It was great to be back in Hong Kong especially after a twenty hour overnight sleeper journey from Shanghai, the deluxe soft sleepers are very good but soft is not really the word that should be used for the bunks. The journey however was excellent although there was less on offer in the way of snack trolleys than on the Xi’an to Shanghai sleeper but we had our own Shanghai picnic.

 

Having been in Hong Kong about five years ago we felt less pressure to dash round seeing all the sites which was great after the amount that had been seen in our three stops in China. Our five days here were to be spent exploring certain areas in more depth than last time but also to include a day trip to Macao which we hadn’t managed to fit in last time. The other main activity was to be eating some great food in a wide range of places, easily done in HK.

 

Our day trip to Macao was easily arranged as we were staying in Kowloon at the Royal Pacific Hotel and we discovered while exploring the hotel that the China Ferry terminal was contained within the complex. The first time ever on our travels that the hotel complex has contained among other things an outlet mall, a supermarket, numerous eating places, a ferry terminal and a stop for the airport shuttle express bus – all within one vast building.

 

 

We booked our Macao tickets in advance and on the day simply checked in, completed the various immigration forms and set off on the hour long journey on a very large and fast catamaran. As a great fan of anywhere on the Iberian peninsula it was lovely to arrive and see everything written in Portuguese and in the heart of the old part be surrounded by the old colonial style buildings. It was also good to sample some traditional Portuguese cooking and of course the famous custard tarts.

 

Macao is also famous as the only place in China where gambling is legal and since a local monopoly was ended in 2002 the big names from Las Vegas have moved in. The revenue from gambling in Macao apparently overtook that of Las Vegas several years ago. It is quite a shock to see the huge casinos on the way back to the ferry terminal from the old part of the city. If like me you set your heart on lunch at the Clube Militar de Macao make sure your partner is not wearing shorts, we were turned away and I so wish I hadn’t looked at the menu first.

 

Back in Hong Kong we had not made any restaurant reservations in advance but one on the list was ABC Kitchen ( a better cooking kitchen) set up in the Queen Street Cooked Food Market in Sheung Wan by two guys who were previously at the now closed highly rated M on the Fringe. We were lucky enough to get a table for Saturday night and in the hall containing a selection of eating places it was easy to spot ABC by the red checked table cloths. The service was excellent, the food very good, the famous suckling pig did not disappoint and the black sesame soufflé was brilliant. The very reasonably priced wine list, the food and the service made the total bill seem even more of a bargain that it was already.

 

Bargain eating continued on our last full day in HK and we ventured out of our local Kowloon streets to Prince Edward to try the famous One Dim Sum, one Michelin star, and boy was it worth it. We were given a number and told that the wait would be about 30 minutes, sitting outside in the shade and choosing our dishes from an English menu the time soon passed. I knew it was good when the Shao Mai arrived they were the best I had ever tasted and every other dish was equally good, the steamed rice noodle with BBQ pork was delicious. We had six dishes and the bill was 130 HK$ the equivalent to £10, if we hadn’t been leaving the next day I would have gone back to try even more !

 

As always in our travels there has to be a variety of places and on the horizon as we explored Wan Chai on Sunday was brunch at Jason Atherton’s 22 Ships. I had looked at the menu and the reviews on line and was keen to try it but when we passed and saw it was packed and how good the place looked it was a definite to try. We came back after an hours wandering and were lucky enough to get two seats at the communal window table. As in any of Mr Atherton’s places that we have tried the service was outstanding and the food as in La Esquina in Singapore loosely based on Spanish Tapas. The seafood paella and the belly pork with squid and chickpeas were both outstanding, riots of flavour and colour and accompanied by a bottle of excellent white wine what better way to spend a Sunday lunchtime.

 

Lastly on our culinary journey was Yardbird, beak to tail eating, Japanese style, this is in the Asian top 50 restaurants list from San Pellegrino and had been on my own list from the start of planning this trip. The fact that a director at Temple Restaurant in Beijing had also said it was a must made it a definite to visit. No reservations are taken therefore we were at the door before it opened at 6pm by which time a small queue had formed behind us, by 7pm the number of people waiting had seriously grown. We were helped in our choice by the knowledgeable staff and shared a half portion of the great sweetcorn tempura, followed by six skewers of various parts of the chicken, some not often eaten, all excellent, the final dish was a half portion of the KFC cauliflower – amazing – a really good HK experience.

