Memberships and Subscriptions
The long-running Hutong has it all: cooking classes (more on those below), tea tours, cultural experience, events, and more. A general membership costs RMB 200 per year and entitles the holder to 10-25 percent discounts on all Hutong programs and events. After the year is up, the membership can be extended for only RMB 100. If there’s an enthusiastic home cook in your life, consider the culinary membership (RMB 1,500 per year) for up to two people, which includes any six cooking classes. ‘

Several international culture centers also offer memberships. I’m a member of the excellent French Cultural Center’s Médiathèque, a lending library of books, periodicals, and DVDs with a children’s corner. I initially joined the library to keep up my French but have found that the Médiathèque offers a clean, quiet space to work as well. Regular membership costs RMB 240 per year (RMB 120 for students and teachers) or RMB 100 per quarter.

The Cervantes Institute also has a lending library with Spanish-language books and materials. Membership costs RMB 210 per year (half price for students, retirees, and children).

Sidecar Tours
Founded by Frenchman Gael Thoreau, Beijing Sideways specializes in tours of Beijing and the Great Wall by motorcycle sidecar. Options include two-hour, four-hour, and one-day tours of Beijing; a two-hour night tour of Beijing; a one-day tour of the Wild Great Wall; and the deluxe two-day (or 1.5-day) tour with an overnight stay at the Great Wall and a Beijing city tour.

Each motorcycle can take up to two passengers; assuming two people per bike, the two-hour city tour costs RMB 1,100 for the first passenger and RMB 600 for the second while a four-hour city tour costs RMB 1,400 for the first passenger and RMB 900 for the second.

Cooking Classes
Food is one of the best ways to access a country’s culture and history. What better way to spend a frigid winter afternoon than making and eating your own Chinese dishes with friends and family?

The Hutong has a variety of cooking classes featuring Chinese regional cuisines such as Sichuan, Yunnan, and Shanxi as well as specific dishes like xiaolongbao, hand-pulled noodles, and dumplings (RMB 300 per person, RMB 260 for members).

Black Sesame Kitchen also offers lunchtime cooking classes every Wednesday and Sunday from 11am-2pm (RMB 300 per person) out of its hutong location near the Forbidden City.

Closer to town, China Culture Center has a class on dumpling-making and hand-pulled noodles, with private events available for 1-20 people. Regular classes cost RMB 250 for adults and RMB 180 for kids under 12.

Dive the Great Wall
I’m hopelessly biased when it comes to scuba diving. Not only is SinoScuba founder Steven Schwankert a former colleague, he’s also a friend and my dive instructor. My sister and I first dived with him in July of 2013, an experience that eventually led me to Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines for further PADI training. Last July, Steven certified me as a Rescue Diver in Puerto Galera, Philippines.

However, Beijing residents don’t need to go far to suit up. Every year, Steven leads scuba diving trips to a submerged section of the Great Wall at the Panjiakou Reservoir. Sure, you won’t see exotic fish or enjoy 60m visibility, but you’ll be joining an exclusive club of people who can say they’ve dived the Great Wall. Prices and dates will be available by the end of the month.

Offbeat Fitness Classes
Crossfit Slash is best-known for, well, CrossFit, but it also offers a rapidly-expanding array of fitness classes from its studio, including aerial silks, poledancing, Irish dancing, aerial hoop, bellydance, and burlesque. RMB 180 per class.

Led by the rock-hard Alona Vostrikova, Alone Pilates offers two unusual fitness classes apart from its signature Pilates: a hula-hoop class focusing on sculpting the butt and “Pilates cardio ballet,” a ballet-inspired class using a barre. Call for prices.

Today happens to be my boyfriend’s birthday; because he’s a foodie, we’ll be celebrating with a home-cooked dinner tonight and a private cooking class at The Hutong on Sunday with friends.

Sijia Chen is a contributing editor at beijingkids and a freelance writer specializing in parenting, education, travel, environment, and culture. Her work has appeared in Travel + Leisure, The Independent, Midnight Poutine, Rover Arts, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @sijiawrites or email her at sijiachen@beijing-kids.com.

Photos: Creative Commons image courtesy of kris krug on Flickr

Sharks, dolphins, and the Great Wall, oh my! For a capital city that’s hours from the sea and doesn’t even have a major lake or river nearby, Beijing is a great place for scuba diving.

