Cafe Australia Style, originally uploaded by kdt.
A short review. Do not go! It is located adjacent to the Australian animal exhibit, but it doesn’t offer pie floaters or vegemite. It offers New York steak, german beer, and a few ordinary chinese dishes. The coffee we had, just to say that we had been, was alright.
No #1 Best Attraction at Olympic Park, originally uploaded by kdt.
You’d think it might be the Birds Nest or perhaps the Water Cube.. but for some young, and not so young, Chinese it is the foreigner! There were many groups from regional China who asked us in English if they could have their photograph taken with us. One photo turned into many as each member of the group asked us for a photo on there camera. We could have set up a stand and charged one yuan, but that wouldn’t be consistent with the olympic spirit, would it?
If you are reading this blog and recognise yourself in this photo, or these other ones on Flickr, leave us a comment on this post.
1. Bring togs, goggles, towel, passport photo
2. Apply for swimming card and affix passport photo
3. Pay prescribed fee
4. Have medical examination!!!
5. Wash in shower and then through foot pool
6. Swim
Bugger forgot my passport photo. I was so close. I had everything else! Next time in Beijing I’ll pack a spare passport photo!
We rode bikes, originally uploaded by kdt.
For those who worry about us, perhaps you should not read this post! Yes we rode in Beijing! Yes we rode during peak hour! Yes we rode on some of the biggest and busiest roads we have ever seen! Yes we are still alive!
To be frank, I would prefer to ride my bike to work in Beijing than in Adelaide. Traffic is slower and it is used to dealing with lots and lots of bicycles. The road rules are clear the biggest vehicle has right of way!
The bike lanes are big and the bikes travel slowly, but often faster than the cars. Street lights are optional and often safer ignored!
It is by far the best way of seeing lots of Beijing. We rode around the old hutongs and a couple of smart lakes and Tiananamen Square. Fun Fun Fun! If we’re clever we’ll add some video showing the traffic conditions.
p.s. I got my wish of cycling a single speed bike!!!!
p.p.s I wish I had my bike shorts with me, although I would have got lots of stares!
Here is proof that we actually have been to part of the Great Wall. It was quite impressive as was the journey from Beijing. We arranged for a driver/guide just to make a life a little easier. Gavin, our driver/guide, took this photo so we could prove to the folks back home our achievement. Traffic in Beijing moves smoothly and rationally compared with India. I think the reason for this is that there are a lot of very good roads, most better than back home. As you drive out very modern Beijing with its MASSIVE buildings the size of suburbs gives away to a much more human scale.
Nameless Knight needs name!, originally uploaded by kdt.
Peter bought us this knight to travel China with us. Traveling in Helen’s bag he has. But he has no name!! So leave us a comment with your suggestions? Best suggestion gets some chinese tea!
Here is a poor duck before it was carved up.
Well you may know Helen and I have been in search of Adelaide’s best Peking Duck and so far it is probably Citizen in King William Street. We have had one duck in Beijing and so far it is the best we’ve had in China. Indeed it was very good! Quite different that in Adelaide.
Firstly, we had the whole duck carved up, no second dish like duck noodle or rice. Secondly, the taste was let’s say more adult or less Australian. I think Australian ducks are influenced by the tradition of chinese food being quite sweet. Peking Duck and the sauce in Adelaide are also quite sweet. Not so here.
Also, the food wasn’t sullied with the staple of rice!! Special occasions deserve special food. Rice is an every day food.
If you want to see more photos of our duck and the restaurant then visit Helen’s flickr pages. Some of her new photos are shown to the right of this post, and a quick scan can be had by clicking on the photo page at the top.
Like a focused machine Helen and I were in Beijing and we knew we had to eat Beijing (aka Peking) Duck! Helen used a simple search criteria on Google “Best Beijing Duck”. It came and back and said you MUST go to Liqun Roast Duck Restaurant in the back streets of an old Beijing Hutong.
That doesn’t too hard, but these streets are small and I can never seem to find two maps that agree on street names or locations. It doesn’t matter anyway because streets are disappearing and appearing all a time. Even our Nokia GPS had as walking in a middle of a void, even though it looked like a street.
This photo is of an area that looked very “old china” at first appearances to our naive eyes. On closer look it was clear that all the buildings were new and indeed me any were still in the process of being fitted out. This is clearly a mega shopping development. At least it wasn’t another boring mall.. Only problem is that all of little streets that should have connected to the hutongs were gone! The hutongs are certainly an endangered species.
We still made it thought by guess work and good look. Have a look at the next post to see the duck.
We’ve received our first challenges!!!
This first one is REALLY easy – Helen was given some Yen to have a shopping spree in ITOYA. Last year we may have spent more than a few hours exploring this massive shop! If you were really lucky you received an ITOYA pen.
The second challenge builds on this theme. After hours and hours in a office supply shop one needs some recuperation. Of course we’ve been request to attend “Office” a fine bar on the fifth floor of a building in Gaienmae Tokyo. It is themed like a rather fine office.
If you find somewhere close to the spots we’re visiting, check out the itinerary page, that you would like us to check out then set us a challenge. Leave a comment on this post or leave a message on the guest book. We will endeavour to visit and of course take and post photos here.
