Entering China: The Train from Ulaan Baatar to Beijingby Randi / August 2, 2017
After the endless dilapidation of Mongolia, the modernity and familiarity of a big city like Beijing was a breath of fresh air. Well, a breath of air. Walking around the smog with giant smiles on our faces, we have never been so happy to see Starbucks, H&M, heck they even had a Uniqlo! There were SKYSCRAPERS! THERE WERE SIDEWALKS! The cars were driving on paved roads! With painted lines on them for following traffic! No one followed the lines or any semblance of traffic laws but still, they were there! We were so happy to be in an established city, you cannot believe. Every time we saw stairs that weren’t falling apart, we smiled. Sure, for some reason the stairs all over the city are only 3 inches in height (what’s going on there) and we have to take them at least 2 at a time to make any progress and going down two steps at a time is suuuuuperrrr awkward, but hey, it’s A CITY!
EVEN MORE SALE?? well by gum!
There was so much to see and do, but our first day we decided to leisurely explore and eat and try to take it easy while we could, with four packed sightseeing days and months of hectic travel still to come. We had an amazing lunch (separate post natch!), stocked up at the vegetarian shop (will be in the food post), and checked out Tiananmen Square, the thing we had to do our first day.
HELLO MR WOBOT I WUV YOU WOBOT
So many people but because the square is so big it’s probably the least dense crowd anywhere in China!
Damn that place is big! And crowded! And very impressive. It’s the world’s largest public square, three times bigger than Red Square, and speaking of Moscow, I haven’t seen such a police presence since our time in that city. All around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City environs, it’s all police barricades, all the time. The lines can stretch for enormous city blocks, and you have to go down stairs and through underground tunnels and back up only to be in another line for security and metal detector checks, then back in a line to cross the street underground then MORE labyrinthine underground tunnels to try to find the part of the square you actually want to be in. It is not easy to get around, and you cannot bet on being somewhere at a certain time because the path that makes sense to get there will not be available. The heavy police control of the area put the Moscow barricading shenanigans to shame.
We arrived that first time in the evening, and there was a huge crowd of people waiting around waiting for something. We were excited – what had we chanced upon? We found European lookers who we guessed would speak English, and they said that just every sunset there is a flag-lowering ceremony, and same for raising at sunrise. Dude. Y’all need better activities. We did not wait around for that.
The north side of the square is marked by the huge portrait of Mao, at the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The Chinese really know how to give epic names.
The north side of the square is marked by the huge portrait of Mao, at the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The Chinese really know how to give epic names.
The square seems to go on forever, with a few important buildings on the sides but nothing really in the middle except billions of people. Most striking to us was our first glimpse into the government’s close monitoring of its people: there are loads of security cameras everywhere, mounted on every pole, everywhere you look.
We went back to the square another day for an epic day of sightseeing. We had SUCH a schedule: Get up super early to see Mao’s tomb (another embalmed corpse to add to our list this summer!) (opens at 7:30am), explore the Forbidden City for the first half of the day into the afternoon, and then visit the Temple of Heaven in the afternoon. It would be a lot, but there’s a lot to see here! Our plans to get to Mao early and done with were thwarted by several things. First, the police barricading was off the charts. We walked for a good 30 minutes past where we wanted to go because we just couldn’t get into that section. It was ridiculous. When we finally got to Mao’s tomb, we were concerned at the lack of visible queueing, considering everything we read said that the lines would be super long. There was a single guard outside his tomb, and a few straggler tourists looking in like ‘hey why can’t we go in?’ But yeah, we couldn’t go in. We googled. Mao’s tomb has been closed for months for renovations or new embalming time or some such nonsense and won’t open till the fall! Nooo! Our most important corpse of the summer! Lucky Z saw the shiny body when he was here for the Olympics, but now I’ll have to come back. Or, ya know, I’m okay. I have seen a lot of shiny corpses lately. Just a disappointment not to add the big kahuna to my list.
MAO I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE LET ME IN
Anyway, we then made our way to the Forbidden City, along with all of China’s billion+ people. Hot damn, I don’t think I’ve ever been in such an enormous crowd for so long. It was the most crowded place ever, so big and endless a site but teeming with people in every corner, at every turn. I figured, jeez but at least this is like, the MOST crowded and important tourist attraction in the biggest most populated city in China, so it can only get better from here. HAHA but Beijing isn’t the biggest city! I made an ass out of you and me! Shanghai has almost like 9 million more people! AND SHANGHAI ISN’T EVEN THE BIGGEST! This country is enormous! Even little cities we’ve never heard of have more people than NYC! ahhhhhh. So yes, the Forbidden City is amazing and important to see, but dayum, take your Ativan, because PEOPLE BE PUSHING.
when it started raining people hid under cover like they were gonna melt
Not just the name of a Chinese restaurant we used to get takeout from in the Illadelph, Forbidden City is a palace complex that was home to two imperial dynasties until the last Qing emperor. So not a city, but as big as a city. They’re trying to get away from that whole ‘wait is it a city no definitely not a city but sort of’ name by calling it the Palace Museum but that sounds super lame compared to the imposing connotation of the real name. Now it is full of ancient gates and buildings used as museums now, for imperial jewels and art and clocks and stuff. The gates and the buildings from the outside are the most impressive, but it goes on and on forever. FOREVER. It’s hot in the summer and sticky, and even though it rained for a bit when we were there it was still so gross. And people touch your arms because there’s no room even though it is CITY-SIZED and there’s no worse feeling than strange sweaty arm touching your sweaty arm and brb I have to go vomit.
