Day 49 in Beijing = Day 1 in Chengdu

Yaaaawwwwwnnnnnn....... Today, the 2nd of January 2010, we had to get up at 5.30am. Why? Today we're going to Chengdu! The four of us are going to Chengdu for the weekend!!!! Woohoooooooooo!!~

You know what's more exciting than Chengdu? (Well, before I get to Chengdu), as soon as we got out of the apartment we realised OMG it snowed last night!!! There were snow all over the ground, on trees, roof tops, OMG!!! Snow!!!!!!!!!! I was so happy and excited!!! The taxi driver had to be extra cautious and reminding us that hopefully the plane won't be delayed. Nothing beats snow now! I don't care now because I saw snow~!!!!!

Our flight is at 8.30am in the morning and so we had to be there at least by 7am. The taxi ride to the airport was exciting because I can see white snow everywhere, but also because it's so slippery and wet on the road. Beijing Capital Airport, always busy and always noisy. When we finally boarded onto our plane, then we realised, ahhh, snow isn't the best thing for airports and planes. Ever since we got onto the plane, we only see the flight attendants walking around but never showing any signs of preparing for takeoff. The captain of the crew started saying the usual welcome stuff. The flight attendants are still walking around without doing much and not demonstrating any life-saving techniques just in case if anything happens. We waited for a while till it's passed our departure time. The captain suddenly announced that the takeoff will be delayed because there were too much ice all over the runway and over the plane, so we must wait for the ice to be cleaned/scraped off before any takeoffs. We waited and waited, until the captain announced again that we are still in the line waiting and will not be able to provide us with any fixed time for takeoff.

Suddenly the leader of the flight attendants also made an announcement, that due to the uncertainty with the waiting times, they will be serving us our breakfast first. She announced that on the menu today we will have hot food which helps to make us feel warmer in a cold winter morning like this. I was telling Anson, that if we're serving food now, that means we'll be here waiting for AGES. Why? Because usually food is served at least half an hour after flying steadily in the air and it'll take ages for the servings of drink - food - drink. If we're getting served food now, then that means we'll be on the ground for a long time. There it comes, the so called 'hot food'. I usually like airplane food, coz they're prepared in little portions and easy to consume. But this time.... I'm so amused and sad at the same time about the food. At first we saw this bowl of salad, which looks ok, very Chinese style. Then we saw this container covered by tin foil, with a sticker 'VG' on the foil. Anson was laughing and saying, 'haha, it better not mean 'Vegetables'. We opened it, and guess what?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA it was a bowl of BOILED VEGETABLES!!!! A chunk of potato, a chunk of taro and a chunk of corn. It's SOOOOOO HILARIOUS!!! We seriously hated the food, but because it's too funny so just let it go. LOL!

Finally at 10.30am, our plane took off. It was such a boring long wait. There is no entertainment on the plane, nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to play with. But oh well, I'm just glad we're not in a rush for something emergent, natural disaster is unavoidable right?! As soon as we landed in Chengdu Airport, the announcement said that anyone flying with Chengdu Airline will be able to ride the free shuttles outside the airport to their destinations for FREE! Woohooo!!! Such an awesome service! We hopped onto a shuttle and set off to our hotel for the next few days, Homes Inn on Zengfu Road. Homes Inn is the biggest chain inn style accommodation providers in China, there are nearly 700 branches around the country. It offers cheap and standard quality accommodations to travellers and the best thing is that Homes Inn is always situated at very convenient locations (either close to near-central hub areas, or near transport ports). After leaving our luggage in Homes Inn asked the front desk what's a good place to go for traditional Chengdu food. The frontdesk staff recommended us this place called, 'Wide and Narrow Alleys宽窄巷子'.

宽窄巷子 is one of the most famous places in Chengdu and it has became the top destinations for many tourists and local people. These two alley ways are remains from the Qing Dynasty and it still pretty much presents the ancient feelings of the past. There are a lot of restaurants (fancy restaurants) and shops here, many of the shop owners are famous and rich people. There are poets, businesmen, foreigners and many more. Most of the shops kept the ancient designs and decorations and put in extra efforts trying to preserve these specialties.

