It is June 4 and security is tight at Tiananmen Square as it was the anniversary of the massacre. It was a good thing that we had walked the Square on the first day and visited the Forbidden Palace at the same time.
Before checking into the Hotel we were taken to a cultural street called the Liulichang area. Many shops selling Chinese seals carved on jade-like stones, writing inside a bottle, beautiful Chinese paintings and Chinese antique shops lined the streets. Here also for the first time, I had no choice but to use the public toilet that had no doors but were essentially cubicles. Anyway I was thankful that although it was a squatting toilet (most Chinese toilets are squatting toilets thus making it very hard on the knees) the cubicles were low enough for me to place my hands on its top to pull myself. However be ready with tissues as most Chinese toilets do not have tissues nor bidets.
We stayed overnight at Auspicious Hotel at Changping after walking the Mutianyu part of the Great Wall of China. This hotel is truly classic. Its decor and structure is like that of a by-gone era. The era of emperors and empresses, concubines and eunuchs.
Receptionist wear costumes of an ancient Chinese era. The reception area opens into a palace-like courtyard. Many classical and traditional furniture decorated the hotel making photography ideal.
Our rooms had antique chests, tables and wardrobes. Great effort was made to preserve the classical atmosphere of old China.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Auspicious Hotel was that it faced a huge open space opposite the road. Crossing the road was tricky because we had to look right, look left and look right again to avoid bicycles on the bicycle lanes, buses on the bus lanes and cars on the car lanes. Chinese drivers drive on the left side and most of them drive like Malaysians!
We saw to our amazement many Chinese doing simple exercise to music in this open space, children roller skating, men playing a type of Chinese chess. Certain parts of this space was like an open-air gym!
No wonder Chinese people are so fit and dominate the Olympics and sports events. Their culture is a culture of exercise from the very young to the very old!
34 types of exercise equipment dotted the landscape of this park. Yes, exercise equipment like what you can find in a gym though of a more rudimentary nature and offering all kinds of exercises for every part of the body.
One can stand on a movable discs, hold on to a handle and twist and turn one's bodies as a form of exercise, climb onto a stationary bicycle and start cycling, climb onto a step-up equipment and start imitating a mountain climbing walk, stand on a swing-like structure and start swinging, lean against a circular contraption and hold on to handles with both hands and start moving in circles, lie down on a bed-like equipment and start pulling oneself up and down, play table tennis on several tables set up in the park, play Chinese sepak takraw with shuttlecocks with huge feathers, play Chinese tops with strings, sword-plays, fan-plays and line dancing....
The group dancing/exercise in the open air gym continues in the morning with many homemakers, elderly folks and even office workers dressed in their office clothes exercising on the various exercise machines in the park!
I have never seen anything like it!
China is indeed a nation of fit people. Come to think of it I did not see a single overweight person the whole time I was in China.
Apparently this kind of exercise equipment is found all over the various parks and open areas in China cities and towns.
Later at night we had a palace banquet at the Hotel. A feast fit for emperors no doubt. We had a young lady entertained us playing a typical Chinese instrument, a young man doing the opera-like mask changing act and another young man performing a modern magic show.
At night we were given vouchers to visit the Dazhaimen SPA located right in the hotel. The hot springs spa is really one of its kind.
Women go into the "Area of Women" and men into the "Area of Men".
However I did not stay long in the spa as it felt weird being the only person using the hotspring at about 9 pm!
I had a dream in this hotel. At night 3 figures from an ancient Chinese dynasty visited me in a dream. Petrified I shouted the name of JESUS and they immediately left. My mistake: I had not prayed for God to cleanse the hotel room before settling in which I would normally do before.
The following day I shared this with the Malaysian tour guide who told me of a weird experience she had the night before. A young lady approached her during the dinner and said that she belonged to our group although she had never seen her before. At about 3 am in the morning, she got a call from the security guard who said that someone was looking for her. He brought up the same lady wearing the same clothes to her room. The same question was asked of her i.e. whether the young lady belonged to our group or not. Of course she replied no and the security took her away.
I realized that I had to keep on praying in the Holy Spirit which I had been doing as much as I possibly can during the long bus journeys.
This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Friday, June 7, 2013
The Great Wall of China
Driving about 2 hours into Beijing's suburbs we reached Changping on June 3rd.
This was the day we had been waiting eagerly for i.e. to see the Great Wall of China. Henry Norman said in 1895 that the Great Wall of China was the only work of human hands on the globe visible from the moon.
