My Wonderful Beijing Trip (Sunday, March 28, 2010 / 7:57 AM)
I went to Beijing on the 14th of March, which was a Sunday. I went to Changi Airport on the 13th of March and arrived there at about 10p.m. My mother and I had like 3 hours of free time to spend in the airport? So, we decided to go to the Singapore Airlines lounge to eat and rest there. The lounge was awesome! It looks so exclusive and high-class but First Class has better facilities. We took Business Class so we had more or less the same privileges as First Class passengers. When it was almost time, we went for window-shopping before going to the Gate to get into the airplane.
This was my first time sitting Business Class. All the while, I have been sitting in Economic Class all the while. So, I was not really used to the the good service the air-stewards and stewardess had given me and not even the big, useful headphones! They were awesome! I had so many drinks and watched so many movies. I even had a heavy but scrumptious breakfast. I did not sleep at all!
When we almost touched down Beijing Airport, I realised that the sky was so gloomy (FYI, we arrived in the morning. Therefore, it's supposed to be bright.). Then, that's when I realised that Beijing is snowing! Yeah! At first if you look out from the airplane's window, it looks like it is raining but if you view more closely, you can see real snow flakes. Though, Beijing's ones are kinda like chips of ice.
We alighted the airplane and went through immigration before taking the MRT to the other terminal to claim our baggage. On the way, I realised that Beijing airport is super big! It takes like six minutes from one terminal to the next by MRT. Unlike Singapore, which only takes three minutes or less?
After claiming our baggage, we met my Dad at the arrival hall where my father was waiting with a taxi driver. Since it was still early, we went back to the hotel, J.W Marriot and had a rest before going out for brunch at Silk Road/Market. We ate at O Briens. The sandwiches were delicious! We bought some cheap stuffs there. The 'market' reminds me of Hong Kong but their stuffs are much more expensive than there, surprisingly.
Since it was our first day and we didn't plan for any sight-seeing, we went to another mall but this is more high-class and expensive. We ate some desserts and just did some window-shopping and took pictures of snow outside the mall before walking back to our hotel which was less than three minutes' walk away from the mall.
We ate dinner with my Mom's friend at a Chinese Restaurant. The food was good but I felt disgusted when my Mom ate the duck's tongue. It looked so wrong to eat a duck's tongue although it was a delicacy in China. The weather in China was getting colder. I had to put my hands into my jacket pockets and wear my gloves. I even had to zip up my jacket! The ironic thing was my mother's friend brought us for ice-cream in a cold weather like this! LOL! I shared a cup of ice-cream with my Dad and drank a cup of hot chocolate as accompaniment. It was relaxing! My Mom only drank hot chocolate as she was sick.
We went back to the hotel soon after my Mom had a long talk with her friend. I spent my hours slacking, reading my storybook and watching TV. I dozed off after a while, sleeping on the most comfortable hotel bed I have ever rested! The bed was so big and it has so many pillows for me to hug! My oh my, I feel like a princess!
We woke up very early in the morning the next day which was the 15th of March, Monday, to go to two of Beijing's famous tourist attractions, Tien An Men Square and Forbidden City. As the place was still mostly covered with snow, Beijing's weather that day was extremely cold due to the snow and strong wind. Therefore, I was shivering from head to toes although I have worn so many layers of clothing and a thick winter jacket with thick yak boots! Well, I didn't enjoyed myself so much due to the freaking weather, nonetheless, I was truly amazed by the structure of the emperor's big mansion and other buildings like his temple and relatives' house. The Forbidden City already took up about the size of about ten football fields. Imagine how big is that!
We spent less time in Tien An Men Square than in Forbidden City. Tien An Men is just a building showing Mao Ze Dong's face. And I may say it is a gigantic face of him at the front of the building. I would really have taken more time in Forbidden City to take more photos and visit the exhibitions but the stupid weather has put me into a difficult position. I even had to borrow my Dad's gloves and hat to keep myself from freezing. The cold has made my hands go all numb and rigid! So did my legs!
Hence, after these, we went to a flee market and bought a waterproof winter jacket each for myself and my Mom. This time the jackets are so thick that it can warm us within minutes! Haha.
We went back to the shopping mall nearby our hotel for dinner before resting in our hotel.
The third day, 16th of March, we went to three historical places in Beijing which are the Temple of Heaven, The Great Wall of China! (whoa...) and the Ming Tombs.
