Living in China: July 2008

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Beijing Museum of Natural History

Address:
Beijing Museum of Natural History
126, Tianqiao St. Beijing,100050,PRC
http://www.bmnh.org.cn/web/en/

北京自然博物馆 (Beijing Zìrán Bówùguǎn)
北京市天桥南大街126号10050
http://www.bmnh.org.cn/web/cn/

Working Time:
9:00-17:00, 6 days a week(Except Monday)

To Get There:
Subway line 2 to Qianmen (前门) then take bus nos. 20, 69, 120, 729, 803, 826 to Tianqiao (天桥). The museum is across the street.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Qinhuangdao Trip: Shanhaiguan

Liza and I went to Laolongtou (literally Old Dragon's Head) Great Wall at Shanhaiguan when we got tired of walking along the beach in Beidaihe. Entrance to the place is 55 kuai according to the cab driver but he got it for us for 50 kuai.

massive gate

From Wikipedia: Shanhaiguan or Shanhai Pass (simplified Chinese: 山海关; traditional Chinese: 山海關; pinyin: Shānhǎi Guān; Wade-Giles: Shan Hai Kuan; literally, "Mountain and Sea Pass") is a part of the city of Qinhuangdao, in Hebei province, People's Republic of China. In 1961, Shanhaiguan became a site of China First Class National Cultural Site. Along with Jiayuguan and Juyongguan, it is one of the major passes of the Great Wall of China.

It is a popular tourist destination, featuring the eastern end of the Great Wall. The "First Pass Under Heaven" is also a noticeable tourist attraction. The place where the wall itself meets the Pacific Ocean (at the Bohai Sea) has been nicknamed the "Old Dragon's Head." It is nearly 300 km east of Beijing and linked via the Jingshen Expressway.

exact replica of a Ming Dynasty Warship

military ladder

soldier's room

escorts

on the way to the "dragon's head"

where the Great Wall meets the Pacific Ocean

I don't have a lot of pictures of the place because my camera ran out of battery (forgot to charge it the night before) and it started to rain.

Kafe Peranakan

Liza and I ate at the Cafe Peranakan in Chaoyangmen Wai last Sunday (before we went to Qinhuangdao). The food's great, parang nasa Pilipinas lang kami.

Indonesian Rice

Dry Curry Chicken

From Beijing Visitor Blog: This excellent Malay restaurant located behind the Kuntai Hotel is popular with many of its regular clientele and also with visitors from the nearby Kuntai Hotel and busy Ritan, Landau and Fulllink shopping areas. Those expats ‘in the know’ also cherish a regular meal at this specialist restaurant with its exquisite flavours of Malay cooking.

# 17 Kuntai International Center
Chaowai Dajie
Chao Yang District
朝外大街昆泰国中心南17号
Telephone: 5879 0370

Hair Salon?

hair salong...

Qinhuangdao Trip: Beidaihe

Liza and I went to Beidaihe last weekend for a day (or two) of fun at the beach. We've been really missing the very accessible beaches and shores of the Philippines.

This trip is a learning experience for me because for the first time I went to another city without a translator (bahala na si batman!). I also booked our train tickets and hotel on my own (nevermind that I used elong.net to book the hotel - I still did it on my own, hehe). My main concern was how to book the train tickets without going to the train station (I don't speak that much Chinese yet...). I inquired from several travel agencies but they only book plane tickets, so I tried the train's official website (I think) - www.huochepiao.com. With the help of my limited chinese and the trusty google translation site - I was able to book the tickets and request it to be delivered to our place with a delivery fee of 10 kuai per ticket.

I booked the ticket Friday morning, it was delivered around 11 am Saturday. I got the hotel confirmation Friday morning. We boarded the D11 train from Beijing Railway Station (Beijing Zhan, not to be confused with Beijing West railway Station which is Beijing Xi Zhan) at 1:55 pm.

Beijing Railway Station

The D11 train waiting room is at the second floor. There's a lot of chairs but you would need to order a drink before you can sit. Liza and I both asked for an 18 kuai iced lemon tea so we can wait in relative comfort. Little did we know that we could have walked a little further in and saved ourselves 18 kuai... the (real) a waiting room is just near the check-in area.

order a drink if you want to sit...

The train is quite nice... clean with relatively comfy seats - we got second-class tickets so I'm thinking first class is way better.

inside the train...

on our way to Beidaihe

From Wikipedia - Beidaihe District (Chinese: 北戴河区; pinyin: Běidàihé Qū; Wade-Giles: Pei Tai Ho) is a district in Qinhuangdao municipality, Hebei province, China. It has an area of 70.14 square kilometers and a population of 66,000 is also known as a birding haven. The Beidaihe Beach Resort stretches 10 km from east to west, from the Yinjiao Pavilion to the mouth of the Daihe river. The beach itself is covered with fine yellow sand stretching some 100 meters to the sea. The water is shallow and welcoming for children to play in.

He Xie Hao (D11 train) at Beidaihe station

in front of one of the cars

I bought our return tickets to Beijing right after we got off the train. There's a very helpful cab driver who pointed me at the right direction - the tickets are sold in the area at the right of the exit. I got us 90 kuai, 3:25 pm tickets for tomorrow.

I asked the cab driver to take us to our hotel (by pointing at the address I printed beforehand), he said he knows a much better place at a much cheaper price. He took us to this hotel that's around 500 meters from the beach (the beach can be seen from the lobby) but according to description in elong, the hotel I booked is much closer to the beach so we opted to go there instead.

our hotel room

in front of the hotel

As it turned out, we should have listened to the cab driver - our hotel (Yanshan Dasha or Yanshan Hotel) is like a kilometre from the beach!

200 metres daw!

After walking a kilometre, we finally arrived at the beach. I've forgotten that beaches can be a lot crowded during Sundays...

never

ending

crowd.

can't make sand castles with this sand...

We stayed at the beach til past 7 pm, went to our hotel to wash the sticky sand and then went out to eat. We had some trouble getting our food orders understood - they only have Russian & Chinese menus, no English.