BeiJing and Shanghai Welcomes U!

16/8/08 (Saturday) and so..tiz was where it all began
aft we found our hostel and settled down, it didnt take us long to explore..the Bird's Nest! Made an expensive decision to buy entry tix for Althetics event. A decision we didnt live to regret. though, pocket still hurts *ouch..* Tight security check before entering the Bird's Nest Stadium
Outside the stadium, beaming with excitement with the Golden Ticket in hand ;]
鸟巢--China's pride. built frm scratch, for the Olympics.
400m heats
the highlight of the night..without a doubt. When Usain Bolt created his World Record of 9.69sec for 100m. Fastest man on earth i say..
at the end of the events. wt n i still cldnt stop smiling..
they say 'pain is temporary, glory is forever' this is the place where many glorious moments for althletes were experienced
i still cant stop smiling..
Water Cube..where Michael Phelps and many other swimming atheletes congregated and created swimming history
17/8/08 Sunday My breakfast--豆腐脑 + 九菜包子.the morning was spent with a few agendas:
1) Visiting 北海公园
2）Explore 恭王府
3) Watch the Sculling Finals @顺义水上公园

only cost Y$2.50 = SGD$0.50!

Here we are at 北海公园, where there was a bustle of activities. very healthy, active ageing folks.
i forgot wad is tiz called, isit water calligraphy or smtg? Read frm right down..then to left.

文明风气宜千载， 锦绣年华又一春，京城劲奏文明歌

the master calligrapher..
folk dancing anyone?
diz sport is pretty fun. basically u can find diff ways to catch the 'shuttlecock' and pass it gracefully to ur opponent. the main objective is not to let the 'shuttlecock' drop on the ground.
no pics of 恭王府, a pity we rushed thru it. coz we wanted to b early for the sculling games. But if there's 1 thing i rmb of 恭王府, its the very affordable, yet no-nonsense ramen shop tt we all agreed hands-down, was DA BEST ramen we'd eaten during the entire trip.

Do not underestimate this $7 bowl of ramen. It's the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. muahaha

The British double sculls men. quite shuai i muz say..hahaha

oh tiz i muz do some commentatory! Diz was the women's quaduaple sculls. China team wasnt leading thru the race at all. it was only during the last 200-300m stretch where they transited into a last charge..n then as they all say, the rest is history. No turning back..they Gold was theirs to keep.

I was so proud of being an Asian all of a sudden. In a sport which is clearly dominated by the stronger Western counterparts, China actually took Gold for diz. Clearly it was a remarkable feat.

results on the digital scoreboard for the women's 8 finals
中国队。。加油！ aft they finished their event and had their prize giving ceremony, there was opportunity fror them to row along the spectators stand to wave and thank their supporters..
me..and beibei.
Here is where all the water sports event such as canoeing and rowing were held. beaming with pride once more, with the coverted 'golden ticket'..
18/8/08 (Monday)

Agenda included:

Going for 'Mazing Hutong' walking tour
Scale to the top of 景山公园 to catch a panoramic view of Forbidden City
Explore Forbidden City aka 紫禁城
Catch the flag lowering ceremony（change of guards) at 天安门广场
End of with exciting food hunt at 王府井

Here we are at the top of 景山公园.

Rowing, anyone?
Check out the wheels shaped/coloured in the theme of the Olympics
dun b deceived by our appearances, we were actually v shagged by then. our legs n back aching like crazy coz we've walked for close to 6hrs non stop. (ok mayb stop in btwn here n there but still..it was painful)

outside of 紫禁城. it is HUGE i say..apparently i overhead some tour guide (yah yah..shameless free rider here..) who mentioned tt 紫禁城 has 9,999.5 rooms. coz the 皇帝 gotta give face to diz higher authority.so cannot match 10,000 rooms. wtf!? hahaha
At 天安门广场 . Cmon everyone, let's just immerse ourselves in the Olympic mood! everywhere u go..u'd see images relating to the Olympics. I gotta admit, the China authorities really put up a very remarkable effort to unite their pple to make diz a success.


