Soho II, Wulao Hutong, Beijing, China

Soho II, and the 'down-stairs'

The bottom alley-way outside and under our apartment complex is what we have colloquially named the 'down-stairs'. 

Mutually terrified by its exotic foreignness, we regrettably didn't step foot down there for the first 14 days after we moved in, unintentionally avoiding any reason to venture there. Now its over-flowing random clutter, its dirty pots and pans brimming with random edibles and its cases of live animals intrigue us. Only brave enough to wander down together, our presence in the alley never goes unnoticed. Who are these white folk? These lawei. Heads will turn, and sharp eyes quietly follow our movements, as if we were the intriguing sight. Our  alley 'down stairs' is our own little contemporary museum, an insight into real Chinese life. 

The 'down-stairs'

A pot of boiling eggs

Our water delivery 

Looking down the alley

Entrance to 'Down-stairs

'Following the seven small steps down into the alley in the morning, past the water trailer, your nose is first assaulted by the yeasty meaty steam of fresh dumplings, cooking on top of each other in a stainless steel pan on a little coal fire. The fresh sticky white bread dumplings are prepared on a small meat-caked wooden two-by-four every morning, mixing the pink pork mince by hand.

Later in the evening, the area transforms into a skewered kebab stand with only enough room for one chef, who, with coal blackening his hands, cooks thin strips of meat over red hot smoking coals. We can't read the menu but the 'meat' ranges in what looks like cartilage, knuckle joints, fish, livers, and other things we would never have considered cooking. 

'Down-stairs' has a little bit of everything, an industrial dry-cleaners that specialise in green medical uniforms, two fruit and vegetable shops strategically placed aside each other in the middle of the alley, a tidy looking hair-dressers that also sell goldfish, five small restaurants that serve Northern Chinese dishes, a dark and dingy copy store and two multi-purpose get-a-little-bit-of-anything-and-everything shops. 

Walking down the alley, can be initially overwhelming. Focusing on not drawing further attention to yourself, while looking in the windows and walking around plastic tables that litter the path can mean you miss the orange wobbly tiles which bring forth a spray of black colored sludge water, showering over the leg of your pants. Tiny gutters carved hap-hazzardily into the ground, low hanging clotheslines or broken broomsticks are all potential hazards. 

At the furthest end of the alley under a broken and bent umbrella one of the small unsanitised restaurants sell live fish, which they keep in big buckets of cold bubbling water outside. We have watched in awe as our neighbours ordered dinner: before you realise what's happening the selected fish is plucked from its plastic home, whacked across a steel bin, bamm the heads off, swish swish, scales removed. "Hao, Hao" Very good, within seconds the transactions done then everyone's off on their way, leaving us to giggle nervously.

Live fish- waiting to be chosen

Pork airing? or drying?

Duck eggs! 

Speckled goose eggs!

Storage area

What's the most interesting and unusual part is that what seems to be a chaotic unhealthy mess is just that each shop does not seem restricted by its walls. With entire families living in the back of the shops, the alleyway seems to be a useful extension of the shop and family home. The public 'down-stairs' area is used not only to store the restaurants' newly-delivered produce but anything else they fancy. Small bicycles, magazines on rusty racks, clotheslines covered in delicates or even grandma out on the dust covered couch. Outdoor dining is very popular and throughout the day and well into the night the small alley is littered with fold-up tables; patrons spilling out of the restaurants leaving their glass bottles and napkins on the ground for someone to clean up... tomorrow.

There seems to be no quiffs about the hairdressers setting up shop outside in the afternoons and letting long black hair blow into neighbouring restaurants next door. Men with missing teeth sit outside chain smoking, dangling the cigarettes from between the gaps, betting on cards while oblivious to their pant-less grandchildren releasing their bowels 'down-stairs'. Children cycle up and down chasing each other around in circles or lie stretched out colouring books and entirely toothless grandmothers bring out their washing in plastic buckets. Along the brick side wall, the alley is littered with boxes, cartons, old chairs, broken motorbikes, bicycle seats, and even pet birds. There's a place for everything.

Most mornings restaurants take their kitchens outside, finding a space on the low brick wall. Chopping up long green vegetables under the hazy Beijing sky, just throwing the prepared produce in big wet buckets on the ground. They bring out large pots and boil eggs in a strange coloured brown water, misting the alley on cold mornings. Sometimes a cook stands next to buckets full of soft boiled purple-white peanuts, selling them by the bag to residents passing by.

