A quaint little Tongli

Tongli is easily accessible from Suzhou, an easy option to see one of the canal towns around Suzhou. I took a bus back from the Humble Administrator's Garden to Suzhou bus station, which is just outside of Suzhou train station. Buses to Tongli depart Suzhou bus station via the long distance bus station.

Bus ticket inclusive of entrance fee to Tongli Old Town costs RMB 80 for two days (the day I arrived and the day after). This entrance fees includes admissions to the exhibition houses around this little town. Of course, I read somewhere that if you enter after 5 pm, entrance fee no longer required if you just want to walk around the old town. There is also an alternate entrance somewhere but of course there are separate checks for each attraction entrances. RMB 80 is not cheap, a local who took the same bus as me (he got off the bus before Tongli) also commented that it is expensive, so I tried to make the most of the exhibition houses. *kiasu-ism at work*

Bus from Suzhou to Tongli takes about 30 minutes, and stopped in Tongli bus station. The bus station is not inside Tongli old town, one can take a shuttle to the old town but it is about 20-30 minutes walk away. Please be mindful not to travel with the touts hanging around the bus station. I didn't see any shuttle upon my arrival, and I avoid haggling if I can, so I made my way there walking. It really isn't that far away.

Walking to Tongli Old Town

Tongli is an old but well preserved water township with more than 1,000 years history. Once you crossed the archway to this canal town, there are many shops selling pork knuckles and some asian cake/biscuit. Those pork knuckles are big, and not something in the line of food I like, so I didn't get any, didn't want to throw it away if I don't like it. I tried some of the biscuits though.

I get one each

This was the hidden one on the photo above

The elongated one is 袜底酥 (wa ti su), literally translated as 'bottom of socks' flaky biscuit. So named due to the shape of the biscuit. The round one is 退思饼 (tui si bing), not sure if it is associated with the Tui Si Garden, a famed classical garden in Tongli. The elongated one taste has some salty taste to it while the round one is like regular biscuit, on the sweet side but just mild. Not overly sweet. This last one, with sesame seeds on top, is 松子枣泥饼 (I translate it as Pine Nut Jujube/Date paste biscuit). The paste is like what one finds it mooncake. The strange thing with food in China, they taste ok in China but the one packet I bought home tasted different, somehow subpar compared to the one I had in Tongli.

I checked in to Jingyitang which I booked after asking Paul for his recommendation. After much contemplation, I decided to only get the standard room due to cost as I was traveling solo. He wrote a good review of the hotel here. By the time I reached Tongli and ready for a stroll, most day trippers have already left, or on their way to the bus station. I visited one of the preserved traditional residences, 耕乐堂 (Gengle Tang, Gengle Hall). Gengle Hall once owned by a Ming Dynasty nobleman.

A leisure stroll around this little township, I can see how it would be a nice short weekend getaway.

On my stroll, I found two different shops with similar concept - sending mail/postcard cum cafe.

Maybe I shouldn't use the word found as they are easily noticeable. The reason why one of the shop caught my eye the in the first place was because of the shop's name. In English, it is just simply - Momi Cafe, but the mandarin name, 猫的天空之城 (my direct translation as: Cat's Castle in the Air) reminded me of Studio Ghibli's movies - The Cat Returns and Laputa. I checked out the shop, just because of the name. Haha, I'm so gullible like that.

It has nothing to do with the water canal township, but it's a cute little shop selling postcards and help to post them out at a cost. So technically, you could write to yourself and set a receive date that you wish. I didn't post any, but got a couple of postcards.

Dinner was one of the supposedly famed 3 dishes of Lake Tai (太湖). The eateries has similar menu, and one of them would be 太湖三白 (Taihu san bai, or Three Whites of Lake Tai) referring to 白鱼 (white fish), 银鱼 (silver shrimps, this refers to whitebait) and 白虾 (white shrimps). I had the simple stir fry eggs with whitebait and soup for a cold night.

After a night stroll to walk off the food, the portion was quite big and I stuffed it all down myself. I called it a night and aimed to wake up early to enjoy a quiet morning before it got busy again. :)

Side note: One week in Kansai... should I, shouldn't I, should I, shouldn't I? *pull hair*

Gardens in Suzhou

Natural frame

There's a Chinese saying that says, "上有天堂, 下有苏杭 (Shang you tian tang, xia you su hang)" which means above there is heaven, down here there are Suzhou and Hangzhou. 

I had limited time in Hangzhou. To make it fair, I would have to reduce my time in Suzhou as well. LOL. Just joking.

As mentioned in my previous post, I've already made reservation on Tongli's lodging, otherwise I would've move Suzhou to Day 1 and Tongli in Day 2, leaving Day 3 to Wuxi. Between Suzhou and Tongli, Tongli is a smaller area, rather than limited time on both places, I thought I'll spend more time in Tongli.

