I have China on my mind again, probably because another group of inveterate travelers recently asked me and my husband, Patrick, to take them on a grand tour of the country as we did for 14 others a few months ago.
We usually take a dozen or less on these jaunts so that we can give them a VIP experience, including business or first class air travel, the best lodging and the ultimate access to China’s culture.
We’ve made many trips to China and Hong Kong since our first in 1986. Patrick was born and lived in Shanghai until he was 18.
He then lived in Hong Kong for another decade before coming to the U.S.
Only when China became more hospitable to tourists in the mid 1980s did we begin to explore the country. Patrick found that a lot had changed, though the old China that he and his family knew was,and is,still thriving.
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Lobby of Shangri-La China World Hotel: Beijing hotel is within walking distance of Silk Alley |
The changes toward modernization that we’ve seen during the past 20 years (six trips for me and seven for Patrick) are truly amazing. At first, everyone was dressed the same in Mao Tse-Tung style.
By the early 1990s, Western dress habits were flourishing. Everything from McDonald’s to Starbucks and jeans to CDs had taken hold.
New cities like Pudong, across the river from Shanghai, have appeared out of nowhere.
We’ve stayed in Pudon’s Shangri La hotel, one of the most spectacular I’ve encountered.
(We stay in the luxurious Shangri-La hotels as much as possible in China. But in Hong Kong, the venerable Conrad Hilton also is at the top of our list.)
Old parts of the major cities like Beijing and Shanghai are seeing stunning renovations to historical buildings. We’ve eaten in restaurants that are set behind the fa & #231;ades of old buildings.
They are more unique and beautiful than anything we’ve seen anywhere else in the world.
One of the country’s newest highlights is the Three Gorges project on the Yangtze, the largest dam and locks project in the world. We did a four-day cruise on the Yangtze, ending in Chongqing for the day.
We’ve been through the Panama Canal a few times on luxury ships that barely fit within the locks. The Three Gorges locks are so massive that we were in them with two midsize ships and five smaller ships.
The Three Gorges dam leaves an imprint on the traveler. The project caused vast human displacement and created new cities atop the hills where families were resettled. Temples were dismantled and rebuilt higher up.
We’ve started most of our tours in Hong Kong. It seems that everyone wants to go there to shop, if nothing else. While it’s lovely to see the highlights, the shopping Mecca for tourists and the aura for fine dining have definitely moved full force to Shanghai.
There you’ll find the bargains and also the modern new walking streets plush with true European and American couture goods at comparable, stratospheric prices and the most glamorous of restaurants to sate your appetite.
An itinerary for a good first overview of China ordinarily begins at Hong Kong and ends in Beijing,or the reverse of that. Two days in Hong Kong are enough to see the highlights.
Eat in local Chinese restaurants that provide good Cantonese food.
On one trip, we had a departure dinner at the gorgeous Shang Palace restaurant in the Island Shangri-La in Hong Kong. It was a gold service dinner, ultra opulent in style and d & #233;cor, a meal of a dozen courses. I wouldn’t spend time at Stanley Market, the old knockoff shopping vicinity where everything is almost the same in every stall and least interesting to those of us who have shopped so well elsewhere.
The shopper’s dream now is realized in Shanghai, a short flight from Hong Kong. One needs a minimum of three full days to take in Shanghai, a huge and cosmopolitan city.
Skip shopping at China’s Friendship Stores. They were invented as places for tourists when our comings and goings were still tightly controlled.
Yu Garden is part of downtown Shanghai and, with a history of more than 400 years, is a cultural must see. It’s very peaceful with each pavilion, walkway, stone and stream expressing the quintessence of Ming and Qing Dynasty design.
Shanghai Museum presents a cultural swing through the centuries and seeing the Children’s Palace is imperative. The Shanghai Acrobatic Exhibition is one of the best in China.
On our most recent trip, the first taste of fine Western dining came when we had dinner at Kathleen’s Five, atop the Shanghai Art Museum, a marvelous 1930s landmark.
This restaurant offers a view of all downtown Shanghai through walls of glass. Delicate dishes of risotto with porcini and truffles, seared foie gras with a coulis of mango, lamb and steaks and then desserts reminiscent of a French pastry shop, plus fine wines from three countries, kept us happy for many hours.
The Bund is Shanghai’s financial district overlooking the water and it is studded with historic buildings.
Every visitor to the city strolls this area. It now boasts some astoundingly gorgeous Western restaurants tucked behind old and beloved fa & #231;ades. We enjoyed two restaurants in a seven-story building called Three on the Bund and are so thankful to have such memories.
Our group had a Western lunch, with an overview of old and new parts of the city, at the top floor restaurant, New Heights. As darkness fell, the restaurant offered a breathtaking 360-degree view, studded with neon lighting.
The use of neon is now a prevalent feature in Shanghai, turning the city by night into a magnificent work of art.
Also housed in Three on the Bund is Jean-George Vongerichten’s first eponymous restaurant outside the U.S. We peeked in, but did not eat there. It is marked by rich, dark woods and luxurious table appointments that made me catch my breath.
In that same building is a drop-dead gorgeous restaurant, where we did dine, called Laris. It was chosen as one of Conde Nast Traveler’s “80 Hot Tables in the World for 2005.”
