Day 1 in Beijing

My first day in Beijing is made more memorable by the fact that I had made my first blunder. As I wanted to sit in the front passenger seat, I invariably opened the front door, and being used to having the passenger seat on the left side, I was dismayed to find the steering wheel! I had completely forgotten that the system employed in China varies from that found in Commonwealth countries. Well, I had the same experience the first time I visited China and it looks like a repeat performance.

As our car scream along the freeway bound for the city centre, I couldn't help but noticed the number of cars as they inch along into the Airport terminal. Beijing International is indeed a very busy place. The area is still shrouded in darkness with some light begining to creep up over the distant horizon. We reached our Hotel after an hour or more, I am still unable to get used to the fact that the traffic system is completely different from ours, there seems to be a lot of pedestrians, cyclists and cars on the roads, and for me this is completely chaotic, but it would seem for people here all this are systematic, and it is dumbfounding. Perhaps in this chaos there is some organised and systematic way of going about things?

Being hungry the first that that we on our minds was to have some breakfast. We went to a small shop next to the hotel and we had "Small dragon buns" and as it's name suggested it's small steamed buns and it was nice and filling, with meat and veges wrapped in dumplings or "pau" and retailing for 50 "jiao" or 25 cents each, it's very cheap and nice. We also had some porridge which was completely different from what we have here in Malaysia as well as soya bean curd which can either be sweet or spicy, back here we only had the sweet variant.

After the neccesary refreshing up, we went to the "Summer Palace". The area is capped with snow and the lakes and river are covered with ice. Merely thinking about it brings a chill in my body. It was indeed cold and as we speak, steam starts bellowing from our mouth. I had wanted to visit the compound but as it was undergoing renovation I reckon there isn't a point going in. Ah! the snow covered roofs are indeed very romantic and magnificient. No words could describe it. We adjourned to the "Tian An Men" Square and it was a fair distance away. We reached the square at around 10am and there were a lot of people hanging around already. I look around in awe as the square is magnificent, with scattered snow flakes with buldings surrounding it. It had the a magical effect on making the place even more enticing and appealing. We took some photos and proceeded to order a few cups of coffee. I reckon this is one of the few times that boiling coffee is drank in a single gulp, without even feeling the scalding effect. It was indeed very cold! As we walked, I could noticed that there are a lot of foreigners around this place, all walking towards the huge wall of the "Forbidden City". The potrait of Chairman Mao, overlooking the huge Tian An Men Square.