Woke up at 5.50am to get ready and then a van came to pick us up and drive us to the airport. After checking in our luggage, we wanted to have breakfast at mcdonald but the terminal we were at didn't have mcdonald, so had to settle for burger king :s Not only is burger king more expensive, but their meal only consist of the burger and a drink, so if you want the mini hashbrowns you have to top up 90cents for it which we didn't know at first.
After eating, walked around the airport shops a bit then went to board the plane. Within a short while of taking off, they started serving drinks, and just around 10mins later, they started serving lunch -_-" Which is a really stupid idea, cos after serving the lunch trays they go round offering drinks again; like, why do we need to drink so much within a short period of time? The serving of drinks and lunch should have been more spread out. Obviously I didn't eat much since still feeling full from the BK breakfast, plus the food wasn't very appetizing either. I just ate the bread and the fruits that came with it. The flight was around 6hrs long, but it seemed like a long time before we finally reached our destination. The plane touched down at around 3.30 to 4pm I think? Then queued up at immigration to get our passports stamped and after that had to take the skytrain to another area to claim our luggage, then went out to look for our tour guide :P
Apparently the mode of transport is just a van, barely enough to contain our luggage and the seats were pretty cramped too :s Since there was still time, we went to some places first rather than straight to the hotel. First stop was to watch an acrobatics performance. It was simple amazing and one of the best shows I've ever watched, plus certain parts were quite humourous too. Really got to admire and respect the acrobats, the amount of effort and hard work they must have put in to perfect their act, plus it's also dangerous to execute such stunts :s
After that, en route to the dinner place, we stopped by to have an outlook of the 2008 Olympics Stadium (Bird Nest) and the National Aquatic Centre from the RuYi Bridge.
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| National Aquatic Centre |
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| 2008 Olympic Stadium |
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| Pretty chandelier at the dinner place *_* |
After dinner it's finally back to hotel. For all the nights we spent in Beijing, we stayed at Zhong Yi Peng Ao Hotel.
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| The revolving door |
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| Hotel ceiling lights in the form of roses |
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| Hotel lobby |
Another grouse is the toilet shower area. The drainage hole was probably choked and water couldn't flow through, resulting in "flooding" :s Also, I hate it when the hotel shower heads are fixed and not those movable type, very hard to bathe properly >:(
The hotel TV has many channels, but all are those China channels :s I don't think there's even a single foreign channel. But anyway there is this Hunan Weishi channel that has some pretty nice dramas, such as 千山暮雪 that airs every day from 10pm to 12am. I was quite hooked onto that show from the first night I watched it and so every night for the duration of the trip I've been staying up till 12am :s And it doesn't help that we have to wake up very early at around 6am each morning :'( Okay, 6am is for me, I wake up the latest, lol!
Day 2, Tues (25 Oct)
Complimentary buffet breakfast at the hotel but it's really terrible. Mostly just ate bread and watermelon :( My aunts also didn't like the food but they said compared to decades ago, the current food is already considered a huge improvement, so you can imagine how bad the food in the past really was :o *cringes*
After breakfast, went to the Tiananmen Square. Behind it is the Forbidden City and the grounds are really quite extensive.
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| Statue of an Emperor and 2 consorts |
I know some pictures look quite dark at certain parts but that's because I took those using my hp camera which doesn't have auto-flash >:( After a pretty long walk through the forbidden city,we went for lunch at a place called 全聚德 for peking duck! It may not be the nicest peking duck and the sauce was quite salty, but still one of the better meals so it's considered quite good already. After that it's time to head off to the New Capital Museum.
Actually no photography allowed but who cares many others were busy snapping away as well :s Quite a boring place, so left not long after. Then we went to the Temple of Heaven, also known as "Tian Tan".
Nothing much to see as well cos we couldn't actually go into that round structure, and could only catch glimpses of the (very dark) inside which is not easy as well cos there were other tourists around too -_-.
After that we went to this place to catch an ice-skating acrobatics show and had to walk quite a long distance from the entrance cos it's quite deep inside. The performance was as spectacular as the previous day's and what's even more impressive is that the performers are actually wearing very little, like either a leotard and some thin material clothing and some of the male performers even top naked :o Imagine in this cold weather where we feel cold even when wearing several layers of clothing, how can they not shiver and their performance affected by the cold? Really incredible.
One thing I noticed is that each time just as a performance is coming to an end, the China people will start getting up from their seats already and quickly make their make out. Talk about kiasuism :s Anyway the walk back to the coach was equally long plus it was super cold by then, maybe just a few degrees above zero. One thing I noticed is that I think we were the only group to wear gloves, never saw any other people around wearing :s
Day 3, Wed (26 Oct)
Went to the Ming Tomb after breakfast, where 13 of the Ming dynasty Emperors were buried there.
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| At the entrance :P |
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| Silk burner, read the pic below on what's its use |
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| er, one of the emperors ba, dunno who and don't care, but there are many notes in front of his statue :P |
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| The emperor who usurped the throne from his nephew :o The HK drama 洪武三十二 is about this story and Joe Ma was the actor for the role of Zhu Di. Looks like period dramas are quite useful for inculcating an interest in history :D |
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| Another no-idea-who emperor, lol. |
With that, it was time to head to the great wall of China. By the time we reached there though, it was drizzling slightly which is very very bad. How to climb the steps if it's wet and slippery? But thankfully it subsided soon. However the climbing of the great wall was not really how I envisioned it to be and I also dunno how to describe :s The steps were very high and steep and frankly speaking, kids and elderly shouldn't attempt it lor cos it's really dangerous. Which is why you don't see children there cos their legs are probably not long enough to even reach the next step. Even for youngsters like us after climbing up till a certain height, when you look down it's quite scary. I think anyone who accidentally slips and roll down is GG liao, lol.
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| Chinglish is cute and funny :D |
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| Downward view from after climbing maybe 1/3 of the steps? Or maybe it's an exaggeration :( |
The aunts gave up very early on. My cousin, mum and I persevered slightly more but after a certain part, it's just like steps all the way :s It's time they build an escalator :P I don't mind going down the steps but climbing up is just too tiring. So after that we descended and rejoined the others, then decided to sit down and order hot drinks instead. Stupid drinks were soooooooo ex. It's just like coffee shop kind of place but the prices are even more ex than starbucks lor. Like 45yuan (~$9) for a small cup of hot chocolate? >:(
After that, went for lunch, then if I'm not wrong, stopped by at a sort of shopping mall for a little bit of shopping, but the time given was insufficient and very soon it was time to go already. Went for a tricycle hutong tour, with 2 person to one tricycle. Not bad, I like this kind of rides :D
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| Some of the views along the tricycle route. |
After the short tricycle ride of maybe 10mins, we went to the Donghuamen Night Market, where it's like our pasar malam kind of stalls but here they only sell food.
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| These are the "bing tang hu lu", fruits (I think) coated in malt sugar The kind tour guide bought 2 sticks of it for us to try, but it's really too big and many! On each stick got about 6 of it and even with the 7 of us, we couldn't finish it :s (plus have to save stomach for dinner mah) |
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| Those purplish slimy things look.. :s pay me I also dare not eat :s Something like squid like that I think. |
The whole stretch of stalls is quite long, and while walking along it we managed to try the bing tang hu lu and stinky toufu, and I really don't understand what is with some people's fascination with stinky toufu. It is as its name says, literally stinky (the gravy), and the toufu itself also nothing special. After that we crossed the road to Wangfujing street and just basically walk along that street.
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| At the junction of the crossroad |
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| The start of Wangfujing street |
Okay that's all for part 1 :P
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