8 Days in Beijing - Day 6

Date of travel: 17.12.2013

HAPPY CHINESE NEW EVERYBODYYYY!!

Didn't blog cos' everybody will be too busy giving and collecting ang baos rather than reading my useless blog.  I still update my personal diary at my Dayre, if interested on how I spend my CNY (basically it's all food >.<) click HERE.

So, here's my Beijing Day 6!

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Day 1 click HERE

Day 2 (part 1) click HERE

Day 2 (part 2) click HERE

Day 3 (part 1) click HERE

Day 3 (part 2) click HERE
Day 4 click HERE
Day 5 click HERE

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Day 6 Highlight ~

ChengDe 承德

Hai Di Lao Hot Pot 海底捞

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Travelled by coach to ChengDe took freaking 4hrs.

Visited The Summer Resort 避暑山庄 for 2hrs, lunch, then another 4hrs to come back to Beijing -_____-||| No doubt it's a nice place but still doesn't justify the agony of  travelling 8hrs to and fro.  I dozed my way there, not sure if I snored but drooled lolxx....

It's freezing cold in ChengDe around -5 to -7°C.  Went for toilet break and run back into the bus for dear life, omg......... cold until couldn't make it out there for another second.

The Summer Resort 避暑山庄
Built between 1703 - 1792 during Qing Dynasty, 5.6km² in area.  KangXi 康熙, QianLong 乾隆 and JiaQing 嘉庆 Emperors spent several months here during summer.  There are four areas of attractions but we only covered one miserable section in one area.  The more I looked at the overall map, the more pek chek I felt.  We missed out a lot a lot.....

正宫澹泊敬诚殿  Zhan Bo Jing Cheng Palace, main hall of The Summer Palace.

The palace is made of Nan wood 楠木, resistance to decay and the local tour guide said it produces a natural fragrance during summer.

With that "deadly" introduction, a bought a comb, not too expensive and couldn't remember the price.

KangXi 康熙 was closely related to The Summer Palace, so a little bit more about this Emperor....

KangXi 康熙 was made Emperor at the age of 8, sat at the throne from 1661 - 1722.   Initially he was an Emperor without real authority till he send the officer Ao Bai 鳌拜 to jail in 1669.  Numerous movies/drama are made from how this remarkable emperor ruled the empire.

Here's a our familar Ao Bai 鳌拜 starring 徐锦江 (HongKong actor) waaahaahaaa..... oh gosh I love him so much lolxx.....

After KangXi 康熙, his fourth son QianLong 乾隆 took over.    All along, I thought all emperors were big and tall.  When the tour guide said QianLong 乾隆 was probably about 152cm height, I nearly died laughing, LOLxxx......  King Luis's height waaahaahaaaa.........

Anyway, he was made emperor between 1736 - 1795.  It was said he was very filial to his mother although there were different stories about his birth.

It was on this table, that 咸豐 Xiangfeng Emperor signed the Beijing Treaty with Britain, France and Russia in 1860.

A tourist pic to proof that 老娘到此一游！

The Summer Palace is sooooooooooo..... beautiful.

The scenery just took our breath away.........

RuYi Hu 如意湖 frozen, still beautiful.

Then we saw somebody walked onto the frozen lake, my boys followed before our tour guides could stop them lolxxx.....  "站着拍照就好！ 别跑别跳哦!"  screamed our worried tour guides.

 It's dangerous if the ice break, so I didn't go down in case my weight trigger tragic.

So incredibly beautiful .....

Darren was posing at Yan Yu Lou 烟雨楼, where 还珠格格 (My Dear Princess) was filmed.

Another important spot at The Summer Palace - ReHe 热河。

Direct translation to english = Warm River.  As the name suggested, water temperature is always warm.  No doubt not so warm in winter but it never freeze.

It is the shortest river in China, about 700m.

Despite of the super short length, there's a dock for boats, or rather a boat at a time lolxx..

陆合塔

Lunch.

Melt in your mouth pork belly.  Fish with lots of fine bones was tacky to eat.

After lunch, ended our miserably short stay at Chengde.  So next time when people asked if I had been to Chengde, I'll have to say "Yes I had been to Chengde for 2 hours!" wtf  -____-

Bus trip back Beijing, along some nice scene.

Sorry, this wasn't exactly nice, it's a train, looking super clean and new.

On our way didn't see much high rise buildings in ChengDe.

