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Beijing Zoo (daily 7.30am-5pm; Y10), on Xizhimenwei Dajie, marks the edge of the inner city. There's a subway stop, Xizhimen, 1km east of the zoo, and a bus terminus just south of it; bus #7, which you can catch from Fuchingmen Dajie, terminates here. Xizhimen Zhan (Beijing North train station) is north of the subway stop. The zoo itself, flanked on either side by the monumental Capital Gymnasium and Soviet-built Exhibition Centre, is hardly a great attraction. The only part worth visiting, in fact the only part of any zoo in China that's not depressing, is the panda house. You can join the queues to have your photo taken sitting astride a plastic replica, then push your way through to glimpse the living variety - kept in relatively palatial quarters and highly familiar through ritual diplomatic mating exchanges over the last decades. While the pandas lie on their backs in their luxury pad, waving their legs in the air, other animals, less cute or less endangered, slink, pace or flap around their miserable cells. The Exhibition Hall , just before the zoo on Xizhimenwei, is worth a little inspection. It is the one Soviet-style building that really works in Beijing - an elegant, low-level facade with a tapering gold spire (a clear and unusual landmark in this part of the city) whose decor mixes Chinese dragons (on the doors) with the hammer and sickle (on the columns). Although now just one of many exhibition halls in the capital, it does sometimes have international shows, though it's mostly used for trade fairs. It also boasts a Russian restaurant, on a street just west of the hall - check out the crazy decor if you're passing. The Dazhong Si , Great Bell Temple (Tues-Sun 8am-4.30pm; Y5), is actually one of Beijing's most interesting little museums, though it's stuck out on Beisanhuan Lu, the north section of the third ring road, a long way from anywhere; you could visit on the way to or from the Summer Palace if you're travelling by taxi. Displayed to good effect in a converted temple, the exhibits, several hundred bronze bells from temples all over the country, are considerable works of art, their surfaces enlivened with relief texts in Chinese and Tibetan, abstract patterns and images of storks and dragons. The odd creature perching on their tops is called a pulao, a legendary creature which shrieks when attacked by a whale (the wooden poles with which the bells were struck are carved to look like whales). The smallest bell is the size of a wine cup, the largest, hanging in the back hall, is the size of a house. A Ming creation, called the King of Bells , at fifty tonnes it's the biggest and oldest bell in the world and reputedly can be heard up to 40km away. You can climb up to a platform above it to get a closer look at some of the 250,000 characters on its surface, and join Chinese visitors in trying to throw a coin into the small hole in the top. Its method of construction, and the history of Chinese bell-making, are explained in side halls. Tapes on sale of the bells in action are more interesting than they might appear; the shape of Chinese bells dampens vibrations, so they can be effectively used as instruments. It's not an obvious tourist attraction, but the whole of Haidian District , north of the zoo, is worth exploring - here you'll find the more underground bars and clubs, plenty of Internet cafes, and on Zhongguangcun Lu, nicknamed Electronics Street, a hi-tech zone of computer shops. In the north of the area, on the way to the Summer Palace, you'll pass Beijing Daxue (Beida), the capital university. Originally established and administered by the Americans at the beginning of this century, it stood on Coal Hill in Jingshan Park and was moved to its present site in 1953. Now busy with new contingents of foreign students from the West, two decades ago it was half-deserted when the Cultural Revolution saw students and teachers alike dispersed for "open schooling" or re-education. Later, in 1975-6, Beida was the power base of the radical left in their campaign against Deng Xiaoping. It's the most prestigious university in China, with a pleasant campus - old buildings and quiet, well-maintained grounds make it nicer than most of the city's parks. The technical college, Qinghua, is not far from here, to the east, though there's little point visiting the drab place unless you want to get a room in the foreigners' dormitory. Around the gates of both universities you'll find small, inexpensive restaurants , bars and Internet cafes catering for the students.
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