Beijing has three aquariums, and all three over scuba diving opportunities. Of those, the most conveniently located is the New Zealand Blue Zoo Aquarium, right at the south gate of the Workers Stadium. Underground, the main tank, about three meters deep and the size of an Olympic swimming pool, houses five species of shark, two table-sized sea turtles, moray eels, and a host of diverse reef fish from around the Pacific. This is a perfect opportunity for the first time diver to discover scuba and some of the ocean’s most interesting residents, all in a controlled environment. Pet the shark — it’s not a euphemism.

The Beijing Zoo near Xizhimen is best known for housing pandas and other zoo favorites like elephants, but within its gates stands the Beijing Aquarium, the city’s largest such facility. The Beijing Aquarium provides a unique encounter with Pacific bottlenose dolphins. Truth be told, these charismatic animals play with you more than you play with them. Hear their clicks and whistles around you as they race by, then swim up for a belly rub, feeling like a wet rubber ball. Certified divers may scuba with the dolphins, while non-certified divers may snorkel.

You can’t dive the Pyramids, but you can dive the Great Wall. This is not Huanghuacheng, the so-called Water Great Wall, or Shanhaiguan, the Great Wall’s eastern sea terminus. The Underwater Great Wall is 300 to 400 meters of Wall that disappeared under the Panjiakou Reservoir in Hebei province, after a dam was constructed in 1977 to provide for the newly rebuilt city of Tangshan nearby.

Diving the Great Wall is eerie and intimate. It’s a giant, sleeping dragon on the bottom that requires the diver to swim up close for a good look. The view reveals craftsmanship and aquatic life, including tiny fish and shrimp. Water depth and temperature vary by season, but divers with even an Open Water Diver certification will be able to see parts of the Wall.

To book any of these above adventures, or to enroll in a full range of PADI courses, contact SinoScuba, 18611133629, www.sinoscuba.com.

Disclosure: SinoScuba Founder and PADI Course Director Steven Schwankert is the Executive Editor of True Run Media, the Beijinger’s parent company.

This post first appeared on thebeijinger.com on June 20, 2015

Photo: Colin Lee

I’d seen SinoScuba’s event listings floating around the beijingkids website for a while now, but never actually took the plunge – until last weekend. I’d tried getting in touch with Founder Steven Schwankert a couple of times before, but we never managed to settle on a date. When he recently came onboard as the Beijinger’s new managing editor (yes, we work together now), I cornered him for a scuba diving lesson. As it turned out, he had open slots for SinoScuba’s Shark Interaction Program at Blue Zoo Beijing last Sunday. My little sister was visiting from Shanghai for the weekend, so I signed us both up.

We met Steven at the entrance of Blue Zoo Beijing at 1.30pm. He took us into the bowels of the aquarium – a restricted area beneath the man-made lake by the Worker’s Stadium. We started off with a tour of the shark nursery; we saw pouch-shaped cat shark eggs, tiny shark pups, mean-looking snapping turtles, and a big yellow leopard shark. My sister and I “awwwed” at the albino cat sharks that didn’t know they were albino cat sharks and persisted in hiding against the dark tank walls.

Then, we received a basic safety lesson and an intro to the scuba diving equipment. My sister and I eyed the wetsuits skeptically and wondered how we we’d be able to pour ourselves into the narrow outfits. Sure enough, we heaved and hauled and molded our unwilling flesh into the neoprene wonders; some of Blue Zoo Beijing’s mermaids, who were on break at the time, watched our locker room acrobatics with a smile.

Red-faced, we penguin-walked back out to the area with the nursery tanks. We entered the adjacent room, which opened onto the actual aquarium. We could see outlines of sharks, fish, and eels in the blue waters below. One by one, we sat on a ledge and put on our equipment: diving mask, flippers, diving vest with weights, regulator, tank – the whole kit. We inflated our vests. After some last words on hand signals, we followed Steven into the water and sank to the bottom of the aquarium.

It’s hard to do justice to that first dive. Everything was so clear; we could see parrot fish circling the coral, sharks gliding above us, and spotted moral eels lurking from crevasses. The ability to breathe underwater and the weightlessness of our bodies created an incredibly liberating experience. We were mildly alarmed by all the sharks circling the tank, but realized pretty quickly that they couldn’t care less about their human visitors.

Steven led us around the tank and pointed out interesting sights, signaling when it was OK to touch something. We came across a huge sea turtle taking a snooze in a corner; its shell was coarse to the touch. We petted two fat, complacent sharks snuggling in the dark; Steven indicated that we could try petting both simultaneously, but that didn’t quite work out because of my lop-sided swimming.

