The good old thing about e-mailing list is that it keeps you informed of the activities of the group that you belong to. It is convenient, fast and it reaches to everyone that belongs to the list.
Well, this is the main point of this story - It reaches to all members of the mailing list.
Let me tell you about an extensively abused mailing list that I belong to :p
Dont get me wrong, although it is being abused almost daily, I just love to be inside this mailing list. It is not that I like my mailbox being abused, you will see why by the end of this story.
It all started as a mailing list for our group's badminton activity on every Saturday. When we started the members were only a handful but as the group grows, it seemed that there were too many people of whom the organiser needed to inform of the location and timing of our badminton session. And thus, this mailing list exists. It started as a proper mailing list - meaning only the organiser used it to inform us of the badminton session, the movement of the fund that we paid for the court usage etc etc. Sometimes, once in a blue moon, a member or two would email to this group about some useful information or some jokes to share.
Then... somehow it all started. I guess maybe because of an influx of a bunch of newer members. They are, in my opinion, a bunch of happy and fun-loving people who love to make funny and interesting comments to the emails that are sent to this mailing list. Somehow, this sparks the interest of the older members who have been quiet and behaving all this while. And so, what we get is all hell breaks lose. An email of anything can get comments of tens of times by a few 'prime suspects' and resulted in over flooding of your email inbox.
Thanks goodness someone created gmail. I had switched to this email quite early, before all these junking of mailbox trend started...hahaha, lucky me. So all those comments that fall into the same subject header is still seen as one email. If you are on other email such as hotmail or yahoo, well, good luck to you. In an-hour of lunch break, you can get 10s of mails in your mailbox. If you are absent from checking your email in a week, I guess you can get hundreds of mails in your mailbox from this mailing list alone ;p
Well, I have never felt annoyed by this junking of mails yet, so far....... It is because the comments made are somehow funny and interesting. So reading them is like some sort of an entertainment to me. I sometimes laugh at all these funny and 'out of the world' sentences that these few 'prime suspects' wrote on these emails. You would see they do have vivid imagination and creative minds to create ever more interesting comments one after another. I have to warn you though that sometimes they write in jargon that we 'earth people' dont understand. This is actually one thing to laugh at too. And lately, one of these prime suspects showed through the mailing list email who had sent the most emails to the group in the previous month. Thus, nowadays these prime suspects are racing to be the top spammers every month instead. So the volume of junk emails have been increasing steadily ever since.
Well, those of you who never experienced this, I guess would not understand what the heck I have been saying all along. Those of you who belongs to the same mailing list, I believe you know it very well. And those of you who are interested to join the group sometimes in the future....Welcome and dont forget for your own good, please switch to gmail before hand :D :D
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Saturday, May 19, 2007
九寨沟 和 乐山大佛 -四川 (Jiuzhaigou and Leshan Dafo, Sichuan)
The highlight of my travel this time was of course none other than 九寨沟.
It took a 24-hour train ride from Beijing to a small city called 绵阳 (Mianyang). We stayed one night there to rest a bit before continuing a 10-hour bus ride up to Jiuzhaigou itself. Then we stayed one night at the foot of the park itself before spending the whole of next day inside. Even then, we did not manage to see all the main spots inside the park. It is so BIG inside that I think to fully explore it you need at least two whole days especially if you love to take pictures.
The water is so pure and clear that you can see the all the things on the bottom of it. It feels like you want to take a dip inside but of course it is prohibited. And those caught doing so would be severely fine. Well, this measure is needed to prevent the lakes become like Ciliwung (you know what I mean :p)
A bit of crash course knowledge:
It is named Jiuzhaigou because in olden days there were nine (jiu) ethnic minorities living in this park. But then I guess the goverment felt that this place is too beautiful to be missed out as a tourism spot. So they moved the original habitant here to somewhere elses and conserve the whole park as a tourist destination. There are still small number of original habitants living inside the park but we did not see them. It was so BIG, remember?
