From Shanghai to Beijing

This China trip should be our longest holiday this year, from 4th to 11th Sept (only 8 days). In this trip, we have gathered enough spit in our bodies to learn how to expel them out the good ol' chinese way. Kaaaa...PUI!

SHANGHAI
We stayed in Royal Court Hotel, a relatively pocket-friendly hotel in central Huai Hai Lu. My first reaction when I saw the exterior of the building was "Oh crap!". I felt rather cheated coz it didn't seem that musky from the pictures. Anyway, I figured that I should withhold my princess reactions till we see the room, which did not turn out too bad. Just one main complain about the hotel – their super crappy breakfast.

Here's what what we did...

Walked the DongTai Lu Antique Market: There were lots of pseudo antiques and cultural revolution posters, sculptures etc. Worth taking a walk. But don't forget to bargain. We managed to buy things at a quarter of the starting price.

Went on the Oriental Pearl TV Tower: It took us 2 hours in the queue to get to the top on a Sunday afternoon. And we were standing between people who were picking their noses a lot. We thought it was not that worthwhile to stand in the queue for such a long time till we get to the glass balcony. Go there if you have nothing else to do, or you are really into standing on a glass floor at 350 metres high.

Walked/shopped in Taikang Lu: We both love this place. The vibe is laid-back and arty. I believe they used to be houses that are now converted to shops, I think people are still living above the shops coz we see laundry hanging on the cables outside. There are quite a few cool shops that sell chinese-designed clothes and merchandise, and lots of small art galleries. There are also lots of restaurants and bars and some close at around 11pm.

The Bund: Yes super touristy, but it kinda is the must-go place when in Shanghai. We did not do very much there. Took some pictures and had a couple of drinks at the bar on top of a (short) lighthouse. But if you have lots of money to spare, there are quite a lot of swanky restaurants along the bund where you can have a fancy dinner with a nice view.

YuYuan Garden: Very touristy. Don't like it at all. We say, don't bother. There's a very famous XiaoLongBao (dumpling) shop but the queue is so ridiculously long, you won't feel like trying, no matter how greedy you are.

XinTianDi: Another area that has been converted to restaurants and bars and has an expat vibe. A good place to go if you've had enough of bad chinese food possibly due to ignorance and bad choices. We had quite a few bad experiences in Shanghai where food somehow had a 'mouldy' taste, absolutely no idea what it was, but it was yucky. So TMSK was our wonderful relieve for the night. Food was good, especially the scallops with garlic (we had to order an extra serving after), and service was great.

MaoMing South Road: It's a small stretch with some nice restaurants and bars. Good if you are near Huai Hai Lu and want a nice dinner. There's a very popular Italian restaurant, not sure what it's called but obviously crowded. We picked a quaint little Moroccan restaurant at the corner called El Wajh. We loved it. Good food, cute place, and a strangely smiley chef/owner from Morocco.

After 3 days, we figured we had enough of Shanghai and could not wait to get to Beijing.
Flew on China Eastern to Beijing. Flight was delayed for close to 2 hours, apparently domestic flights in China are delayed 9 out of 10 times. Oh and the food served on the plane had the mysterious 'mouldy' taste too!

BEIJING
We met up with Aleksi, Gloria (star travel planner), John (star China guide, he is American!) and David. Gloria and John used to live in Beijing, so our food and sights are pretty much sorted. We just have to drag our fat asses behind them and start our mission to devour every duck in the city. Our home in Beijing is Oakwood Apartments. Love it! There are two in Beijing and both are in good locations, near Sanlitun, where the bars are. And our itinerary was impeccably planned by Glo.

Tian An Men Square: Huge grounds with the classic Mao picture as the backdrop. And great place to people watch. Mainly hoards of chinese tourists carrying little coloured flags and if you are lucky you might see strange women dressed in sequins.

Forbidden City: I grew up watching chinese period dramas on TV and it's only now that I see the magnitude of the Forbidden City. Very cool to see it up close and experience the bigness of it all. It was strangely crowded that day, certainly not a bit forbidden.

798 Art District: We love this! Yes, another arty place. Not that we are trying to be arty farty, but it is really cool. Lots of big sculptures and graffiti scattered in a very big space that used to be a factory many years ago. Now, they are converted into galleries and shops. It was here that I felt sad living in Singapore.

HouHai Hutongs (Yandai Byway, Nan LuoGuXiang): It's a nice area to walk around and have something to eat. The area has lots of shops, restaurants and bars set in traditional hutong houses. We had a great lunch at a Yunan restaurant, walked to Yandai Byway (smoking pipe street) and Nan LuoGuXiang area where there are nice little souvenir shops and cafes. We spent a good few hours just walking around.

