Tag Archives: Food

Kunming

Day 34 – Visiting the YuanTong Temple in Kunming

Again a visit to a local temple, this time the Yuan Tong Temple in Kunming. This is one of the most important Buddhist temples in China, with a history going back over 1200 years. Finding it was easy with the map provided by our guesthouse Lost Garden and we walked there in about 15 minutes. The entrance is squeezed in between the normal shops and buildings, but somehow temples always show itself by the big group of people begging, selling stuff or just hanging around in front of the entrance.

The grounds were beautiful, we walked around a bit and suddenly we saw a lot of people walking around with bowls of food. After a bit asking we identified the kitchen and there they were giving veggie food for 7 rmb a bowl, as Charlotte was hungry we decided to try it.

And we got the last bowl, the veggie was all out so it was basically some rice with potatoes and curd, but that was exactly the right thing for our daughter and thus we had a improvised lunch with some old Chinese ladies, who shared table and some pickles with us. Very nice experience.

After lunch we just wandered around the compound, enjoying the many beautiful photo spots (Martijn), the quietness (Manu) and the option to play horseland on the stair (Charlotte).

On return we even did some exercise – Charlotte always asking “Daddy, am I a sporty girl” :o)

 

Kunming, Uncategorized

Day 33 – Trip to Kunming

Travelling day again, so we got up early and walked to the bus for the train station. After asking several of the many busses who stopped we got one that went to the train station and hopped on.

At the train station we changed our tickets, as the last experience with the hard seat made it clear that this mode of train travel was ok for under 3 hours, but for a 6 hour trip to Kunming it would be really hard. Luckily there were still soft sleepers available, so we had a very pleasant journey. Due to the fact that we were still not all 100% healthy this was a very good decision.

As we arrived in Kunming the station as chaotic. So far all the train stations in China we’ve arrived were well organized, when you come out it is clear where a taxi line is etc. Here we had to look hard for a taxi and had one of the nice ignorant taxi driver experiences, as we asked one driver if he could bring us to our guesthouse he just kept staring forwards, ignoring us and then just driving away. Normally not an issue, but with a 40lbs backpack, hot, sweaty and tired those are the moments you do not like the Chinese at all. Especially if a group of touts behind you is making fun off you.

As it was clear we were not getting a taxi here we walked a bit towards the center and found a nice lady with her taxi who drove us to our guesthouse. And then everything was good again, the room was great, the roof top terrace just in front of it and nice and quiet. So we used the time to have our laundry done, look around a bit near the green lake of Kunming and went for dinner in a restaurant that was recommended nearby.

Well, that restaurant visit was not the best. The dishes were all so spicey that none of us could really eat it, the service was (even for China) very unfriendly and lousy and the prices very high. After we paid the bill there was a 78 rmb for the tea on it, later we found out that this was a rip off method more had experienced in this place. Annoying, but again, that is part of travelling.

 

Dali

Dali

A short update from Dali in Yunnan. After we arrived here by train from Lijiang, 2,5 hours on the hard seat, we unfortunately had to cope with a small food poisoning which ensured the first three days in Dali we were more or less bound to the Hotel.

One thing that was good was that Charlotte met Mila, the daughter of a German owner of a guesthouse here in Dali. So she was very happy to meet somebody who spoke German and new how to play “Bibi und Tina”, something the Chinese kids not really got.

We even went with them to the local university grounds, very beautiful up the mountain overlooking Dali to do a round of inline skating.

So not much to report from Dali, on Wednesday we will take another train ongoing to Kunming, if we’ve had the change we probably would have stayed longer in Dali. It is clear why people hang here.

Chengdu, Sabbatical

Day 18 – Chengdu Tibetan Quarter

Today the Tibetian Quarter of Chengdu was on the program. So after we got up and had breakfast with pancakes, yogurt and some very not nice dumplings we took the line 1 bus across town and got out near the WuHou Temple. Right next to it is a well known ancient street that has been redone where a lot of small shops are, so we jumped right in.

Good time for some souvenirs, all small stuff as we have to carry everything around and we also found a Calligraphy Master who sold big paintings. We are still thinking to get one, but 7000 RMB is a bit much for one of those – especially if we have to ship them back to Germany.

After the shopping street we went into the Tibetan area and had lunch in a real Tibetan restaurant where we had nice Yak Dumplings, some kind of curry dish as well as our first Yak Butter Tea. Well, the latter one we can now check off on the todo list and perhaps later in life we have another in Tibet itself, but for now we do not really need one 😉 It has a very specific salty taste.

Unfortunately the meal was not so right for our princess, so she got a bit out of control and we had to speak some clear word with her that she is not the only one on this trip who wants stuff. After we sorted that out we hopped in a small guesthouse and got her French fries there, then everything was ok again.

