We had only been to China when we went as a family with hubby’s parents, brothers, sister-in-laws and niece to visit their relatives in Xiamen. There wasn’t much touristy things that we did except to eat and eat and eat with his relatives.
So we wanted to go China as a tourist for the longest time and hubby said that the starting point of visiting China has to be Beijing.
We were glad that we were able to find a good slot this year to finally fulfil our wish of climbing The Great Wall, tour the Palace Museum and eating Peking Duck!
After my initial blurness thinking that our flight was 10.30am instead of 8.30am, we still made it in good time to collect our Changi Recommends WiFi router, grabbed breakfast at Heavenly Wang, and boarded the plane in time. We liked being on the upper deck of A380! It felt like lesser passengers, and we had great service from the air steward and stewardess 🙂
Our last meal in Beijing was 涮肉 (typically mutton shabu shabu), and we wanted to try the 老北京铜锅 which is a traditional bronze hotpot with charcoal inside and a trench of water at the rim for shabu-ing the meat.
We were still feeling full from 
四季民福 Siji Minfu was another highly recommended place to go to for Peking Duck, and there was a relatively new outlet near the East Exit of 故宫博物院 The Palace Museum where one could savour the majestic beauty of the palace while munching on the delectable ducks (if you can get a seat by the window, that is).
We had originally intended to visit 故宫博物院 The Palace Museum aka 紫禁城 Forbidden City earlier on in our trip, but we had to exclude:
王府井 Wangfujing is a popular shopping area in Beijing with big shopping malls gathered along the main walking street.
After a delightful morning at 颐和园 Summer Palace, we exited through it’s East Exit and took a short stroll to a nearby Yunnan restaurant for a late lunch.
Constructed in Year 1267 in the Yuan Dynasty, 南锣鼓巷 South Luogu Alley is located in one of the most popular preserved hutong areas, with locals living in the surrounding. There were officers and signboards at the little alleys when we walked along the stretch of 南锣鼓巷 South Luogu Alley, to remind visitors not to disturb the residents.
We were on our way to 雍和宫 Lama Temple when we spotted 雍Cafe Yong Cafe having 50% discount for takeaway coffee.
We also went to the nearby 烟袋斜街 Yandai Xiejie aka Skewed Tobacco Pouch Street, which is named after the Chinese pipe, 烟袋 Yandai, that was traditionally sold on this street. Despite being a relatively short street, there were many interesting shops selling a wide variety of stuff.
Eat.Eat.Walk.Walk . 吃吃走走 