Newbie in Beijing
 

Hi All,
My husband & I are currently in Beijing halfway through a 4 week house-hunting/orientation trip prior to moving here for 3 years in January, so I thought I would post my thoughts & findings so far from a newbie perspective.

We are staying in serviced apartments near the Lufthansa Centre, which is ok but mainly office blocks with a few shops & places to eat close by. We are about 10 minutes walk from the nearest Subway station on line 10.

We have so far been out most nights in Sanlitun and have found our 'local' called The First Floor which is smoky but friendly and serves decent wine, beer & food. Staff have good English and are very friendly & welcoming. We also like The Tree, a belgian bar close to First Floor which does great pizza and has an amazing array of beers. As a smoker, I like the fact I can smoke whilst having a drink but it has taken a bit of getting used to as being from the UK, we haven't been able to do that for a couple of years! Cigarettes are amazingly cheap for the local brands, UK£7.50 for 200!! Doesn't exactly encourage smokers to stop!

Restaurants we've visited include The Blue Frog in The Village in Sanlitun, American food, slightly pricey I thought but good food and a nice atmosphere. The Den is a bit like a British pub, it shows EPL games. I can recommend Letts, they have a seafood & burger restaurants, excellent food at very good prices, also Pomodoro is very good Italian food.

We went to Wangfujing and saw the night food market, what an eye opener, anyone for fried scorpion or centipede or perhaps sheep penis might get your taste buds going, it's something that imo, can't be missed. We've had a short visit to Tian anmen Square, it's vast so we'll go back when we've moved here.

We completed our main mission which was to find an apartment, on our 2nd day of viewings and as the landlord wanted someone to move in quickly, we have obliged and can move in on Monday of next week, I'm sure it doesn't usually happen this quickly, so a massive Ikea shop was today's mission as landlords don't supply kitchen items, bedding, towels etc and of course, we've brought nothing like that with us and as our daughters are staying in our home in the UK, we can't bring all that stuff with us.

Beijing is very smoggy, busy, you take your life into your hands when you cross the busy intersections - I'm surprised there aren't more underpasses. The subway is very busy with lots of pushing & shoving and there are security checks, a bit like the ones at airports where you put your bag on a belt. A PITA but perhaps necessary. We've found Beijing to be pretty cosmopolitan and westernised, great nightlife scene, restaurants & bars and as for the shops, you couldn't really want more. Yashow market is great for bartering, it's expected and can be a lot of fun!

I think we will enjoy Beijing, there is so much for us to see & do and the expat life is waiting!!

Thanks for reading and I hope there is some infornation in this post that may be useful to people. If anyone wants more specific knowledge, please feel free to PM me and I'll try to help.

Lady1964

Beijing
 

Deleted

Beijing
 

If you like teppanyaki, try Tairyo in Sanlitun Village. It's 228RMB price fixe all you can eat and drink. There's a great little Spanish place just north of there (can't remember the name) with terrific paella and live flamenco guitar. It's small, though, so call ahead. Catching a cab on Friday or Saturday night is a royal pain, so it's good you're using and close to the metro. Anyone planning to stay in BJ should look for a hotel near a metro station. All the signs are in English as well as Chinese, and you can get just about anywhere for a 2RMB ticket (30 cents) and some walking on either end.

Now that it's getting colder, Houhai Lake isn't as comfy a stroll as usual, but it's my favorite place to hang out. It's particularly nice at night.

While you're wandering in Sanlitun, stop by Opposite House. It's pretty cool.

For more touristy stuff, I recommend the Summer Palace over the Forbidden City or Temple of Heaven. It's amazing.

Invest in some filter masks. The pollution doesn't improve in winter.

Since you're going to be living there awhile, you should look into hiring a language tutor. It's worth it, and not very expensive.

Expect to use up a lot of shoes. Beijing is very hard on footwear. Leave the Jimmy Choos home.

Those are just some random thoughts. I'm leaving for BJ this afternoon for my monthly trip.

Lady: I actually go out of my way to visit Home Plate, Kro's Nest, Sorabol (amazing coupon on meituan.com), and Bellagio. You are sitting pretty.

BTW - Chef Too isn't so far away from you. I went there on Thur night, and found it to be really good; figure y300 pp... well worth it.

OP, thanks for your post and welcome to China. Let us know how we can help. Don't get too excited about tracking where you've eaten, you'll be eating out lots in China so enjoy.

