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Xian is a fascinating city, even for the most amateur of historians, and one of the top three tourist draws in China. From the Terracotta Warriors to the temples and mosques found within in the iconic city walls, there is plenty to explore. So if you only have 2 days in Xian, how do you make the most of your time? This 2 day Xian itinerary will help!
Harbin, in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province, isn’t on most travellers radar for ten months a year. However, when the winter chill really sets in, a magical kingdom grows up, Frozen-style, made of ice and snow. It becomes one of the greatest places to visit in China. This annual festival is Harbin’s huge party piece, and this your ultimate guide to Harbin Snow and Ice Festival.
If you are passing through China and find yourself with just 24 hours in Shanghai, how do you make the most of your time? Shanghai is a great stopover city, and this short guide will help you enjoy one day in Shanghai, on a budget.
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The Terracotta Warriors of Xian are one of the most important sights in China, and possibly the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century. So if you are staying in Xian, how do you go about visiting? This handy guide is everything you need to know about visiting the Terracotta Warriors of Xian.
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Our total fail in Harbin aside, in early 2019 Mr Fluskey and I travelled the length of Asia by train over almost three weeks. We managed 4770 miles on the tracks! At the very start of our journey, on our flight to Shanghai, we had watched the map on the monitors, wondering what the landscape below had in store for us. Even at 39,000 feet it seemed to take forever to pass over Russia, but somehow we crossed quite a sizeable chunk of it by train…in January! (And I didn’t freeze to death!) We wanted to look back over our whole adventure, so let us share some Trans-Siberian reflections:
I’m not going to lie, this whole trip was pretty amazing. It has been so nice to relive it by blogging my way through it, but I didn’t get to tell you everything that happened and these highlights deserve to be shared:
So, after missing our train in China (more about that fail further down the list) we returned to our hostel and began to investigate alternative routes into Russia. It was with crazy luck, the flight between Harbin (China) and Irkutsk (Siberia) left the next morning. This flight on a rather tiny plane, only flies once a week and we were so fortunate to snag what seemed to be the last two seats.
Fluky Fluskeys eh!?
Barrelling through the snow on a dogsled in Lake Baikal was my kind of winter sport. I say, legs stuck out in front of me, bouncing and giggling. It was mildly adrenaline fuelled, involved almost zero effort from me, and they lent us huge boots and beautifully padded jumpsuits. The best thing was to finally be interacting with the landscape that had been on the other side of the train window. Read all about it here.
Harbin Ice and snow festival, in northeast China, was a complete marvel. I had seen pictures of its giant ice structures, I had read that they were life-sized, but I’m not sure I truly believed it until I saw the entrance gate looming above us. As the sunset, the lights inside the immense glass-like structures were turned on and the incredibly gaudy colours shone across the site.
Read our ultimate guide to the Harbin snow and ice festival here
We were SO lucky with the weather. -10°C may not sound warm, but when you realise that this is 10-15°C warmer than the seasonal average, it doesn’t seem so bad. It meant that we could stay at the festival for a good amount of time, only feeling the serious sting of cold towards the end of the evening.
The next day, the clouds cleared and we had a bright blue sky, contrasting beautifully with dazzling white snow sculptures. It was everything I had dreamed it would be, and really quite a lot more!
On a day trip from the Russian university city of Perm, we explored the glittering caves of ice in Kungur. We have been through a fair number of caves, but I’ve never seen them lined with glitter before. I don’t know what I was expecting but there was a lot to see down there, and it was weird to feel like 0°C was warm! Check out the whole blog post see all those surprises.
Saint Basil’s Cathedral was so beautifully colourful inside and out, like an ice cream sundae laden with E-numbers. Even though it wasn’t actually the end of our journey, it felt like the spiritual end. It is always the first image that springs to mind when I think of Russia and its iconic towers held more treasures than I knew. Every room had a crazy colour scheme or a stunning wall of art. It was like Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen had been given free reign to build a cathedral.
Heading to Moscow? Read all about the best way to spend 48 hours in Moscow here!
Exploring our first city in Russia, I was expecting a few orthodox churches, and a giant stone head of a famous Soviet leader, but who knew there was going to be a golden pagoda in the snow in Ulan-Ude!? It was definitely strange to feel my body in utter confusion trying to resolve its usual state of warmth when visiting Buddhist monasteries with the utterly bitter winter wind. Still, it was a nice view across Ulan-Ude and I taught us a little about the diversity of Russia.
Just around the corner from Red Square in Moscow is a very special games arcade. Machines here are relics of a gaming era gone by. Metal, very tactile games kept us thoroughly entertained for almost two hours. It was a lovely, carefree time. We had to buy more tokens because it was so nice to unwind like kids.
