798 Art District

The sign at the main entrance.

Like any other place in Beijing, people
wanted to take pictures with me.

Because I love art, my favorite place in Beijing was 798 Art District (popularly called "qi-jiu-ba" or 7-9-8) which is located in Chaoyang (朝陽區).

Why does the art district have such a name?  Well, long story short, the area was an old industrial zone where a large factory called Factory 718 was built.  One of the buildings within the factory was named Factory 798.  So, when the artists moved in, the numbers from that factory became popularized and eventually became the name for the entire area.

798 is home to all kinds of art: sculptures, graffiti, performance art, interactive art, you name it.  In my opinion, 798 is never boring.  Every time I visited the area, there were new displays and things to check out.

The exibits at 798 are always quite interesting.  I'll let my old photos speak for themselves from here!

In China, couples love to wear
matching clothes.

I almost bought those shoes! 

Of course, as a cat lover, I snapped several kitty-related things there:

This little guy was resting at the Tibetan
community center within the art district.