This is a joint venture between famed architect/designer Michael Graves and Greek/Australian chef David Laris, formerly a star chef in London. Laris has its own chocolate making facility that lurks with its own hallway view, which you observe through a wall of glass and marble. A seafood bar emerges from behind another marble wall.
Beautiful plates of food bring forth stunning tastes at Laris. Imagine a foie gras torte with jams of rose petal and violet. Grilled abalone with crispy pork belly, tenderloin with Balinese pepper sauce and bone marrow souffl & #233;, wild duck with day lily and porcini-lemon risotto with foie gras and quail make me wish I were there at this moment.
After traveling along the Yangtze River, we arrived at Xian, where you must see the archaeological dig of the century, the Terra Cotta Soldiers.
When we arrived there in 1986, less than 700 had been uncovered and there was only a small, narrow wooden catwalk above the working archaeologists.
Now, more than 6,000 of the replica soldiers have been uncovered and there are huge marble pavilions from which to observe.
Xian also has the most beautiful cultural show in China. The Tang Dynasty Show features a very good dinner and wines in a lovely building and the regional extravaganza of a show takes you through all parts of China.
The costumes are widely conceded to be the most elegant and beautiful in all of China. There is no Chinese opera aspect to this performance, just straightforward, understandable dancing, entertainment, music and storytelling.
On to Beijing. I can almost get to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (9,000 halls and rooms built between 1417 and 1420 as imperial residences) with my eyes closed because I’ve been there so many times. Ditto for the Summer Palace.
The Great Wall is walkable from many points. For an even more enjoyable experience than you’d have from other access places, request that your tour planner (this needs to be done here in the states) has you scheduled for the Ju Rong Guan section of the wall.
This will permit you to walk the stairs of the wall as high as your energy level allows and the travel planner can schedule lunch after your walk at the amazing Commune by the Great Wall.
The Commune by the Great Wall was built by 12 world-class architects. It is ultra modern and nestled by itself in a valley near the Great Wall, 40 miles outside of Beijing.
We enjoyed lunch, looking at furniture and other interior decorations from distinguished designers such as Serge Mouille, Thierry Hoppe, Von Robinson and Philippe Starck, among others.
Shopping is tremendous at Beijing’s Silk Alley, actually a huge multi-storied building sans air conditioning, I caution. We stayed at the Shangri-La China World Hotel in Beijing, possibly the most elegant hotel I’ve seen worldwide. It’s within walking distance of Silk Alley.
If you are in the market for exclusive haute couture merchandise, take the escalator down from the lobby of the China World Hotel and you will find a two-level mall that has nothing but famous names from mostly Europe and the U.S.: Gucci, Hermes, Versace, Escada and so on. These are not knockoff stores.
One can relive old China by a rickshaw ride through the Hutong, either in Shanghai or Beijing. We did this ride through the old alleys in Beijing, where the less privileged live in cramped buildings lining the lanes. We have our travel planner arrange for us to have lunch with one of the hutong families at their family table for another memorable segment of life in China that we can take home with us.
Our last dinner in China was at Humble House, a restaurant that makes a mockery of the name.
It is a palace of fusion cuisine, part of a chain of ultra upscale dining establishments throughout Asia. There is an oasis of marble and extravagant fixtures and art and it even has a huge reflection pool in the middle.
We had a salad of organic vegetables, filet mignon cut into cubes and stir-fried with a French black pepper sauce, chicken in a salt crust, oven-baked fish, an assortment of vegetable side dishes and a very Western dessert, not to mention some classy wines.
Temples are important to the Chinese and experiencing some of them is on every one of our itineraries. I would recommend visiting the Wild Goose Pagoda in Xian, built in 652. It is a pyramid with a height of 60 meters.
There are two stories about why it was built: one is that it was to honor the mother of Emperor Tan Gaozong. the other is that it was erected to protect the sacred Buddhist scriptures brought to China from India. It is inspiring, especially if you make it to the top.
Many Orange County business people have experienced China with us, getting an idea of why the country is the awakening giant and why so many businesses now have offices there, especially in the economic center of the country, Shanghai.
Bill and Helen Hamilton of Newport Beach, former owners of Lido Isle’s Cannery restaurant for 25 years and owners of the pub with great food, Malarkey’s, have shared these China experiences.
Ted and Sheri Hoover, also from Newport Beach and franchisees for all those Panera Bakery and Cafes you see going up in Central and South County, have traveled with us.
Judy and Rich Maggio of Nellie Gail waltzed through China with us on our last trip, this being in between trips to Europe we’ve taken together. Rich has done various kinds of business ventures involving factories and contacts in China for many years.
Karyn Philippsen, international hospitality consultant and president of the Laguna Beach Visitors and Convention Bureau, also has traveled with us.
Anyone who will be traveling to China, or would like to do so, can contact me at chaothyme@aol.com and I will be happy to give more detail on places I’ve stayed and restaurants and sites that I’ve found remarkable.
I arrange all of our itineraries with the help of Polly Yu, a principal at Asia Getaway in San Diego County: (888) 288-1868.
She spends several weeks a year in China and Hong Kong searching out the best and the newest of restaurants and accommodations and selecting guides.
