i am sorry that this took me so long to write about one of the most amazing meal I had in Beijing – Peking Duck. obviously we had to eat Peking Duck in Peking. There is no way around it. There are many restaurants were you can eat it. We were in one at the top of shopping center. It was a really nice restaurant.
The waiting
The first thing we learnt was that it is not easy to get a table. When we came there you, you take your place in the queue and wait your turn to get your waiting number. Is it your turn you say how many people you are and then you get a number and then you have to wait around until your number is called. Than you get a table. This was a first for me to get a waiting number when I wanted to eat something. I actually don’t remember how long we waited for table but it was definitely more than a half of hour.
The Dishes
We always ordered four different dishes and eat from all of them. Here we ordered a half Peking duck and egg-rice with shred duck, than something like pancakes with a filling we don’t know and something else where we don’t know what it was. All the dishes were very delicious. All the dishes get serve at the same time except for the Peking duck. The Peking duck came an hour after we ordered.
The duck itself got cut direct on our table. You can watch them and you get very little of what the meat. Than came the stuff that I didn’t know about. All stuff you need to eat Peking duck. We got melon, onions and cucumber. Also we sugar, sesame sauce and at last we got really thin flatbread. When I search for it in the web I always find crepes as the flatbread.
The duck in the combination of all these ingredients tasted amazing. Now I really want to eat Peking duck again.
welcome to the next station of my beijing travels – Shichahai, which is a famous scenic. It is a little like two worlds met. The Old and the new and mostly the tourist. It is an amazing scenic and fun to visited at day but the best way to walk around the lakes is the night.
Two worlds
The area is around three lakes Qianhai (前海), Houhai (后海) und Xihai (西海). The way around these lakes is full with little shops, bars, cafes, restaurants. You can almost find everything here. At light it is full lights and music and life. It is full of people and has just an amazing atmosphere.
But also this area has the best instand Hutongs. Hutongs is the name for the small alley with old houses. The look really beautifull i think.
Actually i think there is no more to say about it. Shichahai is something you has to see and feel not to read about.
If you want to visited Shichahai the simplest way is to just drive to the station ‘Shichahai’. This station is still in the built but can already be used. It starts at end of the lovermost part of the three seas and start with a beautiful view.
welcome to the next article about Beijing. This is really not normal that some place like this is in such a list. But this place just felt right. It was nice and we had alot of fun at this sport place. We sat many evenings on that tribune.
Sport
In Beijing the people came out when it gets dark to make sport. This is the only time this is possible. The warm temperature and the smog is making the evening the best time to do it. For me it was still to warm to make something like sport. But alot people in beijing are coming out to the sport place and run their rounds. Some of them are jogging, some running, some walking, and some are walk around the place.
You see people in sport cloth but mostly the are runing in jeans or skirts… not all are even having sport shoes. You see sandles or even high heels.
Just lets say that you always have something to watch. You will always find something interessting.
What we were doing
We of course didn’t make sport. What did was buying coke and beer also cookies, ice and chips and set on the tribune and just watched. Okay we were also talking with each other. There is a nice silence in this place you find not often in beijing. It is relaxing just siting there and enjoying the place. Sadly but perfect for people that have to drive home the place closes on 10 o’clock. So you get the subway before it stops.
The university we were visiting was the Beihang University.
here comes the second point on my list the summer palace. The summer palace is an amazing palace. The most important thing to know for this trip and i would advice to make it a whole day adventure, you need something like sport shoes. You have to talk any stairs and something like climbing… a little bit. Has you can assume now is that the summer palast is built on a hill what makes it so much more beautiful than the other temple.
Few first infos
If you want to have an audio guide you can take one on the start. You have of course chinese as a language and english. This is a big sightseeing so you have a lot of other languages for example german.
Of course you have to pay for the inlet. No matter if you visit the summer palast or the forbidden city it is all the same way. You can only pay for the main attraction here it would the summer palast or for the whole area.
Than you have to different price one for the peak season – that would be summer – and the low season – Winter. So for summer it would be 50 yuan and 40 yuan in winter. (For germans 1 yuan divide through 7 and you got Euros – in this case it would be 7,14 € and winter 5,71 €). So yes buy a ticket for everything.