First, welcome to BJ lady1964! It's a very interesting place. I actually appreciate your food reviews, and we should maybe think about starting a dedicated thread on here for that....for me, slogging it out to the east side to have a bad meal is not fun, so good to know what's better and what's not.

My one piece of advice: as much fun (and hugely useful and interesting) as it's been to meet fellow expats, don't have an 'expat lifestyle'. I think one misses what's best about BJ - which is the rapid and exciting developments in China, amongst the Chinese. Unlike most expats here, I took a pay-cut to come to China -- but was hugely attracted by the pace of development, and opportunities to contribute the shaping of the next generation.

tb

Hi & thanks for the welcome words and advice :D

We are currently shuttling between the serviced apartment in Sanyuanqiao and our new apartment near Hujialou, all in all about a half hour round trip by foot & subway on line 10. We were very fortunate to get a great apartment very quickly - 2 days into our apartment hunting time and to be able to have the keys so quickly. After a huge shopping trip to Ikea at the weekend, and it all being delivered on Monday, we are now waiting for the internet to be connected for us, which we are hoping will be done tomorrow. It's a pita as we feel very much in limbo.

I also didn't realise that buying an electrical item isn't as simple as it is in the UK, it must have taken us nearly half an hour to pay for the kettle & iron - from indicating to the salesperson which ones we wanted to actually leaving the shop - made all the more difficult because we wanted to pay by credit card, but didn't have our passports so managed to find enough cash between us to leave the store.

As for learning Chinese, it's something hubby & I fully intend to do once we return to Beijing in January. We've picked up the odd word but it doesn't suffice when it comes to taxi drivers, however, we have a great tool called 'Beijing Taxi Guide' which has been lent to us by a colleague of hubby's. It's a small but thick and extremely useful guide which includes apartments, hotels, shopping, restaurants etc with English & Chinese so one simply finds where they need to go and shows the taxi driver. It's small enough to fit into a jacket pocket or a handbag, it costs 50RMB from the Wangfujing bookstore or I think it can be bought in the foreign book section at the Lufthansa Shopping Centre (which we have knicknamed Harrods!)

Thanks again for the advice & welcome, it's much appreciated.

So, here we are, very nearly at the end of our 4 week trip and it's been terrific. We return to the UK on Sunday for a couple of weeks over Xmas & New Year before moving to Beijing in January.
We moved into our apartment a week ago and we love it. We're in CBD at Central Park and for ex-pats, it's super. There are many amenities here, cafes, supermarkets, 2 health clubs, hairdressers, DVD shop, deli's, laundries, wine shops etc and we a a five minute walk from both The Place and The Kerry Centre with a very similar walk to the subway station on line 10.
There is a mix of nationalities living here with helpful staff. We have managed to get great internet service and hook up for Facebook and UK TV via the VPN recommended by Moondog - thanks for that, it works great! It might seem a bit sad to some that we are watching UK TV but it's a link to home and this info might help other new ex-pats know they can get this via the VPN.
We have found food shopping interesting - I bought what I thought was 2 pints of semi skimmed milk, it turned out to be yoghurt - not what I want in my tea, thankfully not an expensive mistake. Then there was what we thought were frozen chicken breasts, they weren't, what we bought was a whole chicken that was about 3 inches high :D these are all learning curves. We tend to shop at Jenny Lou's supermarket, they aren't like Tesco's, they are like a large corner shop (Nisa or Co-op) but seem to have most of what we need, although we will be bringing some items back from the UK that we haven't found here, PG Tips for one, Oxo cubes for another.

I have had my first experience of a 'squatty loo' and it's not something I wish to repeat in a hurry, I'm only grateful for two things: 1) I only needed a wee & 2) I was wearing trousers!!!

We also had lunch at a lovely Chinese restaurant today, Cuisine Cuisine, which is opposite Central Park. I was unaware it was quite smart, so I rocked up in my Uggs and leggings as it was an unexpected date with my husband :) They were curteousness personified and the food was probably the best I've had in Beijing this trip. I even ate Pig Tongue and Roast Pigeon - my tastes tend to be a bit conservative and I don't always like to try new foods, but this was very good. We had the set lunch menu and I would really recommend it. We intend to eat dinner there when we return in January.
Hubby and I have both commented that people here, be they wait staff, bar staff, shop staff, all seem to want to help you and be as polite and curteous as possible. This is in sharp contrast to the UK, where we often feel that as a customer we're an inconvenience and mean someone has to do what they are paid to do, it's a refreshing change.

