Beijing 2024 - Exploring Buildings and Shops

 

I've selected to stay near the QianMen area, and also near Dashilan Shopping Street as it was a more budget friendly area as compared to other more touristy and centric area. Also, I though it would be nice to be near a bustling shopping street to soak up the Chinatown vibe. I think I made an excellent choice, cause we walked through the shopping streets almost daily, either just to see the excitement of the tourist around, or just looking for snacks to eat, or just to feel that we were really in China. 

The shopping street itself did not disappoint. It took me a while to realised that some of the grand looking buildings were actually department stores, or tea merchant etc. Mainly because everything was just so elaborately decorated that I felt intimidated to even step into any stores. But after a few days there, we were more comfortable wandering into alleys and shops just to see what was sold there.

I also found a book store nearby which also sold tea. And above was the sign board that first drew me to it. Unfortunately the book selection wasn't that interesting, and the tea even less so. 

There were a few food court or food eating area at Dashilan which we wandered in a few times just to look around. I found the food prices rather expensive to be honest, and we never did end up dining in any of the food court there. We dine at other rather interesting places instead. Will slowly show you as I document out our daily adventures in Beijing. Oh, by the way, above is a giant hot pot in the main entrance of a restaurant. On my list of things to eat, Mutton Slice Hotpot was on it. So I took note whenever I came across such store.

I also forgot that pigs were allowed to be displayed everywhere! After spending most of my life in a muslim country growing up, I wasn't used to such blatant displayed of pork products for sale! Hence a few photos of these pocky everywhere. China does have a huge population of muslim, and visiting the muslim street was also part of my itinerary of this trip! And you might have guest it, it has more to do with the food than the culture or religion aspect of it. 

Pork jerkies for sale at the food court. I'm not a fan, but my husband is. I don't really get bak kwa at all unless they came soaking in sweet sauce and sandwiched between a bun outside a cinema, lol.

White Rabbit store was also a thing here. It was a sweet practically every chinese kids in the world has grown up with. There was a giant White Rabbit shop at the QianMen area. We did browse from the outside, but I'm actually not a fan of white rabbits with blood shot eyes. I do like the sweets growing up, mainly because of the rice paper wrapping that came with it which I though was so cool.

Lastly, I saw these super elaborated ice creams for sale, showing famous tourist sites in China. Wow. This was the first time I saw such thing. I didn't try any on my trip there as they were quite pricey and cheesy. I realised that even these days, you could find these ice creams selling at Singapore tourist attractions, showing Uniquely Singapore sites instead. To be frank, the ice cream looked cool, but not exactly appetising. 

Beijing 2024 - Exploring Qian Men (前门) Area

Besides Dashilan Shopping street, there was also QianMen area which was a short walking distance from our hotel. We went there on our first morning, and what a pleasant place it was! From the start where the QianMen could be seen here, you could walk down a super huge and green road to the other end.

Look at the greeneries on both side of the QianMen Road. I though this was such a lovely place for a morning walk. Yeah, so this was early morning. This place becomes crowded in the late morning till night, and especially so in the weekends! Plus, the shops at both side of the road seems to be of a more high end shops, so we didn't really eat and shop here. But it's a very pleasant place for a stroll.

If you get tired of walking, there is also an old tram that goes up and down the whole road, so that's an option for you to explore the place too. If you're walking there, do beware of the tram too!

The more concrete part of some part of the road.

There is also a three storey Starbucks at the start of the QianMen Road. Actually I don't really know if it's operational since it looked like it was under renovation. Since we walked pass it quite a lot during our stay, I recall that they did open, it's just that maybe because of how the building looked, it kinda blend into the background as one of the historical monument of the place, lol.

Along the road was also dotted with these bronze historical figurines, showing you what it was like long time back at the same location. Yeah, one thing about China is, when they say in the old days, it could be hundreds if not thousands of years ago! The yardstick measurement here is very different from most of the rest of the world. It's pretty mind blowing!

