21-Day China: Pandas, Chongqing & a Yangtze Cruise

798 Art District 798艺术区

Hours

the district itself is open around the clock; the galleries keep roughly 10:00–18:00

Ticket

free to enter

On a passport

Walking the district costs nothing. Ticketed exhibitions inside it run ¥30–¥120, paid at each venue.

Full 798 Art District guide

Summer Palace 颐和园

Booking

Required — opens the daily quota is released the evening before through the park’s own channel; in practice a weekday slot is still there on the day.

Last entry

19:00 in summer, 18:00 in winter — an hour before the gates close

Ticket

through-ticket ¥60 1 April–31 October / ¥50 in winter; park-gate only ¥30 / ¥20

On a passport

Passport at the gate. The through-ticket bundles the four ticketed inner sites; bought one by one on top of the park gate they come to more than it costs.

Getting in

Line 4 to Beigongmen for the north gate, or Xiyuan for the east gate — the two ends of a park you cannot cross quickly.

Full Summer Palace guide

Temple of Heaven 天坛公园

Last entry

park 21:00; monuments 17:30 summer, 16:30 winter — the monuments’ clock is the one that decides the visit

Ticket

through-ticket ¥34 1 April–31 October / ¥28 in winter; park-gate only ¥15 / ¥10

On a passport

Passport at the gate. Buying the cheap park ticket to save money is the classic mistake here — it covers the trees and not the Hall of Prayer.

Getting in

Tiantan East Gate on Line 5 puts you at the gate nearest the Hall of Prayer, which is the end most people want to start from.

Full Temple of Heaven guide

Terracotta Army 秦始皇兵马俑

Booking

Required — opens Peak-season slots open 7 days ahead on the official channels. Sources disagree on the off-season and public-holiday variants, so treat 7 days as the number to plan around and check the channel for a longer holiday window.. The site is capped at 65,000 visitors a day and stops selling when it fills. That is not theoretical: the museum's own August 2026 bulletin records seven consecutive days at or near 60,000, three of them over 65,000, and on 11 August the entire day's online allocation was gone by 12:30. In the summer holidays and over Golden Week, book the moment your date enters the window; the morning slots go first.

Last entry

Peak season (16 Mar – 15 Nov) last admission 17:00; off season (16 Nov – 15 Mar) 16:30. ⭐ The cutoff is the same at BOTH parks — the museum's own notice says so in as many words — so arriving at the pit halls at 16:45 does not buy you Lishan Park as well. The halls themselves stay open about ninety minutes past the cutoff. ⭐⭐ The number that actually strands people is earlier still: the last free inter-park shuttle leaves around 16:50, so leave the pit halls by 16:20.

Ticket

¥120 flat, all year — one ticket (一票制) covering both parks

On a passport

Real-name, passport required, booked online — there are no on-site ticket windows. The museum's own site (bmy.com.cn) accepts a passport directly, and a passport is one of the ID documents the gate scanners accept, so a foreign visitor can do this without WeChat or a Chinese phone number. The two WeChat official accounts are the other two sanctioned channels. ⛔ The museum states it has never authorised any third-party platform to sell its admission ticket, so a listing offering "the ticket itself" is not what it claims; a tour operator booking on your behalf in your own name is a different thing.

Getting in

华旅观光巴士兵马俑线 — a 21-line tourist-coach network running direct from named city-centre pickup points (Bell Tower / 钟楼饭店, 北大街, 朱雀门, 建国门, 永兴坊, 新城广场 and others) to the museum, about 40 km with no or few intermediate stops. ⚠️ Outbound coaches run 08:00–13:30 ONLY — there is no afternoon departure out of the city, so this option disappears after lunch.

Full Terracotta Army guide

Big Wild Goose Pagoda 大雁塔

Last entry

Temple grounds 08:30–18:00. The free North Square fountain show plays four times a day — 12:00, 16:00, 19:00 and 21:00 — about ten minutes each. ⛔ On Tuesdays the two daytime performances are cancelled for maintenance and only the 19:00 and 21:00 shows run.

Ticket

¥10 for the Da Ci'en Temple grounds

On a passport

Real-name ticketing — carry your passport. ⭐ The North Square fountain show, which is the main event for most visitors, is free and outside the ticketed grounds, so a traveller who only wants that needs no ticket at all.

Getting in

Dayanta (大雁塔) on Metro Lines 3 and 4, exit B or C for North Square. From the Bell Tower take Line 2 and change to Line 3 at Xiaozhai. ⛔ North Square (大雁塔北广场) is where the fountain is; Datang Everbright City is the pedestrian street to the SOUTH. The two are constantly confused and they are on opposite sides of the pagoda.

