Here at beijingkids we’ve blogged a lot about Lego, from Legoland Discovery Center, Lego Robotics Club, to Lego Subscription Club. This time, there is something new in Beijing for Lego fans – the Lego Chinese Culture Exhibition at Indigo from Aug 25 to Oct 14 promises to show Beijing families the big picture of Chinese culture, using five million pieces Lego bricks.

Fujian Hakka Earth Building

Southern waterside village

Forbidden City

Covering an area of 500 square meters at Indigo, the Lego Chinese Culture Exhibition features miniature Lego versions of Chinese landmarks and cultural icons, such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China, the Terracotta Warriors, Shanghai’s old streets, southern waterside villages, and the Yellow Crane Tower. The models are designed and built by Lego Certified Professional Andy Hung and his team.

Andy Hung was born in 1980 in Hong Kong. He started to get into the creative world of Lego in 2003. In 2013 he applied to become a Lego Certified Professional by Lego Hong Kong, and become the 13th Lego Certified Professional in the world and the first in the Greater China Region.

Dynasty of Brick: LEGO Chinese Culture Exhibition, Aug 25 – Oct 14
All ages. RMB 79 – 899 (Visit here to buy tickets). Daily 10 am-10 pm. 18 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District. 北京市朝阳区酒仙桥路18号 (8426 0898)

Photos: Weibo.com

Beijing’s newest tourist attraction has just opened, and it promises to show families the big picture of the city’s history, with its miniature buildings and figures.

Little Big City Beijing features models of the city at different points in history, populated by six thousand tiny figures, including a ritual at the Temple of Heaven and a thrilling attack on the Great Wall by Mongol raiders. Visitors can put themselves in the middle of the displays via perspex tubes, and the attraction also uses holograms, optical illusions and projection mapping to bring the past to vivid life. And the exhibition comes right up to date with a recreation of 2015’s military parade.

The attraction is the second “Little Big City”, following on from the success of a similar display in Berlin. The brand was created by British entertainment company Merlin, which also owns famous names like Sea Life, Madame Tussauds, and Legoland. Locating the attraction in Qianmen, where there is already a branch of Madame Tussauds waxworks, is part of the company’s strategy of clustering its smaller attractions in one area, so that visitors can visit more than one in the same day, and buy discounted tickets. Talks are also underway to establish a Legoland Theme Park in Beijing.

Little Big City Beijing
All ages. 10am-8.30pm, last entrance 8pm. 26 Qianmendajie, Dongcheng District (Near exit C, Qianmen Station, Line 2.) www.littlebigcity.cn/beijing. 东城区前门大街26号

Photos: www.littlebigcity.cn/beijing

As my family heads into our last month in Beijing, it’s time to tick off all the things we’ve always meant to do, but never quite got around to. Fortunately, it’s not too long a list; one piece of advice I’d give if you’re here but not forever, is to find the time to do the tourist circuit, so you’re not rushing around at the last minute trying to fit in the big ticket items: the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Summer Palaces, the Forbidden City…

The Beijing Planning Museum might seem an odd addition to that list, but we’d heard good things about it, and we were determined to get there at some point. Finding ourselves at a loose end downtown due to a little mix up over the kick-off time of a football match, we decided to seize the opportunity.

The Museum (properly the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall) is most easily reached from Qianmen station on line 2. Don’t make the mistake we did, of traveling to Tian’anmen and then getting stuck among crowds and security barriers. It’s free to enter with ID; strictly speaking you should bring your passport, but they were happy to accept a photograph of the relevant page on my wife’s phone.

The displays about the history of the city are mostly in Chinese, with some English, but that’s not the real draw. The appeal for kids is the scale models.

Olympic Park

On the second floor, there are models of the Forbidden City, and the north-south axis running from the Temple of Heaven up to the Olympic Park. But head on up to the third, where a huge model of city centre in 2008 occupies most of the space.

Noah (12) and Joseph (9) stand just north of the Workers’ Stadium

We’ve never lived centrally enough to see our home in the model itself, but the flooring around it continues with satellite photos, so we could at least follow the road east from Sanlitun to our old apartment in Yaojiayuan. Our current home in Shunyi is so far out that it lies beyond the wall of the exhibition space, and standing at that wall peering at the distant city center brought home just how huge Beijing really is.

It’s a long way from Shunyi to the city

I also tried to find the beijingkids office, but had to conclude our building must have sprung up since 2008, as there was no sign of it on the model.

We’re around here somewhere…

It turned out though that leaving this experience till the end of our time in Beijing was the right move, as we had lots of fun going round pointing out and identifying places we’ve been to. My wife and I were also charmed (the kids less so) by some footage of Beijing in the 1980s which was being shown in a side room, particularly the wide roads with virtually no traffic.

It’s worth heading up to the fourth floor, for a panoramic view of the model, and a display of Beijing transport through the ages, including some model cars and engines which would please any kid who loves their Hot Wheels or train set.

Overall though, as with most museums, it’s best to keep kids moving along so they don’t get bored. You can expect to see all the museum has to offer inside an hour, but it’s time well spent, especially if you want to reminisce about your time in Beijing without traveling around the whole city.

Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall

Free with ID. Tue-Sun 9am-5pm (last admission at 4.30pm). 20 Qianmen Dongdajie, Dongcheng District (6705 7932) www.bjghzl.com.cn 东城区前门东大街20号

Photos: Andrew Killeen