Arriving at the Great Wall entrance of Mutianyu, a 1.3 mile walk and the most scenic of all the 5,500 mile wall, this Wall truly earns its name as one of the world's wonders.
The Mutianyu entrance is not as popular with tourists as Badaling or the Juyongsuan passes which latter 2 passes offering more shopping stops along the way). However it is the only pass that offers a cable chair ride to the top and the option of taking the cable chair down at RM40 per person or a long winding but steep slide down (like the slide in a theme park scooped out of the sides of the mountains in the shape of a long half opened steel trench).
This pass is about 2.5 km long with 22 watch towers and a beautiful valley on the sides of the Wall.
One could also walk down the Wall on a steady pair of legs which walk would take about 45 minutes.
Many many people climbed this part of the Wall due to its beauty and majesty. We opted to take the cable chair both ways but were given time to take photographs of the Wall at the Mutianyu pass. Mutianyu side of the Wall is built on lofty, craggy mountain tops. Standing at one of the watch tower, one can see the imposing structure stretching miles and miles over the mountains.
The images of the parapets, watch towers, narrow stone staircases, castle-like top edges of the Wall are indeed hard to forget. It would take more than 5 months to walk the this amazing structure from end to end. Vendors dressed in Mao-like uniforms sell drinks and tidbits at certain sections of the Wall calling out "cold", "beer" and offering to take pictures of tourists.
My first impression of seeing this Wall was that the Chinese are truly gifted engineers!
No wonder all over the world today China is building bridges, tunnels and highways. I guessed I have never truly appreciated the greatness of Chinese engineering as I did that day standing on the Great Wall of China and surveying its vast expanse. Now I know why the Penang government awarded the contract to Chinese engineers to build the underground tunnel across the straits of Butterworth. Chinese engineering is something else!
I have seen the leaning tower of Pisa, the Eiffel tower, the Coliseum, the Taj Mahal but I can only say that the Great Wall surpassed them in natural ruggedness and beauty.
It may be easy to build on flat land but it must have been a difficult and monumental task to build on mountainous terrain.
The Great Wall is made of fortifications of stones, bricks, rammed earth, wood. It spans 8,850 km with 6,259 km of actual wall, 359 km of trenches and 2,232 km of natural defensive areas.
Conceived by Shih Huang Ti around 220 - 206 BC, the Wall was built to protect the Chinese empire against nomads or barbarians. However the Mongols later penetrated into the certain portions of the Wall.
The majority of the Wall was reconstructed during the Ming dynasty and repaired and reconstructed ruing the Han, Sui and the northern dynasties.
The Wall stretched from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Lake in the West and roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia.
About 1 million workers died building the Wall. Many bodies of the dead workers were eventually buried into the Wall.
If not for my knee guard, I would not have been able to climb the Wall. I had also spent about a month preparing for this climb exercising at least twice a week for 30 minutes in my office gym!
Certain parts of the small stony stairs are steep and narrow, other parts are steep to climb. The uneven texture of the ground is a challenge to any 'aged' climber like me!
This was the day we had been waiting eagerly for i.e. to see the Great Wall of China. Henry Norman said in 1895 that the Great Wall of China was the only work of human hands on the globe visible from the moon.
Arriving at the Great Wall entrance of Mutianyu, a 1.3 mile walk and the most scenic of all the 5,500 mile wall, this Wall truly earns its name as one of the world's wonders.
The Mutianyu entrance is not as popular with tourists as Badaling or the Juyongsuan passes which latter 2 passes offering more shopping stops along the way). However it is the only pass that offers a cable chair ride to the top and the option of taking the cable chair down at RM40 per person or a long winding but steep slide down (like the slide in a theme park scooped out of the sides of the mountains in the shape of a long half opened steel trench).
This pass is about 2.5 km long with 22 watch towers and a beautiful valley on the sides of the Wall.
One could also walk down the Wall on a steady pair of legs which walk would take about 45 minutes.
Many many people climbed this part of the Wall due to its beauty and majesty. We opted to take the cable chair both ways but were given time to take photographs of the Wall at the Mutianyu pass. Mutianyu side of the Wall is built on lofty, craggy mountain tops. Standing at one of the watch tower, one can see the imposing structure stretching miles and miles over the mountains.
