Wheels of Addis

After the madness of Macau, I was craving a little peace. And where better to go than Lamma Island?

It was just a very quick ferry ride from Central pier before I got to this…

Lunch was a leisurely affair. I sat at a table overlooking the harbour, basking in the sun and supping on sushi, ramen and tempura. Nothing better.

Having eaten my fill, I started on a long hike South across the spine of the island, stopping only occasionally to rest at beautiful sandy beaches. The further south I got, the fewer people I saw. It was a day all to myself and my thoughts.

I walked all the way to the most southerly pier on the island and sat at a lonely cafe drinking a quiet coffee by the water. Blissful.

I caught a ferry back to Aberdeen just as the sun was setting.

Macau hits you like a tonne of bricks. It’s loud, it’s hot, it’s bright, it’s brash. It leaves you punch drunk and hungry for more.

We took the ferry and our first stop was an eye-opening, whirlwind tour of the ultimate in casino kitsch: The Venetian. Half an hour was enough and we were ready to move on to the real world and real daylight.

On to the market, where we were offered sweet pork jerky, spicy candied ginger and lots and lots of hot, gloopy custard tarts. My big temptation was bubble tea. And it didn’t me take long to cave in to a big, cold, slurp-a-thon in a cup:

After taking in the big attractions, we sloped off into the side streets to discover more about Macau street life. The bright colours grabbed us at every corner: 

We stopped for a snack at a BBQ stand. This vendor was selling deliciously sticky sweet and spicy pork sticks. A queue of hungry passers-by waited patiently to make their order.

Macau was bathed in light and made for a beautiful day trip. The ferry ride home felt longer than the ride in, but at least I had one last custard pie to keep me going.

There’s something kind of yummy about Kowloon street food. I don’t know if it’s the atmosphere or the slightly we-shouldn’t-really-be-here vibe, but it’s good. Real good.

We ended up on some back alley late at night hunting out some serious dining. Diners lined the pavement, seated at greasy tables, puffing away at cigarettes and sucking on beer. Cars lined the street. When a cop came by, the restaurant staff were sure to warn everyone. It seemed friendly enough.

The kitchen was installed between cars on the road. Sweat pouring off the chefs; flames jumping out from under their woks.

We were seated indoors and offered a plastic bowl and a jug of tea with which to rinse our dishes. 

It didn’t take us long to order from the menu. Note the bin liner for a table cloth: this isn’t a sit-and-linger restaurant so much as a getting-down-to-the-business-of-eating establishment.

First up some crispy fried squid along with sweet and sour pork. Fatty, fast and dirty.

Then the real treat: salt and pepper mantis prawns. 

Huge and meaty: these are serious crustaceans. Check out the claws! 

Jean-Pierre spotted a cornflower blue guitar on the side of the road on our way home. But we were too full and our fingers were too greasy to pick it up.

We climbed The Peak on Boxing Day. On our way home, we decided to stop in Aberdeen, which is on the other side of Hong Kong island.

We took a break in a little park where men gathered with their pet budgies. It was either them taking their birds for a walk or the other way around. I’m not sure.

Right beside the park, we found this delicious vegan shop full to brimming with kaleidoscopic sweets. Each lotus paste bun more tempting than the next.

But there was another reason for coming to Aberdeen - sweet though the men with birds may have been. The reason was the fish market. Vast and bustling, this enormous indoor market was virtually dancing with bright lights and vivid colours.

Prices were marked on styrofoam so they could sit in the water in with the seafood.

These women were buying enormous whelks:

I really liked the simplicity of the scales used to weigh the fish:

So what did we have for dinner? Well, fish of course! Stir fried prawns and Tom Yum Goong. Fresher than fresh from the market.

If there’s one thing that’s exciting about Hong Kong (not counting the nightly light show), it’s the food. And while dining is pretty thrilling in and of itself, the best way to truly appreciate the food is to visit the markets.

We spent a heady afternoon in Wan Chai Market, where the stalls are virtually buckling under the weight of all the produce. 