Full Big Wild Goose Pagoda guide

Shaanxi History Museum 陕西历史博物馆

Booking

Required — opens 5 days ahead, with the day's allocation released at 17:00 (main museum) and 17:30 (Qin-Han Museum).. The free allocation is the hardest ticket in Xi'an: travellers describe holiday and summer dates going in seconds. ⭐ The practical detail nobody publishes in English is that returns and unpaid orders drop back in a wave roughly two to ten minutes after the release hour, and people report succeeding at 17:02–17:10. There is no fallback at the door. ⛔ A no-show is punished: miss a booked slot without cancelling before entry closes and the document is blocked from booking for 180 days.

Last entry

Main museum, 6 May – 14 Nov 2026: 08:30–19:00, last admission 18:00. Winter: 09:00–17:30, last admission 16:30. ⭐ The Qin-Han Museum keeps its own clock — 08:30–18:00, last admission 17:00 — and its own ticket allocation.

Ticket

Free — the permanent galleries carry no admission charge

On a passport

Real-name, and a passport IS an accepted booking document — the museum names it alongside the mainland ID card, the Hong Kong/Macau and Taiwan permits and the permanent-residence card, and says mainland visitors are the ones restricted to the ID card. The friction is the channel: the basic display is booked through a WeChat official account. ⭐ Two ways past that: buy the ¥270 mural-gallery ticket online, which the museum says removes the need to book the free slot separately, or go to the Qin-Han Museum instead, which admits non-mainland visitors on a passport with NO booking at all.

Getting in

Metro Line 2 south from the Bell Tower to Xiaozhai (小寨, lines 2 and 3), then 778 m on foot — the museum publishes that distance itself, along with 834 m from Dayanta on lines 3 and 4. It sits between the Bell Tower and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, so the two pair naturally on one afternoon — ⛔ but only in that order, because the pagoda needs no booking and the museum does.

Full Shaanxi History Museum guide

Jinli Ancient Street 锦里

Hours

Street open 24 hours; shops and snack stalls 09:00–22:00, bars later

Ticket

Free

Lights

Lanterns come on at dusk and switch off at 22:00. Dusk in Chengdu is late on the clock: about 20:00 at midsummer, about 19:50 in mid-August, about 18:05 in midwinter. The half hour after they light is the blue hour, when the sky still has colour behind the lanterns.

Full Jinli Ancient Street guide

Kuanzhai Alley 宽窄巷子

Hours

Alleys open 24 hours; shops, tea houses and stalls keep roughly 10:00–22:00

Ticket

Free

Lights

No published schedule — the lights track dusk, which in Chengdu means about 6pm at the winter solstice and about 8pm at midsummer. The blue-hour window is the thirty minutes as they come on, while the sky still holds colour.

Full Kuanzhai Alley guide

Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding 成都大熊猫繁育研究基地

Last entry

clearing starts 18:00 (March–October) and 17:30 (November–February); the Panda Tower stops admitting at 16:30. The number that actually decides your day is not any of these — it is the 12:00 boundary between the two tickets.

Ticket

¥55 — one price, but see the session split in the hours block; the morning and afternoon tickets cost the same and are not worth the same

On a passport

A passport is an accepted booking and entry document — the operator names it alongside mainland ID, the HK/Macau and Taiwan permits and the foreign permanent-residence card. Two catches, both physical: you must carry the original document you booked with, and a QR code on its own does not admit you. The over-60 and other free tiers are verified against Chinese-issued certificates, so budget the full price. Booking through Ctrip is an authorised channel rather than a workaround.

Getting in

Line 3 to Xiongmao Avenue (熊猫大道), the station named for the SOUTH gate — leave by exit A and take bus D025, 198 or 198A to the Panda Base stop. This is the gate with the car park and the coaches, so it is also the queue.

Heming Teahouse 鹤鸣茶社

Last entry

no gate and no ticket — the park itself is open around the clock

Ticket

Free — both the park and the teahouse. You pay by the cup

On a passport

Nothing here needs an app, an ID or Chinese: you sit down, someone comes over, you point. Cash works. This is the least-friction cultural experience in the city, which is exactly why it lands so well with foreign visitors.

Getting in

Metro Line 2 (also Line 17) to People’s Park (人民公园), exit B — the station sits 270 m north of the teahouse, Amap-measured 2026-08-11. The teahouse is inside the park on the lake shore.

