I am back!!!
To those of you who didn't know, I went to Beijing for a week. Hopped along a tour with my parents and their friends to the city that hosted the 2008 Olympic Games. Ever since going to China 5 years ago and following the tradition of once a year China trip (except the trip in year 2008 since it was clashing with my finals), I had always wanted to go to Beijing because I was sort of into the Chinese History though I didn't bother to do in depth research on that particular subject because for the sake of my life, I can't remember the many dynasties that China once had. Nonetheless, watching so many Hong Kong shows that revolves around ancient China, I had wanted to visit the actual place itself. When the opportunity presented itself, I grabbed it and never let go.
This post will only contain my thoughts on the trip since I didn't have the time to sort the pictures out yet. Once I sort them out, I will post some up here.
Honestly, the trip wasn't really what I expected it to be. And I think I can speak for the whole tour group. For one, I expected it to be more fun, more exciting and less walking and more shopping though I have no idea what made me expect less walking since everyone who been to Beijing said its all about walking.
I left Malaysia on the 9th which is a Sunday, with the flight in the morning, allowing us to reach in the evening. There's no time differences between Beijing and Malaysia, which makes the whole time differences invalid.
Meeting up in Kepong at 5 am in the morning and going to bed the night before at about 12.30 trying to settle my timetable for the semester was pure torture. I was so groggy, that I got onto the bus and fell asleep with an empty stomach. We were expecting to have breakfast in the airport, preferably McD's breakfast before a whole week without any other type of food but Chinese, but we didn't make it. We checked in and pass all the inspection with only 15 minutes to spare because the tour leader (sent by the tour company) did not manage to get it done earlier. With only 15 minutes to spare, I manage to run to O'Brien for the donut before boarding the airplane.
Going there was torture as my seat was in the middle. Usually, I would request for an aisle seat but because all the nice seats were taken (our tour leader was slow in grabbing places) that I had the middle seat in between this bunch of unknown people. My parents got to sit together after my mom gave the tour leader a big headache with my mom making a HUGE fuss of not able to sit with my dad. Taking the traveling pills for motion sickness wasn't a good enough cure for the pilot's horrible landing methods. I wanted to puke AFTER consuming the motion sickness pill. Imagine what would happen if I didn't take it. With a huge headache in hand, we passed the whole immigration thing in China and we are officially in Beijing.
We first head off to watch some KungFu performance in which my mom totally fell asleep. Honestly, it looked like some contemporary dancing with a hint of Kung Fu executed by a group of monks. I swear! that's what it looked like!! No wonder my mom fell asleep. We then had dinner and went to our hotel. I share a room with my neighbour (not T, but his sister) and was unable to fall asleep the first night because I keep on hearing unknown sources of noises coming from the room. Turn out that it was the stupid air con that made the noise the whole night. Though that didn't stop me from taking the 'azimat' from my dad and hold onto it as I sleep.
We went for the usual tour of the forbidden palace, temple of heaven, Summer palace, Tienanmen Square and places like that. Those places are huge, crowded with people and I generally didn't enjoy myself since I can't take nice pictures with everyone jostling and pushing me as they walked. I had always wanted to go to visit the forbidden palace and I missed my opportunity when I went to the toilet with my mom. Turn out that the group of people that went to the toilet will take a different route, bypassing all the cool and nice stuff that the normal group will take and meet up with the rest at the designated area. I was devastated when I found out that I didn't get to see the 'hall of clocks' and 'hall of toys' and all the other halls with weird names. So I decided to enjoy myself by cam whoring though that attempt sort of failed. so yes, I been to the forbidden palace but no, I didn't visit the forbidden palace. DAMN!!! I was really sad when my neighbor told me about all the cool stuff they saw.
Really, I have to say that Beijing has LOADS and LOADS of people and cars. It was to the point that it was SCARY. Trying to cross the road in Beijing could mean that you get run over by cars and bikes since they don't stop even when they know you are crossing and walking in Beijing means getting jostled and pushed without a sorry or excuse me. It was frustrating, the least to say. Not that we are that polite over here, but when you say excuse me, they would at least move for you. Over there, it would mean that they will purposely block the path. At least that was what happened to my friend.
We spent the first four nights in the same mentioned above hotel room with the stupid air con that rattles loudly at night. My friend had friends in Beijing so she tends to go out with them at night, leaving me in the hotel room alone. Me being my usual self, went to bath in my parents room instead after all the horror scenes in horror movies that takes place in hotel room bathrooms.
The fifth day, we headed a place called Sunde or something like that which is about 4 hours bus ride from Beijing. I would say that the 4 hours bus ride would be acceptable since I had 8 hours bus ride before in the previous China trips, but 4 hours bus ride with NO toilet stops was agonizing. Add on with the traffic jam of another few hours, it means death by needing to pee. Seriously.