宽窄巷子 really reminds me of Nanluoguxiang in Beijing, my favourite place! A place with both ancient and modern architecture and designs, a perfect fusion, a perfect place for a relaxed weekend. A lot of the shops here are tea shops, why? Chengdu peopole are famous for living a slow and relaxed life, they're very different to Chinese from other provinces (like Shanghai). So a lot of the adults will enjoy the afternoon with a cup of tea and some nuts, and chat all day long. It's such a relaxed and easy way of living! There are many many many tea shops in Chengdu, that sells only tea but nothing else. It's so easy to just find a tea shop, sit down and spend the rest of the afternoon to relax and let our minds wonder.

Every shop here have their own decorations and uniqueness. I saw many that still preserved the ancient paintings and stones. Some of the big doors were shut tight and locked, then I saw the plate on the side war, 'Private Residence'. Wow, these houses and land must be worth millions now!! 宽窄巷子is not only famous in Chengdu, but also in China and also a top destination for a lot of visitors from other countries. To be able to own a house like this in 宽窄巷子, they must be either really rich and lucky that bought the property when it's on sale, or they're more likely to be related to the royal family in Chinese Dynasties.

We continued our walk into 宽窄巷子 and let our nose sniff for food, haha, at least I was sniffing for some good food. The mums suddenly called out to me and Anson and directed us to this really ancient looking building. This is a 'food place', why don't I call it a restaurant? I don't know if I can actually call it a restaurant, it's outdoor, even the food was made outdoor. Well, most of the food are premade already and kept warm. Mum and Anson went to order food and I just hear mum saying things like 'I want 4 of this, 2 of that, and 3 of this, and also that, and also this, and that and this and that and this'. I was soooooo shocked at how much was ordering, lol!! But I guess there are four of us and one of us is Anson.... 'the beast'.

This is such an awesome place! They sell traditional Chengdu style food and all in average small portions, so it's quite easy for people to share and try everything. We ordered skewers (and they're very spicy just like any other Sichuan food), lamp soup, pork soup, spicy cold noodles, dandan noodles (most typical Chengdu food), steam mince with vegies, sweet dessert that I don't even know the name of and so on. The soups are my favourite! Fresh baby vegies in very rich soup, mmm, warm and tasty, it doesn't matter if it's outdoor anymore, I think this outdoor environment made the soup extra tasty and warm!!

After finishing a very satisfying lunch (especially after the 'lovely' airplane meal in the morning) we are all happily and slowly walking down the alley again. Not too far from where we walked from we started hearing some sounds, as if someone's hitting the drum 3 times in a roll, doom doom doom, then again, doom doom doom. We saw this crowd of people surrounding the entrance of a restaurant and that's where the noises are from. It's called '三大炮', meaning 'three big cannons'. It's a very traditional and famous sweets in Chengdu. The chef will pull and make three round balls from a sticky rice doughs and smash it against the drum. Then the three balls will bounce back into the tray of grinded peanuts behind the drum. The waitress will scoop up the three balls, add in some sweet and sour sauce and this is called '三大炮'. The mums and Anson were quite interested in this snack but I was a little put off with the peanuts.

At the end of the Wide Alley we made a turn to the left and walked for a few hundred metres. Then it's a rather similar but much narrower street, haha, way to easy to guess the name of this street huh? Must be the Narrow Alley, LOL. The overall style and feelings are very similar in both Wide and Narrow Alleys. But in the Narrow Alley there's more arts and decorations around. The paintings/sculptures on the walls are very very interesting, they're a combination of 2D and 3D effects, black and white, demonstrating the olden days of Chengdu lifestyle.

It's never hard to find three giant corporate brands in China in terms of food and beverages: McD, KFC and Starbucks. I found my favourite cafe, Starbucks, here, in the most famous street for traditional Chengdu lifestyle, lol, what a joke. I remember reading the story about the opening and closing down of Starbucks inside the Forbidden City in Beijing, crazy huh? It's actually not that hard to find foreign products imported in China anymore. I remember seeing (the photo above) NZ ice creams on sale, and after walking up and 'investigatin' the poster, it's actually Tip Top imported into China! We also bought a bottle of Polish beer after Anson got really excited to see something that he really really liked and missed. mmmm such a relaxing life.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guess what?! I'm preparing to leaving Beijing very soon....and start my travelling again. So I guess my blog won't be updated for a long time =P

See you back in Auckland~!

