Rebs & Sam in Beijing

May golden week brought a visit from Rebecca and Sam, who came to stay, prior to joining their Intrepid China tour.

We had beautiful warm weather that week which, along with mostly blue sky days, provided a perfect setting for us to show them our life in Beijing and introduce them to some of our favourite places.

As always in Beijing, eating out was high on the list of important things to do and we mixed old favourites with new finds. Din Tai Fung, the Taiwanese dumplings specialist, is definitely one of our favourites. A 5 minute walk from our apartment, this sleek and efficiently run restaurant serves delicate, delicious dumplings with paper-thin skins that ooze juice when you bite into them. How do they do that?

Beijing Da Dong is probably one of the best duck restaurants in town and their low fat Beijing duck is a delight (just ignore the sinister looking sea cucumbers proudly displayed on plates in the lobby). We go to the original restaurant on the 3rd Ring Road. We enjoyed the luxury of a private dining room and watched with mounting anticipation as our waitress dexterously made up delicious duck pancakes for us with her chopsticks.

Less impressive was the shishi Green T. House. I knew it was going to be too clever for its own good as soon as we arrived at the massive, closed, front door and had to be buzzed in. The primary seating consists of one huge table that all diners sit at, with wooden chairs whose solid backs were more than 2m high. The waiters’ faces peeped in between the chair backs as they lit the menus with their torches and brought their over-engineered dishes to the table. The food was good but I expected Jeremy Beadle to jump out at any moment announcing that we had been the victims of an expensive, elaborate hoax. Actually, I think we were.

Our excursions included a boat ride on Houhai Lake – I steered, Tac was brave; a picnic at the Summer Palace – not the place to be during Golden Week as we fought our way through the tens of thousands of people who also thought it would be a fun place to go; and a leisurely stroll through Ritan Park. Beijingers love their parks and Ritan is always a hive of activity with people fishing, flying kites, exercising, playing table tennis or climbing the rock wall.

Somewhere along the way, we discovered ‘Swing’ – a small Sanlitun bar with an excellent Filipino house band whose repertoire of classic rock numbers had everyone on their feet. Though, YMCA was definitely the signal to move on.

Of course, we also found time for some retail therapy. Tac impressed us all with her steely negotiating skills in Yashou market and Sam even managed to get a pair of his favourite, but worn out, trousers copied and made up by Jonny the tailor.

We left them – sadly - at the end of a terrific week as they joined up with their tour group for the official tour of Beijing‘s sites and then on to Xi’an and places south.

Just another day at the Summer Palace

Bar top dancing at 'Swing'