Our first destination out of Shanghai, Kaifeng hosts some great walls, this gorgeous palace (Kaifeng was the capital of a couple of different dynasties), and Ma Yu BU's House of Bucket Chicken. Our hotel was right downtown, the rooms were pretty good, and the reception spoke enough English and was what we call Chinese nice (The Chinese don't smile much and are very direct. This lady was friendly while distanced.)
We arrived in kaifeng after a 24-hours train ride, which was not so good, and walked to find our hotel. That night, after failing to find Ma Yu Bu's Bucket Chicken, we ate at the fabulous street market that Kaifeng houses every night and ate a variety of foods. It would be our restaurant in Kaifeng. We ate some incredibly good stuff whose name I have no clue of. The next day we walked around to look at some walls - I'm a wall geek - and check out Kaifeng. We found Ma Yu Bu's a couple of stores down from our hotel (haha), went back home, and pigged out. It was pretty good, but nothing exceptional.
For our last day in Kaifeng, we decided to check out the palace and let me tell you, it was incredible. The grounds are gorgeous, some of the shots are breathtakinginly scenic, and there was a even a group of guys doing a polar bear club in the lake! Instead of paying the out-of-budget 60 RMBeach to enter, we just walked around the palace, and it was the right choice. We saw great views of the grounds and there seemed to be little merit to actually entering the thing. Unknown to us at the time - and signalling a trend in Chinese layout - was the huge theme park built right next to the palace. It turns out that the Chinese have a knack for building mood=breaker
We spent two days, three nights there and Kaifeng remains a great palce in our memories. While it was cold and snowy, Kaifeng was a great introduction to what would be the rest of China for us.
We arrived in kaifeng after a 24-hours train ride, which was not so good, and walked to find our hotel. That night, after failing to find Ma Yu Bu's Bucket Chicken, we ate at the fabulous street market that Kaifeng houses every night and ate a variety of foods. It would be our restaurant in Kaifeng. We ate some incredibly good stuff whose name I have no clue of. The next day we walked around to look at some walls - I'm a wall geek - and check out Kaifeng. We found Ma Yu Bu's a couple of stores down from our hotel (haha), went back home, and pigged out. It was pretty good, but nothing exceptional.
For our last day in Kaifeng, we decided to check out the palace and let me tell you, it was incredible. The grounds are gorgeous, some of the shots are breathtakinginly scenic, and there was a even a group of guys doing a polar bear club in the lake! Instead of paying the out-of-budget 60 RMBeach to enter, we just walked around the palace, and it was the right choice. We saw great views of the grounds and there seemed to be little merit to actually entering the thing. Unknown to us at the time - and signalling a trend in Chinese layout - was the huge theme park built right next to the palace. It turns out that the Chinese have a knack for building mood=breaker
We spent two days, three nights there and Kaifeng remains a great palce in our memories. While it was cold and snowy, Kaifeng was a great introduction to what would be the rest of China for us.