7th day

Tis is the day wher we are blogging frm Day 1 to Day 6. Later in the afternoon, Des will be paying a courtesy visit to his office.

Rene cooked plain porridge together w yest nite Li Qun's duck (oh yes, we da bao the our leftover), Seafood tofu (frm yest dinner too) and fried egg. As usual, Des ate 5 bowls of porridge.. it was his best appetite throughout our days in beijing.
While Des was away, rene will be cleaning the house, continuing uploading photos n the blog :)

Tmr, we will be going to wangfujing :p

6th Day

The queue to forbidden city is super long n quite squeezy n after much patience of squeezing into the crowds, we finally stepped into the forbidden city. A look @ the map, the palace is huge. We targetted to view Kunning Palace, Imperial Garden n most importantly, lonely planet said that ther's a starbucks inside the Palace. So, after viewing Kunning Palace, Imperial Garden which was so so, nt as interesting as expected.. quite dry too n so we searched for Starbucks w our coffee addict starting up. To our dismay, it's being closed down... :( I was disturbing des tat ppl came to forbidden to see palace history n yet u are here to see starbucks.. haha

After tat, we had our lunch @ Li Qun by paying 20rmb each to a trishaw rider from street to Li Qun n from Li Qun out to the street. It was ex for a short distance but no choice as it is located in a hutong n the map doesnt guide us to the restaurant.. We would say tat is a different experience of eating beijing roasted duck as compared to sg. Beijing roasted duck is much much oily n becos of its oilness u will get sick of the duck after whacking 1/2 of it. Sg errm Crystal JAde, is much nicer as it is more crispy, fragrant n less oily.

After tat, we took the subway to Yong An Station to the Silk Street. We bought a luggage for $30, 2 Coloumbia winderbreaker for $50 each, 3 t-shirt for $20 each. The ride to SUbway was squeezzzzzzy n super squeezzy as it is dirt cheap of 40 cents regardless of ur destination. Poor des gota dragged the luggage as we gota transfer to another line for 3 times n the distance by foot to the next line is filled w steps, human jam and slopes. IF a bomb is thrown into the subway.. definately is a byebye straight.

5th day

Todae was a spring cleaning day and to explore our neighbourhood.. Todae was v v cold when the wind blows. And a hot sweet potatoes is sooo shiok!!

We ate the lok lok at Wudaokou MRT... is seems dirty n the fact is.. it is dirty.. Taste was alrite cos is was v v hot as the wind was strong.

We had hotpot for dinner.. cost us 99Rmb.. which is abt $20 in a high end restaurant.

4th day - Ming Dynasty & Great Wall TOur

It's freezing cold.. Rene is wearing 8 pcs of clothes.. haha

3rd day

Todae we b meeting the landlord to sign the rental contract. Echo was w us, she's v nice, afraid tat the contract would b in chinese language n knowing tat our chinese cant make it one.. hhaa
Echo n Rene checked the electrical appliances n thank god the contract is in english but ther's some spelling mistakes. Echo, being a law student n Des whom hav studied biz law, found tat the mistakes makes a difference but the error was corrected by hand as the landlord doesnt hav a printer n needs to find a printing shop to re-print the contract.

Landlord too, offered us a ride ard the neighbourhood n after tat we headed to the supermarket near our apartment to get some necessity n later to carrefour again to buy bedsheets n stuffs n to the teashop again to whack the tea plums n tea leaves haha.. Somehow, we was too engrossed chatting w a lady frm the teashop, as she was making tea for us n we had forgetten tat it was raining the whole day n tat might nt b cabs home. We went out to the street at 10pm n ther's many ppl flagging for a cab too n some even stand infront of the cab to stop it n some snatching other's ppl cab.

