World Foodie Guide

This is the sixth in a series of Postcards from the recent Hong Kong, Macau and Beijing traveleating trip. Rather than writing up each food experience in separate posts, which would have taken me up to Christmas, I thought it would be more fun to outline the trip in diary form, to include travel and sightseeing tips as well as food recommendations.

Day 6 – 7 highlights:

• City Super
• Hung Hom train station and boarding the T98 train to Beijing
• T98 train journey from Hong Kong to Beijing
• Arriving at Beijing Xizhan (West Station)
• First meal in Beijing

This post is all about the T98 express train journey from Hung Hom in Hong Kong to Beijing West station (Xizhan), from organising the food, boarding the train, the actual train journey and arriving in Beijing. If you need to know about the practicalities of booking the train tickets, please read my post China Trip Planning.

City Super:

I thought it would be fun, essential even, to take our own provisions with us for the 24 hour train journey. Not having read any reviews about the restaurant car food on the train, I thought we should go prepared (bearing in mind the vegetarian husband). There’s nothing worse than feeling hungry during a long trip, especially while on a foodie trip of such epic proportions!

So we decided to stop by at City Super in the basement of Times Square in Causeway Bay to stock up on food. This is a vast supermarket selling expensive fruit and vegetables and many imported food products (there’s at least one other City Super I came across in some other shopping mall). It also has an excellent deli section with tempting choices such as salads, roast chicken and huge boxes of fresh sushi and sashimi. As our little train compartment wasn’t going to be equipped with a mini fridge, I reluctantly had to forego the latter.

Instead we opted for things that could be easily prepared with boiling water, of which there is an endless supply on the train. This meant Japanese and Korean instant noodles of all varieties, accompanied by Japanese crisps of all varieties, mini dorayaki (chestnut and red bean paste) and green tea biscuits – enough junk food to keep us going for 24 hours (in fact the journey actually took nearly 25 hours).

Hung Hom train station and boarding the T98 to Beijing:

There are also shops at Hung Hom train station where you can stock up on food for the journey, but not Western-style, so it’s best to arrive prepared. A Maxim’s Express upstairs serves hot and cold fast food too, but nothing looked particularly appetising (the tuna long bun sandwich isn’t bad if you’re starving). Travelling to Beijing, one has to clear baggage security check and passport control, but this doesn’t take long at all.

Incidentally, considering how new and modern Hung Hom train station is, the waiting lounge for the T98 was a step back at least 20 years! Make sure you wait in the correct lounge, as most people in the T98 lounge were actually travelling on the T818 to Guangzhou and didn’t realise their train was leaving until it was nearly too late. There weren’t many people taking the T98, so boarding was a calm affair (and not the horrible scrum you’d imagine it to be).

T98 train to Beijing:

15:16 – T98 express train from Hung Hom, Kowloon to Beijing West / Xi Zhan, arriving 15:40 the next day

Car 10 consists of about ten small two-berth sleeper compartments (called deluxe), each with two beds (upper and lower), a comfy armchair, small table and best of all a clean ensuite toilet and sink. Having a private toilet is absolutely essential for such a long journey! I have to say, the overall cleanliness was impressive, with clean white sheets, pillow cases and duvet cover provided.

There was also a thermos flask which you can refill with boiling water from a tap down the corridor (tip – let the water run a little until it’s scaldingly hot before filling the flask). Disposable slippers are provided, and there are small TV screens next to each bunk, with headphones for watching TV. An electrical socket means you can charge up all your gadgets and use your laptop. The only thing that’s missing is Wi-fi!

I checked out the restaurant car which was just down the corridor, for cars 9 and 10 only, it seemed. Again, it was clean and tidy and there was a small Chinese menu with pictures and prices. You can choose to eat either in the restaurant car or in your compartment. Some people even booked tables as soon as they boarded the train. If you eat in the restaurant car, your compartment door will be locked for you by the train personnel (who are really polite and helpful), until you’re ready to return. A hot breakfast of congee and fried noodles was available for RMB15.

As we had our own provisions, I asked if they had any vegetables to eat with our noodles, and they cooked something that wasn’t on the menu – Chinese mushrooms cooked with Chinese cabbage (RMB35). This turned out to be super delicious! I don’t think the staff speak English though, only Mandarin (a couple spoke Cantonese as well), so you’ll have to be creative if you’re vegetarian. And they only accept RMB, not HK dollars, on the train.