I felt that China government did a pretty good job in conserving the original natural state of Jiuzhaigou. Only the park buses can go inside and all are environmental friendly ones or so they claimed. It is well organised as in there are neat walking paths around all the tourist spots (lakes and waterfalls). There are proper clean toilets all around - the most important thing :) and it is easy to get around from one spot to another as there are park buses available in all the bus stops.
Another highlight was the 乐山大佛 (Leshan Da Fo).
It was built in Tang Dynasty era for over 90 years. It is one of the UNESCO world heritage site. The 70m high, 20s m wide seated Buddha statue was carved inside the mountain. It is very grand indeed. The statue is situated on the mountain facing the meeting point of three rivers that are flowing into the sea. It was said that in olden days, this meeting point were often flooded such that the fishermen boats often had accidents here. After the statue was erected, there were no accidents anymore. Thats why the people there feel that the Buddha statue has somehow protected them from harm and it is very sacred to them.
Since it is located inside the mountain and facing the sea, the only way down is by one-way-down steep steps and come up by the opposite ladder. This is because the steps are very small and narrow that at some point only one people can pass through. The ladder is U-shaped around the statue. From below the feet of the Buddha statue, I couldnt take the whole picture of the statue as it is too big for my camera. The one I put here was taken from the steps when I was going down. As you can see it also not a complete whole statue but this is the best that I could take with my camera :)
There is other way if you dont feel like climbing up and down the steep ladders which is by boat. But you can't come down from the boat, you can only see from afar. That's why when the school asked us whether we wanted to climb the mountain or take the boat, we all chose to climb. This was in spite of, we were all so tired from also climbing 清城山 (Qingchengshan) mountain the previous day. But hey, since we are still young might as well climb it now, right?
Okay then, leave you all to enjoy the pics now :)
It took a 24-hour train ride from Beijing to a small city called 绵阳 (Mianyang). We stayed one night there to rest a bit before continuing a 10-hour bus ride up to Jiuzhaigou itself. Then we stayed one night at the foot of the park itself before spending the whole of next day inside. Even then, we did not manage to see all the main spots inside the park. It is so BIG inside that I think to fully explore it you need at least two whole days especially if you love to take pictures.
The water is so pure and clear that you can see the all the things on the bottom of it. It feels like you want to take a dip inside but of course it is prohibited. And those caught doing so would be severely fine. Well, this measure is needed to prevent the lakes become like Ciliwung (you know what I mean :p)
A bit of crash course knowledge:
It is named Jiuzhaigou because in olden days there were nine (jiu) ethnic minorities living in this park. But then I guess the goverment felt that this place is too beautiful to be missed out as a tourism spot. So they moved the original habitant here to somewhere elses and conserve the whole park as a tourist destination. There are still small number of original habitants living inside the park but we did not see them. It was so BIG, remember?
I felt that China government did a pretty good job in conserving the original natural state of Jiuzhaigou. Only the park buses can go inside and all are environmental friendly ones or so they claimed. It is well organised as in there are neat walking paths around all the tourist spots (lakes and waterfalls). There are proper clean toilets all around - the most important thing :) and it is easy to get around from one spot to another as there are park buses available in all the bus stops.
Another highlight was the 乐山大佛 (Leshan Da Fo).
It was built in Tang Dynasty era for over 90 years. It is one of the UNESCO world heritage site. The 70m high, 20s m wide seated Buddha statue was carved inside the mountain. It is very grand indeed. The statue is situated on the mountain facing the meeting point of three rivers that are flowing into the sea. It was said that in olden days, this meeting point were often flooded such that the fishermen boats often had accidents here. After the statue was erected, there were no accidents anymore. Thats why the people there feel that the Buddha statue has somehow protected them from harm and it is very sacred to them.
