I was channel surfing the other night..I chance upon Anthony Bourdain (No Reservations) talking about Chinese heritage and culture. Chinese? Travel?…I worked my way back to that channel I love (Travel and Living).

The first image that popped up was Liqun. I suddenly missed Beijing…the oily food, the unclean tea glasses and chopsticks I’ve encountered, Peking duck…*drools* Unpretentious, straight to the point…that’s what I love about this type of restaurants. Anthony was not his usual self in Beijing (he looked bored and sick but still had to enjoy his vices). If I were the local, I would have drag him to the places I miss..!

I like to check out that Noodle Loft they went to…

I get to have pictures this time!! I dragged my family to dine here at Quan Ju De and experience my favorite Peking duck around Beijing. I miss it so much that I stuffed more than 3 pieces of succulent Peking duck skin inside the wrap.

Last May, my family and I went to Beijing then Shanghai, I opted for Agoda’s deal of Service Apartments as I scouted for better deals.
Here’s a detailed account of our stay in each service apartment, Wanderlust Diary.

It had a kitchen, pretty decent bathrooms, cozy living room area, table for laptop (free internet), huge clean beds. Overall the place was great to go back to after a long day of tourist attraction walking.

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Well, there’s Breadtalk around Singapore and Philippines..quite commercialized nowadays. However, during our stay in Beijing, we were craving for Tour Les Jours, a quite relaxing place to hang out. Actually, I notice more Koreans before. Later, I researched about it apparently, it wasn’t a French bakery like its namesake. It is operated by a South Korean company.

“Tous Les Jours means “every day” in French, and the name expresses the bakery’ commitment to making fresh bread every day.”

It still looks cozy inside…warm during the winter.

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My mom wanted to visit this shopping strip in Beijing (Wangfujing) with the thoughts that it was still the same old shopping strip as before. She said this used to look very traditional..with small shops like there in Yu Yuan Shanghai but alas commercialization took the best of the yester-years.

We passed by the exotic food section which I dared my small siblings to try (yet no one brave enough to swallow gross looking insects/bugs).

I was dwarfed by the huge buildings that surrounded me. I vaguely recall this much shopping centres last time I went here (which mainly because it was still pre Olympics 2008). I still miss Singapore malls though where I prefer the brands better. Chinese fashion is very peculiar for me. Not that it’s not fashionable, but sometimes it looks too extravagant for every day use…maybe I’m a laid back dresser.
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While cruising along the outskirts of Beijing (getting back from a tiring Mutianyu trip with my family)…we saw an array of fruits being sold. I read somewhere that the fruit farms were popular nearby the city.

It actually reminds me of one of the outskirt county here in Manila called Tagaytay…but in Tagaytay it’s cooler and more relaxing (seeing the lake with the smallest volcano at the middle)

We actually stopped by to buy some local fruits along the way. My mom acted coolly as she tried to manage her way to haggle..even oblivious to the local pricing, she used her instincts (which I envy I do not have in terms of buying food)
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