No, not because of the vodka! Surviving a whole session in Gorky Park’s amazing ice rink without landing on my bottom was a sensation! The rink is immense, and skaters can follow long tracks, eat, drink and be merry over 800m² of ice. It makes every rink in London feel teeny tiny and I am incredibly jealous of Moscovites that we don’t have this in London.
We didn’t have much time in St Petersburg, but we made the most of what time we had by heading straight to the huge and beautiful Hermitage Museum. Spread across five buildings, this is part palace, part gallery, part history museum and wholly gorgeous.
Give Russia a quick google, look on BBC iPlayer, or log into Facebook, and the image of Russia that appears is one of a scary state, ruled by a hard-face, hard-abbed semi-dictator. Human rights are sliding into reverse and the background of grey concrete is ever present. But boy, was it great to replace those images with great memories of lovely people, ready to help and eager to chat. We saw snow-covered, brightly-coloured wooden buildings and stunning natural scenery. I am going to try and hold these with me next time I see all that bad news coming out of the country.
Messing up during our travels usually make the best stories. There were only a couple of serious fails during this trip, and then there were the times things just weren’t going our way:
The day we missed the train was almost a total bust. If it wasn’t for the wonders of the snow festival on Sun Island, I would have had a mini meltdown (snow pun intended). Luckily, exploring the amazing snow sculptures left me feeling so elated that I had just enough joy to get me through that weird and horrible mistake.
To cut a long story short, we somehow sat at Harbin station and never actually caught our train to Russia. To make a short story long, read all about our epic Trans-Siberian fail in the blog post all about that frustrating day here.
As much as I love my guidebooks, they are only ever as up to date as the last time the writer visited that destination. That could be up to three years before the book was actually published. This has led to plenty of long, pointless searches for places that are shut, gone, closed or changed.
Trekking around the streets of Harbin, after a long day in the cold, my tummy was growling and my legs were freezing. We got to the right area of town and began looking for the spot recommended by LP. As we searched fruitlessly, the potent stink of tripe wafted across the street. It permeated everywhere and we just couldn’t seem to escape it. There are many unpleasant smells to encounter around the world but tripe is one that poor Mr Fluskey just can’t abide.
We finally discovered the restaurant closed and dark, clearly long shut, and this disappointment, my freezing feet and Mr Fluskey’s offended nasal passages left the whole evening with a thoroughly unpleasant aftertaste.
We just had one proper argument during the trip, and Mr Fluskey didn’t even realise that it was one. During our sightseeing day in Ulan-Ude, with temperatures down at -19°C, my legs began to hurt n a new way. The muscles ached, and the skin felt completely red raw as I walked. I was desperate to get back to the hotel to warm up, but he wanted to see one last thing (a tank across the other side of a huge road). I started shouting at Mr Fluskey in the street and I was close to tears.
We went to see the tank and it was NOT worth it.
When we got back to the room, I peeled off my base layer tights, leggings and jeans, as well as several pairs of socks. My thighs were bright pink and very cold to the touch. We both began wondering how close to hypothermia I was when my thighs would not return to their normal colour for hours. We went up to the rooftop bar, and despite being up there in a new pair of trousers, and with a blanket over my legs, they stayed cold. It was only when I had a shower and finally got into my pyjamas and dressing gown, that they warmed up and returned to their normal pale colour.
This one was a little less dangerous but…
I have always said that I’d rather be too hot, than too cold. I still stick by that, but travelling from Perm to Moscow by train, we were starting to melt. The train was really hot, at 24°C. Normally that wouldn’t be bad but we were both forced to wear our thermal base layers they were the smallest clothes we had. Stupidly, we hadn’t packed anything for the possibility of warmth. Plus, our bodies had become so used to temperatures well below 0°C that I just think they had forgotten how to cope!
Isn’t it interesting how we all rely so heavily on Google Maps these days? I am definitely guilty of this and it got us a little lost on two main occasions during this trip:
That moment of dread when we realised our cabin companion in the train, was in dire need of a wash. Oh, how we prayed that he wasn’t staying on in our cabin for the entire 56 hour journey! We couldn’t believe our luck when he got up just two hours later
It’s funny, being out and about in below zero temperatures seems almost bearable…until you decided that you have had enough that is. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s like a switch flips internally and the cold is just unbearable all of a sudden. Every second after that point is unbearable.
In Harbin, China, there is a strange lack of taxis. Demand outstrips supply considerably, and so it is not uncommon to find yourself sharing with other people. This also means, that even when taxis do come past they can be full, or deny you travel because they’re going in another direction. Imagine my dismay when I realised we had missed the last bus back to our hostel, and the only way to get back was by taxi. After being out and about all day my switch had flipped and I needed warm. We could not get a taxi for love nor money. It took a full 20 minutes to find a ride. I couldn’t help but take every rejection personally.