All in all, it's been a great introduction to Beijing and although we'll miss our 3 daughters terribly when we return, I am actually looking forward to it.
Have a great Xmas & New Year everyone and best wishes for a very prosperous 2012 :)

Howdy neighbour ;) I live in the block where Jenny Lou is. CP is great, made settling in Beijing that much easier. Oh I know it's a total expat enclave, but after reading about how 'complicated' it is to pay for utilities in China, I appreciate the CP system where property management will stick a note on the door if our accounts dip below a certain amount and we can just leave money at the front desk to top it up.

Have a good trip home!

Small world. I used to live at Central Park also from 2005-2010, Tower 10. I was actually one of the first people to move into that building. Was great until it got overly popular and therefore too expensive unless you're on expat housing allowance. Management is about as good as it gets in Beijing, which makes life much easier than lousy Chinese apt management. Good access to subway as well. Only issue with this area of the CBD is all the support facilities are quite expensive. Have a good trip and maybe when you get back, we'll see you at one of our FT local get-togethers.

In spite of the fact that CP is too rich for my budget, I've been spending quite a bit of time in the area of late, and it's growing on me. Sure, you guys can't get taxis, but I've come to realize that you really have it all, and it's only getting better.

Some places I like:

-Gori (Japanese style Italian food; better umami than Italian Italian food)
-Westside Cafe (great in the summer; nice enough in the winter)
-Centro (not so different than the pre facelift Centro, but still cool)
-Pekatoh (possible spelling mistake; excellent value)
-Taj Pavilion (good lunch sets)
-I really want to try that hot pot place in the "Place"
-Trends Cafe (second floor of the Place, north building)
-Oxygen (gym in Millennium)
-Cornerstone (opening soon; the owners are great people, so I expect a great restaurant)
-Xiaowangfu (I know jiejie dislikes it, but it's an easy place to bring foreign guests for duck++)
-nearby Xiaowangfu, you can pick up grocery items without breaking bank

And, in May, you'll have Parkview Green (across the street from the Place), which aspires to be the nicest mall/hotel in town.

Guys, thanks for the info, particularly the list of eating places, we'll definately try some of them out.
Fimo, be good to meet up some time for coffee, we like to meet new people and yeah, I think the management are good here & their system as you say, for paying utilities is great ^
Have a great Xmas and New Year :D

Mornings aren't too difficult after 830am, usually a line of taxis waiting at the different entrances. And with the concierge service you can buzz the front desk to get a taxi from the line or the main road to come in instead of heading out to wait. Have been doing that the past 2 mornings bec of the darn cold.


Is it Pekotan at Central Park? It is nice...

Ahh I was wondering when that would open. Like the area isn't already surrounded by malls as it is ;)

lady1964, definitely, let's meet up after the holidays! PM me.

Me, too!

This may be a really boring bit of advice, but if you haven't already, get one of those flat mops with the interchangeable cloths and buy lots of extras. I found that if I did not "swiffer" my floors everyday, the following morning I could see my footprints from the bedroom to the bathroom in the microdust :td: I pretty much did a quick "swiffer" of the rooms and then dropped the cloth in the wash on a daily basis. Also all my couch cushions had washable and removeable covers that I would wash once a week :(

Similarly, get an ultrasonic humidifier (the quiet cool air ones) for each room and a space heater. Depending on whether your building is hooked up to the state's heating grid, it is schedule to turn be turned on and off during a specific time of the year. Sometime in Nov and then sometime in March/April irrespective of the actual weather conditions. I also had a large ionic air filter when I was there that I had to clean every other day. I found that the Hepa filters clogged too quickly and got too expensive to replace. :eek:

Other than that, try to find a few local noodle joints (I forget the names) as they make great noodles up there in the north :) Also most local wetmarkets have a cooked food section that has popcorn popped to order for about 2-Yuan to 5-Yuan depending on the flavours (plain sugar, sugar & coconut, sugar & sesame or sugar, sesame & coconut), plus there are the Chinese version of quesadillas (minus the cheese) that are filled with pork and scallions.

I think I spent an extraordinary amount of time buying end of day pastries from the Kempinsky and then drinking beers at the Paulaner in the Lufthansa centre :p as part of my daily routine.

Enjoy your time there :D I did despite all that dust ;)