Now, back to the post of my 2015 Beijing trip! I'm going to attempt to catch up with real time, and try to finish blogging till 2017.
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| So nostalgic looking at how young I was back then. Feel like I've aged 1000000 years now. |
As I mentioned in the previous post, it has always been a dream of mine to visit Beijing mainly to see the Forbidden City because I'm such a sucker for Chinese history. Mum and I flew via Air China on a midnight flight since it was the cheapest alternative.
A light, hot meal was provided as a form of "supper", I believe? It was really delicious though and I thoroughly enjoyed the food served.
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| Seafood Noodle option - Mummy and I decided to order 1 each and share. |
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| Curry Chicken option. |
After a very satisfying meal, we both attempted to sleep on the flight (bear in mind the key word is attempted because both of us can never sleep on planes). There was no entertainment system, but there was a central television screen playing an old Chinese movie for every few rows. Sort of like the main television system you'd get if you were on a coach.
Everyone was calm and peaceful on the flight, something I greatly appreciate because I definitely could use some quiet time since I could not sleep. There were no crying babies either so lucky us!
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| Frosty window up in the air. |
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| Arrival at Beijing International Airport |
Our plane landed at around 6.10am that morning, giving us a beautiful view of the sunrise, which painted the sky with a warm orange hue.
Our first priorities upon landing were to collect our luggage and pass through immigration. Those were relatively easy, and there were no troubles or issues at all. Similar to Korea, you'd have to take a train to move over from the arrival gates to the immigration counters. While there was some shuttling to be done, it was in fact, a breeze, and once that was done, we proceeded to get ourselves a SIM card each.
While I wrote in my itinerary that we could get the cards from China Unicorn, things didn't go the way we planned. Instead of going to a machine or a counter, they had a staff member from the telco stand at the side (literally against the wall) and sell these SIM cards to us. Of course, we were dubious at first about whether this was legitimate, but we did witness her coming out of the stall. I presume this was just to ease the crowd that would be swarming around the counter.
The staff member was really helpful, and once we got that settled, we proceeded to buy ourselves airport bus tickets to head to Xidan Station 西单站 (where our hotel was). Head to Gate No. 7 or 9 to purchase these airport shuttle tickets. Bus 2 was the designated bus headed to Xidan.
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| Xidan was my choice location because I prefer choosing an accommodation close to a "transport hub" - with at least 2 stations nearby, or where there is an interchange where two subway lines intersect. This truly eases transportation and travelling time. |
The journey was pegged to be about 1-2 hours long, so we figured that we could dump our luggage off at the hotel, and go for breakfast while getting some exploring done, but little did we know what we were in for.
Unfortunately, nobody on any travel blog I read prior to this trip mentioned anything about traffic jams. The traffic jams are truly insane. I would think that a traffic jam lasts for about an hour at most, and would throw me off my schedule by perhaps the same. However, our commute ended up lasting almost 4 hours. We pretty much arrived at around 1pm. That was completely crazy.
I fell asleep and woke up, seeing one view. Then when I was jolted awake again, the view had not changed and upon checking my phone, half an hour had passed. Half an hour passed and we were pretty much in the same spot.
It was as though so many people were on their cars for the entire morning, rather than at work or at the office. How on earth would anything get done?
Nonetheless, after an excruciatingly long bus ride, we finally arrived. After crossing the road, and taking a slow walk ahead, we had arrived at Hotel Grand Mecure Beijing Central! Now as a refresher, I chose this location because it was a 5 minute walk from 2 different stations (Xidan station 西单站 and Xuanwumen station 宣武门站 ). Thus, this location had major plus points for being travel-friendly.
If you are looking to identify this place, look out for the post office which is at a corner of the first floor. The lobby was rather cosy and welcoming, a true respite for us from the sweltering July heat in China. Our room was so spacious and compared to the smaller hotels we had experienced these few years, I would say the room here was sprawling, and we barely spent that much.
