PART II

Blogger's Note:
No worries 'coz from now on, the post would get relatively short (alright maybe except Day 1 in Jiangnan). Why, you ask? 'Coz Jiangnan trip was rather boring~ So on the whole after 4D4N in Beijing, China, we are moving off to Nanjing...

Beijing Day 5/Jiangnan Day 1 (Nanjing), 11th December 2009 (Day 5 of 10)
It's the last morning in Beijing, China! According to Lisa, our tour guide in Beijing, the weather forecast reported that it would most probably snow that day! Sadly, we missed the snow that really did fall that day...

We woke up at our usual time and started to pack our stuffs before we leave the room for breakfast. We left our luggage at the counter and were given tags to be used as a form of identification when retrieving them, and went off to have breakfast.

After breakfast we went back to the counter to retrieve our luggage, then I realise I had some how lost the identification tag! Oh gosh, I was frantically searching for it in all pockets I could find, but in futile. Luckily, they took our word for it and returned us our luggage. Phew.

We got on the mini-tour bus we had been travelling on all this while in Beijing and headed for the last site on our itinerary - De Sheng Men (得胜门).

貔貅
古书上说的一种凶猛的瑞兽。貔貅是以财为食的，纳食四方之财。中国传统是有“貔貅”的习俗，和龙狮一样，有将这地方的邪气赶走、带来欢乐及好运的作用。
- Courtesy of http://baike.baidu.com/

So there is actually 貔貅 (píxiū) exhibition going on there and so we went there in hope to bring some luck back to Singapore.

After that my family and I were seperated for the rest of the 2 families and the bus took us to the airport for our flight to Nanjing. It was a long wait. It was around 8am and our flight was at 2pm. Lisa had no choice as it was highly plausible that it would snow any moment, she dared not take the risk of getting us trap in the snow on the streets. She and the bus driver would have to pay for our flights should that happened and it ain't gonna be cheap for the two of them at all. And so we explored the Beijing airport and spent the next few hours there before we could check in.

The flight to Nanjing was a short 1 1/2 hour journey, the impression I got from the locals the moment I got down from the plane was bad, very bad. Oh gosh, they seriously have poor hygiene manners - they spit every where! There are litter everywhere on the streets as compared to the clean environment on the streets back in Beijing. The contrast I got from the two places was seriously almost unbelievable had I not seen it for myself. The toilets at the airport stinked like hell! Oh boy, do I miss Beijing already.

We were sent to the hotel by our tour guide, 小李, in Nanjing who would be following us throughout the 6/5 days in Jiangnan. There would be other local guides in each of the area/province we would be visiting and he would also be the local guide for Shanghai - our last stop in Jiangnan - too.

My family and I didn't had lunch that afternoon as it was seriously not within our means due to the time allocated for the flight and the snow that resulted in the early dismissal from the tour back in Beijing, we had to skip lunch. We were glad that time passed very smoothly on the bus trip from Nanjing airport to our hotel as the skies soon turned dark. Dinner was near.

After we had checked in to the hotel we put down our luggage in our room and left for dinner with the tour guide. Dinner was salty, very salty. Dinner was on Sichuan cousine and apparently Sichuan natives loves salty food. The taste was just too strong for us I guess, not really to our liking. My mother and aunt had lots of comments on their food too. I was rather embarrassed over that and sort of pissed when my aunt commented to the owner of the shop that the food would be a waste if they are not finished as they would have to throw them away. Like who are we to comment on their food when most probably it is to the liking of the locals and it is just the way Sichuan cousine is supposed to be.

We spent the night at Zhenbao Holiday Hotel and was warmly welcomed by the locals in the area. They had a fireworks display to welcome us! Okay.. that's just purely our inference. The fireworks display was just simply splendid. Oh how I loved it. That is definitely one thing you wouldn't get to see very often in Singapore except during National Day parades or Chinese New Year Celebrations.

That ends off our first night in Nanjing.

Jiangnan Day 2 (Nanjing/Wuxi/Suzhou), 12th December 2009 (Day 6 of 10)
So at night, our tour guide went back to the airport to pick up the 3 other families that would be joining us in this tour here in Jiangnan. The sequence of our trip that day in Nanjing is as follow:
Song Meiling's (宋美龄) house --> Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge (by coach), Confucious Temple --> Ming Great Wall.

宋美龄，1897年3月5日出生于中国上海，广东文昌县人（今属海南省）。父亲为富商宋嘉澍，与宋蔼龄、宋庆龄并称为“宋氏三姐妹”，毕业于美国威斯里女 子学院（Wellesley College,MA）。宋美龄是蒋介石的第3任妻子（亦说第4任，包括妾姚冶诚），中华民国时期的第一夫人，凭借孔宋家族的强力支援与美国留学背景，活 跃于政治、外交等领域，对近代中国历史与中美关系都产生了深远的影响。宋美龄于北京时间2003年10月24日5时17分在美国逝世，享年106岁。
- Courtesy of http://baike.baidu.com/

Confucious Temple is no temple, don't be mistaken. There used to be a Confucious Temple in the area but however it got torn down in later years and presently it is just a street selling lots of stuffs: local sweets, clothings, you name it.

Then we headed straight for Wuxi (无锡).
Here in Wuxi, the journey is as follow:
Lihu park --> Chongan temple --> Taihu View --> Pearl culture farm.
Wuxi = DULL
Nothing interesting happened today as far as my records show and after Wuxi we rushed to Suzhou for the night.

Jiangnan Day 2 (Nanjing/Wuxi/Suzhou), 12th December 2009 (Day 6 of 10)

TO BE CONTINUED ...