Dongcheng District – Beijing – PRC – 2011-2014

Tags

beijing, Dongcheng District, dongzhimenwai Xiao Jie, PRC China

Dongcheng District in Beijing – My Home For Three Years

Between 2011 and 2014 I lived in Dongcheng District 东城区whilst working at the Australian Embassy in Beijing.  So I thought I would post some photos I had taken during the different seasons over those three years and in particular for my dad who, unfortunately never made it to China and would love to see where I lived.

I lived in a fabulous building about a four minute walk from the embassy and every morning I would walk over a lovely stone bridge to get to work; regularly seeing lao Beijingren (elderly Chinese) performing their morning stretching.

I had all different sorts of views from my lounge room windows which included local buildings, a canal and a children’s play area as well as the lovely garden and BBQ area for use by the occupants of the building.  As you can see the views were different in summer and winter especially after a snow fall.

The canal was especially pretty to walk along in summer as there was always the local Chinese men fishing and walking their dogs as well as swinging small birds in their bamboo cages.

Dongcheng covers the eastern half of Beijing’s core.  It’s about forty km2 and subdivided into seventeen sub-districts which includes all the old city inside the 2nd Ring Road.  There are currently six Ring Roads in Beijing with the 6th being an expressway which runs around the city and approximately 220 kilometres long.

(source: http://www.wildgreatwall.com)

Dongcheng includes many cultural attractions including Tian’anmen Square, the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven amongst many others. But what I really loved about living in Dongcheng is that one minute you are walking in a concrete jungle and next you are looking at beautiful old buildings, trees and ponds.

There were also the many stray cats I fed over my time and many bicycles parked on the side of the pathway, whilst their owners popped into local restaurants for a quick meal.

And at night the sights are very different to those seen during the day.

And of course if you don’t want to walk or cycle you can always take one of the little silver carts that are available around the district…they are not supposed to go onto the main roads but do or usually take the back streets…always good to set your price before you get in otherwise the drivers usually charge way too much (I know this from experience but did need to get home one night so I guess 50 RMB [around $10 AUD] was worth it).

So, this was where I lived for three years and really loved it in all seasons [although my least favourite season is summer – it’s just too hot].  I much prefer the cooler seasons!

 

 

 

C Dine Bar Restaurant – Canberra – ACT – Australia – February 2016

Tags

ACT, Australia, bar, C Dine, canberra, restaurant

Dinner at another Canberra Restaurant

A couple of months ago I arranged to have dinner with a few friends and for us to meet at an Italian restaurant on the lakefront in Canberra. I didn’t make a reservation as it was a Tuesday night and really didn’t think it would be booked out..how wrong was I.  I arrived at 6.20pm and the next available time for seating was 8.30pm which was too late for us, so we strolled along the foreshore and found another restaurant that my friends had been to and really liked.

The restaurant we chose was ‘C Dine Bar’ which is a seafood restaurant and oyster bar but I was happy to go there as I took a quick look at the menu and could see a couple of vegetarian options.  We walked to the front door and were greeted by a lovely big bowl with lilies and goldfish.  Inside is quite lovely with blue and silver chairs, matching blue plates and glasses and recycled timber tables .

It’s a pretty casual restaurant and we ordered some wine to share and then our food.  One of our friends who was visiting from Sydney, had recently been told she is going to China to work in Guangzhou (your old hunting ground Sophie!!) so we were also celebrating her special news. She is so deserving of this positing as she is a wonderful girl and a great worker.

I ordered the pakora which was sweet corn and vegetables deep fried with apricot chutney.  Was ok – not fabulous but certainly edible!!

My three friends decided to share and ordered the chilled seafood platter which arrived on a huge plate with balmain bugs, natural oysters, prawns, mussels, smoked salmon and pippies accompanied by two different types of dipping sauce all surrounded by shaved ice.

We also ordered the ‘Gunddi’ which is a ricotta, parmesan and roast beetroot dish with walnuts, parsnip puree and sultanas.  This looked great and very cheesy.  My friends ate this and as I only eat cheese that does not contain animal rennet I passed as the waiter could not 100% confirm the cheeses did not contain animal rennet.