Watching the changing views from countryside to town to city to countryside was fascinating. However, it’s not always a smooth ride and was quite jerky at times, making me feel a bit queasy. Sleeping can also be difficult unless you can sleep through any conditions (but the beds are very comfortable and clean). Time passes by rather slowly on the train, especially as I found it quite hard to read. Once you’ve made it to the half way point, then it gets easier. But it’s still an incredible experience, and I would highly recommend it, but one way only (I was thinking the whole way up whether I’d be able to cope on the way down again!)

The only thing that spoilt the trip a little was the noise from the Hong Kongers, a group of men and women in their late 50s and early 60s who took over most of the other compartments in car 10 and were just obnoxiously loud. When they decided to congregate in the corridor right next to our compartment and shout at the tops of their voices to each other, I actually had to open our door and ask them, very politely in Cantonese, if they wouldn’t mind keeping the noise down a little. They piped down a bit after that! Fellow Hong Kongers will know this level of noise is actually standard (my relatives are also really noisy!), but in a small train car, unbearable…

Arriving at Beijing Xizhan (West Station):

By about the morning, the journey was becoming interminable, although waking up to the sun rising was rather special. We arrived punctually, at 15:16, in Beijing, after having boarded nearly 25 hours earlier in Hong Kong. Leaving the train was easy enough, but then the entire trainload of people had to enter into the customs and immigration hall, which wasn’t easy, as no one bothered to queue. Once inside though, officials help to form an orderly queue for passport control.

In front of the desk of each immigration official, there is an electronic box that ‘welcomes your opinion’ of their service, so that you can choose from 4 buttons (greatly satisfied, satisfied, not satsified and poor service). But you’re so intimidated by the sight of the official that there’s no way you would select any button apart from ‘greatly satisfied’, which is what I did. I later heard from our friends that a foreigner who selected one of the last two was taken away and questioned by immigration officials! They probably just wanted to know exactly what was wrong, but who needs that hassle at immigration after a 24 hour train ride?

So, after eleven years away from Beijing, what happened to me? I got royally ripped off by a taxi pimp and his taxi driver mate. Beijing Xizhan (Beijing West Station) is huge, and migrant workers with all their worldly possessions sit around on the pavement waiting for trains. It’s not intimidating, but you have to keep an eye on your things, just like you would at any busy station around the world. We walked and walked, looking for a taxi stand, finally found a sign and followed it.

There didn’t seem to be anyone official in charge. Then the taxi pimp saw us coming (from a mile away). I was exhausted and confused, but even I should have remembered that it shouldn’t cost RMB180 from Xizhan to China Central Place, CBD, Chaoyang District (a building that didn’t exist when I lived in Beijing). I used to pay less than this from the airport to my home in Tuanjiehu. And I agreed to a fixed price, when I should have insisted on the meter being used. That was my welcome back to Beijing.

Afterwards, our friends said it should have cost perhaps RMB70. So a tip – always insist that the driver uses the meter and ask for the receipt, because it will contain his details and you can make (or threaten to make) a complaint. Nevertheless, the taxi driver was a friendly man and we had a nice chat!

First meal in Beijing:

The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur, catching up with old friends with whom we were staying (they were my neighbours in 96-97) and being served a delicious dinner of home-made semolina gnocchi with a tomato-based sauce. Eating in was a wise decision, as we were exhausted from the journey and didn’t relish going back into central Beijing to eat.

Back in my Beijing days, my little brother and I used to share the cooking duties with our two sets of neighbours, an arrangement to ensure a varied diet between the three households! He would produce his one pot wonder of vegetables with noodles, I would make my Japanese curry with chicken and potatoes, S her spaghetti with tuna and lemon, while Y (our current host) would cook the most interesting things – mostly Swiss-based, but sometimes we would have California rolls, which was terribly exciting in those days.

Then we would finish dinner with a tub of expensive (for mid-90s Beijing) ice cream – vanilla with Hershey’s chocolate sauce (the latter provided by Y), or chocolate with Bailey’s (the latter provided by S)! This little luxury really made a meal special…

N.B You’ll find all the China Postcards under Restaurant Reviews – China, and the entire set of food photos on Flickr.

Helen Yuet Ling Pang @ World Foodie Guide

Tags: Beijing, China, dining out, food, Hong Kong, restaurant review, restaurants, T98 train, travel, traveleating, vegetarian