Author: vinceneil666

We have two booked tours, great wall and forbidden city – our wall trip got moved to another date, it was supposed to be today. So looking for something to do – the internet recommended a walk in the park, since the weather is sunny and warm.

Its a bit tricky figuring out what sights needs tickets and not. And if they need ticket – can you just show up or do you have to book 1 month in advance. For the parks it was a mix, but luckily no need for prebook of tickets.

Houhai is the northern part of the lake in Beijing centre. Its free for all and shows of some beautiful spots as you walk along the water.

There are botas for rent, people swimming in the water and lots of different shops and street vendors along the way. Not to crowded either, or – it got a bit crowded midday, but not completely crazy.

We hade som great icecream at the end of the first lake, it hade like 5 Michelin guide stickers – so we tried a green one and a yellow one. Great stuff ! 😀 .. The square that was towards the end of the first lake got a bit crowded and crazy, quite touristy. But still – very scenic area, and with the weather at its best behaviour it was still a supernice walk.

We saw a cat with a gold chain, looking very confident and determined.. It will haunt me for a long time. I think it was plotting…..something..

walinkg out of the first park, we come to the Baihai park, this has an entry of 10cyn – thats approx 14 nok.

One of the several sights in this park is the wall of dragons – a huge sculpture supposedly the largest in the world. Both sides had dragons – altso the roof had lots of ornaments.

There where also a small Chinese garden within the park.

The walk is nice, with lots of several hundred year old trees, different flowers and other plants. And of course the great scenic view of the lake. Towards the south west exit there are a few restaurants and Slowboat Brewing has a 3storey taphouse here, so you can enjoy the view with some excellent beers.

There are two routes to take, we did the west side, the other side will give you access to the big temple across the water – along with other buildings and temples. Next time we will have to do that side to – we spent several hours here, it was about 4 km walk with a few stops and sight along the way, so time just flies away.

Sesam soup.. thick. Now we at least can say we tried it ‘D

Today we visited the National Art Museum, for the second time. In China EVERYthing has to be booked, at least the day before. First time we vent here, without booking, we where just sent on our way. Also – you have to bring the passport along with the booking….because of.. because…You need to hade ID to verify… Because!

We got in this time around -bearly, But after three different people checked out passports – we where golden.

Its a huge museum over 5 floors. Mostly paintings and calligraphy stuff – and some statues and video.

We found the fab four represented

Kinda looks like Paul is wearing shoes – the symbolism is sky high. What does the painter know – is Paul the real Painter? And what is the zebra doing our. That late..all alone?

We roamed around here for over two hours, it was a real nice museum, and with Google translate we got to understand a bit more.

I think what we found most interesting was the collection of old (from year 400 BC ish) texts, or sticks.

This was short messages that where sent around between private and military (lots from military) and also general buracrates…

Its surprisingly -cool- to use Google lens and translate these short messages several hundred and hundred of years old.

The messages are all kinds of things..From very formal messages about the inventory of rice or livestock. Who killed who.. People promising to pay a debt, but complain about the long travel to do so..

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We spent a long time hovering over these ancient texts/sticks, it gave a really cool connection to what was going on at the time. A really cool display indeed.

there had to be hundred of sticks in the exhibition.

Not to much on the translation to English, but we do find that Google lens will translate most for us to an understandable thing.

We spent a bit time outside the museum to, looking at the different sculptures and of course had a visit in the museum store.

Might not be a good pic, but that was a metallic tree.

A bit weird thing we noted, in most museums they will usually give you a general date as to when the bit you are looking at, is from. Like..1987.. og ca. 300 BC.. something like that.

in China, or at least here, we did see some of this – but usually just on paintings from 1900-2000. For the rest it seemed that there was an overall understanding as to what dynasty this was related to, so adding a date was not ‘a thing’. Most have heard about the Ming dynasty – but that was one of the last (THE last?), the different exhibitions here was way older.