First stop in the palace grounds was the pottery museum, because the BOOK SAID SO. It was fine, I mean pottery is not thrilling, but the ceiling in that building was awesome. Yes I liked the ceiling best.
Then we started making our way through the famous gates. The best part is that I got to act like Mulan and take a picture in front of the steps of where she flies in at the end and like saves the emperor or whatever I forget the plot but I know the music is great.
Then we started making our way through the famous gates. The best part is that I got to act like Mulan and take a picture in front of the steps of where she flies in at the end and like saves the emperor or whatever I forget the plot but I know the music is great.
So oh, backtrack, because if I try to move pictures around it’ll crash because getting on the internet here in China is precarious like a perch. Upon arrival at the Forbidden City, you get in a super long line to buy tickets. Suuuper long. We waited at least a half hour. It doesn’t include everything in the grounds – as always, you have to pay extra for some exhibits like the Clock Tower and the Treasury. Boo. Right before entering the ticket area, there’s a big toilet. No one does public toilets like the Chinese! Right outside, we chanced upon this water show, like a baby-Bellagio.
You enter the Meridian Gate, and you take pictures with a billion Chinese people in them. Then you go through a temple, see a throne room, then go through another gate, then another temple, then another gate, all separated by big plazas and millions of people and it takes forever and you are literally like 1% through the enormous grounds.
The best part of the Forbidden City is the Imperial Garden, which is likely the last part of your visit so make sure you leave time for it. I wish we had gone faster through the endless gate and temple part to spend more time in the gardens, but it was all super crowded anyway. Literally all my garden photos look like just group shots of Chinese people, so this is my attempt at photographing the northern sections with as few people as possible:
garden
I went IN THE DEPTHS OF CROWD to get this picture. It was so sweaty so many sweaty arms omg omgomg
I think we didn’t even see all of it, because it’s kind of a maze of 7000 square meters of beauty and 7000 million other visitors. It’s lovely though.
Nine Snakes Wall or something
The best thing about the Forbidden city, besides of course seeing all these important sights, is that they have a good number of well-signed toilets. Harder to find but just as important is the restaurant, which does bento-style (is it wrong to use that word to describe Chinese food) meals and has a mushroom-based vegetarian option. I’m including it here and not on the food post because we are talking about the Forbidden City and it just makes sense.
This was actually really good and not just because I was very hungry! It was 46 RMB (like $7) which is great considering it was the one restaurant in the entire grounds and they could have seriously overcharged. There are several snack stands and cafes with little boxed burgers and other nonsense, so the restaurant is worth finidng. Bring a lot of water and snacks though, especially in the summer because it will be hot and sweaty. You’ll be able to buy water here and there but it’s expensive, and I saw mostly just little tiny 16 oz. bottles which is a joke, those are good for one sip.
The Forbidden City is a must do, of course, but is kind of stressful so be sure you are in the right mindset for it. Like don’t go to a museum beforehand or anything completely foolish like that. It did seem less crowded when we left around 3 or 4pm ish, but considering we arrived at like 10am, you don’t want to risk not having enough time if you arrive late. Go, get it over with, get good pictures of famous sights and a million strangers, and then move on to the more enjoyable places.
Like the Temple of Heaven.
We went to the Temple of Heaven immediately after our super long Forbidden City day because we are masochists. The beautiful, relatively calm park features wide open but manicured spaces and several important buildings to visit inside. You need to get the more expensive ticket option in order to enter the important buildings, most especially the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, which is a gorgeous blue building that, I’ma guess, was for praying for good harvests.
So beautiful, right? This is a 19th century reproduction of the building that was originally built in 1420 – it was destroyed in the 1800s by a LIGHTNING BOLT! What are the odds.
The Imperial Vault of Heaven is another of the inside sights to see. It was for the early gymnastics teams to practice their vaults, I assume.
I’m sorry if this pic is actually not the vault place it’s hard to remember so many things when I have so many song lyrics in my memory spaces
The Echo Wall is apparently able to carry a whisper from one side to the other, so you could communicate with someone far away, and the book says that it’s hard to find a time when the crowd won’t inhibit your efforts to do so, but what really inhibited us was the complete lack of signage about where these supposed whisper spots were located. FOR SHAME. Whatever. You know how else I can hear Z? By standing next to him.
The Echo Wall is apparently able to carry a whisper from one side to the other, so you could communicate with someone far away, and the book says that it’s hard to find a time when the crowd won’t inhibit your efforts to do so, but what really inhibited us was the complete lack of signage about where these supposed whisper spots were located. FOR SHAME. Whatever. You know how else I can hear Z? By standing next to him.