As Suzhou was near Wuxi, just 15 minutes on G train, I managed to visit two attractions in Suzhou - Huqiu Hill (虎丘) or also known as Tiger Hill and 拙政園 (The Humble Administrator's Garden).

Entrance to Tiger Hill

There are two versions of how Tiger Hill got it's name. According to version number one, a white tiger was seen to be crouching on the tomb of the father of Fuchai, Emperor of Wu State. The other version, the more boring version, was just simply because the tomb resembled a crouching tiger.

There was a flower festival at the time of my visit, there were heaps of beautiful tulips!

Yellow

Pink

Orangey red

I'm not cluey about gardens, let alone traditional old Chinese gardens but I do appreciate the greenary in a city. Technically, because Suzhou is still a city but Tiger Hill is a big away from the the city centre.

On a information board at the entrance to Tiger Hill, it stated of how every corner of Tiger hill is suitable for making poems (I think it might mean inspires poem writing?) and how a well-known poet in Northern Song Dynasty, no other than Su Dongpo sang praises of Tiger Hill, "It's a great pity if one comes to Suzhou without visiting Huqiu (Tiger Hill)."

I'm no poet and I have no knowledge how highly Su Dongpo saw Tiger Hill prior to my visit but the reason why I chose Tiger Hill as one of the two places to visit on my short trip there was this leaning tower.

It is leaning, I didn't have any seasick or slant this on purpose

I have soft spot for old towers, the leaning part of it makes it even more special. This is Tiger Hill Pagoda, also called Yunyansi Pagoda is a seven-storey octahedron brick-timberwork pavilion. Built during the Northern Song Dynasty, it slants to the northeast when it was completed, but it has survived for over 1000 years.

I heard part of a guided tour in Tiger Hill that walls in Suzhou gardens are usually white in colour with big windows so the scenaries are viewed through those windows are paintings, like the first photo.

Yes, I know this is a doorway

But, here are some other windows.

I took a bus from Tiger Hill to 拙政園 (Zhuozheng Yuan, The Humble Administrator's Garden), at a very affordable RMB 1.

Entrance to Zhuozheng Yuan

As this garden has a super long name, I'll just refer to it as the garden. It was originally built during the Ming Dynasty. It was initially a private garden of a former government servant named Wang Xianchen. It was said that he intended to build a garden after his retirement and just do some gardening work, which was said to the life of a humble man, hence the name.

The garden is separated into three principal parts - east, central and west. It also has a Penjing Nursery inside the garden.

Central part of garden

Penjing

Some random wall

Side note: I remember not liking oats but now I think its yummy...maybe one day I'll think Greek yoghurt are nice too...not! :P

Amazing Race in Hangzhou

West Lake in Hangzhou

Distance from Wuxi to Hangzhou is not near, it takes close to 2 hours travel on G train (高铁, gao tie). I took the earliest G train available, reaching Hangzhou just before 11am, and the last G train from Hangzhou to Wuxi station was at 5.05, reaching Wuxi in 2 hours time. This gave me the mere 5 hours in Hangzhou.

Given my short stint in Hangzhou, of course this does not do any justice to the most iconic attraction in Hangzhou, the West Lake (Xi Hu). Marco Polo apparently described Hangzhou as "The City of Heaven". I have no hope of touring the whole lake, but this is more of an opportunity to meet up with a friend who lives in China at the moment, about 2 stations away from Hangzhou. She took the same train as me, so we met up in the train itself.

I initially had grand plans of cycling around Xi Hu but I ended up taking the metro. There is a metro station next to Hangzhou Railway Station of the same name, and the nearest metro station to Xi Hu is Longxiang Qiao (龙翔桥) on Line 1, about 5-10 minutes walk.

As we reached Hangzhou closed to 11am, we decided to have an early lunch, before attempt to circle the lake. Friend brought me to Wai Po Jia (The Grandma's). Wai Po Jia is a chain restaurant but serve pretty good food at a reasonable price. You could opt to wait at the restaurant after taking a ticket, or walk around till you get a text on your mobile. They offered free popcorn for those waiting for a table at the restaurant. I was lucky as friend has a local mobile number, so we walked around a little to kill time. Haha, 4 dishes between the two of us, and half of it were dessert :P Thanks to my friend who shouted lunch.

Clockwise from top left: Veges, chicken dish, mochi and green tea biscuit
I think the desserts were the better dishes :P

Exercise after meal was attempting to walk around Xi Hu. Due to our limited time, we were only able to cover places where most people do, therefore it was fairly crowded. :(
As a marker, we walked from where Hyatt Regency to Shangri-la.

The only famous sightseeing spot we passed on our slow walk was Lingering Snow on Broken Bridge (断桥残雪, Duàn Qiáo Cán Xuě). Very dramatic name eh.

