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
