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The Underground City
Beneath the ancient city of Beijing, an underground
city of definite proportions has already begun to emerge. There are
factories, stores, guesthouses, restaurants, hospitals, schools,
theaters, reading - rooms, a roller skating rink, a grain and oil
warehouse, and a mushroom cultivation farm. These underground
production and service facilities cover a total area of 850,000 square
meters and make use of more than 1,000 anti-air raid structures.
Below are some of the places worth visiting:
Restaurants Located underneath the busy shopping
area of Xidan, there are actually four restaurants: “ The Plum Garden”
and “ The Bamboo Grove” serve Western cuisine; “ The Blue Valley” and
“ The Chrysanthemum Park” serve Western snacks and beverages. The
average volume of business per worker per day is roughly equivalent to
the rate of business at a first-class restaurant above ground. The
underground snack bar in Wangfujing opened the earliest.
Hotels In the last few years, the number of
underground hotels has climbed to 100, with a total of more than
10,000 beds. This number is roughly equivalent to the half of the
total offered at guest houses in the Beijing Municipality.
The Beijing Municipal Labor Services Company and the West City
District Civil Air Defense Enterprise Management Company manage the
Chang’an Hotel and Dongtian Restaurant, interconnected by passageways.
The hotel occupies 3,000 square meters and has 64 guest rooms.
Stores The stores underneath the Xidan shopping
area north of Chang’ an Hotel take up an area of over 5,000 square
meters. Of this, some 4,000 square meters are used for storage, the
rest for business. Ventilation equipment maintains a
constant 27oC environment, with relative humidity never above 78%.
Theaters There are two underground theaters:
Chongwen Theater, to the south of the east gate of the Temple of
Heaven Park, and Xuanwu Underground Theater beneath Xuanwu Cultural
Center. A constant temperature of 20-25oC is maintained year-round for
movie-viewers. Roller Skating Rink
The roller skating rink below Ditan isn’t influenced by the change if
seasons or atmospheric conditions. Skaters can descend to the cool
depths 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily to rent skates and whiz over the
spacious terrazzo floor. |
