4th to 5th October: We spent one night in Beijing. First thing we arrived after a very long car journey lasting the whole morning from TEDA, we had lunch, then we went to Heavenly Palace Park, also known as 天坛 (Tian Tan) in Mandarin. Now you guys gotta understand that I'm not quite fond of sightseeing in the first place, though I wouldn't mind if the place is interesting. But Tian Tan, besides being big and majestic (like what else in Beijing isn't), is just that. And it was worse than what I'd seen as a preschooler some 12 years ago. Everything was barricaded so access was denied to a lot more places than before; the effects of acid rain on the tiles were much worse; and don't forget it's the Golden Weekend here in China, the country's 59th National Day, I swear it felt like 50% of China's population were all congregated there. The most annoying bit of all was that you have to pay for an entry ticket to each section of the park. To buy a through ticket would be 35 yuan. Just gaining entry into the goddamned park is 15 yuan. Each section is 10 yuan. What the hell! If I wasn't really enjoying it 12 years ago, I certainly am not now.
Then we decided to check into the hotel. Now the hotel's the interesting part - it's a small, quiet, swanky boutique hotel called Orange Hotel (橘子酒店). It's tucked away and hidden in the middle of a residential area and it's tiny for a hotel, 3 storeys high and less than 10 rooms per storey, and each room is small but not squeezy, just compact enough for coziness. My parents stayed in one double room, my grandmothers shared one twin room, and I stayed in a single room just down the aisle. And boy, I LOVE my room! But I want to present my room in its own post so later.
After a good rest in our rooms we headed out for dinner at a Korean restaurant with some of my dad's collegues and their family. The mushroom soup is excellent, but no matter what my grandmothers say about how nice the kimchi is I still like the sort they ship in to Singapore. Theirs is like SWEET and I like mine sour and spicy. But that aside, the mushroom soup and fried tofu are great, and I guess I stuffed myself up just an inch away from exploding point.
One of my dad's collegues, Changyao, a Beijing native, recommended that we have a look at The Place （世贸天阶）, where the world's largest and longest LED display is housed, installed on the ceiling of a hallway at least five stories high by my (rather inaccurate) estimation. All I can say is, IT'S MASSIVE! Need I say more? Now I personally don't have pictures (long story) but dude, if I had my own camera I'd go snap-happy. Now part of what makes it so amazing is what's being displayed. If such a gizmo was installed in Singapore the first thing they'd broadcast would be ADVERTISEMENTS. But not here in Beijing. The LED displays showed a series of very cool graphics, ranging from the snazzy to the stormy, the loud to the soft, accompanied by musical arrangement that makes the whole display more than just a visual treat. When the phoenix flies, you really feel like it's flying over your head and to the skies beyond.
Following a whole night of getting lost around Beijing and making poor 曹师傅 drive around an unfamiliar city in circles, we finally reached the hotel at almost 11PM and went to bed straight after. We needed to get ourselves recharged for another day full of activities... or so my dad had planned, but most of it was badly thwarted anyway.
We were supposed to see Bird's Nest Stadium, Water Cube, National Theatre, and a couple more I can't remember and guess what? We missed out on all that. EXCEPT! One very large and nice-looking museum full of semi-rotten, half-tarnished artifacts from a squillion years ago. Which was supposed to be fascinating, but in saturation it is just one word, boring. (Even my grandmothers find it boring, and if old people are bored by old things, that's saying something about how boring it really really is.) The only person who's really fascinated is probably my dad, and yet on a scale of 1 to 10 he's probably only on 6 or 7. Then we went shopping (Groan!) at what's that place I can't remember, just this bigass mall full of clothes and shoes. It's pretty interesting to note that the Mainland Chinese have already surpassed Singaporeans in fashion sense. And and and I bought books. SURPRISE, GUYS, I ACTUALLY BUY BOOKS! I bought five of Jimmy's picture books to fill my collection. I do have an obsession with Jimmy's books. I've finished 森林里的秘密 and 1. 2. 3. 木头人, now I'm reading Pourqoi? 布瓜的世界.
Now there's something interesting – we took a high-speed train back to Tang Gu. and by high-speed, I mean high-speed; the train zips through the city borders at 330km/h! And. We bought seats in the first-class cabin >: D.
And there marketh the end of my one night affair with Beijing.