I kind of hate the way morning sun shining directly into the room when I first got into this room. But now, I just feel so blessed to have this warm room.
Outside, the weather has slowly but steadily turned colder day by day. Today is no different. This morning, the temperature read at 11 degree. At the beginning of the class, I still felt quite okay. However, when it was getting later into noon time, I felt colder. I guessed because it was time for lunch. Empty stomach does not help to keep you warm.
When I got back to this room, oh... I just love my room. Warm sun shining through the window, falls right beside my desk. Sitting here, typing this blog, accompanied by the warmth of the sun, it all feels so good :)
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Trip to Huangshan
I remembered that I have not updated my trip during the golden week holiday here in Beijing, China. It lasted from the 1st to 8th of Oct this year. I had have actually planned long before I reached Beijing to travel during this period because this was the only holiday period during the semester. However, until the last few weeks, it seemed that nobody was planning to go anywhere. It is understandable though 'coz during this period everywhere will be so packed, it feels like being in the sardine can. Just imagine the whole China (the most populated country on earth) is having holiday at the same time. I thought maybe because of this that the students here was planning just stay put in Beijing.
Alas, I heard that a group of students were planning to go to Huangshan. I immediately asked one of my better friend whether she wanted to join. I thought to myself if she went along at least I had one better companion as I did not know the others well at that time.
And so I was on this tour to Huangshan. We went for a total of 7 days, the real trip was actually 5 days as we spent two days in the train trip. The train ride was basically not so bad - I used not so bad here :p We were on the bedded train compartment so we all had beds to sleep on. One train compartment consists of about 10 sections. One section consists of 6 beds, 3 in a row. So if you are on the top bed - good luck on climbing up and down :p You can only sit with your back straight on the lowest bed as the gap between that bed and the upper one is the tallest among all. I was luckly enough to be in the section of my own school friends. Although we did not really know each other initially, after 17 hours of train ride together, we were soon click well with each other. Back to the comment of 'not so bad'. So it was actually went on quite okay in the train except for the toilet. Well, what can I say, people here in China are apparently lack of personal hygiene concept I guess. The toilet was quite fine at the beginning of the train ride. But after some time, you could see that all sorts of 'stuff' stuck there in the toilet hole. Actually, couldn't really blame the people who used it also because the toilet hole was kind of stuck as well, meaning when you stepped on the thing to make the toilet hole opened up and suppose to discard all the stuff you just deposited there, the thing was actually stucked. Yes, there was no water to flush if you were wondering. Very low tech, traditional toilet here that I was talking about, sigh...
Actually, toilet is the main discomfort of this whole journey. I guess it is just the bad habit that people here could not really eliminate at this moment. I was not talking about that train toilet only, even in places where there is flush which works perfectly fine, people here often just dont flush after they finish doing their thing. No doubt, it is a lot better and cleaner in bigger cities but as you get more and more to suburb areas and villages, you need mental preparation as all sorts of 'treasure' can be seen in the toilet =D
Okay, back to trip. Actually there isnt much to say. The main places that impressed me were only three: Westlake, Huangshan and Shanghai.
Westlake is where the Legend of White Snake story(百蛇传) took place. A popular Chinese folklore love story between a snake demon and a scholar. I guess most of us watched or read this story before. The lake is beautiful; however, when we were there, the weather was a bit hazy so the view was not very clear. The tour guide briefly retold the story and showed us from the ship the pagoda that confined the white snake in the end and of course, the well known bridge where the white snake and the scholar met. Overall, the lake is vast, there are a few smaller islands inside the lake and the water is serene. It really gives the feeling of tranquility.
Huangshan is the most extra ordinary mountainous area in China. China has lots and lots of mountain but Huangshan is the most magnificent of them all. Of course, there are higher ones but they are still pale in comparison (there is even a Chinese saying for this but don't ask me, can't remember already, haha). I can perfectly understand this saying by looking at the Huangshan map: so many peaks and valleys. I think it can take one week to explore all of that.
Unfortunately, it was drizzling when we reached the foot of the mountain. It was quite cold so we all chose to went up the first part of the journey by using cable car instead. It was equivalent to 'only' 7.5km walk of endless staircases up to our first stop. By cable car it takes around 10 minutes, by foot it takes around 3 hour for an average normal walking speed unless you can 'fly'. Since we all chose to use cable car, we proceed to join the cable car queue (I mentioned that it was peak period right). We queued for almost 1 hour I think, it was just too many people. After we reached there, we continued to walk up under the drizlling rain, see the view and all those various funny looking pine trees. They have all sorts of names and stories behind those strange looking trees - to attract tourist, what else.
