QianMen 前门

Using MRT, I stopped at QianMen station. Coming out from the station, I first saw the JianLou 箭楼 and Railway Museum at not too far.



In front of QianMen, there is this Dang Dang tram 当当车. This tram is currently out of order.


I was impressed when I first step onto QianMen main street. The road is huge, can imagine this is a busy road in the past. But I was wondered the building are mostly grey color, looks a bit dull especially it was a hazy day. Probably in the old time, most bricks are grey in color? As you can see from picture below, the street is quite long and straight, with buildings on both sides.



There were a few nice and old building at this main street called QianMenDaJie 前门大街. For example, QuanJuDe roast duck, which is since 1864. I took the picture but do not intend to upload here, because I think building below is more unique in carving :p


Most of the famous building will have description and sculpture in front, thus it is easy to spot :)
After walking at main street for a while, I turned into DaZhaLan 大栅栏, which is another smaller street famous for buildings as well.



There are still few renovations going on at some HuTong (alley) and also DaZhaLan.



For some of the route, we had to use the narrow walkway at the side of construction work. After that, I turned into those HuTong, and it looks like below in general.




Beijinger still lives at those HuTong :D The clothes are real :p Here is the route I follow as recommended by a magazine (Highlighted in green). Some of the HuTong are closed, and I skip some of the HuTong as I guess they probably looks the same :p By the way, map below is a snapshot of ditu.google.com except the green line I added.



In fact, this is just another attraction similar to WangFuJing, shopping with traditional buildings. But I felt the items here is cheaper compared to WangFuJing, maybe due to the renovation has not done. After that when it get more and more popular, maybe the price will rise :p

Nan Luo Guo Xiang 南锣鼓巷

We came here for one main purpose, to try the cheese and yogurt :D

The cheese shop opened at 12pm and it was 10.30am, so we walked around the alley (Hu Tong胡同) and shop a bit :p Some shop is quite unique in renovation, and the items they selling. Some price is reasonable, but most of the price is quite high, tourist spot, no choice :)



Oh we finally see the cheese shop.


As according to other blogger post, the queue is usually long and never stop, well, we will see :D

Next to it is a yogurt shop,

We'd decided to buy yogurt later while queue for the cheese, so let's continue exploring the shops :)

We got back to the cheese shop around 12.30pm, there is people queuing, >10 person in front of me. SN went to get the yogurt while I continue in the queue. Wow, the yogurt is nice, not sweet, thick and smooth. A non-dairy fan like me also think it is good, you can imagine :D



Here is what we got. After that we just stand and eat outside the store, as hard to find a place to seat nearby, and three little table inside the shop are already occupied. I would say the foods are nice, as a lot of people turn their head and looking at us enjoying the food. (or we are too pretty? I also this could not be the answer :p )



From left to right, top to bottom:
1) 双皮奶 - direct translation will be 'Double skin milk' :p it's nice, not very strong milk taste as those in Hong Kong/Macau, not too sweet as well.
2）红豆奶酪 - Red bean cheese, the cheese texture is similar to that of Double Skin Milk, smooth, soft, but surprisingly not strong cheese taste! It is just special we think :D The red bean is soft, a good combination.
3）红豆酸奶（玉脂酸奶铺） - Red bean yogurt. The red bean is not as soft of item 2, but the yogurt is nice :D
4）杏仁豆腐 - Almond tofu. We don't really like it, it taste like almond agar-agar.
5）豆沙奶卷 - Red bean paste milk roll. We don't think this worth the price, if you do have chance to come, skip this :p In addition this is a bit too sweet.



"Black and white band" :p
1）Black: 酸梅汤 Sour plum soup - quite nice, not too sweet.
2）White: 蜂蜜乳清 Honey whey - First time drinking whey, taste okay.