The Temple of Heaven is a worthwhile visiting place in Beijing. It is much bigger than the Forbidden City and smaller than the Summer Palace with an area of about 2,700,000 square meters. The Temple was built in 1420 A.D. during the Ming Dynasty to offer sacrifice to Heaven. As Chinese emperors called themselves 'The Son of Heaven' ,they dared not to build their own dwelling,'Forbidden City' bigger than a dwelling for Heaven.
The Temple of Heaven is enclosed with a long wall. The northern part within the wall is semicircular symbolizing the heavens and the southern part is square symbolizing the earth. The northern part is higher than the southern part. This design shows that the heaven is high and the earth is low and the design reflected an ancient Chinese thought of 'The heaven is round and the earth is square'.
The Temple is divided by two enclosed walls into inner part and outer part. The main buildings of the Temple lie at the south and north ends of the middle axis line of the inner part. The most magnificent buildings are The Circular Mound Altar (Yuanqiutan), Imperial Vault of Heaven (Huangqiongyu) and Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest (Qiniandian) from south to north. Also, there are some additional buildings like Three Echo Stones and Echo Wall.Almost all of the buildings are connected by a wide bridge called Vermilion Steps Bridge (Danbiqiao) or called Sacred Way.
The Circular Altar has three layered terraces with white marble. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368 A.D. - 1911 A.D.), the emperors would offer sacrifice to Heaven on the day of the Winter Solstice every year. This ceremony was to thank Heaven and hope everything would be good in the future. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is a big palace with round roof and three layers of eaves. Inside the Hall are 28 huge posts. The four posts along the inner circle represent four seasons-spring, summer, autumn and winter; the 12 posts along the middle circle represent the 12 months; and 12 posts along the outer circle represent 12 Shichen (Shichen is a means of counting time in ancient China. One Shichen in the past equaled two hours and a whole day was divided into 12 Shichens). The roof is covered with black, yellow and green colored glaze representing the heavens, the earth and everything on earth. The Hall has a base named Altar for Grain Prayers which is made of three layers of white marble and has a height of six meters. Another important building in Temple of Heaven is Imperial Vault of Heaven. If you look at it from far away, you will find that the Vault is like a blue umbrella with gold head. The structure of it is like that of Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, but smaller in size. The structure was made of bricks and timber. The Vault was used to place memorial tablets of Gods. White marble railings surround the vault.
The Vermilion Steps Bridge connects the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest and the Imperial Vault of Heaven. The south end of the Bridge is lower than its north end. The emperors in the past believed that they could go to heaven through this Bridge, which is why this bridge is also called Sacred Way. A Yu Route and a Wang Route are on two sides of the Sacred Way. The former one is only for the emperors to walk on and the later one is for the princes and the high officials to pass.
Three Echo Stones is outside of the gate of the Imperial Vault of Heaven. If you speak facing the Vault while standing on the first stone, you will hear one echo; standing on the second and then the third stone, you will hear two and three echoes respectively.
Another interesting and famous place for you to visit is called Echo Wall owning special feature. The wall encloses the Imperial Vault of Heaven. Its perimeter is 193 meters.
If you and your friend stand at the east and the west roots of the wall respectively and you whisper a word, then your friend will hear clearly what you say. Isn't it interesting? The phenomenon utilizes the theory of sound wave.
Besides carefully designed buildings, there are also some other scenes that you can enjoy like Nine-Dragon Cypress. It got its name from branches which look like nine dragons wind with each other. It was said that the cypress was planted more than 500 years ago. Really, a grandfather tree!
The Temple of Heaven was magnificent and scenic. Fortunately, the weather on that day has gone back to normal, which meant that it was not as cold as the day before. It was a lovely time to go to all these places especially the Great Wall of China!
I have seriously never seen such amazing and fascinating man-made structure. Imagine seeing a very long building that stretches from Singapore to Penang, like the shape of an anaconda snake. Seriously! The Great Wall of China stretches out so long that it seemed endless! My parents and I decided to go to MuTianYu's part of the Great Wall of China which was further away from the main place of attention where all tourists go. We took the cable car up to the mountains before starting on our journey to one of the seven wonders of the world.
The steps was very irregular as some are so far apart that you need to stretch your legs but some were very narrow. I do wonder how did the warriors ever battle in an area like this? Won't they trip? Won't they get tired as they walk from one place of the wall to the other? OMiGosh. This will be so tiring! Those people must be very strong!
I like the views and ruins. I even used a pen to scratch on the wall saying that 'Rachel, Mom and Dad were here! 16/3/2010/'.