Heads of something

Pet birds in their cage, outside

This restaurant does take-away pancakes

What we enjoy the most is quickly glancing into the glass display cabinets outside the noodle restaurants, one at each end. The far side offer all kinds of cooked animal heads and might specialise in savoury pancakes by the looks of their lumpy brown jelly, peeled black eggs, slimy seaweed and salted nuts. Closer to us, the refrigerated glass cabinet is full of bright green broccoli, a dish that looks like bread but smells like garlic and slightly more recognisable foods. Too timid to order yet, we are working on the courage to try the vegetables and what smells like a smoked tofu.

Glass-cabinet salad bar

For now, we have found that one of the beef noodle restaurants has smoky yellow pictures on the wall which are perfect to point at! Hao! Hao!

Tot siens,
John and Kara

Temple of Heaven, Chongwenmen, Beijing, China

Walking up Qinian Ave 

The sky has been grey and polluted for days. The haze makes the sky look an off brown and yellowish colour. You can taste the pollution at the back of your mouth as it coats your throat like a ugly ball of cat hair. 

Kara's Chinese colleagues say it's just fog and that's what the weather forecast predicts too but propaganda prevails in this communist country. 




It's not really surprising that the American embassy air quality index, that we check constantly has maintained an unhealthy to hazardous reading for days. 

Our sinuses have been working in overdrive and there's a noticeably clear correlation between air quality and those little mucus snot balls all over the ground. 

Another side effect from the pollution is fatigue. That blah feeling, you're not sad or happy or bored you're just blah.  You're so blah that you can't imagine doing anything other than staying in bed for the weekend. So we nearly let another weekend slip by, but on Wednesday morning a cold winter wind blew across the capital. Not a strong breeze but enough to carry the PM2 particles out over the China Sea towards neighbouring Korea and clear our air a little.

Another 'foggy' day in Beijing

The sky wasn't exactly blue; although it was cloudless, the haze was ever present. Downstairs we bought little bready pork bao'ser for breakfast. The flavour intense and strong enough that we'd surely be burping that up later. For the first time in days we could distinctly smell the tobacco smoke wafting out of the noodle shops, it's surprisingly how much the pollution blankets your sense of smell. The air was clearer. So we thought about going out and doing something. It is still the middle of winter though, so something not so far away! 

Ballroom dancing

The Temple of Heaven and its surrounding 267 hectares of park is few hundred meters behind our apartment and is considered one of the big Daoism attractions in Beijing. 

It's even bigger than the forbidden city and although we didn't realise at the time just how big it is, it seemed ideal for a morning stroll. So we wrapped up warm and set off. Arriving at the North Gate it was a little confusing, do we need tickets? Or not?


 Lots of people seemed to just be walking in? We bought the 10kuai combo entry tickets, from the small wooden building by the entrance which allowed us into any three 'things'. Cool, there are 'things' to see. We giggled, and walked in. 

It was built between 1406 and1420 during the Ming dynasty and reign of the Yongle Emperor, who like all Emperors was considered the 'son of heaven'. The Emperor acted of behalf of his heavenly authority and with the uttermost earthly respect built the Temple of Heaven in Beijing for the highly intricate ceremonies and, most importantly, for their annual sacrifices. Twice a year the emperor and his entourage, who wore special robes for the occasion, would move from the Forbidden city to the Temple to pray for a good harvest. The entire park was built, was enriched in deep symbolism and was designed to reflect the ancient belief in mystical cosmological laws. From the circling curved walls which depict Heaven and Earth to the decoration on the pavements to the number of pillars on each specifically coloured building. 

John standing on REAL grass

Park doorway

500 year old tree

Taking a break

Facing us from the main North entrance, there was a large stone courtyard covered in couples slowly dancing. 

Hall for Prayer of Good Harvests

It was so cold that as they moved around while the steam from their breaths hovered above their heads. Around the courtyard were old green pine trees, short but thick with branches and under them there were small stone statues of grinning lions. 

The below freezing temperatures didn't at all seem to be deterring people. The park was humming with life, a group of people were waving long silver swords in the air, in a type of silent controlled tai chi movement, behind them older men were vigorously practicing kung fu. 


