The Beijing 08 Blog

The final and 8th day at Beijing

2008-12-27T08:45:00.000-08:00

The final day. Time flys, does not it?

We brought down our luggages, took a final look at the luxurious hotel and take a good photo of ourselves. Then we left.

We did some shopping and we had lunch. We ate heartily and we just left for the airport.

I did not look forward for this day because at home other than my family and friends, homework, class remidials and choir activity awaits. But still what could be better than home sweet home?

The 7th day

2008-12-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

The day begin with heading to the great wall of china. This great wall spanned ten thousand li and is used to defend China against fierce Xiongnu invaders from the nothern borders. Its walls was the brainchild of Qin Shi Huang Di(秦始皇帝) and many other emperors continue to expand it.

Note that it had been reconstructed.

A great challenge even for hikers. The scenery is appealing to the eye too.

After the hike tourists can go the gift shops and are able to buy great souvieniers to take back home.

After lunch, we went to the graveyard of emperors, the Ming tombs. However due to a lack of time and the fact that some of the tombs had bad 'fengshui' ,we could only visit on tomb of a respectable emperor named Yongle. From this tombs, we can also saw how the royal families lived. An exhibition of artefacts explained that well.

This video shows a popular item among tourists. Pay 50 yuan and you get your name written in a unique artistic style.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel rather quickly since we wanted to have a good rest before the final day. It was a "two tourist-destination in one day" package and probaly the most enjoyable day out of the trip.

The 6th day

2008-12-27T06:58:00.000-08:00

We took a final look at the Tianjin hotel before we left.

Along the way we wanted to visit the Singapore-China industry. However due to an unexpected turn of events, we were not able to visit the industry. From there we continued our prolonged journey from Tianjin to Beijing.

After a long while, we were 'rewarded' with Beijing roasted duck for the long wait. Succulent meat layered with a layer of crispy skin on top a layer of sinful fat. For more info, I recommend this websites: http://www.worldhum.com/features/howto/how_to_eat_peking_duck_in_beijing_20071128/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_duck

Then we did some shopping at China modern shopping centres. There were nothing special there. Then we also head to Carefour.

We tried the 冰糖葫芦(bing tang hu lu) which is the fruits coated with honey. It is a common local treat and yet everyone was admiring this "jewel".

Soon after, we went to visit the Bird Nest and the Water Cube where the famous Beijing Olympic happened. The sky was dark blue and the lights were shining brightly. The conditions are set for wounderful senery pictures. That night I was proud to be a Chinese.

Then we set off to a tea shop where ladies in pink cheongsam were promoting tea leaves and tea biscuits. They were also demostrating the art of tea drinking. Finally, I managed to spend four hundred bucks.

Then we had some dinner.

Finally we head for the last and the best hotel: Beijing Royal Hotel. Its big and its rooms were absolutely splendid. We had HD televisions with cable, which means you can watch channels National Geographic and ESPN. Each bed was twice bigger than standard and the toilet was twice bigger. Of course we definitely want to spend longer nights in this hotel.
The only thing I enjoyed was the hotel and it was just wonderful

We got a nice rest and had a good sleep.

The 5th day!

2008-12-26T09:17:00.000-08:00

We went to an art and craft school. First session was the paper cutting , second session was the talking about the poetry and last but not least was the chinese painting. We simply watch and learn and have fun. We also have to show our artworks to the principal, Mr Leong when we come back to Seng Kang.

After lunch, we did some shopping at a marketplace.Soon after we went to a food street and have dinner. Then we returned to the hotel.

There were not many memorable events on this day. To those reading, I apologise for the short article.

The 4th day!

2008-12-24T17:24:00.000-08:00

That day we were invited to Nankai High School. This is Seng Kang Secondary School students at their best.

Thanks to one of our teachers, we have the privelledge to visit one of China's most pretigious schools.

The school principal gave us a brief history of the school he showed us around the school. The school consist of two buidings and each of them dwarfed our whole school itself. The school is proud to housed Zhou Enlai and there was even a gallery that proudly presented his story.

Soon after we went for the school pledge. The students were effective at organisng themselves very quickly. They wore blue and white jackets. We had to introduced ourselves before we head to the next session.

We next went for the talk on Tang poems. The teacher was talking about ancient china poems but because this is not our field, we had difficulty keeping up and tend to get distracted easily. But to be polite, it was best to be as attentive as possible.

Then we mixed around with the Nankai students. The guys played basketball but I am not too sure about the girls. They were most probaly resting and chatting among themselves. The Nankai students were larger than us and we would be unable to so we played mixed teams instead.

After that we had lunch.

And then we returned for another talk about the four great inventions of ancient china: paper, printing, compass and firecrackers. Other than talking, the lecturer showed us parts of a documentry as a treat. Overall it was an interesting talk.

Then it was the presentation. Before the trip, we were supposed to prepare a project that can helped introduded ourselves to the Nankai students. For our group was the Singapore National day. We just simply read the info in our powerpoint. Then after it went smoothly, we sat down and we were expected to socialised around with Nankai students.(Note: each of us were sitting in between two nankai students.)