I thoroughly enjoyed our trip out to Moscow’s Ostankino TV tower, however, getting back to central Moscow turned into a bit of a farce. Our train was delayed, then our train didn’t come. We were stuck at that station for a surprisingly long time before a train finally came. We knew we were cutting it fine as it was, but with the delays we got to Red Square long after the mausoleum had shut. I guess it’s an excuse to go back one day but I was so looking forward to seeing that waxy-faced Lenin.
And we all love technology, as long as it’s working. During our Trans-Siberian travels we had two major technology fails.:
If we had it our way, we would have had another week to travel. With that extra time, we could have carried on right across Europe. It was sad to realise that we wouldn’t quite make it all the way home from Asia by train. I guess with that whole “missing our train in China” thing, we wouldn’t have really achieved it anyway, but it still would been pretty cool.
The Trans-Siberian is not, for most people, a culinary adventure. We settled down to plenty of dried rice and noodles meals. However, we did have a few standout moments.:
What do you do with 8 hours in Beijing? Well obviously, you plan in a little sleep but mostly, you go for some world-class Peking duck at Da Dong. These guys take their duck very seriously. Perfectly crisp skin, tender meat and ALL the trimmings. Peking perfection.
We all know I love (and am probably quite addicted to) dumplings. Anything steamed in a little dough wrapper will make me smile. I have several meals of dumplings during this trip, but Mr Yang’s in Shanghai took the trophy. The dumpling plate at just 27RMB (£3.00) were half steamed, half friend and ridiculously tasty. They squirted boiling porky lava across the table as we chomped into them with gusto. I am awfully tempted to return on my next swing through Shanghai. That’s three weeks and counting.
Trying traditional sage tea and munching on slightly frozen ham in the middle of the snowy forest was a weird bonding experience with our dog-sled drivers. If you suggested that I sit in the snow and have a picnic, I’d have stuck up some sort of digit but the hot tea, and little meat pelmeni dumplings made it almost warm enough. Let’s face it, put food in front of me, and I can make it through anything.
Perm is a small university town at the foot of the Ural mountains. I wasn’t expecting to find anything amazing there but we found a wicked hipster-cafe for lunch. I ordered spectacularly good butternut squash risotto topped with incredibly tender venison on top. After so many meals of meat and potatoes, it was a beautiful difference. Mr Fluskey got a burger in a charcoal bun. It looked terrifying but apparently it was rather good.
Did I mention that Harbin was cold…oh, only twice? Well, it was. It was FREEEEEEZING. Out of sheer desperation, we ducked into the beer lounge at the festival. Every other indoor space was packed, but it was blissfully empty and wonderfully warm in there. Best of all, they had more than just beer. We found these weird hot milk drinks. Just add boiling water and you’ve got what was just like a warm Nesquik. It was completely restorative and gave our insides just enough of a heat boost to get us home without weeping.
Moscow’s hipster haven, Danilovsky Market, was a revelation. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the food across Russia but it was all quite heavy and so, to spot something a little lighter was quite exciting. I ordered prawns and squid and treasured every salty, citrus-sprinkled bite.
I did have to get a slice of pie afterwards…but that’s not the point.
In most guides about the Trans-Siberian, they tell of babushkas on the platforms, selling smoked omul fish. However, it seems like the Siberian winter keep these lovely ladies from the trains, and we didn’t see anyone. Apparently Lake Baikal is teaming with these tasty guys and so I was quite sad not to try them.
Luckily, we found omul on the menu of Kochevnik, a Mongolian restaurant in Irkutsk. It was a lovely, meaty white fish that felt like a fresher contrast to the heavily smoked fish beside it.
In any sushi restaurant my first move is to scour the menu for those little balls of joy. Bright orange flying fish roe, big shiny salmon roe, the more eggs the better! Imagine the sheer joy I had slowly savouring a big spoon full of caviar in Moscow’s most luxurious shopping centre. Well, half a spoon. Sadly, I had to share with Mr Fluskey…and we could only afford the cheapest caviar but at £30 a gram (with a shot of Beluga Vodka) it was still excellent quality.
Working our way through a bottle of Champansky on my birthday was the best way to celebrate. Timing meant that I had to be onboard all day, but the semi-sweet bubbles slipped down like a dream and we chatted with mild tipsyness very merrily.
Our very last night of the trip, we decided to do something a little special. Our buddy Anna recommended a restaurant called Birch, and on arrival, we decided to go the whole hog and try their 10 course tasting menu. In London, this would have cost at least twice as much so you know, in for a penny, in for £50.
