Postage from Beijing (2)

Location: XinQiao Apartment Hotel, Beijing.

Woohoo~~ Back from the Great Wall... It's totally intimidating to actually climbed the stairs that so many climbed so many years before my arrival.

Anyway, mom told us that tomorrow's a very special day... In Mandarin we call "guo dong", which celebrates the day that marks a month from Chinese New Year. In M'sia we normally eat tang yuan that my grams (coz we're too lazy to wake up at 10 in the morning and get our arses to Gram's place to help out...) make for us but in China, it's different. They eat jiao zhi aka dumpling to celebrate this auspicious occasion.

So, back to the wall... I can sum the whole breath-taking experience in 3 words: "intimidating", "Freezing" and "Tiring". The view was magnificent up there... Seriously, I'm really glad that I put in such effort in my cardio 'workout' before coming to China... When we were climbing up the stairs, the temperature at that time's around -10 degrees Celsius, it certainly felt lower than that when the wind blows.

After a few hundred steps, it all boils down to a person's will power to walk up the stairs. The weird thing was, it was colder at the foot of the Great Wall compare to being a few hundred steps up. It's probably due to the wind and all... I cannot even begin to imagine how the Chinese soldiers manage to stay sane guarding the wall of Great Wall.

and yeshhh, proud to say that I pee-ed in The Great Wall =P LoL, not like the people did in Epic Movie but there's this toilet way WAY up along the wall and I Pee-ed in it, regardless the weather, which was freezing btw, I took off my pants and pee-ed. Hmm... which makes me wonder if any couple ever hooked up on top of the great wall before...

lol, ok... back to reality. It did snow yesterday, just not in Beijing where we are right now. There were visible ice lacing the stairs of the Great Wall. Moreover, Xiao Jia (our tourist guide) told us that it's snowing heavily in Tian Jing or Cheng Du yesterday... The places are also included in our itenary by the way.

It would certainly be a shame if we suffered this horribly dry and spine-chillingly cold weather and not be able to see real life snow flakes. Then I'll make snow angel and gross bro out~~

Anyhoooo, Xiao Jia said the the temperature's gona be higher tomorrow as they extimate it to be -12 to 0 degrees Celsius, which is slightly warmer than today. Besides, we will be checking out this posh Mongolian restaurant tomorrow, which, according to Xiao Jia, is totally expensive and very cultural too. It cost about RMB 200++/pax (which is about RM100++/pax), and that reminded bro about Jogoya.

Darn Jogoya, for being so expensive but so tantalizingly delicious...

Owhh wait, did I mention that I bought something? (at the expense of dad ofcourse =P) I bought a gorgeous leather-ish (probably PVC) hand bag, 2 sweaters (which will come in handy next year in uni) and a knitted jacket, which cost only RM25!!! I saw some similar ones in TimeSquare with pigpig that day... they cost atleast RM 40 - RM 60 per piece.

There's this one thing... Man, I lurve bargainning... acting all innocent and since my family members are very good actors/actresses... It was easier.

And ofcourse, it's especially fun to shop when it's not me who's footing the bill =)