Day 48 in Beijing

2010~~!!!

Today is the first day in 2010~ 1st January 2010~! Pinch and a punch, for the first day of the month!

By the time I got up this morning it was already like mid-day. So tiring. Mum has been waiting for me for sometime at home, just so I can go with her to the Chengxiang shopping centre and help her out with shopping. Anson was still quite deep asleep but we had to go home together and he's going to make a visit to his grandparents' place.

The first day of 2010 is really not that much different from any other days. Still lots of people and cars on the street, more discounts going on in all shopping centres and shops, and still the very much: COLD!

Tonight Anson and I are going to leave the mums at home again, but for a special reason. Ying is in Beijing!!!!!! Ying is a very very experienced AIESECer started in Auckland, New Zealand years ago. If I remember correctly, Ying was the LCP even before DavidB? I remember meeting her at the alumni dinner that I organised and she was the owner fo Veronica's Cafe. I really got to know Ying better when she was chairing for our July Conference in 2009 and she was one of the best chairs! The amount of effort she puts in to make the conference (that's lacking a lot of basic resources) as safe and as fun as possible. I really love her enthusiasm! She's now in Shanghai for an AIESEC internship after selling her cafe, she's working in iLemon, a gaming company, with AIESEC FDU. Recently she's doing some travelling with her friends and tonight she's going back to Shanghai. We are all meeting her for dinner tonight and send her on the train.

Ying is still as talkative as normal! She's so Ying!!!! We finally met her in front of the Wangfujin Book Shop. The 6 of us (Jordan, Gerard, Anson, Josi, Anna and me) saw this little girl walking towards us with all these luggages behind her, then she yells out cheerfully and came towards us. It's so Ying!! We took her to the APN food court so each of us can select our own preferenes, I can tell Ying really likes it! I really like APN food court as well, a wide variety of choices and at a very reasonable price range.

We talked a lot during the dinner. About our experiences in China, the funny things, the weird things, the strange things, the sad things, the exciting things, the unforgettable things. Ying is really a natural talker, it's just so fun to even just listen to her the whole time. Pity she's only here for the night and she needs to catch the train at 10pm back to Shanghai. She really enjoys her trip so far in China. Everything at work fits very well to her lifestyle, easy going, efficiency is rather more important, and also friendly workmates. Anson and I are responsible in taking her to the train station and making sure she gets onto the right train. For so many times, little hiccups make all of us near nerve-breaking point. One of her bag went missing after she put it through the security check belt, and we just figure out what could've happened to it while we were all standing on the exit side waiting for it to come out. Eventually with the help of the staffs at the security check, we realised that her bag was stuck inside the machine. It's so nerve breaking!

Finally, she's on the train. A very heart-touching text from Ying ends the night. She's all tucked in bed, falling asleep and be ready to wake up to the Shanghai morning again. Anson and I are going home, to pack and be ready for our big trip tomorrow too. This weekend, we are going to Chengdu, Sichuan, for an awesome family trip!!! woohoo~~!!

Day 47 in Beijing

The last day of 2009, the 31st of December 2009!! The last day before a new decade in the new millenium, yayyy~~~ so excited about new years!~!~!~

It's a half day at work today, given that it is the end of the year, so we get to finish work half a day earlier. In New Zealand, we always get time off work like on the 28th or 29th of something. Some companies may even have annual holidays from before Christmas till after new years. I remember when I was working in Ukraine as an English Teacher 2 years ago, I was working until the 28th of December. In Ukraine, the New Years is the most important holiday of the year, even more than their Christmas (which is in early January rather than on the 25th December). In China, Christmas and New Years aren't the biggest festivals and don't really get as much attention as the Chinese New Year, woohoo~ Can't wait!

