[Part 3] One night in Beijing

While this isn’t exactly one night in Beijing, this is exactly the third day we were here in this hard-cold place. Waking up at 8AM for breakfast is not such a great idea after all when the food is served by the hotel at 6AM. It is like chewing on frozen foods.

A view from the window of the hotel room.

And it’s funny to find the snack company, Lotte has a mart here. Realizing the sun rise earlier here, it’s bright around 4AM here in Beijing. We took an early walk down the streets in Ma Jia Pu.

It’s literally fooking cold. And that was about 9 degrees.

Even dogs has to dress up.

And it seems like the property prices here in town is not cheap even. Cheapest one would even fetch value of 1 million RMB and above.

Why don’t I feel weird to see pollution is so obvious.

One of the higher-class residence around the neighborhood.

It does makes me wonder how they survive all the winds from riding a bicycle.

Motor-Bi-Cycle

Do they need a driving license to ride that?

A working clock

Not long after the shivering cold from walking in a circle near the hotel, we decided to turn back.

And out of nowhere, everyone’s start to queuing up to get into Lotte Mart.

And it’s only 7:30 in the morning

Got this for 0.5 RMB Yuan. Guess what, I didn’t eat that and it turned gray when I come back to hotel at night. Gross.

The Forbidden City of China

This place just reminds me of it not being so “forbidden” anymore with the commercialisation happening so rapidly.

You need to walk like…10 minutes to reach to the entrance where you have to purchase a ticket.

They seemed to be really happy?

After a long walk, we purchased the entrance ticket for RMB 60 Yuan per person.

Everyone seems to be kind to queue up. And this is really weird.

And there’s this old lady selling “map” for RMB5 Yuan that turned out to be… (Look at the map she’s holding)

A brochure of the palace itself. What the hell? And there’s no map at all, not even a screenshot of it.

Soldier in front of the entrance.

Seems like they’re arguing on some issue

They are situated just right outside of the entrance, waiting to bait you into their holy package of forbidden conman.

Same goes to this.

It appears that from their outfit, it’s pretty cold alright.

Enter The Forbidden City

It appeared that this place is massively huge. And to even imagine you are standing at the center of the hall during winter amazes me.

The electronic guided tour. RMB 140 for rental with RMB 100 will be returned to you upon exit. And yes, you have to return the device to them.

They have it in Chinese and English. It’s a pretty cool tool actually. It acts as a map and also a tour that guides you through the place. Probably some infrared sensor inside that detects where you are located.

Walking from one hall to another is a pain, you would actually wish to cruise this place with a Segway.

Seems like the kids are afraid of the cold winds as well.

The amount of details in and outside of the building is magnificent. And if you have been watching dramas on old Chinese dynasties, you’ll soon realize that not all of the monuments in the movie are based on the exact scale of the real location.

Why there are so many people outside of the entrance? This is because no one is allowed inside at all.

This is where the Emperor holds the morning meeting with all of his ministers.

I have forgotten what this room is for.

The bricks on the floor are pretty run-down. This is acceptable since it has been around for more than 1000 years. I can’t really imagine how many bloods and bodies has been slained on this very floor.

While inside the Forbidden City, you will need to pay an extra RMB10 Yuan to pay a visit to one of the Emperor’s chamber that has this massive sculpture/carving on the wall that is made of mosaic. What’s so funny or unique about this is there is a story of the Emperor ordered it’s slave to carve a total of 7 dragons on the wall of the entrance of his chamber.

But it appeared one careless worker broke on of the mosaic thus, they need to replace it with something. And they decided to use a wood that is painted with a white paint so they can get away with it. And over the course of time, the paint wears off and you can actually see their deeds in lying towards their emperor. Why so? Because they could be-headed if the emperor found out about this.

And it looks like this everywhere inside the city.

Once you have completed your course in walking/touring around the Forbidden city, you’ll reach the exit where it’s a big garden with some beautiful Asian plum tree.

There are the tree branches that is about to bloom.

The beautiful plum flowers.

This is one of the smaller hall where there is this small, well.

It’s actually not this small, but rather the well is blocked by this massive object on top. But what makes this little place so interesting is there is one common story shared among all Chinese around the world that there is saying… During the reign of an emperor (Qing Dynasty), where the empress (Empress Qi Hei) threw one of the emperor’s concubine into the well during a massive war outbreak during their dynasty, the only reason I heard is because the concubine supported the Emperor to rebel against the Empress.

And that ends the trip to the Forbidden City.

South Drum Avenue

And so, we headed down to this interesting place right after our late-lunch. Known as NanLuoGuXiang, which literally meant South Drum’s Avenue?

According to Eugene, this reminds him of Jonker Street in Malacca, Malaysia. You can find a lot of cafes, bakery, apparel shops and handicrafts. And yes, it’s a straight long street.

It’s a pretty safe street considering the kids know how to handle their weapons as well.

It seems that the sign did mentioned that no cars are allowed to park along the walkway.

And this is what you get if you do that, intentionally.

It’s interesting that these kind of door still exists in this era. There’s milk and newspaper box.

What I hate about this place; It seemed that cars are using this path as a shortcut during rush hours.

There’s yogurt here if you want, for RMB3 Yuan. Tastes good actually.

And some local delicacy.

Beer, anyone?

And there’s this legendary Tibetan yogurt.

This is supposed to be an entrance to a residence in the past… And to my surprise, we came across a designer apparel shop that known as NLGX, taken from the street name Nan Luo Gu Xiang. Which is again, surprisingly, operated by three non-Beijing designer.

Kids enjoying themselves with basketball.

Three point!

I have no idea how to translate this into English. Caramel-dipped fruits. (I think)