On the damp grass people were swinging large ropes attached to trees and one couple were even throwing knifes at boards on the tree trunks, small children playing just nearby. 

Sword fighters

To the right of the large courtyard off the path, about 50 older woman danced in a controlled aerobic movement and stepped and waved in time to static music pumping out of a tiny black jukebox. Badminton was popular but not as popular as another game, like hackie sack, but with weighted feathers. Encouraged to join in, John gave them a few kicks but it was much more difficult than it looked! 

We walked forward, amazed at how engaged people were, not bothered by those around them. At a small hut several people were crowded together singing, to no one in particular and down on the patio huddles of grandparents played some board game, unintentionally listening to the singers.

It was freezing but the locals didn't look like they noticed the cold. 

Arriving at the East gate

We walked on and found ourselves at the East gate, having walked in the wrong direction. So we turned and briskly walked on. 

The main attraction and the first place we arrived and had our tickets checked was the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. The main building is a really big circular-shaped temple built up on terraced white marble. Everything was very white and very cold, but the temple itself a stark contrast of vivid colours. 

Inside the Temple

Bottom view of the temple

Intricate interiors

Hall for Prayer of Good Harvests

We clambered up the steps for a closer look. First you can see the large blue and yellow placard above the door, which was inscribed by Emperor Jiajing (1521-1567). Peering inside, we could see the walls and roof carefully painted with ocean blues, golden yellows, deep reads and turquoise greens. The hall was constructed with thought and meaningful design. 

Worship Hall

The four main pillars represent the four seasons, inside twelve pillars represent the months and the twelve outer pillars represent the traditional Chinese hours. Together the twenty four pillars represent the twenty four months in a Chinese solar cycle. Although the original building was burnt down due to lighting strike in 1889 the current wooden temple is quite stunning and supposedly built without the use of nails. It has three roofs tiled in blue which symbolise getting closer to heaven, but everything kind of mixed with the hazy polluted sky.

From the temple there are several buildings flanking its courtyard which were supposedly the kitchens and other prayer rooms. Inside they showcase the ancient worship rituals and evolution of the prayer halls.

Down the raised Imperial stairway

Placard inscribed by Emperor Jiajing

From there we followed the raised Imperial stairway south to the Imperial Vault of Heaven. This mini sized version of the Hall for Prayer of Good Harvests is also built on raised marble and is surrounded by a small circular wall. The wall, nicknamed Echo wall, is meant to exaggerate noises. We gave it a go but it didn't seem to work for us! 

Imperial Vault of Heaven

Entrance to Imperial Vault of Heaven

Next door is the Circular Mound Alter and our last 'thing'. Built in 1530, the white marble alter is decorated lavishly in carved dragons and was used by Emperors during the winter solstice to send worship and prayer for favourable rain, to the heavens.

Imperial Gate

Heart of Heaven

 Circular Mound Alter

On the top of the marble mound is the heart of heaven, surrounded by nine, the luckiest most heavenly number, of marble rings. It's said that those who stand on the heart can receive good feelings and luck, so we waited and took a turn, but really, all we felt was cold! Actually, also a little hungry!

We started to look for the way out through all the old pines, juniper and cypress trees. We came across another grand building, the Fasting Palace or Hall of Devine Abstinence surrounded by a small moat. This is where the emperors would come, three days before a ceremony and fast from indulgences: including meat, drinks, woman and music. We decided not to go in this time as we were starting to get the hunger grumps.

Ancient lantern holder

Let's go this way

Eventually we made our way back to the main North gate, relieved and hungry! 

Tot siens,

John and Kara

Exploring Beijing, China

During the last several weeks we have been slowly adjusting to the Chinese culture and our new life in Beijing, China.

Catching a little bit of sun while it's out on our deck

A very hungry John enjoying Pizza on Christmas day!

Exploring dinner options in Xiaobeijing

Kara has been very busy at work, preparing for the Chinese New Year (year of the horse!) and teaching in the school winter holiday academy. John has been devoting a lot of time on his Chinese - Ni hao ma! Chur fan le ma?. 