The images of the parapets, watch towers, narrow stone staircases, castle-like top edges of the Wall are indeed hard to forget. It would take more than 5 months to walk the this amazing structure from end to end. Vendors dressed in Mao-like uniforms sell drinks and tidbits at certain sections of the Wall calling out "cold", "beer" and offering to take pictures of tourists.
My first impression of seeing this Wall was that the Chinese are truly gifted engineers!
No wonder all over the world today China is building bridges, tunnels and highways. I guessed I have never truly appreciated the greatness of Chinese engineering as I did that day standing on the Great Wall of China and surveying its vast expanse. Now I know why the Penang government awarded the contract to Chinese engineers to build the underground tunnel across the straits of Butterworth. Chinese engineering is something else!
I have seen the leaning tower of Pisa, the Eiffel tower, the Coliseum, the Taj Mahal but I can only say that the Great Wall surpassed them in natural ruggedness and beauty.
It may be easy to build on flat land but it must have been a difficult and monumental task to build on mountainous terrain.
The Great Wall is made of fortifications of stones, bricks, rammed earth, wood. It spans 8,850 km with 6,259 km of actual wall, 359 km of trenches and 2,232 km of natural defensive areas.
Conceived by Shih Huang Ti around 220 - 206 BC, the Wall was built to protect the Chinese empire against nomads or barbarians. However the Mongols later penetrated into the certain portions of the Wall.
The majority of the Wall was reconstructed during the Ming dynasty and repaired and reconstructed ruing the Han, Sui and the northern dynasties.
The Wall stretched from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Lake in the West and roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia.
About 1 million workers died building the Wall. Many bodies of the dead workers were eventually buried into the Wall.
If not for my knee guard, I would not have been able to climb the Wall. I had also spent about a month preparing for this climb exercising at least twice a week for 30 minutes in my office gym!
Certain parts of the small stony stairs are steep and narrow, other parts are steep to climb. The uneven texture of the ground is a challenge to any 'aged' climber like me!
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Sanlitun shopping and Peninsula for dinner
Finally we had a chance to go shopping at Sanlitun shopping complex on our last day to buy souvenirs.
Not unlike Pertama Complex or Campbell Complex, this shopping areas has stalls side by side. The main difference is that in Sanlitun all the sales people were Chinese. However in KL, it is now quite normal to find foreigners manning the stalls!
Clothes being the main items on sale, we were able to buy an imitation Diesel jeans for RM45! We decided to buy from the young man manning the stall as his opening price was 100 yuan (about RM45) which we thought was quite decent for a starting quote.
Speaking to the young man who sold us the jeans, we found out that most of the sales people were from Anhui province in China. Coming from poor families and a province where they could not find jobs, they decided to move to Beijing to work.
Their working hours: 9.30 am to 8.30 pm, 7 days a week. Their only annual holiday is 2 weeks during CNY where they make the trip home to Anhui. Their children (one child only) will be looked after by family members in their province as it would be expensive to bring them over to Beijing.
"Only rich people can afford more than one child as a fine has to be paid" said the salesgirl who spoke to us about her life in China.
"No we do not earn commissions only a salary" was the reply when I asked them why they were so eager to make a sale. I was impressed with their English although they spoke it with an American slang.
"All of us here have to speak English" was one of the salesgirls reply when I commented on her English.
It was also at the jeans stall that I distributed some more tracts to the sales persons who took them gratefully and read them on the spot!
It was also here that I found the panda bedroom slippers that I had searched high and low for since coming to Beijing. God heard my prayers!
Amanda specifically wanted a pair of bedroom slippers from China. To find one with panda faces was a bonus! However the opening price was RM75 equivalent (Chinese yuan is twice that of our currency). We asked for RM20. The salesperson said No. We then upped our offer to RM25. Again the salesgirl said No. We were walking away when she said "Come back. Ok" It was a bargain as the bedroom slippers were of a good quality and beautiful to look at.
It was also here that we saw cute panda fridge magnets with 4 magnetic points. Now this was something I could buy for my Malay colleagues without them being afraid of my gifts being "non-halal"!
Again the opening price was RM175 per small panda fridge magnet. We asked for RM5. After buying 10 magnets we went to another stall selling the same magnets and asked for RM4. The salesgirl who also opened with RM175 per magnet finally agreed to sell us for RM4 per piece!
However I could not find any foodstuffs to buy in Sanlitun as this was basically a clothing and souvenir market spanning 5 floors.
