Beijing to Tenerife....

One of my absolute highs of my trip so far had to be The Great Wall of China at Mutiyanyu, a less touristy section of the wall. Jane and I turn up at the CCC (Chinese Cultural Centre). Today's trip covers the Great Wall of China which is about and hour and a half outside of Beijing, the Mings tombs and the Changeling Museum . We just had the best weather and it wasn't too busy either.

This is the market you walked through to and from the cable car/ski lift to the wall.

Jane taking a call on the Wall 'I can't talk now, I'm on the Great Wall of China...'

Even the guttering was photogenic!

Havin' a ball in Beijing

Day 61: I arrive in Beijing and Jane has rather cleverly organised a man called Andy to meet me and guide me through immigration and the luggage carousel - lucky me! Beijing airport I am told is the largest airport in the world, and looks pretty awesome too. Jane is there to meet me on the other side and we grab a taxi to the Ritz Carlton where she lives and I'll be staying.

Beijing Airport.

Day 62: Its pretty nippy in Beijing compared to Honkers - between 5-15 degrees for most of my stay apart from one day that was a balmy 22 degrees - they are waiting for Spring to be sprung, so I have to borrow some warmer clothes. Beijing is huge sprawling city (I was warned) with wide tree lined boulevards, it has a surprisingly European feel to it, and it is cheap as chips to grab a taxi. Beijing is also a very polluted city, something to do with it being in a basin at the bottom of a valley, so all the pollution hangs about as a smoggy cloud over the city. Its also very windy which is a good thing as it blows the smog away! Today was a smoggy day, and everything looks a bit grey.

So we head out to the huge 798 Dashanzi which is an art district, for a wander round, and I rug up as it is freeeeeezzzzzziiiiing! Its set in a very industrial looking landscape, lots of big grey concrete buildings and overhead pipes along the roads. There are art galleries and huge pieces of art dotted everywhere.

A bit like 'Where's Wally?', spot the Ade...

These were warm soy milk drinks in lovely little earthen ware pots.

Not sure if this was art or just someone bored one day reading the meter... but it made me smile.

The one thing that will always stay in my mind about Beijing was all the different types of transport there were, cars, taxis, scooters, motorised push bikes. And then there were the ones that they just stuck an engine onto...

These were a personal favourite of mine, I saw them everywhere!

I found some cute and quirky graffiti dotted all around 798.

Jane looking fierce!

Sneaky graffiti self-portraits.

Even the doorways were arty!

This whole building was covered in pipes, I loved it. They looked like cartoon plastic icicles.

No photo's you say? I say whatever! - I have an iPhone and I know how to make it look like I'm texting when I'm not!

Pretty much every day we go somewhere in a taxi and on one of the landmarks that we pass is the amazing CCTV tower, I start to photograph it ever time, in different weather conditions and with my cameras and phone and from every angle I can. It looks like the number 1 from one angle and a 'pair of pants' from another.

 

There's a second tower next to it that is a burnt out shell (on the left here) and has been there for a while - due to the regal ramifications of who was responsible for the fire and who will pay to demolish it. 12 people were arrested. It housed the near completed Mandarin Oriental Hotel and a Culture Centre. On the opening night for the CCTV tower illegal firecrackers were set off on the roof  - and because it was still under construction the sprinkler system wasn't active, and it went up like a candle, oh dear...

I found this photo online of the fire.

Day 64: Liangma Antiques market, crammed full of Chinese art and antiques. It was a  visual feast.

 

Pretty much everyday we would eat dumpling somewhere, these are the more hi-tech version - these men aren't getting ready for surgery they're making delicious dumplings. The other purple and white dumplings were more low tech, but yummy! 

 

Next: Beijing very photogenic - I took 130 on the day we went to the Great Wall of China in Mutiyanyu, the Ming tomb's and the Changeling Museum alone.... So, I'm going to split it into two posts. I still have the Beijing Chaoyang Theatre Acrobatic Show; the GuoZijian Hutong and Confucius' Temple with Jane and Eva; Pangiaouan Markets; Tiana'men Square, Forbidden City and NCPA; and the Chinese Opera!

So long Hong Kong...

I have been very shoddy in keeping this blog updated I know, mental last 4 weeks in Hong Kong with work, fab time in Beijing battling with bad flu and an annoying chesty cough then getting stranded in Tenerife for an extra 6 days without my laptop because of the volcanic ash cloud! So, this will be a slightly jumbo edition to get me up-to-date in the UK.

Divine Dim Sum and general touristyness in Hong Kong. 

Day 29: As many people have noticed I am a big fan of food and markets. I'd read about a one Michelin star restaurant in Mong Kok (supposedly one of the cheapest Michelin starred restaurants in the world), and also delicious. The restaurant was Tim Ho Wan, there was a 2 hour+ wait mainly because of the hordes of people waiting and the fact that it only seated 22 people.

Its in the weirdest spot (its the one with the green sign) between two scooter shops and opposite all these gun shops. The one below is one of my favourite shop names!

OK, so there's a 2 hour wait, my book Tai Pan only got me so far, so I spent most of my wait wandering around the markets in Mong Kok trying out my lush new digital SLR camera

Note the four BBQ'd pigs on the right hand side.

Back to Tim Ho Wan...

The steamy kitchens where all the magic happens.

Inside its not like the Tardis, it looks this small from the outside too. But it was well worth the wait the food was dee-lish.

House speciality of baked pork buns, with a thick, crunchy, sugary crust on the top - you ordered them and waited 25 mins for them to bake them fresh. At least 10 people ordered extras of these as take out because they were sooooo yummy. (I did too and took them to my very grateful work mates).

Day 33: From one Dim Sum (or Yum Cha as we call it in Oz) experience to another. Next stop Lin Heung - if you want an authentic HK Dim Sum experience this is the place to go, a cross between the authentic/traditional recipes and a free -for-all rugby scrum! Leigh, a friend of my sister Fran was transiting through HK so this was her first ever experience of Dim Sum!

These were traditional, very light steamed cakes with sweet red bean paste inside. No one spoke English so it was a case of picking something that you thought looked OK and finding out if it was sweet or savoury once you started eating. (I thought these were pork buns of some description when I picked them). Oddly enough we ended up sharing a table with a Chinese man who used to live in Sydney!

Day 40: Rainy day in Macau with Kingsley - its a 30 minute ferry journey to Macau, and you'll need your passport (this is the 3rd time I've tried to get there over several visits to Hong Kong, I forgot my passport the first time). Macau has a Canto-Portugese feel as a former Portuguese enclave. I loved the architecture, some of it was very colourful and very European. The two specialities seemed to be large sheets of jerky and pretty much anything on a stick - steamboat style.

Lovely church we popped into...

Old lady on the steps outside.

Cooking up some jerky...

Something on a stick.

Kingsley.

Macau is famous for its casino's and we had to visit one, I nearly lost my pants there. I won big and lost big too!

Day 59: Brown Sauce night on the town in Lang Kwai Fong to celebrate finishing our contract. These pics need now words! So long Honkers, hello (nee how) Beijing!

Next: The lovely Miss J and the delights of Beijing!