Since it is located inside the mountain and facing the sea, the only way down is by one-way-down steep steps and come up by the opposite ladder. This is because the steps are very small and narrow that at some point only one people can pass through. The ladder is U-shaped around the statue. From below the feet of the Buddha statue, I couldnt take the whole picture of the statue as it is too big for my camera. The one I put here was taken from the steps when I was going down. As you can see it also not a complete whole statue but this is the best that I could take with my camera :)
There is other way if you dont feel like climbing up and down the steep ladders which is by boat. But you can't come down from the boat, you can only see from afar. That's why when the school asked us whether we wanted to climb the mountain or take the boat, we all chose to climb. This was in spite of, we were all so tired from also climbing 清城山 (Qingchengshan) mountain the previous day. But hey, since we are still young might as well climb it now, right?
Okay then, leave you all to enjoy the pics now :)
My Birthday
I felt that this year I had the most wonderful and surprising birthday. Thanks gals for 'conspiring' in arranging this one :)
When it turned 9th I was still in the train, on the trip to Jiuzhaigou. I knew that initially my bunch of friends planned to wake me up at 12 to celebrate my birthday. But fortunately they didnt do that because by 10 at night, the light in the train had all been switched off and people had gone to sleep. If they went on with the plan, the whole train section, who were filled with the students of our school, would be disturbed and how would I face all of them in the morning, right?
In the morning, they did give me a small piece of cake and sing birthday song to me. I made them promise to give me a big cake by the time we reached Beijing, hahaha.... (ngak tau malu) but they did agree because it was sort of our tradition here. And so I didnt give any more thought of it. For me, birthday is just an official increased in the number of age. We do age daily :p
We alighted from the train in the afternoon and stayed for one night on a small town hotel on the way up to Jiuzhaigou. At night, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant together. By together, I meant all of our tour group members which consisted of 130s students, teachers and guides. Who would have thought - at least not me - that my friends already planned to celebrate on that occassion. At first I was not a bit suspicious when two of my group of friends were late for dinner because the others were covering by saying that they had shower first before coming to dinner. But after half of the dishes had come out, there were still no sign of them. By then, I was thinking what happened with the two of them - was there something wrong or what. So coincidentally that time the teachers were no where to be seen, I thought maybe there were something bad going on that the teachers were accompanying them to hospital or something. This suspicion was because one of the missing gal had a bit of embarrassing 'medical' problem of which I wont mention here, hehehe.... As the time passed by, I began to wonder if they did plan to surprise me because I saw one of the missing gal passed by the main door and another of my friend went to the door hurriedly.
Afterwards I saw the big cake they brought in and sang birthday song to me. And so, almost all the people there followed to sing the song or just plainly being forced to celebrate my birthday, hahaha.
It was a nice celebration though - I never had this kind of surprise before.
So once again, thanks gals! You are all such a bunch of sweet friends :)
When it turned 9th I was still in the train, on the trip to Jiuzhaigou. I knew that initially my bunch of friends planned to wake me up at 12 to celebrate my birthday. But fortunately they didnt do that because by 10 at night, the light in the train had all been switched off and people had gone to sleep. If they went on with the plan, the whole train section, who were filled with the students of our school, would be disturbed and how would I face all of them in the morning, right?
In the morning, they did give me a small piece of cake and sing birthday song to me. I made them promise to give me a big cake by the time we reached Beijing, hahaha.... (ngak tau malu) but they did agree because it was sort of our tradition here. And so I didnt give any more thought of it. For me, birthday is just an official increased in the number of age. We do age daily :p
We alighted from the train in the afternoon and stayed for one night on a small town hotel on the way up to Jiuzhaigou. At night, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant together. By together, I meant all of our tour group members which consisted of 130s students, teachers and guides. Who would have thought - at least not me - that my friends already planned to celebrate on that occassion. At first I was not a bit suspicious when two of my group of friends were late for dinner because the others were covering by saying that they had shower first before coming to dinner. But after half of the dishes had come out, there were still no sign of them. By then, I was thinking what happened with the two of them - was there something wrong or what. So coincidentally that time the teachers were no where to be seen, I thought maybe there were something bad going on that the teachers were accompanying them to hospital or something. This suspicion was because one of the missing gal had a bit of embarrassing 'medical' problem of which I wont mention here, hehehe.... As the time passed by, I began to wonder if they did plan to surprise me because I saw one of the missing gal passed by the main door and another of my friend went to the door hurriedly.