I originally planned to blog about the experience and tried making notes. For the first two courses they were detailed intelligent and sounded vaguely like a Masterchef critique, but as the wine pairing and courses continued the notes started to slip. By the end, incoherent ramblings that mentioned the word dessert were all that was left. It was tons of fun, exciting, surprising, and delicious, the perfect end to our trans-siberian reflections.
It’s been tricky to get everything down on paper (screen?) but to see absolutely everything we we have written about our Trans-Siberian adventure, you can check out all of our blog posts here or why not pop over to our Instagram and look through our Trans-Siberian story highlights!?
Looking back, there were a few things we didn’t do like:
However, despite, and perhaps due to some of these missing things, this was the most amazing trip. Traversing from Shanghai to St Petersburg along the Trans-Manchurian by train (…mostly…) felt pretty epic. I know that in the travel blogosphere, everyone is tempted to make everything look perfect, but hopefully, this collection of blog posts has helped share all sides of this trip: the good, the bad and the yummy!
Rosie xx
Travelling from Shanghai to St Petersburg by train has to come under the heading “bucket list travel”. The Trans-Siberian (or Trans-Manchurian in our case) is one of those travel experiences that is almost a rite of passage. Travelling from Beijing to Harbin by train was the second leg of our epic Trans-Siberian Travels…and a pretty ridiculous one at that.
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The most daunting of any journey is the first step, and so it was quite the leap to begin our Trans-Siberian travels by travelling from Shanghai to Beijing by train.
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Hong Kong is a fast-paced, dynamic city, with an intriguing blend of Chinese tradition, hints of Western flavour and bucket-loads of modern Asian flair. Here at Flying Fluskey, we are totally hooked! If you are planning to visit Hong Kong, you may need some help planning your Hong Kong itinerary. Here are 42 great things to add to a Hong Kong bucket list (broken into sections to make things a little easier).
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Planning a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway can seem daunting. There is a lot to plan and lots of decisions to be made. To help you out, we wrote a whole blog on our Top Tips for planning a Trip on the Trans Siberian Railway One big hurdle that you cannot avoid are the visas required for travel in this part of the world. Thankfully the Real Russia Trans-Siberian visa service takes the stress out of this bureaucratic and annoyingly necessary stage of planning.
“I want to be at the station by 2:30”. Mr Fluskey looked at me with exasperation, “The Trans-Siberian train doesn’t go until 3:55”! Well, it is better to be safe than sorry though right!? “If we miss this train, there isn’t another one for a week”, I quipped. Thus, our Tran-Siberian epic fail began.
I was going to name this post How Our Trans-Siberian Trip Went Off the Rails, but I thought it may alarm people unnecessarily.
Mr Fluskey and I had a booking on the K19 from Harbin to Irkutsk on 27th January 2019. This was the third leg of our Trans-Manchurian adventure, an expensive 2.5 day ride from China to Russia. I was paranoid that we would miss the train, and so we rose bright and early, ready to see the snow festival and make it back in plenty of time.
Read all about the more sucessful parts of our Trans-Siberian adventure
No matter where I looked on the internet, I couldn’t be sure whether or not Harbin station had a left luggage or locker room. I searched as well as could (being stuck behind the great Chinese firewall). I asked the reception at our hostel and they seemed to think there was…or at least the sweet chap behind the counter seemed more enthusiastic than when our poorly translated conversation began.
We hopped on a bus, slightly ahead of schedule and arrived at the station, full of beans and ready for the day without our bags.
There were no lockers, or luggage room.
We spent the next hour engaged in various pursuits:
It was a massive waste of time and we still had our bags. Our plan of dropping off our bags nice and early, getting a super cheap bus to the snow festival, and enjoying some time there before resuming our trip on the Trans-Siberian was rapidly dissipating.
So our only option, now that time was running away with us, was to get a taxi, keep it for the time we were in the snow festival and take it back to the station. We both knew that this wasn’t going to be the value option, but stuck with our backpacks, it was the only workable one.
Taxis in Harbin can be a bit of a nightmare to get. They are usually occupied, the drivers don’t use their green flags properly, and of course, hailing a taxi down is always risky. Taxis are so oversubscribed in Harbin, that you will most often be sharing with someone else. It took us a little while to get a taxi to take us. We had asked the hotel (that wouldn’t store our bags) to translate for us.
Please take us to the Sun Island Snow Expo, wait for us the there and then bring us back to the station.
A few drivers took a quick look and drove off, but eventually one guy agreed. He already had two ladies in the car and so we drove in the wrong direction for a while.
About five minutes into the journey, he asked for clarification. We had to use the translate app on my phone and communicate through the other passengers. He wasn’t happy but by this time we were much further away than when we had started so we had to convince him!
He drove us to a travel agent. Alarm bells were ringing at this point. Bad memories of being stuck in travel agencies in Delhi surfaced.
