In fact, why travel at all? Haha... you can guess it's due to Wife's unhappiness that we haven't gone anywhere for a long time. It's not that I don't like to travel; I love seeing new places! However, the Wedding wiped out a substantial amount of my savings. But after months of scraping and saving, we finally got back into a healthy zone.
Initially we were thinking of going somewhere in South East Asia, in particular I wanted to see Angkor Wat but she wasn't too keen about that. Then SA said his honeymoon would be in Hong Kong. So I did a little research but couldn't come up with the "pull factor" to bring me there. It's a shopping paradise for sure, but something was just missing. Wife's sister suggested that we go to Shanghai as there was a World Expo going on at that time. Still the "pull" wasn't there...
Then I recalled earlier this year, another colleague went to Beijing for a business trip. He was asking which part of the Great Wall should he visit. From there it sort of made sense; if this was going to be my first time to China, why not go straight to the capital? You would be spending just as much going to Shanghai or Hong Kong anyways... Ok, with that set, we visited several tour agencies to get the typical itinerary of Beijing.
Initially, my plan was to just follow the tours because it would be so simple: no planning needed, no reading required, just follow the guide and they'll take care of everything. That's what people usually do when they go to China, rite? But I kept getting this nagging feeling that maybe following the tour wouldn't be such a good idea. Yes, they'll bring you to the attractions, but it's mostly touch-and-go and you'd be spending a lot of the time in tourist shops instead.
Still it did not occur to us yet that we should go on our own. Until one fine day, I was chatting with my lady boss and she said she was going backpacking... in JAPAN. I was like..."Wow... do you speak Japanese?". She said nope, but that wasn't stopping her from spending two weeks there. And that's the "push factor"-- JUST DO IT! So I bought Lonely Planet's Beijing City Guide and spent the next weeks planning for the trip.
Many people were like "You're not following a tour in China?" and "Have you thought about it (again)?", really made us nervous. In fact, two days before leaving, we were having sleepless nights worrying! Wife summarized the feeling perfectly: "How come people go for holiday to enjoy but we're suffering...?" Haha... either way on the 21 Nov, we were at Penang Airport with all the butterflies in our stomach!
Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong.
Luckily they served breakfast fast because we were hungry already
Chicken rice
Pork rice
The flight from Penang to HK was uneventful. But once we boarded the connecting flight via DragonAir, I suddenly felt the excitement building up: all those months of reading and planning and we were finally heading to Beijing!
Sunset
Beijing Capital Airport was really MASSIVE. We cleared immigration and took a taxi to our hotel. Taxis charge by meters in Beijing and are very reliable. The Capital Airport was rather some way out of town so the taxi bill came out to RMB 100+.
Sunworld Hotel... not too bad.
After unpacking, we went searching for dinner and found this shop serving Taiwan food.
Set meal usually comes with rice, vege, meat and soup.
Rice noodles. It was a pretty satisfying meal, though a bit on the oily side.
Coke
Cozy inside the shop. Outside, the temperature was pretty cold, but still manageable.
After the meal, we went back and had a good rest. The next day the adventure starts with Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and Beihai Park!
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