ekscrunchy-Just wanted to say that I very much enjoyed your lengthy trip report focusing on food in Rome and now I'm happily enthralled with this one.
More food please!

Thanks, everyone. I promise to get back to this soon, hopefully later today. Just when the jet lag was easing, I seem to have developed a horrid chest cold...
I did feel fine for the entire trip, though!

Rkkwan..I laughed when I read your response. I debated what to write about my opinions on the food in Korea and I have to admit that I found it among the least appealing of any country I have visited recently. I did have a few good meals, but they werre in Chinese or Japanese places! Those ceramics sure were pretty, though!!

I think you mean rhkkmk's response.

Anyways, I do eat Korean food from time to time here in the US and have always enjoyed it, especially in NYC's Korea Town.

It's also interesting that eating habits and food presentation can vary so much, just within one region of Asia.

Rkkwan, you are right. Forgive me. I have confused you with the other poster.

I hesitate to say anything at all about Korean food based on such a limited sampling. I will try to sample more of it here at home (I live in NYC but have not heard great things about the Korean places in Manhattan);

I think the grilled meat dishes are a standout but I only had one meal featuring grilled pork so am a poor judge. This is not to say the food was bad (except for that unusually cured skate dish at Chil-ryang) but just not as enjoyable to me as the very different foods I have eaten elsewhere in Asia. Interesting, as you say, how different the cuisine is in Korea to that I saampled in China. Perhaps North Eastern (close to the border) Chinese dishes would have some common ground with Korean...

As I wrote above, many of my meals in Seoul were at local places with no English names or menus. Among these, one of my favorites was a tiny place near the US Embassy that featured tofu soup...a loca dish worth seeking out.

Another was a shabu-shabu place between the embassy and Insadong, located in the basement of an office building near the Palace.

On my last night in the city, I shared an excellent meal at the Japanese restaurant Shin Eun Jeong. This place is located in the neighborhood adjoining Yongsan; the telephone number is:

02-755-1213 or 790-5602

Although there is no English on the menu, which is written in Korean and Japanese, one of the servers was fluent in the language; I recommend this restuarant highly; reservations are essential. When you book you will be asked to verify if you will "be drinking" that evening. I am not sure what would happen if you reply in the negative but this was not an option for us!

This small, one-room rstaurant lined with shelves of sake and shoju bottles bearing their owner's names, and decked with floating Japanese banners, was packed when we arrived about 7pm. Businessmen appeared to make up the entire clientele. Since I could not read the menu, my dining companions did the ordering; the food was uniformly good. Here is what we ate:

Octopus fried in a scrumptious crumbed batter..a must!
Fantastic tofu lightly fried and served in a dashi broth..a must!
Plate of various raw fish, sashimi style including what was desribed to me as the fin of a snapper. Very good.
Potato croquettes...potatoes mashed and breaded and lightly fried..a house specialty. (Like mashed potatoes lightly fried!)
Whole small fish with pale yellow roe, grilled and eaten whole.
Sashimi of horse meat. This was highly marbled thin slices of horse served with leafy green lettuce and a dipping sauce. It looked like kobe beef and was quite tasty. Another house specialty.

With the meal we drank excellent Japanese beer and sake. One of my favorite meals in Seoul. Very friendly staff and congenial atmosphere.

More on Seoul food: Among the tasty street snacks are waffles made on the spot and folded over jelly or other fillings. another favorite street snack is hot dogs wrapped in a blanket of French cut potatoes and deep fried. I liked the waffles very much.

After 5 days in Seoul, I took Asiana Airlines from ICN to Beijing. I booked the round trip in Seoul at:

Sharp Travel, which has an office in the US embassy and another in Gangnam. Their phone number:

02-722-6070

The agent I booked with is Hyun-Young Joo; her telephone is: 397-4270.

The round trip tickets Seoul-Beijing and Shanghai-Seoul on Asiana cost me just under $500. USD.

I highly recommend Asiana; planes were new on both flights, service is excellent with hot meals served on both (short) flights, and they are very lenient with baggage requirements.

The plane left and arrived on time. The immigration line in Beijing airport was slow as molasses; it took me more than an hour to pass through, so plan for this possibility. I was met outside customs with the driver from The Peninsula; round trip transfers were part of my Winter Escapes package at the hotel. I was very glad I had arranged this since it took any stress out of my first arrival in China. The ride to the hotel from the airport took about 30 minutes. My first impression of Beijing was that the city was HUGE. And modern. And gray.

My large and comfortable room at The Peninsula
cost 1750 RMB plus 262 RMB tax in the Winter Escapes program, which ran through early April in 2007. The room charge included a buffet breakfast
which was among the most elaborate I had seen on my travels, (and which was topped only by the wedding-like spread at the Meridien in Shanghai.)