Merchants and customers shopping on this street long time back.....

Emperors being carried on their chair for their shopping trip and being served by their servants.

Chinese medicine doctors taking a patient's pulse and prescribing herbal medicine for their ailments.

And me, with my pot-hole collection wherever I go! 

Beijing 2024 - Exploring Dashilan (大栅栏) Area

With our bags 'safely' deposited at the hotel, they were just put in front of the lobby along with other people's bag. I didn't have much valuables inside anyway and didn't really care much if my bags were lost, lol. We ventured out to explore our surroundings. On my trip planning, the first day of checking in is always orientation day, where you go explore around the neighbourhood to get a feel of your surroundings. Find the nearest convenient store, subways, snack places, supermarkets etc. It was still early morning, maybe 8am or 9am.

At the other end of Dashilan, we found some cool alleys and decided to explore. I get it that the place might be under renovation, or was newly renovated, but to me it felt like it was kinda cheesy. Almost like a movie set. When a friend asked me how did I find China on my first day there, I told him I felt like I just landed on a Chinese movie set. I couldn't tell how authentic the place was since it looked so cheesy and new.

We later found out that this part of the street was actually like a high end hutong hotel. We were standing outside a vegetarian restaurant and once of the aunty there came and talk to us about the food there. She told us about the place a bit, and now we understood why it looked like it was built for tourist, lol. FYI, we also booked a hutong for our last leg of stay, and it didn't look anything like this! So I think they one we stayed at was more authentic! The one above looked like it was more for erm, AngMoh tourist! Hahahaha. 

Some part of the streets were rather empty, which caught me by surprise. My impression of China before I landed was, it was gonna be so freaking crowded! I was preparing myself mentally to encounter crowds and rude people and spitting! But wow, first morning here, pretty peaceful! Quiet! Totally unexpected.

Like a tourist spot, there were art on the floor. A full giant golden koi fish on the floor! Lol. 

The end of the shopping street lead to 'Fresh Fish Hole', literal translation. But it was basically where the big roads were, so we turned back, noting our walking boundaries. 

We started venturing into the side lanes, and wow, I love the emptiness of the place with the Chinese deco!

We also came across a theatre restaurant. Super huge, super red and super cheesy. So of course I had to take a photo! I have researched about this theatre. And I guess if you join a tour group, they would probably bring you here at night for dinner while you watch some Chinese performances. Nah, I wasn't here for those shenanigans. 

But I went around taking photos anyway. A young worker who was unloading  goods from a lorry to the shop chatted with me when he saw me taking photos. I was quite taken aback and replied back and smile. Wow, because he was a young guy that I don't normally get approached by. And his casual remarks was just casual, which made me felt seen and acknowledge. So yes, to this day I remember the people I came across when I travel who just made the place memorable.

A beautiful front of a shop or restaurant that was closed. Nobody in sight! I was beginning to really like China!

We walked pass a pottery shop, and the whole of the alley was just decorated with clay figures depicting all sorts of daily China live. Very nice! I didn't take much photo because there were just so many, and they were just kinda cartoony to look at. Still, it was so cool walking along the alley.

Another sight that I was surprised to see, Alishan Taiwan! I spotted the map of Taiwan from the other end of the road and told my husband I wanted to get a closer look. China and Taiwan wasn't something I had in mind when I visit China. Wasn't there political conflict between the two, erm, locations? But there it was, s whole concrete wall of it!

There were even alley ways that looked kinda like Ximending in Taiwan. Again, mind blown. Yeah, maybe I still have a very old fashion view of China. In my head, China was never fun or colourful. It was always traditional and serious, filled with culture and serious people. My mind was starting to change.....

Heck they even have Kakao Friends here! I saw Ryan and went over to take a photo with him. Why was he even here?