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| The rules/terms of staying in the hotel are written here. Very nice touch to add some culture to the experience. |
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| The beds were sufficiently large and there were powerpoints between both beds (suitable for both to charge their devices). |
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| Literally sprawling. So much room that you can do cartwheels or just lay all your purchases everywhere just to admire them. (No I didn't do that - just trying to give you an idea of how much space there is!) |
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| Mummy placed her luggage on the foldable luggage stand they provided, while mine was placed on a wooden structure opposite the beds. Plus points for doing this because I know many hotels now can't be bothered to cater to the second person in the room and where their luggage should be. |
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| A photo in the equally spacious lift lobby on our floor, which came with seats as well for you to wait for your tardy travel buddies (haha). |
After that, we made our way out for lunch! This place no longer exists in Beijing because it has been torn down completely. However, it was a really convenient and affordable shopping area/mall of sorts. We decided to settle in for lunch at 真功夫 Real Kungfu which is a popular franchise in China selling pretty good Chinese food. Set meals come with either a drink or soup.
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| I ordered the Fragrant Mushroom Chicken stew. |
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| Mummy ordered the Kung Pao Chicken! Both sets came with piping hot rice as well as a side bowl of stir-fried greens. |
Once that was over, we walked off that rather delicious lunch by exploring the shops in that area. Since the mall was closing down, there were massive closing down sales everywhere! Clothes, wallets and bags were going at $5-10 each. It was amazing!
When we were tired out, we decided to return to the hotel, dump our loot and rest for a while before heading out for our first dinner venue of the day - Bian Yi Fang 便宜坊 for Peking Duck!
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| Huge crowd gathered around these buskers! |
How to get there:
Take a 6-minute walk down to Xuanwumen Station 宣武门站, entering Exit B2. Take Subway Line 2 heading towards Xizhimen 西直门, and alight at Chongwenmen Station 崇文门站 (3 stops). Take Exit D2, then turn right and walk straight down. Beijing New World Shopping Mall should be on your left. Bianyifang 便宜坊 is inside, along with other Peking Duck Restaurants.
(It is situated as one of the shops inside the departmental store!)
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| This iconic duck is the shop's mascot so if you see this mascot outside the shop, you are in the right spot! |
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| This is the storefront (which I hope still looks the same) for your easy reference! |
Peking Duck is a very famous dish in Beijing, or even China. Whole ducks are roasted in an oven till the skin is crisp and the meat tender. A chef at Bian Yi Fang 便宜坊 skillfully cuts a whole roast duck into 90-100 slices. Why the emphasis on that? Well, the thin slices of meat and crispy skin, a saucer of sweet sauce, sliced scallions and razor thin pancakes are then easily tasted. This is brought about by an effective method of roasting duck that has lasted hundreds of years.
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| Little ingredients/sauces that come on the side to wrap your Peking duck with. Some sweet sauce, sugar, scallions, cucumbers and even flower petals (because we ordered the floral fragrance duck). |
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| The duck pieces are cut with an even thinness, with skin separate from meat so you can enjoy the two entities on their own. |
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| We ordered some greens as well to share, and the pancake/ crepe wrap came in a bamboo steamer. Can you spot the adorable duck plate that the meat is served on? |
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| I tried wrapping a huge flower petal in mine to see if it made the difference. There was a slight tinge of floral fragrance when I bit into the wrap! |
Verdict: RECOMMENDEDI came on this trip for a Peking duck fiesta so this did not disappoint. The light, floral taste was pleasant compared to an overly-oily texture that some restaurants serve. It was pleasant to have this as a main dish and I could feast on as much duck as I want (because there's never enough in Singapore). The con however is that you have to get half a duck, or a whole duck, which for some of you may just be too much!
After that sumptuous dinner, it was time to make our way back to the hotel for a comfy night's rest!
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| Chilling out in my super comfortable elephant pants! |
That's all for Day 1! Thanks for staying tuned! Keep an eye out for the next post where we went to the Forbidden City as well as the Olympic Village!
Till then,
Fly Safe and Eat Happy,
V