Indeed, ther was hardly any cabs n we managed to flagged abt 3 cabs but nt sure why they didnt wanan stopped for us. Mayb is too dark n they cant see 2 humans at all n the ppl infront of us got the cabs we flagged for. So when the 4th cab came, rene went out of our umbrella shelter, stand infront of the cab n flagged it. When the cab slowed down, she went to pull the cab door... tis time round, the cab had no choice but stopped for us.. haha. Des was busy shouting at me to stand aside but haha.. i had to do it else we b home real late.Sorry dar

We went back to our hotel, extend 1 more nite cos we need to wash the bedsheet 1st n also bOOked the package for great wall n ming dynasty tombs.

2nd day

We met Echo (Fay's friend) whom was helping us throughout looking for a apartment. She came to our hotel n fetched us to the real estate agent office. We went to view the 1st apartment... the rent was a whooping of 6000RMB for a 1 bedrm. They kept saying it was a short term rental period tat's y the rent was so high. Echo kept telling them tat it was agreed at 3000 - 4000 rmb n nw we are here.. it was 6000 rmb. Thereafter the agents also suggested tat we sign a 1 yr period n they 'promised' to get it rented by aug n reimburse us the rmb. Sorry to say.. we can hardly trust u guys cos there isnt any written agreement for tat n if it's isnt rented out.. we will waste 6 mths rental for nothing. Also, we need to pay them 1 mth rental as commission. We wanna escape frm their clutches by saying we will go for lunch n be back later. But, their reply was, we also didnt hav lunch so let's go for lunch together. 3 of us were like, ok, so fierce huh.. After much excuses here n ther.. we headed for lunch w/o them. Thank God

We called one of the contacts we had been liaising w in sg.. mr wang too. He's asking for 3500 rmb. We took a cab to his apartment n was the best of the best in terms of pricing. The master bedrm is occupied by an American, Nick. So Des will hav a normal bedroom, study room n separate bathroom.

Next we headed to zhongguan chun (silicon valley).. ther's a carrefour n starbucks.. haha. We only bought 4 apples for 35 cents n some tea leaves n tea plums (v v nice :p). We headed back to our hotel by cab n made friend w this cab driver n took his contacts for rides to the airport.

1st Day

Not forgetting all the sms too :)

We took a bus in the airport to get to zhong guan chun and the ticket cost RMB 16 per pax.. which is $3 and rene gave 102 yuan to the cashier, thinking that her 1 jiao notes is 1 yuan notes and the cashier people was laughing at her. Moreover, they tot we were beijing ppl.

Weather was v v dry, food was v salty. We were slacking for the 1st day to get used to the weather.. Des had diarheorra from the air tubulence.

We met a nice guy whom led us to our hotel after we got off together at xueyuan bridge. W/o him.. guess we would b totally lost. He even paid for our cab fare and gave us his hp no to contact him if we need any help.. So nice of him!

We ate zha jian mian (super big bowl), toufu w perserved egg and 2 plates of jiao zhi. The Jiao zhi was v nice n so flavourful tat u do not need to go with ginger unlike in sg. Coke was 40 cents. The lunch cost us abt $3.

Dinner was porridge (chicken w preserved egg and liver porridge) with xiao cai. We had doufu w mushroom, hand-roll kind of roti prata, fried beef w pepper.

17th to 27th

Just cant wait for 17th Apr. Cant help feeling excited.

Todae is my last paper.. sucky FA. 1st time in my life, i let go 1 qns worth 20 marks. hHaha. Should be able to pass from Section A and 2 qns of Section B.

Des so LG .. dun need to pack luggage one. WHen's he back, he doesnt need to unpack too bUt only unpack my presents..

I 'll be back on 27th apr. Thereafter we be separated for 3-4 mths... dread this tot. Going to have our outmost fun in these 10 days

Des kanna affected by my laziness mood.. he doesnt hav mood to mug. Haha... Anyway, old bird le sure kinda slacky in schoolwork.

His china boss juz emailed that, he will bring des to Guangzhou, Shanghai and around Beijing. He's so thrilled.. so am i cos i will hav more presents :p

Jokes

April's Fool day - are you punked?

Des n rene being a little mischevious on the eve of April's fool day.. or rather.. rene was the naughtier one cos it was her idea :p

Des msn nick was: yup, we have parted.

Oh rite.. if you have been punked by us.. hohoho