The weather (unusually) has been getting slightly warmer as we head further into winter.. or perhaps we are just better prepared when we head out now! Although it is cold, it hasn't rained (or snowed) and the air remains very dry. It is one of the warmer winters ever recorded in Beijing, but in saying that it was -6C this morning at 10am. There is still some danger in this warm winter,  as some days small puddles of ice form from a leaking car exhaust or a massive spit glob someone hacked up. If your not careful you can fall on one glob while trying to dodge another, or slip while running across the road (yes to avoid the crazy drivers texing on their phones). Over the last few weeks the pollution has been pretty bad. It only usually lasts for two days until a freezing northerly wind rips over the city but it smells (like burnt rubber car tires) and you can hardly see a thing. We keep our masks on!

Eating half a loaf of bread filled with ice-cream and
fruit at Joy City Shopping Mall

We have been having a fabulously difficult time negotiating the language, and have landed ourselves in quite a few awkward situations (what? Your saying I ordered the duck head?... I thought it was chicken leg.. damn). But in general our Chinese is improving very quickly and at times people can even get the jist of what we are trying to say. If that fails, Kara is pretty clever at waving her arms, hands, head or other body parts around in an explanation.

We have ended up with some very interesting dishes (one lunch Kara got a container of just grated cooked plain potato which was not quite the rice and eggplant she thought she as getting). So it has prompted us to learn to read some of the basic food items on a menu. We have now mastered quite a few Chinese characters, but with over 10,000 in the language, and new ones released every year we still have a long way to go!

To date, we have chicken, beef, pork, noodle, rice and fish down pack, but carry around about 20 different yellow post-it notes everywhere. However, since our up skilling we have been eating some very delicious dishes! The sweet and sour chicken is great as with the local hot pots.

Birthday boy! Celebrating with Strawberry cheesecake :) 

Aside from the language one of the more difficult aspects of living in China is the Chinese culture.

In China there is a concept of 'face'. You can lose face and you can gain face, you can take face away and you can give face. It's very difficult to compare to a western concept because there are so many unspoken rules. But for example, if you give a compliment to an individual in front of other people, you are giving someone face, but they only gain the face if they humbly decline or disagree with your compliment.

We can't really figure out how it works in other situations, because it doesn't seem to translate into Chinese road rules or to the way people scream at each in close confide spaces?

Because of China's communist past there are also very subtle differences in behaviour. People avoid being different, sticking out in any way and more often than not do not like to voice or share their opinion. They would never ever also talk to you about a problem (to save face). If they asked you for an eggplant lunch dish but you got the order wrong on the lunch run and bought pork back, a Chinese person would never say 'Hey this is not what I wanted!' rather they would start talking about something random like the chair layout in the office, hoping you would figure it out.... yip..... In the work environment this can be both difficult and at times quite beneficial (well just for humour of course)!.

The busy road home

Buddy... theres a hole in your pants?

We have also noticed that children's clothing is also quite interesting in China (like so interesting that its not appropriate to post photos). Its not uncommon for kids to wear pants with no crutch- purely for easy toilet access. The child can keep their pants on squat over the toilet and finish their business pronto. Nice. Or if they can't make it to the toilet they could use the shopping mall pot plant or pee in the bottle their mother holds in front of them- yes we have seen this happen.

For now we are getting very excited about the Chinese New Year, the fireworks and the hordes of dumplings that will be available! We will be jet setting down to Shanghai for the week and look forward to sharing our adventure soon!

Tot siens,
John and Kara

Wangfujing and Lama Temple, Yonghegong, Beijing, China

Wangfujing Markets

When we visited the Forbidden City last month, it was on the coldest day of our lives thus far, but today sure came in at a close second. 

We can't really dispute that perhaps we weren't prepared enough. Of course, we had several layers on, two pairs of pants, two pairs of gloves, thermals, fleece and jackets but it was like they didn't exist when the wind blew.

Today we met up with some work friends, two girls that had arrived in China a week prior to us that we had met at our hotel. 

Fried Ice-cream and butter cake

Together we spent the morning exploring the traditional Wangfujing snack street and food markets. 

Located a stones throw behind the Forbidden city, the area has been a commercial hub since the middle of the Ming Dynasty. 

Scorpions ready to be eaten

During the Qing Dynasty, ten aristocratic estates and princess residences were built here after a well of sweet water was discovered. This gave the street it's name, which can be roughly translated as 'Princely residence well'.

Popular with Chinese residents and tourists alike, the pedestrian only area is famous for it's wide variety of common and exotic street foods. 

