Call Me Sushii: Beijing 2009

last week i joined my DH in Beijing for a little break. we visited the usual tourists must see like the TianAnMen, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Lama temple, Confucious Temple and TianTan. I'm not going to spam you with pictures of these as they're pretty generic and can be seen in any travel logs etc. another reason is because my pictures are filled with tourists blocking the sights! loads of people everywhere except maybe at the lesser known sights like the Lama Temple and Confucious temple.

Cats of the Forbidden City

My outfit for most of the days. this leather coat was one of my big ticket purchases this year. I got it when i was in Turkey in May.

people exercising at the TianTan park. there were people waltzing, playing badminton, practicing Qijong, meditating and practicing their water calligraphy. i think this is one of the highlights of my trip, rather than visiting the sights.

this grandpa was the only guy i saw crocheting. some other aunties were making toys for sale. he even has a crocheted cozy for his walking stick!

we got lost amongst the many Hutongs. it's always very interesting to see how people live and all i can say that although very romantic i'm very blessed to have an apartment with all the modern amenities.

getting lost has it advantages because we discovered many themed streets that aren't covered on the tours. i think these places might have been listed in the travel books that we had but we kinda just decided to go with the flow.

this street sells art supplies and pieces.

power upgrading in another Hutong.

One of the best yogurt i've ever had. it says Honeyed yogurt but i'm not sure about the honey. all i know is that it's delicious! this stall is at the WangFuJing food street. you can find the fried scorpions and bugs here but we went to the place twice because i wanted the yogurt, the super yummy grilled mutton skewer and cuttlefish skewers.

we ventured into a restaurent one day and i wanted water cooked dumplings. the price listed was 48yuan(~10sgd) and the waiting staff asked if we wanted a "jin". of course he was talking a a slurrrrred mandarin accent and my DH just said yes to whatever the waiter said. i didn't pay attention. both our eyes popped out when the dish was brought out.

that was me trying to figure out where we were.

this is Ghost street(Gui Jie) where many restaurents can be found. we had miny lobsters there (looked like yabbies to me). they were exactly that fantastic to me.

Beijing has the biggest persimmons i have ever seen.

one of the more beautiful places was the Summer Palace. the palace is designed around a large lake and we only have time to visit the half of the lake that had most of the buildings.

the longest corridor and largest art museum in the world. so said because on every piller above there are drawings despicting various scenes in chinese lore.

fall is here and you can see the signs in the trees.

i also enjoyed my time on the Great Wall even though i was wheezing while climbing the bl***dy stairs. my DH comstant taunting did not help with my PMSy and hungry mood.

the sight is spectaculer although only a tiny section is open to public. the rest have not been restored. i promise to go back again one day to explore another section.

an advertisement in progress?

did i mention that it's fall now? on the day we were scheduled to leave there was a freak snow storm. it clogged up the airport causing all the internal flights to cancel and our flight home that was scheduled to leave at 4pm didn't take off till past 8pm. but i was trilled when i woke up on sunday morning and spied snow outside my hotel window.