January 25, 2009
Finally. A series of entries about my beijing trip which took longer than the trip to write out. It's ending at X. (Can't think of what to write for Y and Z) Just in time before New Year so I won't be owing anything!
Xidan 西单
THE shopping place of Beijing. Don't ever buy things at 秀水街！It exists to rip off angmohs. Go to 西单！They still rip you off, but not so bad after haggling.
For the haggling part, persistence is the key I guess. Like once, I persisted, then walk away then went back, then walk away, finally went back. Or another time Patt and I stood at a stall for so long because the owner won't let us go yet won't go low enough. She went "你看看这儿质料，是上等货儿啊！" X 100. But we got our price in the end after shaking our heads for 101 times.
Those were the difficult cases. Most of the time, the process of shopping only lasted one hour and we snapped up a few things quickly before closing (8pm!!). I'd say the clothes there are quite fashionable, there's hong kong and korean stuff. But according to a Chinese intern from another province, Beijing is quite backward in China. Dunno!
And beijing people seem to only buy winter clothes when they need it! The thickness of the clothes at xidan is always exactly enough for the current weather. Nobody seem to have the intention of preparing for a harsh winter except us. So we could only buy as the weather changes. Thankfully we did that cuz we didn't need it in the end.
January 25, 2009
Weddings
I've helped out at wedding banquets for quite a few times during the attachment and it was very interesting, yet lung-damaging. The Chinese chain-smoke at weddings! When they're not eating , they're smoking. So much so that ashtrays have to be replaced at least once in the banquet. Even part of the ceremony of thanking friends and families involves offering a cigarette to the elderly of the table. Its totally miserable for a non-smoker.
The interesting part of cheena weddings is the variety of entertainment program they prepare for their guest. I've seen 四川变脸 lar!
The common one is to get friends to sing a few songs, and they even have a karaoke box for it. But there's always lousy singers who buay paiseh sing more than one song. TSK if I'm their friend I'll pull them off the stage and ask them to stop ruining the wedding. If its me I'll only sing one song lor.
Some couples hire entertainers for this part. One 湖北 couple hired their 同乡, it was not too bad, they can do stunts and sing cheena pop songs! Only their song goes "我们还能不能能不能再见面? 我在佛前苦苦求了几千年. 当我在踏过这条奈何桥之前, 让我再吻一吻你的脸."
Seriously!
January 03, 2009
Temple of Heaven 天坛
The Temple of Heaven was a holy ground where the son of heaven prayed for a good harvest. Now its become a must-visit tourist attraction.
Its a nice place for strolling, especially the off-beaten tracks.
Gen and Patt's backsides in a stranger's photo.
A napping cat
Uncouth vocabulary
Learn the authentic Chinese vulgarity!
操 cao4
meaning - fuck
usage -
1.操！
2.哇操！
3.操你妈!
Vampire Obsession
Patt helped me blog this part already.
"The whole dorm (minus jessica, minyu and gen) were reading my books. hahaha
if im not wrong...
xiaohan - twilight
yoyo - new moon
ruiling - eclipse
(i was reading breaking dawn)
oh wells. the craze worsens when everbody started going crazy about (the handsome vampire) Edward Cullen, with yoyo changing her name tag to 'yoyo cullen'."
Lolz for those who don't know, we were reading the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. A love story between an ordinary girl and an impossibly handsome vampire. At one point of time, we were fighting each other over being Edward's wife and Yoyo was going 'Edward, bite me!!'
January 02, 2009
Ruiling's birthday!
Her favourite Baskin Robbins ice cream
Lol, we made her knock on every door and say '今天是我生日!' and also run up and down the corridor screaming
Shabu shabu 火锅店
This is our favourite fast food chain in Beijing!
They serve thinly sliced chicken, mutton and beef which taste very shiok with steamboat! The soup base is a choice of normal, curry or super spicy. We usually order alot of things and end up paying only SGD$6 per person.
We'd eat to our fill while exchanging stories about work.
Good food and good company = good life. =)
January 01, 2009
Opps, 26 alphabets is a lot! Can anyone suggest what to write for Y and Z? XD
Peking Ducks
Never commit a sin.
Otherwise you risk reincarnating into a duck. A Peking duck.
Simply roasting you is not the end. You'll be 凌迟ed by an experienced chef. Into this >>>
NO we will not leave your remaining corpse alone. We will make them into delicious soup! Wahahaha!
By the way, this 拔丝 dessert below totally rocks! It's way better than 冰糖葫芦. I don't really know how they make it, but I think its poached in sugar syrup then coated with caramelised sugar. Goodness! Heavenly food like this exist! We were told to pull it apart quickly otherwise the whole pile will stick together once it cooled down. Which almost happened because I took too long with the camera. =D
Qianmen 前门
Qianmen used to be a street in front of the Forbidden City if I'm not wrong. Only recently, it's been revamped to look like the Qing dynasty era.