They sold us tickets to the festival for the same price as on the door (I can only imagine they were getting them cheaper) and told us the driver would only do it for ¥200 and would only wait for one hour. This was about double what it should cost but we had committed by then and were running short of time before we needed to get the Trans-Siberian. Screw it, let’s do it!
The woman from the agency came with us to the festival entrance and ran off to pick up the tickets. She obviously didn’t want us to see the process but considering we paid the same amount as an on the door ticket, and we aren’t that naive, I don’t know why she bothered.
The festival was amazing. I wish we’d had more time to linger over each sculpture or to try out the slides etc, but with the clock ticking, it was quick march around the huge site.
With the drivers tight deadline and my desire to get back to the station in good time, we arrived back there at 14:00. That gave us an exceedingly leisurely hour and fifty-five minutes to find some lunch and then get through security and on to the Trans-Siberian train.
We took a seat near the entrance to our platform and waited. I couldn’t keep my eyes open and although I didn’t quite nap, my brain wasn’t functioning fully.
And then it happened…
(A Little Background
Prior to this journey, we had taken two trains as part of our Trans-Siberian journey in China. We had boarded both of these as part of a huge queue/scrum. Ticket guards came out, the train went green on the departures board, the guards switched the ticket barriers on, started making loud speaker announcements and the mass swarmed forward to enter the platform.
You can’t see the platforms from the waiting area, just a corridor, escalator or wall in front of you so it is always a slight surprise once you reach the platform to see that there is actually a train there.
And so we return to the epic fail…)
As our Trans-Siberian train’s departure time approached we listened out for the announcement to tell us we could pass through the gates. We also watched to see if anyone was going through, which they weren’t. The minutes ticked by and we walked up the the gates, confused as to why nobody was there.
Slowly, a crowd gathered behind us. As this Trans-Siberian train was a slow sleeper from Beijing, we thought it must be late (how British is that!?). The announcement finally came over the loud speaker but still nobody moved. There were no guards either. We were a little puzzled but queued up politely. We needed a guard to let us through as we had a Russian-style paper ticket, and not the small scannable Chinese kind.
At the time our Trans-Siberian train was due to leave, a guard finally came up to the barriers. He scanned the crowd and then locked eyes on us with shock.
Our stomachs dropped.
He spoke to a lady next us who knew some English and she checked our ticket.
“It’s gone, your train is gone”.
We stared dumbfounded at the guard. How…HOW had we just stood there and missed our Trans-Siberian train!?
We have NEVER done anything like that! I mean, sure, we have missed trains but we ran like hell to try not to! This was a new level of stupidity.
Stunned, shocked and stupendously embarrassed we were taken to an information desk for some assistance. Two guards hopped onto the train system and started trying to work out how we could catch our train up. We had no data nor WiFi so we couldn’t do any research of our own. It was incredibly frustrating.
It took Mr Fluskey a while to recover. He was seriously frustrated. “What ifs” and “how coulds” weren’t any use though, so I told him that we just needed to be as nice and hopeless looking as possible so someone would take pity on us. It kind of worked.
One of the guards at Harbin Station, tried his absolute hardest to solve our dilemma. He searched trains, rang offices elsewhere and seemingly bent over backwards to try and sort us out.
There were two ideas:
Get a sleeper train to the China / Russia border and try to rush through to the Russian border station. Catch the K19 from there.
The issue with idea 1 was the time it would take to cross the border. It is an 18 mile crossing and we had read that going from China to Russia takes a very long time (up to five hours) as the customs guards spend a really long time searching for contraband. We would need all our wits about us and that was never going to happen as there were only hard seats left on the sleeper train. We didn’t stand a chance.
Get a fast train to somewhere further North in Manchuria and then take a taxi to the border station on the Chinese side. Catch the K19 from there.
The issue with idea 2 was the cost and uncertainty of getting a taxi. The trip was 300 miles, that’s a 600 miles round trip for the driver and that isn’t cheap anywhere in the world! Even if it was, convincing someone to drive through the night wasn’t going to be an easy feat. We could end up stuck somewhere random without any options.
After considering the options sitting with this lovely guy, we eventually decided that we needed to fly. It was the only way. He got us a cab back to Harbin Hash (the hostel we had checked out of that morning) and left us with his number. He was convinced that we were total idiots and even said he was afraid that wouldn’t be OK. We tried to tell him that we are normally quite good at travel but he was seriously unconvinced. I can see why.
Fly.
The issue with idea 3 was our complete lack of internet. Walking away from the train station and super friendly guard meant giving up our “phone a friend” lifeline. We hadn’t had a chance to see if there was a flight, how much it would be etc. The other options were so risky though that we exchanged all our cards and began again with a new hand.