I chose The Peninsula for the price break on the package and for its location near Wanfujing, a central pedestrian artery. It proved to be a good choice for me. Blocky and ugly outside, the interior is sleek and modern with lots of marble and gargantuan lighting fixturres. Hotel shops were a bit of a disappointment; we had Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Ferragamo and the like but not one mildly interesting Chinese store. I also wanted the assurance that I would have good, English-speaking concierge service (this was my first trip to China and I was traveling alone so was a bit overcautious) and the Peninsula came through with flying colors here. (It certainly is not necessary to spend that much to get an excellent hotel in Beijing, with a good concierge.) I also wanted a good indoor swimming pool, as I like to swim laps every day on vacation. The Peninsula had a fabulous pool which was rarely by anyone else during my 6 day stay.

After checking in, I took a taxi to the Chaoyang area for some walking around and stocking up at a nice supermarket. (juice, fruits, water, etc). The water proved to be unecessary because the hotel provided bottled water in the rooms. After a quick visit to the Shard Box store, which I had read about in a guidebook, I walked over to the Ritan Building, right off the southwest corner of Ritan Park.

The Ritan Building is a modern concrete office building stocked with shop after shop selling high-style clothing and accessories. A shopper could spend an entire day here wandering along each of the several floors. There was traditional Chinese clothing and more contemporary designs and what I saw was generally high quality, with prices to match. (Asking price for beautifully embroidered silk long jackets was more than $300 US, a price that would no doubt be reduced by adroit bargaining, but I was just there to get an idea of what was on offer..) This place would be a must for a serious shopper with an interest in fashion. Many shops had tailors on call to custom design. (If you are considering custom-made clothing, make that one of your first stops after arrival to allow time for the garment to be completed)

After a couple of hours, I took a taxi back to the hotel and got ready for my first Peking duck dinner....(I had reserved earlier with the concierge..)

more soon...

Great start in Beijing, can't wait for more!

Me too!

(Hope the chest cold has loosened its grip)

Jackie

Ercia,here is konglin,its very nice hear that you had an excellent trip in Seoul.i am expecting more.

My first dinner in Beijing was at Beijing Dadong Kaoya Dian; I did a lot of research into the best places to sample Peking duck and this place always received excellent reviews. At the recomendation of the hotel concierge, I reserved a table at the new branch in the Dongcheng district, which was closer to the hotel than the original branch near the Third Ring Road.

Beijing Dadong Kaoya Dian. 1-2/F Nanxincang International Plaza, 22A
Dongsishitaio, Dongcheng District
86-10-5169-0329


The two-story restuarant is rambling and very glossy. An open glass-walled kitchen greets diners at the entrance. The place was packed at 7pm on a Monday night and people without reservations were waiting for tables. All of the diners that I saw were Chinese.

I was shown to a (large) table in one of the second-floor dining rooms and from then on, the night was magical. I have eaten a lot of Peking ducks in New York but this meal was superior. The setting had a lot to do with my enthusiasm. Photos and English translation make the menu easy to navigate and, in my case, I knew what I wanted before I sat down: Half a duck.

The ducks are carved tableside by toque-topped men, and presented with all of the usual accompaniments. One accompaniment that was not usual for me was white sugar; the waitress explained that the Chinese dip the crispy duck skin in the sugar. After sampling, I can understand why, as it is addictive!

Although I was probably the only single diner in the place that night, (one little person at a huge, white-linen-clad table that would seat 8) I was not made to feel uncomfortable in any way. The food was excellent, service was exemplary, and the price was reasonable; half a duck cost 98RMB, which is about 13 USD. While this is likely high for Beijing, I felt the meal ws well worth it. The restaurant accepts credit cards, as did most of the places I ate for dinner in China. There are many many other wonderful looking dishes on the menu and if I had more time in the city, I would have returned to sample some of them.

After the meal and a few minutes watching the cooks in the open kitchen, the doorman called a taxi for me and I was back at the hotel within a few minutes. A terrific first day in the Chinese capital!

Although Beijing has a subway, I took taxis to get around; I found the drivers honest and the taxis were usually very easy to hail on the street. Meters worked and I never paid more than 15RMB (2 USD) for trips within the central city. Most drivers do not speak languages other than Chinese, so it is important to have your destination written in Chinese characters before you enter the taxi.

I will try to move this report along; please be patient with the stops and starts.

The following day, Tuesday, my first full day in Beijing, I breakfasted at the eleborate Peninsula buffet and then took a taxi to the Dazhalan district south of Tienamen Square. This is a crowded and fascinating old neighborhood of small shops selling everything from tea to medicinal herbs to silks to DVDs and lots more. I planned to shop for silk and perhaps have some clothing made so I headed first for the state-run Ruifuxiang, which was recommended in a few guidebooks.