Afterwards I saw the big cake they brought in and sang birthday song to me. And so, almost all the people there followed to sing the song or just plainly being forced to celebrate my birthday, hahaha.
It was a nice celebration though - I never had this kind of surprise before.
So once again, thanks gals! You are all such a bunch of sweet friends :)
Monday, May 07, 2007
山海关 and 北戴河 Trip
Yes, I am back in one piece :p
Well, it wasnt that bad actually. Compared to my last Oct trip, this time was much much more better. Maybe it was only a short journey so I was not that tired. Although we went there with no hotel booking, no tour guide and no tickets back, surprisingly all went on quite smoothly. And no, I didnt get the 'chance' to sleep under the stars coz we did have place to stay, hehehe.
Below is my travel journal for that 3 day 2 nite trip:
Day One - 2 May 2007
Our train ticket was at 01.44 in the wee morning of 2nd May. Well, we wanted to buy the better timing ones but all had sold out. We were left with two extreme choices, the cheapest one which was at this timing or the most expensive one at more convenient time. The ticket seller suggested us to take the cheap ones because it was only a few hours journey - just sleep on the train and once we reach there in the morning, can go straight to travel around so there isnt any waste of time. So we took the cheap ones and tortured ourselves by sleeping on the 硬座 (hard seat) for about 4 hours plus. We reached there at about 6.30 in the morning then went straight to the ticket counter to buy tickets back. It was not that we didnt want to buy the tickets back from Beijing but they didnt sell these tickets. So the only way is like this - reach the place, go to the ticket counter at the train station, jostling with people to buy the tickets back. Troublesome huh....well, this is the thing you've gotta do if you DIY instead of joining a travel agency. To my surprise, all the tickets back to Beijing until 6th of May, left with no seat (无座) ones. Luckily, there is a friend in our group of 11 who had gone to this place before who was saying that it is 'Normal' - just buy the tickets first and once you get on the train just find any empty seat and sit down or you can go to the train canteen, pay Rmb25 for the food and sit there for the whole journey. So we bought the no seat train tickets. While I was "queueing" (you should see the local people when they queue), some of our friends went out to source for a guide and transportation. So by the time I got the train tickets, they had gotten the guide with minivan to take us around.
That friend of ours who had been here last semester found the same guide that they used the last time they were here. Hence, we used the same one to play safe coz he said that the guide was ok. There were initially two of them, the middle aged one is the boss and the young chap is the driver. They were wearing suits when we first met them. Actually, they kinda look like a mafia gangster with black suits, hahahaha..... But they turned out just fine.
First, they drove us around to find a hotel. We went to a total of two hotels, the first one was too expensive so we settled with the second one. The location was good as it is in the heart of the town. As for the room itself - still can get by, not a 5-star hotel room but with Rmb180 a nite budget, this was the most that we can get. FYI, it was not cheap by local standard but this is Labour Day holiday so they have all the reason to jack up the price.