There was also a lot of space dedicated to calligraphy and art in/with calligraphy. The written language is really beautiful to look at, and there are ‘masters’ of this where they consider the writing art/poetry, thats is the look of the writing, not just the actually words.

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She stood like that for to long.. then she moved around to the other side and went even lower/wider – but she saw me so I did not dear take a picture – I am pretty sure she was some kinda stay-at-home-ninja

There are a lot of spices and stuff in China..and tea..so much tea. But for us there is only one, our years long quest for proper Sichuan pepper.

There are different types, as you see with both cinnamon and safeon. There are Spanish versions, African and American. Getting hold of Chinese Sichuan pepper is not always easy peasy. But now – we’re here!

She had a nice day at work today 🙂

We had just been at the Chinese arts museum, and looking at the map we found a vegetable/fish market up the road. We where already a bit outside the tourist track so we where confident we could get some good stuff for normal prices.

The Sichuan pepper is either green or red, the red is the one regularly used in food. It not really a -pepper-, its in the citrus family and gives off what they call ‘cold heat’, also it makes you lips go slightly numb. You will get proper Sichuan pepper dishes at a few restaurants in Norway.

The lady in the picture above, in the Zhaojunsheng Vegetable Market had both red and green in prepacked pouches.. God knows what a punch weighed – probably 100gr pr bag. We bought 10 of each! ..So now we are very well stocked.

The price was 10rmb (thats about 14-15 Nok pr pouch/bag) so close to free, or at least very very cheap. I also bought half a meter of local cinnamon… Because.

The rest of the marked was full of other stuff to, lots of vegetables and some met n fisjmh.

Subway – so far – easy peasy. English messages and everything.

Quite a large map…

Last day in Jeju, today we are leaving for Beijing – flying out of Jeju International on Oceanic flight 815 … , or, might be Korean Air flight..

Checking out of our Air BnB that has served us well – this one came with a dedicated girls and boys room, which was fine since I have had 3 days with a pretty annoying flue.

Right no we are sitting. On a cafe waiting to bag drop to be opened, we had a somewhat early checkout at Airbnb, didnt wanna drag the bags around, sonwe just got on the bus to the airport. So far things have gone smooth, checking kiosk worked as a charm…

Arriving today, and my cold not really getting any better – we thought about just staying in our Air BnB, but, nah.. It just feels like such a waste of time.

We had found this place in Jeju called the night market, that really comes to life when the weather is heating up, and its just about starting to do so now. There is also a bit warmer wind here than on Mainland Korea.

so we got on a bus, luckily the bus stand is just outside our door. We are not staying at Shalom Hotel – but that is the building next to ours, and more a practical reference point. So bus from Shalom to Nightmarket – 50-60 mins, i think we did the 310…

Absolutley lovely place, with lots of small stalls selling stuff and food. Lights hung in the trees and even some live music. I bet this will look even more nice when the trees get a bit greener.

And as luck would have it – Jeju Brewing had a small shop here to.

Only had one on tap, so we tasted that one and one of the porters from a can – before we headed back home.

Using the Direct ferries app I was able to book a ticket from Mokpo to Jeju.. Now the thing with Google maps is that is kinda works in Korea, and for the NAVER App. It working fine – but its really not into the English lettering.

I googled around a bit trying to figure out where the ferry from Mokpo (Samhak) actually left from, and i found 3 answers..

this is where you need to go:

All other info is wrong 🙂 — go there.

Here we just showed our passports and the ref number from Direct ferries and we where good, not to many travelers today, its not peak season and thats nice.

The ferry took just under 5 hours, we could have flown – but boat is a kinda nice way to see the country. Weather was perfect to.

Along the way we passed the Chuja islands, would have been cool to stop by, but.. no time. The islands are supposed to only have 2000 inhabitants – in Korea that is pretty much nothing. I got a very Squid Game feeling, looking at the islands.

Arrived 20 min late to beautifull weather and our first sighting of a palm…. Might been fake.

We did the whole song and dance with the local taxi driver – and after 30 mins we found our Air bnb — its on the 17 th floor of this building.