A Bite of Beijing: Restaurant Guideline

In most Chinese people’s eyes, Arab is a mysterious world that beyonds our reaches. However, in the remote eastern metropolis, there is a authentic Arabian restaurant, that is the first Middle eastern gourmet restaurant — A Thousand and One Night Arabian Restaurant, standing there to tell visitors the legend of thousand years.

The A Thousand and One Night Restaurant is located in the northwestern corner of Changhong Bridge in the east third ring of Chaoyang District, Beijing, China’s capital city. Lying in east street of Sanlitun Bar street, the restaurant is embodied with Arabian culture. The archy doors and windows are decorated with Arabian cultural elements, with pictures of fairy tales painted on. The inner house of restaurant is a vaulted large sand sculpture space. The splendid exotic colors provide you a strong visual perception. If you are interested in Arabian culture, then when you join a Beijing Xian tour, A Thousand and One Night restaurant is strongly recommended.

 On one side of the restaurant, there is a low stage with a dancing image of Persian people as the background. At lunch time, dinners can enjoy their meals in elegant piano music; while when night falls and neon lights bright, here will be a world of song and dance. Sexy Persian girl dancers sway their gentle body, walking through the tables and dinners and interacting with them, which is really attractive. But if you want to find an Arabian restaurant when you join a Xian tour, it may be so easy, because there are little such restaurant in Xian.

Yunnan: Meili Snow Mountain

This summer we had a Beijing to Xian day tour. When winter comes, we travel to Yunan to enjoy the comfortable weather. Living in Feilai Temple is a coincidence, while it is much more lucky to see the gorgeous night scenery of Meili Snow Mountain. We were supposed to live in Deqin County according to plan, but the hotel was full, which meaned we had to choose another hotel to live in, in that case, we must drive to Feilai Temple by ourselves. On the way to Feilai Temple, when we saw the starry sky, all of the upset things have gone away from our minds.

Unexpectedly, the whether is such good that the bright moonlight set off the sky to be deep blue, with several pieces of white clouds scattering in the sky, Meili Snow mountain standing in the skyline, magnificently and gracefully. On my journey, I had seen a lot of snow mountain, such as Mount. Taibai in Xian tour, Mount. Qomolangma in Tibet, but among which Meili Snow Mountain was the most beautiful one. With the thirteen prince peaks rolling together, it looks very majestic and overwhelming. Lying in the world famous “Three Parallel Rivers Region”of Jinsha River, Lantsang River and Nujiang River, Meili Snow Mountain is in the middle of Nushan Ranges. North to Adonggeni Mountain and south to Biluo Snow Mountain, the main peak of Meili Snow Mountain, Kawagebo is honored as “the No.1 Saint Mountain in Tibet”by some people.

Beijing Hutong

Many of my friends traveling in Beijing will ask me a question: “do you think it is worth for us to visit Hutong?” I do not know how to answer them. Indeed, known as the soul of old Beijing, Hutong is the best place to experience Beijing. Unfortunately, the real authentic Hutong has been demolished and disappeared forever in the highly increasing city contribution.

At the moment you are walking in the street, thousands of Hutong are been reconstructed. Many Siheyuans in the Hutong are replaced by row upon row of high buildings and large mansions. Facing the disappearing ancient Hutong which symbolize the culture and history of Beijing, what can we retain from the modernization? Beijing Hutong used to be lively decades years ago. Walking in deep of the Hutong, you can see dried trees weep over roofs and spread to the sky. Inside the 4-yuan hair cut shops, Hutong hairdressers are busy in cutting hairs. Lying at the lane entrance, the vegetable market was always crowded and noisy.

The winter Hutong sends out an atmosphere of obsolescence. Under the invading of cold air, it looks solemn and quiet. While as, at the end of Hutongs, you can feel the bustling and extravagant of Beijing city.

Tips for the Journey to Harbin in Winter

If you plan to visit Heilingjiang Province in winter, then you must “armed heavily down to your teeth”. You cannot be too careful to prepare everything that can keep you warm, such as hat, scarf, respirator, mitten, cotton-padded coat, pants, shoes and socks. But don’t be worry, the heating in house is quite warm.

Finishing the weather, let’s hit the local flavors. Many people from southern China are perhaps not used to the rough food in northeastern China. “ Drinking wine with bowls and gobbling meat with big mouth ” is exactly a vivid reflection of local people’s bold characteristics. If you want to order dishes, be remindful that northeastern restaurant is different with that of south. Big plates with large amount of vegetables—so don’t order too much food and avoid wasting. Here are some recommended dishes: Pot Package Meat, Chicken Braised with Mushroom, Dried Bean curd fried with Pepper, Fried Chrysalis etc.

There are many unique restaurant in Harbin. At night, the stores and restaurant usually close very early, but there are open-all-night pubs on Center Street. If you want to watch local performance, here are two choices: First, song and dance duet on Liu Laogen Stage; Second, lap dancing performed by Russian girls in Moscow troupe.

