Visit on the seaside – Go to Shanhaiguan

May 17, 2012 in Shanhaiguan Pass with 0 Comments

July is one of the hotter month in Beijing with really high temperatures. We wanted to avoid this climate during one weekend and go to the seaside for a quick swim.

Our inital plan was to go to Qingdao city which is really well known due to the Tsintao brewery but we had to change our destination after experiencing some troubles with the local railway company – let’s go to Shanhaiguan in Heibei province for 2 days!

First problem: we can’t buy our returning tickets in Beijing. You need to be on the departure station to be able to buy tickets from this station. As soon as we arrived in Shanhaiguan, we went to the ticket office to be sure that we can have tickets for Sunday night. We wait in a long queue during more than 30 minutes to learn as the end that all seat tickets have been sold. We got only stand-up tickets – like in the subway during 2h30… :(

Second problem: there is only one hotel which accept foreigners in this city. They used to have expensive prices for low quality rooms (what’s a good business). We bargained during 40min to find a deal at 300 RMB / night for a 3 beds room. As we were 4, we shared our beds for this night :(

First day – Shanhaiguan discovery

As the sky was grey, we decided to go to the beack on Sunday and go for a tourist discovery on Saturday. We went to Laolongtou, most famous place in Shanhaiguan (Ticket: 50 RMB) where the Great Wall met the Sea. The legend says that the Great Wall continued into the sea for more than 25m. We were not able to confirm as everything has been rebuilt couple of years ago.

I didn’t recommend the Great Wall museum in front of Laolongtou. It was boring and each piece were in laminated wood. A tourist trap for 30 RMB…

Our night was divided into two main activities: we had a dinner first in the streets of Shanhaiguan then we moved to the neighbor city called Qinghuangdao to discover night life. We were a bit disappointed as we only found a crossroads with 3 open bars. We selected the only one with music band and enjoyed our night.

Second day – enjoying the sea and visit to an amusement park

As we failed to find a cab to go to the beach, we had the time to visit some hutongs in our hotel area. After 1 hour walk, we got one and asked him to drive us to a big aquatic park that we discovered on an ad the day before. The driver seemed a bit confused on our choice and we finally understood that this place was more than 70km away from Shanhaiguan. New plan, we decided to go to the local Amusement Park. :)

It was a good choice as our day was really great and sunny with some aquatics games (water slides, waterfall, swimming-pools…), a nice afternoon on the beach and some amusement attractions (roller-coaster and high sensation ride). No picture are available as we stayed all day in swimsuits… :)

Our way back to Beijing was at scheduled pretty hard without seat tickets. We stayed in the club-car with lot of other people. Everybody seated/lay on their luggage or on the floor. Fortunately, this week-end was really relaxing and revitalizing before a new week of work in this crazy city called Beijing…

(Blog posted by Julian. You can see the original article by following this link to Julian, A French Man in Asia)

 

Train travel around China – some tips and hits to experience an incredible adventure…

May 17, 2012 in Travel / Train / Bus with 0 Comments

China is incredibly vast and distance between 2 cities is most likely hundreds of kilometers rather than kilometers. It is easy to travel via air to reduce time travel but it can become rapidly expensive. That’s why several travelers prefer train travel. It gives the opportunity to enjoy sightseeing and also to discuss and share experiences with locals or other travelers.

Railway is highly developed in China and the government puts lot of money to continue this fast development (with potential troubles sometimes like the recent fast train crash in July).

Hard and soft

Trains get two different classes (like usual European trains): “hard” and “soft” seats. A third class is also available for the courageous travelers, “stand-up” tickets. The guys will stand up until they can find a free seat or lay down on the floor… :(

Lot of night trains are available to cover long distance travels. You will find the 3 mentioned classes (yes, you can stand up during 10 hours in a night train…) and 2 different sleepers, hard and soft. Don’t expect any difference on the bed between these 2 classes – it refers only to the number of beds in the compartment, 6 for hard instead of 4 in soft class.

