Sunday, September 17, 2006

Beijing... day two

Well, this is the 2nd day and also the last day in Beijing because we needed to head back to Jinan so that I don't miss work on Monday.

Our train is scheduled at 10p.m so we have plenty of time to hang around town. We had a horrible breakfast at the hotel. It was worse than my youngest brother's first attempt to cook. All the roti canai looking things are cold and hard, the rest of the stuff were either too salty or tasteless. Don't even mention colours or texture. I wouldn't even call them food.

On the other hand, Guo Yi Tang bought us a terrific lunch later on. One which I would refer to the BEST so far I've ever tried in China. And DAMN IT, my phone memory was full! I thought I've taken all the wonderful pictures of those unbelievably delicious and good looking food, later which I came home to find that I didn't have any single fxxking one saved! Do you know how much food they ordered for the 6 of us? It's 20 over dishes and EACH and EVERYONE of them was so amazingly delicious and delicate. Why didn't I bring my extra memory card???????

After the amazing treat of food, someone suggested we go to Yong He Gong 雍和宫, which is near where we were.



Well, that's the only picture of me for the day. And obviously someone doesn't want to be seen. So I have to fade him away and no, I don't look like Chan Miu Ying. Thank You!



So what is this Yong He Gong place? To tell you the truth, I don't really care and not in the slightest interested. If you ever want to visit China my friend, I suggest you go places that are more of a natural reserves or that is not a tourist attraction. Everything is so commercialised and hence soul-less in China now. You will just be paying to see some empty buildings with so-called nice architecture. I feel exasperated.

But if you really want to find out what Yong He Gong is, click on the photo below.



I have not a clue what this object is, but I guess it's an imitation of heaven or some sort. It's kind of beautiful so I thought I'll take a pic of it.



Yong He Gong claims with pride that they have the biggest carving of the Future Buddha using one big White Sandal Wood tree. It's pretty amazing though, if you ask me. One whole tree woh!



It's listed in the Guinness World Record standing at 26 metre.



And this is the buddha. It's obviously too high for me to even have a proper look at his upper abdominal. He's like a giant and I felt like hugging him. :-) He's the only thing in BJ I saw that's remotely touched my heart.



There were a lot of tourists and I wonder if they feel the same as I do about the whole China without a soul and being so empty kind of feeling. I feel sad for a country that was once one of the cradles of civilisation.



While I waited for my fellow companions, I notice there were a couple of old Ginkgo trees around and were all filled with cute vanilla coloured Gingko. How I wish I could steal some and have a try. So much for the legendary fruit and its leaf.



We went shopping for the later part of the day. My god, each shopping complex is so big I will never ever be able to browse through everything!

Everyone felt tired after the brief but exasperating shopping experience. Basically, it's hard to find anything fashionable unless your definition of fashion includes bad taste in colour scheme and mix-matching the jack union in everything in an attempt to make things look westernised.

Well, I, however, managed to buy myself a pair of girly suede boots.



Of all the colours, I chose pink. That's so unlike me, but I feel young and pretty now so I am going to do all the pink stuff I've missed when young. :-p hehe. Oh, it's only RMB180 by the way! What a bargain! That should keep me warm during the winter.



We went back to Wang Fu Jing to search for food. And came across a signage that says FOOD STREET. And there's nothing more Yeng/Jamie likes more than the word FOOD.



Again, there were so many choices that I had to make 2-3 rounds checking on everything single stall just to make sure I will be picking the best. I ended up having Korean Seafood Pancake but the Yun Nan Bamboo Rice is looking good.



After my satisfying meal. We took the public bus to got to the train station, which is near Wang Fu Jing. I'm thrilled because I get to sleep on one of those cool beds. There were 3 levels and we've all got the 2nd level.



The journey was about 6 hours and as cool and exciting as it looked, I couldn't sleep the whole night and was basically nerve breaking because there was this bloody fellow below me that snored so hard like a pig that he could have snored the whole China up. What karma do I owe him to deserve this?

That's it, I'm gonna take the plane next time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Did you go to the Xi Dan shopping precinct? Quite a nice place to shop, as Wangfujing is getting too touristy nowadays.