There’s also a place called the Animal Killing Pavilion which like, yes I’m sure that’s an accurate name but COME THE F ON, BRIDGET. Aside from that, the Temple of Heaven was a lovely park. I wish there were more toilets – it was hard to find one inside the park and I almost pulled a Mongolia behind a tree. But it’s definitely a must visit.
Another day, we did some temple-viewing: first, the Lama Temple and then the Confucius Temple & Imperial College. It’s so interesting how similar they are in terms of architecture and structure and design, except the former is the typical kind brimming with piles of money and fruit given in devotion, and the latter has none of that. I like Confucius’s style. It bothers me so much to see poor people put their money and food in front of a golden statue. It’s SO weird. Like, use that to feed yourself. Religion is such a scam. But at least these temples are beautiful.
i can’t smile because my hat is so messed up
The Lama Temple is apparently the most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple that is not in Tibet, which is a big deal. The guide book says it’s “a glittering attraction in Beijing’s Buddhist firmament,” which cracks me up because that’s like almost exactly what Lina Lamont says in her interview and I keep hearing it in her voice and getting the giggles. The temples are imposing and gorgeous, and the statues aren’t boring even though by now we’ve seen many iterations on the same theme.
New here though, and common throughout China we would find, is that they give you incense to burn at designated fire pits, essentially, to assist in your prayer. Even though I hate incense, smoke, and perfumey smells of all kinds, I participated because I got to burn things for free. There really are fire stations all over these temples, with big open flames with tons of people just pushing each other trying to get their sticks into the fire. It is dangerous. We got ours enflamed and then were like, so now what do we do. We looked around for guidance and realized that all these people were in fact Buddhists and were bowing to the statues with their incense smoke being offered to their deities. We were like oh maybe we just stand back.
They gave us packs of 10 sticks but the signs said only to burn 3 and we didn’t want to offend the gods so we have partially full incense packs from Lama Temple as our very first souvenir of this entire summer. What are the odds they actually make it back to London?
daaaaaaaamn what this bitch’s problem!
During our time in Mongolia and in Southeast Asia, we learned enough about Buddhism and the various players that we are now able to recognize symbolism in the statues and be like oh is that Green Tara or is that the other guy? Pretty interesting and confusing. I’m reminded here of the yoga retreat/cult compound I went to in California where the elders told me that their esteemed yoga Founder was both Jesus and Buddha in a previous life. Cool. Cool cool cool cool.
Just down the street from Lama Temple is Confucius Temple & Imperial College, so make a big morning or afternoon of seeing both of these sites plus all the neighborhood’s many hutongs (narrow alleyways with historic courtyard homes set back from the busyness of the city; the books make a bigger deal about these hutongs than they’re worth, like, you’ll see them just being out in the city and they’re fine but not like ‘do a whole hutong walking tour!’ levels of importance). The Confucian Temple’s tranquility was undeniable, with pavilions and important old trees and, of course, the statue of the big guy himself.
YO FYOOOOSH WHAT’S THE HAAAAPS
It’s nice just to walk around the outside grounds (I wasn’t really into the museum-y parts lining the perimeter, they are boring) and enjoy the moat and bridges around the main temples.
I love a good moat
On the same grounds is the Imperial College, not to be confused with the one that spawned many a great University Challenge team, but the one built by the grandson of Kublai Khan in 1306. It was once the most important and highest regarded academic college, for three dynasties.
it totally still feels like a college!
Am I just drinking the Kool Aid or does Confucianism seem totally reasonable? I think I need to learn more about it, but the choice quotes they had reprinted in English along the grounds were hard to argue with. Stuff like be kind and don’t be a daft prick and stuff like that. On board.
Honestly, the best part about Beijing – besides being in a real city with real city perks – is that it put all the amazing English tee shirts and stuff we’ve seen in Russia and Mongolia to shame. Of course the stuff we see in China is going to be soo much better, it’s all made here. And I don’t feel super bad about pointing out how dumb it all is because western people trying to use Chinese characters (or any character-based language) is 100x worse. This is mostly adorable. Every time, we want to be like, do you know what your shirt says?! From 90-year-old men wearing shirts that say “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” to young men wearing shirts saying “The Future Looked Bright” to girls wearing “Dream of Hope and Tomorrow is Yes” sweatshirts, it’s an endless and amazing onslaught of bad English.
does it say anything ABOVE plagiarism???!!! I hope not
THAT’S NOT VERY NICE
I guess that’s close enough
As such, the signage around the city (and country) is flipping awesome too.
looks like someone just saw the movie with Sarah Marshall where the cell phone KILLS PEOPLEEEEE
I don’t know what this means
WAIT WAIT, HOLD THE PHONE – PEEING IN THE POOL IS YOU ARE THE BEST???
