Beijing! 2006 [Chapter 2]

Beijing

Heehee, and after travelling for 6h, we finally reached Beijing airport! There were fans waiting for us you know. Damn shuang. ^^

...no lah, they were actually waiting for this Korean Star who was going to Beijing for a concert. Heard from the tourguide that there were 2 Korean and 1 Taiwanese Stars going to Beijing on that day. O_O What a timing.



We stayed at Day Inn in Beijing. It was a quaint little 4-story hotel. Zzz, the breakfast catered sucks though, although it was catered. But they served Haagen Daaz icecream!! Didn't manage to eat any though ): And there was even a plasma tv in the room itself!

Our desktop by the beds in the hotel.

Woke up pretty early the next day, like around 0700 so the whole group could leave the place at 0830. Dammit man, Beijing is COLD. Actually I think Korea was colder: lowest was -18C. It wasn't as bad in Beijing, but the winds were the one which made it freezing. The winds could practically blow my face away.

Yep we went to 人民大会堂 first.

At 天安门！We have wonderful hairstyles. Especially Mom.

The 天安门 was really grand. Lots of History and all, which I will cover later. (Frankly speaking I cant remember anything :S) This is my logo for the 天安门！

painting of 毛泽东

A soldier who has to stand in front of 天安门 at all times. Praise him!!

Beijing was obviously all about the historical sites and all. Everything about the emperor... the concubines... the gods... Blablabla. It would have been interesting if it wasn't so cold ):

Some of the 殿s in 天安门.

Some stuff on the politics of the Imperial Palace. The front of 天安门 was restricted only to men. That means women cannot go in. :S I don't see any difference between the frontier and back of any place at all. Perhaps it was some gauge of status. Forgot whether men can enter the female side though.

The Emperor's Throne

The craftsmanship for the architecture was really SUPERB. They really carve every design out very carefully and all. It doesn't look that nice in those pictures above though. They barred entrance to the Emperor's Throne though. Prevention of vandalism I suppose.

Went to 御花园 later....

Some 松树 which I guess is approx 50o years old. O_O They had many of these in the garden. Hardy trees aren't they.

2 Trees joined with one another! 夫妻树

After viewing 天安门，we went to this temple which commemorates the death of Emperor Yizong of Ming Dynasty. He hung himself on one of the trees in the garden because he couldn't suppress the ongoing rebel in the country. And, the tree is still there!

Oh I just remembered we can't take picture of the tree. Taking pictures of a scene of death is ominous man. Later we see this person dangling there then wah, die man.

Entrance to the garden. No, we didn't go up to that building up there. That would be suicide.

Oh, and there was this old man who was writing calligraphy on the floor with his super big brush! I wonder where he bought the brush from. It was really cool though!

Cool chap!

Squiggly Calligraphy

2nd day, woke up even earlier, like around 0630. Zzzz sian, what kind of holiday is this man. And LOL, the wind was even stronger than the day before. 6th or 7th intensity I think. Scary man...

Went to 天坛公园...

How the 天坛 looks like.

Interior model of the 天坛

The main event of that day was the Great Wall! We went to the 八达岭 one, and wts, it was full of staircases man. One bloody long staircase from one fenghuotai to the other. Heard from Minlu that this Great Wall was built on a valley and that explains the steep slopes. Danggggg...

We have NOT conquered the Great Wall. We were merely posing.

Great View!

It was really tiring climbing up the Great Wall. Firstly, the steps of the staircases were uneven, like one short one tall, and there were many curves. It was very steep too. Nearly fell down when I walked down O_O Felt that I couldn't breathe properly while climbing halfway too. Perhaps its my stamina, or the thin air, or my momentum.

Secondly, the wind was damn strong lah! While climbing up, the chilly wind is blowing right into your face and zzz, that feeling is not nice at all. My whole nose seemed frozen, like it was about to drop off. (hey that reminds me of michael jackson o_O) My father and my sisters had icy toe pops too! Icy toe pops hurt and are numbing.

Dead Beat!

Despite all that, it was still fun climbing the Great Wall. Get this sense of satisfaction after climbing it lah although xiuxian and I didn't beat this guy who was practically sprinting all the way up

Ate lunch later. Woah those restaurants love serving food in BIGGGG portions. Its like a ten course meal everytime! The food was delicious though :D The tourguide says that they add lots of oil. Lol, I thought the food tasted quite fine.

Went for this trishaw ride to 北海公园 after that.

Sadly, Xiulun's and my driver didn't talk much to us ):

We travelled through alley and old houses. They're really like those that you see in old martial arts TV serials! And there're still people staying there.

I'm toppling the 白塔

Picture at 九龙壁. The craftmanship is equally excellent.

Went to the Summer Palace after that! It was the place where Cixi Taihou went when it was yeah, Summer. The Royalties really don't knw how to spend their money wisely. What's the use of a financial advisor??