Exotic seemed to be the only name of the game, evident as we walked through the gate. To our immediate left we couldn't help but notice the pots of black skewered scorpions, still wiggling, next to them baby cream coloured sea horses and what appeared to be some variety of lizard, ready and waiting to be deep fried and munched upon. 

Lobster balls

Opposite were clear plastic cups filled with strange yellow cubes, if we hadn't known better we would have though it was a strong yellow cake but in broken English the handwritten sign indicated it was some kind of sea sponge. 

Certainly not for the weak stomached, we saw a range of creepy crawlers, spiders, cockroaches, and even ants stuck around balls of coconut. There were orange and pink starfish, blue crabs and what looked like a hairless rat. Could people really eat these? 

Lizard, cockroaches and starfish

Dried fish 

The stomach of something

Maybe a sweet food?

Pork stuffed eggs

One of the most popular items seemed to be raw meat and seafood roasted over hot coals, it smelt nice but we had no idea what the skewered items were. Maybe horse? Whale? Jellyfish? 

Meat cooking on hot rocks

In white plastic plates we saw slices of stomach, chicken heads and boiled baby ducks, doused in chilly. 

There were some more edible foods like taro rice and fluffy lobster balls but fishy smells didn't seem right.

Eating a cooked snake

Eventually Kara was game enough to try a little snake. Crunchy, crispy and a bit like eating salty chicken skin it wasn't bad. 

Washed down with candied stick of red Chinese date apples we begun to have a bit of fun. 

One of our friends ordered a cold pineapple drink which came hissing and steaming and smoking through the lid of the cup. 

Steaming fruit drinks

As you walk through the ancient market area you can also turn into the smaller side streets which are overflowing with tables selling all kinds of random tourist souvenirs. 

These salesmen could speak a little broken English too... Hat Hat, Want Hat? Look! Look! 

Some of the mirrors, notebooks and sculptures, were actually very beautiful. We decided that we'll definitely come back when it's warmer! 

Down the market ally 

Still with an adventurous spirit we all clambered on the heated subway and ventured North to the nearby Yonghe Lamasery, the Palace of Peace and Harmony or just "Lama Temple". 

The largest and best-preserved Chinese Buddhism lamasery in Beijing, it's temples were built in 1694 during the Qing Dynasty. Originally as residences for court eunuchs then converted into the court of Prince Yong. When the young prince ascended the throne in 1722 as Emperor Yongzheng, half of the buildings were converted into a lamasery. Later his successor awarded lama temple with special imperial status and redecorated with royal yellow tiles, reserved for the emperor. 

Outside the bell tower

Hall of Heavenly Kings

Large tin burners letting off some heat

From the road, we raced across the cold car park under a magnificently decorated archway, bought our tickets and entered the south courtyard across the Imperial way. 

On our right was a large golden bell tower, on the left a drum tower and in front of us the Hall of Heavenly Kings. 

It was freezing cold and we quickly huddled for a moment next to the large tin burners trying to warm up, while Chinese devotees burnt red sticks of incense around us. 

Inside the Hall of Heavenly Kings

It was difficult to see which direction we needed to move so we entered the hall and passed through to the inner stone courtyard. It seemed that as we moved through each building they become progressively larger and we encountered more beautiful shrines, statues and murals. 

We walked through the Hall of Harmony and Peace, the main building within the lamasery and home to three special golden bronze Buddhas named 'Buddhas of the three ages'. 

Then through the Hall of Everlasting Blessings. Between each wooden temple was a small spotlessly clean courtyard with several leafless trees and with minimal external decoration. 

It was inside the Halls that the colors of the Budda statues glowed, surrounded by lit candles, soft fabric, jade beads, flowers and burning essence. 

We walked through the Hall of the Darma Wheel before finishing at the Pavilion of Infinite Happiness or also Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses. Inside the Pavilion is a huge 85foot wooden statue of Maitreya Buddha, which was carved from just one piece of wood.

Taking a break by the imperial lion

85 foot Maitreya Buddha

Hall of Darma Wheel

Numb from the cold we left the sacred temples of worship and explored some of the shops on the roads surrounding Yonghe.

Main entrance gate

After admiring the little statues, hand painted scriptures, talismans, charms and jewellery we called it a day. Happy to get back on the warm subway and head home.

Tot siens,

John and Kara