The bridge was so name based on a famous folklore love story, between a beautiful girl who was actually a white snake and a man named Xu Xian. They met on the bridge and fell in love with each other. The bridge was also the scene where they made up after a long series of ups and downs.

We had to back track not long thereafter as I had a train to catch. Friend's train was later.

It's green, it's red

A glimpse of daily life at this famous lake

Friend suggested that we leave Xi Hu at 4.30pm, and that would be sufficient time to catch my 5.05 pm train back to Wuxi. We eventually walked back to Longxiang Qiao metro station before 4.30pm as I was a little worry not being on time. Trains in China may not be as to the dot as trains in Japan but they are puntual.

As fate had its way, we had to queue to get our metro tickets, and missed the metro just as it pulled away. The next one was in 8 minutes time. The metro journey itself took about 10 minutes. By that time, it was about 4.45 pm and I had to dash out and ran like no tomorrow to Hangzhou train station. The ticket check closed 5 minutes before train departure and I still had to go through the security check. It was hard enough to run with my little legs and poor stamina, I still had to stop and read the signboard to ensure I wasn't running to the wrong directions. Friend was cool, she ran with me and directed me where to turn, though of course I ran harder.

I almost went to the wrong gate, as the signboard stated gate and platform number, and I misread it as it was only my second time taking long distance train in China. First being the trip from Wuxi to Hangzhou. Lady Luck smiled upon me, I made it to the ticket check just before they barred the entrance. If anything, I think it helped that Hangzhou train station was smaller in comparison to the rest of the stations I've been. The biggest lesson learnt - China is big, the buildings in China are huge.


Side note: It's so so so cold today :|

Super Short 6 Days around Wuxi

So you thought the long winded China holidays posts have finished, not so soon, here's the second half of the story. The super short whirlwind days around Wuxi. Yup, not a typo there, Wuxi instead of the usual Shanghai.

The initial itinerary was:
Day 1 (Mon): Wuxi
Day 2 (Tue): Suzhou, to Tongli in evening
Day 3 (Wed): Tongli, back to Wuxi in evening
Day 4 (Thu): Shanghai
Day 5 (Fri): Shanghai
Day 6 (Sat): Shanghai, and flight out of China in the afternoon.

I was bunking to at a friend's place in Wuxi, so the flight was out from Beijing to Wuxi. Friend offered to take me around Shanghai and Wuxi. He said he could leave work early on Wednesday, even took a day off on Thursday and Friday was a public holiday in China (Qing Ming). So my itinerary was altered to:

Day 1 (Mon): Hangzhou
Day 2 (Tue): Suzhou, to Tongli noon-ish
Day 3 (Wed): Tongli, back to Wuxi by about 3ish (can't change this as room in Tongli booked)
Day 4 (Thu): Shanghai
Day 5 (Fri): Shanghai
Day 6 (Sat): Shanghai, and flight out of China in the afternoon.

Of course, the time allocated for the places are not sufficient but thought it would be good to meet up with a friend in Hangzhou and make do with what few days I can.


Side note: Winter makes me eat and eat

Postcard from Melbourne

From top left, clockwise - Old fashioned free around the city tram, Queen Victoria Market, the iconic Flinders Street Station and cool graffiti in Chinatown.

Side note: 'Commercial' break from the long stretch of Beijing post :P

Beijing: Food Reward at Night

Chefs at work

I was hesistant to put a post on food post, as I have very limited words to describe food even if I think the food was superb. However as I was flipping scrolling through my photos on food, they make me drool, so what the heck. Our breakfast were a bit of hit and miss.

Wonton soup for a cold morning

Some were alright like wonton soup or tea leaf eggs (trusty egg ^ ^) but some just don't suit our taste buds - like this mian cha (面茶) or my translation noodle tea; or savoury tau fu fah.

Appears to be made from flour, drenched in some combination of sesame made sauce

Sorry tau fu fah, I prefer you in brown sugar syrup

As for lunch, after our first subpar-microwaved-made rice inside Summer Palace (I know, but what to do when hunger pang striked), our lunch consisted of breads. We carried breads in our backpack to keep the tummy happy as we walkabout in Beijing. As a reward, we splurged on food for dinner (exception to the day when sis took a flight out, we made it lunch.)

(1) 南门涮肉 (Hongyuan Nanmen Shuanrou)
西城区什刹海南官房胡同1号
1 Nanguanfang Hutong, Shichahai, Xicheng District
We took a bus there but took subway back, from Beihaibei Station (Line 6)

I read about this hotpot place in Paul's blog but stupidly didn't jot down the restaurant's name in Chinese. This place, however was famous enough that we managed to ask for directions even without it's Chinese name or address. Phew.