Fabrics are sold on the ground floor; the second floor holds ready made clothing and tailors who will custom make garments; orders take at least a week. (This is not the case with the privately owned shops, as I would soon learn). Here and in other state-run shops there did not appear to be much room for bargaining and prices were higher than I had expected; I ended up buying a 2-piece outfit of excellent brown silk gauze but I paid about 75USD for EACH piece so be forewarned. The material is truly wonderful, though. I browsed in a few more shops an found it difficult to find clothing larger than a size 8. The answer was obviously custom-tailoring.

When I tried, through hand signals, to ask if I could have a jacket made for me in a larger size in one of the state-run shops, I was told emphatically, "no." Could they get me a larger jacket in a few days? "No!"

I did love that jacket, so ended up taking a saleperson from another , private store across the street, into the first shop and showing her the jacket. This of course caused a bit of a to-do with the salesgirl in the first shop threatening to call the police. I am not sure what the charge would have been: Having staff from a competing establishment enter your store?

Anyway, not to belabor this, I ended up having a terrific jacket custom tailored. I returned to the store for one fitting and the finished garment was delivered to my hotel at the appointed time on the day before I left the city. The shop is:

Xin Li Xin Fu Silk Shop
proprietor: Ying Ling Li
No. 16 Dazhalan Xuanwugu
www.meiyixiang.com.cn

The tailor on the third floor of this shop understands English.
The cost of the silk-lined jacket in an excellent grade of silk and, after lots of bargaining, was 600RMB. Make sure to pick out the fabric for the lining and for the buttons as well as for the body of the garment.

After all of that shopping I peeked into the QuanJude restaurant just down the street; they have a fast-food area where you can eat their famous duck but nothing else from the menu. Decoration is pretty bare bones but prices are lower than in the restaurant proper. they also sell duck packed to take out. I passed on lunchtime duck, although I was tempted, and kept walking north a few blocks to Tianamen Square....

Here I had my first encounter with two of Beijing's many "art students" who happen to have their paintings on exhibition nearby. I spent about a half hour walking around with these girls and asking lots of questions, most of which went unanswered. It was when I asked to take their photos that they scattered very quickly.

Unfortunately, my intended destination, the Mausoleum of Chariman Mao, is currrently closed for renovation. So I walked on to the entrance to the Forbidden City. By this time it was about 1pm and the entrance was absolutely packed with people; I decided to leave this for tomorrow when I could get an early start, and taxied back to the hotel...

Afternoon found me wandering along the pedestrian section of Wanfujing, the broad street about a 10 minute walk from The Peninsula. Many of the stores are covered in scaffolding but they remain open. There are lots of upscale western and western-style shops and a few local places including an excellent and very exotic food emporium where I spent a long time just wandering and gaping.

Once back at the hotel,through the concierge, I reserved a table for dinner at South Beauty, the well-known Sichuan restaurant with a branch at Oriental Plaza not far away.

Oriental Plaza is a huge complex of buildings comprising offices above and a several levels of stores and restaurants (Crystal Jade, Beard Papa, and a clutch of fast-food places) on the lower floors; the Hyatt Hotel is in this complex, located at the southern end of Wanfujing Street. It is about a 10-15 minute walk from The Peninsula.

Before dinner I browsed in a few of the shops; many of them are banches of international companies like Espirit. Prices are not low. One of the more interesting shops is Shanghaixu, a small shop with beautiful, high-quality silk clothing, bags and shoes. Here I saw some of the most striking ready-made embroidered silk jackets but at those prices, 3800 RMB, they should have been fabulous! The shop will tailor to order in a few days; little English is spoken but they have swatch books.

Next door is another small shop with bedding and pillowcases and other home furnishings items, all in good quality silk.

I had a good dinner at South Beauty: Sichuan beef with healthy herbs (48 RMB), Ma Pa tofu with minced pork (22 RMB) and a light chicken-based soup with mushrooms (48 RMB) The first two dishes were extremely spicy (marked by two and three red peppers, respectively, next to the dish on the menu) but the aroma of the Sichuan peppercorns on the beef was intoxicating.
Service is good and the diners were mostly 20- and 3-something locals with a few foreigners here and there. The menu has good English translations and color photos. Prices begin at about 20 RMB and rise to the sky: 398 RMB for 500 grammes of king crab; 480-680 RMB for abalone dishes, and 980 RMB for a half-kilo of braised Napoleon Wasse, a fish I noticed listed on many upscale menus.

(Question: What is this fish??)

Other dishes here, for the more adventurous, include jelly fish head, double boiled turtle maw, goose intestine, and rim of turtle shell with pigeon egg and straw mushrooms. The last dish costs 380 RMB per person. There are also the usual exotic shark fin dishes, including superior tiger shark fin in bisque, at 488 RMB per person.

