Three Great Beijing Restaurants

Posted by Kay Wong, No Comments 03/10/2011
Chinese Food 209x300 Three Great Beijing Restaurants

A selection of local Chinese dishes

Beijing, a city of many wonders; so many in fact that it can seem a little overwhelming at first. The best way to see the city is on one of our many Beijing tours. This blog post takes a look at just a few of the restaurants you can sample on a Private Tour of Beijing.

Han Cang
This fantastic restaurant serves some of the best hakka cuisine in the city. Hakka is easy to recognize with its earthy, wholesome and tasty dishes.

Some of Han Cang’s specialties include three-cup duck, braised in rice wine and soy sauce; salt-baked shrimp and a range of oven-baked fish choices. The restaurant has a cosy, rustic feel to it; the walls are covered in rice paper, you sit around large wooden tables and service has a homely personal feel to it. If you’re lucky enough to get one; the tables on the top floor also offer beautiful views over the lakes outside.

Three Guizhou Men
Something slightly more ‘trendy’ for the next choice, the dazzling ‘Three Guizhou Men’. Often considered as a haunt of Beijing’s rich and beautiful; this fantastic restaurant has suitable food and atmosphere for its clientele. The spicy lamb rack served here is one of the best menu choices. If you’re slightly less adventurous then the ‘Beef on Fire’, comprising of strips of beef hung and cooked over chives and hot coals, is also a popular choice for foreign diners.

Jiumen Xiaochi
If you have slightly more adventurous taste buds then a look round Jiumen Xiaochi is a great idea. This courtyard restaurant complex is a throw back to the pre-Communist times of the city, when the city was full of laozihaos; what we would recognise as brand-name restaurants except these have been around for centuries. The complex offers a more traditional range of foods too, everything from traditional rice dishes to the more unusual offerings like flash-fried tripe and lamb’s head.

This is just a small selection of the restaurants available in this diverse city, and a little exploring can go a long way. There really is something for everyone in the beautiful city of Beijing.

The Secret Great Wall of China

Posted by Kay Wong, No Comments 19/09/2011
Great Wall of China 300x200 The Secret Great Wall of China

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is one of the country’s best known historical sites. This has meant that over the years the renovated sections of the wall such as Badaling, Simatai and Jinshanling have become popular tourist destinations, especially as those sections are easy to reach from Beijing which is close by. Our group tours visit the Juyongguan Pass, which is a quieter section of the wall.

If you take a Prviate Tour, for a more personal Great Wall experience,  you can reach lengths of the wall that are not mentioned in the English guidebooks and so attract very few tourists. One of these sections, that’s still fairly easy to reach from Beijing, is located in the Huairou region. This fantastic wall section was built back in the Ming Dynasty, around 1368, and is located just 73km from Beijing and if you follow its length it connects up with the Mutianyu Great Wall just 10km to the east.

The region is well known for its beautiful terrain and the wall has sites that really let you take advantage of this. One such site is the enemy observation tower known as, “The Eagle Flies Facing Upward”. Although the tower isn’t in great shape, so climbing the tower is inadvisable, the rocky peak it sits upon gives an impressive view of the landscape around. The climb up to the tower is not for the faint hearted though as it sits on the highest section of the wall in this region.

So if you fancy experiencing the Great Wall then why not consider one of our Great Wall of China tours with a difference.

Three Gorges Dam – Modern Wonder of the Yangtze

Posted by Kay Wong, No Comments 05/09/2011
Majestic Yangtze 300x225 Three Gorges Dam Modern Wonder of the Yangtze

Majestic Yangtze

The famous Yangtze River attracts thousands of tourists every year to see the beautiful scenery and experience fantastic Yangtze River Cruise holidays. The landscape is usually the main draw for many but the river has other breathtaking sites to see as well. One of these is the modern marvel that is the Three Gorges Dam.

The dam is one of the largest power generating structures in the world, and with a total of 26 turbines produces a massive 22,500 MW, to put that in perspective that’s enough electricity to power 20 million homes.

The colossal structure makes for an incredible sight. Spanning the width of the valley, at just over 2.3km, its construction took over 27 million cubic metres of concrete, a massive half a million tonnes of steel and involved some of the largest earthworks of any modern engineering project, with over 100 million cubic metres of earth shifted. A trip to the dam also provides an impressive and unique view up and down the valley and the sense of scale while standing next to the dam is incredible.

