Part I
Well its gone and over....
7 days passed by like nothing....
enjoyed myself totally.....
Friendships were enhanced...
and new bonds were made....
i still cant believe that its all OVER....
Its just too fast...
Way too fast...
How i wish i could go back there again....
And escape from all the stress....
And the tons of homework and dealines to meet...
where everything is much simpler....
cooler and more relaxed.....
the hotel wasnt great....
but it was good enough....
the food there was good.....
11 course at some....
there was alot of wastage....
Facils were GREAT....
they were very knowledgable....
and they were very bilingual...
Mr heng was LAME....
Not that bilingual though...(:
he tried to entertain us.....
good try.....
a discovery about alwyn & thaddeus...
narcissus and cam whore....lol...(sticks tongue out)
we travelled in a bus....
from places to places...
to different destinations we go....
laughters and singing filled the bus....
disgusted, amazed, stunned & impressed were the feelings....
tomorrow morning 6.30 morning call 7.00 breakfast 8.00 at lobby everyone!!!!
Day 1
Woke up early to be at the airport at 6.50am
Arrived there on time....
alot of family were there....
so was mine...
after a prayer....
after bidding goodbyes...
into the depature hall we went....
we were EXCITED....
very excited....
we took many pictures...
hello arent we still in singapore???
LOL....
The planes....
Thaddeus
Alwyn and Me...
Thaddeus and Me.....
335/435 (Me, thad, Elian, aLwyn)So we boarded the plane....
it was slightly delayed....
doesnt mke a difference....
i met my optometrist...
what a small world....
same flight...same destination....
Sat beside kiantat....was his first time taking flight....
he seem calm....
offered him sweets so that he will feel better when taking off...
The flight was great....
SQ...duh...lol....
food was great too....
the only thing bad is...
there's no playing cards....
due to some technical problem...BleahX
the movies on board was great...
watched 2....
My super Ex-girlfriend & John tucker must Die...
both was hilarious....
I think i laughed out loud...
hope i didnt give anyone a shock....XD
Elian and Mathias....
Kiantat and Me...(pls ignore the finger)
We HAD magnum on board...or is it just typical of SIA...LOLSo after close to 6 hours of flight...
We ARRIVED in beijing.....
the airport was very dim....
poor lit up....
everything was messy...
I guess its just that we r not used to it....
foreign to the surroundings...,
stepped out of the airport....
woooo....cooling...shiok....
its as though u r inside a fridge that has no boundaries....
Thaddeus, mathias and Me caught on cam unknowingly...
ah lian no. 1 pose....
Me mathias thaddeus and elian....Our first stop wasnt the hotel....
But some place called..hutong...
The facils said it's like singapore's Clarke Quay...
doesnt seem so to me....
its a sat a weekend...
but it wasnt as crowded as i thought it would be...
So we walked and walked....
took pictures pictures....
and more pictures....
thats what tourists do right....
I guess we r very good tourists than....(:
A lake i guess...
Walking....
Thad & Me....(one of the close eye shots...)
one of the houses....do u call it houses??
A beanie shot...So after that was dinner...
It was some kao rou restaurant....
11 course....
imagine it....
I was friggin full....
and there were alot of extras....
then it was time to go check out our hotel...
the place we will be sleeping in for the nxt 6 nights....
Its called DongFang hotel...
the lobby was quite small....
619 was my room no.
thaddeus was my roommate....
there was NO bathtub......BleahX...
room was smaller than it was in the picture on net...
but it was comfy enough....
Put our things down and off we went to the supermarket...
To stock up on the necessities....
actually mainly food la...
in case we get hungry in the night...
bought bottles of drinking water....
soft drinks.... chips...biscuits...and of cos instant noodles...
Shopping.....Day 2
There were changes to the itinerary....
we were not scheduled to go to the forbidden city today but nvm....
so we went....
the place is friggin huge....
I pity the sedan carriers man...
they have to carry the royal family around the palace...
and do u know the forbidden city has 9999 rooms...
that meanss if the emperor would to stay in one room a day...
and keeps changing room...
it will take him around 30 years to finish staying all of the rooms...
madness....
We had starbucks in the forbidden city itself.....
shared hot chocolate with thad 4 sing....
quite reasonable....
and starbucks is called XING BA KE....lol....
it was a pity....
the biggest hall is under construction.....
the Ling xiao dian....
the most majestic one where the emperor settles national affairs....
I seriously wonder how many thrones they have....
cos there is one in every hall we went....
and god knows how many there is???
At the forbidden city......
Me and thad holding the maple leafs we picked up on the street....Very nice right...so lunch was at somewhere halfway up the great wall....
the restaurant is very nice and the decor very comfy...
it used to be a pri school explains it....
there were even crayons and score sheet for us to scribble....
so pri school like....
very interesting....
had a large sandwich...
yummy....
guess i was hungry...lol...
the restaurant.....
in the toilet....LOLSo we went onto the bus again...
our destination this time is the GREAT WALL....
there are three different sections of the great wall that is open to the public...
the one we went is called mu tian yu...
it isnt the one normally ppl will go to...
as its slightly more difficult to climb....
the sight of the great wall cant be described with words...
majestic??? its more than that...
Awesome??? its also more than that
its just ***open mouths big*** WOAH!!!!
Lol....
I just cant imagine how they actually build the wall some 500 yrs ago....
where there is no machinery and technology...
just man power...
purely man power...
they have to scale the mountains....carrying bricks and stones....
from the foot of the mountain all the way up...
with nothing but their bare hands....
imagine the harsh climate...
no wonder thousands and millions of ppl died cos of the great wall....
is it really worth it???
when eventually the mongolians managed to break through it...
and conquer china...
kublai khan once told this to his troops...