Thankfully it paid off.
Back at our hostel, we got on the WiFi and found a flight the next morning from Harbin to Irkutsk. I had been very worried that the cost was going to be astronomical but it wasn’t horrific, just mildly painful. We said goodbye to luxuries further along the trip and booked it with IrAero
We were actually planning to disembark the train in Ulan-Ude, one stop before Irkutsk so we would miss that one out. However, I realised that if we went from the airport to the station, we could get a night train back east to Ulan-Ude, arriving a few hours before our original itinerary. It was only another £15 each. So that’s what we did, and we wrote about it; Ulan-Ude to Irkutsk by train along Lake Baikal
This has been a little painful to write. Nobody likes to admit that they have been an idiot, especially when they have reputation to uphold. However, as my buddy Kendra said “Your experiences become our entertainment and lessons”. So here it is:
Overall the whole trip was amazing. You can read our Trans-Siberian Reflections; The Good, The Bad and The Yummy
Rosie xx
Dim Sum is an oh-so-addictive cuisine made up of scrummy bitesize eats. It has dominated my restaurant cravings for the last few years. I can’t ever get enough, and so every trip we take to Hong Kong is an excuse to cram in just a few more dumplings. Hong Kong has some of the best dim sum in the world and so we wanted to share our votes for the best dim sum in Hong Kong.
Looking for more foodie Hong Kong experiences? Check out these 42 Great Things to do in Hong Kong.
Dim Sum literally means “to touch your heart”, and that’s probably why it makes me feel so very happy.
So where do we like to go for the best dim sum in Hong Kong? Read on to find out:
Located in Causeway Bay (and in locations worldwide) this Taiwanese chain is the best place to go for Shanghai style Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings). These are usually pork-based although there are delicious seafood versions too. A little broth is inside each dumpling and so beware, unless you pierce it with your chopstick and eat it with the spoon (or just put the whole thing in at once) you could end up with a spurt of soup down your front. Yes, I have done this a few times.
The Causeway Bay branch of Din Tai Fung is always busy but seems quite airy. I think it is the overzealous air conditioning.
We finally made a dumpling pilgrimage to the original Din Tai Fung. Read all about it and watch the video here!
If you have to queue, or if you’re just curious, you can watch the chefs at work behind the window. You’ll be amazed at how quickly they can craft such delicate little dumplings. These chaps are just churning out the best dim sum in Hong Kong hour after hour. It’s quite hypnotic really.
Our favourite dishes –
Don’t have time to read this now? Pin it on Pinterest for later!
If you fancy eating a budget lunch cooked by a Michelin starred chef then Tim Ho Wan is for you. The original location is tucked away near the Lady’s Market in Mong Kok. It is very small, and very popular. Take a number and be prepared to wait a while. We went off to browse some stalls for 40 minutes and then returned to wait a little longer. Once you are in though, you’ll know why it is worth the wait. The reputation of Tim Ho Wan as the top spot for dim sum in Hong Kong is very well deserved.
You’ll be asked to mark your first round of food on the provided form whilst you are in the queue so they can take the order from you as you’re seated.
If you are on Hong Kong Island, you can visit the Hong Kong station/IFC location. This has a takeaway service as well as the tables inside.
Our favourite dishes –
A taste of old Hong Kong awaits you on the first floor or this tea house that has been serving dim sum in Hong Kong for over 100 years.
Lin Heung is one of the only places where the dim sum still comes out on trolleys. These trolleys, pushed by no nonsense, matronly ladies, circle the tea room. If you are looking for a specific dish, you’ll need to jump up and intercept them as they trundle through the tables. If you are just there for pot luck, you can wait for one to come past. The waitress will show you what’s on offer. Pick something that doesn’t look or smell too scary and get stuck in!!
On our visit, we sat opposite a regular who was performing his own complicated tea ceremony with a bowl full of very dark leaves. We looked on, utterly confused, and then I worked my way through a much more British pot of jasmine tea.
We picked two dishes from the trolleys and hoped for the best. The first was a plain char sui bun with turnip. The fluffy casing was familiar, and the chunk of char sui pork was incredibly tender. I thought the turnip an odd addition as it was very drying inside the bun.
Secondly we picked some chicken in a little broth. It was obviously chicken skin wrapped around something and so I made the mistake of unwrapping it. Inside I found some chicken meat, some turnip and something gelatinous. I put it into my mouth but couldn’t quite face chewing it, so it was quickly removed and set aside. I think that if I’d tried it as a whole bite, it would have been fine, but on its own, the jiggly lump wasn’t appetising.
Our favourite dishes –
Note – Not to be confused with Maxim’s cafe on the outside of the building.