In the fish section, shrimp kept jumping out of their baskets and straight onto the street. Fish and eels slithered on the pavements at our feet:

This corner meat stall proudly displayed every single part of an animal on offer. The heart, the lungs, the horns…

This lady sold beancurd in every guise, including noodles:

We were out shopping for Thai ingredients. Tuti was going to teach me how to make some classic Thai dishes, like satai and green curry. Here she is with a basket full of lemongrass and limes.

It’s our last day in Beijing and our last chance to stock up on souvenirs. We left our hotel early and headed out to the nearest shops. It was beyond freezing: even my teeth were cold! Jean-Pierre was now wearing two scarves. I put on tights, leggings and trousers. Our cheeks were like apples and our noses cherry red.

We stopped for a quick snack on the side of the road and shivered as we gobbled down the hot pastries:

We then happened upon a salon that was just opening and decided it would not only be a good place to get a haircut, but also a warm place to get our circulation going again. We came out later, freshly clipped and somewhat thawed.

Next was my chance to stock up on as many jujubes as I could fit in my bag. We found a shop that sold nothing but these Chinese dates and bought them by the bagfull.

By lunchtime, we dropped by a Muslim restaurant which looked warm and inviting. At some point I’m going to have to learn that ‘inviting’ does not always equal ‘delicious’. Yes, it did seem to be a very popular lunchtime venue, but the food was really unappetizing. We somehow ended up with a giant bowl of persimon soup. It was easily enough for ten people and didn’t contain even a hint of persimon. One beef-burger filled dumpling, a biteful of bitter vine leaf dumpling, and half a biteful of sesame bun later, and it was time to go.

One final shopping opportunity: our hotel recommended a market for locals where you could buy all sorts of stuff. We arrived after a long taxi ride through the intense traffic and were greeted by staff in Santa costumes.

Swathes of people were pushing and shoving their way through the milling throng - all to nab a bargain. It was utter chaos - like Westfield all squeezed into an apartment block and filled with tat. 

The building’s decor was as chaotic as the crowds: giraffe heads and cows heads mounted next to each other on the wall. Penguins next to pigs, next to rabbits, next to cockerels - all plastic and cloaked in Christmas gear.

Twenty minutes of mayhem and we were ready to escape. Our last experience of Beijing a glimpse into a world of intense, meaningless materialism. Mounds of junk that will probably fill landfills for just as long, if not much longer, than the Forbidden City has been standing at the heart of the city.

Today’s first stop was the yak yoghurt shack. It’s about a ten minute walk from our hotel and seems to always have a queue outside. I had plain yoghurt and Jean-Pierre had his with mango. And when I say yoghurt, it was really more like a white custard. It looked horrible - a thick skin on top and a jelly-like consistency - but it tasted like heaven. I almost felt sad we hadn’t had any before now - what a wasted opportunity!

We scoffed our yoghurt right there on the street and then headed south to Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City.

Here I am on Tiananmen Square with a flag pole coming out of my hat:

A kid we met in the square, having a snack:

Me and Mao, a guard and a fire hydrant:

We had already decided to get a guide, so once we had gone through Tiananmen Square, we kept our eyes peeled for likely candidates. As it turned out, we were extremely fortunate to find an amazing, fun and hilarious guide: Xile. He’s 20, speaks fluent English with a sort of Mexican hip hop lilt, and regaled us with Sean Paul songs and Borat quotes. We ended up spending the whole day together, hanging out and laughing. By the end, we all agreed that we were the same kind of people and would try to stay in touch.

Here are Jean-Pierre and Xile, pals for life:

The Forbidden City is too vast to see in a single afternoon (or even a day) so we focused our attentions on the areas my cousin Michael had recommended - in particular the concubine’s living quarters. 

Xile took us through the city pointing out the most interesting sections and painting a picture of life as an Emperor - and a concubine. I think the Forbidden City is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been to. We really only scratched the surface, which intrigued me enough to want to come back one day.