We also found a retro cinema and went inside to explore, as well as some retro shops. I was sadly not able to appreciate the old cinema's exhibition of old Chinese movies much. I grew up watching mainly Hong Kong cantonese movies....

Here is a wefie to end the first morning of exploration in QianMen Beijing. 

Beijing 2024 - From Airport to Qian Men (前门) Hotel at Dashilan (大栅栏)

First challenge after landing at the airport and clearing immigration, was to find our way to our hotel. We've booked a local hotel in the middle of the city area. And normally on my usual travel, this would be just a minor task to get us there. But here in China, without Google Map, it might be a challenge. But I wasn't too worried about that. Worst case, we could always ask people for direction. The main challenge we needed to over come was paying for our transport to the hotel! We've read that cash wasn't used in China. We have setup our Alipay and WeChat pay, but this was going to be the very first time we are going to use it! We didn't know if it would work.

Saw this cheesy sign at the airport as we walked to the train station.... 

First taste, getting an Airport Express into the city area before we can transit to the city metro to get to our hotel. We found the station, we found the machine, and the struggle to buy the ticket begins! I actually have a set of test cases I wanted to go through on the first day in China, and it looked like this:

TO DO List

• Get Transport Card (Hutong Card if possible)
• Test TnG Ali Pay
• Test WeChat Pay Wallet
• Test WeChat Pay YouTrip QR
• Test YouTrip Card
• Test Starhub Data
• Confirm all other attraction entrance ticket

Anyway, cut the story short, we did managed to pay for our Airport Express. I tried WeChat but it didn't work. I tried cash, but we only had 100yuan cash and the machine didn't accept it. So as a last resort I tried my TnG wallet that is integrated with Alipay and woohoo! Success! I help paid for my husband's ticket too and off we went! First hurdle pass!

Second hurdle was to get a metro card. Didn't know where to do that. Couldn't even find a control station. Maybe it was too early. I decided to test out my mandarin by asking two ladies in uniform at the underpass information counter. As luck would have it, they were able to help me! We managed to buy the transport card from them, even using our cash to pay! I had around 200sgd of cash with me, and I wanted to use them all up once I was sure I could survive on my cashless payments. I've heard that only foreigners use cash in China, so I wanted to blend in!

Made it into the metro station. We were headed to QianMen, which was the nearest station to our hotel.

Getting to QianMen station was a breeze. Finding out way to the hotel without Google Map was not! But they do have maps on the road and also inside stations. There were also a lot of road signs. Problem was, everything was in Mandarin....

With my superb sense of direction (which is mainly following where the crowd was headed), we managed to find the main street that our hotel was at. Or to be more precise, this was the nearest main street. Our local hotel was at the side road just opposite this bustling shopping street called Dashilan Shopping Street.

With hotel located, we managed to check in and deposit our bags there before coming back in the afternoon for the room. I snapped a photo of how much the rooms cost. I forgot how much we paid for ours, probably around 37sgd per person. So around 70+ sgd a room? No breakfast included, and this was kind of a local hotel. We decided to stay here for 5 nights? and stay in a higher end hotel for our last 3 nights. So the Hotel Name in Chinese (in case you are interested) is called 维斯特酒店(北京前门大栅栏店). Check-in for me was quite a challenge. It seems they have not encountered a Malaysian Passport before! So there was a few confusion as to how many days my Visa granted me. I told them it was 2 weeks at least, but they said they have to check as they needed to report all foreign visitors to the government. Ok..... When I returned to check-in in the afternoon, the receptionist instantly recognise me as the Malaysian guest -_______-

We got the ground floor room all the way to the back of the building. Although the front of the hotel looked small, once you go inside, it was a mazed of rooms! Above is what our two twin room looked like. There are windows which opened into the back alley too! We do open them as the room was kinda stuffy and mouldy smelling..... 5 nights only! We can make it!