This is a 麒麟 (its qi2 lin2, I didn't expect it to look so chim O_O) I don't think I'm suppose to take this picture omg.

Place where the Empress sleeps in. The bed of the Empress is very long and narrow so as to make sure that she is always a symbol of the phoenix, which is, long and narrow too. -_-

Oh, and there was this big weathered rock behind one of the rooms in this palace. History says that it was found somewhere between Mongolia and China, and since it would make a nice ornament, the Emperor decided to place it in her mother's (Cixi) Summer palace. It was too big, so the Emperor (BEING LOADED) decided to break down the door so he could bring the rock in. Too bad, it was supposedly an ominous sign to break one's door, so yeah, it "brought the downfall of the Ming Dynasty"

See, that teaches you not to spend money carelessly. We couldn't take a picture of the rock though.

Posing at Summer Palace. The lake behind is frozen! There were people on it!

Third Day. I think I woke up at 0600 again. SO SIAN. Oh well, at least I slept in the shuttle bus. Went to some temple. Zzz... its getting boring isn't it?

Temple which houses this BIGGGG BUDDHA. Its 4-STORIES HIGH OMG. I think its 2 LT5s combined together. Sadly, we couldn't take a picture too ): It was made of wood.

Proceeded to this Wax Musuem after that. It was a trilogy of the lives of 3 emperors during the Ming Dynasty, and it was one of the two most famous wax musuems in the world! Really, the wax figures were really realistic.

The Imperial Court

Woah I love the effect on this picture. An emperor is punishing an official.

The Emperor addressing his Crown Prince

Emperor Yizong who hung himself since Ming Dynasty was in shambles.

We went to this silk factory too. Silk is really smooth and exquisite. They showed us how they got the silk out from the cocoon too. But well, they had to kill the silkworm larva first so that's pretty cruel. Heard that the slightest tremor would kill the silkworm larva immediately too. My mother kopped a silkworm cocoon home X_X Perhaps it can accompany pro bug.

Life Cycle of a silk worm. That is Silkworm Shit in the middle. They use it to brew tea. Beware the next time you drink chinese tea dear people.

Bolts of Silk!

Spreading the Silk apart! Silk is hardy material man. It looks like a spiderweb.

I didn't have pictures for the rest of the Beijing part, but basically we watched two performances, this Shaolin one and this acrobatic one. They were both really good and could see why China's gymnastics are one of the top in the world O_O The Shaolin troupe was quite famous in the world too, and I heard that have to give performances during the one week in Beijing. And its off to Japan for them! Wah... Poor Monks. But it was really worth the money though. About 180RMB/person.

We had this free 脚底按摩 sponsered by the tour company too. It was comfortable and I was prooud of myself that I didn't scream. Then I heard that they didn't really exert that much force since my sisters and I were underaged. Chey...

But it was quite fun though. I kept laughing for no reason throughout the whole massage -___-LAME LAH... The masseau who helped Xiulun was quite friendly and asked a question to us, since Xiulun says her maths is very pro LOL.

Masseau: 1+1 在什么情况下等于3？(speak in 北京腔 for more effect)
Xiulun: ..... 再加1咯。

*ALL (whywhywhy) Masseaus give a look as if they don't know what we're talking about*

Masseau: *slowly* 1+1, 在什么情况下，等于3？
Xiurong: ....... 这是冷笑话吧？

*ALL masseaus give another stupid look*
*give up!!*

Masseau: 1+1 在错误的情况下等于3。
XX, XL and I: ................................................................

*for polite's sake, I decided to laugh a little.*

Lol... that was all pretty lame...

China can really do business too. At the massage parlor, my grandma had this pain in her knee since it was an old ailment. It wasn't so bad to me actually, but omg the masseaus can really exaggerate on her problem like its some life-threatening disease. 什么什么...发炎啊...非治不可啊... that's what the doctors at 同仁堂 told my Grandma too. In the end she bought 1000+ RMB worth of health tablets. O_O she bought some of them from the massage parlor too. Omg, I can just faint from looking at the reciept.

Nevermind, at least I had my fairshare of cheap stuff. The stuff in China are easily bargainable! My mother can like, bargain something from 400+ to 200 RMB!! Omg, it was really really cool man. There was this IT shop that sold PSP games! I bought this 2GB Memory card for $40. Wasn't that much of a bargain..

The uncle was really funny too. When we went there and asked that we wanted to buy something, he was like,

uncle: 正版还是翻版的？
us: 正版多少？
uncle: 很贵哦，８０RMB.
us: 哇！那翻版的多少？
uncle: 哦，那个便宜咯。

*takes out a CD and a list with around 100+ games*

uncle: 那，这光碟里１００多游戏，１５０RMB

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

in the end I didn't buy it. SIAN LAH NOW I REGRET, there was this need for speed game which was really good. Zzz... But mainly because they didn't have Bleach Heat the Soul 3. Damn sad.... ZHUOCHUN 帮我下载！！

that's all. it is very very very very late. better sleep.