My male friend who had been to this restaurant before, really [really] loves the seasoned fried chicken pieces so whilst he was a little bit full, we encouraged him to order the dish and enjoy – he did!!  It came with a black garlic aioli and something called ‘suicide sauce’…no idea why it’s called this…but it was a mixture of a caramel coloured sauce and a mayonnaise looking sauce.

It was a lovely evening but I probably won’t go back as there was not enough vegetarian food for me to select from.  Great for seafood and oyster lovers though.

Giuzhou Province (3) – PRC – April 2016

Tags

Chinese food, Guizhou Province, Malin River Gorge, PRC China, Xingyi

Malin River Gorge, locals mountains and a lovely Chinese lunch 

It’s day three in Guizhou Province and we have spent the night in Anshun town so we made an early start after breakfast to visit Maling River Gorge which is located about ten kilometres from Xingyi where we intending to spend the evening.  There are between sixty and a 100 waterfalls in this beautiful  gorge; all different heights and widths along with tropical and sub-tropical plants covering the rock sides.

The gorge stretches for fifteen kilometers and the river is sometimes veiled fro the many waterfalls running down the sides of the rocks. Regular rainfall and high humidity have encouraged the growth of vines and clinging plants all along the cliff walls but I think the most interesting part of this gorge are the rock formations that look like mushrooms or tapestries which hangs over portions of the man made walkways.

We reached a point on the walkway where we have the option to cross the river via a bridge and walk along the other side or keep walking on the same pathway to reach the end of the gorge.  There are several bridges that cross the river, one is extremely high and I would never have the courage to walk on that one; and another two which are not as high.

The lower bridges I didn’t want to walk on either so I stayed on the same pathway arranging to meet my friends at the end.  My pathway took me to the old beautiful stone bridge that was used to cross the water many years before.  So lovely to see.

I do think I had the better walk as near the end I had to walk under a fabulous waterfall.  Incredibly noisy with the water running so fast; really beautiful.

This next photo I took whilst at the back of the waterfall looking out – it was pretty special [and pretty wet].

Before we arrived at the bottom of the gorge we had to walk down many (many) steps and all I could think of was the return walk and how hard it was going to be, but the best news ever was given to my by our tour guide as we neared the bottom of the gorge; there was an enclosed escalator we could use to reach the top.  My two friends decided to walk back up the steps but tour guide and I took the escalator as I really dislike walking ‘up’ steps especially when there is an easier way to reach the top.  The escalator was so incredibly steep but all we had to do was stand there and all of a sudden we were at the top; easy!

After we met at the top of the gorge, we walked through the car park where some entrepreneurial Chinese had set up stalls selling lots of different things including great looking fresh fruit.  We stopped off and tried some but didn’t buy any as we were on our way to lunch and didn’t really need any snacks.

Before lunch, however our guide wanted to show us one of the local famous bridges; the cable Malinghe Bridge where we stopped and my two friends walked across (not me…too scared as the bridge was incredibly high) so the driver drove me over (the bridge swayed even as we were driving across so I dread to think how my two friends walked across it but I must admit Jo from Beijing is so not afraid of heights and was able to lean right over the side and take photos) but we met at the other end and were able to take in beautiful views of the gorge and mountains.

So then it was finally lunch time and of course we enjoyed a fabulous Chinese meal consisting of a delicious potato dish, a beef dish for my friends, incredibly fresh root vegetables and an eggplant and green bean dish in oil and chilli.  We loved the potatoes albeit a little bit spicy (but all eaten even with stinging lips) and the eggplant and bean dish was truly amazing!

Then off we went to Wanfenglin which is a forest of ten thousand peaks; a visit I will cover in another post.

 

Wild Duck Restaurant – Canberra – ACT – April 2016

Tags

ACT, canberra, Chinese food, Wild Duck

Another dinner, another Canberra restaurant

A friend of mine who lives in Sydney was recently working in Canberra so after inviting another Canberra based friend, I arranged an evening out to catch up.  As our headquarters is in Canberra, it is lovely when friends from Sydney, Melbourne and Perth come into town as it affords me the opportunity to arrange dinner and chat.  There is a nice restaurant in Canberra which is Asian and as I had been before for lunch, I booked it for dinner, as I wanted to see what it was like in the evening and with the possibility of a different menu.

The restaurant has dim lighting which gives it a nice evening atmosphere.  I arrived after my friends and they were already drinking cider and beer but as I have decided to not drink alcohol for a month, I ordered a sparkling mineral water.