We was hoping to buy 奶酪干(Dry cheese) but it is only available starting from Oct. Well, if we ever have chance to visit here in the future :)

Jun 23 Xiang Sheng 相声

One of the traditional cultural event is called Xiang Sheng 相声. With the help of my local colleague to buy tickets from 淘宝网 (this is similar to eBay, accept only local bank credit card), SN and I went visit the show at night. We watch the show at DeYunShe 德云社. The actual show schedule will be out an hour before the show start, but it really doesn't matter for me, as I guess very low percentage I can meet 郭德纲先生 :)



The ticket cost RMB 80, from 7.15 to 10.15pm. There are cheaper tickets by RMB 10 or 20, but since I plan to go only once, just get a nice location and enjoy the show better for one. As advice by colleauge, choosen the second row from the stage, as it is closer to the stage and yet the neck will be more comfortable :)



The tickets on second floor is more expensive as those are partitioned, but according to my colleauge, the second-forth middle row table is usually the best location. I truely appreciate her opinion as went I walked to restroom at the middle of the show, some details are hard to be heard at the back. The hall was around 80% full, although it was a weekday :) No outside food is allowed, some snack and tea are available for order.

I was surprised the show started on time. There were 7 performance in total. The first one is RaoKouLing 绕口令, then follow by all XiangSheng. Through out the night, KuaiBan 快板 was used to add some tempo effect.

The performer using KuaiBan in RaoKouLing. It was about 20 min long, admire his memory :p



For next 6 performance, the trend is usually one person talk the most and lead the flow, the other person is mostly 'question-guy'. There are few styles in partnering in XiangSheng, I am not sure about the details, may google more if you are interested :D I guess Ah Bao Ge will probably know some also.

The first XiangSheng is about... Oh I really have no idea how to introduce the performance details haha, scratching my head to think. Scratching...

Scratching...

Still, scratching...

still, scratching...

Hmm, I'd decided to give few keyword of each performance, as those script can be found online most probably :)

2. 喷水变龙. Both person shared similar role and the performance is quite interesting, as shown in picture below:



The fat guy expression is so funny :D

3. 当然
4. 朋友
5. 聚宝盆
6. 唱当
7. 诗词

I enjoy show number 1, 2, 5 6 and 7 better :D

The mandarin is still understandable, although there are still some terms which not really sure the actual meaning :)

Ah Bao Ge, you go watch by yourself if you ever make your trip to Beijing lar :p

Jun 21 Mu Tian Yu Great Wall

I decided to visit Mu Tian Yu Great Wall again, since it was raining during my trip 2 years ago.

Nothing much need preparation except transportation. If not mistaken, a taxi/rented-car with driver cost around RMB 500 2 years ago. Due to previous uncomfortable rented car experience, there are two choices available: bus or taxi. So when we took taxi to/from work, if we enjoy the taxi driver ride, we will ask for the price. It ranges from RMB 600 - 750, including toll and parking fee. Oh yes, if you will ever rent a car or taxi to great wall, need to verify if the price includes toll and parking fee, if not you will usually requires to pay more. On the other hand, I was curious on the experience of taking a bus there, and it seems to be quite straight forward. Due to a major concern, we'd decided to take bus. It is more flexible. In case if weather turn bad, we can still postpone our plan. If we reserve taxi, feel not so good to change plan last minute.

We leave our house on 6am, take bus to DongZhiMen, then take 916 bus to HuaiRou bus station. That journey took around 1 hour and 40 minutes. Before we reach HuaiRou bus station, the driver asked us how do we plan to go GreatWall. In my mind, I was thinking taxi should be easily available there, thus I just answered him. Then he offered to drive us there, normal price is RMB 40 per person, but he will charged us RMB 30 per person. I was a bit shocked when heard the offer, I would prefer official taxi though, thus by giving some reason, turned down his offer.

After reached the bus station, a lot of people coming and asked if we need a ride to great wall. Well, none of them is driving 'official taxi'. We shake our head while trying to spot for official taxi. Finally found one at the opposite road, so we walked there. While we walked there, there was an uncle who keep following us and talked to us, although we keep rejecting the offer. Oh no, that official taxi is under repai. Well, let's take breakfast and get some information from the restaurant waiter. After talking to him, manage to find out those unofficial rented car is the normal way to go to MuTianYu great wall here. After breakfast, the uncle come in to the restaurant. (He is so keen to get the business, he 'spy' on our condition outside while we were taking breakfast, once we finish, he came in and talk to us). After few minutes of negotiation, manage to get RMB 70 for return trip. Here we come MuTianYu.