Nevertheless, all of us are still really really excited about New Years. I left work and met up with the mums and Anson in a noodles shop near Di'anmen where they're enjoying some Yunan style rice noodles. Mums originally wanted to go to Chengxiang or Xidan for some massive shoppings then suddenly we saw the Di'anmen Department Store opposite the street, why don't we take a look? Here we go, we eventually stayed in this department store for a good old three hours and came out the door with at least 5 bags of clothings/shoes on hand PER PERSON!!! It was so crazy. I bought some boots, so did mum; Anson was the most successful shopper where he bought a lot of blazers and work trousers all for 250-300RMB per item! These were used to be on sale for like over 1000RMB each. It's such a good deal!!! When we got out of the department store and found a cab, the taxi driver was laughing at us when he saw our 'victory' from the department stores. Hehe, women + new year's eve discount = multiple bags of victory. When we arrived home and I finally got changed out of work attires, Anson and I are ready to go out and meet the rest of the guys. The mums weren't too happy that we 'left' them at home but they know us, haha, 'young people go party outside', haha, they speak in joking voices that we leave them at home so they'll have their OWN party. LOL! Mums!!

Another exciting thing happened today!! Apart from the fact that it is New Year's Eve, today is the day that Anna and Peter arrives in Beijing too!!! They're both doing an AIESEC exchange in Dalian for the last month or so and they've finally finished their work. They're coming to Beijing for about 2.5 weeks before travelling to Shanghai and then going back home to New Zealand. Because I moved out of the flat so Anna will be staying in my room; while Peter will be staying in Karina's flat. I met Anna when I joined AIESEC nearly 3 years ago. She was the VP Finance of AIESEC Auckland when I joined and then moved onto become the MC VP Finance for AIESEC New Zealand while I became the VP OGX for AIESEC Auckland. We're both from Guangzhou but we never spoke in Cantonese. I used to assume Anna didn't know how to speak in Cantonese because she grew up in NZ, but then one day I suddenly heard her speaking in Cantonese, it's sooo cute~!

There's a party hold tonight by one of the AIESECers we met in Beijing, Nick (from AIESEC Australia) in a hotel near Sanlitun. We were all invited to go to the party. Because we had to wait for Anna and Peter to arrive in Beijing and move their stuff to our flat first, so Anson and I decided to go 'home' (back to my flat) and wait for everyone to be ready. By the time we arrived, Jordan, Gerard and Josi are all home waiting. It's so nice to be back at 'home' after moving out for a week. Everythings still the same, warm and comfy; everyone still look the same, happy and cheerful. I miss you guys!!

Finally after waiting for just over an hour, Jordan received a call from Anna saying that their cab just arrived at the entrace of our residential area. Anson and Jordan said that they will go down and help Anna and Peter with their luggages. Soon, we heard laughters and voices outside the door and here's Anna!!! Welcome Anna~~~!!!!! As soon as Jordan and Anson came in, Anson said 'OMG, you can't believe what Anna just said'. We asked him what happened and he told us that as soon as Anna saw them in the dark on the road, Anna said 'Is that Anson? Big a bigger size?', and she also mentioned how Jordan gained weight. Puhahahahaha, Gerard Josi and I couldn't stop laughing and especially Jordan and Anson still have the unblievable expressions showing on their faces. Anna said she gained a lot of weight since she came to China but to be honest, none of us could tell that she gained weight. Poor Jordan and Anson, hehe, but it's ok, we all gained weight (except Gerard). It's China, what do you expect??

When Anna and Peter finally settled down, we are all ready to get out of the house and enjoy the last night of 2009!! We first took the bus and got off at Hujialou North Street bus station. Since it's already 9.30pm by the time we arrived at the bus station, and since we are hugely late for the party ANYWAY, so might as well find a place for dinner first. The restaurant called 'Guo Lin Restaurant' is right next to the bus station and so that's it, this is going to be our New Year's Eve dinner =) Gerard and I didn't feel like eating at all because it's already really late and we had some food before so we sat there and watch the others eat. Josi was quite shocked when Peter and Anson suddenly said they wanna try donkey meat. Peter and Anson were really excited about it, Anna and Jordan were also very open to try it out, Gerard and I have no opinions (with Gerard slowly falling asleep from boredom) so eventually Josi gave in (however, she still didn't try the donkey meat though). Dinner was really fun because Peter and Anna were telling us all these funny stories they had in Dalian, about their school and about the weather in Dalian. It's so much colder than Dalian, and althought the rest of us are shivering while walking on the street, Peter and Anna find Beijing rather warm... scary....

