better pronunciation guides to local languages. I'm usually pretty good at picking up a few words when needed, even in tonal languages, if there is a good guide but this one didn't do much for that.

It's a good guide, but perhaps a bit out of date by now? In my opinion, it's inexcusable to omit at least mentioning the Olympic Village from the 2008 Olympics that were held in Beijing. The famous Bird's Nest and Water Cube center are two very internationally recognizable and historically important modern buildings that I feel visiting foreigners would be very interested in seeing. A bullet train ride to Tianjin is also a very nice and different getaway for a day-trip. Please also mention that "Real-Id" is in effect now and your passport is needed for almost anything, even such as buying a train ticket or buying a Chinese SIM card for your cellphone. Also note that some local vendors prefer and sometimes only accept payment via smartphone, such as via AliPay or WeChat. Also worth mentioning is the expansive bicycle system present all through the city. With a properly set up cell phone, you could borrow any participating bicycle parked on the streets all through the city, ride it, and pretty much just leave it when you are done, in almost any reasonable area, often for free. I'd like to see a little expansion on the language section, particularly higher numbers for dealing with prices.

Excellent pocket sized book. My nephew is off to Beijing in December to work there for 6 weeks and he was delighted with this guide, especially the pull out map at the back of the underground train system. Lots of concise snippets of info but plenty of it. Very pleased with my purchase.Can't comment on how useful it turns out to be until I ask my nephew about it when he gets back.

Ok. It helped some on my trip, but there was a lot of outdated information. Went all the way to a popular noodle shop in their guide, and it was closed. Also the maps make everything look a lot closer than it is. Would probably just rely on trip advisor next trip.

it is easy to read and is good for finding new places in Beijing