The Urban Edit
Bespoke Beijing’s Behind-the-Scenes Peking Duck Experience is the culinary experience incurable foodies have been waiting for. Bespoke has teamed up with the lovely Chef Zhou and the superb Duck de Chine to bring you a dinner that will take your Peking duck experience to the next level.
Bespoke were SUPER EXCITED to hear about an all-new airborne experience that takes off from the Forbidden City, flying over several famous landmarks including the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall and Beihai Park. We were especially surprised that such an event could be sanctioned, given that the Beijing authorities take airspace security very seriously indeed.
So Bespoke adventurers Tom and Lars headed to the Forbidden City to try it out. You even get a free DVD to remember your experience. Here is theirs (wait a moment for the video to load up):
Beijing has its fair share of celebrity cribs-turned-museums. There’s the Forbidden City for starters, the humble abode of 24 emperors. Cixi’s Summer Palace – more of a holiday home, to be fair. Other notables include Prince Gong (Qing Dynasty statesman), Mei Lanfang (Peking opera star) and Lu Xun (author).
Chinese air passengers have hit severe turbulence in recent months over their cabin manners. Air rage by Communist party officials captured on video; the beating of flight attendants reported on Weibo; a pair of sozzled businessmen bagging mini bottles of booze from the Air France trolley as they disembarked – “they’re free, innit (hic)!”
But is it really such a big deal? Anecdotally, this flyer has witnessed the use of mobile phones seconds before takeoff, the scramble for luggage seconds after landing, or the watching of movies on laptops without headphones. It’s hardly Con-Air; more ‘Disgusted at 40,000 Feet’, with, one suspects, a dab of snobbery toward the Chinese by those more seasoned flying nations. New money, eh?
Great Wall? Check. Forbidden City? Check. Learning how to turn a chirping insect into a fighting champion? Ch… oh, hang on. Bespoke’s ‘Meet a Cricket Trainer’ signature experience is one of the many fun things we do that other travel companies don’t. OK, so this one is pretty far out, but Beijing cricket trainer ‘Cricket Liu’, a champion trainer of fighting crickets, is an absolute hoot and a well of knowledge on this ancient and still thriving pastime. We hooked up local magazine The Beijinger with our man and they had a blast.
Read all about it below, and if you find the primal urge to go antenna-to-antenna on our ‘Meet a Cricket Trainer’ signature experience, visit our website or get in touch at info@bespoke-beijing.com.