Unlike the highways in Malaysia that has toilets, restaurants and rest house almost every exit of the highway, in China is not as so. In the whole highway could have 0/1/2 toilets and rest house that is located in the middle of no where. The 4 hours bus ride + countless hours of traffic jam on the highway (it's freaking ridiculous. highways are suppose to be FAST and JAM-LESS), it means resorting to solving nature calls in the nature. really. The bus had to stop in the middle of nowhere by a forest, the tour guide leading a bunch of aunties to the forest to pee. I didn't join them since I can still hold it in. There's NO WAY I am doing my business in the nature after all the ghost stories I watched and hear about people getting haunted after doing their business in the nature.
We finally arrived at Sunde, and by then I was already sick with running nose. It was the whole atmosphere that caused the cold since it's a compulsory gift from China to me. It never fails before. Every time I go there, I come back sick. Not once had I come back healthy.
We spent the night at Sunde, and I have to say that it's super cold there since our hotel was located at the top of the mountain. We walked around in Sunde visiting 2 places before heading back to the bus for another 4 hours + countless hours of traffic jam back to Beijing. Thank goodness the highway back has 1 toilet stop.
That night, we checked into Holiday Inn, much to my surprise. I never thought that we would stay in a place like that since it's an international hotel. I have to say, I extremely love Holiday Inn. The room is huge, it has a freaking modern toilet that I love, it has a flat screen TV and most importantly, it has wireless wifi and provides free computer for usage in their business center. Taking a nice bath in the nice bathroom, I headed down to use a computer to check my subjects and stuff like that. I didn't get to do much since China blocked off Facebook and the internet is toooooo slow for me to check my mail.
We left for TianJin the next day with another grueling of 2 hours + countless hours of bus ride just to spent 2 hours in that city before heading back to Beijing. On that specific day, we spent 8 hours in the bus getting there and back and we only spent 2 hours on the said location. That is just so very sad. We had ONE toilet break, which explains pretty much the condition I was in by the time we arrive at the toilet.
We went to the Beijing Zoo just to see the panda (we headed straight to the panda exhibition, bypassing all the other animals much to my dismay), went for some free foot massage, had lunch, shopped in Carrefour (of all places) and head to the airport for our flight home. The flight home was not much better since I had cough plus flu plus difficulty in breathing by then and when the plane landed in Malaysia the pressure was hurting my ear badly that I was momentary deaf. Thank goodness that my flu and difficulty of breathing is way better after I landed and inhales Malaysian air. I seriously think that it was the Beijing air that made everything worse. I have to say that I am real glad to be home.
Other interesting details about my trip:
- Beijing food SUCKS! seriously, I ate 3 packets of instant noodles in the week.
- Hotel breakfast too. That includes the Holiday Inn. I was expecting Holiday Inn's breakfast to be way better. Maybe I will lodge a complain about their breakfast. Come on! you are an INTERNATIONAL hotel, you can do better than that. I ate nothing but toast bread for the 7 days breakfast.
- I didn't get to climb the great wall of China because my mom didn't allow me. She was afraid that I would fall and break my neck. Thanks to some stupid China guy that threw a bundle of tied up box from the top and it fall real scary sealed the idea into her mind that I will be that box if I climbed up. Even when an uncle offer to accompany me up, she didn't allow. She even convinced his wife that if HE goes up, he will be the box. sigh. so yeah. Weirdly, mom say that if a young person actually accompany me up, she will allow me to climb up.
- Not to be offensive or anything, my friend and I had the same idea that China people are afraid of giving way to you in fear of being at a disadvantage. Really, when you say excuse me in Chinese, they won't move. in fact, they will huddle closer to block your way. When they want to walk and you are in the way, they will PUSH you. I got that a few times and it was frustrating. Saying excuse me isn't that difficult! There was once where it was so crowded that my dad walked near the ledge of some lake and there were people pushing him out of the way. I was so afraid that he would fall into the lake that I held onto him.
- I love the weather but not the condition of the air. thanks to the pollens and remnants of the sand storms, I fell sick.
- Visited so many places that I can't differentiate what from what. after some time, all the history just merged together and I become blur.
- Our tour guide scolded us TWICE that we decided to change tour guide. She has a temper problem although she is generally quite a nice person and I quite like her since she can speak English, taking away the trouble of translating for my parents. I have to say that half of the problem lies in her while the other half lies in all the aunties in the tour. (there's only 4 males out of the group of 18 people. 2 of us are young gals while the remaining are aunties)
- I saw the CCTV tower, bird nest stadium, water cube and the Egg Opera house. Love their architecture.
- I actually walked so much in Beijing that I swear, it's as much as I would walk in Malaysia. In most of the days especially visiting the palace and such, I generally walked about 6 - 8 hours non stop a day. I have fulfill my walking quota for the year. now I can sit back and not move for the rest of the year. :D
All in all, I didn't enjoy myself much for the trip. After you visit sooo many places in one day that has almost the same purpose, playing the same role in the same dynasty, everything just merge together. Walking as much as I did for the trip, by the end of the day, I just want to sit down and NOT move.
After this trip, the family and friends decided that shall leave China out for a few years. They were planning to go to either Korea or Taiwan next year. I honestly hope they would go to a Western country or a place that speaks English. Seriously.
signing off,
wen