 

While we were in HK the pro democracy protests were taking place and it was the most peaceful, most polite and most tidy protest I have ever seen. Our travels were not disrupted, the protestors were incredibly polite informing us about their reasons and wanting to make sure that people were not being inconvenienced. They tidied up constantly making sure that none of the gifts of food and water that they were receiving created rubbish. It certainly added to making this a memorable visit.

 

There is lots of information on the Hong Kong city page about things to do and other places to eat but as I said at the start our last stop in Hong Kong was a lot about eating some good food and we succeeded.

We were visiting Xian for one major reason, the same one as most of the other visitors, to see the Terracotta Warriors. Having done my research before the trip I realised that Xian was a large city but I had not realised how large. We arrived from Beijing on the high speed train at Xian north station and took a cab to our hotel within the city walls, the journey was over 13km but the fare was the equivalent of £3.50. Checking later on the size of the city it has a population of similar size to London.

If you arrive at the north station beware of the masses of taxi touts, do not be tempted, instead queue at the official area and even in the driver change over time between 3pm and 5pm there will be a steady stream of drivers who will then use their meters.

Xian is well worth two or three days as the city walls that enclose the centre are excellent and the Drum and Bell Towers in the centre are a must to see. In addition the Great Mosque is well worth some of your time in the City.

Staying near to either the Drum or Bell towers give you easy access to the excellent “muslim” street , as it is known, where the various food stalls offer local dishes such as Rou Jiamao the Xian hamburger and skewers of lamb, fish and other choices. The area is also full of shops for souvenirs of your visit, remember to bargain. Also nearby is Defu Street, known as the bar street. It is packed with bars offering happy hour in the early evening and many places stay open till 4am. Most places also offer food and there are some small stalls offering the usual lamb kebabs if you get peckish.

The main event has to be visiting the Terracotta Warriors, as in the case of The Great Wall you can do this as part of an organised tour but you can also do this on your own very easily. If you are staying near the Drum and Bell Towers there is a local bus to the main railway station, not the north one used by the high speed trains. This is bus number 611, they run almost every five minutes and the fare is the equivalent of 20p, the final stop is the station and you catch the bus back from the same stop. Once you have got off the bus walk towards the station and to the right hand side you will see an area packed with buses. The bus you want is 306 and there is a stand with a queue which you join and they load the buses from this queue. There are very regular buses and you pay for your single fare on the bus, the equivalent currently of 70p. One thing to note is that lots of people get off before the last stop which is the Terracotta Warriors, the conductor on the bus will ask you where you are going.

You then walk to the main entrance and get your ticket for the site. The warriors are incredible, the site contains Pits 1, 2 and 3 and if I was to go again I would visit 2 and 3 then Pit 1 last. This way you get to see the best last. If you do Pit 1 first the other two will probably seem rather disappointing. There are loads of souvenir shops and places to eat outside the main entrance before you reach the bus park but the toilet facilities are not as good as in the site itself. The buses return from the same place as they arrived.

There is more information on Xian on the City page on the web site.

Arriving at Shanghai main railway station on an overnight sleeper train from Xian it was good to see easy access to the main concourse and directions to the well organised taxi stands that were simple to follow, after spending time in a few Chinese railway stations over the past weeks we knew this was not always the case.

After Beijing and Xian, Shanghai, even given its size and vast population, seemed less frenetic. Crossing the road while still dangerous was less of an ordeal, queuing was more organised, the crowds in the metro were not as daunting and the interchanges between lines short, unlike Beijing.

You immediately feel that while this is obviously still China there is more of a Hong Kong feel, less police and more relaxed security. There is so much to see but not the huge sites that there are in Beijing just the enjoyment of selecting an area getting a feel of that part of the city, the architecture, the eating, the shopping and perhaps chilling out in a café or bar.

I had wanted to visit Shanghai for a long time and had read much about the Bund, the famous riverside area with grand buildings from the colonial time of the city when the British, Americans and French had their settlements. It did not disappoint, particularly at night when looking at these fantastic old buildings and the brand new skyscraper buildings on the other side of the river in Pudong. The brand new Shanghai Tower is still to be completed but will soon look down on the Shanghai Financial Centre with its futuristic bottle opener top and the beautiful pagoda style Jinmao Tower. Given the queues for the observation deck at the Jinmao I would suggest the Hyatt Cloud 9 bar one floor below, opens at 5pm and gives you staggering views of the city on a clear day.