It was bitterly cold. In fact, the coldest day since our arrival. So much so, that after a few hours of touring the palace compound, we were ready to move on to somewhere warm (although not before shaking hands with the last Emperor’s nephew who is a calligrapher. We spent some time having his calligraphy explained to us).

Our dinner the night before was pretty dire, so were keen for Xile to recommend somewhere for us to eat lunch. He took us to a nearby Hunan restaurant, which was a total dive. The table next to ours was filled with smoking, drinking, ashing-and-spitting-on-the-floor men. And yet, once again, we were surprised by the quality of the food. It was delicious.

We ate Mao’s favourite dish: a sweet pork belly with capsicum. A bubbling hot dish of sticky tofu with chilies. We also had a whole baked fish with shitake mushrooms, which everyone agreed was outstanding.

Xile then took us to the Pearl Market, which was much like the black market we had gone to the other day. It was hectic and mostly full of tacky clothes and bags. The sellers were more than keen to attract our attention: they would grab our arms, block our path, or pull us in different directions. We managed to find a few hidden gems, but decided to draw that episode to a close after an hour or so.

We had a quick Tsing Tao beer and peanuts with Xile at the ‘Leymo’ Cafe before saying our goodbyes and heading to the theatre to see the Shaolin Monks.

Buoyed by our experience at lunchtime, we braved another dive of a restaurant near our hutong for dinner. But it was a disappointment. The same kind of smoking, spitting men. The same sticky table tops and ash on the floor, but not the same calibre of food.

We had lamb with cumin, which was OK - a bit like naughty, fatty popcorn. Also a tiger salad (green pepper and cucumber) and a stringy beancurd salad. 

Utterly exhausted, we made our way back to our hotel and the warmth of our rooms. It was now bitterly cold and we each had more layers on than ever. 

We work up early in order to visit the factory making one of Jean-Pierre’s sofa designs. It was a tough start as we spent the morning testing, analysing and prodding cushions. 

Today was freezing and smoggy. The sun never really came through strongly and the moon was orange in its zenith. The smog, the traffic, the endless tower blocks, and concrete; Beijing really felt like a grey metropolis.

The factory invited us for lunch and took us to a shopping complex where the best ‘hot pot’ restaurant in Beijing is found. It didn’t look all that much, hidden away as it was on the top floor of a mall, and yet it was hugely popular. A massive restaurant packed to the rafters with hungry diners. 

The hot pot itself was gorgeous - and boy was there a lot of it. We had beef, lamb, pork’s blood, quails’ eggs, fish balls, mushrooms, daikon, lotus root, tofu, bean curd noodles - the list goes on. 

At the end of the meal - just when we were really fit to burst - out came a man who employed incredible acrobatics to prepare our noodles for us. Dough flying over our heads and round us like skipping rope.

And then we ate some more.

Our final stop for the day was 798, which is the art district of Beijing. It’s like the Tate Modern multiplied fifty times over. A whole borough dedicated to contemporary art, photography and design. Galleries were housed in beautiful Bauhaus factories and the surrounding area was industrial, dusty and hyper trendy.

People from remote parts of China gathered here to sell tribal art or black market art books. We encountered this kid and his mother selling pelts and trinkets on the side of the road.

We spent a long time wandering around looking at some great (and not so great) art. It reminded me of being in Berlin’s Mitte or London’s East End: here too you can spend hours hopping from gallery to gallery without ever getting bored. I briefly forgot we were even in China.

The traffic on the way home brought us crashing back to reality as we were quite far out from the city centre, and cab after cab refused to take us back to our hotel. They couldn’t quite work out where it was on the map. So we stood on the side of the road wincing as we were rejected by cab drivers time and again. It’s easy to forget how big this city is until you realise even taxis are unlikely to know more than a portion of it well. 

Tomorrow, we’ll be back in our district and re-exploring Beijing’s heritage, which will make a nice contrast to today’s adventures.

