Beijing - Day 6

This is the first time all of us, including hubby and I are joining a tour group. It is really no fun!!! Early hours, mad rush, waiting, etc. The look on Kelly's and Kerryn's faces tell it all.

Our first stop of the day was万寿寺, the most amazing thing about this place must be the giant buddha statue which is sitting on a thousand smaller buddha statues! It was such a majestic view but too bad photo taking is not allowed.

The second stop was颐和园, the Summer Palace. We got a shock when we entered the doors. The place is huge and its so huge that it is impossible for a person to walk the entire place in a day, it takes about 2-3 days to cover each and every part. With 2 kids in tow, we were restricted to the nearest hut and an island across the 17 holes bridge. The temperature for the day was 0 (zero) degree celsius, the four of us were freezing cold and surprisingly Kelly and Kerryn took it well. Part of the surface of the lake is becoming ice.

The third and last stop of the day was紫禁城, Forbidden City. Although the weather is cold but we were lucky that the locals do not visit at this season, all the places of interest were considered not crowded and that made handling the 2 children easier. After visiting the whole place, leaving us tired and cold, we were happily in search of the Starbucks long heard of through news but to our disappointment, we can't find after searching almost the whole palace. Since it was close to dinner time, we decided to make our way back to our hotel which was just 15minutes walk away and on our way back, we stopped by at a local restaurant for dinner.

Beijing - Day 5

Before the trip, hubby and I were already thinking about going to either Shengzhen, Guangzhou or Hong Kong to look for our friends and we concluded that we will only decide when we are in Shanghai, mainly depending on the kids' conditions.

Last night after dinner, we decided that we will be going Beijing instead! We booked the tickets while at Uncle Yong's place and today, we are at the airport, getting ready to go the ever famous Forbidden City!

The blue squarish animal that Kerryn is pointing to is not in anyway related to water or energy saving, it is actually海宝, the mascot for Shanghai World Expo. Kerryn calls it the 'cute cute'.

By the time we reached, it was already evening and after calling a few travel agents, we are all set to go visit the palaces tomorrow!

Shanghai - Day 4

After many days of China-Chinese food, we longed for some normal, not so salty and oily food. A Hongkong-Chinese food will be fine as we were looking forward to porridge and wantan noodle. Who knows other then ordering a variety of porridge, we also got ourselves the roast meat platter and spare ribs.


After breakfast or rather lunch, we went on to Nanjing Road for a walk. Since the brunch did not satisfied us, we asked Uncle Yong to prepare a home cooked dinner. Finally we got claypot boiled soup, decent vegetables, some other dishes and my favourite Lala!

Shanghai - Day 3

We made a trip to the biggest shopping mall in Shanghai and 明珠塔. The kids enjoyed running around and playing at the various playgrounds in the mall.


Uncle Yong meet up with us at dinner time and after dinner, we went to this newly found culture-preserved backlane which was converted into pubs and bistro.