Maxim’s Palace is located above the theatre, of the city hall’s small building. Take the lift to the second floor and you will see a large, bright dining room with a nice view over the bay.
This is your quintessentially Hong Kong nice dinner out. Bring a large group and take one of the big round tables with their blindingly white linen. There is a small dim sum menu full of classics, and a larger menu with a whole host of other traditional dishes.
Our favourite dishes –
Do you like your food to be terribly twee, adorable and delicious all at once? Let me introduce Yum Cha! Here you will find many of your favourite dim sum nibbles, but with a bit of a twist.
Come for happy hour and stay all night. Traditionally dim sum is a cuisine eaten early in the day with copious cups of tea (Yum Cha means drink tea), however, the cocktails at Yum Cha are well mixed and during happy hour, well priced. This is definitely more like hipster glamour than tea house clamour.
Our favourite dishes –
Could dim sum get any more kitsch than Yum Cha!? Well yes.
Dim Sum Icon makes very cute little dim sum bites, but check out their main selling point. “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” Your next meal, that’s who! Its the Spongebob Squarepants range. Dim Sum Icon specialises in creating dishes based on cartoons. Last time we visited, it was all about this yellow fellow.
We started our meal with the crispy wontons. I felt they were a little pastry-heavy but they weren’t too greasy and the eyes were fun to eat. They had a slight hint of orange tictacs…?
Next we tried the prawn vegetable dumplings. You could taste the different veggies in the dumplings as well as the prawns, not always the case. The little rice paper wraps with the Spongebob characters on made me smile, but if you are a real Spongebob fan, you may worry about who to eat first and who to save until the last minute.
Our favourite dishes –
If you aren’t a fan of whatever the theme is, you might want to stick to Yum Cha.
This restaurant is located within a mall, and that may be its only downside. You aren’t coming here for a cheap, or quick eat. These dishes are to be savoured and accompanied by an excellently mixed classic cocktail The whole place has as a dark and classy 1920s vibe and it’s mixology matches that perfectly. This, in my opinion is some of the most exciting and best dim sum in Hong Kong.
When we arrived, we were a little peckish, but not starving. Oh how I wish we had been (and I fully intend to be on my next visit). I really want to try more of their dishes.
The main selling point of this dim sum spot is flavour. They have taken traditional dishes and given them beautiful new twists with less traditional ingredients. You can spot iberico pork and kimchi on the menu.
Our favourite dishes –
If you are travelling to Hong Kong, or if you live there, you simply must get stuck into the world of dim sum. You can head to our favourites, or find some of your own!
Check out our handy list of all the top spots for dim sum in Hong Kong on Google Maps.
Please do let us know if we’ve missed anywhere that we really need to try. We would LOVE to give them a go and make sure that we have tried all the best dim sum in Hong Kong.
Rosie xx
It’s time to head east again, ah Asia! This time we are off to the Philippines, via Hong Kong. Leg 1, London to Hong Kong is done and dusted (why not read London to Hong Kong in Upper Class with Virgin Atlantic). Now leg 2, and we have chosen to fly with Philippine Airlines.
Check out 42 Things for Your Hong Kong Bucket List / Hong Kong Itinerary
Well, I have fallen at the first hurdle here and forgotten to take any photos for this section, but stick with me.
Hong Kong has a train called the Airport Express which leaves from Central (Hong Kong station). Within the station is the “In Town Check In”. This is a very convenient service that allows you to check in for your flight, and drop off your luggage before boarding the 24 minute train to the airport. Philippine Airlines is one of the airlines that uses the service and so we checked in on Hong Kong island before jumping aboard the Airport Express. Easy.
After our arrival at the airport, we were able to go straight to the Terminal 2 security without seeing another Philippine Airlines desk.
Weirdly, although you are processed through security in terminal 2, you will then board a train that whisks you back over to terminal 1 to board your flight. This confused us a little, we thought we had gone the wrong way somehow! Never fear, just head to your assigned gate, you are in the right place.
The boarding process was very easy, and well organised. No complaints here.
Whilst in the Philippines, we flew with AirSWIFT, check out our review of AirSWIFT to El Nido
Our first impressions were good. The colours are clean and fresh with a grey and turquoise colour palette; it was clearly a new plane.
There was no music when we boarded but there was some when we landed. I always like a bit of music, I think it adds to the atmosphere.
The seats aren’t hugely spacious but are perfectly acceptable for economy. They have a pitch of 32″ and width of 17″. This is enough to sit comfortably, but not to curl up (I struggle with this on long flights).
The headrest is pleasingly adjustable. It goes from my head height, to the head height of a much taller person. The best bit, is that the flaps to either side really do fold all the way in properly and can actually support your head.