By the time we finally got to Liangmaqiao Station (which is the closest to the hotel room party) it was already near 11pm, haha, time sure does pass by real quick in Beijing). Most of us are already near frozen from all the walks and pretty much lost a lot of hype for New Year's Eve. I called Jordan Chong so many times trying to find out the directions to get to the hotel and I bet he's busy drinking and didn't hear his phone. Eventually I found Karina and after the hassle of explaining how to find the hotel, Karina and Nick (the host) decided to come and pick us up, we're like stranded kids on the road waiting for help on this cold and lonely New Year's Eve. When we finally met, we realised that the message Jordan Chong send me with the directions was a little bit off from the correct route, lol, no wonder.

When we finally got to the hotel room, OMG, the hotel room is FULL of people. We're mostly all AIESECers from around the world, and this room is already hyped with cheers and laughters. A brief introduction in this messy and noisy room, we were soon scattered around in the rooms talking to different people. To be honest, I'm already pretty worn from everything today and feel really sick from the cold air outside, so I sat on the side of the bed. Gerard and Josi joined me and we started talking. It's been really amazing so far, I mean our journey. We met three years ago, from different backgrounds and different culture, and now, three years later, we're travelling together for 3 months, becoming the closest friends to each other, watch out for each other's back, getting worried and becoming happy for each other. It's not easy, but definitly rewarding.

Before we know it, some people from the lounge came into the room and joined us for some jokes. Peter was dancing in Josi's bright and shinny pink jacket, with Kayne sharing his excitement under the influence of alcohol. Gerard Josi and I sat on the bed, watching them and laughing at them. Jordan's leaning against the door talking to the new friends he just met. In this room there are Americans, Canadians, Australians, Polish, Chinese and many more, but you know who's the dominating group? Kiwis!! Yeah Kiwis!!! Cool huh?!

Random photos were being taken at all times, weird jokes and funny laughters at all times, it was actually really fun to see how people just gets excited and happy over little things, and how a 'festival' can make people laugh. Suddenly, someone from the lounge was shouting, OMG, it's counting down! We all rushed to the lounge and saw the countdowns showing on the TV screen. Without getting ready with a drink in hand, we all started cheering.

10...

9...

8...

7...

6...

5...

4...

3...

2...

1...

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We raised our glasses into the mid-air (I found a glass somehow) and all cheered for the excitement of 2010! It's a new year! A new start!!! Everyone started to squash into the bedroom and we chanted for national roll calls. It's a very AIESEC thing to do something that represents our own country while we meet internationally. Jordan Wang, Jordan Chong and Kayne were the first one to perform, and guess what kiwis are good at? The Haka!! Uh Huh!! Especially to the Australian out there (namely Nick) we really need to show some power and strengths. The boys were doing the Haka at their full strength, scaring the girls at the front and making an huge impression on the guys in the room. It's truely amazing, the power that these guys are giving out. Jordan Chong was extremely loud and probably didn't even notice how fierce he was looking. I think under the strong influence of alcohol, Kayne and Jordan Chong had no idea what they were yelling, but for us they sound like they're just yelling vowels, rather than actual haka lyrics. The crowds demanded for an enchore of the same thing and this time Jordan Wang gave up. Haha, he couldn't stop laughing at the expressions he sees on Jordan Chong and Kayne' faces, it was so hilarious!!! After the haka, every country did their own little performance. The one I still remember was when the Americans were singing their national anthem, so American, hehe.

