Destination: Xi'An (China)
Duration: 8 days 9 to 16 Nov 2019
Mode of travel: Celebrity tour with CTC Travels
Damage: $1419/pax + RMB200 (fee for guides) + RMB600 (cable car and performance)
Flight: Scoot, we had 20kg baggage and 7kg hand carry, 1 dinner
Accommodation: We have 4 accommodations, details will be in the post
Weather: -2 to 18 degrees
Currency: approx. SGD1 = RMB5
Time difference: same as Singapore
Date: 11/11/2020
Itinerary:
Mushroom farm
JinTai Mountain (金台山)
Still staying at Titan Times Hotel, same cafe for buffet breakfast.
Had noodles topped with veg and tofu, sausage and bacon kiap from the western counter. Almost like our yong tau foo. Heat up my chicken essence in a bowl of hot water.
Dare not add too much chilli in the morning.
Everybody were punctual and we were on the road again after breakfast.
Scenery along the way at unknown places was nice, mountains every where, 小桥流水.
We came to a mushroom farm.
Something I had seen before, so wasn't too fascinating.
Just causally picked a few cos the fresh mushrooms were not able to last long enough for us to bring back.
We gave them to the restaurants to cook them for us.
One of the tour mate found this palm size gigantic mushroom.
Looked too pretty to be eaten lolxx..
Moving on for less than 5mins...
They were supposed to bring us to the mushroom factory to show us how they dry the mushrooms.
The factory was however "abandon", not a single machine was working, no workers could be seen, it's dirty every where, shouldn't bother, waste time.
Lunch.
Almost the same dishes for lunch and dinner every day. I am not a fussy person, but it's difficult not to get sick of it.
There were occasional surprise though, behold, pink vermicelli.
We finished lunch quickly to spend time in the hotel's lobby.
Take photo with Rayson, so handsome.
Ride for about 2hrs and reached JinTai Mountain (金台山).
We waited here for a smaller transport to bring us up the mountain.
From what I know, this is a new attraction, not popular yet. It was opened to public in Oct 2016.
The locals already seize the opportunity to set up the mobile stalls nearby.
This granny was selling handmade shoe inlay.
Here's our transport.
It's beautiful up here overlooking the small town, inhaled the fresh cool air.
I survived the stairs.
Awwwww........... some how looked like Japan.
No photos were allowed inside XinLong Temple (兴隆寺). We viewed the Buddha Tooth Sariko (舍利子), they were so precious.
The agency screwed up over here and didn't arrange transport to bring us down.
So we slowly walked down, if we didn't make it by dinner time, we would need to roll down lolxx... Luckily we found a tour bus stopping at the mid hill. Seeing that there were so many elderly, the very kind driver drove us down hill, he saved our lives!
Not sure what happened internally, we were made to walk to our hotel. It wasn't too far, about 15mins walk but it's a up slope, so I wasn't too happy.
Nevertheless, here's JinTai Academy Hotel (金台书院酒店)
New buildings in ancient chinese style, super awesome for taking photos. If only I knew earlier, I would had brought along a Han costume, haahaahaa....
They were constructing elevators, luckily we were told to bring a overnight hand carry bag, leaving our main bulky luggage in the bus.
Most of the tour mates went to attend some buddhist talk and meditation, nothing was arranged for non-buddhist, we were left wondering around. Good thing cos the surroundings was so beautiful.
So in love with the wooden pillars and frames.
Hubby went talking and smoking non-stop with another guy, while a found another female tour mate to roam around with me.
Thanks to her, she took some nice photos of me.
I think I am going to wear this outfit combi again, I looked less fat and less pumpkin.
Finally got to check in before dinner.
The vanity counter was very low at my hip.
The marble was lovely though.
Everything looked clean, but there were a bunch of hair on shower area's floor trap.
The hotel had one restaurant and it served vegetarian.
I don't mind vegetarian but the dishes were pathetic. I was expecting nice tofu dishes, some red dates soup, but they gave green chilli with soy sauce as one of the dish.
Our mushroom kinda make things a little better.
The night was still young after dinner. We should had approached the front desk for recommended leisure places but we didn't.
Could see XinLong Temple (兴隆寺) from hotel and it was gleaming in gold.
The lightings were genius.
After a long walk of 15mins, we reached the main street. We were dying to look for some excitement to kill time but the place was generally quiet.
A lorry load of kiwi, the seller didn't need a stall to sell, brilliant.
Another lorry load of fruits for sale.
Small provision shop which we bought some drinks.
We chanced upon a bigger shop selling lots of fruits, including our durian.
No ideal why they need to cling wrap the thorny.
We tugged back 2 big bunches of bananas to distribute the next morning.
It's around S$5 for these, they gotten heavier and heavier as we walked back.
They were the most flawless and smooth bananas I ever seen in my life lolxx....
We saw a few of our tour mates who came back from shopping. They were smart enough to get the front desk to book a cab for them to go to the shopping district. We should had done that , urrggg.... but never mind, the bananas were good too.
For Day 1 click HERE
Day 2 click HERE
Meanwhile, I had booked a sakura trip to Tokyo/Nikko before the outbreak of Wuhan Virus. Let's hope that things will be under control, else I'll be extremely upset if this trip can't be fulfill. It's going to be a very special trip with my young kid Luis, we are going to take a lorry load of photos and shopping loots back.
Also hope to finish my Xi'An posts before going, heehee....
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