Return Of The Mack

In exactly 19 days, I'll be boarding a plane to Beijing with my dear mother.

Summer Palace

I'll get this straight off the bat - the word Palace to me makes me picture a single traditional chinese "castle". Summer Palace, however is an understatement of the word Palace! To begin with, the Summer Palace covers an area of 2.9 square kilometres, 3/4 of which is water.  There are a lot of seperate palaces aswell. This place is great to get lost in, but not when you're tired. I definitely need to go back to Summer Palace and see the other places I didn't get time to see. It's such a peaceful place away from the hectic Beijing life. 

Great Wall

I can now literally say - I've climbed the Great Wall. Now I know what they mean by climbing here. Experiencing this blew my mind, photos were taken all the usual set up.

I also understand people's advice when they say not to look lost. Emile and I caught the subway to the station where we needed to catch the 919 express. We searched up and down this street and came across the 919 stop. There was a local man there that could speak english and he told us that the 919 buses don't run after 9:30 and we missed them all and that there was no other bus. Emile and I were starting to get a bit confused at this stage. 

I think we walked up and down this street about 10 times asking people in REALLY bad mandarin accents "chang cheng?" 

Anyway, after about 30 minutes we finally ventured down further than were we had been looking and found all the express buses. 

This guy had us on and I can see where so many people that don't know what's going on get trapped because by him telling us that the buses don't run and to wait with some other people that also missed the bus; there's another tour bus coming - that gets him business. 

That experience has taught me a lot. The whole day taught me a lot and emersion has to be the scariest but most thrilling experience ever.

AND, my legs have had a good work out.

Panda Bears And a mobile phone

This morning I had a coffee from Starbucks - I spoke my usual order "Soy Flat White" only to have a blank stare returned. Having a quick look at the menu I then realised that there are NO soy flat whites in Star Bucks, so I had to quickly conpensate for unnessary foam on my coffee and get a Cappucino. Let me tell you - it was awesome. Not the best, but it was GREAT.

One thing about getting out of my hotel, is properly organising my address for the taxi driver so I can get to my destination as quickly and easily as possible.

So, first stop  - Beijing Zoo. I HAD TO SEE A PANDA! Entry was 20RMB which included the panda entry - almost like a zoo vip pass to see the great chinese panda. As you can tell; I was getting pretty damn excited by this stage. I had all these images of pandas sitting around eating bamboo, conversing in panda language about the weather, climbing trees, making handstands to mark their territories on trees - just like on Discovery Channel. 

So here I am at the magnificent entry to absolute awesome panda world, about to walk in.

I see the enclosure, camera in hand and I have to tell you, I'm feeling pretty excited. 

When I see...

Seriously - 911, is that a dead panda?

No - it's just sleeping. Great, I got a VIP pass for the most ridiculously awesome animal in China; The Amazingly Sleepy Panda that is in such an awesome position for instant photo fail.

So, I exited the enclosure disappointed to say in the least. I had a walk around the enclosure trying to see if that was the only mere panda exhibit - two more. So trying my luck there, I walk over - again, getting pretty excited.

And AGAIN i see...

what the bloody hell is going on here?

Sleeping pandas? not on my watch..

So after another walk around I guess it must have been feeding time because that was enough to get these pandas up and grazing. Yay!!! So I finally got some great shots:

So after the pandas I pretty much skipped along to the lion and tiger enclosure, which was my other must list because tigers are my favourite animals. The tigers were just beautiful, one smiled at me - I guess I must have looked delicious :) I don't blame them for thinking that either to be honest. 

Other than that, I was pretty much done at the zoo and decided to make my way to Beijing's biggest shopping mall: "Zhangguancun Plaza", as soon as I got in there (aside from it being extremely busy) I was called over by 5 different sellers to have a look at their big flat screen tv's.

I was tempted too because at home we have a Tv the size of a cereal box. But withdrew because I know mum would probably just use it as a vase stand or as a display cabinet for her collectible plates. I had a look at a few phones, I was contemplating buying a phone that has GPS capabilities, but for now I'll have to hold off until I find a job and it can be  my reward..woohoo incentives are great.

So any way that's pretty much my happenings for the day. My biggest goal aside from the main point of actually coming to China was to see the Zoo and now that I have done that - I can focus on my main objectives and not worry about "I should have seen the pandas." No regrets with this one!

Until another blogging day - pzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

April Fools

So basically, the chicken nuggets at McDonalds are so fantastic here. I have to withdraw a bit because I don't want to be the regular foreigner. That would be lame, so I'm about to try somewhere that has a picture of Bruce Lee on it - we all know Bruce Lee would say no to bad food so I'm going to check it out. I miss nandos! So, somebody told me I look Russian. Is that offensive? I don't know. I still get stared at and that's something I need to get used to I guess.

There's nothing really to report right now - I am going to go tomorrow to see the Forbidden City which means I'll need to get to sleep early and get up early to avoid big tourist crowds. I'll check out the Zoo too. I've realised how FAR I am from the city - it kind of sucks but I'm also emersed in the true Beijing culture which makes me learn quicker. I'm starting to grow fond of here - John who works at the front desk made my english breakfast this morning and told me that tomorrow i will have Chinese breakfast - It's much better I've been told. Very loyal opinion. 

With out further adeu, I'm going to check out this Bruce Lee joint and hopefully I'm not disappointed. Peace out.

Tuesday

I woke up at about 8am. It's a strange feeling being here. I dont feel too out of place aside from the continual stares. My room is very very basic and slightly cold. Outside is warmer because the sun is shining. I went for a walk earlier to the Bank of China to get my money exchanged, fun experience. I went past the bank twice. Saw this park where at first I thought it was play equipment but soon realised it's stretching equipment LOL. I went to the supermarket and spent AGES just wandering around - people trying to sell me products. I bought some chocolate cookies which taste more like Coffee. I had 5 chicken mcnuggets which cost me AU$1.30..INSANE. lol i'm going back for seconds later. I got excited too because I saw my favourite Japanese sports drink - Pocari Sweat. So I'm going back for a carton of that tomorrow. I could drink that stuff all day.

I think right now - I just need to get familiar with my surroundings and where everything is without looking like too much of a tourist in the process. 

I like to meditate.

Sydney

So right now I'm waiting to board my flight to beijing from Sydney. The plane has been delayed by AGES lol. I'm so at a loss for a fricken seat - there are none so I just keep walking around aimlessly. Ah, the drama! Not...Anyway, found free internet, so thought I'd start the beginning of my blogging travels already. Let me see if this flight is ready for me yet. pzzzzzz