Gao Bei Dian, Beijing, China

Alright, Gao Bei Dian is an interesting section of Beijing that is a must see if you like antique furniture. The Gao Bei Dian area may look a little suspect if you take the subway and get off at the subway station; however I promise you that it is well worth it. The furniture stores are amazing with antique stores being inter-mixed with craftsman store fronts. The people in Gao Bei Dian are artists that stay up almost 20 hours a day working on their furniture by hand. Walking from store front to store front, one wonders how much all of these things are worth, well in America they would be worth thousands and thousands of dollars, in China its another story. If I had a TARDIS or some sort of suitcase that could expand infinitely then I would have bought so much stuff, for example here is a wood carving that was outside one of the stores.

Gao Bei Dian is an interesting place, it is in a location called the Nong Cun, basically the Ghetto, however this area is very friendly to tourists and some of the nicest people I met in Beijing are from here. As you can imagine, this is kind of a hidden gem of Beijing and not many tourists know about it, so when you arrive the people of Gao Bei Dian are very friendly and enjoy "strangers". If you speak any Chinese it is worth it to talk to the locals because that will make their day. In My next post I will talk more about Gao Bei Dian and some of the restaurants that I ate at during the time staying there.