After that, the driver cum guide asked us which places we want to visit. He suggested a place called 长寿山 which is part of 五佛山森村公园. He said that there was five Buddhas statues carved on the mountain itself. On the way there, we stopped by a minimart to grab some food and water coz the guide said the water inside is expensive - you know tourist place stuff price. It was about 9 plus in the morning, the guide said that we might be out by 3 or so. By then, I realise that this place must be huge that he estimated we spent 6 hours inside. Because by the look from the entrance, although the mountain is tall, it didnt look that big :p The entrance tickets that we bought is the all rounded ones which mean we already paid for all the facilities inside which include the cable cars. We planned to go up by cable cars and come down by the 长城 staircases. Little did we know, that eventually we didnt manage to come back through the same path in the end, we were kind lost inside, hahaha
We took the open ended cable car up - you know, the one with only seat and foot rest for your legs. For those who are afraid of height, it is kinda scary because you are actually hung around above the mountain forests. It was a few minutes journey and once we reached the top we continued walking and climbing up to dunno where. We just followed the crowd, hahaha. There are some spots with beautiful views along the way though. There is one part that I especially like which is the whole side of the mountain is covered with purple, bluish little flowers (I think is is lavender, but not very sure). It is so beautiful :p
Then we went up some more and find another place with cable cars again. So we just took them without knowing where it would lead us to - we were kinda happily lost inside, remember? ") This time is the closed cable cars, the one in the box. Guess how long does this cable car journey take? It is the longest cable car trip I have ever been in my whole life. It takes about 30 minutes for goodness sake. It is like once it reaches the top of one line, there is one more line going down and then, the line keeps on going up and down again until we really reach the bottom of the mountain. The view is of course magnificent. I think we transcended quite a few rocky mountains in that 30-min ride. By the time we reached the bottom, we were wondering how we could get back to the same spot again. I wouldnt want to take the same cable car up again. To tell you the truth, although it is an enclosed cable car but it was quite scary. Especially when you were in the middle of the line and strong wind was blowing. You can feel the car was kinda swinging around. And if you look down, you couldnt actually tell where the ground was, as it was covered with thick forest...scary enough rite.
Luckily, there were car rides at the foot of the mountain, they were part of the park rides. So we queued to wait for our turn to get on the car. It was the open air ride, those 10-seated car with no doors for the tourists to enjoy the view. There were 11 of us but we squeezed on one cars anyway. The driver, believe me, he thinks he was driving a racing car. It is not your normal straight highway road that I was talking about here, mind you. It is a mountain road with a lot of twists and turns, although I've got to admit this man-made road is very smooth. It made me think of Initial D film. Maybe the driver is trying to break his own record here, hahaha.
And so we arrived at another part of the park where from far below, we can actually see a Buddha face carved into the mountain. The rest of the gang climbed up while me, Fonny and her sis waited below. I was a bit dizzy from the strong wind and burning sun so decided to rest for a while. After 1 and half hour, the gang finally came down. They still didnt see the five big Buddha statues from there, dont really know which part of the park they are at and it was already 4 plus. Since, we were all very tired from no good quality sleep in the train and no real meal since morning, we decided to get out of the park. We queued again for the car coz they were so many people and no cars in sight. Well, the road up is not actually short, it was about 10 mins. This time we all did not fit into the same car because they were few people already filling up the first 10-seated car so we split into two groups and planned to meet at the exit. We were at a different gate from the initial one we went in. I was not surprised, it is a big park! Luckily, the other group was at the same gate too. And so we called our guide and asked him to pick us up here instead. Day one is already too long, lets end it here, the rest is not important anyway :)
Day Two - 3 May 2007
We woke up at 6 plus in the morning in order to meet the guide at 7 at the lobby. He took us to breakfast at one of the most famous dumpling in town. One jin (which is 0.5kg by normal standard) is Rmb15 and he said that there are 30 dumplings in one jin. In my mind, I thought that the dumpling must be small cute ones, since half kg there are 30 of them. Although the price is quite expensive for dumpling, we decided to try them anyway. So we ordered 3 jin for 11 of us. Well well well, it turned out that their 'One jin' is 1.35 kg, and the dumplings are those standard size that we normally have in Beijing. Actually the dumpling looks more like 'xiao long bao' but they call them 'jiao zi'. Hence, we had six big plates full of jiao zi in front of us, hahaha... In the end we 'dapao' almost one jin of it. We gave half to the driver and an assistant (the boss wasnt around anymore) and kept half for snack later on.
This day we went to 九门口 and 老龙头.
九门口 is also part of greatwall but this one is kinda special because its like a bridge over a river. And the part on the water has nine canal doors that's where the name comes from. So over here, again we climbed the staircases. However, this time round, it was not that high and tiring. After climbing the greatwall, we went to the bird park beside this place. The entrance ticket has included this part anyway. Then inside the bird park, there is underground section of the greatwall that we had climbed earlier. If I got it correctly, this is the only greatwall in the whole China that has the underground section. It was interesting. It is the living quarter for the olden days army, it has everything inside. Storeroom for food, prisoners cells, meeting rooms, bedrooms, toilets, wells, kitchens.....interesting.