In any event our Chinese tour leader gave us samplings of the Chinese tidbits for which he took orders from us for purchase: chilli nuts with a numbing after-taste like szechuan cuisine, steamed chestnuts, flour fried like nuts, dried apples, sweet nuts biscuits etc, thus further purchase of tidbits were not necessary.
The final dinner was a lavish Cantonese dinner at the Peninsular Restaurant. This restaurant had waitresses dressed up like the ladies of the palace court wearing ancient Chinese clogs. The entire ambiance of the place also looked like something from the Chinese era of emperors and empresses.
The dishes were typically Cantonese like fatty pork, steamed fish, sotong, snow fungus and vegetables, eggplants, plain tasteless soup, man tou, bamboo shoots, rooster (not chicken) with the rooster head served together and many other dishes. There was also starchy Chinese koay teow which was really unique in taste and texture.
Each meal had typically more than 10 dishes served with quality Chinese tea and Yanjing beer which has a mild taste.
My comments on Chinese meals in China: generally oily, lavished with sauces, tasteless soups, innards of fowls that can be deceptive, starchy, delicious steamed rice, delicious man tou, fatty pork (but delicious), ducks (and so many parts of it cooked up in different ways), some cuisine which were chilli-hot with a numbing after-taste.....you have to try it to experience it....
Not unlike Pertama Complex or Campbell Complex, this shopping areas has stalls side by side. The main difference is that in Sanlitun all the sales people were Chinese. However in KL, it is now quite normal to find foreigners manning the stalls!
Clothes being the main items on sale, we were able to buy an imitation Diesel jeans for RM45! We decided to buy from the young man manning the stall as his opening price was 100 yuan (about RM45) which we thought was quite decent for a starting quote.
Speaking to the young man who sold us the jeans, we found out that most of the sales people were from Anhui province in China. Coming from poor families and a province where they could not find jobs, they decided to move to Beijing to work.
Their working hours: 9.30 am to 8.30 pm, 7 days a week. Their only annual holiday is 2 weeks during CNY where they make the trip home to Anhui. Their children (one child only) will be looked after by family members in their province as it would be expensive to bring them over to Beijing.
"Only rich people can afford more than one child as a fine has to be paid" said the salesgirl who spoke to us about her life in China.
"No we do not earn commissions only a salary" was the reply when I asked them why they were so eager to make a sale. I was impressed with their English although they spoke it with an American slang.
"All of us here have to speak English" was one of the salesgirls reply when I commented on her English.
It was also at the jeans stall that I distributed some more tracts to the sales persons who took them gratefully and read them on the spot!
It was also here that I found the panda bedroom slippers that I had searched high and low for since coming to Beijing. God heard my prayers!
Amanda specifically wanted a pair of bedroom slippers from China. To find one with panda faces was a bonus! However the opening price was RM75 equivalent (Chinese yuan is twice that of our currency). We asked for RM20. The salesperson said No. We then upped our offer to RM25. Again the salesgirl said No. We were walking away when she said "Come back. Ok" It was a bargain as the bedroom slippers were of a good quality and beautiful to look at.
It was also here that we saw cute panda fridge magnets with 4 magnetic points. Now this was something I could buy for my Malay colleagues without them being afraid of my gifts being "non-halal"!
Again the opening price was RM175 per small panda fridge magnet. We asked for RM5. After buying 10 magnets we went to another stall selling the same magnets and asked for RM4. The salesgirl who also opened with RM175 per magnet finally agreed to sell us for RM4 per piece!
However I could not find any foodstuffs to buy in Sanlitun as this was basically a clothing and souvenir market spanning 5 floors.
In any event our Chinese tour leader gave us samplings of the Chinese tidbits for which he took orders from us for purchase: chilli nuts with a numbing after-taste like szechuan cuisine, steamed chestnuts, flour fried like nuts, dried apples, sweet nuts biscuits etc, thus further purchase of tidbits were not necessary.
The final dinner was a lavish Cantonese dinner at the Peninsular Restaurant. This restaurant had waitresses dressed up like the ladies of the palace court wearing ancient Chinese clogs. The entire ambiance of the place also looked like something from the Chinese era of emperors and empresses.
The dishes were typically Cantonese like fatty pork, steamed fish, sotong, snow fungus and vegetables, eggplants, plain tasteless soup, man tou, bamboo shoots, rooster (not chicken) with the rooster head served together and many other dishes. There was also starchy Chinese koay teow which was really unique in taste and texture.
Each meal had typically more than 10 dishes served with quality Chinese tea and Yanjing beer which has a mild taste.