The above toilet sign is obviously my Life Credo
just super impressed that they got this verb tense right but then spelled around wrong, SO CLOSE
And of course, those of you on my facebook have seen this incredible one:
We also loved these people taking a photoshoot of their baby right on the street:
The least best thing about Beijing is realizing how rough it will be for us throughout China coming from the UK, Land of Proper Queueing. Chinese people DO NOT QUEUE. We’d be waiting in line for something, anything – the subway’s security check (every metro station begins with a bag x-ray), a toilet, tickets for a tourist attraction, checkout at the grocery store – and without fail at least two people will just cut right in front of us when we get to the front. And I don’t think it’s out of rudeness – they really just do not recognize that as wrong. It’s very much dog eat dog (I won’t make the obvious dumb joke), everyone looking out for himself, and discourteous behavior is not good or bad, it’s just part of the culture. It’s annoying in crowded places like on the subway – you know how if someone is trying to pass, you’ll scooch up a little to let them pass, fully intending to reclaim your space after they pass and not remaining on your tiptoes with no center of gravity? Yeah here, someone will take that little bit of space you scooched for before you can put your heels down. It’s annoying. The subways really are sooo crowded. And despite being such an international city, everyone stared at us for being white. It is not fun, and I imagine it is going to get super old super fast, and only will worsen as we go into the not-so-touristed bits.
You know what else is super hard wrap my head around? Everyone burps and farts, and LOUD. It’s insane. We knew about all the spitting – we didn’t realize just how prevalent it was, but we knew people would hack up a lung and spit it on the street. (I didn’t expect young beautiful women to do it, which was sexist of me, because I quickly learned they are gross champs at it. It’s kind of hilarious.) (Is it because of the pollution? It’s more forgivable if so.) But we did not know about the farting. It is unmistakable – in restaurants, cafes, museums, trains, we keep hearing like a sound effects version of a fart and realize it’s coming from a nearby person and then another and another. SO GROSS.
HOTEL
We stayed at one of the 161 Wanfujing Hotel chain outlets, right down the street from the nicer Courtyard version of the hotel. It was fine, more like a hostel than a hotel, or at least a budget hotel, but with our own bathroom. The bed and bathroom were clean at least, if the room at large just…wasn’t, and the lobby area was nice. They had a mezzanine seating area that the sign said was open till 11pm (the wifi was better there; awful in the rooms) but every night a girl would kick us out at 10pm and say ‘just tonight is special closing time’ or some nonsense that by the 3rd or 4th time I just refused to leave until 11pm. The only trouble with the hotel is that there’s a tourist service desk in the lobby, a separate company’s representative, but still, in the lobby, and the guy selling the tours is a big bag o’ dicks. We got our Great Wall tour through him (so did everyone in the hotel and all surrounding hotels and hostels, apparently, it was just for the most popular big bus trips there) and it was different from what he sold us in terms of size and vehicle and other details. When we confronted him after the fact, he asked if we had a recording of him to prove that he lied. F-ing hell I wish I punched him in the throat but I can’t get arrested here. Luckily it wasn’t that big a deal, we still had an amazing time on the Wall, but to be confronted with a level of customer service that makes London’s look good is astonishing.
Aside from Prickadick McGee, we really enjoyed our time in Beijing and would happily go back. On the corner of the main street leading to our hotel was a supermarket (yay cheap water!), and every night there would be a group of old ladies dancing on the corner in a choreographed dance. It was amazing. We wondered how they learned it, but then one night we saw the instructor calling out moves, presumably teaching a new dance. Was so fun. I love old lady public group dancing.
GOALS
The food was amazing (next post), as was the Great Wall, which warrants its own separate post too. No matter what you think it’ll be like, it will still surprise you with how spectacular it is. I would love to go back to see another section of it. As a city, Beijing was exactly what we needed at this time, and was a great welcome back to civilization. Getting anywhere was a bit intense, just because there were so many people, but honestly after our time in sparse Mongolia, a huge number of people in a big city was kind of refreshing. More like home! Obviously, we got sick of the unfathomable crowds quickly (1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese now? that’s more than are Penn State graduates!) but for our first stop of 5+ weeks in China, Beijing was everything we could have asked for.
if you look closely, you should see why Panama should be pissed
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One Day in Moscow: Hello Old Friend
After our lovely time in Volgograd, we had to return to Moscow in order to get into Eastern Europe (to Kyiv, Ukraine). If you look at a map (or the map above how bout), you’ll notice that it’s a sharp backwards turn to go Volgograd-Moscow-Kyiv (it’s the part of the map that is like an A) and kind of silly when Volgograd to Kyiv directly would save hours and hours and make a lot more sense. But guess what’s happening on that route? CRIMEA. Can’t go through there! Ever since the Russian Federation annexed Crimea (in March 2014), pro-Russian protests in the region escalated to armed conflict between the separatist forces and the Ukrainian government. Thousands of people are fighting still and it’s very dangerous. Russia is, as uzh, very cagey about everything bad it’s doing, and it deny its presence in the region almost as often as it confirms that ‘military specialists’ are there. Russia is real trouble and we didn’t want to reward its terribleness with more tourism money spent there, but we had no choice so back to Moscow we went.