" the wall is only as strong as the courage of those defending it"
this is so true.....
even if u have a uber strong wall but u dont have any soldiers who are willing to lay down their lives to protect the country...
then u will still fail in the end....
The weather forecast is 6 to -1 degess but it felt nothing like that la....
I was sweating like dont know what while climbing....
it was high....
just steps steps and more steps....
touched the wall...
wahahaha...king of the world
Mathias doing handstand on the great wall...woah....Day 3
So its a monday and its school immersion day!!!
And its Beijing No.8 middle school...
interesting fact: the schools are all numbered over here in china
For exp. shenzhen no.11 school....
the classroom i would say looks very nice...
and its high tech leh...
all use com and teach...mmm...impressed...
maybe thats why they are comparable to RI...
they would do this weird dance ever morning....
as a daily workout....
lol....the great china workout....
and their lines SUUPER straight....
even straighter and neater than the ones in our UGs...
damn pro....
super straight....So we attended 2 lessons...
one is on the traditional chinese paper cutting
while the other one is the chinese painting lesson...
it was no doubt fun...
i tried drawing out the patterns i want first before i start to cut..
but ya...i failed miserably....
in the end i just decided to just cut...
and it turned out much much better...LOL...
the trick is to get as little paper left after finish cutting...
the thinner it looks(abou to tear kind)
the more pro it is...lol...
Mine ,thaddeus and Elian's masterpieces...
after that was the chinese painting class....
we were supposed to paint a sparrow and bamboo painting...
was very fun....
challenging too...
some of it turned out very weird and inproportional...
but nevertheless we were quite satisfied after killing many trees...
My masterpiece!!!!the messy classroom
a chinese painting????So after that was the visit to Duxiu company...
basically its some kind of a search engine..
where ppl can make use of it and find info about china books...
they also places books online...
they scan and upload the books...
so ppl wouldnt need to actually buy the books to read them...
they could purchase a card that has a certain amount of credit in it...
and use it to access the books online....
they actually have a factory that operates 24/7 with 2 shifts of workers...
we got free gifts...lol...
a card that has 10yuan in it..
and i have 2....lol..
it sure will come in handy when its time to do du shu bao gao...
the very nice looking office building(not duxiu)
inside duXiu
cam whores in the making...alright we were bored...After that was the trip to Xidan book of malls....
werent interested in the book mall....
though i must say its huge...
singapore's largest popular also cant hold a candle to it...
more interested in the 77th street mall beside it....
they actually have a 77th street shopping mall underground...
its supossed to be very crowded where all the teenagers hangout...
but it seems quite empty...
or is it justt bcos its a weekday???
i thought our orchard road is forever crowded...
And the shopkeepers there ....
i must say they are damn goood..
when we walk pass...
" ta1 men2 shi4 cong2 xing1 jia1 po1 lai2 de4"
Do we have SINGAPOREANS written on our forehead???
Anyway bought 2 VCDs...damn cheap......10RMB for 1
bought 2 thats like 4 sing...
Rob-b-hood...
and scary movie 4 uncensored unrated...lol
we also did our interviews for our buisness plan...
i think elian and me made a good pair....
it went quite smoothly...
except for the 2 bit****
bought a belt for 2sing....
at 77th street...
but it was too short....bleahx....
reason is alwyn ran and bought it for me at the last minute...
I didnt buy it myself...oh well...gave it to elian...
the statue of books..outside XidanDay 4
3 destinations today....
1. Beijing urban planning centre
2.ancient observatory centre
3. Lenovo company visit
Beijing urban planning centre was an eye opener....
Beijing is really huge.....
see it for urself...
we were on the second floor!!!
Its just part of beijing....
Hi!!!!Next stop is the Ancient observatory centre...
I was very impressed how smart the ppl were....
its like more than 500 years ago
and they actually already know how to read the stars!!!
predict the weather...
and read the time...
using instruments that do not make any sense to us...
yet they are quite accurate...
Chinese are VERY SMART i would say...
all the instruments we saw were replicas of the real one...
the real ones are all at nanjing...
cos 1 of the many emperors once moved his capital to nanjing..
thus bringing all those along too....
i guess they didnt want to move it back...
in case accidents might happen and in the process these precious artefacts destroyed...
The artefacts thar were used to predict weather and time...
The poke cause the right side of my nose to bleed like after 10 minutesAfter that was the company visit to Lenovo...
this time round its a much bigger company than Duxiu...
it has its own building...
We were given a talk by some guy...
and sorry to say that but it was boring...
I was falling asleep...
many others too...
for the ignorant, Lenovo is the company who bought over IBM...
it is also the partner of the Olympics 2008 beijing...
and its now the third biggest computer manufacturer in the world...
we got a tour of the factory....
the assembly line and everything...
sorry no pics as we cant take pics in the factory....
after that was a surprise trip to decathelon...
a mega sports store...
selling sports related items ranging from clothes to equipments...
for more than 60 different kind of sports...
bought 3 pairs of ankle socks at 29 yuan around 2 sing a pair
bought 2 sports tights for training one at 14 Sing
and a what do u call it??
wrist/arm strengthening device...
the one that u squeeze....ya....
MISSING Beijing............
there will be part 2 coming up soon....
meanwhile enjoy this first...
will update once i come back from my chalets....
watch this space....
till than...
be back on the 1st of dec....
