Trip to Xi'an

Went there from Apr 2 to Apr 5 which was quite long ago. Finally the busy me has time to talk about this trip.

Xi'an is one of the oldest city of China and is the capital of Shaanxi province. Dynasties such as Zhou, Qin Han, Sui and Tang have made Xi'an the capital of China. Ok cut the history crap. Go http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi'an to read up more if you want to.

Okay. It was a 3 days 3 nights trip. We chionged home after work on thursday night to take the 11-hour long train there. The trains have a few classes of seats: hard seater, soft seater, hard sleeper and soft sleeper. Think our train didn't have hard seater? We took the soft sleeper cos we had quite some money to spare and didn't want to torture ourselves for this long journey. OMG i can never imagine the inside of a train to be so nice and cozy! The soft sleeper was incredible considering China's stuff are normally old and rundown. And we actually had Scottish youngsters who were on a field trip led by their teacher. Woot~ Not like we did anything with them though. Merely had simple introductions and we went on to do our own stuff.

Reached the city in the morning and met up with the tour guide and the bus which was supposed to bring us to the attractions for the 3 days. Checked into a 2-star hotel immediately. Realised it's some kind of hotel whereby ppl go for one night stands. Hotel 81 that kind. But bo bian we're poor students so can't stay in better ones. However, the hotel rooms are still quite nice with all the necessities.

First stop was to the Terra-cotta warriors 兵马俑 exhibition site. I'm sure you've heard of it or at least seen it on tv or books. It's the humongous number of clay statues of soldiers and horses which Qin Shi Huang got it built and buried together to protect his tomb. Supposed to be a representation of him still having power and control even in his afterlife. It's quite a cool and cultural place actually. But after going around the site, it got quite boring as it was just repetitive bunches of clay soliders.

Went on to the tomb of Qin Shi Huang after that. It was also very similar to the Ming 13 Ling tomb which we went to few weeks before. It's mainly the different carvings and structures around the tomb which was built all the way up a hill. The actual tomb was supposed to be buried beneath those. The sight of the surrounding from the top of the hill was good though.

At night we went to the Muslims Chinese market street. It was incredible to see so many chinese wearing muslim's headdress. The food they sell is, of course, halal too and no pork was available. This is a great contrast to the rest of the chinese who always eat pork. Their food was not bad, and they sold a kind of pastry that looks like tutu cake back in sg. Very similar, except that they have other kinds of flavours such as rose which i tried. It was yummy! Roamed around the place a while more before returning to the hotel. Received a call for a massage session which, of cos, i turned down.

Ah-tiongnisation

It's been 3months and 10days since i went away. I miss singapore so much that i dunno what to say. Well...it's not that bad. I kinda miss sg food. China food is soooo salty and oily. But luckily i haven't totally gotten used to it. If not i'd have totally ah tiongnised. Hope my liver and kidneys are still working fine.

Weather is finally totally warm already. First time actually experiencing the season change. Spring was absolutely windy. Luckily there wasn't sandstorm so air wasn't that horrible. Forgotten how sg's weather feels like for the past two months. But now summer is here so memories of sg's weather is returning.

Okay, let's talk about food this time. China's food tend to be saltier and oilier than sg food. So if you actually buy sg food from stalls owned by china ppl, dun complain cos it's their style. Meat here is also quite little. For a 10RMB meal, which is abt SGD2.5, dun put too much hope in the amount of meat they'll give. But be prepared for a great carbo diet. Probably you'll get abt 2 to 3 bowls worth of rice. Veggies that come with it will probably be green capsican. It will be quite nice if not for the extra salt and oil that they always use.

Now, let's talk about public transportation. Buses during peak hours are always very squeezy too. If you ever think sg buses are squeezy, think again. Imagine 360º around you with people touching you. I've been experiencing it for the past 3 months here when i go to work every monday to thursday. Dun really feel terrible about it though. But my friends seem to hate it greatly. Bus conductors also shout every time to get people to squeeze more or to get people to get down the bus quickly. As there is no ticketing machine on the bus like in sg, bus tickets have to be bought from the conductors. And the conductors are normally trapped in between the crowd of passengers so just getting to her (usually) requires total squeezing through the pile of people. Luckily beijing public buses also use EZ-link cards which gives a 60% discount compared to buying of tickets so such horrendous feelings can be avoided. These three months of bus experience has kinda made me feel accustomed to pushing people on the bus. Hope i dun do this back in sg. Another funny thing is if you're standing near the door, blocking another passenger's path to get out of the bus, he or she will ask you "Are you getting off? 下车吗？" It's a good way to getting through the packed crowd of people on the bus. No one in sg does that. If i ever do that back in sg, stares will confirm come to me.
Oh taxis are cheap in beijing too. The flag-down price is 10RMB which is abt SGD2.30. Normally fares won't go above 30RMB unless you travel the distance of like pasir ris to boon lay like what we did on valentine's day. Damn cheap man. But we also never take it often since we're not tourists here. If we keep taking it, the amount of money spent won't be small either.
Finally, it's time to talk about the subway. It's literally subway for beijing's trains. Most of the stations are underground. It costs 2RMB to travel from one stop to any other stop (other than the airport express line which costs 25RMB), no matter how far or near the stop is. This is really a good thing as we can save a lot on transportation. The trains are similar to sg ones, except food is allowed on it. So i always bring food up to eat. Such good feelings can never be experienced in sg.

Yay to GIP!

I realised i seriously hardly blog much about this GIP trip. Every time i'm free i'll choose to play guitar till i sleep. I must learn to spend more time to blog.
Let's reminisce and talk about something that happened in March. Trip to Tian Tan, the place where the Ming and Qing kings prayed at.

Went with a large group of people. Let's see..there were my household three people: bor jenq, jiwei, sihan; shengyuan, zequan, junwei, shunyu, yew kiong, choon tat, rena, cheryl, kenneth, junhui, and two other girls that came for INSTEP whom sihan invited. Hmm..that's a lot of people. Anyway, it was a nice trip looking at old temples and buildings. Couldn't do much there other than looking at those unique buildings.

Nah actually it's not just the buildings. It's actually quite happening. Lots of old people actually go there very often to mix around and lots of makeshift stalls are set up around many of the walkways. Chapteks were also sold and played around the whole place. Bought one from a nice uncle that played with us.