Although the construction of the dam was highly controversial, it provided a strong sign of the drive to move power generation away from the traditional fossil fuel based systems. The dam also has the added benefits of giving tighter control, and some protection, over river flooding. In addition to this, the flooding of the upper valley lead to an increase of the transport capacity and the safety levels of the river. The Yangtze was notorious for its strong currents during the flooding seasons, a problem that’s been at least partially abated by the dam.

Finally, a trip to the dam wouldn’t be complete without going to see the incredible lock and lift system. The traditional locks see an amazing amount of through traffic on a daily basis and seeing the ship lift in action, capable of lifting ships of up to 3,000 tonnes, is a breathtaking sight.

So if you’re thinking of taking a trip out to see the Yangtze and its stunning scenery, make sure you also get to enjoy a tour of the Three Gorges Dam!

The Beijing Botanical Garden

Posted by Kay Wong, No Comments 15/08/2011
 

If you’re on a Private Tour visiting Beijing, there are some sights in the city that should be high on your list of must see attractions if you get the chance. Be sure to wander the Beijing Botanical Garden on your Beijing tour. It’s very much like Kew Gardens in the UK – it’s not only a site of scientific research, but also a great way for visitors to the city to see a wide range of wonderful, exotic plants.

Beijing Botanical Garden 300x216 The Beijing Botanical Garden

Beijing Botanical Garden

 

The Botanical Garden is one of the key botanical gardens in the whole of China, it covers an area of around 135 acres and sits between Fragrance Hill and Yu Quan Mountain. Situated in the Gardens is a whole range of plant exhibits, set out into areas or districts based on climate and species. It’s not just plants though, there’s also a famous relic site located in the Gardens and a natural reserve for a more natural plant and animal habitat.

Plant-wise there are over 10,000 different species, including over 1,400 hot house plants and over 2000 different types of trees and bush. These plants are mainly located throughout the site, set up in various greenhouses, groves and gardens. There are rose gardens, cherry and peach gardens, a perennial bulb garden and ginkgo, pine, and cypress sections to name but a few.

If you’re more interested in the hot-house plants then you should take a trip to one of the centrepieces of the site, the Beijing Exhibition Greenhouse, which occupies an area of just under 10,000 square metres and is one of the largest greenhouses in the world. This fantastic greenhouse is sub-divided into climates, from the hot and dry desert plants room to the humid rainforest room, there’s a bewildering range of plants on show here. If you’re looking for something a little different there’s also a carnivorous plants section, showing a fascinating range of theses incredible plants.

Finally, if you fancy taking a break from all the flora, you can take a trip to the relic site, which contains the Reclining Buddha Temple, the Relic of Long Jiao Temple, the Cherry Furrow, the Memorial Hall, the Memorial Hall of Huang Yecun, and the Grave of Liang Qichao.

The Real Taste of China

Posted by Kay Wong, No Comments 01/08/2011
Chinese Noodles 300x200 The Real Taste of China

Chinese Noodles

One of the most common comments we get on our tours is about the differences between authentic Chinese food and that of the Chinese restaurants back in the west. Western Chinese restaurant food is a very different experience to food in China, it tends to be based on Cantonese style food, heavy in meat and fried in oil, with a twist of the west in that it’s quite sweet, can often contain MSG additives and usually only has vegetables as a side option.

The real thing is a far more interesting experience! On the holidays in China that Wendy Wu offers, you get to experience a good mix of Chinese food. Breakfast is a mix of western and Chinese options but for lunch and dinner you get treated to traditional, local cuisine. All meals are included in our fully inclusive Group Tours, which can include a sampling of Peking Duck in Beijing or a delicious dumpling meal in Xian.

Although you get a good mix on the tour banquets, it’s worth keeping in mind that the dishes will vary depending on where you are in the country, though if you are thinking of eating out, the common saying goes “Northerners eat noodles, Southerners eat rice.” There’s also a difference in the spicing of the food depending on where in the country you are, the Sichuan region for example is well know for its spicy dishes. Our Private Tours include several free evenings to give you the option of exploring local restaurants.

So if you’re looking for a real authentic Chinese taste experience, then you can’t beat taking a trip to the country itself.

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