Alighting in the Birds' Nest

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Geo: 39.9056, 116.396

Last night for dinner we ventured across the road from the back entrance to our hotel to the Aussino Wine Cellar and Restaurant. I had found it on Thursday night when I went to the adjacent 7/11 to buy some milk so we could have coffee in our room. This shop has an impressive array of wines, a rarity in China, as most resturants we have visited only stock beer.
We were taken down two floors to a lavishly decorated room where we were shown to a marble table and esconsed on plush velvet couches. A large tank of oversized golden carp were doing ritual mating moves in a tank behind us. The menu was a mixture of Chinese and Teppanayaki with large fluctuations in prices. We settled for some spring rolls, sliced sirloin with porcini mushrooms and stewed duck with steamed vegetables followed (as always in China) by fried rice. The deal with the wine was we could buy any bottle from the shop upstairs, (worth at least 200 yuan) and for a 50 yuan corkage fee they would serve it with the meal. This amounted to about $40 for the wine which is about the price you pay in restaurants in Adelaide. Fletcher chose a Central Otago Sauv Blanc ( which was a little more expensive) but was delicious. The food was great and not very expensive at all. We had a civilised meal with a nice white in relaxing surroundings: a good night overall!

This morning was the second day that a severe smog alert had been issued for the city. As the sun rose about 8am it was no more than a pale apricot dot in the sky surrounded by a thick mist. We took our time over breakfast and ablutions and didn't emerge until nearly 11am. By that time the smog had dissipated somewhat. We had been in Europe in 2008 while the Beijing Olympics were in full swing and had watched parts of it in England, the Baltic States and Russia. Fletcher has been in Beijing since then but had only seen the National Stadium from the road. This time we wanted to visit and see what makes the Birds' Nest such an interesting architectural structure. It also is now added to the number of Olympic Stadia we have visited all round the world.

We alighted at the Olympic Green station and walked across the shopping centre concourse to the main area. Apart from the Stadium there was also the Indoor Stadium and the Water Cube on view. It cost us about $5 each to enter (getting 50% seniors discount). It is an interesting building! At the moment the track is covered in a winter wonderland for children with a layer of snow and tobaggon slides with colourful blow up characters depicting the Chinese Zodiac signs. Many families were taking advantage of this and seemed to be having fun. We walked right around on the main floor stopping to be amused at the gallery of wax models of Olympic Chairmen through history! It would be a good place to watch Athletics and the 2015 World Championships are to be held here.

By the time we finished there it was nearly 1-30pm and it was bitterly cold. We decided to return to the centre of the city to the main shopping street, Wangfujing St. This is the "Rundle Mall" equivalent of Beijing. We had to change trains twice to get to the right line but using the subway here is easy as there are signs in English as well as Mandarin. We emerged into one of the big shopping malls, Oriental Plaza and found ourselves in the Food Court. As it was now 2pm we were hungry so found the Lotus Thai restaurant and stopped there. It was a nice change from Chinese food. They even had Chilean wine for a reasonable price.

After our meal of Red Duck Curry and Pad Thai we strolled through the shopping centre then out into the street. We found the Wangfujing Bookstore which was boasting its 65th anniversary. This has many floors with a huge variety of books, nmagazines and stationery including foreign language books. We poked our noses into a few other shops but by 3-30pm we were starting to tire. Neither of us has done this much walking lately so 4 hours worth was rather a shock to the system. We decided to return to the hotel as it was also starting to become very cold though at least most of the smog had dissipated.

We did enjoy the day, seeing the Olympic Stadium and the heart of the shopping area but hope that it won't be too smoggy tomorrow!

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Comments

[governorphil]

Hi both! Enjoying the travelogue and photos and particularly appreciate the detailed descriptions of the food. I hope it's a lot warmer when we hit Beijing (early May) - don't fancy trying to fit into my winter (UK) clothes.Safe travels and
keep up the blogBest wishes, Phil

[mrsmac]

Thanks for the feedback, Phil. Glad you are enjoying the blog. It is supposed to be slightly warmer when we get to Shanghai. Cheers!