Beijing and HK Nov 2019 - Day6

[NeeNeeWong]

We had a bit of a lie in today, we didn’t leave the room until 10. We didn’t have anything planned for today so we just looked on forums to see what was around.

Not too far was the Dongyue temple, it’s a shrine to Mount Tai, there are 5 great mountains in China, Tai being one of them. This temple has been around for 700 years, you could definitely see the difference between this one and one of the more touristy ones from the lack of restoration, but it was also quite unique to the rest. Around the edges of the courtyard were little rooms you could look into, each with carvings inside.

It was 10yuan each to get in and was practically empty. I think we saw a total of 20 people. Very quiet. We walked around all of the outside to see each room full of carvings, some more unique than others. One was like the seen on the walking dead!

Then we were getting hungry, so food was the next stop. We crossed the street and look what we found! I said to Chris they must have some counters in there and if not we will have a look anyway to compare.

You don’t get fish much fresher than this!

We found bao on the deli counter! I don’t know if we have been blind all week but these little buns have been hard to get our hands on.

We also found sesame balls, which chris’ sister makes back at home so we had to get some to compare. They were just as good.

We also got some egg tarts, some cake and some crisps like Pringles.

We took these to the temple of the sun, which was a little free park to the south and sat under this beautiful tree to enjoy our treats.

Once consumed, we took a walk around the park, which is popular with runners as it has a 5k track around the edge.

We then walked back to the nearest tube and realised we were outside the silk market again. The other day ladies were shouting “100 for a north face jacket”. As this place is popular with Americans, we knew they meant 100 dollars, but we were going to play dumb. So off we went in search of our fake north face. Once tried on she said yeh 100 dollar, we said oh no, we thought you mean 100 yuan. Again, no no, that’s too cheap! Somehow we got her down from 100 dollar (700yuan) to 150 yuan. Deal! I can’t even get a jacket in primark for £17 sometimes! Doesn’t look too bad for a fake either.

We have also been searching for snack streets all week. It appears a month ago they shut down the one in Wangfujing. Beijing doesn’t want them anymore and all will be shut but 2020. Disappointing as this is where you get the cheap food! But apparently there’s still one, by Qianmen street. We reached Qianmen street and it looks a lot like Wangfujing - higher end shops no tack to take home. However, we saw down a little side street some lights, we reached the edge of a Hutong and kept walking to come across the best area for shopping and eating.

We grabbed some buns to snack on, we think both duck but I didn’t matter, they were delicious!

We found one, just one, vendor selling bugs. Chris was going to try but she wanted 30yuan for one stick. We had just bought all those buns for less! So he passed.

We then walked back to Qianmen station, and the building behind was now lit up all beautiful.

We popped back to the hotel to drop off our bag and then head to siji minfu. It’s a very popular restaurant and we were feeling hugely hungry from our snacks, so we would mind a wait. We did not expect a 2 hour wait! We were hungry by all the smells. So we ordered rice, lamb and shallots, honey prawns, pork in sauce (it was sweet) and cheesy mushrooms. We also got given little oranges for free, I think as a pallet cleanser. Overall the bill was 305 yuan, expensive for China, not bad for a nice meal in the UK.

We waddled home at half 10 and back up the hotel. Tomorrow is transfer day to HK.

[Melbatb]

For an unplanned day you saw some great sights. Sometimes the simple things have a charm!

I hope things go ok in Hong Kong. My son says the MTR is a bit hit and miss at the moment. There are quite a few stations that are closed (including the one for Nping).