老龙头 is the part of greatwall that extend until the sea. It is also called 天下第一关 which roughly translates to the first gate of the world - world here refers to China of course ;) It is basically another section of greatwall. It is special because it extends into the sea. However, it has been renovated and maintained very well so that we dont see any of the ruins on the sea anymore. From above we can view the sea unblocked.
At night, we had seafood for dinner. Actually we had seafood for lunch as well. It is so hard to get fresh and cheap seafood in Beijing because of its location. So while we were near the sea, might as well satisfy our want of seafood, right?
Day Three - 4 May 2007
The itinerary for the day was to 北戴河. It is about an hour journey by bus from 山海关. So we took off at 7 plus and reached there by around 8. There was nothing much here except for the sea. The place we went to is 鸽子窝公园, the dove nest park. It is by the sea as well. So after we saw and feed the dove. We went to the seaside and just played around a bit. Both the wind and the sun were very strong that day. When we finished it was about 10.30 which meant that we actually still got quite a bit of time before our train at 13.50. So on the bus, the driver asked us whether we wanted to go to 孟姜女庙 which is one of the place that we originally wanted to visit. Since we all wanted to, hence we quickly headed back to 山海关. This temple was dedicated to 孟姜女 - there is a big legend behind her story. For short: she was looking for her husband who was forced to be labour for building the greatwall. Husband had actually died and buried inside the wall. When she found out, she cried for 3 days and nights 'till heaven was touched by her and hence, the section of the greatwall that her husband was in collapsed. So that she could claim her husband body for burial. So this place was actually her residence and they build a temple and small museum inside dedicated to her. By the time we finished it was about time to go to the train station and so we went straight there.
Having known that we did not have seat inside the train, we actually had prepared ourselves for the worst. But it turned out that we found the train canteen and just pay the Rmb25 to sit there. The good thing was there was no one around at that section of the train except us. So it felt kinda exclusive :p Luckily, this train was faster that the one we came with. The train was a bit late though, it started at 15.16. We reached Beijing safe and sound at about 19.00.
And so this journey has ended.
Well, it wasnt that bad actually. Compared to my last Oct trip, this time was much much more better. Maybe it was only a short journey so I was not that tired. Although we went there with no hotel booking, no tour guide and no tickets back, surprisingly all went on quite smoothly. And no, I didnt get the 'chance' to sleep under the stars coz we did have place to stay, hehehe.
Below is my travel journal for that 3 day 2 nite trip:
Day One - 2 May 2007
Our train ticket was at 01.44 in the wee morning of 2nd May. Well, we wanted to buy the better timing ones but all had sold out. We were left with two extreme choices, the cheapest one which was at this timing or the most expensive one at more convenient time. The ticket seller suggested us to take the cheap ones because it was only a few hours journey - just sleep on the train and once we reach there in the morning, can go straight to travel around so there isnt any waste of time. So we took the cheap ones and tortured ourselves by sleeping on the 硬座 (hard seat) for about 4 hours plus. We reached there at about 6.30 in the morning then went straight to the ticket counter to buy tickets back. It was not that we didnt want to buy the tickets back from Beijing but they didnt sell these tickets. So the only way is like this - reach the place, go to the ticket counter at the train station, jostling with people to buy the tickets back. Troublesome huh....well, this is the thing you've gotta do if you DIY instead of joining a travel agency. To my surprise, all the tickets back to Beijing until 6th of May, left with no seat (无座) ones. Luckily, there is a friend in our group of 11 who had gone to this place before who was saying that it is 'Normal' - just buy the tickets first and once you get on the train just find any empty seat and sit down or you can go to the train canteen, pay Rmb25 for the food and sit there for the whole journey. So we bought the no seat train tickets. While I was "queueing" (you should see the local people when they queue), some of our friends went out to source for a guide and transportation. So by the time I got the train tickets, they had gotten the guide with minivan to take us around.