Classification of China’s train

They got 4 common categories. The first letter is used to determine the category and usually followed by several numbers:

  • ‘Z’ trains which are overnight trains
  • ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘G’ trains which are high-speed trains
  • ‘T’ trains which are national trains, slower than high-speed trains and stop on major cities
  • ‘K’ trains which can be compared to our regional trains with lot of stops in several cities

Book a train ticket

It is possible to buy tickets in the railway stations or on some ticket offices which are usually on the main district of major cities. Note that a 5RMB additional cost per ticket will be applied in these ticket offices.

Thanks to Rough Guide China, I discovered this website which is useful to find train timetable and exact reference: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains

Tickets are available between 10-15 days before departure. It is better to book the travel as soon as possible because Chinese people used a lot this way of travel. Passport will be required for ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘G’ trains.

Travelers must know that it is impossible to buy round trip tickets. The Chinese booking system is decentralized and each station manages their trains. Run in the ticket office as soon as you arrive to your destination to buy your next ticket if you want to avoid potential delays or rerouting.

Hint for non-Chinese speaker: ticket officers don’t speak English so I recommend to bring your destination written in Chinese character and if available the train reference. I also usually asked to people in the queue if they speak English and help me to book my train tickets. Chinese people are keen to help foreigners in this situation.

Adventure and friendliness

I had the chance to travel in train several times since I have landed in Beijing couple of months ago. The travel was always part of the adventure. Find below some anecdotes of my different travels:

  • A stand-up travel during 2h30 between the toilet door and the corridor. It was like a travel at rush hour in the subway but everybody was laughing and chatting
  • A small fight to get in the train at Shidu station then a total disorder with people everywhere who play, eat or sing
  • A friend who went to the wrong station for a weekend trip: there are 6 different railway stations in Beijing!
  • One of the fastest trains in the world between Beijing and Tianjin, 340 km/h for 30 min travel
  • Sleep with my friends on the floor in the restaurant car because we were able to get only stand up tickets on our way back from Shanhaiguan.

(Blog posted by Julian. You can see the original article by following this link to Julian, A French Man in Asia)

Wang-fu-jing(王府井)–oldest street shop in Beijing

May 17, 2012 in Wang-fu-jing Street with 0 Comments

Wangfujing is a must see during a trip to Beijing. It is an incredible mix between modernity with ultra-modern malls and old history with food snack markets.

All luxury brands decided to open a shop (or several) in this street which became, as Sanlitun Village, a reference for luxury shoppers.

The street also contains the biggest foreign bookstore (most of the books are in english but it is at least better than Chinese bookstores…) and one of the biggest church in town, St Joseph’s Church.

Wangfujing is also well known by tourists for its street food market, Dong’anmen Night Market. It is possible to find stick of any kind of food: snake, octopus, worms, starfish…

All sticks, dumplings or noodles only cost couple of yuans so adventurer should not avoid this experience.

Scorpions are still alive on their sticks and they move their tails and pliers before the shop owner put them on the oil to be fried. It is part of the spectacle and all tourists (either chinese or foreigners) come to take pictures and move back as soon as the owner suggest them to eat one. :)

It is a tourist place and local taxi drivers well understand this. They wait at the end of the street and ask for incredible price to drive you home. They refuse to use the meter. I recommend to go East with the subway to avoid this trap or walk West to Tiananmen and the Forbidden City. The walk inside small hutongs is really nice.

(Blog posted by Julian. You can see the original article by following this link to Julian, A French Man in Asia)

Olympic Park Visit – Bird’s Nest and Water Cube

May 17, 2012 in Olympic Park with 0 Comments

The Olympic Park is one of the most visited sites in Beijing following 2008 Olympic Games. This site groups together two of the famous Olympic Games places – Bird’s Nest and Water Cube.