WELLLLLCOMEEEEE WELCOME TO MOSKVA
It was a pretty long train considering how close Volgograd and Moscow look to each other when you’re looking at the rest of the freaking inordinately enormous country. But the overnight train still was about 18 hours! Faaaack this country is TOO BIG. We didn’t get to buy out the other beds in our cabin this time because it was WAY too expensive to do that, like incredibly so, much more than we would ever consider and more than it cost to do it at other points in our trip. We found out soon enough why buying out the cabin was prohibitively expensive: IT WAS THE NICEST TRAIN EVER! omg! Just like when we trained to Moscow the first time, so I guess only the nicest trains go into Moscow. Holy crap, you can’t even. I couldn’t even! It was so nice I almost cried. I guess when you are on a train route named #001 you can expect it to be special.
The seats/beds were a shiny, super clean red leather (assuming it was pleather), and everything was spotless. There was a very new TV over the window and we watched some SHIT that night! Like really really bad movies, the kinds whose rights are cheap enough to obtain for a Russian overnight train, that kind of bad. There were outlets by every bed, along with personal safes! Whaaaat! A meal was included in the ticket (nothing vegan but picked at the sides, but still, surprise free food!). There were toothbrush kits and slippers and WATER BOTTLES. It was heaven. Luckily, no one joined us in our cabin until the middle of the night. I mean not SO luckily considering we were already asleep but hey it’s better than having strangers around while we were hysterically laughing at the TV.
I CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM MY WINDOW
I can’t remember the name of one particular terrible movie we watched, but I do remember how I felt watching it, because Z took a picture of me hysterically crying. From laughing. It’s the most embarrassing picture of me ever so I am not going to share that with you but I will share the picture of the thing I was crying at:
Yeah it’s a baby in a slightly too big snowsuit, and I thought it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, apparently, because I cry-laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe, and for a while too. Z was flabbergasted, he (like most humans I am sure) just could NOT understand what I found so funny. I don’t know it was just amazing! Maybe I was just delirious from being on an actually nice, clean train. No it’s just adorable too.
We arrived in Moscow the next morning pretty well rested, but not very clean. We needed to shower! Problem: We were only in the city until our next train that evening. We had only the day, so we did not book any lodging. Unfortunately, the train station we arrived in in Moscow did not have showers. So we found a nearby hostel, maybe 10 minutes walk away, and asked if we could pay to use the showers. We offered to pay the price of a dorm bed, which you’d think they would be happy to accept, right? The money for a bed but without actually losing the bed? Just ten minutes of water? It was SO difficult to get through what we actually wanted. JUST A SHOWER. THAT’S IT. No room, no bed. OH my god we waited by the front desk for AGES while the very young very notsmart employees discussed what on earth was happening. Luckily someone finally got it and agreed so we showered, one at a time, the other guarding our luggage in a hallway. It was super awkward but better than being dirty. Of course our towels then had to be packed up wet which is gross but we didn’t really need them anymore!
Finally clean, finally ready to explore Moscow once again…except we didn’t really have anything left on our list! We had seen all the museums and important buildings and sights and stuff a few months ago! I know, months – can you believe it? It was kind of like coming home after all the crazy world we had seen, albeit a home where you don’t feel safe sooo. Anyway, what should we do? First order of business? GUM. Of course! Remember that’s ‘goom’, not like the stuff you chew, but the most famous Russian department store in Red Square. It’s super fancy with all the luxury stores but they do have the best, cheapest ice cream (for Husband) and that’s the first thing he wanted. And I was eager to go to the main floor’s fancy grocery store and pick up a few fun ingredients to bring home (we were at the point in our trip when we could buy and lug around souvenirs!!). Unfortunately, a televised event was happening on the main floor that day, so the grocery and well nigh everything on the main floor was cordoned off except for fancy people with VIP badges. Mad face.
We watched the happenings from the second floor landings for a while, bemoaning the fact that our fancy store was being kept from us. Or vice versa, really. But it was all worth it when the f-ing Von Trapp family started singing Russian folk songs.
IT WAS THE BEST! So much fun! I would have joined them if I knew the folksongs and if it didn’t look so g-d embarrassing. I’m surprised Putin lets such gaiety occur in public places. This happened to be Rosh Hashanah (which OF COURSE I said all day was ‘Russia shana’ not that you could tell when speaking but hey now you know!) so I pretended it was for that. Merry New Year!
My next order of business (my only real plan for Moscow) was to return to Fresh, the vegetarian cafe, for lunch. I was SO pumped for a big fun salad! Fresh wasn’t as good as I remembered, or as I had built up in my mind; after three months in central Asia I guess the dream of these amazing vegan salads had gotten too big to be matched by any reality. Still good, still good!
We were really hungry and who knows when we would ever get back to Fresh or Moscow so we over-ordered as we do. We got this awesome salad with marinated tofu, sweet potato, goji berries and a seed and sprout mix, plus two burgers. I got the avocado burger which didn’t say anything about being one-sided bun-wise, but came without a top half. I was kind of mad but our waiter sucked so I didn’t say anything. Who leaves off the top bun? It’s not even open-faced just lacking. It tasted really great though. The cheese sauce was RG.