The next day, we woke up at 4 in the morning to rush for the sunrise. The journey took about an hour - more staircases to climb, sigh... The surrounding was in total darkness, so a few of us hold torchlight to light up our steps. This is a new exciting experience for me - walk up the mountain in total darkness ;)
I must say that the sunrise was ordinary, it was just that it set against the backdrop of those mountains that made it rather special. Maybe in my memory, I've seen better sunrise in Gunung Bromo, Indonesia :) After that, we still climbed up and down the various peaks and valleys in Huangshan for about 3 hours. The view is indeed very beautiful. Finally, on the last part of the journey, we chose to walk down instead of riding the cable car as the weather was quite good. We walked for about 2 hour. Luckily, we did not choose to climb up these staircases on our way up, or else I might take half day to reach there in the first place. Mind you, there is no point of return, so if you choose to walk, you have to walk all the way coz there is no cable car in the middle. And so, all our overworked feet were so sore for the next two three days as the result of this strenuous exercise =D But it was quite fun, since you can enjoy the trees and little forest along the way.
Last spot was Shanghai. Well, the city is beautiful, combination of ancient and modern architectures. Sailing along the Bund at night, we enjoyed those lighted up old and new styled buildings. Of course, we shopped at Nanjing Street - equivalent of Orchard Road of Singapore. The buildings are interesting because some of them still are in Old Chinese style. But the prices of the stuff there is tourist price aka not cheap. There are bargain market not far from there but we did not manage to go there since time was limited.
In the afternoon, we were sent backto Shanghai train station and this concluded my whole trip this time. We were all very tired at the end of this trip. Well, the cities are all far apart and so the time spent in the bus and train was very long. However, I still feel quite glad to join this trip. If there is a chance, on next other trips, I will take airplane instead of train so that wont feel so tired at the end of the journey :)
Alas, I heard that a group of students were planning to go to Huangshan. I immediately asked one of my better friend whether she wanted to join. I thought to myself if she went along at least I had one better companion as I did not know the others well at that time.
And so I was on this tour to Huangshan. We went for a total of 7 days, the real trip was actually 5 days as we spent two days in the train trip. The train ride was basically not so bad - I used not so bad here :p We were on the bedded train compartment so we all had beds to sleep on. One train compartment consists of about 10 sections. One section consists of 6 beds, 3 in a row. So if you are on the top bed - good luck on climbing up and down :p You can only sit with your back straight on the lowest bed as the gap between that bed and the upper one is the tallest among all. I was luckly enough to be in the section of my own school friends. Although we did not really know each other initially, after 17 hours of train ride together, we were soon click well with each other. Back to the comment of 'not so bad'. So it was actually went on quite okay in the train except for the toilet. Well, what can I say, people here in China are apparently lack of personal hygiene concept I guess. The toilet was quite fine at the beginning of the train ride. But after some time, you could see that all sorts of 'stuff' stuck there in the toilet hole. Actually, couldn't really blame the people who used it also because the toilet hole was kind of stuck as well, meaning when you stepped on the thing to make the toilet hole opened up and suppose to discard all the stuff you just deposited there, the thing was actually stucked. Yes, there was no water to flush if you were wondering. Very low tech, traditional toilet here that I was talking about, sigh...
Actually, toilet is the main discomfort of this whole journey. I guess it is just the bad habit that people here could not really eliminate at this moment. I was not talking about that train toilet only, even in places where there is flush which works perfectly fine, people here often just dont flush after they finish doing their thing. No doubt, it is a lot better and cleaner in bigger cities but as you get more and more to suburb areas and villages, you need mental preparation as all sorts of 'treasure' can be seen in the toilet =D
Okay, back to trip. Actually there isnt much to say. The main places that impressed me were only three: Westlake, Huangshan and Shanghai.
Westlake is where the Legend of White Snake story(百蛇传) took place. A popular Chinese folklore love story between a snake demon and a scholar. I guess most of us watched or read this story before. The lake is beautiful; however, when we were there, the weather was a bit hazy so the view was not very clear. The tour guide briefly retold the story and showed us from the ship the pagoda that confined the white snake in the end and of course, the well known bridge where the white snake and the scholar met. Overall, the lake is vast, there are a few smaller islands inside the lake and the water is serene. It really gives the feeling of tranquility.
Huangshan is the most extra ordinary mountainous area in China. China has lots and lots of mountain but Huangshan is the most magnificent of them all. Of course, there are higher ones but they are still pale in comparison (there is even a Chinese saying for this but don't ask me, can't remember already, haha). I can perfectly understand this saying by looking at the Huangshan map: so many peaks and valleys. I think it can take one week to explore all of that.
Unfortunately, it was drizzling when we reached the foot of the mountain. It was quite cold so we all chose to went up the first part of the journey by using cable car instead. It was equivalent to 'only' 7.5km walk of endless staircases up to our first stop. By cable car it takes around 10 minutes, by foot it takes around 3 hour for an average normal walking speed unless you can 'fly'. Since we all chose to use cable car, we proceed to join the cable car queue (I mentioned that it was peak period right). We queued for almost 1 hour I think, it was just too many people. After we reached there, we continued to walk up under the drizlling rain, see the view and all those various funny looking pine trees. They have all sorts of names and stories behind those strange looking trees - to attract tourist, what else.