Close to these towering buildings and with easy access to the metro is the IFC Mall, possibly one of the smartest malls I have ever seen, the range of designer shops is incredible but much more fun is choosing where to eat from the huge selection or choosing a bottle of wine from Enoterra a wine shop where there is no corkage if you choose a bottle from the huge range and drink it in their bar area.

Shopping and food seem to be the main pastimes in the city and as you would expect these both range from very expensive to incredibly cheap (and good). We booked lunch in advance at Table No 1 which is part of Jason Atherton the UK Michelin starred chef’s expanding Asian empire. This is in the Cool Docks area of the river and is part of the industrial chic Waterhouse hotel. The set lunch is a bargain at the equivalent of £18 for 3 courses, the food was outstanding and the service excellent, a really great experience.

At the other end of the scale we had one of the great food streets of Shanghai on our doorstep. Close to the Shanghai Concert Hall and Peoples Square is Yunnan Street, it contains everything, roast duck and pork stalls, dim sun, kebabs, hotpots and seafood places. The best seafood place is on the corner of S. Yunnan Rd. and E. Ninghai Rd., we found it when searching for a cool beer late at night and discovered a place packed with locals eating plate upon plate of delicious looking food. The beer at £1.20 for a large bottle of chilled lager was a winner and we came back regularly afterwards to eat from the huge menu and nothing ever disappointed. Four excellent dishes and four beers cost on average the equivalent of £16. The translations on the menu were wonderful including dishes described as sexual harassment dried bamboo shoot and German groping, neither of which we tried. There were lots of other choices apart from seafood.

Still on the subject of food, we also sampled Hot Pot in Shanghai, although perhaps more associated with Beijing and further North there were a huge number of options in the city and we opted for Hai Di Lao, a national chain renowned for the best service possibly in China – it is used as an MBA study model. In the busy times you get snacks, drinks, shoe shines and manicures while you wait. We went at a less busy time and it was excellent, menus are on IPads and we chose a split hot pot, part tomato broth and part mushroom broth, with half portions of meats and vegetables to cook in the broths. Great quality and good fun and there are many pastes and spices you can add or dip into to suit your taste.

The last must on our food list was the “to die for” dumplings at Din Tai Fung, a Taiwanese chain with places in all the main cities, and yes they are more expensive than other places but boy are they worth it and you don’t get black truffle in your dumplings in most places. The choice and the service were truly top notch.

We managed to fit in some culture as well and the highlight was without a doubt the Shanghai museum, it is said that the citizens of the city do not look back and tend to disregard tradition, an exception being this marvellous museum, designed in the shape of an ancient bronze cooking vessel. The bronzes on the ground floor of the building were truly stunning, some dating back to 21BC, the intricate work and design was jaw dropping. The other galleries particularly the ceramics were fabulous but the bronzes I can still picture.

There will be lots of details on places to eat and visit on the Shanghai page on the web site but sadly it was time to leave the city on another overnight sleeper, this time heading to Hong Kong.

Nothing can prepare you for the vastness of Beijing, the sheer size of the city and the number of people is staggering, but it is also a city of huge varieties. In the middle of some of the main shopping areas with all the designer names such as Chanel and Prada and more high end watch shops than you can count there are still small lanes of grey brick houses called hutongs where families live and little eating places and local shops thrive.

We were lucky enough to be staying at the Red Wall Garden Hotel in a central hutong area, fifteen minutes from the designer shops and five minutes from the nearest subway. This is an oasis of calm built round a lovely courtyard where you can enjoy a meal or a drink after a hard day’s sightseeing. For the adventurous you can pop into one of the nearby eating places, we frequented one we called the donkey place. There is an obvious reason for our nickname in that all the meat dishes use donkey meat, the speciality being a warm flaky pastry sandwich filled with the tasty meat for 60p, excellent with a 600ml bottle of local beer for 50p.

Getting around the city to see the sites is best done on foot, but beware of the distances involved, or by taking the subway which is easy to use, clean, frequent and incredibly cheap. It can be busy during the peak times of morning and evening rush hours but at these times the frequency of trains is one a minute. One thing to note is that the interchanges between lines can be a very long walk. Get a travel card which has a £2 refundable deposit and then add some cash, each journey is the equivalent of 20p and it can also be used for trains to Badaling to see the Great Wall, more below, and on the buses where it gives a discounted fare of 4p – yes that is correct.