My comments on Chinese meals in China: generally oily, lavished with sauces, tasteless soups, innards of fowls that can be deceptive, starchy, delicious steamed rice, delicious man tou, fatty pork (but delicious), ducks (and so many parts of it cooked up in different ways), some cuisine which were chilli-hot with a numbing after-taste.....you have to try it to experience it....
Summer Palace
On Wed, we visited the Summer Palace after lunch at Matsuko.
The Summer Palace is also known as the Museum of Royal Gardens. Built in 1750 during the Qing Dynasty, it was originally known as the Qingyi Garden or Garden of Clear Ripples.
The empress dowager, Cixi built the Summer Palace as a holiday resort. Apparently she embezzled the navy funds to build the resort thus weakening the navy in the process.
In 1998, the Summer Palace became a World Heritage Site.
The first view of the Summer Palace is this beautiful bridge over the Kunming lake. The bridge is simply stunning in its facade.
Overhanging willow trees served as an awesome backdrop. Cruising the calm and huge lake on a dragon shaped boat, I wonder how the Chinese managed to build the stone bridge over the lake. Truly Chinese engineering is a marvel to behold!
Other attractions at the Palace are the Longevity Hill, pavilions tower bridges, corridors with traditional Chinese architecture, court areas, front hill area, hills area, rear hill area and lake area. The various court areas were well preserved. The court area was where the emperor Guangxu and empress Cixi greeted court officials and conducted state affairs.
Due to the smog over Beijing, we were unable to take clear pictures of this beautiful place.
The Summer Palace is also known as the Museum of Royal Gardens. Built in 1750 during the Qing Dynasty, it was originally known as the Qingyi Garden or Garden of Clear Ripples.
The empress dowager, Cixi built the Summer Palace as a holiday resort. Apparently she embezzled the navy funds to build the resort thus weakening the navy in the process.
In 1998, the Summer Palace became a World Heritage Site.
The first view of the Summer Palace is this beautiful bridge over the Kunming lake. The bridge is simply stunning in its facade.
Overhanging willow trees served as an awesome backdrop. Cruising the calm and huge lake on a dragon shaped boat, I wonder how the Chinese managed to build the stone bridge over the lake. Truly Chinese engineering is a marvel to behold!
Other attractions at the Palace are the Longevity Hill, pavilions tower bridges, corridors with traditional Chinese architecture, court areas, front hill area, hills area, rear hill area and lake area. The various court areas were well preserved. The court area was where the emperor Guangxu and empress Cixi greeted court officials and conducted state affairs.
Due to the smog over Beijing, we were unable to take clear pictures of this beautiful place.
Silk shop and Matsuko on June 5 2013
When I heard the Chinese tour guide (Mr Wang) told us that it had not rained in 8 months in Beijing, I was really concerned for the city.
For the first 3 days of our tour, the skies were clear but the weather was hot (like Malaysia) but for the last 2 days of the tour, Beijing was shrouded in smog. Watching CCTV in our hotel room at the Marriot, we learnt that the pollution level in Beijing was bad. For a city of over 20 million people, the air quality was worrisome.
I decided to pray for rain. I thought that if Elijah can pray for rain so can I! And rained it did...so much so that the tour leader told me not to pray for rain as she wanted us to have good weather to move around the historical sites! So I prayed that it would only rain when we were indoors and that there would be no rain when we were outdoors. I believe that God heard my prayers as it rained heavily the night when we were in the Auspicious Business Hotel in the outskirts of Beijing.
I will start with my report on the last day as it is still fresh in my memory.
June 5 (Wednesday) started with us going silk shopping. We were taken to a large silk shop. This was one of the 3 "compulsory" shopping tours that we had to attend.
We were shown silk worms in various stages of their growth. The sales person also explained to us how silk was harvested from the silkworms and also asked us to try eating the discharge from the silkworms (I politely declined although some of my tour members did)!
We were then taken to the shopping area where the usual hard-selling began. Silk comforters, silk bed-sheets, silk covered cushions and pillows, silk bedspreads in traditional and modern designs were on display for us to see.
Most of the time I could not understand a word of their sales pitch (yes...I am Chinese but cannot speak nor understand Mandarin) although I picked up some essential words like toilet, meals, eat, door, how much, thank you).
Selling at RM2000 equivalent, the silk bed-spreads were beyond our budget. (We only brought RM1k with us to spend during the holiday).