We arrived at the lamasery after lunch. It was spectacular: shrine after shrine, each one housing a bigger, more impressive buddha than the last. Jaw-dropping paintings, decorative art, incense, sand sculptures; the place was awash with people and yet also peaceful.

From the peace of the temple to the throngs of the market place; we descended from Nirvana to the depths of the black market. 

Spread over multiple floors, we perused everything from trainers and handbags, to tea and gadgets. Sellers caterwauled from every stall. This was shopping at its most aggressive. Bartering was the order of the day with prices dropping from 800 Yuan to 100 Yuan on a single item. 

It was exhausting, fun and probably quite vile. I felt like I had slipped from a higher consciousness to a lack of conscience. And yet my new gold converse feel rather comforting on my tired feet. 

By dinner time, we were still shopping and really still quite full from lunch, so it wasn’t until very late that we started looking for a restaurant in earnest. The place we found was on a tiny hutong, east of the drum tower called Mr Shi (pronounced ‘sher’). It was really not the most salubrious location but having had a good experience with our lunchtime restaurant, we felt it was worth a go.

Inside was chaotic and frankly filthy (motorcycles parked next to tables, sticky tables and chairs etc),  but that wasn’t going to stop us. Mr Shi is famous for his dumplings, so we ordered three kinds: pork and pepper, beef and carrot, egg and leek. 

Mr Shi invited me to come into the kitchen and have a go at making some of the fried dumplings. I obliged, of course.

On the side, we ordered 1000 year old eggs, cucumber and garlic salad, and crispy fried green beans with Sezchuan pepper. Absolutely, utterly scrumptious.

As well as the delicious food, Mr Shi was hilarious. We laughed and giggled all the way through our meal and didn’t stop over the long walk back.

Isabel is 95 and sharp as a tack. She was born in Szechuan and lived most of her life in Beijing. Her son Michael’s English drifts in and out of Mandarin without, it would seem, him noticing. Raised in China, Mandarin is very much his first language. 

Both my cousins are wonderful, welcoming, fascinating people. (To find out more about my cousins in China, there are plenty of articles and books to read about their experience of living in Beijing through the Cultural Revolution. Start here and read on)

Michael guided us through a small shrine to a former prime minister of the Song Dynasty (late 13th Century), Wen Tianxiang. This great ‘scholar-general’ was imprisoned, tortured and later executed by the Mongols during Kublai Khan’s invasion of Beijing. Michael’s wife also happens to be a direct descendent of his - so naturally, Michael explained, he’s our ancestor, too.

Wen was imprisoned for several years within the compound where the shrine now sits. A tree within one of its inner courtyards is said to have been planted by Wen himself. It’s a jujube tree and we were able to taste its fruit which, when dry, tastes just like a date.

We then made our way to a local restaurant on the corner of two hutongs. The exterior looked none too promising, but once inside it was rather charming.

Of course there were no loos in the building, which seems to be the case in most places in hutongs. I therefore braved the public toilets, which are situated at regular intervals throughout the area. There were no doors and no cubicles. It was freezing (only a curtain in the main doorway protecting me from the elements) and what Jean-Pierre later termed a ‘squat and talk’ situation. I didn’t mind really, but I shouldn’t want to repeat the experience every day.

Meanwhile, lunch was outstanding. The food was Yunnan-style and utterly moreish. We ate tofu with pork, juicy Szechuan aubergines, a whole fished served in bubbling chili sauce, beef with mint, buttery Chinese leaves and fried rice with olive tips.

The conversation was equally engaging as Isabel recounted the time she spent living with remote tribes in Northern China and Tibet in the ’30s and ’40s. She was documenting their way of life and the photographs she took at the time are set to be published in a book this Spring.

The meal, though ridiculously inexpensive, was far too much for four people. Valiant though our efforts to polish off every dish may have been, there were still plenty of leftovers for Isabel and Michael to take home. 

Happy, warm and very full, we bade farewell to our cousins and made our way to our afternoon destination. Next stop: Beijing’s sprawling, spectacular Lamasery.