The major sites in the city are on a grand scale and the distances you walk inside these attractions can be considerable. There is so much to see in Beijing, in five days we managed the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Lamma Temple, Tian’nemen Square, The Lakes and of course a day trip to the Great Wall. This still gave us plenty of time to enjoy the eating delights of the city from a fine dining experience at Temple restaurant to street food lamb skewers, a speciality.

Temple, which we booked in advance, offers a three course lunch for the equivalent of around £13, this may sound reasonable but when you also get a small glass of champagne and five different dishes of appetisers, an additional fish course, and extra desserts, all complimentary, it becomes incredibly reasonable. When you have experienced the top notch service and excellent cooking it quickly becomes a bargain. The prices on the wine list reach the stratospheric but there are some reasonably priced choices but one tip is avoid the bottled water as it is way too expensive and ask for the regular purified water.

You are never far from an eating place in the city but most small basic places will have no English menu, they may have a picture menu and with the help of a phrase book to point at the words for beef, chicken etc. you can always manage as we discovered even on our first night after a long flight. Lunch and dinner are eaten earlier than in Europe but there are loads of basic places which open 24 hours a day.

One essential dish is of course Peking Duck, and there is great debate about the best place to go, you can read debates about how the duck is prepared, the service, the cost etc. on numerous web sites but we chose Bianyifang, reckoned to be the original, with a number of locations and a locals place. It was excellent and the theatre of your own personal duck chef carving for you was great – as was the duck.

Visiting the Great Wall can be done as an organised trip but on many you have to endure visits to shops and minor attractions which you may not want to see and then have a very limited time at the wall itself. The closest place to Beijing is Badaling, which is decried for being the most touristy and also because the wall has been largely rebuilt. On the plus side it has a cable car and it can be reached by train in 75mins from Beijing North railway station. There are a few vital things that you need to know, get a travel card because you may arrive 2 hours before the train to be greeted with a notice saying all tickets for your train have been sold and the next one is in 2 hours. If you have a travel card this does not matter, it will be swiped and you will be free to enter and wait for your train to depart.

That may sound simple but an hour before the train is due to leave the queue will start, people will push in front and general chaos will ensue until they open the doors and then they will all run and sprint the 300 metres to where the train is sitting. Why they cannot bring the train to end of the platform is a mystery. Those not lucky enough to have got a seat can buy small stools from the platform vendors. The trains are comfortable and the journey currently costs the equivalent of 60p one way. There is now a shuttle bus to meet the train and take you up to the ticket and cable car office and the same going back just make sure to get off at the rail station as some buses go on past there. You will have to endure the same queue mayhem on return but given the cost, the freedom to choose your time to go and return, and the facilities when you get there it is not such a bad choice. Also the way the wall snakes about and down gives picture postcard views, I don’t think anyone will realise it has been rebuilt.

There is lots of information on the Beijing city page on places to eat and drink but as usual in my blogs here are a couple of tips on local drinking habits. Beer is the most common drink and there are a number of bar and nightlife areas. Nanluogoxiang is one of the nicest, this is an old hutong area that has largely been taken over by small shops, bars and eating places. It has a lovely feel, even when busy at the weekends, and there is a huge variety of places to sample beer, wine and cocktails. Prices are reasonable by European standards. The area bordering the upper lakes is also full of bars and restaurants but prices by the lakeside seemed higher. There were a couple of bars with wine lists where the top end prices were in the hundreds of pounds, obviously catering for the Beijing high rollers. Further back from the lakes in the hutong streets were more attractive and more reasonably priced options.

One vital tip is about crossing the road, even when you have a green light traffic still comes round corners and from all angles, they may not stop so be careful but you will get used to this after the first few times.

Another tip is always carry a roll of toilet paper and for European style toilets you have to visit places like Starbucks and McDonalds and the more up market bars. All tourist attraction will have these sort of toilets, look for the signs on the doors !

Also worth mentioning is that all the guide books talk about being pestered by people pretending to want to talk English and this leading to various scams. We did not find that we were bothered very much at all, a couple of people wanted photographs with us but there really was far less than expected.

Another thing that we found was that contrary to what the guide books said, taxis were not easy to find and our hotel told us that for short distances taxis are just not interested. Taking a taxi to the west railway station we had to agree a price in advance rather than using the meter, not something we found in other cities. Be aware of this if you are out for the evening as the metro only runs till approximately 11pm.

The crowds, the noise, the lack of personal space and the queue jumping and pushing locals can at times all seem too much but being able to see the most incredible sites that Beijing has to offer makes all these minor irritations worthwhile.