Advertisement
Published: July 14th 2006
So here we are, still in Beijing and still having a good time. We have been out to find the world famous Li Qun roast duck restaurant for some of the local dish of Peking (Beijing) Duck. We hired a cycle rickshaw to take us there, he went down some narrow and seemingly dessolate streets. Then, there it was, a little door with a lot of rickshaws parked outside. We went through the door and nearly fell into the kitchen, whilst waiting for our table, a couple of American guys turned up they said that they had pre-booked their table and duck. (as it could take upto 1 hour for the duck to cook). The waitress offered us a large table, if we shared with the guys. So we were led to a luxury side room with A/C. The night flew by with good food and good conversation, then when we asked for the bill we discovered that we were the only people left in the restaurant and all the staff were eating their dinners. On the way back to the hostel, a cycle rickshaw driver was chatting to Emma trying to drum up some business, so she offered to do
the cycling if we got the rickshaw for free, he had such a look of shock as Emma got on the bike ready to pedal.
We have also been to the Lama Temple, which is the largest buddist temple complex in China. There is a magnificent buddha made out of a single piece of white sandlewood which is eighteen meters high. Unfortunately the complex is undergoing refurbishment but it was still lovely to see such an active temple, with so many people coming to pray. The prospective worshippers were queing (along with us), waiting for the temple gates to open, each holding incense to make offerings. We managed to take a leisurely walk around the majority of the yards, before the ubiquitous tour groups started to arrive, which made for a less hurried experience.
On our way out, we discovered the answer to one of the world's little mysteries... How do they paint the beautiful pictures inside the small crystal snuff bottles? The answer is, carefully. No seriously... the artist (a lady on this occassion) bends the two or three hairs of a 5 mm paint brush at a a right angle, so as to enable it to
be placed through the neck of the bottle. They then paint line by line, with the paintbrush always in line with the bottle.
That evening we ventured out to Wangfujing street (the night food market), with every expectation of being faced with gutted snakes and puppy on a stick. However all we found (by way of unusual food) was seahorse and scorpian kebabs. There were a number of delicious delicacies, including roasted chestnuts and toffee apples/grapes. However we think that the original night market may have been swept a away some time ago, along with many other traditional, more interesting (but less sanitary parts) of Beijing, due to the forth coming Olympics. More the pity in our opinion.
The following day (after an early alarm call of thunderous rain at 3.30am), we spent the day walking through the beautiful Behai Park (just behind the Forbidden City) and visiting Prince Gong's Mansion in the Hutong area of town. Thanks to the rain the air was far cleaner and far more comfortable.
We have arranged our hard sleeper (three tier bunks) train ticket out of Beijing to Datong, so as to visit the nearby Yungang Caves and also the
Tastier than Scorpian Kebab
Toffee apples are a traditional chinese desert. I think that this grape version was especially for us tourists but it still tasted great.Hanging Temple. So we pack and depart tonight!
SPECIAL NOTICE FOR JASPER, BEN AND CHLOE: Bats are considered a sign of good luck in China. They appear all over the belongings of the emporer's that used to rule china.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.042s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0161s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