We also had the BBQ burger, which comes with garlic mayo, banana chilies, and best of all onion rings! On the burger! (And also a top half of the bun.) We also got a side order of onion rings because when do you ever seen vegan onion rings?
We also had a few juices and smoothies, which are fine at Fresh but nothing special. Way too expensive for the amount you get and not cold enough. But overall, it was a great lunch, the best in ages, and almost worth the time and money spent for this necessary backtracking.
Across the street from Fresh is a fancy little grocery store that has a TON of vegan milks. They also have a bakery case and I saw that they had a vegan cannoli in there!
As you can see, it says ‘raw vegan’ on the vegan desserts, including the cannoli. I was too excited in the prospect of an unexpected vegan dessert (and a cannoli at that!) that I momentarily lost my mind and forgot how disappointing raw desserts usually are. Ughhhhhh I mean it was fiiine but like, for a nut-and-date bar. I want to go to Philly, buy Vegan Treats cannolis (incredible), and go back to this shoppe and be like “I need to speak to the manager and the baker. Here, try these and learn from your terrible mistakes. Do not make them again. Also give me those cannolis back you only get a bite are you kidding me?”
After GUM and lunch were finished with, we honestly just walked around town all day! It was nice to not have to do anything in particular, although we felt a little weird not having a plan. And it was a lot colder than it was the last time we were in town! We had to wear all our clothes Joey-style.
We were gone so long it became fall! Moscow tries to butter you up with sights like this but then a foot away was a police barricade.
Well, we did have one thing on our list – buying souvenirs! Matryioshka, in particular – I had to get those Russian nesting dolls for everyone! This was indeed the best part of getting to return here, because this way we didn’t have to buy souvenirs at the start of our trip and carry them around for 3+ months! We did lots of location scouting, and there’s this tiny souvenir shoppe INSIDE a phone store right outside Red Square, and they have the cheapest matryioshka. There are tons of shoppes and tons of the dolls, but they are weirdly very expensive for how cheaply made they are. But they know everyone visiting Moscow wants them, I guess!
Could not fit this one into my bag but ohhh how much did I want to!!! You could fit inside this one! OMG YOU WOULD BE ONE OF THE NESTING DOLLS AHHH. (Don’t mind the closed eyes, it happens in 90% of my pictures)
I also bought hilarious chocolate that we found in a grocery store. Oh man it’s probably not that funny but we found it hilarious. It’s called ‘Plan B’ and I just love the idea of this getting confused with the abortion pill, oh my goodness. We picked the funniest one of the ones on display, because it was the funniest but also because it was accidentally vegan – the one with the picture of a working woman on it, and it’s TEQUILA flavored! like to think they really meant to hammer home that working women who drink alcohol, ESPECIALLY tequila, should not have children. I also like the one with the woman searching for answers in the fridge, like ‘hmm maybe I shouldn’t procreate.’ Oh man this cracked me up. I bought the entire shelf to give to friends. I haven’t actually tried it yet but I will report back.
I also got to enjoy my first ice cream of the entire summer! It was a Tutti Frutti (not sure if it was actually the same chain as we have all over the west or if Russia just was continuing its love of trademark infringement) do-it-yourself soft-serve kinda jawn and it was FRUIT SORBET so it doesn’t REALLY count, but still, it was a decent treat after months and months without ice cream. (Luckily, we were heading soon to the vegan ice cream capital of the world….)
I wanna say I got orange flavored and grape flavored sorbet swirls. I can say for certain that those are blueberries up top
So we had a pretty fun, really random single day in Moscow. It was fun to know our way around and remember things from the real visit, and to treat this day like non-tourists, just in it for food and shopping. It still had that weird vibe that I felt before, like it’s nice and all but we’re super being watched and/or controlled by state police. Moscow is a strange city to like because of all its political issues, but we do sort of strangely like it.
Bye, Red Square, it’s been real. (Real hard to get in because of the police barricades heyoooo)
Madeira, Portugal (Part 2): Funchal Vegan Food, Lodging, and More
As discussed in the previous post, Madeira, the little Portuguese island off the coast of West Africa, is an amazing little paradise of mountains, gardens, and overall pleasantness. In this post, we are getting down to what matters: the vegan food, and the hotels. Although the remote location means the extreme vegan ballerness of mainland European cities hasn’t reached Funchal yet, there are still lots of good options and cute restaurants to check out. And as far as lodging goes, we stayed in THREE different hotels over this trip! Okay, one was in London and one was not planned, but you’ll see! We had an incredible time in Madeira and you can read about all the sights and stuff to do here.
yep this was taken during a break in barfing. (‘oh it’s pronounced bar-fay’)
My top restaurant recommendation is Coracao (pretend it’s a squiggly c!) Vegano, which has been around, and vegan, since 1973! Amazing job guys. The food took a minute but we had just flown in and we were super hungry so it probably seemed longer than it really was. Before we share the food, look how adorable the restaurant itself is!
