Beijing 2024 - Dinner at GuiJie(北京簋街) and Supper

 

After finishing all the touristy stuff, it was time for dinner! Or lunch. We lost track. We always have snacks on us so we just munch along the way until we can finally get to the place for proper food. On this day, the place I wanted to go to was GuiJie. It was walking distance, so we made our way there. Funny thing, I initially thought GuiJie means Ghost Street, as in Hungry Ghost since it was a food street. Now translating it, I realised I was soooooo wrong! Hahahaha. 

The whole area, from YongLe Temple to Confucius Temple to GuiJie was just a blend of old and new. The streets were all pretty modern but still held the old grey stone path looked. Yet the deco and cafes around gave a very trendy and modern vibe to the place. Street art was found here that somehow wasn't too loud. They kinda blend into the surrounding.

While walking up and down the road, we finally settled for this restaurant about. It was pretty empty as it was closed to 3pm or 4pm. Not exactly meal time. But I think we saw the price range was ok for us, so we went in. 

Saw some cool bottle hanging at the bar area. Love the cheongsam bottle so much. 

Here is what we ordered: BBQ chived, eggplant, some beef slice for the husband, and mala fish fillet. Initially the lady boss asked if I wanted mala fish, but I sadly told her that my husband can't eat spicy food so I can't order one whole fish for myself. She kindly suggested to make a smaller portion for me. I was so happy that I said yes. Best decision ever! Best mala fish I've ever tasted in my life! My husband can't really eat it, so the whole plate was just for me! 

Look at that beautiful shinny mala dish! Love of my life!

Actually all the food we ordered on the first round tasted excellent. We were so satisfied that my husband decided to order their signature dish, clayfish. So the above was a whole pot of clayfish. He ate the whole thing since I'm not much a fan of crabs or clayfish.

Here is the damage. I think it's around 60sgd? Of which half of it was for the clayfish. My mala fish cost only 12sgd and was sooooo worth it. I would happily eat this again! Excellent food at excellent price.

The problem with eating in Beijing I found, was after coming back home, whenever I have any craving for China food, nothing seems to be able to hit the spot any more. Food at home just tasted off. Not spice enough. Not salty enough. The flavour is just not intense enough! That made me kinda sad. As this post is being published, I should be half way through my trip to Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou. I hope I get to experience excellent food there too. 

Happy with the day's exploration, we went back to our hotel, but not without some snacks. I got some cool yogurt for supper, and a Beijing yogurt too cause those little bottle kinda grows on you!

Beijing 2024 - Confucius Temple (北京孔庙) Next Building Back Garden

There was another museum, or more like an exhibition hall here as well! So don't miss that if you made it this far! I'm so glad I eventually decided to visit this place. It was so much more informative and larger than the Confucius temple I've visited in the past. 

This is a photo of the roof tops of the building in the area. I thought it looked distinctively Chinese. Again, the colours draws me to it, bright red, green trees, and grey looking buildings. Simple yet elegant.

Some of the grounds near the exit area. Same colour scheme :)

I guess I got distracted by the buildings outside, but here onwards let's focus on the inside. It was similar in nature to the two halls we saw at the main temple area. Scenes of ancient time scholars going about their daily life.

I like this scene. It looked like that scene from Mulan when she stands at the Forbidden City looking out during the festival. I guess this is what the scholars at the palace might have looked at when they were there too?

There were cool desk setup inside the exhibit as well, wooden of course. And calligraphy and traditional  Chinese ink painting hangs on the wall as deco. 

Some information and flags related to Confucius. 

Some of the ink painting that I found amusing or interesting. 

A painting of the God of Literature. Hahaha, I guess students come here to pray to it. It seems pretty common for Chinese kids to go pray at the temple for good grades before an exam. I didn't know that was a thing before. My family didn't seems too religious in that sense. 

An exhibit explaining about classroom order in the imperial academy. Isn't it cool that they have imperial school? What does that mean? That you study for the emperor? That when you pass your exam, you work as an imperial officer helping with imperial business? Kinda like civil service I guess. It was such a big deal in the olden days cause not everyone was educated or had the chance to study. 

Above is a sample of an example paper. I wonder how the format of the exam was like in the olden days. Surely it wasn't like our modern day exams of math and science? Perhaps it was more of essays? Classic memorisation? From someone who grew up in an English educated family but being throw to study in a Chinese school, I basically got through my exams by memorising a lot of text! 

Above, distinction roll! We always hear this term when we were studying, to have your name on the golden pole. It means you did so well in the exam that your name appeared here. I've actually have my name mentioned in official sources before, once for my PMR examination result my name appeared in the Chinese News Paper! I scored almost a perfect score for all subjects except Chinese! Hahahaha. The second time was during my post graduate school, I was in position top 11 in my cohort in my 2nd year. After that I deferred my course for one semester for travel, and to wait for my friend to catch up so that we could graduate together :) I couldn't have imagined my life in postgrad without him. 

A few altar sites. Was that paper money being offered?

More altar site. I like this one because of the red and blue colour.

