The Eastern Discovery Tour
Day 4

The scariest part of the alpine coaster is the corners. Due to the lack of banking you feel a high amount of sideways g-force going around them. This does create a sense of insecurity, you have to be brave to take the corners at speed.

A shot of one of the corners towards the end of the ride.

A shot of the exit station, where you get off, and can get the chairlift back up if you want another go.

If you walk a little further round the lake you reach the tower you climb for a giant zip line across the lake. If you walk far enough you'll end up back at the to of the large hill, although as far I could tell you could only get tickets for the chairlift and alpine coaster at the bottom chairlift station.

A shot of the zip line that starts up the mountain, and goes across the lake. I didn't think it was as fast as the Shijingshan one, but it's in a much more spectacular location.

After finishing at Yanxi Lake my guide took me back to my hotel. In the evening I headed over to this area of Beijing known as Houhai Lake. To be honest the only reason I'm reporting it is to warm people to avoid it.

The sad thing is it's a beautiful area, that could potentially be a great night life spot. The trouble is it impossible to just walk around without being harassed. It's not just by people trying to drum up business as you walk past a bar or restaurant. There are people who will follow you down the street, trying to get you to come with them to some bar somewhere, about the only way to get rid of them is to aggressively tell them to get lost. I've read enough warnings and horror stories about doing this to know to avoid going to any bars, tea houses or art galleries with anyone you've met recently in Beijing, yet alone with some dodgy bloke on the street.

The shops are also a major tourist trap. There are no fixed prices, which is common enough in other tourist areas to mean you don't have to bother here. More to the point though the stall holders tried to charge an exploitatively high price (£25 for items I'd seen for £7 elsewhere) and it was a lot of hassle to get them down to a fair price.

I'm told you can avoid some of these problems by coming here for lunch, or avoiding the lake itself, and sticking to the roads just off the lake. Personally I wouldn't bother, given their are already beautiful areas to explore, and places to go out for a meal where I wouldn't face that kind of hassle. Maybe I might consider it if the metro expansion meant there was a stop close by. Right now though it's a 20 minute walk from the nearest Metro station, or you get a taxi, so I just don't think it would be worth the effort.

This is one of the main entrances and exits which I ended back at a lot sooner than I originally intended to.