Great Wall (JinShanLing): We were glad we went to this part of the wall. It's good that it's quiet and not insanely touristy. And the wall is not as perfect as what you'd see in most photos. In fact, it's a very broken wall. We started by taking a cable car up, our walk on the wall was pretty short, but the trek down seemed pretty damn long. I spent most of the time trying not to slip on the little stones while walking downhill to get back to where we started from. It was nice to see THE wall. But it kinda is just a wall (according to Gloria). Not much of a surprise at the end of the day. But still glad we did it.

Ming Village: Quaint little village that's about 3 hours drive from Beijing. Not many tourists, but we did see a lot of art students painting pictures of the scene. It is nice to visit if you are bored of the city and want to see something atypical.

Wang Fu Jing food street: A small street that sells strange food targeted at tourists. Well, we did not see any locals eating centipedes or starfish! But they did eat cow's stomach which looked pretty eeeks! We were not adventurous at all... ate some pan fried dumplings and skewered meat. Yawn! So not yummy :(

Pan Jia Yuan Antique Market: This only opens on weekends and they sell quite a bit of pseudo antiques here. I believe there are a few stalls that sell authentics, you kinda need to know your stuff to tell the difference. Bought some cool souvenirs including a red sculpture of an old man smoking. Unfortunately I do not know the name of the artist this sculpture was copied from.

Sanlitun: Bars, shops, restaurants, malls. Find a hotel near this area so you'll have a place to hang out at night. We had a couple of meals here, a few drinks way too many at some of the bars and of course ended the night/morning at Suzie Wong's. Next morning was Ouch.

Dinners in Shanghai: Our first awesome dinner was at a high-end local shop XiangManLou near our hotel. We had the best duck in the trip right here. And dirt cheap! A table full of food only cost us only SGD $20 each. The other duck place we went, Da Dong (pictured) was a lot more expensive compared to the first (SGD $60 per person). It feels more classy and posh, food was delicious, the selection is also quite different from the first.

Beijing Underground City: We took a total of 3 hours and 2 cab rides and multiple attempts to ask for directions in my crappy chinese to finally get to this place. And... when we got there, we found out that it has been closed 3 years ago! Oh damn guide books I hate you!


Here are some useful tips and links if you are planning a trip to Beijing.
• Hire a driver for a day if you are intending to travel far out to the Great Wall or Ming Village.
• Print directions in Chinese if you are planning to get to a particular place. The cab drivers in Beijing do not speak English.
• If flagging does not get you a cab (the locals tend to cut 'queues'), just open the door of an empty cab if it happens to be in front of you (they are usually stuck in jams anyway) and get in. If you don't play rude, you won't get anywhere.
• Carry hand sanitizers and wet wipes. It's generally polluted and dirty.
• Nothing is really original in China. So don't fall in love with things too quickly, you'll most likely find the same or similar items at a cheaper price. And you can most likely bargain to about a quarter of starting price at the markets.
• Chinese tend to spit a lot, but almost all are pretty skilled at it. But still do watch out and not stick your foot out on where they are aiming at. eeks!

www.cityweekend.com.cn
www.thebeijinger.com
www.timeout.com

Birthday Triple Whammy Megabonanza BBQ

Title says it all. It was that time of the year again. This year it was a bit more serious than before because after this milestone, I have to jump new age box when filling forms and applications.

Shared "burden" is always the best one. Luckily my good mates Antti and Timo have B-days around same period so we decided to arrange triple B-day party. Perhaps its our Finnish nature, but somehow there was immediately silent agreement that main event will happen around BBQ. Another reason is that Antti and Heidi has awesome BBQ facilities at their condo just next to the pool.

After few planning beers, some emails and traditional last minute calls/SMS night before action and heavy groceries we were ready...

B-day boys and Heidi.

Cakes and candles. Special thanks to Evonne for the cakes.

Official group picture. At tennis court. Naturally.

After the guards switch off the lights at BBQ pit we decided to make a move and destroy the rest of the sparkling and homemade Salmari (by Antti and Heidi) at the condo's lounge on the 31st floor.

Next pitstop was rooftop bar at The Club where we stayed while before the evening's major Megabonanza: Hindi-disco at Boat Quay!

Imagine a club full of Indian pro-dancer chicks in saris while speakers boosting crazy hits from Bollywood. Perhaps mixture of this...

...and this....

...and this....

...gives you a good idea about the place and the party what we had. Even mysterious PeaMan was spotted here. You bet that we had a crispy feeling next morning.

Oh! If someone knows/remembers the exact name for this place, please share.

Evening was a blast and I would really like to thank all participants. After this much fun, ticking the new box in forms doesn't feel so depressing...

Hanoi & Halong Bay

I am not a fan of Vietnam, but Poika is. I figured since our August trip is meant to be his birthday treat, I'll be nice and give in. So Hanoi and Halong Bay it is.