As “Eastern Paris”, Harbin is influenced a lot by Russian customs, such as in architecture, food. You can arrange the schedule according to your time. After finishing the inner city tourism, if you still have time, you can consider about the following two tours: the famous snow town and the holy land for skiing—Yabuli. After that, you can consider about Mohe, the northmost place of China, according to your schedule and experience how it feels to live in environment of 40 degrees below zero.

Beijing: The Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is located in the northwestern suburbs of Beijing, capital city of China. With a total area of 2.9 square kilometers, it is composed of three parts—the imperial palaces, Longevity Hill, and Kunming Lake. The Summer Palace of Beijing began construction in 1750. It was badly damaged during the war in 1860, but was repaired on its original site in 1886.

The Summer Palace(also named “Yiheyuan” in Chinese) is an outstanding example of imperial parks and private gardens of both northern and southern China, and is so far the best preserved and largest of the Chinese imperial parks.

China has long been known worldwide for its gardens, including private gardens and imperial parks, all characterized by the harmony of natural and manmade beauty. The Summer Palace has natural beauty resembling that of the mountains and rivers of northern China and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Its man-made landscapes of the Summer Palace includes the pavilions, the Long Corridor, palaces, temples and bridges and its natural hills and extensive lake surface perfectly and harmoniously combine together, and make it an excellent work of China’s scenery garden and park design.

Hainan: Visit the Village built with Volcanic Stone

Six year later, I came back to Haikou again. The feeling of nostalgia lingered around my mind, which made me depressed. My friends saw me a little bit unhappy, so he suggested we go to the Stone Village in Yangshan Region. After a few hours walking, I felt disappointed, because most of the villages were left in ruins and with wild grass, living nobody at all.

I still remember when we went to Rongtang Village, a group of middle age men and old man sat in the entrance of the village. When seeing us, they all smiled happily. After we parked the car, a man who seemed to be the leader of the group, came to us and said: “Could you please give us some money? We are old people and … ” I was surprised by the begging. I even thought we might be kidnapped by these “pirates”. Suddenly I didn’t know how to rely for such a request.

Fortunately, we finally encountered a quiet village with dense forest and gurgling streams. The simple residences were ranged among the woods, surrounded by green leaves and tree shade, which reminded me a saying in the book: smokes are the wings of the village, while trees are served as clothes.

Foreigners Feel at Home in Yangshuo

Although they are far from their hometowns, my several foreign friends in Guilin, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, have found themselves a new home in the quaint tourist town of Yangshuo.

Ian Hamilton, a 43-year-old South African who came to China 10 years ago, discovered a 100-year-old courtyard home in the town in 2009 during a visit. He decided to rent the house and renovate it, much to the surprise of locals, many of whom have opted to move into modern concrete homes. “It looked rather dilapidated at that time, but it was so charming,” Hamilton said. “I was strongly urged to renovate it. Otherwise I was afraid I would not see it again.”

Hamilton’s family was puzzled as to why he would invest his own savings in restoring a dilapidated old house in a remote region of China. However, Hamilton was determined to save the home, as he had decided that it might be a good place to live in. Hamilton fixed the walls and cornices, restoring the building’s original design. He scrounged for furniture and materials in Yangshuo as he restored the home. “Yangshuo is culture-loaded, and you can easily discover treasures here,” he said.

The History of Chinese Knots

The long history of the Chinese Knot dates hack to ancient times when no characters existed. People first used knots for fastening, wrapping, hunting, and fishing. The knot was developed into an art form during the Tang(618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties and fully flourished in the Ming(1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. The precious folk art experienced a decline in the last century, but since the late 1990s, along with embroidery and Tangzhuang (traditional Chinese dress), the Chinese Knot has made a strong comeback. Now recognized as more than a fashionable ornament for festivals, the art elements of the Chinese Knot has been widely used in necklaces, bracelets, hair ornaments, classic coat buttons and even hangings for cam or mobile phones. The major salient feature of the Chinese Knot is that every one is tied from a single thread (at least one meter long) but looks the same from both the front and back. A typical Chinese Knot is red, but it can also be gold, green, blue or black. Flower, bird, dragon, phoenix fish and shoes are the most common patterns used in the Chinese Knot. The most welcomed patterns are those in fish and shoes. Fish demonstrates good luck in fortune and the knot made in a shoe figure is a wish to exorcise (or free) evil spirits. People are drawn to traditional Chinese Knots for different reasons. The Chinese word jie (knot) is similar to (auspicious), the latter bears numerous positive meanings, such as blessing, longevity, fortune, good health and safely. Sotne Chinese Knots look complicated and elaborate in pattern and design, the techniques to make them are fixed-they are just a combination of less than 20 basic techniques of tying them. But new materials are being used in making the knots more decorative, such as wood and soft pottery. This traditional handicraft of tying Chinese Knots, with a history of more than 1,000 years, is making a strong comeback and delivers blessings of happiness, prosperity, love and good luck to the Chinese people.