That friend of ours who had been here last semester found the same guide that they used the last time they were here. Hence, we used the same one to play safe coz he said that the guide was ok. There were initially two of them, the middle aged one is the boss and the young chap is the driver. They were wearing suits when we first met them. Actually, they kinda look like a mafia gangster with black suits, hahahaha..... But they turned out just fine.
First, they drove us around to find a hotel. We went to a total of two hotels, the first one was too expensive so we settled with the second one. The location was good as it is in the heart of the town. As for the room itself - still can get by, not a 5-star hotel room but with Rmb180 a nite budget, this was the most that we can get. FYI, it was not cheap by local standard but this is Labour Day holiday so they have all the reason to jack up the price.
After that, the driver cum guide asked us which places we want to visit. He suggested a place called 长寿山 which is part of 五佛山森村公园. He said that there was five Buddhas statues carved on the mountain itself. On the way there, we stopped by a minimart to grab some food and water coz the guide said the water inside is expensive - you know tourist place stuff price. It was about 9 plus in the morning, the guide said that we might be out by 3 or so. By then, I realise that this place must be huge that he estimated we spent 6 hours inside. Because by the look from the entrance, although the mountain is tall, it didnt look that big :p The entrance tickets that we bought is the all rounded ones which mean we already paid for all the facilities inside which include the cable cars. We planned to go up by cable cars and come down by the 长城 staircases. Little did we know, that eventually we didnt manage to come back through the same path in the end, we were kind lost inside, hahaha
We took the open ended cable car up - you know, the one with only seat and foot rest for your legs. For those who are afraid of height, it is kinda scary because you are actually hung around above the mountain forests. It was a few minutes journey and once we reached the top we continued walking and climbing up to dunno where. We just followed the crowd, hahaha. There are some spots with beautiful views along the way though. There is one part that I especially like which is the whole side of the mountain is covered with purple, bluish little flowers (I think is is lavender, but not very sure). It is so beautiful :p
Then we went up some more and find another place with cable cars again. So we just took them without knowing where it would lead us to - we were kinda happily lost inside, remember? ") This time is the closed cable cars, the one in the box. Guess how long does this cable car journey take? It is the longest cable car trip I have ever been in my whole life. It takes about 30 minutes for goodness sake. It is like once it reaches the top of one line, there is one more line going down and then, the line keeps on going up and down again until we really reach the bottom of the mountain. The view is of course magnificent. I think we transcended quite a few rocky mountains in that 30-min ride. By the time we reached the bottom, we were wondering how we could get back to the same spot again. I wouldnt want to take the same cable car up again. To tell you the truth, although it is an enclosed cable car but it was quite scary. Especially when you were in the middle of the line and strong wind was blowing. You can feel the car was kinda swinging around. And if you look down, you couldnt actually tell where the ground was, as it was covered with thick forest...scary enough rite.
Luckily, there were car rides at the foot of the mountain, they were part of the park rides. So we queued to wait for our turn to get on the car. It was the open air ride, those 10-seated car with no doors for the tourists to enjoy the view. There were 11 of us but we squeezed on one cars anyway. The driver, believe me, he thinks he was driving a racing car. It is not your normal straight highway road that I was talking about here, mind you. It is a mountain road with a lot of twists and turns, although I've got to admit this man-made road is very smooth. It made me think of Initial D film. Maybe the driver is trying to break his own record here, hahaha.