The ride is about 30 min, going up slope at later part of the journey. While we were in the car, we chat a little bit. The uncle is just curious which country is SH from. He guessed Korea :D then we told him is Malaysia. He also trying to offer us some trip to other places, but we didn't buy any, our target is MuTianYu Great Wall for today! After that, we seldom chat as SN and I were busy chatting. Pity SH forced to enjoy the scenery along the road :p

After uncle parked the car, I just recalled I forgot to clarify the parking fee with him, aiya. I remembered the parking fee is not too expensive, fortunately (It was RMB 5). There are two ways to reach the great wall, hike or cable car. To go down, there will be 3 ways, hike, cable car or speedway.

It took us around 20 min to reach great wall, all stair case like below:


I am glad that my stamina has improved compared to 2 years ago :D Thanks to the determined training to hike KK last year :D

During my last trip, there were map showing how long is the opened section length. Unfortunately those map are not clear anymore, so just walk and walk up there.



We hike up as indicating by the light blue line, upon reach, turn right to reach to one end of the trail. After that, follow green line to hike to the left hand end, took cable car down from there. We did not complete whole open section as we missed out the red line portion. By the way, those blue, green and red line are added by me to illustrate better :D

We started on10.30am and reach foot hill around 1.45pm. Maybe question pop up in your mind, why did I mentioned 'end' at both left and right side of the great wall. Isn't great wall long? Well, great wall is long, but not all great wall are under maintenance/restoration. Only the green + red portion are maintained. When we reach the green line end, there is sign board to request visitor to stop. You may see some tree/bushes grown up at the not maintained great wall as below:



After talking to a local colleague here, get to know that those great wall are called 野长城 (wild-great wall in mandarin, which means abandoned great wall), and one of his hobby is to hike those abandoned great wall, the scene is usually nicer, fresher air and challenging :D

If I got to know those earlier before it is getting too hot, I will probably plan to join some local hikers group to visit those abandoned great wall, but it is too late to say anything now, it's just too hot now. Also, he mentioned the nicest great wall is 箭扣长城 JianKou great wall. Why I never thought of searching 最美的长城 in baidu again? I did that 2 years ago but it was not in the list that time. Off a bit, there was a recent case that someone striked by lightning at JianKou great wall :p He was using handphone during rainstorm.

There is only restroom near cable car station. But the weather is dry and sweat a lot, so I don't feel the urge to go restroom up here :p There are also some local people selling drinks, and unhealthy snacks :p If you do have any chance to come here, prepare some food :)

Some of the steps are quite steep, but don't worry, you will be able to do it from the encouragement of the nice view :D






We took bus 916 express home after that. In overall, the transportation fee is RMB 25 per person + RMB 4.8 * 2 (Single bus fare is RMB 4.8) total up to RMB 34.80, as opposed to RMB 200 of taxi fare per person.

Food is not all episod 2

Recently read a software web UI design article. If user never complaint about your website for commercial transaction, that is probably a good sign. It indirectly means the web interface is design quite well so that use is able to complete the transaction without much difficulties/complaints.

But there are something that I found is good here in Beijing, by realizing it so much, after staying here for almost 2 months.

The street name sign board here is well structured. It is very similar to US, with direction (north/south/east/west) on the street name sign board. There are both Chinese name and English name available. If I want to be picky, I would say the alphabetical system can be improved. For example, a road name 建国门外 Jian Guo Men Wai will usually be concatenated with small letters became Jianguomenwai, which I found it sometimes is harder to read. It will probably easier to be read if written as JianGuoMenWai. Hmm, I always hope Malaysia street name sign board can be improved, have to count on Vision 2020?

The public transport is good too. Most of the places are connected by bus, with very cheap bus fare. Some of the bus route is only RMB 0.40 per trip regardless of the distance, if using the touch card! Currently MRT is RMB 2 per trip, regardless of number of connection and distance too. There is always room for improvement :) Some MRT station is too far away from bus stop. If both system are connected then it will be even better :D Oh talking about the touch card, it is both usable at bus and MRT, even in KFC! When is our Touch N' Go really go into the role?

People here is still family centric. They spend a lot of time with their family. This could be due to they can have only one child. Nevertheless, can frequently see family gathering in the park.

There are more cultural activities here as well :D In the park, there are people who practice traditional arts e.g. tai chi, caligraphy, 踢毽子; choral, dancing and lots more. There are quite a few of theatre here hosting a lot of cultural show e.g. musical show and opera. I will share my water cube swan lake experience later :D

Another I like is of couse book, the local published book is really cheap, half the price than Malaysia. Unfortunately not all chinese book are available especially taiwanese book. I heard english book is expensive.