Interesting enough the area is also know for its outdoor shopping options, there are a lot of shops there and you get everything for hiking, camping and mountain tours. We had some looks around as Manu always has trouble finding a fitting outdoor pants in Germany, but funny enough it wa the same here. We found one, which was of course a brand one, and that was quite expensive. But for the rest even here a lot of the shops did not have her size… and we though the Chinese were small 😉

After the bus ride home we enjoyed the real warm weather a bit on the terrace and then  started to pack for our short trip to Leshan and Emei Shan. As we return to Chengdu we’re planning to leave one, the biggest, back pack with all the stuff we do not need here at the train station and travel a bit lighter. But this sorting out did take some time and we also got rid of some old stuff. Still, it seems our luggage is self-expanding 🙁

Diner we had in a small restaurant nearby, greasy and old, but the food was great. One problem though that two quite drunk Chinese liked the fact that we could speak a bit Chinese and kept hanging around, Charlotte got a bit scared by those two and also we were not that amused.

Chengdu

Day 17 – Chengdu Panda Center

Today we did one of the highlights of our China tour, a visit to the Panda Center in Chengdu to see some Giant Pandas in the flesh. First we wanted to go there by ourselves with a taxi or bus, but a German couple we met said that it was quite small and two hours for the center was more than enough, so we decided to follow their advice and book the tour with the hostel.

This meant getting up early, as the car left at 7:50 am sharp to ensure we were early enough in the center to see the pandas active. Because they are smart animals, after breakfast they go to sleep and you won’t see them a lot anymore. The early rise was though not so great for Charlotte, who was still sleepy and did not eat a good breakfast, something that would come back on us later.

After a short 40min drive we arrived at the panda center and walked straight in to search for those cute animals. And yes, we saw several nice pandas which were eating, walking around or just hanging in a tree. Almost even more cute than the giant pandas were the red ones, they are very small and climb up in the trees, one walked just right pass us.

And then it came, Charlotte was tired, hungry and had a very bad temper. In search of the restaurant we skipped part of the park only to find out it was not open yet. So let us tell you, perhaps it is not the healthiest of breakfasts, but the ice cream was definitely a life saver at that moment 🙂

For every one out there who think 2-3 hours is enough for the panda park, that may be the case without children, but next time we would definitely go on our own and ensure we do not have a hard deadline for the ride back.

Back in the hostel we made use of the DVD room and had some time as Charlotte watched Pocahontas and got slowly a better mood 🙂 After everybody was well rested we took the bus line 1 to the WenShu monastery where we were just in time to take a short look and then had diner in the monastery’s own vegetarian restaurant. This was very nice, a veggie hotpot and even Charlotte was amazed what kinds of vegetables she could cook herself.

 

Pingyao, Sabbatical

Day 11 – Bike tour around Pingyao

Today we want to do some active time – so last night we asked Lilly to arrange us some bikes and she would get us, if possible, also a child bike for 10 RMB each. So in the morning after breakfast, which was again very good with the fresh dumplings, some guy showed up with two of the oldest bikes we saw in a long time as well as a foldbike for Charlotte. The foldbike was ofcourse much to high so we had to switch to a child seat for the bike of Martijn.

In a typical Chinese way this took a bit back and forth, in the end we had an Ok seat which was modified so that our daughter would fit…. so on the road we went.

Well, that was definitely not the typical tourist scenery road we picked. We wanted to go to the XXX monastery about 7km outside of old town Pingyao and the road there took us through some dirty factory outskirts of town. It was definitely interesting, this was the real China that you normally only see from a train window 🙂

On time we had to carry the bikes across a road work site, but all in all it was nice to be on our own. And we had the opportunity, as we passed the high speed railway station, to get our next train tickets that we ordered for the night train from Kunming to Guilin. After some doubt regarding the local airline the decision was made to have another ride in a night train, something that we all like.

At the temple we were amazed by both the amount of and the situation in which the many Buddha statues were. But hey, lets put some incense on for them, Charlotte also really likes those sticks. So we bought them with the guy who introduced himself as “bike-watcher” and charged us 4Rmb for parking our bikes. One thing we did forget though, a lighter to get that incense burning… so anyone nearby, there are quite some sticks in the temple waiting to be “enlightened”. Further on in the temple we discovered that art students were making copies of the statues, some of them really impressive.

After viewing the temple we tried out the local restaurant and had also the here famous Pingyao beef dish, which is basically cold beef sliced with some herbs, nice enough, but nothing to have twice 🙂

On the way back we used more of the main street and arrived safely at the hostel, proud on our 16km biking tour in the traffic of Pingyao, China. In the evening we used the bikes again to have another diner at the food market and slept like babies afterward.

 

Beijing, Sabbatical

Day 3 – lazy and silk market

This day was more of a relax day, we slept in quite long and visited the well known silk market. Somehow it was not really anymore what Martijn knew from 2001 and 2011, and a few days later we heard that the goverment closed the old market and reopened it in a more shopping mall style, so no more cheap fake brands.

After that we experienced the Beijing Railway station, where we went to pick up all our train tickets that we booked so far. It was very chaotic but we managed to find the ticket booth and there it all went very fast.

After shopping in the chinese supermarket (very interesting experience) we went to the night food market, where they sell everything from simple sate to fried scorpions or spiders.