Summer Palace
The area
The area is really big. With the through ticket there are for 6 buildings you have entred to. Summer Palace, Garden of Virtue and Harmony, Wenchang Gallery, Suzhou Street and Tower of Buddhist Incense. But there is way more to see like the mamor boat and the kunming sea.
Kuniming Sea
The sea is taking the most of the area. It is a beautiful sea and you can get with about over it. The boat is driving you around a area with the look at a few pavilions. Sadly i hadn’t that look because we started at the wrong side and lost to much time at searching for the Tower of Buddhist. But my friend told us that it is absolutely worth it.
The buildings close at 17:00 o’clock. But the area is longer open. So we sit there in the park with the look at the sea. It is quite nice.
Kunming sea
Garden of Virtue and Harmony
We think when we read garden about green grass and flowers, but this is not what you will find here. Actually you will only find a tree in the middle of it and a theater, what is actually the one thing that is to see their. The theater is really beautiful.
Garden of Virtue and Harmony Garden of Virtue and Harmony – Theater
But you can find in the area a garden that is a little bit more like a garden. It is a really beautiful place is a little away from the main road so there are not so much people. So this is a good place to make pause.
Garden
Wenchang Gallery
‘The exhibits include bronzeware, jewelry, chinaware, furniture, paintings, calligraphy, ancient books, enamels, clocks, handicrafts made of gold, silver, bamboo, wood, ivory, horn and lacquer, and other miscellaneous items, representing almost all types of Chinese antiques.’
This is what you can read everywhere and you find there really beautifull things. But if you expect something like the juwelry in London for example you will not find them there. There is alot with jade in many forms. You should totally take a look in there.
Suzhou Street
My friend likes this part the most. This is a street around the moat with alot of little businesses. It is a sweet street. The way is really small but it has a nice atmosphere.
Suzhou Street
Tower of Buddhist
You can see the Tower from any points of the area but we had a few problems finding the right way into the building. It is on mountain/hill and you have to ‘climb’ many stairs to get to it but it is totally worth the sight.
Tower of BuddhistTower of Buddhist 2
So this is an amazing place and totally worth visiting. Hope this was hopefull. If you have questions you can always write me.
maybe it is not quite usual to say that the best thing in a town was the dinner but Hot Pot was special.
First of all what is Hot Pot?
Hot Pot has something from Fondue. You have a big pot not with fat but with some sort of sauce. We had to different versions. You can have pot with one ‘sauce’ or with two different ‘sauce’ in one pot. You can choose different ‘sauce’. We had one half of the pot with a mild milk combination and the other was a spicy one. Like the name says this get hot like the fat when you do fondue.
Then you can choose alot of different staff to throw into the pot. Just to say a few things: sweetcorn, tofu, meat (more like bacon), noodles, eggs and leaves.
But that was not all. Then you got a little soup and different sauces that you can mix on your own. Also you got melone to eat until everything is ready.
How to eat
This is really simple. You throw everything in there and wait until it is ready than you fish for it and took in one of the sauces and than you eat it. It is really delicious.
Happy Hot Pot
We were two times at the same restaurant, because it was just so much fun there. Most Hot Pot restaurants let you do all that stuff on your own. At the place we were they make alot for you. The make sauces for you (you can still make your own if you want) and throw the stuff in for you. At first we thought why would him bring us here. But than we had like ten different sauce from them. They came and asked questions. They were all really sweet and really interessted. They have little presents for you and when you sit long enough you get a lot of stuff for trying.
But the most special thing is that you can let them dance for you. It is really sweet and funny to watch them dance gangnam style.
It was one of the nicest evenings in beijing.
here is my list of things that you should do or see in Beijing. Afterwards i will go into detail of the things in other articles. Soo the hardest part about it is to decided what i like the most. Everything we did was fun… okay except the Temple of Heaven. But i will talk about too. Sooo first things first what was my highlight of the vacation. It is really hard. But i decided for Food. My number one is:
1) Hot Pot
Hot Pot is a special way of eating food. It is little like fondoue. There are a lot restaurants for it. My friend visited two friend restaurants but we just got one of them, but it was amazing. It was super delicious and funny. But it is totally a group activity. You should be at least three persons. More infos will follow here.
2) Summer Palast
Of all the Palast and temple this was the one that i found the most beautifull. Mostly it looks like all the other places but the palast and everything what counts to this whole area is built on a mountain. Which means good shoes and it gives you a totally differnet view of the buildings. More infos will follow here.
