What a way to ring in the Lunar New Year with the outbreak of coronavirus, which was bit disheartening. However, we made it back to Singapore before the outbreak came a month later. Despite this, one can’t deny that Shenzhen, adjacent to Hong Kong on the Mainland China border, is an affordable, convenient and fun destination to travel.
Airbnb
Shenzhen’s imposing urban sprawl and cloud-piercing towers can make it an overwhelming destination at first look. Accommodation in Shenzhen is much cheaper than Guangzhou and this Airbnb stay came at half the cost. We were pleasantly surprised that we found this gem which was so much better than our stay in Guangzhou.
Nevermind that we have yet to explore every corner of this loft apartment. Small M is definitely contented with the interiors.
The local school is located next to our building and it is not surprising to hear the children clamouring during their breaks.
The loft unit is expansive and does not compromise when it comes to comfort.
Dongmen 东门 food street is the place to satisfy your food cravings
Dong Men (东门, which translates into East Gate) is a large labyrinth of shops selling not just clothings and apparels but also delectable food. If you are taking the train, alight at Laojie station and exit D.
You will pass by a shopping street before arriving at the food street.
We were bombarded with lots of street food options the moment we stepped into this place.
Eat to your heart’s desire. Shenzhen’s local cuisine in the form of beef sticks, stinky tofu, grilled squid, takoyaki, and, for the adventurous, shellfish.
Pork blood jelly is abundantly popular in Chinese cooking. It was widely sold during our younger days but has since been banned in Singapore due to food hygiene.
Grilled Skewered Squid stuffed with meat fillings.
A popular street snack in Asia. Stinky tofu (chou do fu) that has been fermented and smells like it has gone bad. Do you dare to eat it?
Everyone is no stranger to Taipei Shilin Night Market 士林夜市, one of the largest and most popular night markets in Taiwan. 蚵仔煎 oyster omelette is found here too.
We know that Tiger Sugar 老虎堂 has garnered a large fanbase in Taiwan and Hong Kong. This is how Tiger Sugar get its name – the moment when dark brown sugar syrup interacts with the thick milk in the cup. Getting a hold of it in Shenzhen without waiting in a long queue is certainly a bonus!
We are feeling peckish and these local seafood looked really appetising!
This plate of flower crabs and big prawns cost about SGD$17.
This tiny pizza store is probably Shenzhen’s best kept treasure. We were initially sceptical of the pizza’s quality as it only cost SGD$2.
But the queue did not cease and we saw how the pizza were freshly made and baked in front of you.
It comes with a solid-looking crust and glistening cheese and tastes great.
We find ourselves back in the queue for a second order even before we finished eating the pizza!
Also, we settled for this piping-hot grilled fish which this is sure to satisfy any fish-lovers cravings. It looked really damn good. The fish is first grilled before allowing it to poach over a fire in a rich broth alongside other ingredients such as vegetables and an assortment of other aromatics. A big NO to chilli for the kids.
Hungry for more? You should visit Shenzhen one day!
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Guangzhou is safe and suitable for family to travel. We visited the bustling Baima wholesale market and the items were, but not overly cheap.
Baima Clothing Wholesale Market
This wholesale market is located at the Guangzhou Railway Station. You will know it’s the right place when you see people lugging big plastic bags of clothing.
The whole place was made up of various buildings/malls and basically they are selling clothings and accessories at wholesale prices.
With such a big crowd, food stalls will inevitably exist to cater to the hunger pangs.
We felt the weather at 22 degree was warm but still, the locals were out in their thick coats.
Try shopping in the wholesale markets and find good bargains. New stock arrivals…a common sight.
The prices are marked up when quoted to you so spend your time bargaining in your shopping spree.
1. Take metro line 2 and line 5, and get off at Guangzhou Railway Station.
2. Take bus Business Line 1, 2, 3 and bus line 5, 238, 290, 301a, 518, 543, Gaofeng Rapid line 25, Night 88, and get off at Zhannan Road Station. Then walk to the north for about 250 meters (260 yd).
Beijing Lu Pedestrian Street
Beijing Road is located in the center of Guangzhou and is probably the busiest street. The whole stretch is about 1.5km so can imagine there are so many attractions to explore.
Not even peak hour but look at the crowd!
Big and Small M trying out the Christmas special soft-serve.
Eating is an important part of Chinese culture. The street foods sold by the operators were better than we expected. Not only they are clean, super yummy as well!
But street food is the way to go and to satisfy the taste buds.
1. Take metro line 6, and get off at Beijing Road Station. Leave from Exit B.
2. Take metro line 1 or line 2, and get off at Gongyuanqian Station, and leave from Exit D and then walk to east for about 800 meters (880 yd).
