Beijing Trip Day 1

161 days in Shanghai (7/02/08)

I woke up at 5.30am to get ready for out Beijing trip. Leave the house by 7.45am and took a cab down to Pudong Airport.

Reached there an hour earlier, e-checked in and had KFC breakfast.

Went through the boarding gate and we have got to take a bus down to the airplane. It was quite cool cox it was my first time taking a bus before boarding a plane. Heard from Yu Hong normally budget airlines are all like that. Got to take a bus down to the aeroplane.

The moment I went on the plane and reached my seat, I went off to lala land; all of us were so damn tired cox we slept quite late the previous night.

And although it is only a 2 hour plane ride, Air China still served us breakfast. Their service is also quite good, much better then China Eastern =)

Reached Beijing, took a bus down to the terminal and get our luggage. Once we went out of the terminal, there was this driver that asked if we wanted a ride and we started bargaining the price from RMB160 to RMB100.

Was quite surprised that along the way to the apartment, there wasn’t any sight of snow. The driver told us that Beijing only snowed a few times this year and it was all those small ones. All the snow has already melted. =(

(Thought that the main purpose of coming to Beijing is to see snow.. and I get to see it in Shanghai rather then in Beijing…)

Reached the service apartment and realized that the place is actually quite near. We reached there in 30mins and wanted to bargain more with the driver. But Jia Wei just gave him RMB100 when we alighted.

Went to the check in at the counter and something happen that almost freaked me out. The counter got to photocopy our passports as reference and they asked me and Yu Hong why we didn’t have our passport stamp at the immigrant counter.

So, without the stamp that shows that we leave Shanghai and come to Beijing, it actually means that we are illegal immigrants to Beijing.

Then while I was thinking if the immigrant person actually stamped on my passport, Yu Hong said that within domestic flights, stamps are actually not required as we travelled to HangZhou, Suzhou and ZhouZhuang without the use of our passport. So we have got our 180 days visa on China is actually sufficient.

Only then I got relieved and the front desk person also agreed with it. Phew!

Reached the apartment and it has got a living room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms (one with a queen size bed, the other have got a single bed) and one bathroom. Snatched our rooms and slacked for the rest of the afternoon watching tv and sleeping.

Went out at about 5pm for dinner at this tofu restaurant (found in the map) and headed to 王府井 after that for night window shopping and night views. Tried out some of the road side food and ate mac ice cream in the –degree temperature out there.

We walked for awhile till about 9.15pm before taking a cab back to the apartment.