However thanks to the overall purchase of our group, we finally bargained for "buy one, free one" silk cushions which was originally quoted at RM190 per cushion! Finally the sales ladies relented but kept on asking us to buy the silk bedspreads even when we had paid for the purchase. The silk cushions were unique cos they opened up to be silk comforters and folded up to be cushions.
However I did not quite like the silk bedspreads as I am not a fan of silk materials due to its tendency to cling to the skin.
Some shopping tips in China: try not to separate from the group cos that's where the hard selling can begin and the pressure and coercion will become agressive, try not to ask questions cos that's when they think you are keen, try to walk away when they thrust things into your hand, try to stick to about 70% or 80% discount from the original quoted price and be determined to walk away if they say "No" to you. Chances are they will call out to you "Come back"!
It was also at this shop that I gave some tracts on "Who is Jesus" to the Chinese salesgirls who were impressed with the English and Mandarin languages in one tract!
I also asked some of the salesgirls about the program "Perfect Match". Surprisingly they told me that they also like to watch the show. I told them that I learnt some Mandarin watching the program. I told the single girls (who spoke to me in English with an American slang) to join the show as I hoped to see them on TV back in Malaysia! I said I will pray for them to find their partners!
I later came to learn that matchmaking is big business in China. They are matchmaking fairs much like trade fairs where photos of eligible singles are placed in an exhibition hall for all to see. Singles flock the fairs to register themselves and to meet their potential partners. The surprising thing is that they also visit the fairs with their parents who will also exchange photos of their sons and daughters for potential matchmaking!
After the silk shop, we had a Japanese buffet lunch at Matsuko. A long buffet line of sushi, unagi, salmon, perch, crab soup with noodles, sukiyaki, pumpkin soup, edamane, miso soup, steamed fish, octopus, durian ice-cream and more greeted us the moment we stepped into the restaurant.
Sitting on cushions at a low rectangular table with our legs dangling in a space beneath the table in a Japanese tatami room, we had a good and hearty Japanese lunch. Although getting up and sitting down posed a challenge for older folks like me, it was interesting nonetheless and an enjoyable experience.....
Next update: Summer Palace.
Holiday in Beijing in review - June 1 to June 5 2013
Amazing and an awesome deal!
That's how we would describe our recent holiday in Beijing.
Its amazing cos its 5-star hotel lodging with 5-star meals and 5-star tourist sites from day one.
One of our tour member told us that he just went into the Matta Fair, looked for the most expensive deal and paid for it!
I guess this is how we feel about the vacation organized by Apple.
Its amazing because it is one of the most expensive China holidays organized by a tour agency (at least in the recent Matta fair). Its also amazing because its limited in terms of shopping visits.
Knowing the infamous shopping visits organized by most China tour companies and stories we heard about "hard-sell", we were wary about shopping trips.
We heard stories about "fake" fruits (fruits with color sprayed on), "fake" money (fake yuan given back to us in small change), exorbitant prices (to start bargaining at 70% of the quoted price and to walk away if they refuse to budge), angry faces and rude comments if we were to sample their products and walk away without buying!
Knowing the infamous shopping visits organized by most China tour companies and stories we heard about "hard-sell", we were wary about shopping trips.
We heard stories about "fake" fruits (fruits with color sprayed on), "fake" money (fake yuan given back to us in small change), exorbitant prices (to start bargaining at 70% of the quoted price and to walk away if they refuse to budge), angry faces and rude comments if we were to sample their products and walk away without buying!
We did not want a tour where we had to do a lot of shopping stops and be "pressured" into buying things. Perhaps "cheap" tours carry with it a price - the price of too many shopping stops to make up for the cheap price of the tour!
Anyway at RM 4,000 per person, I would say that it was worth every cent and more.....!
Reasons:
- 5-star accommodation at JW Marriot - Marriot City Hall and Marriot at Beijing Northeast. The other hotel we stayed in was called Auspicious Business Hotel which was built on an area of hot springs at Changping. Amazing hotel but one in which I had a weird dream and our tour leader had a "weird" visitation. More about this later.....
- 5-star breakfasts, lunches and dinners. The top breakfast venue has to be at Marriot at Beijing Northeast and the top lunch venue has to be at Matsuko. The top dinner venue has to be the emperor's meal we had at Auspicious Hotel.
- 5-star tour visits. We visited so many important places in Beijing. More about that later....