王府井, a well known place for food delights. as u can see, diz is for the adventurous and brave-hearted. bugs anyone?
the food wasnt fantastic at all, in fact we were sorely disappointed at the food served at 王府井. For the price we were paying..sigh. Ntg can beat tt Y$7 bowl of Ramen outside 恭王府

oh we spotted a shopping merchandise tt sold all sorts of Beijing Olympics souvenir! Honestly, i was very fascinated ;p

wt and her unlucky fate with chewing gum. Let me share with u wad happened. Well we were in the train and the unsuspecting wt grabbed on the the pole as we all wld, while the train started moving off.

And then..'eeew. wad the f*ck??' yea no prizes for guessing tt i obviously broke out in huge guffaws. muahahahah

19/8/08(Tuesday)
Agenda included:
毅和园
天坛公园
Bdae feast at 全聚德
Explore 三里屯 (nite scene in BeiJing)

千首观音
毅和园 (summer palace) where the queen and the palace royalties wld come by and play, during summer.
the mummy, anyone?
chef at work
wad a spread..i gotta say i was one very happy girl on my birthday. how cld i not, with so much food?
close up
u cld possibly try the peking duck here in future..quite delicious! mayb also coz we were starving!
aft dinner, we proceeded to BeiJing Railway Stantion, where we bought our train tix.
Next, we explored 三里屯, the BeiJing version of our 'clarke quay'. basically a stretch of pubs
boys and girls

20/8/08 (Wednesday)

Agenda included:

Scale the Great Wall of China
Board the overnight train from BeiJing to Shanghai (12hrs ride)

if u ever go to BeiJing u might wanna consider visiting this shop
yea i asked he to pose for tiz..
Let me sink my teeth into these 包子. this i gotta elaborate a little..all these 7 came with different flavours. How cool is tt? I rmb tasting crabstick, some stewed chicken, then the usual minced pork, n one tasted like sharks fin! really i nv lie..
One world, one dream!
check out the many 好汉 wanna-be
seriously..wtf!? damn shagged can? was panting like crazyaft scaling a continuous fleet of never ending steps
its as steep and tiring as it looks..
We've conquered 万里长城. i guess we can be considered 好汉 frm now on. *Ahem*
the entrance to our Hostel. Oh let me tell u a story. The min we arrived here, my 1st instinct was to knock using those ancient handles. Right? Right!

A friendly local who saw me doing that, quickly corrected me and said, 有门铃！ So yea..check out the white doorbell on the right of the pic.

Our 8-mixed dorm at Chinese Box..pretty decent. But price wise, quite steep. We got e double bed in Shanghai for half the price.
Our supposedly 'express train' which wld take 12 hrs to get us to Shanghai.
It's time to board..last call.
Here we are on the seater train frm BeiJing to Shanghai. We made a wrong decision of saving some $ in the hope tt we can spend more in Shanghai..but diz 12 hrs on the train was very, very hard to bear.
21/08/08 (Thursday)

Agenda include:

Old town walking tour

French Concession walking tour
We've arrived at Shanghai. Decided to take it easy since we experienced a Marathoner's ache. Our backs and feet were sore from all the walking back in BeiJing. So we casually explored diz old shanghai (forgot the name..). basically its some walking tour found in Lonely Planet

Here we are at Old Town (南市老城）

every 小笼包 is a treasure
we nv seem to get sick of 小笼包..it's really succulent n rox!
东台路古商品市场--where wt bought quite abit of stuff here. for me, i juz walked n browsed.
Zee..我连你那一份也喝了！
We decided to try some glutinous rice..which turned out quite nice.
Movies are expensive social activity in Shanghai i say..Cost abt Y70, which is abt $14 SGD..its crazy man.
夜上海. the Bund, at night
Beautiful Shanghai