And so we arrived at another part of the park where from far below, we can actually see a Buddha face carved into the mountain. The rest of the gang climbed up while me, Fonny and her sis waited below. I was a bit dizzy from the strong wind and burning sun so decided to rest for a while. After 1 and half hour, the gang finally came down. They still didnt see the five big Buddha statues from there, dont really know which part of the park they are at and it was already 4 plus. Since, we were all very tired from no good quality sleep in the train and no real meal since morning, we decided to get out of the park. We queued again for the car coz they were so many people and no cars in sight. Well, the road up is not actually short, it was about 10 mins. This time we all did not fit into the same car because they were few people already filling up the first 10-seated car so we split into two groups and planned to meet at the exit. We were at a different gate from the initial one we went in. I was not surprised, it is a big park! Luckily, the other group was at the same gate too. And so we called our guide and asked him to pick us up here instead. Day one is already too long, lets end it here, the rest is not important anyway :)
Day Two - 3 May 2007
We woke up at 6 plus in the morning in order to meet the guide at 7 at the lobby. He took us to breakfast at one of the most famous dumpling in town. One jin (which is 0.5kg by normal standard) is Rmb15 and he said that there are 30 dumplings in one jin. In my mind, I thought that the dumpling must be small cute ones, since half kg there are 30 of them. Although the price is quite expensive for dumpling, we decided to try them anyway. So we ordered 3 jin for 11 of us. Well well well, it turned out that their 'One jin' is 1.35 kg, and the dumplings are those standard size that we normally have in Beijing. Actually the dumpling looks more like 'xiao long bao' but they call them 'jiao zi'. Hence, we had six big plates full of jiao zi in front of us, hahaha... In the end we 'dapao' almost one jin of it. We gave half to the driver and an assistant (the boss wasnt around anymore) and kept half for snack later on.
This day we went to 九门口 and 老龙头.
九门口 is also part of greatwall but this one is kinda special because its like a bridge over a river. And the part on the water has nine canal doors that's where the name comes from. So over here, again we climbed the staircases. However, this time round, it was not that high and tiring. After climbing the greatwall, we went to the bird park beside this place. The entrance ticket has included this part anyway. Then inside the bird park, there is underground section of the greatwall that we had climbed earlier. If I got it correctly, this is the only greatwall in the whole China that has the underground section. It was interesting. It is the living quarter for the olden days army, it has everything inside. Storeroom for food, prisoners cells, meeting rooms, bedrooms, toilets, wells, kitchens.....interesting.
老龙头 is the part of greatwall that extend until the sea. It is also called 天下第一关 which roughly translates to the first gate of the world - world here refers to China of course ;) It is basically another section of greatwall. It is special because it extends into the sea. However, it has been renovated and maintained very well so that we dont see any of the ruins on the sea anymore. From above we can view the sea unblocked.
At night, we had seafood for dinner. Actually we had seafood for lunch as well. It is so hard to get fresh and cheap seafood in Beijing because of its location. So while we were near the sea, might as well satisfy our want of seafood, right?
Day Three - 4 May 2007
The itinerary for the day was to 北戴河. It is about an hour journey by bus from 山海关. So we took off at 7 plus and reached there by around 8. There was nothing much here except for the sea. The place we went to is 鸽子窝公园, the dove nest park. It is by the sea as well. So after we saw and feed the dove. We went to the seaside and just played around a bit. Both the wind and the sun were very strong that day. When we finished it was about 10.30 which meant that we actually still got quite a bit of time before our train at 13.50. So on the bus, the driver asked us whether we wanted to go to 孟姜女庙 which is one of the place that we originally wanted to visit. Since we all wanted to, hence we quickly headed back to 山海关. This temple was dedicated to 孟姜女 - there is a big legend behind her story. For short: she was looking for her husband who was forced to be labour for building the greatwall. Husband had actually died and buried inside the wall. When she found out, she cried for 3 days and nights 'till heaven was touched by her and hence, the section of the greatwall that her husband was in collapsed. So that she could claim her husband body for burial. So this place was actually her residence and they build a temple and small museum inside dedicated to her. By the time we finished it was about time to go to the train station and so we went straight there.
Having known that we did not have seat inside the train, we actually had prepared ourselves for the worst. But it turned out that we found the train canteen and just pay the Rmb25 to sit there. The good thing was there was no one around at that section of the train except us. So it felt kinda exclusive :p Luckily, this train was faster that the one we came with. The train was a bit late though, it started at 15.16. We reached Beijing safe and sound at about 19.00.
And so this journey has ended.
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