- 5-star shows. We saw the famous mask changing opera show (2x), traditional Chinese dancing and singing, traditional Chinese instruments being played, a world famous show called the Legend of Kungfu, Legend of the Mask Dynasty (this is a simply amazing show with many stage effects that really showcased the prowess of Chinese performing arts and theater), traditional Chinese juggling show with plates performed by a Chinese chef and a modern magic show.
- 3 shopping visits only. Silk shop, pixiu shop at the ZhengYangMen Museum and a tea shop. China sales ladies are very aggressive!! Beware the "hard-sell"! As one of our tour member puts it "If you are not interested to buy, don't say anything, don't ask anything". After our first experience at the tea-shop where we bought close to RM150 plus worth of tea and persuaded to buy some more to enable the sales lady to "meet her target" after all our tour members have bought the tea and boarded the bus......we learnt something....how to avoid parting with our money to buy things we don't need! What disturbed me was the way they "pleaded" with me and Tim and the tour guide to buy the tea which was originally quoted at RM600 plus at the price of just RM100 just when we were getting ready to leave the shop! They said that they wanted to make a total sales of RM1000 from our group in order to meet their sales target. She was so convincing! If the sales pitch don't work use the persuasion of the heart! Later one of our experienced tour member told us that such a sales pitch is not uncommon in China!
Anyway it was also at the tea-shop that I gave away the first of the tracts I brought with me to China and their comments were that they were impressed with the dual languages on the tracts.
O yes at this tea-shop also I "met" a bird in a cage placed near the toilet who greeted me in Mandarin "Nee how mah" (how are you) in both a man's voice and a lady's voice! The salesgirls at the shop later confirmed that the bird in the cage could indeed speak those few Mandarin words!
More to come....
Saturday, May 25, 2013
13th General Elections - 5 May 2013
2013 is a special year.
It was the year that 2 of our children voted for the first time in the country's national elections.
With much debating and talking and arguing politics in the home (and many heated discussions) our 2 oldest children went to the ballot box for the first time. Even Amanda was involved in feeding us the latest news on Facebook on who said what, who did what even though she was the only member in the family who could not vote as yet. She was like a commentary on the latest news and updates that her friends posted on Facebook!
This was also the year that we decided to do something more than just pray. We have been praying for the past 5 years for this long-awaited event on May 5 2013. Now we wanted to get involved to be part of this historic occasion.
We signed up for Pemantau duties. Pemantau is an NGO comprising of Komas, Bersih and Mafrel. It is a citizen's initiative with the aim of mobilizing citizens to observe the elections process.
Among our duties were to be stationed at a particular school to observe and report on breaches of election rules such as phantom voters (before the elections all kinds of reports abounded of Bangladeshis going to vote), campaigning within a certain parameters of the polling stations, vote buying etc.
We had to attend a few briefings at the KLCAH on the duties of a Pemantau. We also had to sign a pledge of neutrality. There were a few hot seats to observe in KL - Cheras, Lembah Pantai, Titwangsa, Wangsa Maju among others.
We opted for the parliamentary hot seat of Titiwangsa to observe as they were short of people. Our coordinator was Dian who subsequently resigned. Alicia took over and we wholeheartedly communicated with her via whatsapp on where to go, what to do, getting our Pemantau kit, what to observe and report etc.
We were given a Pemantau vest, clipboard, several reports and questionnaire to complete. The reports were for nomination day, campaigning period and election day itself.
Alicia assigned us to be the team leader for Sek Desa Pandan. We had Fauzah, Fauziah, Affendy and Yuet Ching with us in the team. To ensure that we all had time to vote, we broke our team in 3 groups taking 2 hourly shift from 8 am till 5 pm. Affendy took the earliest shift, the 2 Malay ladies the second shift and Yuet Ching and ourselves took the last shift from 2 pm to 5 pm.
It was interesting to visit the BN operations room and the PAS operations room to pantau ("Pantau" is the BM word for observe).
Note: The PAS candidate Zambry refused to shake my hand when he turned up at the school on election day....(I later learnt that PAS people do not shake ladies' hands....LOL...)
Tim and I did not have time to observe the campaigning/ceramahs but we made sure that we attended all the training sessions and also kept in touch with our team members who took time and effort to attend the various ceramahs. The 2 Malay ladies later filed reports of the various ceramahs they attended in Putrajaya.
May 5 2013 will be remembered as a wonderful day for our family.