50 kilometers northwest from Beijing City lies the Ming Tombs - the general name given to the mausoleums of 13 emperors of the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644). The mausoleums have been perfectly preserved, as has the necropolis of each of the many emperors. Because of its long history, palatial and integrated architecture, the site has a high cultural and historic value. The layout and arrangement of all thirteen mausoleums are very similar but vary in size as well as in the complexity of their structures.
It was originally built only as Changling, the tomb of Emperor Zhu Di and his empresses. This is the most magnificent of the tombs. The succeeding twelve emperors had their tombs built around Changling.
That's how interesting the Ming Tombs sound like.
After that, we went back to our hotel and ate at the same mall before resting for the next day.
We spent all day in Summer Palace on the 17th of March! Seriously! We spent like from morning at 11a.m. there to when it was closing time which was 5p.m.! The place was such a big-scale that we walked and explored the place for the whole day without even eating breakfast and lunch! We only ate snacks at intervals. I was hungry all the time, so my Mom had to buy me Tapioca chips from the 'mini mart' there! They were tasty! Hahaaa.
Details on the Summer Palace:
The Summer Palace or Yihe yuan (simplified Chinese: 颐和园; traditional Chinese: 頤和園; pinyin: Yíhé Yuán; literally "Gardens of Nurtured Harmony") is a palace in Beijing, China. The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill (60 meters high) and the Kunming Lake. It covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water. The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometers was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. In the Summer Palace, one finds a variety of palaces, gardens, and other classical-style architectural structures.
The Summer Palace started out life as the Garden of Clear Ripples (simplified Chinese: 清漪园; traditional Chinese: 清漪園; pinyin: Qīngyī Yuán) in 1750 (Reign Year 15 of Emperor Qianlong). Artisans reproduced the garden architecture styles of various palaces in China. Kunming Lake was created by extending an existing body of water to imitate the West Lake in Hangzhou. The palace complex suffered two major attacks--during the Anglo-French allied invasion of 1860 (with the Old Summer Palace also ransacked at the same time), and during the Boxer Rebellion, in an attack by the eight allied powers in 1900. The garden survived and was rebuilt in 1886 and 1902. In 1888, it was given the current name, Yihe Yuan. It served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi, who diverted 30 million taels of silver, said to be originally designated for the Chinese navy (Beiyang Fleet), into the reconstruction and enlargement of the Summer Palace.
The sceneries there were beautiful, as if it's from print-out postcard pictures! The palace was very, very big. I wonder how did the emperors' servants walk from one place to another so quickly? I guess they travelled on horses.
Since we already spent whole day there, we decided to go and visit the Beijing Olympics site where the stadium was known to be known as a bird's nest and the swimming stadium looks like an ice-cube. I was so looking forward to it and now, I got the chance to see it.
We went to eat the famous Lao She Tea house on the 18th of March, which was known for its tea and performances. The food was awesome! I love the soup that they cooked after using the remaining duck's meat from the Peking duck. The flower tea was beautiful and fragrant!
Next, we went for a stroll and shop along Hu Tong shopping street, not the one where many Hu Tongs stay. We only went to visit there the following day. We took some photographs of two palaces, not sure if they are but they are closed to the public so I am not sure if that's a palace, it could be some other kind of monument or tourist attraction.
We only went to Hu Tong on the 19th of March. The place was really breathtaking! The lake was partially-frozen and the old houses were so old that they seemed to be from the emperors' dynasty.
During China’s dynastic period, emperors planned the city of Beijing and arranged the residential areas according to the social classes of the Zhou Dynasty (1027 - 256 BC). The term "hutong", originally meaning "water wells", appeared first during the Yuan Dynasty, and it is believed to be a term of Mongol language origin.
In the Ming Dynasty (early 15th century) the center was the Forbidden City, surrounded in concentric circles by the Inner City and Outer City. Citizens of higher social status were permitted to live closer to the center of the circles[citation needed]. Aristocrats lived to the east and west of the imperial palace. The large siheyuan of these high-ranking officials and wealthy merchants often featured beautifully carved and painted roof beams and pillars and carefully landscaped gardens. The hutongs they formed were orderly, lined by spacious homes and walled gardens. Farther from the palace, and to its north and south, were the commoners, merchants, artisans, and laborers. Their siheyuan were far smaller in scale and simpler in design and decoration, and the hutongs were narrower.
Nearly all siheyuan had their main buildings and gates facing south for better lighting; thus a majority of hutongs run from east to west. Between the main hutongs, many tiny lanes ran north and south for convenient passage.
