So we when to this fresh water pearl factory to see just how many pearls are there in a fresh water oyster. The number of pearls in a fresh water oyster numbers around 20-30 instead of a sea oyster which we all know only has a single oyster. My bro bought a pearl necklace (not so biglah) for his gf. A just opened oyster showing the pearls.
The rest of the day was spend shopping though all the "Sg. Wang" type shopping complexes. Mind you, the level of customer service in M'sia is 1000 times better than in China. Out there, you have to bargain to kingdom come, otherwise you will get rip off. Its bad enough the product is a FAKE, but they still wanna charge a high price. Even worse are those sales person who knows english, since they can counter offer you.
Anyway at one of the places where my bro was shopping for a LV wallet (of course not reallah), the shop sales ppl hold his hand for a while when my bro was walking away from the shop. Btw, there are alot of fake goods such as; fake Ipod with similar packaging and casing (but lacking the signature apple ipod dial), fake nokia N95 (I got the real deal), fake Kingston 32 GB thumbdrive (which some of our members bought for fun, only to KONG when wan to use here), fake TF toys such as ultimate bumblebee, leader class movie prime, copy binaltech and the one I have, a fake alternator. Dun get me started on fake nike/reebok/(insert brand here).
For the taxis here, there is ALOT of Hyundai Elantras and Volkwagens being used. In fact due to the close proximity of South Korea, somehow the local gov bought a very large fleet of Hyundai Elantras to be used as taxis. Make out Saga taxis extremely outdated and lousy. Infact, compared with other countries, we have among the smallest and most outdated taxis. In Europe there are E-class taxis, Thailand Vios taxis, China Volks and Hyundai Elantra, Japan Toyota Crown etc.
Day 4 we visited the Summer Palace, where the Emperor pergi lepak during the summer period. It is like a big man-made lake resort with emperor proportions. One empress (yes, empress) even used money meant for the navy to build/renovate the place (using rakyat's money wrongly again).
The view of the lake and temple on the hill at the summer palace. Extremely hazy though.
The longest corridor in the whole. The pictures painted on the beams are all unique to one another.
The famous marble boat. Looks like in a very bad shape.
Another view of the lake front and the hill
The view of the 17 arches bridge when viewed aboard the dragon board. The lake has a dragon boat which shuttles between various gates in the area.
Later in the day all of us took a trishaw ride though the narrow lanes of a "hutong". Hutong is something like a village with narrow lanes and the houses are extremely near to each in the city. The trishaw have no suspension with some parts of the lanes unpaved and uneven makes the ride very bumpy but fun. Fun to ride in a hude convoy though.
So at the end of the last evening in Beijing, we had another glimpse of the Bird's Nest Stadium. The stadium is not very big when viewed from a far, but I think once you been inside a big stadium, then you will appreciate the sheer size of it. Ever wonder why the price of steel is so expensive? Well I think this is one of the reasons....
Nearby is the new media center in the shape of the Olympic flame and the countdown digital display to the opening ceremony. When we were there the number of days to the Olympics is only 60 days.
So the next day we depart from Beijing from the new Terminal 3 airport. It is VERY BIG. VERY VERY BIG. At the main terminal when you enter the entrance you can't see the other end. Equally amazing is that the roof have openings to allow sunlight in, conserving energy and cutting electricity costs.
So how was the trip? I would say I enjoyed quite well although there were some minor hiccups. In fact the start of the trip was a real eventful one and we thought it was a no-go.
The original plan was to meet up at my dad's office in Kelana Jaya at around 8.30pm, head to KLIA aboard a chartered bus and catch the flight at KLIA. But it didn't went smoothly in the sense that the day we supposed to depart is the eve of the petrol hike, so everywhere is jam like hell coz ppl were trying to pump in at the last minute (dun blame the motorist, blame the person who decided to announce it so suddenly). To cut it short, the bus sesat, arrive slighly late, then had problem getting out of Kelana onto the highway until finally we arrive at KLIA in time.. all coz the flight was delayed (hmm, now maybe we ARE supposed to fly off).
If that is not enough, the plane which was supposed to fly out to Beijing had some problem so the flight was cancelled! Stranded in our very own KLIA, the airline (Air China) put us in the Satellite Building hotel (yes, a hotel INSIDE the satellite building) and sort of upgraded us to the next MAS flight in the morning at 8am. I say upgraded coz the original plane was a smaller plane than the one used by MAS. Not to mention MAS serve better food. So in the end we did depart for Beijing and landed in Terminal 2, not the new T3 that our earlier flight was supposed to go. But hey, in the end we did depart from T3 after all :P
Here's a mural in Terminal 2 showing the sights of China.
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