Tonight we leave Beijing for KL.
As he promised, Raymond cooks us his 怡保鸡丝沙河粉 for brekie. Not bad for having to struggle with the right kind of 河粉 and also not having enough of the 虾头，虾膏。
Delicious breakfast made by Raymond - good try, friend. If you come to Oz I will cook you curry chicken and 酸菜汤
今天咱们去景山公园遊玩
心连心合唱団 - This appears to be a private choir which happens to be having their singing session on the Sunday we visited the 公园。Lovely to see so many (I estimate the crowd to be 150-200 people) belting out on their own accord for their own enjoyment. It's heartening for me to observe as a tourist that governments cannot remove their citizens from what they genuinely wish to do.
It is an easy climb up the stairs to the top of the hill in the 景山公园.
Some are making their prayers inside the pagoda/temple on top of the hill. I see Buddhism and Islam being practised quite openly and religiously by people but I don't see a lot of churches in China
The views down below from this hill top vantage point is spectacular. The Forbidden City is in full view here on the hill top.
So is this view Ha Ha
...... and this
...... and this
...... oh our group is looking down from the temple balcony at these girls dressed up for a photo session
nice tree, the tree trunk looks like a eucalyptus but it's not
There is a bit of history here at the foothill of the hill we just came down. "This is the spot where Chongzhen 崇祯 , the last Emperor of Ming Dynasty, hanged himself" in 1644; says the signboard. In desperation he hanged himself as he was pursued by the peasant uprising army at this very hill called Coal Hill (煤山）then.
His Noble Consort was 袁貴妃
These plants and flowers must be spectacular in the spring time
Once again we find older folks enjoying their past times in public places. This one is the tried and tested social dancing. These social dancers are not shy that by standers are watching them, they are oblivious to the stares and commentary. I envy their courage.They really do enjoy what they do.
This mom is enjoying the show, with her toddler
Some tourists are also "moved" to join in the dancing in spontaneity, and are enjoying themselves
..... so is our friend R
After the enjoyable morning walk in the park and up the hill we catch a cab and head to Paulaner Brahaus Beijing, best known for their German beer and German sausage sauerkraut; for our lunch
But I prefer the Beijing beer as they have lower alcoholic content (3%). The German lager here are stronger in taste. Lager tastes bitter to me
心连心 but not the 心连心合唱団. 哈哈哈。
SM and her friend Pei Yu who joins us for lunch
I have been to the Paulaner Brauhaus in Shanghai and Singapore but I did not pay the bills then. I was somewhat taken aback that the bill for the lunch comes to more than Yuan600. Bloody expensive you may say, by Beijing standard......
Guizhou minority tribal costumes displayed at the restaurant
We have our dinner as a group one last time this trip at the same restaurant where we had the 贵州菜 last week. Somehow SM and I do not quite enjoy the dishes as much as we did ..... I guess familiarity breeds contempt as in so many things in life.
This is a different fish dish which we did not try last week. It's called 凯里酸汤鱼. The fish is a fresh water fish and it is live fish 游水鱼. I did not enjoy it and SM didn't know it was live .....
晚上10点30分咱们乘出租车去北京第2航空站搭亚州航空班机回马。这一航班是亚航从北京出发的第一次 so it is quite special.
在这十多天里得到Raymond和小张的照应咱们万分感激， 也希望他们enjoyed their trip to Xi'an.
We also wish that one day we can repay their hospitality when they visit us in Oz.
在这3个月里边咱们去过很多地方也看过，尝过不少东西；但是最重要的还是咱们感受到親友的照顾和安怀。咱们还没离开Oz时我的父母親和大哥就塞了几千块钱给我“顺风和防身”，千叮万附路程上要小心。SM母親无条件的茶水照顾，Raymond + Xiao Zhang, Julie 和 KP 的热情和招待；都是咱们不能忘记的。
No comments:
Post a Comment