Beijing 2012 : The Forbidden City

Alhamdulillah, our trip to Beijing, China was memorable. 5 days free and easy in Beijing was the most adventurous holidays we ever had! And it's all thanks to nephew, Mal.

9/12/12

We left Singapore on Scoot TZ88 to Tianjin Airport on 9th Dec at 1.30am. It was like we were already in China even before leaving especially during boarding..hahaha tak settle2 and memekak betol orang2 mainland tu..

The flight to Tianjin took about 6 hrs. Once we touched down at Tianjin Airport, the children were excited as they could see the vapour that came out of the mouths while talking hehehe

It was freezing cold. The temperature was at -9 degree celsius. It didn't help either that we were wearing our layers and down jackets. A drastic change in temperature, truly!

From Tianjin Airport, we took a bus to Tianjin Railway Station. There, we bought tickets to transfer to Beijing Train station, afterwhich we took subway to Pinganli station. From Pinganli, we walked to Red Lantern House, where we put up while in Beijing. Yes, we went public all the time, taking subways, changing lines & stations and not forgetting the never ending lutot ley patah walking hahaha

Reached Red Lantern House at about 10+. After checking in, we filled our empty stomachs & solat before we start on our adventure. Each solat time in Beijing is close to another, as the days are shorter than the nights.

We took the subway, changing lines in between to The Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is situated adjacent to Tiananmen Square. We opted to skip on Tiananmen as it was crowded and there's nothing much to see there, really. We were so unfortunate coz we were not able to enter The Forbidden City as their gates were closed as early as at 3.30pm. But that didn't matter at all as we were still able to walk around its huge vicinity though on the outside of its building.

We left The Forbidden City before 5pm but it already looked like it's 7pm here in Singapore. Decided to have dinner near our hotel room before returning for a good rest. Dinner was nice. No rice though, but we had spaghetti along with kinda sweet & sour chestnut sauce, some 'beijing murtabak', charcoal grilled lamb gizzard (or was it not), & lotsa charcoal grilled chicken in spices (sedap sekali!!)