Since like I said we were so hungry, we did our usual thing of ordering too much food. We ordered a wrap, a thing called Vegan Lust, and sushi. So yeah, the offerings are eclectic, like lots of vegan cafes, without one clear vision or cuisine. But who cares!
First up, the vegan plate of lust. It contained crispy chicken slabs (is slabs not a good word for food?), bacon slabs (again I ask but what is a better way to describe it?), and salad. It was fine! I love salad and the various vegan slabs were fun.
Next up, the wrap. There’s only one wrap option, the Crispy Wrap, and it has crispy vegan chicken with veggies and salad inside. I loved the filling and wish the wrap itself was sturdier; it fell victim to the disease that kills most wraps – sogginess. Ugh I love wraps so much but haaaate when the wrapping gets too soggy I might dry heave just thinking about it. There is nothing else in the world where suuuuuch a tiny change in status makes me go from loving it to literally barfaying from it. But anyway, it wasn’t as soggy as other wraps I’ve seen in my day, so it was pretty good.
Lastly, sushi! Or what they call Shingen Zushi! It’s a fried tempeh roll and it was DERN GOOD. Man I love tempeh sushi. I want this again! So the food overall at Coracao (squiggly!) is decent, but it’s a must go because it’s kind of a Funchal vegan institution. And it’s rare to find an all-vegan place! I think this is the only one in Funchal, actually. And I adore that they are not shying away from announcing themselves as such or wimping out with referring to some ‘plant-based’ bullshit. Look at the entrance!
Just in case ‘vegano’ in the name wasn’t enough! Love it.
The next restaurant we tried that is worth sharing was called Copaki, which is a little farther down the coast, closer to the Contemporary Art Museum. They aren’t vegetarian but they have a veggie/vegan menu that is really great. Unfortunately, I ordered the wrong thing, like I can’t even believe I ordered it. I had the choice between deep fried aubergine (eggplant), braised tofu (omg want), lasagna (what!!), or fajitas, and like a G-D MORON I chose fajitas, momentarily forgetting that the main component in veggie fajitas are bell peppers and I FORKING HATE bell peppers! What was I thinking? I think I was distracted by the prospect of guacamole. Ughhh I had to eat so many red peppers and they make me nauseous.
first of all that’s not fajitas
Best (not) of all was that the ‘side of vegetables’ was more bell peppers. I mean. So don’t be like me, because I think if you ordered something that there’s a chance of you actually enjoying (e.g. not your least favorite veggie??) then we are all good at Copaki. Still can’t believe it. Luckily, I had some other dishes and they were great. Hard to mess up, but great.
Including:
BRUSCHETTA! I love bruschetta hard. I love it even more when people pronounce it right. (Hot tip: You’re probably doing it wrong.)
Including:
BRUSCHETTA! I love bruschetta hard. I love it even more when people pronounce it right. (Hot tip: You’re probably doing it wrong.)
Ours had mushrooms on top! Approved!
Next, we shared a bowl of soup. I honestly forget what kind of soup this was, but it was a pureed light colored vegetable (there aren’t that many so just you decide) and it was good.
Next, we shared a bowl of soup. I honestly forget what kind of soup this was, but it was a pureed light colored vegetable (there aren’t that many so just you decide) and it was good.
what brand of soup are you
But guess what else! They had a nice vegan dessert, can you believe it? I was expecting nothing more than fruit plates or fruit sorbets, but here they had a vegan puddingy flan type thing with candied puffed wheat bits on top. NICE!
Overall, it was a nice meal, and Copaki is a little more upscale than Corasquiggle if you are looking for a date night or something.
We also stopped by Gigi Sumos one day, a juice bar chain that is on HappyCow and says it has vegan bagels and salads too. Well, they don’t really. They can make a salad vegan by removing all the stuff in it, and they don’t have vegan salad dressings! I asked the staff, but you say you offer vegan salads; how can you do that if you don’t have vegan salad dressings? And you know what they did? They offered me MUSTARD or SWEET CHILI SAUCE. Like, both condiments straight from their bottles, undoctored to be palatable as salad dressings. I mean I chose the sweet chili but DAYUM.
even with avocado it’s sad! and look more bell peppers
Luckily, after that unfortunate stop, we went to the MOST BEAUTIFUL land of produce – Mercado dos Lavradores! This famous market is a must-do for tourists. It’s a giant building full of food vendors. The main hall is vegetables and fruit and nuts and spices and dried fruit and all kinds of good stuff, and there are restaurants and hot food vendors all along the sides. Because it’s so touristed, the produce is expensive, but you can get INSANE stuff. This is where I found my most favorite avocado of all time. You ready? She ready.
Look at those gorgeous things! Do you see the giant avocado? We bought that one that is standing upright – it was bigger than my face. Luckily our travel was intra-EU so we got to bring it home! It made a lot of guacamole. Okay so because it was so big it was kind of bland, but I don’t care, it’s so cool. If it were a rocking chair it would be a stop on a long-drive through the American West.