3. Take City Sightseeing Bus Ancient City Line and Xiguan Style Line and get off at Beijing Road Station.
4. Take bus line 10, 183, 190, 1, 219, 3, 541, 544, 66, B8, Night 1, Night 32, Night 36, Night 39, Night 69, Night 8, and get off at Beijing Road Intersection Station.
Chen Clan Ancestral Hall
The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall or Chen Clan Academy is an academic temple in Guangzhou, China, built by the 72 Chen clans for their juniors’ accommodation and preparation for the imperial examinations in 1894 in Qing Dynasty.
It is situated near to our Airbnb so it is a must-go attraction. We are not big fans of museums so didn’t spend much time there. However, the wood carvings and paintings are examples of super workmanship and certainly present an eye-opener to tourists.
But it does offer good spots for photo-taking.
Had our lunch here at this restaurant near to the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall.
While the rest of the dishes were so-so, the steamed fish was fantastic.
Guangzhou Baiyun Mountain
Baiyun Mountain (also known as “white cloud mountain”) offers spectacular views.
You can either choose to walk/hike, take a buggy ride or cable car. We chose the latter.
We spent half a day at Baiyun Mountain not because of enjoying ourselves but time wasted in taking the buggy rides at different points to reach the cable car station. You have to alight from the buggy at one point and queue up again to buy tickets to hop onto another buggy.
Our advice is to take the cable car from the ground instead of going up the Baiyun Mountain to find the cable car station.
Opposite the Baiyun Cableway is a food street.
Freshly made Guangzhou-style rice rolls.
Chee cheong fun or rice noodle roll. The stuffing of the salty rice noodle roll mainly includes pork, beef, shrimp meat and pork liver.
A walk in the neighbourhood after our dinner.
Guangzhou Pearl River
One can not be considered to have visited Guangzhou if he hasn’t cruised the scenic Pearl River. We wanted to try the river cruise where during the ride we could catch attractions such as Haiyin Bridge, Canton Tower and such but too bad we didn’t make it in time.
But still, walking around the Pearl River wasn’t that bad either.
What a beautiful Guangzhou.
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All photos, information and opinions, unless otherwise stated, in this post belong to Katong Kids Inc. Reproducing or copying them for use on third party sites without our written permission are strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.
Our visit to Harbin, the renowned ‘Ice City’, located in the south of Heilongjiang Province. This city is favored with beautiful natural scenery and re-living the fond memories of our stay with little ones.
We tried the northeastern Chinese dish, otherwise known as Tie Guo Dun 铁锅顿 at Zhongyang Pedestian Street.
The ingredients of the stew are simmered to its best in this deep metal pot.
It will take a while but the finished product is rewarding.
Zhongyang Pedestrian Street is about 1.5km long and is always filled with festive atmosphere all year round. This is the main street where tourists would never fail to check off their bucket list.
Harbin means snow, and abundance of it!
Everywhere is considered a playground for the kids!
Street food at its best. Don’t forget to try the red sausage (hong chang), bingtang hulu (fruits on a stick, covered in toffee), and the ice cream which never melt during winter.
The Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom of God or Saint Sophia Cathedral in Harbin is a former Russian Orthodox church located in the central district of Daoli, Harbin City, Heilongjiang, China.
Harbin cuisine..
The average night temperature is -20°C and the kids were just loving it. What a rare opportunity to be soaked in such weather.
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A brand new morning, a brand new experience. We hopped onto a cab outside our hotel after agreeing to a fare of CNY240 for a day trip. The Harbin of today is still very much influenced by its Russian past. Due to the strong decades’ presence of Soviet Russians, it is not uncommon to see glimpses of Russian style in architecture, education, art, food, clothing, language and more aspects of life.
Our first stop was to visit the Russian Village which was located near to Sun Island.
The river was literally frozen.
Russian Village
Russian Style Town or Artist Village in Harbin Sun Island by the north bank of the Songhua River, is a Russian architecturally-styled village with small detached houses within. During winter, this place seemed more like a ghost town albeit with curious tourists coming to explore the vincinity and experiencing Russian foods and products.
We were discouraged from entering the Russian Village by our driver as this attraction was quiet and nothing much exciting to explore. He did, however, drove us around the outskirts of the Russian Village to take a view from the outside.
Some sights at the entrance…
Food vendors selling sweet potatoes, sausages and Bing Tanghulu Candied Hawthorn Stick or 冰糖葫蘆.
It was a weekend and the traffic was quite bad in the morning. It took us one hour to reach the next destination which was appealing to Big and Small M. What’s in store here?
Visitors who want to visit Harbin 哈尔滨植物園 definitely have to come with reserved transport as after entering, you would need to drive up to 1km before reaching the spot with fun-filled activities.
This is the only restaurant here for us to catch a lunch.