The menu is extensive for meat and chicken eaters however there is not a great deal of vegetarian choices.  But I knew this and still wanted to visit.  For entree I ordered the tofu which came beautifully presented with three different types and my friends shared the Peking duck and the meat dumplings with a lovely sweet chilli sauce.

And whilst the Peking duck didn’t look that aesthetically pleasing, my friends said the ready prepared parcels were delicious.  Neither friends wanted to even try the tofu though…it’s tough to sell tofu sometimes!!

For main course I ordered an eggplant dish (no surprises here) which my Sydney friend made derogatory comments about after I had finished (which to be honest was very kind of him to wait as I was so hungry I just tucked in).   We laughed and laughed afterwards looking back on my photos.  I think if you use your imagination and take a look at my photo, you can guess what it looks like – my friend said it’s either a little bit phallic or something that happens when you walk your dog and something is left behind on the ground.  It really wasn’t a good looking dish, but I will also provide a photos from the restaurants website to show you how nice it can look.  It was tasty thought.  Apologies for being a bit rude but once you see the photo you will probably have the same thoughts.

My friends ordered the kung pao chicken dish and we shared a plate of really delicious greens which were crisp with a drizzling of oil.

Another dish my friends shared for main course was the chilli prawns which they again said was delicious.

We didn’t order any dessert as we were pretty full from the dishes we had already eaten..but a great night catching up with plenty of laughs.  Some coffee and peppermint tea to end the evening and out into the cold to drive home.  All in all, a nice restaurant but perhaps better for meat eaters.

Guizhou Province (2) – PRC – April 2016

Tags

Guizhou Province, Huangguoshu Waterfall, prc, Qingyan Ancient Town, Tianxingqiao Scenic Area

More sightseeing in Guizhou Province – Qingyan Ancient Town, Tianxingqiao Scenic Area and Huangguoshu Waterfall

We visited Qingyan Ancient Town in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou one afternoon and whilst it didn’t really take us that long to stroll through, it is really a lovely old town which is said to be one of the most famous historical and cultural towns in Guizhou.  Lots of lanterns everywhere which I absolutely love.

The town was originally built in 1378 but now has many shops selling knick knacks, souvenirs and lots of shops selling silver jewellery.  We went into several silver shops (guided by our friend Jo who has a great passion for all types of jewellery) and ended up buying ourselves some bracelets and necklaces. We also passed benches selling food and spices outside; with such vibrant colours.

Dating back to the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Qingyan was built for military reasons. The first emperor established it as a station for transferring military messages and also to house an army. It was a nice visit at the end of the day especially walking through the brick walled corridors.

Our next stop in Guizhou was to Tianxingqiao Scenic Area which consists of limestone formations, caves, a stone garden, small waterfalls, lakes and a gorge.

We walked along the river on a winding stone path which zigzags through the rock formations and waterfalls.  It was lovely to see 365 brass plates containing the day and month of every day in the year.  So of course we were looking for our birthdays on the stone paths so we all could take photos; as you can see mine is 24 August.

Whilst walking along we walked past many of the locals selling their local wares including fruit, snacks and shoes.  Another great sight in China!

We then visited Huangguoshu Waterfall which is located six kilometres upstream of Tianxingqiao.  To reach the waterfall we had to walk through a garden of hundreds of Bonsai trees; truly beautiful.

We even saw the local gardeners moving one of the old trees; with great care of course.

Huangguoshu Waterfall is said to be the the largest waterfall in Asia as told by our guide, but I have been told by so many Chinese guides that a Chinese structure/building/park etc is the largest in Asia or the world so I don’t really know if this is true. Anyway, it is seventy-four meters high and eighty-one meters wide, so it is really beautiful but again not sure if it really is the largest in Asia.

To reach the waterfall we walked down many steps which were quite steep but clearly our Chinese female friends didn’t have any difficulty as we wore sensible shoes and our friends wore very different walking shoes.

I must say when we reached the waterfall it was absolutely beautiful and also the surrounding scenery.  And..my two friends walked back up the hundreds of steps; I with the tour guide took the escalator (love China what a great idea – perhaps even our friends with the high shoes did the same!!).