We booked ourselves in Serenade Hotel in the Old Quarters, that's where all the buzz is. And experienced the beautiful Halong Bay on Jasmine Cruise. Here's our 4Days 3Nights itinerary. Too bad we didn't get to visit the many museums they are famous for, they are all closed on Fridays and Mondays. Arghhh! But despite that, we both had great fun living the lives of the rich and poor.

Day 1 – Hanoi
We explored the Old Quarters on foot most of the day. Saw many of the typical vietnam street sights – families on motorbikes, women in cone hats etc. The weather was painfully hot, I was grouchy as usual but Poika somehow managed to maintain his Mr Cool Cucumber image. *Respect*
For some strange reasons, we did not manage to find any of the restaurants mentioned in our little Lonely Planet guide book and ended up having lunch at a street stall. Coming from Singapore, I'm a little uptight about cleanliness. I thought to myself, what the heck, if it's crap then I might just end up losing some weight by the end of the trip, so whatever it is, it's no loss on my end. The pho we had turned out to be pretty good, all that paranoia and yumminess cost us about SGD$2 each.
After lunch, we walked to the big market and bought 2kg of weasel poop coffee. Got bored seeing the same things over again, then a brilliant idea popped into our heads, "Beer Stop!" So we sat by another street stall, and had Bia Ha Noi for SGD$1.20 a bottle. We had to have it with ice, as the bottle was warm, that made me eeky again, but I came out of it alive. I'd say not the best beer in the world, but pretty awesome at that price. For dinner, we went to a tourist trap called Green Tangerine, a French fusion restaurant near the hotel. It was rather disappointing as our $2 lunch was a lot more exciting than this $160 dinner.
After dinner program is, of course, more beer. We went to a bar with a balcony that overlooks the crazy traffic. It was quite interesting to watch how the locals cross the ridiculously busy road with so much confidence, balloon sellers peddling trying to attract kids on bikes...The night ended pretty early as we had to wake up early to catch our oh-so-luxurious cruise on Halong Bay.

Day 2 & 3 - Halong Bay
We got picked up at 7.45am from the hotel, traveled 3 hours in the car to get to Halong city. By the time we got on the Jasmine Cruise, we were pretty knackered. Of course the first thing we did was check out the condition of our room. And oh so pleasantly surprised we were! It looked like the pictures I saw online. The room was not big, but it was clean and pretty. Bathroom was beautiful for a boat, and we even had a little private balcony.
We very promptly ordered a bottle of wine at lunch and stuffed our faces with food. The food was not that fantastic, but relatively decent. We were then taken on an hour tour of the fishing village on a little sampan. It was nice to see how the fishermen live on their little stilt houses, little kids playing in the water, men lazing in hammocks (while the women worked very hard, rowing the sampans we were on!)
Looking local in our borrowed cone hats!
After our tour, we went back to our big boat and had a nice, warm afternoon dip in the sea. We were even encouraged to dive off the 2nd level! Most of the time on the boat was spent eating and lazing. It was a beautiful place to do nothing, and definitely a huge contrast compared to the noisy and crowded city.
We were back in Halong city after breakfast the next day. It would have been better if this boat trip is at the end of the hanoi trip, and if we could stay an extra day.

Day 3 – Hanoi
The water puppet was told to me as one of the must-see in Hanoi. It was a short half hour show in a small theatre by the lake. I won't say it's a must-see, but it's worth half hour of your time if you have nothing better to do. Oh and you'll have to get tickets in advance, they sell out pretty fast.
We spend quite a bit of day 3 drinking ridiculously cheap Bia Hoi by the road on tiny plastic stools (40cents a glass). It's a great way to people watch. And we went on 2 cyclos ride, yes, touristy (also paid tourist price) but we were so tired from walking and it was exciting to be so close to the crazy traffic, totally helpless and dependent on the dude who's cycling.
Dinner was at Cha Ca La Vong. They serve only one dish and that's grilled fish with loads of dill. Crappy service, pretty interesting food (Poika eats dill only with new potatoes, but I like dill) and a place that destroys white tees with splatters of oil! I say a must-try if you're a foodie.
Day 4
We decided to do one last touristy thing before we leave, visit the tube house. It's complete shite. Don't bother. The entire place is a souvenir shop!

And it's bye bye Hanoi :)

National Museum

Cai Guo Qiang's, Head On at the National Museum is ending this month, so we decided to catch the wolves before they migrate.


We also went to another exhibit – Singapore in the 1960's. That was pretty cool too, found some funny ads from the 60's.
Our very hungry stomach led us to the Brotzeit at Raffles City. I've got a big dinner ahead so we were pretty controlled and had a salad and some sausages. Yummy!
Thunfischsalat: Tuna Salad

Nurnberger: Pork Sausages