Christmas 2010

When I was young, Christmas used to be fun with family party in my cousin's house. My cousin will prepare her best cream puffs, sambal prawn sandwiches & the hard nyonya jelly besides the fried beehoon. We will all gathered round to wait for Santa & his Carols to come . They normally arrived between 10pm to 11pm , singing and giving out sweets. After that we would have our own fun till midnight .

For many years, I have not had such Christmas after I left home . Work, marriage .....and Christmas family party had been history .

There was once many years later, when my kids were young , and we were back in hometown for Christmas. It was on a Christmas eve, we prepared presents & placed them under the pine tree in the garden. After dinner, we had an outdoor Christmas, busy opening presents. 

This year , stepmom's passing away made some changes to our first Christmas without her. A simple family gathering was held in my house . Partly it was because of the arrival of the first great grandson in the family .
So, we shared a wonderful Christmas dinner .

Family joy shared with our departed ones not forgotten too .

The Beijing shopping

We have more than once heard about how ' innovative ' are the Chinese in business. They can have melamine in milk powder , they can make fake eggs and sharksfin , they can make practically anything , from IT to food , and make them cheap . So, what are we going to shop in Beijing ?
When we were having breakfast , we were joking about drinking the milk or eating the eggs. Was it artificial milk or eggs ? The vegetables look good but what had been added to make it look fresh ?

When we went shopping , buying clothes , you will be cautious whether it would shrink later. If you were to buy shoes, you would be worrying that it opens its mouth like an alligator after one wash. However , the idea of shopping in China to get cheap bargains was still exciting !
Thus these were the things I bought in China :

CD's

books

chopsticks with surname emgraved

A Jimmy Choo handbag

A Prada handbag

A louis vuitton sweater

chrysemthemum & wolfbellies.

Two types of the local biscuits          

  

Unevitably Beijing acrobatic show

It was said that a visit to Beijing would not be complete without an acrobatics show or an opera show .
We were taken to an acrobatics show .

The performance took place here

Walking on a steel rope

Spinning a piece of cloth

Head to head , still spinning the cloth

We enjoyed the show , especially the ping pong ball juggling and the highlight item at the end . The men in the group cheered like little kids during the last item , when 5 motorcycles speeding inside an enclosed steel globe .
I think , we should suggest to our government, to build such big steel globe for our young , ruthless motorcyclists known as the ' Mat Rempit ' . Instead of making stunts that endangered innocent citizens , might as well provide them a place for their stunts ....enclosed !

Anyway, the show was good, undeniably !

Adventurous cuisines

Upon arrival that very morning , we were brought to a restaurant owned by Hong Kong businessman, for dimsum. Cantonese cuisines were quite similar to our cooking and we should enjoyed it . However, we were served with 2 buns each onboard at 2am, and a box of ' nasi lemak ' each at 4 am , breakfast at 8am was a bit too heavy .
With the tour leader's reminder in mind , we arrived at Datong for lunch at 2pm . That was really a different stream of cooking, our first taste of northern cuisines. That night, a szechuan styled steamboat dinner was arranged .

The sesame dipping sauce is quite tasty 

The individual steamboat set

The Szechuan spicy steamboat was not really spicy , but a small teaspoon of the chillies added to the soup was enough to make your tongue numb .
Our second lunch in Datong before we return to Beijing, was at another restaurant . Even though this was outskirt, the dishes were presented nicely .

The chinese cabbage in pumpkin sauce was tasty .

This bun's hollow is for the vegetable fillings.

This papaya custard was good and almost the only dessert we had throughout the week .

It was in this restaurant that we had a surprise . A waitress served us this dish by mistake ......

Can you believe this ? It 's DOG'S MEAT !

Beautifully presented on our dining table , was this dish . It was lucky that we asked the waitress before we moved our chopsticks. She coolly answered : DOG's MEAT . None of us touch it at all . No way !
In Beijing , of course we went for the famous Beijing duck at QuanJuDe . Look at how the chef sliced the duck .

Sliced duck meat were taken back to the kitchen to be cooked in other dishes before served.

A duck's meal means we had crispy duck's skin to be eaten with dumpling skin , duck's meat stir-fry with vegetables, duck's bones soup , etc.
Another dinner , we had the so-call official's dishes which includes mutton-papaya soup . Well , I was not fancied and forgot to snap a picture of it .
This trip to Beijing, tasted mostly good restaurant food . As for road side delicacies , we only managed to try the pancake .

A savoury crispy pancake in Beijing .

This 5 RMB piece of pancake was something different . Worth trying !