The manta rays were separated from the shark tank by a pane of glass containing finger-sized holes in the top. They came to investigate us, their white undersides glancing against the glass; we poked our fingers through the openings and felt their soft underbellies as they passed by.

We also “showered” fish by gathering sand in our hands and letting it slip through our fingers; the fish gathered under the cascade and seemed to enjoy the feeling of the sand on their backs. I imagined them uttering the same sound that Homer Simpson does when he’s eating a doughnut.   

It wasn’t all smooth. At some point, I followed the wrong guy (there were other scuba divers) and got lost. I hung out by the fake shipwreck until Steven and my sister found me. A few minutes later, I head butted a shark with an audible “thud” (or so it seemed); I’m sure the onlookers got some good photos. As soon as we surfaced, my sister said: “Did you…?” I cut her off: “Yes. Yes, I did.”

Overall, it was a fantastic experience. Hours later at Great Leap, we were still excitedly discussing the minutiae of scuba diving and the feasibility of getting our respective PADI certifications. We had grand visions of the Chen sisters taking off to the Grand Barrier Reef or the Cayman Islands on some underwater adventure.

Steven himself was a patient instructor who gave clear instructions and checked in often with his students. SinoScuba accepts participants aged 10 and up for its programs; the Shark Interaction Program costs RMB 650 per adult (RMB 600 per child) and happens regularly at Blue Zoo Beijing. There’s also the upcoming Shark Weekend 2013 on August 3 and 4. Reservations are a must at all times, since there’s a maximum of four divers per session. If you’re currently considering diving with SinoScuba, consider no more; just go for it.

To find out more about SinoScuba, visit their website. Contact Steven at steven@sinoscuba.com or 186 1113 3629.

Photos courtesy of Steven Schwankert

Ready to swim with the predators of the deep? On July 28 and 29, SinoScuba will once again be holding their annual Shark Weekend at the city’s very own Blue Zoo Beijing aquarium! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to interact with six different species of sharks in a safe and fun environment.

The three-hour-long program will start off with a behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium. Learn about the toothy underwater hunters and how they fit into the oceanic ecosystem. After that, take the plunge and go for a swim with your newly-made friends. Note that divers must be at least 10 years old.

The When and Where:
There will be four sessions: Two on July 28 at 10am and 1.30pm, and two on July 29 at 10am and 1.30pm. Participants must register in advance and there’s a maximum of four divers per session. The program costs RMB 650 per diver (RMB 600 for students with ID) and RMB 90 per non-diver. Remember to bring your own swimsuit, towel, and shower supplies. Other supplies and equipment will be provided by SinoScuba.

Worker’s Stadium South Gate, Jingguang Qiao, Chaoyang District (6591 3397) 朝阳区工人体育场南门

For more information, see the event listing here or contact SinoScuba at steven@sinoscuba.com or 186 1113 3629.

Photo: Jeff Kubina via Flickr

Here’s an opportunity that adventure seekers 10 and up are not going to want to miss: a guided underwater tour of Beijing’s Blue Zoo aquarium complete with the opportunity to pet a shark. Yes, I said pet a shark.

Long-term Beijing resident Steven Schwankert, a veteran diver with more than two decades of diving experience and the proprietor of local diving operation SinoScuba, is hosting a weekend of close encounters with 6 species of sharks (as well as other other underwater denizens) on July 30-31 at Beijing’s own Blue Zoo.

Schwankert and one of his students do a safety check before taking a dive into the main tank at the Blue Zoo

In his second annual "Shark Weekend", Schwankert will be taking four groups of four into the tank at the Blue Zoo for what he describes as "an interactive educational program designed to offer safe encounters with sharks in a controlled environment." No diving experience is necessary (though experienced divers are welcome as well).

All programs include all required scuba equipment rental, admission to the Blue Zoo, a 40-minute guided dive in the Blue Zoo’s main tank, a tour of the aquarium’s non-public areas and a SinoScuba t-shirt. The program will set you back RMB 650 (600 for ages 12 and under).

Some of you may be wondering about Schwankert’s sanity and whether petting sharks is something a wise parent would subject their offspring to — but no worries there as Schwankert is practically on a first-name basis with the sharks at the Blue Zoo and has been taking students on guided tours of the tank for years. And with 20 years of diving in just about every corner of the globe, he’s a stickler for safety.

Given that the program is open to a maximum of 16 participants, you’ll want to act fast if you’re interested. For details, email steven@sinoscuba.com or call 1350 116 3629 … and tell him you heard about it on beijingkids!

For more information on SinoScuba’s Shark Week(end), see the event listing here.