There was a small recline but as food was served quickly, and people were asked to put their seats back up for the service, I didn’t bother to use mine.
The tray table had a button that you push in to open it, and that you click back shut again. At first I thought it was pretty nifty, but I realised that you have to push quite hard to open it, and even more so to close it. This puts pressure on the person in front, and I can imagine it getting quite annoying for them over a long haul flight.
The seats on the Airbus A330-300 V3 are set out in a 2-4-2 configuration, my preferred layout. The other two Philippine Airlines versions of this plane have the 3-3-3 configuration which is great if your plane is half empty but is no fun for anyone if it’s full. As a couple, you either have to give up your window seat to have an aisle or the other way around. In a 2-4-2 we had a window and an aisle, and only had to climb awkwardly over each other.
The overhead bins were deep enough but the height wasn’t very good. An average cabin wheeled luggage couldn’t lie on its thin side which means the bins were full up very quickly.
In the seat back in front you, you have a screen roughly 11 inches in size. This is a highly responsive touchscreen and so I guess pretty new. The only problem is that it is also highly glossy.
This is the entertainment hub and it fires up from push back so you can get straight into it, with a few interruptions for announcements and the safety video.
If you are into films, you won’t be stuck for choice. On our flight, there were around 150 choices, from new releases to some great older films. For example, you could watch Notting Hill or The Birdcage, both beloved older films. I indulged in a re-watching of Moana.
Besides films you will find loads of TV, with some complete series to binge. There’s also music, a sky map and games for kids.
I think that the iPad level of touch screen, combined with the ten second back button (so handy when you miss something) makes this the best entertainment hardware I’ve encountered. They may not have the same amount of options as, say Emirates, but it just works brilliantly.
The seat back screen has a USB port so you can charge your phone or other USB devices. This means you can also use your own entertainment without worrying about running out of battery.
There is an onboard wifi service and they offer you 15 mins or 15MB free, whichever you use up first. I completely forgot to trial it (too busy pretending to sing along to Moana).
Check out all our travels in The Philippines
In your seat back pocket, you will find Philippine Airlines inflight magazine with articles showcasing destinations from all over the world. You will also find the duty free magazine, the safety info and a sick bag…which hopefully you won’t need.
Finally, they provide a pair of headphones. We always use our own but I did test them and these ones were pretty average quality. They blocked out enough noise for a flight but you wouldn’t make an effort to keep them afterwards. We were provided with a pillow, reasonably sized for economy but no blanket so if, like me, you are always cold, I’d advise you to bring your own.
The bathrooms were small but fine. They do provide toilet seat covers so if you’ll be happy if you’re squeamish about public loos.
The other thing that I thought was worth mentioning were the little bottles. It’s rare that you’ll find nice hand wash and lotion in economy. Plus, there’s a bottle of perfume! All three were citrusy and fresh, somewhere between a spa scent and a lemon flavour cleaning agent….in a good way.
Despite the fact this was only a 2 hour flight, we were served lunch, which I thought was pretty generous. It was served about 45 minutes into the flight and so there was no preceding drinks service, there simply wouldn’t be time.
Lunch consisted of two choices.
The beef was tender but had a few bits of fat left on it, which turns me off a bit. The gravy was quite salty, but then that is the common curse of airline food. The veg was well cooked, not too squishy, which I was surprised by. Finally, the pasta, an odd companion to what is essentially a roast dinner. It had melted butter on and so wasn’t completely devoid of flavour but it did leave it a little greasy.
Don’t get me wrong, a big bowl of pasta with butter and cheese can be comfort food of the gods, but next to beef and gravy? They were odd bed fellows.
The little vanilla mousse cake, with a sponge base, was sweet and light. It was a completely inoffensive end to the meal and I’m sure that everyone would enjoy it. I certainly was before I remembered to take a photo. This is an improvement though, usually I have finished my dessert before I remember to take a snap.
The drinks served with dinner were soft drinks, including hot tea or coffee, or wine. You won’t get a spirit and mixer but considering you don’t have time to sleep on such a short flight, that may not be a bad thing.
We had a domestic connection to make at Manila Airport and so we had all the joys of picking up our luggage to clear customs. Helpfully, they announced the baggage carousel when the ground staff made their announcement so we deboarded with a sense that we knew what we were doing. Ten minutes later, we realised that this was a bit of a myth, but we got there in the end.
Check out all our other flight reviews here
I loved the Philippine Airlines entertainment system, and the headrests on the seats. However, I was less keen on the food, fine for a short flight but less so for long haul, and thought it was a shame that it was a small drinks selection. Overall, a solid 8/10.
I enjoyed my flight with Philippine Airlines and would definitely fly with them again (lucky, seeing as we have an onward journey and a return flight with them).
Rosie xx