The place is supposed to give a sense of history, but it felt so new. lol
But we had fun all the same! The side road from the main street was more interesting with 狗不理包子 and other street food.
Legend has it that this guy 阿狗 sold very delicious buns which was so popular that he didn't bother to provide quality service to his customers. Quality service is of course 'defined by the guests' themselves. So they decided that his service was 'below their expectations' and nicknamed him 狗不理.
The boss dao never mind as long as his food is good. In the olden days it was the same as well and mr 狗不理 enjoyed good business despite his poor attitude.
I think I wrote too much crap today LOL. Well, stay tuned for RSTUVWX!
December 07, 2008
Long Escalators
In Beijing, roads have more lanes, buildings are larger, even their escalators are longer.
It takes up to 1 minute to travel up an ordinary MRT escalator!
I had a sense of Beijing's 'hugeness' straightaway after touchdown. We were traveling on the airport's internal train and one stop felt like Pasir Ris to Tampines.
Mao
I realise Mao has pong hair like me too!
Naked woman
I think I've mentioned that my bunkmates sleep naked before, so skip!
Olympics
Beijing is indeed not doing enough about its air condition. I remember when I was on the peak of 百望山, I saw a factory spewing large clouds of smoke from afar. Why can't that be controlled? It'd be wonderful if there were blue skies as backgrounds for pictures everyday. Like Singapore.
Instead of this
To be fair, the sky is usually blue on most days in the afternoon. But the hazy days became more frequent after the traffic restrictions were relaxed.
Anyway, that day we went to the olympic park.
obsessed with jumpshots
We almost didn't want to buy the coke because its not chilled. Until we realised that the room temperature is already 4 degrees celsius. HAHAHA
December 01, 2008
Housekeeping
This is my best mates in housekeeping!
小熊猫
She's the kind who will bossily help you and tell you what to do even if you've never asked for it. At first Patt and I were quite blasted off by her 'leadership', but slowly we grew to like her straightforwardness. =)
She was the one who led us to the presidential suite boldly to take photos! Hahaha! See >>>
Another best mate! >>>
边娜娜
Her surname is really 边! She's really easygoing and nice to be with. I guess that's why 小熊猫 and her make a great pair. lol
Our working cart
Our working area with 牛明明
After working at the hotel's cafe, housekeeping was a breeze. All of us who did housekeeping named it as our favourite department. It's still labour intensive, but we never got assigned to do a room individually (except for my test, which I took ONE HOUR to do a room =P) so we sort of just follow our 师父 around and help them with their daily jobs. Each person has to complete 15 rooms per day!
The beds were very difficult to do at first because they were very heavy. I had to lift up the mattress to stuff the bedsheet beneath it. On the first day I couldn't push the bed back at all! Then my 师父 simply did it with one arm. *gasp* But after a few days I got the technique to do it as well la.
Introduction to Russian sign language
The hotel has a lot of Russian guests and the only way to communicate with them is through sign language. After awhile, I gathered that pulling your lower eye muscle downwards and point around means 'I'm looking for a friend'. Patting on your chest means 'I'm full', its usually followed by putting both hands together which means 'I want to take-away my food.'
If they want to order something a la carte instead of buffet then we have a problem. It means I've to act out the animal involved! Like flapping your arms means 'chicken', horns on the head means 'beef'. Quite frustrating, but very very funny.
Jianguomennan
Address of our hotel
Lok kok hotel but convenient location! Within half an hour of 天安门，王府井 and 西单. There's 1 MRT station which sits on two lines, 1 bus interchange and another busstop. And buses in Beijing comes very frequently, usually within 5 mins.
Karaoke
金库KTV @ 西单 rocks!
Large rooms
点歌机
Plasma TV
November 24, 2008
Great Wall
We went to the 八达岭 section of the Great Wall. Took a 滑车 up the 4th tower and then chiong up to the peak at the 8th tower.
Great wall is a very beautiful place, a place which I want to remember vividly in my mind. Sadly I suck at remembering places. So the photos become a faint reminder of what I saw.
滑-ing down, shiok!
November 23, 2008
Long long time ago, there was an emperor by the name of Cull En who founded the Yo dynasty. Being a womanizer, he spent his time revelling with his many concubines.
Of course all the concubines competed fiercely for Cull En's attention. One morning, the concubines had nothing to do so they wanted to pay Cull En a visit. But they did not want each other to come along! So they held a high jump competition to decide who could visit the emperor.
Concubine Patt won! .
Triumphantly, she went looking for Cull En at his favourite seat.
But he was nowhere to be found!
At this point of time, Concubine Patt heard footsteps from behind. She spun around thinking its Cull En. Instead, she saw 张飞 from another time dimension chiong in and killed everyone. Yo dynasty fell.
Many years later...
The new emperor spends his summer at the 颐和园 chalet.
When we knew he invited us to visit his chalet we jumped with joy!
We fooled around.
