Happy Birthday to me!

I am 36 today.

So.. happy birthday to me! 

Impromptu holiday: Beijing (part 2)

The next day was a free and easy day, where we went around Beijing taking in the sights and sounds and get our orientation right.. My bestie have been to Beijing once but he did nothing much on his previous trip..

So we decided to splurge on Peking Duck (which costs us about CNY500 for a whole duck) in  highly rated Quanjude, yes it's actually worth it, and learning how to activate our China Wechat Pay account with renminbi..

Ready to tuck in the duck 

Yeaasss

Enjoying our CNY500 duck 

Taking a stroll in Wangfujing Snack Street

Cold and windy
But sunny

Playing Grindr

Just acting silly 

Pose pose

Dinner was in Grandma's Kitchen, which is surprisingly good.. It's a long wait and we went only late in the evening..

Dinner for 2

The next day it's our day trip out to the Simatai Great Wall and Gubei Water Town.. totally worth it!!

Impromptu Holiday: Beijing (part 1)

So in November, I went to Beijing on an impromptu holiday.. Impromptu because it was not planned very well, in fact, it was planned like a few weeks before departing to Beijing..

One afternoon, my bestie and I were going through our calendars and we were talking how we needed to clear a week of annual leave in November.. so we opened up the map and decided we will go somewhere that's not too far, not too hot, not too cold and within 6 hours flight.. 

Beijing naturally came up and the idea struck on me as I have never been to Beijing, but it wasn't quite the place one would go for a vacation. 

The first thing was to sort out the flights.. Comparing Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines, we went with the cheapest - Cathay Pacific at RM1.4k return, bear in mind this was a normal fare and bought like just a few weeks before trip.. 

Our flight was okay apart from the one flight from Hong Kong to Beijing which was cancelled the morning of our departure, and the airline rebooked us on the next flight out, only to reach Beijing 2 hours later than scheduled..

KA728 Cathay Dragon A330 aircraft bound for Hong Kong

A bit old lah

Brunch KA728 KULHKG
Chicken and rice, duck salad, wine.

We tried unsuccessfully to get online to get connected to the entertainment system

Fluffy cloud over Hong Kong

Fluffy cloud over Beijing

Dinner KA974 HKGPEK
Fish and mash potato with white wine

Upon arrival in Beijing, we tried Didi Chuxing e-hailling ride for the first time.. Not knowing how to use the app or how to let the driver know which one of it is us (can't upload photo), we quickly learnt how to use it and how to flag our car..

An hour later around 9pm we arrived at our hotel - Novotel Peace Beijing, which is just a stroll away from Wangfujing Street..

Hotel facade

Automated revolving doors

The grand staircase at the lobby

Entrance

Toilet

Our room for the next one week.
It's at its brightest already.. minimal lamps..

Once we settled down, we had a quick dinner in McDonalds nearby before making our way to Destination.. Entry fee was CNY120 per person with a drink..

Destination is packed for the night and there was already a long queue when we arrived.. but we got in after a while and went ahead to put our jackets into the cloak room.. It's free of charge (Lucca in Shanghai charges CNY5 to store your jacket - and it's not even a club! I will come to this when I write about my Shanghai trip)..

When we were ready to leave, the wait for Didi was about 2 hours with 150 people in the waiting list.. we decided not to wait and walked back to our hotel 4 kilometres away, which took us an hour to walk in minus 2 or minus 3 degrees..