22/08/08 Friday
Agenda:
Cover 'the Bund' Walking Tour
Check out XiangYang Market (known for fake gds, a very vibrant mkt selling all sorts of gds)

Charlie Chaplin stayed in here before. I forgot the name of this hotel

After covering the Bund, we boarded a cab and wanted to head to XiangYang market. we were sorely disappointed when the cab driver said tt it is no longer existent. We thought it wld relocate or smtg, but no. XiangYang mkt has officially given way to upgrading projects. ;[

Hence, we thought of Plan B. Just do ntg, browse ard at 人民广场

Hershey kisses machine me as the Hershey factory worker..
guilty splurge at Haagen Daz. Our main reason was to rest our feets and simply watch the world go by.
ooh..boon chin, wad are u doing here? ;p

Look..its Jacky Chan!

Juicy and burst in ur mouth, hopefully not in ur spoon, or worse, in mid-air.
Dinner! the 小笼包 was heavenly, well as for the 拉面..u shd be so bored n can probably recite it by now..DA BEST ramen we'd eaten during the entire trip was at 恭王府 there's ntg like retiring to the comforts of the hotel room, with aircon, us being clean n freshened up..and watching the Table Tennis showdown btwn Li JiaWei and Guo Yue
23/8/08 Sat
Day tour to 周庄
Board the 12hrs overnight train back to BeiJing
Visit 周庄

Our messy bed before we check out..
Breakfast's a spread. It was free! Supposed to b damn happy rite? But noo..looks can be seriously deceiving. In fact, a very terrible reminder of TianJin. Where it juz looks gd, but taste..well..let's juz not go into that yah?

We signed up for this package tour to 周庄, which is known to be an 'amorous' water village. From the tour, we learnt abt this historical character, someone by the name of 沈万三。

Check out the pix of this amorous water village. If i had a talent for writing poems, i'd surely have my inspiration in such a conducive setting/ambience

the well known speciality there..in our lingo, its juz gd 'ol Ter Ka (pigs trotters)!
A scenic background
Our sleeper train back frm Shanghai to BeiJing. There's only 1 thing i can say. "There's never a price to high to pay for comfort." This was sooo much better than our 软座 train seat frm BeiJing to Shanghai.
24/8/08

Back to Destination Home Sweet Home..

whilst we were transiting at GuangZhou Airport, no1 bothered abt collecting their luggage. all eyes were fixated at the television to catch the Basketball Finals btwn USA and Spain. USA, the Redeem Team, won eventually.
Look, its not juz me who's lame alright! Check out the innovativeness of the Chinese. This was plastered on the toilet door and stared in ur face as u sit comfortably to do ur business. how cool is tt?
our last meal..on China Eastern Air. the food was alright. u noe..not spectacular, but bearable.


Well there u have it. An extremely late post bdae blog entry. Cant blame me huh, there's waaaay to many pix to upload. (yea rite..truth is, i simply procrastinated)

Thoughts abt the trip. Pretty enjoyable, though at times i wonder how the chinese pple can bear with such intrusion into their personal space. I seriously wondered, do they even have a personal defined space? pple push n shove, they dun apologise. It's their form of survival, esp with tt vast amt of pple. China has 1.3 billion pple, mind u.

Nonetheless, it was definitely fun soaking up the Olympics mood, every day wld be a routine whereby we'd keep ourselves tuned to their version of 'TVmobile' (televisions instaled in the public buses) on the results of the games.

We'd also have our eyes glued to the TV as well The Olympian (their newspaper publication) where we read furiously to update ourselves with the latest news.

We also learnt abt the advantages and disadvantages of speaking Chinese.

The gd thing is tt we got to ask for directions with relative ease. The bad thing is u tend to get bad service when speaking Chinese. We noticed that the Western tourist, or those who spoke English for tt matter, tend to be treated better than if they spoke Mandarin.

Nonetheless, I'm glad i came and experienced.