欲穷千里目，更上一层楼。So we chionged up the temple you saw in the background of the first photo. After climbing a particularly long flight of stairs we were very tired.
But we were pleasantly rewarded >>>
Fake Brands
November 21, 2008
Autumn
缓~缓~飘~落~的~枫~叶~像~思~~念~~~~
Autumn is the best season to visit Beijing because its neither scorching hot nor freezing cold. Furthermore winter in Beijing is legendarily boring because of its pathetic snow which I did not get to see. Boohoohoo...
People like to go to 香山 at this time of the year to admire the red maple leaves, Gen and I went to this place call 百望山森林公园 instead to avoid the crowd at 香山.
Actually the golden leaves at the sidewalks is already a sight to behold.
This was taken at 雍和宫 lama temple and I felt really happy being surrounded by the golden trees. I cant think of any other words to describe the feeling. Its just, happy hapPY HAPPY! And its not something which I can collect in the form of a photo or by bringing the leaves home... Aiyar! Happy la! Hahaha.
Breakfast and snacks
Breakfast in Beijing can be cheap and good! One of our favourite is the 早餐 man who sells this ham-burger which is very 有料！It has lettuce, an egg and 4 pieces of cheena ham!!
There's also my favourite 煎饼, which is sort of like a thin pancake coated with egg and wrapped over a piece of crispy tofu skin. So when you bite into it its crispy... yet soft... and eggy... with the sauce...
Another delicacy which I eat at every chance is 冰糖葫芦!!! They 冰糖 a lot of fruits and my favourite is strawberries and grapes! The sugar melts in your mouth and then you taste the sour fruits WAH... then before you know it you've swallowed so you move on to the next fruit.
That's how I eat them anyway hahaha. I can easily chomp down 2 sticks of those heavenly things at one go, and the rest always say I look very greedy holding 2 sticks.
Which is really quite greedy! Hahaha...
At night there's a stall near the dormitory which sells cheena satays at 1 yuan each. That's like only 20cents each. It tastes very good because its seasoned with spices and charcoal grilled, so we often brave the chilly wind for it. Besides the normal 鸡肉串 and 羊肉串, the 鸡心 and 大腰子 is nice too. I think 鸡心 is quite cruel cuz each chicken only has one heart and 3 hearts make a 串 so... =( I killed a lot of chickens already.
YES we tried that! It was full of sand.
Columbian man
Haha ok we came across this Cafe de Colombia at a shopping centre. A chinese guy with 'columbian hairstyle' said we can buy a scoop of ice cream mixed with a few favours. So we bought, and he generously dug one scoop of a flavour and one scoop of another flavour to make ONE big scoop.
Really ONE big scoop right?
Needless to say, we quickly became regulars, speculating whether he is trying to clear stock or just plain being nice. Every time he scoops for us we would try very hard not to laugh out loud in case he thinks we are mad. I never ask if he's really from Columbia so that remains a question mark. But his colleagues say he is a barista, which is quite cool.
He has a long ponytail until his back!
The shopping centre is very cool too, with a huge tv screen as ceiling and surround sound effect.
Dormitory life
Living in the dorm with 15 people meant my personal space got smaller. At first, we were shocked that some of our bunkmates slept naked. Some of us also found it hard to sleep when people in the dorm play music from their phones while talking to their friends at night. People also wake up to get ready for work between 4.30a.m to 12 noon depending on their shift so light sleepers like Gen and Patt really had a hard time. And my bunkmate - I was sleeping on one of the two double decker beds put together - would occasionally put one leg over me in her sleep! Lolz. Thankfully I sleep like I do.
But once I got over it, my bunkmate 婷婷 is actually a very friendly person and I'm glad its her cuz we got along well. And days of waking up and seeing my friends around me first thing in the morning felt quite good. Some days Patt would wake me up by 'superpoking' me and totally not allowing me to snooze. (-_-)zz
Then we would groggily walk from the dorm to an underground carpark next door then upstairs to the shower room to get ready for work.
Life in the dorm is very routine especially when I was in the housekeeping department cuz the shift doesn't change so I sleep and wake up at the normal times each day. Something that can never happen in Singapore. A pity we had to leave a little too soon and when I just bought a new bolster.
gasp! supernatural encounters
Illegal gatherings outside the dorm
November 16, 2008
I'm back! Earlier by 2 months because of visa problems. Well, we all got over the shock already, must look forward at the next stop which is Fairmount Fairmont Hotel. At least the 8 of us will still be in the same place.
Beijing days has been good. Oh don't get me started! I will miss the place... 2 months is too big a chunk for me to blog, I shall think about how to after all the photos are up.
For now, its great to be back to home SWEET home! Literally because I could only smell the stink on my clothes and luggage after I reach home haha erps. The details on the stink and hygienc issues can probably be 1 entry by itself, so... I'm sleeping now! Byebye!
夏。狂热 - 苏打绿