Full Heming Teahouse guide

Leshan Giant Buddha 乐山大佛

Status

The Nine-Bend Plank Path (九曲栈道), the historic descent, is closed for dangerous-rock remediation with no reopening date announced; the descent to the feet runs one-way down the Lingyun Plank Path (凌云栈道) instead. ⚠️ Note the naming trap that follows from it — Chinese sources still call the descent "九曲栈道" out of habit, so a 2026 write-up describing queues on the Nine-Bend Path is describing the Lingyun Path under the old name. Separately, the river cruise moves pier rather than stopping when the water drops: from around mid-November the Jiazhoudu pier by the north visitor centre closes and boarding shifts to the Wuyou dock at the southern end, while the ¥2 cross-river ferry (the 巨型睡佛 sightseeing line) does suspend for the season. Departure times shift with the water level and the weather all year, and heavy rain closes the scenic area outright.

Booking

Required — opens a rolling 7 days — the seventh day ahead is released at 18:00 each afternoon. There is no longer window to plan into, so advice to book ten days out for a Golden Week cannot be followed.. ordinary weekdays go 2–3 days out; weekends from May to September and the whole of the summer holiday need most of the 7-day window. The 09:00–11:00 slots are the first to go, often within a couple of hours of the 18:00 release. When the daytime ticket is gone the scenic area's own fallback is the night session, which is capped at 3,000 a night and is much easier to get.

Last entry

admission stops at 16:30 in peak season — two hours before the gate closes, and the number that actually governs a late arrival. The night session stops admitting at 21:30. Arriving after about 13:00 in peak season leaves too little margin to queue for the cliff descent and finish it.

Ticket

¥80 for the hill ticket (游山票), flat year-round — it covers the Buddha, the cliff descent, Lingyun Temple, Wuyou Temple and the Mahao cliff tombs

On a passport

Budget the full ¥80. Unlike Mt Emei — which does give individual foreign passport holders half price under its own concession policy — Leshan publishes no individual foreign-national tier, and the half price it does publish is for children and students. Two exceptions worth checking against your own case: Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan permit holders have had half price at both mountains since 1 May 2025, and for 2026 the scenic area gives inbound tour GROUPS (including HK/Macau/Taiwan groups) 50% off both the daytime hill ticket and the night Lingyun Hill ticket, outside Spring Festival, 1 May and 1 October. Bring the physical passport either way — the automatic gates do not read foreign passports, so entry is through the staffed lane.

Getting in

54 departures a day, first 06:15, last 21:49 (12306, sampled Sat 2026-08-22). The C intercity services are the cheap end — ¥27 on the 06:15 and 06:34 — and the G and D trains run ¥51–54. ⚠️ Two departures a day are not this journey at all: G8739 (11:00) and G8743 (18:53) reach the same station the long way round via Tianfu airport, Zigong and Yibin in 2h40 and 2h54, at ¥199 and ¥173 — roughly four times the fare for three times the time, under the same origin and destination.

Full Leshan Giant Buddha guide

Dujiangyan Irrigation System 都江堰

Status

The waterworks run year round and the site does not close seasonally. Two things do interrupt it: whole-day closures during summer rain on geological-risk warnings (check the official account the night before), and the separately ticketed evening session, which is a different product on a different clock — a day ticket does not admit you after hours.

Booking

Required — opens Online real-name reservation with a timed entry slot, compulsory year-round and reported to have been reinstated on 2026-02-04. Four windows a day (08:00–10:00 · 10:00–12:00 · 12:00–14:00 · 14:00 to the day’s cut-off), bookable up to 15 days ahead through the 「青城山都江堰」 or 「悦游都江堰」 WeChat accounts or an authorised platform. The two scenic areas run separate allocations: a combo ticket still needs a slot booked at each. ⚠️ This SUPERSEDES the 1 July 2024 relaxation that dropped advance booking on ordinary days, which our own pages carried until 2026-08-11.. Daily cap 48,000 (the operator’s May 2026 figure), spread across the four windows. In the summer holiday the social layer reports booking 1–3 days ahead as the working habit and same-day slots often gone; the on-site window reopens only when online demand trips the scenic area’s warning threshold, which is not something a visitor can plan around

Last entry

Peak (roughly March–October): ticket sales stop 17:30 and entry stops 18:00. Winter (1 Nov – 1 Mar): sales stop 17:00, entry stops 17:30, gate closes 18:00. ⭐ Qinyan Tower, the high viewpoint, stops admitting at 17:30 — earlier than the park. A day ticket must be out by 20:00 and does not cover the separately ticketed summer night session.

Ticket

¥80

On a passport

The booking system takes a passport as the document type, but the automatic gates read mainland ID cards only — foreign visitors go through the staffed lane and a member of staff checks the physical passport. Bring the document itself; a photo is refused. Same procedure at both scenic areas.

Getting in

The Chengdu–Dujiangyan intercity line. Xipu is a cross-platform interchange with metro Line 2, so you never leave the system; a few services run direct from Chengdu East. Ride it to Lidui Park (离堆公园站), the branch terminus.