3) Sport place at the Uni of my friend
Yeah, this one is weird one. But it was actually the place we spend the most time in Beijing. It is really chilly there. Of course i and my friends too didn’t make sport there. It is like a big stadium and when it gets dark all the students and other people came out to run or walk. We just got to sit at the tribune and watch them. It really were best nights out.
4) ShishaHai
It is the toury area but it is so amazing. The area goes around three sees and are little shops and restaurants. At night everything is colourfull and everywhere os live music. If you need a place to go, go there. More infos will follow.
5) Peking Duck
Okay, eating is really important and that peking duck is amazingly delicious. I never ate peking duck before. So i had no idea what to expect and it looked a little suspious when my friend showed me but it taste really good. More infos will follow.
6) Lamma Temple/ Confusius Temple
I love this temple so much because it is still used as a place to pray. What makes it really make special place in Beijing. More infos will follow.
7) The Forbidden City
It is the sighting in Beijing and i really love this place. It is so huge and beautifull. I could stay the whole day there and just watch the building. But there is just so much that makes the other places just a tiny bit more amazing for me. More infos will follow.
here i will tell you a few things or better tipps. Most of it comes from my friend in Beijing. I loved Beijing. It has really beautifull places and is a city like the most. Mostly it is like every other city. People talk about culture shock but didn’t had anything like that. Beijing is a really big and smelly city. Of course there are a lot of asians, which brings us totally to the first point.
1) Everyone is looking at you. Everyone and everywhere is taking pictures of you. Some will come to you and asked if they can make a picture with you. They are mostly really cute and nice. You feel like a really important star. Others will totally make pictures of you when you are not looking. They are really obvious about it. Sometimes family place their kids next to you and take pictures.
2) Please look out. The traffic is something else in Beijing. Really it is amazing that there are so little or no crashs. Because everyone is driving like crazy and like the want. Something like red amples means nothing their. Some of them are driving on the walkway and that are just the nice things. Really the traffiy is something else. You can stand the whole way on the crossroad and just watch them better than every soap.
3) The good thing about Beijing is that it have everywhere toiletts. Really everywhere. But they look not really nice…not. Also you should bring your own toilet paper – Chuck was right toilett paper is the most important thing, even when the world is not going down. That toilett paper has to be thrown in the basket beneath the toilett.
What you know is that the toilett are of course all an earth closet.
4) The fastest way to travel is the subway. Normally my best friend and i always walk everywhere, but in Beijing we choose to travel with the subway. The best way is to buy a Transportation Smart Card. To charge the card you go to one of the almost 24 hours open counter. At every station is a security counter where they shine through your purse. The prices are 2 yuan. Just the airport express cost more (25 yuan).
5) Don’t travel in china in summer, but if you do buy many suncreme. It is hot and muggy. So please don’t forget the suncreme.
6) Yeah, don’t eat at the little street stands. Just eat where they have flowing water.
I believe that are the most things that you should know. I hope you have fun. If you had visit beijing i would love to hear your storys and what you think about the city.
so i was two weeks in Beijing and it is definitly something else and i wanted to share a few parts of it with you. I searched for sites that tell me more of personal experience of place you should see – not the standard you find everywhere. But i didn’t find much. So I thought that i should write a few words about it, about things one of my best friend told us (who we were visiting).
This is a blog about Doctor Who and i will never forget that. But that is how i understand Doctor Who. It is about adventures about seeing the world with different eyes, about trying something new, about seeing every little bit of the world, of the culture. It is about people and about their lifes. So my TARDIS was that airplane that brought me there and i hope that you are a little bit interesst in this.
My plans are to write to list. One about things you should see or try in Beijing and the other things you should be ready for when you visited Beijing.
Also of course i want to write about the places i was visiting like the standard places like Olympic park, Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City, Summer Palast, Great Wall and places i liked the most.
Also i will start watching ‘Person of interest’. I watched three episodes of the third season on the plane and couldn’t say if i like it. We will see.
I will try to see the Musketeers and Dark Matter somewhere this season, but i have the late-shift and so not much time. Back to work and everthing.
Also at my vacation the last part of big finish Torchwood arrived. I will listen and write about it as fast i can. I really hope we will get another season after the big special with all three of them in september?
So see you/ Read you sometime this week.
For the people who don’t follow me on tumblr. Here you find a few picture of my travles: Beijing!