The toilet was rather interesting. It was quite a good size. And what I really like about it was the amount of clothes hanger they provide! It was so awesome for washing clothes (which we tend to do a lot!). The other thing I like about China was the toilet paper. It doesn't come with the middle core hard cupboard in it. So basically the whole roll of toilet paper was just that, toilet paper! So it was really convenient to just carry those smaller rolls with me out to use in public toilet, lol. Yeah, not all public toilet has toilet papers in them, be prepared!

The toilet also came with these cute rubber slippers too! Which I though was rather homely and uniquely China. But I used my own since I always travel with my own slippers to use inside the room and toilet. And on good weather places, also wear them out on the streets, lol. When I travel, I want to feel like I am part of the locals living there. That is my goal. To live a different live during my travels, so that I manage to live many lives before I die.

Beijing 2024 - Flying from Penang to Singapore to Beijing

Welcome to a new country label on my blog - Travel - China! I'm excited! Cause China has granted free Visa for Malaysian to visit China in 2024, and I just had to go. To date, Malaysian has been granted another 5 years of free Visa, so I now have a 5 years plan to visit China! Doing at least one location each year. But to clear the air, 2024 wasn't the first time I visited China. I have been to China twice before, both times with my husband and family. But 2024 with my free visa, it was actually the first time I went to explore China based on my own agenda! So LFG! Lol. 

Trip started at Penang actually, hence the above Pulut Hitam dessert I had at the airport as we await our night flight to Beijing. Interesting thing we found out, it was actually cheaper to fly a transit flight from Penang to Beijing than it was to fly direct from Singapore to Beijing. And since I was already in Penang, the husband decided to join me to save some money, and so we took off from Penang. But our flight was late for almost more than an hour! And we had a connecting flight to catch in Singapore! Luckily, we were traveling via Singapore Airlines, so I am betting the journey would be as smooth as possible!

My free supper on the first leg of my flight. I knew I was going to be sitting the whole night, so I skipped dinner as I wanted to enjoy all my free food on the flight which I have already paid for! I didn't minded the Pulut Hitam cause for some reason, I really really love Pulut Hitam since I was a child. I love the chewy texture of the pulut, the colour, as well as the creamy coconut milk. Extra bonus points too if they included longan inside! But wait wait, we were writing about free pizza on flight! So yeah, one slice of pizza curtesy SQ!

Since our place was late taking off, we landed pretty late in Changi Airport too. There was a Sunflower display event on which I was hoping to catch, but guess what, no time! We had to hurry to our gates to clear security! What a rush! No time to even browse and shop! SQ why you like that!

We made it to catch our second leg of our flight from Singapore to Beijing China! And I was wondering what time they would serve food. I wanted to eat my dinner and sleep through the flight, ready for some China Chinese food!

With the efficiency of SQ, we got our food around 1 hour taking off? Anyway, glad I was hungry! I forgot what they served, but knowing me, I probably ate everything! And off to sleep I went. Excited!

The next morning I woke up to this! How cool! Now I know why the call China as 大路 . I didn't really know what to expect really. I haven't been to China for a long time, almost ten years!? And I've definitely never been to Beijing, the Capital of China before. 

It was quite a clear morning when we were approaching Beijing Airport. I could see the mountains in the horizon as the sun started to rise.

And the development of the city below, with it's huge infrastructure blending in together with the river was mesmerising. It was obviously a city view, but I was glad that there were still green patches around the city, and I hope that river water runs clean! I've heart so much horror stories about China. Heck my own husband didn't even want to accompany me on this trip! But I was dead set to come anyway. And even though I'm scared, I plan to come yearly too! Cause even though China and Chinese scares me, there is just so much to explore here, and I just love the food here! Plus it's quite friendly to my retired budget too.

So here starts my actual exploration of China! Right at the capital Beijing. I actually have two must-do list on my itinerary: (1) To touch the Great Wall of China - cause every Chinese people has this dream, and (2) to visit the Forbidden City - cause well, it's forbidden! So I must go visit it! Lol.