It was around 10 or 11 in the morning when I woke up after 4 hours of attempting to sleep in the hotel lobby. It was the 15th and officially our first day in Beijing. According to our itinerary we were to visit the Lama Temple and Qianmen.
When we woke up Jex's dad had already come back from his solo exploration. He had already bought us Yikatong cards for the Beijing subway. Similar to the Octopus card in Hong Kong, the Yikatong is a contactless stored value smart card that you can use for paying for rides in the subway, bus, and even taxis. We never got to try using the Yikatong for other means aside from riding the subway, though. It costs 20 RMB to buy one card. You can load additional amounts into your card in stations using reloading machines. You can return the card, where you'll receive your 20 RMB deposit plus the amount of any remaining load in your card.
The apartment we were staying in is very near the Dongzhimen subway station, which is accessible through Ginza Mall. It's one of the smaller malls you'll find in Beijing, but is very nice inside, with interesting shops and restaurants. In terms of size, I think it's bigger than The Podium mall here in Manila. I only went around once so I'm not too familiar with the shops, except for Mango, which you can see right at the entrance of the mall. I'm more familiar with food shops in the basement area because we pass by them every time we go to and from the subway station. There's Bread Talk, a Bee Cheng Hiang stall, Beard Papa's stall, Watsons, Yoshinoya, Dairy Queen, and Happy Lemon! I saw that a Pepper Lunch was supposed to open soon, too.
The Happy Lemon shop was pretty small, probably only 1/3 the size of both the branches that are open here in Manila. They had no space for chairs and tables so you'll really just order your drink and go somewhere else to hang out, unlike the branches here in Manila.
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| Happy Jex with his first Happy Lemon drink - cold milk tea with Oreos cookies & cream |
It was my first time to try Happy Lemon and I just had to try their rock salt & cheese (RSC) drinks, so I ordered the green tea one. I was surprised, though, that my drink was served without the foam. I had read somewhere that when you order the drink they serve it without a cup cover and you are advised to drink without a straw so you'll be able to savor the foam, where the rock salt & cheese flavor is found. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the drink and I could really taste the rock salt and cheese throughout the drink. (Wait for a Happy Lemon post in the future!)
Prices of Happy Lemon drinks are way lower in Beijing. In Manila, a large green tea RSC costs P90.00 while in Beijing it costs 9 RMB, which is around P59.40 (1 RMB = P6.6).
Grabe, so
taga the price!
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| My green tea with rock salt & cheese |
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| Cute hot drink cup |
Before going to Lama Temple we had lunch in Yoshinoya, Ginza Mall. I swear, Yoshinoya serves good fast food in Hong Kong & Beijing. What's wrong with the franchise in Manila? I felt so
lugi when I tried eating in Yoshinoya, Megamall once. I never went back.
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| I think this was a peach-flavored drink. I liked it. |
I think the owner of the Yoshinoya franchise in Beijing also owns the Dairy Queen franchise because each Yoshinoya shop we see always has an adjoining Dairy Queen.
After lunch we proceeded to the subway station to visit Lama Temple. Yonghegong Lama Temple station is only one stop away from Dongzhimen station on line 2. After getting off the train at each station you just need to look for the correct exit so it'll be easier to find your destination.
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| Lama Temple entrance |
It was really sunny but the temperature was cool, which is the weather I wish we had in the Philippines.
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| Tree-lined walkway in Lama Temple |
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| There were monks... |
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| This one even had an awesome DSLR in hand |
Yonghe Temple, more popularly known as Lama Temple, has five main halls. You'll pass through all of the halls until you reach the last one, the
Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happiness. In there you'll see the 26-metre tall statue of Maitreya Buddha. What's fascinating about this statue is that it was carved from a single piece of wood! It was definitely a challenge to get a decent shot of the statue using a 50mm lens, while shooting from the hip.
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| My best and only decent shot of the Maitreya Buddha |
After seeing the giant Buddha statue and resting for a bit we started heading for Qianmen. Qianmen, which literally means "front gate", is the gate on the southern part of Tiananmen Square. The Qianmen subway station is the seventh stop from Yonghegong Lama Temple station on the inner loop route of Line 2.
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| Common sweets sold on the streets of Beijing |
Apparently, we were going to the Qianmen shopping street. Oh yeah, shopping! Qianmen shopping street is a wide street closed off from vehicular traffic. The main street is lined with many different shops. Smaller side streets branch off from the main street, where you'll find smaller shops, but we didn't explore them. The main street had a lot of high-end brand stores along with smaller specialty and souvenir shops.
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| There was a Starbucks in Qianmen |
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| There was also a Wuyutai Tea shop, which is like the McDonald's of tea shops because we saw it almost everywhere in Beijing. |
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| There was also a Haagen Dazs, where ice cream is still expensive (but good). |
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| ZARA |
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| Make-up and kakikayan heaven. They had cute statues in front. |
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| H&M! |
I spent most of my allowance in H&M. Jex convinced me to buy all of the stuff I liked. He just told me that there's no H&M in the Philippines so if I don't get them I'd regret it. So I bought them. No regrets! I'm pretty happy with my purchases. Jex also got himself a shirt.
So, there, we ended our first day in Beijing with shopping. It was a good warm up for the rest of our days in Beijing. Watch out for my Beijing
day part 3 entry!
Beijing Series
