Beijing: Day 1

I was reading a friend's blog and in it, she wrote about her trip to Beijing. Surprisingly, the shots that she took were rather similar to mine when I went Beijing last year (17 - 24 Nov 2006).

I wasn't very sure if I updated my blog on the trip so I looked thru my previous posts and realized that I've only written about:

• Beijing: Shopping - that talks about my shopping experiences there and
• Cheng De: Public Toilets - about the woman who peed standing up and
• Surviving Winter - on how I survived winter looking like a dumpling

I didn't write about the trip in general!!! As in places that I went to, photos that I took!!! How could I even forget things like that??? I used to have a blog that functions as my travel diaries (but it eventually evolved it a "chapalang" blog i.e. I write just about anything and everything under the sun... hehehe). So ya... since I will not be going anywhere in the near future, might as well post about my trip to Beijing. Lucky thing all the photos were nicely labeled else I wouldn't even know where to start... hehe.

You know the Chinese saying that goes: "Man mountain man sea" (ren san ren hai)? Well, that was the 1st impression I got when I touched down at the Beijing airport. Check out the super packed immigration hall:

After that, we were greeted by our Chinese tour guide called "Siao Liu". The funny thing bout China is that everyone is called "Siao"... I only realized on my 3rd day that the tour guide's surname was "Liu" and that the "Siao" in front of his surname meant "young". Apparently it is the custom there for the elders to greet the younger ones as "Siao" sth sth... and since nearly everyone in the bus were older than he is... (I'm obviously NOT), it was only appropriate to call himself "Siao Liu". If you ask me hor, that's stupid. Chinese surnames are pretty common... Imagine calling "Siao Wang" out loud in KL... you'll have at least a dozen of people staring at you!

From the airport, we were driven to our first stop. Some hall to watch a Chinese Acrobat show where semi-naked men and women were seen dangling from ropes (not using their hands but using their mouths)! Here's a picture of them swinging from the ceiling:

Then we were off for our first authentic Chinese dinner. We were taken to this "Gauzi" restaurant. "Gauzi" means Chinese dumpling; a kind of must have (in China) on festive occasions like CNY etc to replace rice. Our dinner comprises of local dishes and a whopping 10 different types of dumpling with different "hum" or fillings! But to me, they all looked the same and tasted the same. Give me plain rice and vege anytime man! But the restaurant has got a nice exterior... very authentic:

After dinner, we were then driven back to a hotel called: Ai Hua Hotel (loosely translated as 'love flower' hotel). When "Siao Liu" mentioned the hotel name, all the kids on the bus laughed out loud and said this to their parents: Yer... the name so CINA one??? Anyway, the weather was between 11 and 4 degree and "Siao Liu" warned us not to leave the window open while we sleep in case we freeze to death. But all of us did anyway cos' "biasa" already la... with the heater on, the entire room was rather warm. A bit too warm for our liking lor...

That pretty much sums up day 1 of my trip. More to come...