Early in the morning we ferried Adeline to her polling station at a community hall in Taman Muda. She took about 2 hours to finish her voting as they were many people lining up to vote.
We then drove to Section 17 to vote. Since our Uni days we had been registered voters in PJS and we opted not to change our polling stations. Again another hour or so of queuing. Finally we finished and took Adeline for breakfast at the best nasi lemak in town.
Then we drove back to Pandan Indah to take over the afternoon duties from Fauzah and Fauziah at the school in Desa Pandah.
After a long day, we collected the reports from all our team members and made our last stop at KLCAH to deliver all the reports to Simon, our leader for the whole Pemantau Project.
It will certainly be a day to remember for us. Hopefully this entry in our blog will enable our children and grandchildren to always appreciate the democracy in our country and the peace that we enjoy.
May our children and grandchildren continue to exercise this precious right to vote and may they vote wisely for the candidates that will bring the most transformation and improvement to the various parliamentary and state constituencies.
It was the year that 2 of our children voted for the first time in the country's national elections.
With much debating and talking and arguing politics in the home (and many heated discussions) our 2 oldest children went to the ballot box for the first time. Even Amanda was involved in feeding us the latest news on Facebook on who said what, who did what even though she was the only member in the family who could not vote as yet. She was like a commentary on the latest news and updates that her friends posted on Facebook!
This was also the year that we decided to do something more than just pray. We have been praying for the past 5 years for this long-awaited event on May 5 2013. Now we wanted to get involved to be part of this historic occasion.
We signed up for Pemantau duties. Pemantau is an NGO comprising of Komas, Bersih and Mafrel. It is a citizen's initiative with the aim of mobilizing citizens to observe the elections process.
Among our duties were to be stationed at a particular school to observe and report on breaches of election rules such as phantom voters (before the elections all kinds of reports abounded of Bangladeshis going to vote), campaigning within a certain parameters of the polling stations, vote buying etc.
We had to attend a few briefings at the KLCAH on the duties of a Pemantau. We also had to sign a pledge of neutrality. There were a few hot seats to observe in KL - Cheras, Lembah Pantai, Titwangsa, Wangsa Maju among others.
We opted for the parliamentary hot seat of Titiwangsa to observe as they were short of people. Our coordinator was Dian who subsequently resigned. Alicia took over and we wholeheartedly communicated with her via whatsapp on where to go, what to do, getting our Pemantau kit, what to observe and report etc.
We were given a Pemantau vest, clipboard, several reports and questionnaire to complete. The reports were for nomination day, campaigning period and election day itself.
Alicia assigned us to be the team leader for Sek Desa Pandan. We had Fauzah, Fauziah, Affendy and Yuet Ching with us in the team. To ensure that we all had time to vote, we broke our team in 3 groups taking 2 hourly shift from 8 am till 5 pm. Affendy took the earliest shift, the 2 Malay ladies the second shift and Yuet Ching and ourselves took the last shift from 2 pm to 5 pm.
It was interesting to visit the BN operations room and the PAS operations room to pantau ("Pantau" is the BM word for observe).
Note: The PAS candidate Zambry refused to shake my hand when he turned up at the school on election day....(I later learnt that PAS people do not shake ladies' hands....LOL...)
Tim and I did not have time to observe the campaigning/ceramahs but we made sure that we attended all the training sessions and also kept in touch with our team members who took time and effort to attend the various ceramahs. The 2 Malay ladies later filed reports of the various ceramahs they attended in Putrajaya.
May 5 2013 will be remembered as a wonderful day for our family.
Early in the morning we ferried Adeline to her polling station at a community hall in Taman Muda. She took about 2 hours to finish her voting as they were many people lining up to vote.
We then drove to Section 17 to vote. Since our Uni days we had been registered voters in PJS and we opted not to change our polling stations. Again another hour or so of queuing. Finally we finished and took Adeline for breakfast at the best nasi lemak in town.
Then we drove back to Pandan Indah to take over the afternoon duties from Fauzah and Fauziah at the school in Desa Pandah.
After a long day, we collected the reports from all our team members and made our last stop at KLCAH to deliver all the reports to Simon, our leader for the whole Pemantau Project.
It will certainly be a day to remember for us. Hopefully this entry in our blog will enable our children and grandchildren to always appreciate the democracy in our country and the peace that we enjoy.
May our children and grandchildren continue to exercise this precious right to vote and may they vote wisely for the candidates that will bring the most transformation and improvement to the various parliamentary and state constituencies.
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