2 visits can be done on this site:

• during the day with a visit inside the buildings (fee entrance for Water Cube is 30 RMB and for Bird’s Nest is 50 RMB)

• at night for a walk in the park and around these 2 famous places

I chose for my first visit to go at the end of the day during a week to avoid tourist crowd and above all enjoy the lights which transform the Olympic Park in a magical site…

I was there after my working day and I got from the beginning the feeling that China wanted to build an unforgetable place for the Olympic period : extra-large pedestrian streets, Olympic museum, Souvenir shops and of course the stadium and the swimming-pool.

Night fell then I started to feel the Olympic Games magic. I can imagine the crowd yeld on the Bird’s Nest for Usain Bolt races or the water movement on the Water Cube surface… Amazing!

Hope that the site can stay like today during long years and keep this Olympic fervor…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Blog posted by Julian. You can see the original article by following this link to Julian, A French Man in Asia)

Marbury statue rises up in Beijing

May 14, 2012 in General News with 0 Comments

Stephon Marbury poses in front of his life-size bronze statuebuilt by fans in commemoration of his contribution to the BeijingDuck’s first-ever CBA title outside the MasterCard Center inBeijing, May 13, 2012. [Chinadaily]

Learning Mandarin For Branding

May 14, 2012 in Stories with 0 Comments

It’s been almost three months since I started my career break from my branding career to learn Mandarin. I thought I would have more time to relax and do all those things I have been putting off like writing more frequently on this blog. However studying Mandarin six hours a day in class, (one-on-one with a teacher) as well as homework has turned into more than a fulltime job.

I have joined the 40 million other people around the world who are learning Mandarin. It is the world’s most spoken language and probably the hardest to learn, especially if you want to read and write it. But I do have an advantage that I live in China and have a Chinese wife. Although it doesn’t make the process any easier, but it does mean you can practice in everyday life.

My first experience of branding in China was over fifteen years ago when I lived in Hong Kong. Since that time I have worked with many of China’s leading brands. However, I have always had to present with my colleagues translating or through the use of an interpreter. Having lived and worked in Beijing for the last four years I became tired and frustrated of this situation. After all there is only so much you can contribute and communicate through this method.

So I decided to take the plunge and invest a year of my life to become fluent in Chinese. My ultimate goal is to be able to present and discuss design and branding in business situations. Though I realise now, that it is a Himalayan Mandarin mountain to climb. Therefore it will take much longer than a year to be able to speak fluent Chinese at a high business level.

However, like any uphill journey you just have to take it one step at a time. And try not to look up to often otherwise you will be discouraged by how far you still have to go. Learning Mandarin is not a straight upward climb. It is made up of many smaller hills and valleys punctuated with plateaus. On a good day, you feel like you have made some progress and on a bad day, like you are walking downhill backwards.

With this in mind I wanted to share with you my top five tips for learning Mandarin. I have accumulated these from my studies and extensive reading and research online. As well as talking to many teachers and other long time language students and Chinese speaking expats. I am sure many readers will have there own, but these are my fundamental ones.

1. Learning Mandarin is a constant journey and not a destination.
I use to hope (and sometimes still do) that one day I will be able to speak fluent Mandarin. However, I realized that you can’t wait for that one day to come along. As it never will, unless you start speaking it today. It doesn’t matter how little you speak. You can start with one word or one sentence but you have to speak it everyday. If you take it one step at a time you’ll make small improvements everyday. But you’ll make big gains over the long term.

Continue Reading…

Average Commuting Speed – 250 Meters Per Minute

May 14, 2012 in Driving with 0 Comments

Canthy came back from her business trip and got dropped off at the office so I went to pick her up. It’s only a 5 km trip but can take 15 to 20 minutes if the traffic is normal. In the evenings it can be 30 minutes or more as the rush hour traffic around CBD is heavier. Despite having a car with a top speed of 225 km/h (140 mph) I rarely get about 50 km/h as the traffic is bumper to bumper most of the way there, I know people complain the traffic is bad in Beijing, but I don’t think it is any worse than any big modern city. At least the roads are bigger in Beijing compared to London, which was never designed for cars and the heavy commuter traffic.

(Blog posted by Ray on April 9, 2012. You can see the original article by following this link to rayallychina.com)

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