moondog

Eating would be an obvious easy (and presumably attractive to your kids) alternative to ToH.

jplee3

Unless there is some specific restaurant suggestion you had in mind, i was referring to places to see (not necessarily eat at, as thats sort of a given….)

moondog

I understand that. I guess what I'm suggesting is to present the eating option itself as the potential main event.

jplee3

So I've added both of these to the list.

I did some research on roast duck and found a plethora of places:
Quanjude (which I hear is extremely overpriced and overrated), Da Dong (expensive but worthwhile), Siji Mingfu, Jing Zhun, Li Qun, Bianyifang, Hua's, etc...

Anyway, I was also considering Siji Mingfu (our guide recommends it) and Da Dong because my manager (who is Chinese and lived in Beijing for many years) recommends if we feel spendy. I suppose I could try all three How does Jingchen compare? I haven't really seen or heard a lot about it from researching online. Are there other very Beijing-specific items/foods we should definitely try while there?

moondog

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The consolidated Peking Duck thread

jplee3

thanks. I saw the last update was from 2018 which is quite some time ago

moondog

Normally, threads get retired after 10 years, but in the case of duck, you'll note that not a lot has changed.

Palal

Agreed. Ducks still fly over Beijing when migrating. Some end up on people's plates...

The good duck restaurants are still around.

narvik

The Quanjude Restaurant that was very close to where I used to live in Tongzhou closed sometime before (or during?) Covid and was replaced with another fancy restaurant. Tried their duck; was disappointed.
A new [chain] duck place opened up during Covid where I live now, and it was pretty decent for the RMB78 price...but it also closed about 6 months ago.
Need to find a new duck place...

wwtknoyb

The amount of money one can save, while planning a tour through China, by simply flying from second or third tier Airports close by, is simply staggering.

Skyscanner, which is nowadays also a part of the Trip.com Group, is really helpful in that regard. Thanks to the affordable High-Speed-Rail network, one can for example fly out of CZX or WUX instead NKG and easily save 50 or 100 EUR and more for flights to the same destination with the same Airline compared to flying out of NKG or NTG.

On a ten day trip with regular flights this amounts to almost 500-1000 EUR in savings.

moondog

Do you have any specific examples in mind? I'm having a hard time envisioning scenarios in which flying to Changzhou or Wuxi would make sense (unless those airports were close to where you want to go, of course).


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jplee3

i can’t imagine doing this with two kids and a bunch of luggage in haul… for solo travelers or couples that sounds like a fun adventure though. The idea of transferring between the airport to the train station then navigating to the hotel and vice versa seems like a lot of extra legwork… maybe i’m missing something but it just seems to me what you’re saving in money is being spent on time.

wwtknoyb

I agree, but as a budget traveller e.g. Airports like WNZ in combination with the Wenzhou Railway Station can save a whole lot of money while travelling in Zhejiang and neighbouring provinces, while at the same time also saving a lot of time compared to train journeys.

In the coming days I will criss/cross through Zhejiang and neighbouring provinces by train, but instead of doing the 7-8 h legs by train I fly to/from WNZ twice (inbound from TAO and then a day later to PVG) and travel from their onwards.

moondog

How do the mechanics of your Wenzhou plan work? I.e. Do you have to get yourself to Rome on one of the two days per week there are flights? Is WNZ the destination or do you need to add tags onto the same ticket? Tmk, the airport isn't close to any of the train stations or the city (this is quite normal in China).

If you were the OP (Los Angeles-based), how could availing of these insignificant airports save money? That's strictly a hypothetical question, of course, because he settled on the more conventional Beijing/Shanghai open jaw, which tmk is (much) cheaper than combinations like Shenyang/Hangzhou. But, your approach seems to be a little more involved than that?

wwtknoyb

Tonight I will fly BUD-NGB (I am based near Vienna), take the train to Nantong, next day onwards to Nanjing. next day fly the first leg of Nanjing to Qingdao, next day from Qingdao I fly to Wenzhou, from Wenzhou I take the train to Fuzhou then next day train back to Wenzhou Airport, fly from Wenzhou to Shanghai Pudong,stay in Pudong , take train to Changzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou, stay in Shanghai Hongqiao for a second night, then train to Hangzhou stay in Hangzhou, next day train to Ningbo, stay in Ningbo...and after ten days in China fly back NGB-BUD.

Regarding Wenzhou I solely relied on the information provided by:

https://www.chinaairlinetravel.com/r...u-airport.html

I got BUD-NGB-BUD two days before departure for only 400 EUR.

Originally I planned to fly some of these legs and also onwards to CSX and CGO etc..... using the near vicinity airport option of Skyscanner the savings when one departs from WUX, CZX, HUZ (Shenzhen), WHA etc. compared to flying out of bigger Airports would have been almost 500 EUR on a ten days trip - some of these lesser known, insignificant Airport cities are only 10-30 minutes away by high-speed train from the more significant, relevant/well known cities....but then I decided to take trains and stay in the area of Zhejiang and Jiangsu this time.

From the lesser known Airports the cheap airfares more often then not include checked luggage, whereas when flying out from the neighbouring bigger, well known Airport with the same Airline they do not.

The thing that causes me a little bit of a headache is the part of not using the international part TAO-HKG with Shandong Airlines, especially if Qingdao Airlines and Shandong Airlines use the same check-in agent at Qingdao Airport...they will see both PNR and Qingdao Airlines to WNZ departs earlier than TAO-HKG.