Everyones' pretty much still VERY high for New Years and it's just so hard to gather everyone and decide on the next destination. Finally after talking to Nick for so many times, he made the 'announcement' to everyone that we'll leave for Mix (one of the top clubs) in 20 minutes. I bet not everyone heard him because people are just still into their perspective chats and drinks. Finally trying to pass on the message to everyone and finding the way out the hotel room, I realised that there are more than 20 of us in this little hotel room! Wow! Josi decided not to come with us to the club because she was feeling very sick and tired, bye Josi =(

Getting everyone to go to the same place wasn't easy. Firstly there were too many of us to take one taxi (well, obviously); secondly there're hardly any taxis available on the road because it's a busy night out for a lot of people; and thirdly, a lot of people didn't know where we're going nor agreed to go to Mix. By the time I arrived at Mix, only 2 more cabs followed up and there were just less than 10 of us. We weren't sure how many more people are coming and so we had to act on our own. Jordan and I went into Mix to ask for prices and HOLY GOD! It's 150RMB for the ticket per person!!! To even just get in we need to pay 150RMB and I bet the drinks are triple the normal prices. To be honest, we are not so keen for Mix anymore if it's a price like this and I think it's gonna be quite similar in other clubs. When we walked out the door we hear Anson yelling and pointing at the cars parked outside the Mix. OMG, no wonder the tickets are like 150RMB per person, look at all the cars by the door! All the prettiest and fanciest cars, all the expensive and limited edition cars, they're probably all here tonight. All the boys are getting really excited while the girls are shivering in the cold.

What's up after the failure of clubbing? Nick guided us and we walked to the Sanlitun Bar Street. This street is famous for all the bars on the road and it's one of the hot destinations for young people and tourists in Beijing. The street is in fact, VERY POPULATED and NOISY at this time of the night! I had to constantly avoid people walking by to make sure I don't bump into them. Eventually we walked into a bar called, 9.9 Bar. It's a small and narrow but long bar. The drinks in here are very expensive, just like any other bars, but I guess people won't care much on a night like this? It was too noisy and crowded in the bar for us to talk and play games but luckily we have our own seats and sat around the table. At first it was ok, to see more and more people from the hotel party to arrive at 9.9 Bar, but sooner or later, it became really boring. I couldn't stop yawning and seeing Gerard falling asleep too. Anson is still really high and was talking to Karina. What more can we do for the night?

That's it. We're all tired and have no idea what we can do next. Everythings gonna be damn expensive tonight and terribly crowded. I'm personally not too keen for a night like this. Although it is New Years, but I really didn't think it was necessary to pay extra for extra crowdedness!

Nonetheless, after a long day of random plans and seeing time passing by, it was tiring and definitely could be better. However, nothing can beat the fact that today is New Year's day!! Wohoo~

Happy New Year =)

Day 46 in Beijing

The 30th of December 2009, Wednesday.

Today is such a windy cold day. It's quite alright to just sit inside the office where the air conditioning is on and the room is always kept at around 18 celsius degrees. But once you walk out of the building, OMG, the wind is so strong and cold that it can almost cut open my skin and give me the worst chilll down the spine. Eeek!

Tonight I had dinner with a colleague of mine at the Jiamao Shopping Centre, the huge shopping centre outside of the Xizhimen train station exit. I've been there once last week for Jordan Chong's birthday dinner (the scary turtles...) and I was really excited to see Honeymoon, the famous HK dessert shop chain inside Jiamao. So today, I've asked to go there for dinner and enjoy some real nice dessert =)

We had dinner at Chamate, 一茶一坐. This is a chain restaurant started in 2001 from Shanghai and it focuses on expanding the Chinese tea culture. There is more than 80 outlets now around the country and it's a very famous, casual, light and easy restaurant that focuses on providing the most natural ingredients and flavours to their customers. I remember Dianna told me once that she really likes Chamate, and today I finally understand why.

The prices in Chamate is about average high, a full meal can be between 25-50RMB per person. The food in Chamate is rather healthy (compared to a lot of other restaurants) given that most of the dishes are boiled or steamed, and more vegies than meat. Maybe it was already too late by the time we sat down at the restaurant (and that the restaurant is still FULL of customers) my top two choices were all sold out. Eventually I fixed on ordering a pot of vegies and mushrooms. It's quite Japanese style with sweet soup, boiled vegies, slices of meat, and lots of mushrooms. I really like it~ but I hate it how my camera lost all the photos!! RA!!!