This is a fine restaurant, especially for a newcomers to China who wants to eat in an upscale and somewhat familiar setting and who can tolerate spicy foods. For the spice-adverse, there are a few pages of Cantonese dishes, two of which I would sample on a second visit later in the week.

I love how much detail you are providing. I leave May 1, so hope you will be posting more before then.

I'm very much enjoying your report. As a fellow Peking duck afficiando, I appreciated your description of your meal in Beijing. If you haven't had it at The China House in Bangkok, that should be a meal for you to add to your itinerary when you are there!

Thanks to both of you. I promise to finish the report before May 1..it is good to have a deadline as I tend to write in fits and starts.

Kathie, I am beginning to plan my Bankok/Laos/Vietnam trip for next winter so will be sure to place that one on the list! I cannot WAIT to sample the food in Bangkok..it has been YEARS since I have been there.

On Wednesday after breakfast I took a taxi to the Forbidden City's eastern gate. The day before I had ridden on a tourist trolley (RMB) which runs from the south entrance to the east gate. This trolley did not appear to be running early in the morning, so I walked southwest around the perimter, taking time to watch the locals fishing in the moat and pedaling along on bikes.

If you arrive at the East Gate, you can bypass part of the gauntlet of souvenir and postcard vendors that throng tourists entering from the Tienamen Square entrance. I had experienced this the day before and was not really in the mood so early in the morning. The FC opens at 8:30 AM and I arrived shortly after that time; I highly recommend this. The earlier you arrive the better you chance seems to be of avoiding the mobs of other tourists who will descend upon the place.

I spent 2.5 hours in the FC and especially liked wandering around the eastern portion where I could actually be alone in one of the halls. The 9-Dragon Screen a must see, is in this section within the Hall of Jewelery. The trees in the north garden are lovely, too, and the blossoms were just beginning to sprout when I was there in early April.

When I paid the Forbidden City entrance fee, I also rented one of the audio guides. Breaking news: Roger Moore no longer does the commentary! ( I had a bland female voice instead.) The contraption gave me lots of trouble and I returned to the rental booth twice for assistance; the second time I brought (dragged) the girl into the FC with me for a tutorial. Honestly, the thing was more trouble than it was worth. The guide is automatically programmed to start speaking as you enter each section; there are no bottons to push as with museum audio guides and if you deviate from the planned pathway, you need to wait many minutes for the guide to "relocate" itself. Very frustrating to a technophobe like me and frankly, not worth the high fee. You give a deposit and that is returned as you exit, in my case, from the north gate. I recommend taking along a good guidebook and just wandering around sans guide. Unfortunately, in the big pre-Olympic clean-up of Beijing, many of the halls and palaces are under scaffolding and closed to the public. But there are plenty more to visit, so do not worry!

After my visit, I took a taxi to the China World Hotel for my lunch with the daughter of a friend of my sister, who has lived in Beijing with her family for 25 years. (One can only imagine the changes they have observed!)

The China World Hotel, with good subway access, appears to be a central meeting place for business people and the hotel's Cantonese restaurant, Summer Palace, was jam-packed at lunchtime, which is early in Beijing, beginning at 11:30 in many places.

The dim sum at the Summer Palace was superb! It is probably the best I've ever sampled (although I am not all that experienced with dim sum..)

My favorite were the sesame BBQ pork puffs. Almost as scrumptious were the rice-flour crepes filled with minced beef, the steamed BBQ pork buns, the tiny meatballs, and a host of other dishes. We splurged and ordered about 7 plates and guess what? There was nothing left after these two ladies swept through the offerings! With a pot of tea, the meal for two cost the equivalent of 40USD which I am sure is exhorbitant for Beijing but I thought it was well worth the pleasure it brought.

After lunch we headed by car along the airport highway to the outskirts of the city and the Gaobaidan neighborhood, of which I had heard good reports concerning the furniture and crafts shops.

ek - it may be that you didn't get the "official" (Roger Moore) audio guide. I wound up with a different guide too, but after I had rented it I passed another outfit offering the Roger Moore one. Thanks for all the info on your visit - I'm getting itchy feet reading it, although I think I may wait to revisit Beijing until after the Olympics!

Wow..I had no idea there were different audio guides! And I was looking forward to the Roger Moore narration that I had read so much about! I can understand how you are eager to return...once you have "tasted" china, I can already see that there will always be a "next trip" looming in the mind...

Shanghai is definetely a favourite of mine. Glad you enjoyed your trip

http://www.travel--guide.org/Shanghai

odysseusthebrave: This is ekcrunchy's trip report thread, not for you to list a website that you have put on many forums.