The next day, we woke up at 4 in the morning to rush for the sunrise. The journey took about an hour - more staircases to climb, sigh... The surrounding was in total darkness, so a few of us hold torchlight to light up our steps. This is a new exciting experience for me - walk up the mountain in total darkness ;)
I must say that the sunrise was ordinary, it was just that it set against the backdrop of those mountains that made it rather special. Maybe in my memory, I've seen better sunrise in Gunung Bromo, Indonesia :) After that, we still climbed up and down the various peaks and valleys in Huangshan for about 3 hours. The view is indeed very beautiful. Finally, on the last part of the journey, we chose to walk down instead of riding the cable car as the weather was quite good. We walked for about 2 hour. Luckily, we did not choose to climb up these staircases on our way up, or else I might take half day to reach there in the first place. Mind you, there is no point of return, so if you choose to walk, you have to walk all the way coz there is no cable car in the middle. And so, all our overworked feet were so sore for the next two three days as the result of this strenuous exercise =D But it was quite fun, since you can enjoy the trees and little forest along the way.
Last spot was Shanghai. Well, the city is beautiful, combination of ancient and modern architectures. Sailing along the Bund at night, we enjoyed those lighted up old and new styled buildings. Of course, we shopped at Nanjing Street - equivalent of Orchard Road of Singapore. The buildings are interesting because some of them still are in Old Chinese style. But the prices of the stuff there is tourist price aka not cheap. There are bargain market not far from there but we did not manage to go there since time was limited.
In the afternoon, we were sent backto Shanghai train station and this concluded my whole trip this time. We were all very tired at the end of this trip. Well, the cities are all far apart and so the time spent in the bus and train was very long. However, I still feel quite glad to join this trip. If there is a chance, on next other trips, I will take airplane instead of train so that wont feel so tired at the end of the journey :)
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Retail Therapy Works
I personally never realized till lately that shopping is really some kind of therapy. I was feeling a bit out during the last few days - dont really know the reason why. It was just a strange mixture of anxiety I guess. Sometimes I woke up suddenly at nite - although I fell asleep again almost instantly. Maybe it was just some adjusting period, maybe I didnt rest well, or maybe I was thinking too much of a certain thing, well I can go on without an end here. Anyway, the point is, I was cured after a good shopping trip yesterday.
My first shopping trip in Beijing was in a place called Yong An Li. Let me warn you, if you are not used to bargain, do not shop in this place. You have to bargain very very very hard over here or else you will be cheated by the sellers. Most of the foreigners - having came from the countries with bigger currency value - feel that the things are already cheap here. That is why when the sellers cut the price a bit, they feel that they are already really good at bargaining. In reality, they are all have been cheated by the sellers in some way or another. The market price over here is generally 20 to 30% of the asking price although it may differ from shop to shop. Amazing right. In my whole life, this was the first shopping experience that left me more depressed instead of happy. Have you ever being scold by the sellers saying that we bargain too much but in the end, the deal was actually struck not far from our asking price? What a bargaining experience!
Well, after that experience, I was quite reluctant to go to this kind of shopping places in Beijing anymore - thinking that they all should be almost the same. Until one day, my friend said that there is a place which is far better. So last weekend, I decided to try again as I needed a few winter clothing to prepare for the weather which has slowly getting colder. Guess what - this place is far more reasonable. Although there is still bargaining skill involved, the asking price is okay and I feel that the sellers are more polite as well. At least I didnt see that sulken face or hear their scolding if we did not want to buy their stuff after taking a look at the things. Although some of the stuff asking price is doubled the should be price, the process of bargaining didnt feel painful as the sellers maintain their good manners.
Eventually I really bought a lot of things there. I and my friends stayed until the place is closed :p Although we left with sore feet and empty wallet but at least my heart is content and I did sleep well last night :)
My first shopping trip in Beijing was in a place called Yong An Li. Let me warn you, if you are not used to bargain, do not shop in this place. You have to bargain very very very hard over here or else you will be cheated by the sellers. Most of the foreigners - having came from the countries with bigger currency value - feel that the things are already cheap here. That is why when the sellers cut the price a bit, they feel that they are already really good at bargaining. In reality, they are all have been cheated by the sellers in some way or another. The market price over here is generally 20 to 30% of the asking price although it may differ from shop to shop. Amazing right. In my whole life, this was the first shopping experience that left me more depressed instead of happy. Have you ever being scold by the sellers saying that we bargain too much but in the end, the deal was actually struck not far from our asking price? What a bargaining experience!
Well, after that experience, I was quite reluctant to go to this kind of shopping places in Beijing anymore - thinking that they all should be almost the same. Until one day, my friend said that there is a place which is far better. So last weekend, I decided to try again as I needed a few winter clothing to prepare for the weather which has slowly getting colder. Guess what - this place is far more reasonable. Although there is still bargaining skill involved, the asking price is okay and I feel that the sellers are more polite as well. At least I didnt see that sulken face or hear their scolding if we did not want to buy their stuff after taking a look at the things. Although some of the stuff asking price is doubled the should be price, the process of bargaining didnt feel painful as the sellers maintain their good manners.
Eventually I really bought a lot of things there. I and my friends stayed until the place is closed :p Although we left with sore feet and empty wallet but at least my heart is content and I did sleep well last night :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