Wooden signs. I think these are used in the annual prayers. 

It wasn't a big museum, so after an hour or so we were out again and I spotted this blue-ish dragon outside and decided to take a photo of it. It seems people touch the head for luck? Or for passing exams more likely. To the Chinese, everything seems to be auspicious in a temple!

Before leaving the place, I took more photos of the three door gate.

A different angle. Love the green surrounding the place.

Zoom in on the wordings at the top of the gate. Something about knowledge and dragons? Knowledge of a quiet dragon? Lol. Frankly I can't tell if it's read from left to right, or right to left. I can just understand the characters individually and get the gist of it. 

Souvenir shot of us with Confucius. He has been my source of nightmare when I was studying. But as I grew older, I was a fan of the English translated text of his. And now, older and wiser, sometimes I can read the Chinese text and actually make sense of it! It's a love and hate relationship I have with this language! But I am so happy that China finally opened up the Visa for my passport to be able to visit it. Cause I find that I am learning so much more about it now. Even in just this one single trip, I learned so much about Beijing, China, and Chinese culture and history! 

Beijing 2024 - Confucius Temple (北京孔庙) Next Building Front Garden

 

The Confucius Temple actually consists of two separate ground area. Once you've exited the main ground, you will find another area just to the right as you exit. Walk towards it and enter another different world! This place felt more casual and more like a garden. You will also find more Confucius statue here. 

Basically if you see a door way, and there is no entrance fees, just walk through it to see what's beyond it. If there is an entrance fee, check if your admission ticket includes the separate area. We tend to get combination tickets, so that we can visit multiple sites with a slight discounted price.

Some official information for your reading pleasure. The world in bold seems to say University Gate.

A lovely three arch gate building can be seen as the main entrance to the area. What with the rain in the morning, it does provide a very lovely reflective photography opportunity for me :)

Walking beyond the gates, you will find some cool corridors leading you further inwards. On the middle area are some temples and shrines.

At the back, the ground opened up to a huge pavilion seated inside a pond. Here, we saw many young kids running around dressed like scholars from the ancient time. They were there with their parents and photographer doing photoshoots at the place. It seems like a popular thing for parents with kids, perhaps hoping that their kids will grow up smart and enter university by coming to this temple to pray?

The water of the pond was pretty green, but sadly not much lotus could be seen inside of it. Still, it was pretty massive and you could walk all around it and of course cross the bridge into the pavilion.

Another auspicious door sign.

The following photos are taken inside the pavilion, with the four character signs hanging high inside.

I am not too sure what the middle is meant to be. It looked kinda like a throne on a stage. The pavilion was pretty empty apart that that. The throne is cordon off so you can't really get too closed to it. Lots of kids were getting their photos taken mainly inside the pavilion area and around it.

Walking further in past the pavilion, there was another bridge,  and a status of Confucius will greet you here as well, in front of what seems like another temple. But the temple here seems a lot quieter than the YongLe Temple we visited in the morning. Personally I prefer this place cause it's so much more serene and peaceful.

Here is the view of the bridge before crossing over. I love the colours of the place, the white, the green, and the red. The trees were so tall. It just looked so beautiful here. I love the simplicity. To me, this was so much a nicer place than YongLe Temple. A hidden gem for me.

Bright red building at the back, with the surrounding of slightly black. Picture perfect to me :)

The place was huge, and empty. So we could just hang around and take photos. We did have to avoid clashing with the kids running around. But compare them to the crowd at YongLe, it was not a problem at all. Here is one of my husband taken at the back of the pavilion. I was standing at the Confucius status side taking the photo from across the bridge. 

Here is a selfie of us on the marble bridge :)

Beijing 2024 - Confucius Temple (北京孔庙) Stone Tablet Library

 

The Confucius library of the 13 classic was nothing I would have imagined before. I guess this is one of the benefit of not doing your research when you travel, you can get pleasantly surprised by what you see! When I read that it was a collection of classics, I was thinking books, or even if it did says engraving, I thought maybe stones with text. But above is what the library looked like. Seriously! Straight out of Mulan movie! Or even Indiana Jones! Super high stone tablets engraved with text! OMG! Strike gold for me!

A visitor casually taking a scroll among the text. Every one, a classic.

It actually felt like I was walking inside a mausoleum than a library. I guess I was too influenced by Western culture. I've never seen a stone library in the western world before. Maybe i should go visit the pyramids! I bet that would top this! Ha!

This alove was worth my whole day's trip here! 

There were also these little stone houses that when you went closer to them....

Each panel was a text of it's own. Perhaps short stories? Poetry?

I love those with green text over white marble too. I guess these are the more modern stones. The classics were the huge tablets with text so worn out it was hard to read them.

Here is a closed up of what the text of one might looked like. Text in ancient time are written in traditional Chinese, which is more complicated than current modern Chinese. In my opinion, traditional Chinese is much more beautiful, and you can still use them in Taiwan, Japan, and even South East Asia. I hope they will never disappear from this earth.

Cordy is super happy to have the chance to visit such a unique library in her life time!