Walk the sites less traveled

For those of you who feel the Yonghegong Lama Temple is a little too crowded (what with giant incense-stick-clutching devotees queuing up from 6 am in the morning when the temple gates open only after 8:30 am), hopping across Yonghegong Dajie to Guozijian Street might be more relaxing.

Stashed between the intense line-up of shops selling religious paraphernalia stands an arch, at the entrance to Guozijian Street. Intricate patterns in gold are inscribed on flaming orange, turquoise and aquamarine, on its frame and elaborate eaves. One of the oldest surviving arches in Beijing, the structure, like the Confucius Temple and Imperial College on this road, was built during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

Though more than 700 years old, Guozijian Street is an engaging potpourri of the old and the new. A few paces toward the west is the peaceful Songtangzhai Museum. Hospice administrator Li Songtang put together from heritage articles that Beijing had dismantled and left by the wayside in its drive to modernize.