Long Qing Xia
Long Qing Xia is a canyon outside of
Beijing, about 50 miles north of the city. At the entrance to Long Qing is a
village named Gu Cheng Cun. That was the empress’ garden during the Ming
dynasty.
At Long Qing Xia there is a dam built in
1973 that provides Beijing with water. South of the Long Qing Xia is the Great
Wall (Badaling), to the north is a national park and to the west the mountains
Haitou. Long Qing Xia is fairly well positioned there in the middle. Long means
dragon and Qing means honor or celebrate, Xia means gorge. The legend says that
dragons go there to celebrate because of the natural beauty of Long Qing Xia.
The water in the river is very clear, and
it is perhaps one of the reasons why so many want to go there, given that the
environment in Beijing is so bad. Long Qing Xia is a good place to go in the
summer if you want to escape the heat in the city for a while. Long Qing Xia is
on higher altitude so it is usually cooler, averaging 7 degrees lower than in
the city. Even in the winter, it is nice there. They build a lot of ice
sculptures that looks very nice with a lot of different colors.
Another special thing with Long Qing Xia is
that there is a long cave of the same style that is otherwise only found in
southern China. 4 miles have opened to visitors now, but there’ll be more in
the future.
