Day 1: Beijing/Tianjin/Chengde Tour

31st March 2005(Thursday) 4am. I woke up at around 4.30am not feeling excited at all. Did my usual stuff and pack my last minute camcorder in my backpack. I only charged the battery last moment. At last everyone got up and prepared.

At exactly 5.30am a limousine pulled up infront of our gate. Chester started to bark. Woof woof woof. Overall we brought 2 large luggages, 2 hand luggges, 1 backpack(mine), 1 sling bag(sister), 2 handcarry bag(mom & dad). We paid the limo driver RM181.80 which include return ticket as well. Finally we said goodbye to Grandma & Chester. They see us go. The journey to KLIA was very bumpy. An old Mercedes. Hahaha

We arrived at KLIA at about 6.15am. Yeah very early. The plane will only depart at 9.00am. I ordered teh tarik at Suria Cafe. A whopping RM6.50 per cup and including tax will be RM7+. I didn't even finished the tea because I need to answer a very urgent call of nature. I didn't know KLIA's cafe were so cut-throat.

At 7am the plum tour guide whose name is Emil arrived. We checked in our luggage and passed our pasport to him. He informed that at 7.50am we will to return to C17. When we returned at 8am, he was still dealing with pasports and boarding passes. When he finally finished, it was already 8.30am. He brieft us and then we proceed to boarding gate C1 by sky train. But before boarding, my dad managed to buy Salem's menthol. Why ? He wants to smoke when he is in Beijing. He said China's ciggarate is not nice. By the time my dad paid the money at the cashier, it was 8.57am already. We walk really fast to the boarding gate. Luckily we were not the last one to board.

I was a bit dull. We were assigned middle seat. At 9.07am, the plane started to move. I was feeling panicked(hard to breath) when the plane turn. Finally the plane started to takeoff and my panic disapeared. According to the pilot, we will reach Beijing in 5 hours and 50minutes and no time different.

On board, we ate lunch(fish) at about 10am and refreshment at about 1pm. The plane started to desend at about 2.30pm from 38,000 feet. Arrived Beijing at 3.17pm. My first impression when looking out at the window was 'Aikkk looks like Korea, shit!'. We went to the immigration and then to claim baggage area. The airport is something like Sultan Azlan Shah airport(old airport), a bit larger.

We then proceed to our bus by crossing the road. So many cars honking. So many traffic. My God. The weather is fine at 15 degree Celcius. In the bus the Beijing tour guide gave an introduction of himself. His name is Nelson. He said he hah 40 years experience as a tour guide but I look at him seem around middle 30s. Again Nelson is plum. How come many plum tour guide ? Korean's 2 tour guides also plum.

Then we proceed to dinner at Chao Yang Xin Jing Yue Cai Jiu Lou. The highway toll has a very nice architure. We had an early dinner, finished by 6pm because our next stop will be watching Chinese Acrobatic. The dinner is 'Cantonese Style Beijingnese' food. A total of 12 dishes. There's siu pak choy, suckling ppig, lemon chicken, steam minced meat, steam pai kuat, steam fish with light soy sauce, water melon soup, red bean soup, etc. Yum yum. On each table is 1 Sprite and 1 beer. According to Nelson, we can exchange either Sprite or beer if we don't want to drink either one. If exchange Sprite to beer then get 2 bottles of beer. If we exchange beer to Sprite then get 1 Sprite only. The reason ? Beer is much more cheaper than beer. Lucky for the guys especially my dad. Also in Malaysia, rice bowl and soup bowl are 2 different things. But in China, there's only 1 bowl for rice and soup. It was said that after you finished your rice and dishes then your drank the soup from the same bowl because all those sauce from rice and dish will be mix with the soup which brings to a wonderful aroma.

Toilet is everyone best friend when we are travelling to other country. So everyone line up to go to the toilet after meal. I had a very bad feeling the moment I saw the ladies' toilet. There's only 2 toilets, both toilet wall are only as high as your breast so is the toilet door. When the toilet door is close, there's gap big enough for other people to peep in. Exactly like Korean toilet. Awww shuck!

The journey to Acrobatic Spectacular took 45 minutes. I bought an ice-cream which cost RMB7.50(RM3.40) and microwave pop corn(RMB20-RM9.10) which smell wonderful but when we ate it aiyoyo no taste and no smell. From the moment the acrobatic started till it ends I was in ewe, clapping hand non stop and keep 'Fuiohhhhhhh'. Too bad nobody gave them a standing ovation. My sister keep saying to me 'Yo how come they didn't bring us to Peking Opera?'. I said 'Our tour memang takde mah. You wan you go watch yourself'. But we managed to see the art of Sichuan Opera Changing Face. That's what I wanna see.

When we got out of the acrobatic theater everyone felt the chilling wind. About 8 degree Celcius. Wohooo. We proceed to our hotel finally, Ai Hwa Hotel in West district. Me and my sister's room is no. 321 while our parents is no. 320. Eventhough the room number is 1 number up but the room is far away from each other with dark corridor. So funny and scary. The hell with my room's toilet NG. Looks so dirty and there's no fridge. After we had settle in, we tried to call grandma but NG!!!. Promised to try the next day.