Buffet breakfast at hotels

We stayed a night at Datong , more than 300 km away from Beijing city ; and 3 nights at one of the hotels along the Xidan area in Beijing city. We noticed that the hotel in Datong had a real good variety of  food for breakfast compared to the hotel in Beijing city .
Firstly, the main course variety in Datong offered a variety of green vegetables , fried rice , fried noodles  and congee besides the western cereal ; Beijing offered less choices. For dessert, Beijing hotel did not even offer any cakes .
Let's look at this :

This plate has about 8 types of vegetables , hot or cold .  

And a few variety of cakes, even pizza 

However , in the Beijing hotel, there was not much to choose from . So, the fried egg section is the busiest each morning .

If you read Chinese , it says Cat's ears.....and that shocks me . Are they really eating that ? It was actually macoroni & the shell paste .

Other than these , can't find other things attractive to eat .

One thing for sure, these northern dishes were all very oily......to our standard . For lunch and dinner , it seemed to be their standard to include two bottles of the local beer on each table . However, during lunch at this tourist restaurant near the Great Wall , this liquor was offered on each table.

This is a tourist restaurant cum souvenir center

Note the little alcohol cup next to a normal sized teacup

This is the 56% alcohol content Chinese  wine

It tasted like DOM , with strong herbal smell . A tiny cup is enough to make you blush .
The souvenir center had a good variety of souvenirs signaficantly Beijing , like this beautiful horses ......

Of course, these were more costly here !

Northern China Cuisines as I tasted

Our ancestors mainly migrated from southern China century ago . Thus , we cooked the southern China way back home , adapted version  of course . We have been influenced by the Malays, Indians , and Siamese way of cooking too . Our tour leader had forewarned us on the first day that food that we are going to taste , are definitely different from home , especially the soup. So ,I am there to try and see.

I remembered too, that on my first Beijing trip eight years ago, we noticed that we had lots of vegetable on every meal. We had a plate of onions fried with tiny strips of pork, or a plate of stir-fried sliced winter melon which we had never tried cooking back home .

This trip , we had paid for better meals , and different streams of cuisines were included . Let's see some of these places and dishes served .

The interior decoration

 And who knows this restaurant chain made famous by the recent engagement of a Taiwanese actress ?

An interior decoration built from fresh gingers

The dining rooms

And the dishes served in this restaurant of Szechuan stream of cooking ...

This is the appertiser - fresh vegetables & sesame sauce

Black fungus & walnut salad 

cold cuts

roasted duck & dumplings

This is the signature northern cuisine - deep fried rice pieces

These were dishes served on company dinner in Beijing !

Beijing , as I see it the second time.

The first time when i was in Beijing , I was excited and marveled at her historical places, eg the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square & the Temple of Heaven . Stepping on the Great Wall was a dream came through in history .
This second time around in Beijing, I was more interested to see her changes, the city & her people . No doubt the people on the street was a good reflection of her changes.

Looking at their fashion, and the price tags of clothing in departmental stores along this street , one can't help start culculating their income .
The Sidan area in the city boast of the most happenings according to the tour guide. Yes, the changes are obvious.

Escalators in the street............not just one , but about three in a distance of about 2 km.

Fashion on display is refreshing now .
However, there are a couple of things that changes seemed impossible . Firstly , cleanliness of the public toilets & the people's habits of using it , is a real challenge, I had not taken any photos of the toilets, because you just want to get out fast once you enter .There was one toilet that we had to pay to enter, only to find that there was no doors on all cubicles !
Secondly, the spitting habits . You will still hear  these people "khaaaaaaaa...............pui " anywhere you go. It was disgusting . We heard it in the restaurant, in the hotel lobby, by man in suits.

 

Gambling is still a good pass time for the senior citizens . That's parts of life in Beijing .

Temple of Heaven

The name suggested that it was a temple , but it was not actually, so said the local tour guide . It was actually the place where the Emperor prayed for good harvest for the country , and it was the last venue in our itinerary.

So, Temple of Heaven or Tian Tan in Mandarin, is at another corner of Beijing city . We passed by the outer city gate before we arrived at the Tian Tan park .

It was a sunday morning . There were many people in the park.....tourists as well as locals. The locals were having their usual activities, exercising, dancing, chatting, or gambling in the park .

dancing 

chatting , resting , napping ....

The Temple was magnificient ,looks like three storey . However, it had only one storey.

The beautiful Tian Tan standing against the blue sky. It looks three storey but  it actually is only single storey.          

The beautiful interior .
Look at the design, the pillars in it were special too . The layout design of the pillars supported three storeys of the roof wonderfully, 4 -8-12 significantly .
Beijing , and the glamour of the past....this is part of the rich history of China .