Full Dujiangyan Irrigation System guide

Sichuan Opera at Shufeng Yayun 蜀风雅韵

Last entry

there is no late entry worth having: the face-changing and fire-spitting are set pieces inside a running programme, not a loop. Arrive 30–40 minutes early if you want the tea, the ear-cleaning and the backstage face-painting, which are most of the reason to pick this venue over a theatre.

Ticket

¥80–260 by seat tier — 壹品 VIP ¥260, 贰品 ¥180–200, 叁品 ¥140–160, 加座 ¥80–100; the mid-tier seats people actually book online run about ¥188–268

On a passport

What separates the rungs is not just distance from the stage: the top tier comes with the covered tea bowl, snacks and a costume-wearing photo, the middle with tea and a snack, the cheapest with tea and melon seeds. Nothing about the show needs Chinese — face-changing, fire-spitting, hand shadows and the rod puppets are all visual — so the cheap rung is not a compromised experience, it is a smaller one.

Getting in

Line 2 to Tonghuimen (通惠门), exit E, then about 400 m along Qintai Road — the venue sits inside Chengdu Culture Park and the box office address is given relative to that exit (Amap, 2026-08-10)

Full Sichuan Opera at Shufeng Yayun guide

Yu Garden 豫园

Last entry

16:00 — the 16:30 figure is when the garden is cleared, not when you can still get in

Ticket

¥40 in peak season (1 April to 30 June and 1 September to 30 November) and ¥30 in the low season (1 July to 31 August and 1 December to 31 March)

On a passport

a passport works at the window. ⚠️ The garden is small and the bazaar is not — budget an hour inside the walls and treat the rest of the block as a separate, free, much later-opening thing.

Getting in

Metro Lines 10 and 14 stop at 豫园. ⚠️ The station is named for the bazaar it sits under, not for the garden gate — the ticketed garden is a few hundred metres further in, past the crowds most visitors mistake for it.

Full Yu Garden guide

The Bund 外滩

Hours

the promenade is open 24 hours; the decision is not when it opens but when the far bank is lit

Ticket

Free — the promenade costs nothing, and the paid things are all optional add-ons across the river

On a passport

nothing to buy and nothing to book. ⭐ The money here is other people's: the observation decks opposite, the tunnel under the river, and the bars in the buildings behind you. The one thing worth ¥2 is the public ferry — see the access note.

Getting in

Lines 2 and 10 at 南京东路, then east along the pedestrian street to the water. Line 10 also stops at 豫园, which puts the garden and the promenade on one line.

Lights

19:00 in summer, 17:00 in winter — it tracks dusk, not a fixed hour

Full The Bund guide

Shanghai Museum 上海博物馆

Booking

Required — opens the East building takes individuals on the day with no booking. The People's Square building is capped at 8,000 day-session visitors and sold in timed slots, and while the Ancient Americas exhibition runs there is no free or unbooked entry to it at all.. weekend and holiday slots at the People's Square building; the East building is normally fine on the day.

Last entry

East 17:00 — one hour before close. People's Square 15:00, which is TWO hours before its doors shut and the single easiest way to lose a visit here.

Ticket

Free at the East building — but the People's Square building is ticketed until November 2027

On a passport

a passport is read at the door of the East building, and overseas visitors book through the museum's own website rather than the WeChat account. ⚠️ Two galleries inside East — 古代文明探索宫 and 数字馆 — still need their own advance booking even though the building is walk-in.

Getting in

the East building is in Pudong on 世纪大道; the People's Square building is 6.1 km west, on the square itself. ⛔ Read the address on your booking before you set off — the two share a name and nothing else.

Full Shanghai Museum guide

The former French Concession 上海法租界

Hours

the streets are open at every hour; shops and cafés set their own, and the lanes are at their best late morning to early evening

Ticket

Free — it is a district of streets, and nothing about walking it is ticketed

On a passport

the plane trees are the attraction and they cost nothing. ⭐ The value here is a whole afternoon of walking rather than any single address, which is why it survives a rainy day better than the towers do.

Getting in

Tianzifang is beside 打浦桥 on Line 9. ⭐ But the Concession is better entered on foot from the east and walked west — the point is the streets between the landmarks, not the landmarks.

Full The former French Concession guide

Pudong observation decks 陆家嘴观光层

Last entry

21:30 at Shanghai Tower — the 22:00 figure is when it closes, not when it stops selling

Ticket

Shanghai Tower's floor-118 deck is ¥180 standard, ¥190 in summer and ¥199 on public holidays

On a passport

⭐ The useful thing nobody writes down: you are standing IN the skyline, so you cannot photograph it. The picture everyone actually wants is taken from the Bund, across the water, for nothing.

Getting in

Line 2 to 陆家嘴 puts all three towers within a few minutes of each other on the elevated pedestrian ring.

Full Pudong observation decks guide