Nankai students seemed to have busy schedue as they went school early and come back home late. No wonder they said china people admired the singapore students

Then after a farewell, we went to dinner at the same restaurant(we went there at lunchtime). The teacher was asking that day was someone's birthday and only then I remembered it was mine. Unknown to me I was about to received a birthday BASH.

In the hotel room everyone was taking turns and to crush their victims to the bone. That hurted a lot.

What a day! The best birthday I ever had!

3rd day of Beijing!

2008-12-24T08:23:00.000-08:00

Whoa! That was a fast two days and we are now moving from Beijing to Tianjin?! That's quick!

First on the menu we went to Temple Of Heaven. This was made around the time before the Qin dynasty. As usual there were temples of similar design, rituals places and many other stuff. Of course, I did not learn my lesson and I was taking photo of the many of those places.( Wei Fang was helping me to indicate the right places to take photographs). It was hell a lot of walking but worth definitelly worth the effort.

We went shopping soon after. The stuff was cheap but of poor quality. We had to be wary of stuff that had melamine and that make shop owners come grabbing your sleeves. I am not an avid shopper myself so I took photographs of China commercial paintings.(soon after I was being accused of having a nude painting and was forced to delete it but its art!)

Next we eat dumplings. Again the teachers were bragging about how we Singaporeans like eating dumplings with rice while Tianjin locals eat dumplings without rice. People have different styles of eating their food but either way it is enjoyable.

The bus then travel a long energy-draining journey from Beijing to Tianjin. We could not play card games as the agent noses into our business and I am still not convinced about how unethnic of students playing card games. Traffic jams along the journey.

Along the journey, we stopped to look at the Olympics gift shop. There was a wonderful collections of toys, pots,badges and one-metre plushies of anything related to Beijing Olympics icluding the Beijing Olympic mascots.

Nothing eventful about the dinner except the same old 狗不理包子。

Next was the new hotel we were going to stay in. At least better than the other hotel that has horrible stinking water but neither great either. I ended the day rather late for I was playing a good game of cards.

2nd day Of Beijing!

2008-12-24T07:47:00.000-08:00

We start the day off with riding the trishaw. We got on to the trishaws and old men moved us around the vastly empty streets. Then we were expected to do some sightseeing on those trishaws. I myself was not too sure what was so enjoyable about extorting human labour.
Then we arrived at the grand Forbiddden City. Like its name impiles, commoners were banned from this city of kings untill the end of monacracy. Today it mainly used for attracting foreigners and locals alike.Of course there were too many palaces to see and Slash was busy explaning about the many rooms of the royal family. However with my usual "kiasu" complexity, I was too busy taking photos of each palace and could not give a damn to Slash and as a result I lost one-third of my camera's memory.
It was evening and we were stuck at the exit of Forbidden city as the police was trying to control the exit. We were helpless about it untill the gates open. In such a huge crowds, we were had to strap our bags as a kangaroo pourches as we were wary of thieves. Then we were once again stuck at Tiananmen Square. In front there was the big fat painting of Mao Zedong's face and marching ceromany and raising down of the China flag.

During dinner, we eat 狗不理包子(sort of pork bun). Teachers were bragging about this "great bun" but basically this bun was eaten by people with little time.

Finally as usual we went back to the hotel. Interesting day indeed and was surely look forward for the next day.

An interesting story. Winston and I invited our junior Jiasheng to play cards. We played up to 2am and Jiasheng returned to his room. Unfortunately his partner Aaron lock the room and slept. Poor Jiasheng had to sleep on a cold marble floor.

The First Day

2008-12-24T06:51:00.000-08:00

The atmosphere was filled with excitment and the lust for adventure. We bidded our parents farewell as we walked towards the departure hall. We then headed for the aeroplane which would bring us to Beijing.

Six hours later, we arrived at the China airport. Nothing eventful happened, but we noted that the airport was huge as we had to take a shuttle bus from the aeroplane exit to the immigration checkpoint.

We were greeted with great scenary. The excitement in the air was palpable.

Here our jolly tour guide, Slash comes in and introduce himself.

Our first meal, dinner, was at the 'Beijing Duck' restaurant. Conspicuously absent was the much anticipated dish of Beijing Duck, we could only savour it on the last day of the trip.

After dinner, we made our way to China's shopping centre and everyone given half an hour to explore. My group explored a five-storeys bookstore that sell stuff ranging from the chinese books, olympics sovienirs, chinese computers andd musical instruments.

Finally, we made our way to the hotel. We were relieved to finally get some rest but we were forced to write our diaries in our mother tongue. Of course there were way too many distractions for us to be academically productive. AXN! ESPN! "Skull Rider" on HBO! We were itching for a good game of cards. Sadly, we could only play after the teacher completed surveillance.

The day was far from perfect. The itinerary had to be altered due to the flight being delayed. We were exhausted. But despite everything, we felt that it was a good day and the trip would be a definite success!