Our order – a tad salty and not very appealing though it did fill our stomaches.
And we had fun after that! Building a snowman 🙂
During winter in Harbin, the temperature is usually below 20 degrees. One of the most popular activites is the winter swimming event which is a physical activity showing off the strong physique and iron of local Harbin people. Over here, the swimming pool was dug for winter swimming.
The performance takes place every hour. We were standing in the freezing cold awaiting for the show to start.
Would you dare to try this? Certainly not us!
Dog sledding but we did not try as we would need to pay extra (which we didn’t know after paying an exorbitant price for the tickets). We had no regrets not trying dog sleeding as the dogs did not look excited to run at all, so unlike of our experience in Finland where every husky were given a name, trained to perform a specific role in sleigh-ridding and much more excited to run.
Pony ride.
Family-friendly rides that we get to enjoy here.
Alas, we wished we could stay longer to maximuse the ticket value but the temperature was really overwhelming today at -24°C. Our bodies were smarting from the cold. We had to cut short our fun and returned to the car.
Ji Le Temple 极乐寺
Who says visiting Harbin is all about ice and snow?
Ji Le Temple or Temple of Bliss is located at the end of Dongdazhi Street, Nangang District in Harbin. It is the biggest Buddhist building complex in the Heilongjiang province. The entrance gate, Hall of Heavenly King, Grand Hall, Sacred Hall, Sutra Depository, Bell Tower, Drum Tower and the Seven-storey Buddhist Pagoda are the main buildings.
The entire building of Temple of Bliss is magnificent, elegant and dignified, retains the style and features of temple architecture of China. Before reaching here, our driver brought us to his neighbourhood to buy a winter coat for Big M. It was a good buy as the price was almost half of what we need to pay at shopping malls. It was about 4pm when we reached here and the temple was already closed, unfortunately.
We thought it is a lovely temple that offers a peaceful break from the busyness of the city where one can soak in its tranquility and understand more about Chinese Buddhism. Big M wearing her new winter coat 🙂
Along the streets were lined with shops selling Buddhist wares.
Harbin Confucius Temple was built in 1926 and completed in 1929. The temple ground occupies an area of 25,000 square meters and its construction area is 5,674 square meters. In 1996, the temple was listed on the key historical sites under state protection.
The temple’s symmetrical structure consists of three courtyards dotted with old trees and rare flowers. Due to its likeness to the Imperial Palace, it has earned the moniker “the Forbidden City of Harbin”.
Night falls and we were craving for food. The best time to try chinese hotpot is during winter and our driver brought us to this restaurant.
Great service – the staff opened the door for us when he saw us walking up the stairs.
Chinese hotpot 火锅 , also known as Chinese fondue, is one of the most popular meals in China. It consists of a simmering metal pot with broth at the center of a table, and all raw ingredients placed beside the metal pot, so people can add and cook whatever they like in the broth.
A hearty meal for us after a long day out!
The spirit of Northern Chinese cuisine lives on the wholesome goodness at Lao Beijing Roasted Duck 老北京明炉烤鸭. We took a stroll at the streets and caught the sight of a chef roasting the duck which inevitably drawn us into the store.
Specially-bred and fattened ducks are glazed and hung in a wood fire to roast until the browned skin is crisp and the meat succulent.
Noticed the QR code below? Everyone is using e-payment in China now. The presentation of the duck was just like any other chinese restaurant in which the chef carved the duck in front of us.
Heavenly goodness at its best.
The price of a whole duck including the wraps and sauces – SGD 12.
The Heart of Harbin
Not to be outdone by the likes of bigger stores such as Mykal Supermarket, the supermarkets in the heartland are possibly one of Harbin’s best-kept treasures. It was a pleasant experience browsing through the store products and discovering the local produces.
Most of the product prices were much cheaper compared to those in the shopping malls.
Salted promfret fish.
Mantou, often referred to as Chinese steamed bun, is a type of cloud-like steamed bread or bun popular in Northern China. The name mantou is said to have originated from a tale about Zhuge Liang.
Some sights during our walk.
Bing Tanghulu Candied Hawthorn Stick or 冰糖葫蘆. These two guys were shouting at the top of their voice to attract customers to their store. A nice try. We stopped and bought one to try out.
Teresa Teng Music Restaurant
We blogged about Teresa Teng during our trip to Taiwan 金寶山 Chin Pao San which you can read it here. Our Harbin trip brought us back to the memory lanes where Teresa Teng Music Restaurant allows fans to reminisce the evergreen hits of 邓丽君that bring you back to the 70’s and 80’s.
Dine, wine and enjoy live performance of her songs.
Harbin’s charm lies in the way it yields glimpses of a timeless China. Our experience thus far has been magical. Planning to visit China? Try Harbin 哈尔滨.
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