I don’t have a picture of the next coolest find we made in the Mercado, but I remember it vividly. A few vendors stopped us and made us try pieces of a special Madeiran hybrid fruit called – I shit you not – ‘ADAM’S RIB’. Making things even more interesting, it’s a hybrid of pineapple and banana. And against all odds it sort of reminded me of custard apple! It was more fun than delicious but it still was good enough for us to buy a few. SO FUN.
Okay, that’s it for food in this post. Sadly, we didn’t get to what many say is the best restaurant in Madeira for vegans, Restaurant Olives, but maybe next time. And there’s some happy news: the next Madeira post will be a fancy restaurant review, a part of the Vegan Michelin series!
LODGING
Funchal is the kind of place where you really will want a baller resort to stay in. Without sandy beaches, you’ll want to swim in a nice pool. Also, this isn’t the kind of city like Paris or London where you want to spend as many seconds as possible seeing all the sights because there’s never enough time to see it all (‘there’s no time! there’s NEVER ANY TIME!’). That’s not the vibe here. You’ll see some stuff like I shared in the previous post but you’re gonna want to relax in the hotel. Also, the hotels get the most beautiful beachfront so the views are amazing. We did a lot of research trying to find the nicest place that was still a value for money, and we decided on the Porto Bay resort. Porto Bay actually is three different resorts, and if you stay in one you have access to the amenities (restaurants, gyms, pools, tennis courts, kids clubs (so many families), mini golf, &c) in all three, so it was a great decision. They have the Cliff Bay (which I think is the most expensive), the Porto Santa Maria, and the Porto Mare. We chose the latter. And we liked it, and we loved it.
one of many sun bed areas
This was the view from inside our room.
What’s out there, you ask? Let’s go see!
Oh it’s just one of the FIVE pools at the Porto Mare alone! While I of course swam in this one just to have done it, it wasn’t super hot to make it my regular pool. Luckily, some of those five are indoor. If you know me, you know I love an indoor pool, like to a weird degree. Look how beautiful these options were!
That one was so big it snaked its way to be part outdoor pool. SO FUN.
There were also jacuzzis and steam rooms all over the place. And while the gym was a little hard to get to (down to the basement and then up again sort of?) it was a pretty good gym! My only sadness about this stay is that there were tennis courts literally outside our wing but we didn’t play.
The food at Porto Mare was pretty good too. As with all hotel buffet breakfasts, there was tons of cereal and fruit but nothing great on the hot food side. But, they had Alpro yogurt! So it was overall a win.
Now I bet right now you are thinking, if you loved this place so much why did you say you stayed at a different place? Well, Madeira can get crazy winds, and so it wasn’t a huge surprise that our flight home to London was cancelled because of them. EasyJet transported our entire flight from the airport to a hotel that was much, much better than I expected of EasyJet (I expected a trash motel). It was called the Pestana Ocean Bay.
It’s that green bit. Not the nicest place, but still pretty good. Checking in the entire flight took hours, sadly, as the hotel was not ready for such a madhouse. We were originally given a basement room but it had ants (omg maybe it was a trash motel and I forgot) so I went back to reception and demanded we be moved, and we got a much nicer room on the top floor! Awesome.
We were all given tokens for the dinner buffet, which was fine. Nothing special but they had enough dishes out in the giant buffet that were veg. We talked to some fellow passengers (ack) and wondered when we’d be notified about our rescheduled flight. The email came late that night: they were putting us on a flight the next night/morning at 1 AM!!! ONE. AM. And since this is Madeira, most of the people were supes old! This sucked. We’d get in to London at what, 3-4 am? And back home no earlier than 5am and have to go to work? No no NO this will not stand! Luckily, they offered money back if you chose not to accept their shitastic rescheduling, so we refused and booked a NORMAL HUMAN TIMED flight with British Airways. We still had another whole morning to explore though, so we walked along the beach and the caves near this end of Funchal.
Okay so that’s two hotels; what’s this talk about a third? Well our flight out of London was at 7am, so we decided that rather than getting up at 3 or 4 am beforehand and hating the world on our first day in Madeira, we’d sleep at the airport and only dislike the world on our first day. We stayed at the YotelAir in Gatwick Airport and you know what? It was super fun and comfy. It’s a pod hotel, meaning the rooms are tiny little compartments and you feel like you’re on a submarine or something. (Or an overnight train!!) But it was clean and comfy and even though everything was a weird purple haze, it was great! Nice bed too.
ahhh so similar to our train journeys!
There are buttons to bring the bed down for sleeping!
The check-in process was so smooth, maybe the smoothest at any hotel ever. The staff was super nice. And it was weirdly fun to be able to change into pajamas and then go out and shop at the airport Boots and stuff!
So except for the aforementioned fancy dinner, that’s it for Madeira! I hope you consider it for a future vacay, especially if you are old or have kids. I hope to go back someday! Oh and here is a look at my favorite Funchal graffiti:
Send it to your friends named Sam and have a good day!