Rosewood Hotel – Beijing – PRC – April 2016

Tags

beijing, Chinese food, cocktails, prc, Rosewood Hotel

Cocktails and Dinner at Beijing’s Newest Hotel

On my last evening in China, I wanted to do something special, so my friends and I went for dinner at Beijing’s newest hotel, The Rosewood.

We arrived at the hotel for a cocktail or two before our dinner.  There was a VIP staying at the hotel so we had to go through a thorough security check before entering.  We asked who the VIP was and were told that the person was the head of a European country that makes delicious chocolate.  Of course that was easy to work out – the Swiss Prime Minister was in town and the next day it was confirmed when we saw the Swiss flag flying outside Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City along Chang ‘An Street. The Chinese always display a visiting countries’ flag during high-level official visits.

But back to the hotel…we caught the lift up to a beautiful bar area and my three friends ordered cocktails and I ordered my usual white wine and we sat in some comfortable chairs talking about our recent trips around China.

There were nice views of the city also; but unfortunately with the usual smog.

We had a couple of drinks in the bar area then made our way to ‘Red Bowl’ which is the Chinese restaurant my friend Nic told me about as she had previously been there and said the food was very good.  We walked through the hotel and arrived at Red Bowl to see a wonderful display of Chinese red bowls hanging from the wall.  Very striking!

We sat down at our reserved table and Nic had a strange look on her face and said that she didn’t remember the restaurant looking the way it did.  This was actually a ‘hot pot’ restaurant with red bowls already on the table for our food (hence the name ‘Red Bowl’) and communal hot pots for cooking food.

Well as it turns out the Redwood Hotel has a few restaurants and this was not the one Nic wanted us to eat at…so as none of us really felt like hot pot, we left, after making a reservation at the other restaurant within the hotel.  As we had over an hour until we could eat, we returned to the bar, again going through a full security check.  There was a live band playing and we enjoyed singing along to some of the older songs, eating snacks and drinking a couple more cocktails.  I know if we let him, my friend Jon would have stayed at the bar all night; singing and drinking then of course probably dancing (badly).

I must say it was worth the wait as when we finally arrived at the restaurant called ‘The Country Kitchen’ it had a lovely ambience with an open kitchen and a wood-roasting oven.   Noodles are hand cut, pulled, knife-cut or rolled under the direction of the resident noodle master.

(above photograph sourced from: http://www.beijinger.com)

The décor featured granite, wood and soft red tones.  There was also terracotta and oil paintings which were displayed to resemble an old Chinese village restaurant.  There are no fancy water glasses here, only copper mugs and earthenware dishes and woven napkins; all adding to that lovely country feel.

The menu presented us with an array of Northern Chinese specialties and in particular lots of chilli not only in our ordered dishes but also whole chillies in huge bowls and chilli oil on the table.  And the great thing about this restaurant (and the hotel) is that the chef’s work with local farmers to source the freshest and homegrown ingredients; all this for making delicious tasting dishes.

We ordered a couple of dishes to share and as always I ordered a spicy braised eggplant dish which was pretty hot but really delicious.

My friends ordered a kung pao chicken dish and a beef dish; we also ordered the stir fried green beans with chilli – another of my favourite dishes.  Unfortunately I forgot to take photographs until we all had eaten some of the food – we were too hungry and the dishes too delicious.

After a great night with lovely friends, we all departed so that I could get a good night’s sleep before our flight back to Australia the next day.

Guizhou Province – PRC – April 2016

Tags

Confucius Temple, Flower Stream Park, Guizhou Province, prc

Guizhou Province Day 1 – visiting Flower Stream Park and Confucius Temple 

When we arrived in Guiying, the capital of Guizhou, my friend and I had been travelling for five days through two other provinces so we were feeling a little tired.  We had arranged to meet another friend, Jo, at our hotel, as she was travelling from Beijing so we went straight out and firstly went to a local shop which Jo had already sourced, to buy a bottle of wine and then walked around trying to find a restaurant for dinner.

At the wine shop, the wine we liked was incredibly over priced (both the Aussie and New Zealand bottles) so we bought a bottle of Chinese white wine and had to ask the staff to open the bottle because it had a cork and we did not have a corkscrew.  We paid for our opened wine, popped the cork back in and then found a nice little restaurant with no-body in it.  I used my best Chinese language skills and ordered us some lovely dishes.  And no surprises…the Chinese wine was disgusting!!

