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Tuesday, October 31, 2017

CHINA 2016: DAY 8 (last day)

21 OCT

Due to the unsatisfactory conditions and location of the originally booked hotel in Beijing when we first arrived, we opted to switch to Scitech Hotel - one which we had a fair impression of since it was the first hotel we stayed in during our very first trip to China a few years ago. However, since it has been a fair number of years ago, the hotel seemed to be in a fairly dilapidated state.


The breakfast was the most decent for the entire trip though - full range of buffet breakfast with almost no weird menu items (like hot orange juice). But they also still had Chinese yogurt~


After breakfast was a trip to 天坛, where the emperor apparently did most of the main religious rites during his time. There are 4 such places, namely 天坛, 地坛, 日坛, and 月坛 distributed across the city, but the most popular one for tourists is the 天坛. 坛 means "altar", so each altar represents the heaven, earth, sun, and moon respectively, and the emperor was to travel to each and every altar after performing the respective rites at the respective altars.



The outskirts of the altar has been made into some kind of park, where the elderly and/or families come to spend quality time. The image above depicts a popular past time for some of the elderly folk - using a makeshift brush and water, they practice calligraphy on the stone tiles.


And for dinner, a quaint little Mongolian restaurant in the city of Beijing:

Stewed Chinese yams











After a filling dinner and a nice amount of Chivas later, we went back to the hotel and made our way back to KL, with a stopover at Hong Kong International Airport. I forgot to download a VPN for this trip, so I was without social media until we got to Hong Kong.


All in all, it was a fair trip. I guess it was much less nerve wracking since we had a pre-planned itinerary and a tour guide to get us to most places~

Monday, October 23, 2017

CHINA 2016: DAY 6 & 7

19 OCT


We started this day by meeting with our local tour guide, Simon. A distance from Shenyang city is a water cave that is popular for its stalactite and stalagmite formations - 本溪水洞. Several formations have designated names based on their shape resemblance to animals, deities, etc.

Calcified formations lit up with multicolored lights.



And for the first time, we had proper hotpot with two soup bases - spicy and pork bone. The entire meal was one of the most satisfying during a day with a tour guide for the entire trip.
 

We then proceeded to the Residence of General Zhang, which is, from what I can recall, a walking distance from the Financial Museum of Shenyang. Most of the places we visited constitutes our second visit, as we had visited these places a few years before, just without a tour guide.


Chinese Northeastern cuisine seems to gravitate around flour-based dumplings or pancakes eaten with meat. Dinner was a walking distance from our hotel, specializing in smoked meat (pork) and flour pancakes. We also got some tapioca noodles, soup, and eggs to go with it.



20 OCT


We started the morning morbid by visiting the Qing Zhao Tomb. Shenyang was at one point a Manchurian city, so a lot of the symbolic items were Manchurian, including the nods toward crows, which were thought to be sacred.

 

We then headed to the Shenyang Imperial Palace before heading to lunch.

Some strange deep-fried cream fritter thing.
 

This is called 怪味锅, meaning "pot of strange flavor". The main ingredients? Tons of bell peppers.




After saying necessary goodbyes, we headed to Shenyang Taoxian Airport for a flight back to Beijing. We stopped by this place that sold milk ice cream, which wasn't half bad, and I got some vacuum-wrapped braised chicken thighs as souvenirs (which also were fairly good).

Monday, October 16, 2017

CHINA 2016: DAY 5

18 OCT

There really isn't much to see in Shenyang - being an industrial city, I find that the only redeeming place to visit is the Shenyang Imperial Palace, which was where the actual imperial palace and capital was in the Qing Dynasty until it moved to Beijing.


There are, however, several parks, and we visited one called 棋盘山, literally translating to "chessboard hill".


Within this park was another "park" that features several buildings that were apparently used as filming sites for dramas and movies.











And a large lake that is the center of the park itself.


Autumnal colors had completely set in by then, lining the roads with bursts of oranges, yellows, and reds with specks of green.



There was another hill that you could climb in the park, but we opted out due to the effort required, and there was only one handrail on one side that was covered with ladybirds.




On the way back to the city, we stopped by the Scitech Outlets. The area was experiencing a water shortage and none of the toilets could be flushed. And most of the prices of international brands seemed to be even more expensive than retail.


Dinner was, once again, at 新洪记.