Tour guide gave us persimmon fruit to try.  With a natural groove in the middle, looking much like 2 hamburger breads kiap together.  It's sweet and soft, very very different from those hard and full of yucky fibres ones in Singapore.  Yummy, when's the next time I can get to eat it again?

寂寞的公路，漫漫的旅程，

陌生的美丽， 片片的回忆。

By the time we reached Beijing, it's sun set liao.

Beijing's busy roads.

Blur pic cos' bus was moving.  The white building is China-Japan Friendship Hospital 中日友好医院, founded in 1984.

 A testimonial to extend peaceful relationship.  However painful World War II maybe, move on and let it be history ba....

Dinner.

The restaurant was filled with live seafood, made me scream and drool.

But dishes on our table just.......... same repeated veg dishes again!!!   No seafood, urrrggg......

Damn it, god damn it...... not happy.   I made my private order of sea urchins, RMB12 each about S$2.50 only.

So here's my sea urchin with steam egg.  It's sweet like eating crab roe but it's softer in texture.

First time ate sea urchin, happy ^^.

We had already planned supper at 海底捞 hot pot, else, I would had order crab, abalone, lobster to eat for "revenge".

After dinner, we went separate ways from our tour mates at 王府井 Wang Fu Jing.

It's basically an expensive street with various shopping malls.


But still managed to buy a pink wool jacket at RMB 199 from a small out door shop.  Also a 3-in-1 bunny cap+scarf+mittens at RMB 100, not the best deal, but I liked it a lot.  You will get to see me wearing in the next posts.

There's a small lane in 王府井 Wang Fu Jing which is like our Bugis Village.  Lots of street food and little stalls.

Fried star fish and sea horses, eeeeeeeeeeeew...............

Headed to 海底捞 hot pot at around 9pm.

There are 23 outlets in Beijing, this outlet we visited was at:

北京市乐城区王府井大街
88号乐天银泰百货8层
Operation Hours - 24 hours
Tel: 010-5762 0153, 5762  0741, 5762 0742

We wait about 10mins for a table.

Waiting area was pretty much the same as Singapore, with a manicure section.  Our popcorns are better, while their warm orange juice, yes it's WARM orange juice was the best orange juice I ever drank in my whole life! WARM ORANGE JUICE!!  It's sweet, no slightest trace of sour in it and it's pure concentrate, non-diluted juice.

The waitress who lead us to our table helped us with our shopping bags, a bit pai seh cos' she looked so tired already.

Me wearing their dark blue apron merrily browsing through their menu in ipad.

Before I moved on, I am really sorry that I lost the receipt.  I had put all the receipts, air tix, brochures and all the papers be it useful or useless into a file.  But then it's not there T___T  Couldn't remember the prices already, but it's much cheaper than Singapore.   The bill was about S$60 for the following items we ordered:

Ordered our favourite spicy and tomato soup base.

The spicy broth was lips burning SPICY!!

Condiments and fruits counter similar to Singapore's.

Fresh tofu which wasn't our order and was taken back later.

Beef balls.

Mutton.

Duck blood jelly, yummy big time, ate while we could, once back in Singapore no more chance.

1/2 portion spinach since my kids don't eat veg.

Frozen tofu.

Beeffffffff

Milk bun with spring onions, weird combination but delicious.  It was recommended by the serving lady.

Kungfu noodles.

Mango pudding.

Now, let me show you their wonderful toilet, heeeheee...

It means that if you need sanitary pads, can approach their toilet attendant.

The toilet had an attendant who greet the "visitors", make sure every WC was flashed after use, kept the basin area really dry and pass you hankies!!  By this hour I visited, the attendant already off duty, else I wouldn't be able to take pic.

Their vanity counter got hand lotion, hair spray, cotton buds and many other toiletries.  Super pampering!

For those who are interested to visit 海底捞 Hot Pot at Clarke Quay Singapore, click HERE.

Our supper ended around 10.30pm, all the other shops were closed and it was all quiet.  Walked out of the shopping mall, a stranger approached us and offer us transport at RMB60.  My gan jiong hubby like found life saviour hopped into the 霸王车 (illegal car transport),  I didn't have time to react or stop him, urrgg.....

The funniest part was, when we reached the hotel, I sort of reprimanded him a little, he said that he didn't know it's 霸王车.  Aiyo........... my 天  *face palm* plus *bang wall*.  One day we will "died" in his hands lor...... tsk tsk tsk.

Day 7 we went to the ski resort, get to play around with man-made snow (at least) since Beijing refused to snow.  Drafting, hope to post up soon and get done with the last day ;)