Nicer picture courtesy of sis

We waited a little as we didn't make any reservation but it wasn't too long. It was great food for a cold night. Between the two of us, we ordered fei niu beef slice (肥牛), lamb slices (羊肉片), mushroom(鲜香菇), yau mak (lettuce) (油麦), shao bing - grilled and deep fried, one each (炸烧饼， 烤烧饼) with total damage of RMB 118. We polished off everything, except the shao bing. We think we could've easily request to do the shao bing as takeaway. Instead, I secretly packed them away in a ziplock bag that I had in my backpack. Beats me why I did it in secret. LOL.

(2) 大董烤鸭店(金宝汇店) Dadong Jinbaohui
东城区金宝街88号金宝汇购物中心5楼
5th Floor Jinbaohui Shopping Center, No. 88 Jinbao Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Nearest subway: Dengshikou (Line 5)

Dadong come highly recommended by a colleague (who had travelled to China a couple of times) and Paul's blog. (Technically, I browsed his blogs for great food restaurant review.)

We initially wanted to try Dadong after a lot of walking in Forbidden City but somehow also absent-mindedly didn't copy down Dadong's address in Wangfujing. This time around, unfortunately, nobody seem to know about Dadong's location in Wangfujing, so we ended up in Donghuamen Night Market. As fate has it, we actually stumbled into Dadong's Wangfujing shop when we just walked in a shopping complex to use the washroom. Grin.

The duck was superb, lean but not dry. There was option of duck in sesame bun or the usual pancake, both equally good. ^ ^
The dishes though, we find it a little too salty to our liking.

It was a shame that we didn't make any reservation so our dinner time was restricted to an hour or so. We had to give up the table for someone who had make booking then.

Here's what we ordered (total cost: RMB 340)

Super yummy roasted duck - lean but not dry

See - nicer pics = courtesy of sis
Roasted duck in fluffy bun, this was really good and not overkill at all

Condiments for the duck

Pumpkin with kale..sorry I can't remember the exact name

Some mushroom dish - forgot to take a pic of the menu or the itemised receipt :(

(3) 便宜坊烤鸭店(哈德门店) Bianyifang Hademen Restaurant (Flagship Restaurant)
东城区崇文门外大街16号便宜坊大厦4层(近国瑞城)
18 Chongwenmen Outer Street, Glory Plaza 4/F, Chongwen District
Total cost: RMB 233

I picked this over Bianyifang as Quanjude has a branch here in Melbourne!

I feel the duck here was fatter than the one in Dadong, not necessary a bad thing if you enjoy that but I prefer leaner duck. And the pancake felt a little soggy. The other dishes were good though :)

卤水豆腐 - errr, tofu in brine?

咸蛋黄焗南瓜 - Baked pumpkin in salted egg yolk

The spread

(4) 那家小馆(永安里店) Najia Xiaoguan
朝阳区建国门外永安里10号(新华保险大厦南侧)

10 Yongan Xili, Jianguomen Wai

Total cost: RMB 266

To redeem secret gift

Initially we wanted to go to Li Jia Cai (厉家菜) to try the famed Manchu dishes, but after considering of the cost and difficulty in getting there, I suggested Najia Xiaoguan to sis.

Sis called to make reservation but dinner slots were all booked out, the remaining option was lunch. We wanted to make reservation for lunch as well but was told we could just walked in and waiting time wasn't long if we arrived prior to 12 pm. We later found out that we could made reservation, so on hindsight that was probably the best way to go.

Unfortuntely, we reached half past twelve and needed to wait a bit, probably about 20 minutes. We were served warm sugar cane drink while waiting and given the above card, said if we passed it to the waitress, we will be given a secret gift.

Sai Wai Huang tan zi 塞外皇坛子

One of our choice was Najia Xiaoguan's signature dish - Huang Tanzi, a thick, meaty slow-cooked soup. We were told it was 3 different ways to eat this soup. The first 1/3 to drink it as it is, add rice to the second 1/3 and balance of the condiments to the last 1/3. All three ways were delicious.

The second 1/3

The balance 1/3

Secret Recipe Crispy skin prawns 秘制酥皮虾

This next dish is named 'tou chi doufu' 偷吃豆腐. The description said it contains some fish despite the name. The nice waitress who served us told us the story behind this dish. It was said that in the past, the servants stole some fish and to prevent being found out, they cooked it with tofu and enjoyed their stolen fish.

'Eating Stolen Tofu' - 偷吃豆腐

We didn't think the fish dish has so much tofu initially, so we actually ordered another tofu dish.

自制豆腐 Home style tofu

And here's our secret gift - dessert! Lucky we didn't order any this round, so it was just right.

I asked sis to guess what was the filling of the dessert. I said I'll guess red bean and asked her to guessed chocolate and we shall see who is correct. LOL. Sis laughed and said she won't be tricked because chocolate was not know during the Qing Dynasty. Haha. :P

It was yam!

Side note: I could do with another Manchu meal!