Historically, a hutong was also once used as the lowest level of administrative geographical divisions within a city in ancient China, as in the paifang (牌坊) system: the largest division within a city in ancient China was a fang (坊), equivalent to current day precinct. Each fang (坊) was enclosed by walls or fences, and the gates of these enclosures were shut and guarded every night, somewhat like a modern gated community. Each fang (坊) was further divided into several plate or pai (牌), which is equivalent to a current day (unincorporated) community (or neighborhood). Each pai (牌), in turn, contained an area including several hutongs, and during the Ming Dynasty, Beijing was divided into a total of 36 fangs (坊).
However, as the ancient Chinese urban administration division system gave way to population and household divisions instead of geographical divisions, the hutongs were no longer used as the lowest level of administrative geographical division and were replaced with other divisional approaches.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Qing court was disintegrating as China’s dynastic era came to an end. The traditional arrangement of hutongs was also affected. Many new hutongs, built haphazardly and with no apparent plan, began to appear on the outskirts of the old city, while the old ones lost their former neat appearance. The social stratification of the residents also began to evaporate, reflecting the collapse of the feudal system.
During the period of the Republic of China from 1911 to 1948, society was unstable, fraught with civil wars and repeated foreign invasions. Beijing deteriorated, and the conditions of the hutongs worsened. Siheyuans previously owned and occupied by single families were subdivided and shared by many households, with additions tacked on as needed, built with whatever materials were available. The 978 hutongs listed in Qing Dynasty records swelled to 1,330 by 1949. Today, in some hutongs, such as those in Da Shi Lan, the conditions remain poor.
Following the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, many of the old hutongs of Beijing disappeared, replaced by wide boulevards and high rises. Many residents left the lanes where their families lived for generations for apartment buildings with modern amenities. In Xicheng District, for example, nearly 200 hutongs (24 pc) out of the 820 it held in 1949 have disappeared. The Beijing Municipal Construction Committee stated that, in 2004, some 250,000 square metres (25 ha) of old housing – 20,000 households – would be demolished.
However, many of Beijing’s ancient hutongs still stand, and a number of them have been designated protected areas. The older neighborhoods survive today, offering a glimpse of life in the capital city as it has been for generations.
Many hutongs, some several hundred years old, in the vicinity of the Bell Tower and Drum Tower and Shichahai Lake are preserved amongst recreated contemporary two- and three-storey versions.
We took a tricycle tour around the HuTong area and we learnt lots of things from the guides. We had a fun time listening and the guides were so charismatic! LMAO.
After that, we went out of HuTong and explored the nearby areas and there were two more tourist attractions but we didn't go as we thought it was a waste of money, it was not worthwhile. We took a cab home and began to pack our bags to go back home before going out with my Dad's colleagues and my Mom's friend.
This was the first time I went clubbing. Seriously. I was smuggled into the place by my parents as I was not allowed to. Only people from 18 years and above are allowed. So, yea, it was a great experience to see how the adults enjoy life. But I don't really like the place as a lot of people were smoking like chimneys! I hate smokers and smoke smell. Hence, I felt very uncomfortable and irritated with this.
We never go out the next day as we were too tired so we stayed in the hotel and relaxed. When we wanted to go to the Airport, we realised that Beijing had a very bad sandstorm in the morning. Praise the Lord for not ruining our Beijing Trip! God prevented the sandstorm from affecting our trip! Woot! Thank you Lord!
We only arrived in Singapore at about 11p.m. because of the idiotic China's aircraft system. Beijing's so UNFAIR! It allows its own China airlines or anything under China to go first before letting the rest of the aircrafts to take off! The flight was delayed by an hour! FCUK!
Nevertheless, it was fortunate of us to sit the all new Singapore Airlines which provide bigger seats for all as compared to the old ones. There are more movies to watch too and the space is so big! The TV is so CO_OL
I watched so many movies and TV shows that day, basically enjoying my last day of holiday, sort of as I needed to complete my e-learning assignments the next day! Stupid school, giving out e-learning assignments during the holidays. What the Hell? Don't they know that we need FREEDOM? We have already studied like 12 hours in school each day from Mondays to Fridays, sometimes even longer due to CCAs and yet they don't give mercy on us! UGHHHHH!
So, that's how Beijing rocks and sucks at the same time. Beijing is so dirty but cleaner than Shanghai and China people sucks! *no offence* They don't know how to communicate with people in English. Though some were friendly and approachable. They smoke like chimneys everywhere. ARGH!
I hope you appreciate this lengthy blog. Haha. It's informative! So, if anyone's going to Beijing this coming holidays, do feel free to approach me! LOL. Signing off!
P.S. I will upload the photos at a later post as this post is super long. Please bear with me.
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