Day 3, Beijing

Woke up at 6+ am today to another bright and sunny day, went for breakfast and we started on our tour today at 8am.

toured the forbidden palace, tian an men square, si he wu and ended the tours for the day.

will update photos because I finally got to buy a SD card which we forgot to bring along. and today being a work day, the places were comparatively empty. could you imagine them when packed?

China Day 2, Beijing

Left for the airport at 6am, woke up at 5am for the ride to the airport. Had McDonalds for breakfast to the amusement of finding out that their sausage McMuffins were made with pork patties. Reached the airport at 6.30am and was greeted with a rather empty Shanghai airport. Checking the E-tickets again, I realized that my mom had read the time wrongly. Instead of a 0855 flight, we had assumed it was a 0800 flight and we lost one hour of extra sleep time. As it was still early, the shops were still closed and there was nothing to do except to sit around and chat to pass the time. During check-in, there was a group of people presumably from the countryside who cut queues as well as a lady squatting down to apply her makeup. The check-in process was done rather quickly with minimal hassle. On the good side, I managed to find free wireless internet access! Hurray! Managed to check my emails and send out a few more as well. To someone: don’t be sad, I’ll be back soon! Flight was delayed as there was someone who did not board the plane in time and I think we missed the slot allocated initially for the flight and had to re-queue for the next available slot to take off. The flight was delayed for an hour and we departed Shanghai for Beijing at around 10am. Arrived at Beijing at around 12pm, cleared through customs in a breeze! No temperature checks at all so it was really fast. Went to see the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, saw the exterior of the 7 Star hotel which Bill Gates booked for 1 billion yuan for Olympics. Definitely cool! Nothing much in the stadium though, and the place had people smoking on the seats. So much for preserving the stadium. Went to the hotel after that to rest up, went for a super quick dinner and watched an acrobatic show at the Tian Qiao Zha Ji Yuan and returned to the hotel to rest.

taiwan

kind of a late entry considering that its the last night of my stay here in taiwan, though it has been pretty good actually.

other than one member of my family refusing to walk too much as she has leg problems, the rest of the trip was actually pretty ok. not a lot of photos actually, all uploaded to facebook. the rest i'll upload once i take them out from the camera.

tech stuff isn't any cheaper here, though shoes are pretty cheap and good. bought myself 4 pairs of shoes! 2 pairs of MLB shoes, 1 pair of von dutch shoes and the last pair is an unknown pair of made in taiwan shoes. total cost: 2388 (von dutch), 2400 for the 2 pairs of MLB shoes, and the best buy: NT390 for the unknown brand. lol!

food wise, depends on where we went to eat. the roadside eateries are cheap and good though. haha...

places went: hualian, nantou, taizhong, taipei.
total time spent in taiwan: 11.5 days
total cost, hotel inclusive: SGD3000
experience: priceless

note to self: where can i go for a quick holiday next june..... can't wait. haha

links to the photos on facebook:
Day 1/2, Part 1
Day 1/2, Part 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5, Part 1
Day 5, Part 2
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11