Back to Beijing
Door: Ling Fan
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Ling
06 Mei 2007 | China, Wuxi
The first week in May was a national holiday. During this holiday I went to Beijing, my second time within a half year. I planned to eat in all the famous restaurants again where I went before. The second plan was to go through all the well-known sightseeing places too. The train trip to Beijing took me about 11 hours. I had a hard sleeper. My hotel called “Golden Oasis Hotel” wasn’t a very luxurious hotel, but it had all the things I needed. Furthermore, it was cheap (118 RMB per night) and the location was good, because it was easy reachable from Qianmen by bus line 20 which was also directly connected to the central trainstation and the Wangfujing Road. On my first day I had lunch in a famous franchise Quan Ju De, well-known for it’s Peking Duck. After lunch I walked over Tiananmen Square and visited Xidan to do some window shopping. The days after it I also visited the Lama Temple, the Dutch Embassy, Sanlitun Area, Houhai Area, the Temple of Heaven and Ya Show Silkmarket. The visit to Beijing this time became extra special to me, because I learned to know more of Beijing by making more use of the busses that are available in this city. In the past I frequently visited places by cab, but it’s a whole different experience when you travel by bus. Although it’s less comfortable than a cab, but it is way cheaper (1 RMB compared to at least 10 RMB) and you feel more connected with the locals. The visit to the Great Wall was of course also done by bus and on one of the busiest days of the holiday. From the hotel I took line 20 to Qianmen, at Qianmen I switched to line 5 which drove me to Deshengmen. When the bus passed Tiananmen Square, I could see that it was crowded with people. There were so many people that you could hardly see the floor. Those who’ve been to Tiananmen before know how large it is, and you really need a whole bunch of people to get the floor filled. At Deshengmen I had to switch to line 919 which would bring me to Badaling. It seemed that everyone had the same plan to go to Badaling that day, I had to line up. The line seemed to be endlessly; more than 1500 people were standing in the row. Once I lined up, it went quite smoothly, because line was constantly moving. Before I knew it, it was my turn to get on bus 919. I never got to Badaling this cheap (only 12 RMB!). When the bus arrived at Badaling I could see how busy it was that day. Two kilometers away from the entrance the bus stopped because of a traffic jam and we had to get off the bus. The remaining distance to the entrance we walked. As expected, the Great Wall was also completely filled with people; the whole wall was covered with people, no matter till how far you would look. After having climbed the Great Wall, I took a rest at the Starbucks at the foot of the Great Wall.
Looking for restaurants is another story that’s fun to tell. Somehow I have difficulties with localizing restaurants I have been to and remembering their names. I’m very fond of Yunnan food, there’s one place I’m very delighted about. I not only forgot the name of that restaurant, but I even remembered the location of that restaurant wrongly. I thought it was located next to the Renmin University in the Zhongguancun Area, but it had to be Minzu University in the Weigongcun Area. I had been walking and walking for hours without finding that restaurant. Those two areas don’t only sound similar to each other, they even look similar. At a certain moment it even started to rain quite heavily. Because the day started very sunny, I had neither a coat nor an umbrella. In the end I finally called Menita who gave me the exact details of the restaurant. That Yunnan restaurant is called “Jin Kong Que De Hong Dai Wei Canguan”, can you imagine how hard it is for me to remember such a long name?
There was one other day I wanted to go to an Indian restaurant which name I (of course) also forgot. I only remembered that it had to be in the neighborhood of the Drum Tower, I walked every side road I could find, but it was in vain... I just couldn’t find that place. Because it was late already, I gave up and went back without dinner. I walked 30 minutes back to the subway station to find out I just missed the last subway back and I had to take a bus back. When I arrived at the hotel I bought some instant noodles in the convenient store next the hotel which was still open. A few days later I saw an advertisement of that Indian restaurant in an expatriate magazine called That’s Beijing. It appeared that the Indian Restaurant wasn’t on the location I remembered anymore, but it moved to a place next to the Drum Tower. The name of that restaurant: Raj.
The day before I left Beijing, Menita wanted to treat me for Peking Duck at LiQun. We would meet up at that place around 9 pm. Thanks to the bad experience I had before in finding restaurants, I already started to search for LiQun in the afternoon. LiQun was located in a quite remoted area where you won’t expect a restaurant. In order to get there you had to pass sand ways where they were breaking the place apart. There were no other shops; the only things you could see were sand and bricks. For this reason I was quite surprised to find a restaurant like this. I found out that this place had many celebrities among its customers, for example Al Gore (vice-president of the USA). Because of the constructions in that area, LiQun was well hidden and not easy to reach. For that reason some rickshaw-drivers made good use of this opportunity to rip off the lost foreigner by sending them into the wrong direction first and then offer them a ride to the restaurant for ten bucks per person. This was what happened to Menita...
