What this is
Working notes on visiting Beijing, kept by someone who ends up organising the same trip for friends and visiting colleagues several times a year. The scope is narrow on purpose: the things that go wrong in planning, and the handful of decisions that determine whether the trip feels easy or exhausting. It is not a list of the top ten sights, because those lists already exist and are all the same.
What this is not
Not a booking service, not a travel agency, not affiliated with any tourism board or airline, and not monetised. There is nothing to sign up for, no newsletter, and no tracking beyond the web server's own access log. If a page recommends something, it is because it worked, not because someone paid for the placement.
On accuracy
Entry rules, admission prices and reservation systems change, sometimes with little notice. Every page carries the date I last checked it, and anything time-sensitive — particularly visa and transit policy — should be confirmed against the official source before you book a flight. Treat this site as a map of what to look up, not as the authority.
The rule I follow: if getting it wrong would cost you money or a flight, verify it officially. If getting it wrong would cost you an afternoon, trust the notes.
Corrections
If something here is out of date or plainly wrong, corrections are welcome and get folded in quickly. The most useful report tells me what you saw on the ground and when, since that is exactly the kind of detail a site like this decays without.
Technical
Static HTML, no JavaScript, no cookies, no analytics. It loads fast on hotel wifi and it will keep working if I stop touching it for a year, which is the whole idea.