On our first day in Guiying we went to  Flower Stream Park.  The park covers an area of about 136 acres of which forty-nine are covered by water.  Jo and I really love looking at shadows on the water (of trees/pavilions/buildings and anything really), so for the both of us walking around this park was a real treat.

I think it was also a treat for one young Chinese man and his dog who were relaxing at the waters edge, fishing.

The park was built in the Qing Dynasty and then rebuilt in the 1930’s.  Then after the founding of The People’s Republic of China, it was equipped with tourist facilities and renamed Flower Stream Park, which means a park where flowers are in full bloom and streams flow – and that is exactly what we saw; beautiful blooms and lovely streams.

We hopped in a little car and travelled around the outskirts of the park; but decided to walk back to the exit along a lovely tree covered path next to the water.

We were fortunate enough to see fields of rapeseed flowers in bloom; because at that time of year the crop is usually harvested for canola oil and the fields are bare.

We then travelled to Anshun, by small bus, which is around 100 kilometres southwest of Guiyang and stopped at Confucius Temple before heading to our hotel.

It is a very pretty temple complex, and even more lovely because it is slightly dilapidated.   There are beautiful trees and man made ponds within the complex and intricate Chinese stonework.

The complex rests upon a sloping field and the buildings appear to rise as you walk up the slope. We also had the opportunity to see young Chinese girls being taught to serve tea in one of the halls.

We didn’t stop very long as it was pretty cold and getting dark and it had started raining so  after a good look around we hopped back into our bus and booked into our hotel for a nice relaxing evening.

Buddhist Restaurant – Ghost Street – Beijing – PRC – April 2016

Tags

beijing, Buddhist Restaurant, Ghost Street, Gui Jie, prc, vegetarian restaurant

Dinner with a friend at a new vegetarian restaurant in Beijing

My friend Nicola and I had ridden around Beijing one day and whilst riding home we rode along Gui Jie (Ghost Street) and saw a new vegetarian restaurant.  When I previously lived in Beijing, the restaurant location used to be a Chinese tea house so we thought we would try it out. Ghost Street has more than 150 storefronts with 90% being restaurants so this makes it one of the most prosperous food streets in Beijing.

The layout of the street is like a dumbbell, wider in the two ends and narrower in the middle and during the evenings a sea of red lanterns hang over the street, which makes it really pretty to walk along.

So, one evening we took a cab to this new restaurant with a bottle of wine to enjoy with our meal.  We arrived and were seated and immediately asked for two wine glasses and showed our waitress the wine we had brought.  Our wine was taken from us and surprisingly, the waitress looked at it intensely then gave it to the chef behind us who commenced reading the back of the bottle.  Finally our bottle was returned to us and we were told we could not drink it.

We laughed at first as we thought perhaps the wine was not good enough (but it was a nice New Zealand white!!) so then asked could we buy some wine.  All this took about fifteen minutes and bearing in mind my friend and I can speak a little Chinese.  We were shown the drink menu and saw bottles of wine…but then finally worked out this was a Buddhist restaurant (and the wine on the menu was non-alcoholic) and therefore, of course, BYO alcohol is not permitted.  All throughout the waitresses were extremely helpful and sweet and were trying their best with the limited English they had so we all did enjoy a lot of laughter trying to communicate.

Finally we got around to ordering our food.  The menu was on an iPad; we ordered quite a few dishes; too many as always!!  We first ate a lovely taro root vegetable dish and Chinese pancakes with a Chinese vinegar dipping sauce – very tasty!

Then came a fabulous potato dish; very spicy but truly delicious.  Most of the dishes arrived with lovely little flowers on the side…very cute!!

We then ate an amazing egg and capsicum dish.  The egg was thick a bit like pieces of omelette and covered in a wonderful spicy sauce.

Then came the dumplings; all twenty-one of them…we ate ONE…as we were just too full.

We asked to ‘da bao’ (take-away) a couple of dishes and took the dumplings and Chinese pancakes away and as they were still warm we gave them to a homeless lady near the restaurant…I hope she enjoyed them.  We walked home along Ghost Street and enjoyed the sights of the lit lanterns and when we got to my friend’s home the first thing we did was to enjoy our bottle of wine!!