In short I can say that I have enjoyed my time in Beijing. It was quite relaxing to see the familiar spots again, to see Menita again, to sleep till the afternoon, to have good food, etc....
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06 Mei 2007 - 13:40
Annelous:
Ha, klinkt als een leuke vakantie! En druk, inderdaad, maar dat krijg je als je in de meivakantie gaat...
Was je alleen daarheen gegaan eigenlijk? Wie heeft dan al die foto's gemaakt?
gr A -
06 Mei 2007 - 16:18
Kleine Ling:
Ha die grote Ling! WOW Beijing lijkt echt wel de place 2 be! En k ben blij dat we daar ook naartoe gaan op 12 juli... kan egt nie wachten! Eerst school afmaken natuurlik (blèh hardstikke saai), maar daarna naar mainland China, een van de tofste plekken op de geheele aardbol 8-)
Zo te zien ben jij ook naar de meest opmerkelijke monumenten van Beijing gewees, maar ben je daar nie es eerder geweest? Wel plezante plekjes btw =D Ook verheug k me vooral op de overheerlike eten die op ons wacht... vooral die 24/7 restaurant en Indiase curry!! 0_0 en die Russische restaurant... daar waren we tog al twee x gewees?
k zie je als het goed is over ong. 2 maanden weer... ben benieuwd naar je verhalen over je avontuur in één van de wonderlijkste landen ter wereld. Wat is nou nóg relaxter dan heerlijk eten en mooie uitzicht hebben?
Greetsz, kleine Ling (Fong) -
09 Mei 2007 - 10:09
Ai&Har:
Leuk dit reis- en eetverslag!
En werken?
Wij zijn benieuwd wie deze foto's maakt!
Nog geen heimwee naar Tegelen?
Succes! -
14 Mei 2007 - 13:05
Yukari:
Wow, wat een avontuur weer Ling! Maar ik moet zeggen dat die kippentenen me niet echt aantrekken >.< ^_~
Maar wat hier ook al 2 keer gevraagd is, wie heeft al die foto's gemaakt? Heb je misschien zo'n standaard voor je cam ofzo? Wel heel tof en dapper om zo in je eentje door zo'n grote stad op zoek te gaan naar het restaurant en alles.
Je vroeg in een eerdere blog of al bekend was wie er dit jaar naar Japan gaan.
De monkashou-beursen zijn gegaan naar Jurre, Edwin, Tycho en Simon. Die verspreiden zich over Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka en Fukuoka. Devran gaat ook naar Fukuoka via de IO.
Bart (ouderejaars) heeft de beurs naar Beppu gekregen.
Nadia die naar Nagasaki. Verder gaan er nog 9 anderen naar Nagasaki: Mei-Yin, Kelly, Isaura, Marco, Jonathan, Andries, Maarten, Daan en IK ^^
Dus ik zie je volgend jaar weer niet :)
Ik hoop je weer eens te kunnen spreken! Heb je geen msn of wat?
Kus, Yukari -
14 Mei 2007 - 14:01
Ling:
Wow, wat goed van jullie zeg! Jullie spreken vast vloeiend Japans als jullie dat jaartje Japan achter de rug hebben. Gefeliciteerd allen, het verbaast me trouwens niet dat het juist deze mensen zijn die gaan (de top van de klas ;-)) Ik ben toch wel een beetje jaloers, ik had ook heel graag naar Japan gewild (met jullie). Ik mis jullie nu eigenlijk al.
Aankomend studiejaar ga ik mijn Masters voor Chinees afronden en Japans zie ik wel hoe ver ik ermee kom. Ik heb het alweer een jaartje niet meer gesproken noch intensief geleerd. Ik ben bang dat ik alweer een heel groot deel ben vergeten.
Trouwens goed opgemerkt van jullie dat ik nog een metgezel had op reis. Zij heeft inderdaad al die foto's met mij erop gemaakt ;-) Wie het is, kan ik helaas niet zeggen, zij is namelijk heel erg op haar privacy gesteld ;-)
Ik heb trouwens MSN, vraag jurre maar naar mijn adres, hij heeft die.
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