Ni Hao Beijing: a taste of culture

How does one define culture? For me, it is the locals’ way of life. My 3 day stay in Beijing was too short for me to have a concrete definition of what it’s like to be in Beijing on a normal day. But, I felt like I did my best to somehow get a grab of it.

 

The Egg

For some reason, the Chinese people have a high regard to the performing arts that they even built a carefully designed opera house. On our first day, since Pam has been to the egg for so many times, my bff and I grabbed our road maps and hit the streets. We took photos along the way while searching for the Egg. I suddenly realized that the street we walked on to is the same street where Jaden Smith ran to watch the violin audition of his classmate in the movie Karate Kid. We went in and out of small lanes until we found the egg! Too bad we weren’t able to return here at night time as the Egg showcases different colors of lights. Anyway, we can always go back to Beijing.

 

flowers along the street, on while looking for the the EGG

 

streets leading to the egg (i think this is an alternate route)

 

the egg!

 

Tea

China is more of a tea drinking country. I was never a tea lover (except for iced tea), but I really had no choice when we were there. One my friends even opened a coffee shop in China, but decided to close down because of well, coffee is really inferior to tea. But I don’t really regret being exposed to this culture. I began to develop this love for tea, and curiosity over new flavors. I even brought home a 2L Tong Yi tea (for only 6RMB). This brand was soo expensive in restos in Houhai (like 50+ RMB for .5L) but super cheap in supermarkets in the Silk Street (only costs 2RMB for .5L). They even have green tea flavored bread sticks while pizza hut has this peach fruit tea (not available in the Philippines). Now, I love tea as much as I love coffee. Maybe this was brought to me also by the emerging tea shops in the country

best tea ever!

 

 

peach fruit ta at pizza hut

Food

Another good thing about Beijing is that their food is sooooo cheap. After a very long walk at the Forbidden City, we rode a bus going errr nowhere. We went down upon seeing a Subway restaurant. I have almost convinced myself that I will eat anything known to me as I was really hungry after the Forbidden City tour. But my bestfriend told me we should try the authentic Chiniese food. I half heartedly agreed. I just don’t have the patience to experiment given the state of my empty stomach. The hardest part is that, there were no English translations of the dishes, We only relied on the photos and charades when communicating with the fouyan (waiter/waitress).

 

lunch near wangfujing, all of these for only P400

 

dinner at old beijing restaurant (P1,500 for 5 people! so cheap)

 

Shopping

We were brought to Wangfujing by mistake.  After having our meal on the day we had our Forbidden City tour, we walked around and found Wangfujing. It was the Wangfujing International Brand Festival when we were there. It is a long strip of shopping malls. It was actually heaven for me. All the big brands can be found there. I found so many cheap finds but since it was my first day, I decided not to buy anything yet. Coz I might run out of RMB. Use of credit cards is not really a practice in Beijing, so I’m scared u might run out of cash. But of course I tried their famous roasted chestnuts.

 

Wangfujing arc

 

Wangfujing shopping strip

 

glazed fruit and chestnuts at wangfujing

There was another strip of malls near in our hotel in Xidan. Here we were able to shop for a bit of H&M stuff

shopping mall in Xidan with the longest escalator in Asia

Another shopping haven in Beijing is the Silk Street. It is like their version of Divisoria. What is more surprising is that some Chinese can actually speak a bit of Filipino. We found a number of Pinoys shopping in the Silk Street. Maybe Pinoys are somehow the main cutomers of the stores and so they were able to somehow learn a bit of our language. Almost everything is here. Shoes, bags, ref magnets, postcards, groceries, tea, furniture, name it! The nice thing about Silk Street is that you can bargain to death. Sometimes the initial price can go down as low as 50% off! But I was never good at bargaining, coz even if I have gotten bits of souvenirs at half the initial price, I still feel like it is expensive and can still be bargained. Oh well…

 

 

Night Life

After a tiring day walking around Beijing, we chose to have dinner at Houhai Lake City. Braving the cold weather and almost zero knowledge on the directions, we tried to rely on our maps. No taxi would take us because they cannot understand us. Good thing we found Luke, Pam’s officemate, at the subway. We asked him the best way to go to Houhai. It was a really long walk, as in looong walk. I felt like I have walked the whole metro manila while I was in Beijing. Anyway, we laughed a lot while walking until we reached the lake. It was surrounded by a lot of bars and restaurants that one will really have a hard time choosing which one to try. We finally settled to a Thai restaurant. The dishes were a bit expensive though but really really worth it, especially if it was a treat from Pam.

Houhai Lake District Map

 

dinner at Houhai

trying out their street food --cotton candy. =p

Our Beijing trip is one of the best trips I ever had. It was a mixture history and culture all in one place. Our weekend trip to the capital of PRC is way too short to have a grasp of what it is really like to be a local Beijing person. But we can always go back to this magnificent city. Maybe on a winter next time?

So if you decide to take a tour to Beijing for the first time, make sure to gear yourself up with a pair of comfy walking shoes. as they say, no better way of exploring than walking.

Xie xie. til next post