My Trip to Beijing, Part 2

The Summer Palace

Before I left for Beijing, I did a lot of research on what possibilities there would be for day excursions while I was there and found out that I could also arrange to have a cooking lesson with a Chinese chef, but before I get to that I’d like to say something about my general impression of Beijing.

I speak no Chinese and figured it would be best for me to go with a tour group to get around. This was the best decision I could have made. I never would have been able to find my way around alone.  I arranged several day excursions through an on line company. While on these trips I met some very nice people and a couple of not so pleasant people.

The first day there was a group of 11: me, a couple from South Africa, two ladies from Australia, two gentlemen from England, a young Italian man and another couple, but I can’t remember where they were from. It turned out that the South Africans were staying in the same hotel as I was.  Our tour guide was a very nice young lady named May. We started at Tianiman Square where we were told some of the history of modern China since the revolution and how important Mao’s influence was on how China is today.

We then preceded to the entrance of the Forbidden City. There is a large painting of Chairman Mao over the gate. I seem to remember Mai saying that the painting was 6 meters tall. As we entered the Forbidden City, you begin to get a feeling for how huge this ancient structure is. There is a pathway that leads through the center and only the emperor was allowed to walk on this path. There are many buildings within the walls and all surrounded by a large moat. Interestingly, the exit of the Forbidden city was just a couple of blocks from my hotel. That part of the tour was over two hours. Then we went to have lunch at a Chinese Restaurant.

I do not know the name of the restaurant. It was a medium sized place that looked kind of run down—much more industrial than the kind of decoration we tend to see in Chinese restaurants in the west. The dishes served were (as well asI can remember): Eggplant and peppers, sweet and sour pork, a chicken and mushroom dish that I thought was more like a soup, deep fried fish with a sweet and sour sauce that was different from the sweet and sour pork, stir fried broccoli, beef and onions with a kind of sweet red sauce and, of course, rice. Each dish had a distinct flavor and all were delicious. We ate every bit that came out and probably would have eaten more if they had brought it.

We then continued our tour with a short stop at a fresh water pearl seller. I did not find this very interesting and I think the others were also not into it.

Next we went to the Summer Palace which is on a lake. We took a boat from our starting point to the palace and saw the small islands in the lake and had a panoramic view of the palace. This again was such an impressive building, such beautiful architecture and interesting art works. Statues of dragon, elephants, phoenix and an unusual rock garden construction. You felt a breeze off of the lake and could understand why someone would want to have a house there during the hot summer months. After the tour we walked back to our bus and were taken home. The tour lasted about 7 hours.

When I got back to the hotel, I was wanting something for dinner and asked the concierge for a place to go to get real Beijing style food. He said that down the street left of the hotel there were many restaurants and food stalls. I had heard about a dish called Peking Noodles and asked him to write it down for me in Chinese so that I could order it in a restaurant.

I walked down the street and was suddenly in a very traditional kind of Chinese shopping street. People were selling fresh vegetables directly on the street. There were many different kinds of restaurants, and stands selling steamed breads, Chinese barbecue, tea and herbs. I looked in through the window of a place. It was very clean and neatly organized with wooden tables and stools. I thought, well, I’ll try this. I was met at the door by a man. I showed him the paper with the dish that the concierge had written down for me that also had Peking duck on it. He indicated they didn’t have duck, but did have the noodle dish. I took a table and he gave me a menu. Thankfully, it had pictures of almost all their dishes.

I ordered the noodles and a dish of stir fried vegetables. The were a kind of thick fettuccine noodle and were delicious. They were served with a Chinese bean sauce, ground pork, onions, star anise and ginger. There were other ingredients on the side, shredded cucumber, shredded leek, bean sprouts and shredded carrot.   These vegetables were served raw, which is very unusual in China. The other dish was AWESOME. It was mostly mushrooms, but they were stir fried with spring onions, carrots, red and green bell pepper, bamboo shoots, LOTS of garlic, black beans and chili pepper. It was very salty and full of flavor. I ate every bit of it. I worked on recreating this dish and came up with a pretty good version which I will post here later.

My Trip to Beijing, Part 1

                                                    Inside the forbidden City

As I mentioned in my introduction on my profile page, I decided last year to start including cooking lesson with a short vacation to a foreign country. My first big trip came last year because I was on tour with the Bavarian State Opera in Tokyo.

We were able to arrange to fly earlier to Tokyo and then arrange any other travel destinations before the tour began that we wanted. I chose Beijing, China.

I left Munich at eleven in the morning and flew directly to Tokyo. In Tokyo I had a seven hour lay over.  Our work permits were only valid for one entry into Japan, so, I couldn’t leave the airport because I would have had to go through customs and that would have counted as my one entry.

I spent the seven hours exploring the international part of the Narita airport. Luckily, they had an Italian espresso bar which made a pretty good doppio espresso macchiato. Plus, I was able to buy a few little things that I couldn’t take in my carry on from Munich.

The ANA flight landed in Beijing at about eight o’clock p.m. I almost cried when we touched down. I was so excited to be there. It had been a dream of mine for many years to visit China and I couldn’t believe that it was actually happening.