Beijing Da Dong roasted duck 大董烤鸭

After 1.5 months here in Beijing, finally we went to try Beijing Roasted Duck. As recommended by IV, we went to Da Dong Roast Duck 北京大董烤鸭店 located at Dongsishitiao-东四十条.

I tried Wang Fu Jing Quan Ju De Roast Duck 2 years ago, and I still remembered the disappointment :p Thus I did not put high expectationthis time.

When I stepped into the restaurant, I am surprised the environment is very nice. Oh yeah alright, you may say it is so westernize, but I still found it very creative and innovative design. I am only attaching 2 pics here, there are few more but I wish to talk more on the food instead :D



Here come the dishes we ordered:



From top right, counter clockwise:
1) Fried bamboo shoot - I think the taste is special but the guys doesn't seems to like it :p
2) Scallop - It is nice too :D
3) Cod fish in salt - This is really special. The cod fish are wrapped in lotus leaf, then buried in a pot filled with salt. (The fish losts its life, so I used the word buried here :p ) The texture is nice as it is just done. The taste is ... nice, only a word haha.
4) The star of the day, roast duck - The chef will first bring you the whole duck, then they will cut the duck step by step, took around 7 minutes.

For the duck skin, just dip with sugar and eat, it is surprisingly nice and not oily. You can feel it melt in your mouth, although it is not m&m sweet :p As for the duck meat, it is serve with ingredient below:



Follow the same rule:
1) 'Lotus skin' - The skin used to wrap the duck meat.
2) Some sauce and pickle.
3) Biscuit. I will explain more later :D
4) I made these.

There are two way to eat the duck meat, wrap in Lotus skin or biscuit. For Lotus skin, first dip the duck meat with some black color sauce, apply some on the bottom part of Lotus skin, then add some spring onion if you want to, wrap it and that's it. To serve with biscuit, it is even easier. Dip the duck meat with black sauce, put into the hollow biscuit, then put in some cucumber, spring onion, picket and there you go. Either way eating it also nice, as Lotus skin is thin, the biscuit is a bit crunchy.

After that, we'd decided to order some famous local dessert, as the dishes here is so nice, we have more interest on their food :D

Again, our tongue feeling good:



Left to right, top to bottom:
1) Home made tofu - Special but the green herbs is too strong in taste sometimes.
2) 驴打滚 (or in english http://en.beijing2008.cn/spectators/beijing/food/list/n214257881.shtml)
3） Riped persimmon in cup - Free dessert from the restaurant. The persimmon so ripe that it is in liquid form in cup.
4) 艾窝窝 (or in english http://en.beijing2008.cn/spectators/beijing/food/list/n214258018.shtml)
5) Opps, sorry I forgot the name :p It's red bean paste.
6) 豌豆黄 (or in english http://en.beijing2008.cn/spectators/beijing/food/list/n214258014.shtml)

Feeling hungry? ;)

Jun 10 Solana

I know, this is very old story which happened on Jun 10. I was really tide up for the past two weeks, sumimasen :)

From office, we took bus then walked there from a bus stop. It was around 10-15 minutes walking, but I started to get used to walking in Beijing (what a nice phrase, walking in beijing :D ) with laptop on my back sometimes.

It is a huge complex, with shopping mall, distribution center, food street, bar street, and quite nicely decorated environment with lots of different kind of flowers, alike with US complex store in my opinion.

Let's take a quick look, the first photo is a stream next to the complex, then follow by complex entrance, and some of its building.




The guys chosen to try out vegetarian buffet. Well, I always like vegetables but this could be a 'challenge' for them to make such decision :p Some of the dishes are quite good. They also provide a small hot pot for mini-steamboat. Dislike Malaysia vegetarian, there is no imitate-meat here, solely vegetables and fruits :)

After dinner, we spend a few moment to walk around. The environment is cozy, with some breeze, as it is just next to Chao Yang park. And now here come the Solana at night:




Surprised to see Bata at the top left photo? ;) On the bottom left picture, this is a music fountain, smaller scale of Las Vegas Bellagio. Definitely Bellagio is still the best! Guess what, English song is played while the water is dancing. Music were played while there is no show, and we heard only English and Korean song thus far :D

Oh Malaysia oh malaysia, I don't think Bintang Walk can beat this. More room to grow.

For more information, www.solana.com.cn