Honeymoon is on the top of my recommendations list. It's soooo good! I ordered the same dessert: fresh mango with sago and sweet glutinous black rice. It's so good, it's a perfect combination of all the ingredients, refreshing, the right degrees of sweetness, a little chill, a little soft, mmmmm so good. Anyone who visits China or Hong Kong must try Honeymoon dessert!!

Day 45 in Beijing

The 29th of December, the final countdown to 2010.


Tonight, according to aunty, is the welcome meal for my mum. Tonight we're going out for dinner to welcome my mum in China for the first time in 13 years. Chengxiang is probably aunty and mum's favourite place. I started referring them as The Mums, it's just so much easier to talk about them between Anson and me when I say 'the mums'.

We arrived at the Jinyuan Shopping Centre near Renmin University after hauling through the typical peak hour Beijing traffic, finding our way through the swamp of people and cars, our ears bombared by the amount of car honks and noises. Sigh. Beijing traffic.

Jinyuan Shopping Centre is seriously WAY TOO BIG! Mum, Jordan and I arrived at the top level of the shopping centre (where all the restaurants are) before aunty and Anson. As soon as we arrived at the top level, mum suddenly turned to us and said, "wait here, I'll go buy something". LOL! Mum is so excited to come to this shopping centre. Apparently, aunty have already taken mum here for a massive shopping day and mum knows this place really well. Just a few minutes later, mum came back with a dissappointment on her face and said, 'ah, it's all sold out'. I asked what she was looking for and she told me it was type of handmade pancake that aunty and her really likes and they promised each other that they will come back here and try it again. The pankcakes are too good that it was sold out by evening. Just as we speak, aunty and Anson arrived next to us and hoho, aunty was definitely dissappointed too that the pancakes were sold out. So, instead of pancakes, aunty said she'll buy some Tianjin steam buns for us.

Jordan and I were speechless when we heard 'Tianjin buns'. Oh god, the memories from Tianjin, the cold air, the lack of people, the lack of food, and the disgusting buns we had in Tianjin, oh my god! But, OH MY GOD!!!! This Tianjin buns that aunty and mum bought for us was SOOOOOO AMAZING~ It was the meat buns that we liked, and it was juicy, tender, just the right flavour, and just the right size! One bun for one mouthful, and once you bite into it, you feel the tender meat and juice fills up your mouth, mmmmm, the taste lingers between the teeth even after you swallowed the bun. It's SOOOO GOOD!!!!

We were so satisfied while the mums take us around and find a restaurant that they wanna go for. Eventually, the mums decided on a restaurant of Dalian seafood style. Aunty is from Dalian and she said that the best seafood will be in Dalian, not Beijing, but this restaurant will do for now. The restaurant sells very traditional northern China food, seafood selections are quite ok given that it is deep winter now around the country. What we like the most is also the handmade dumplings on the menu, mmmmm, some REAL Chinese food!

Our table was full of dishes within half an hour and we were so high and satisfied. To my greatest dissappointment, I realised all the photos I took of the food and of the night were all gone because there were something wrong with my SD card in my camera. This is so sad!!! I lost so many photos and it's unbelievable!

What I can do to retrieve the photos? Anyone?? >_<

Day 44 in Beijing

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Jordan, happy birthday to you!!!

Yep, that's right, the 28th December 2009 is the 22nd birthday for Jordan. What?! No no, not for Jordan Wang, his birthday was earlier in November. Today's birthday boy is Jordan Chong! Happy birthday Jordan =)

We're gonna go out for dinner tonight to celebrate Jordan's birthday, finally you're coming out our side of the 'world', the real world, the no-longer-a-kid side of the world, hehe. The plan is to meet at Xizhimen at 7pm and find the restaurant. This is a complete nightmare, what I mean is to find few people in the huge Beijing city is just insane. We plan to meet at the subway station but due to the poor reception underground, the miscommunication between different people and the misinterpretation of the meeting place, we ended up wondering around just trying to find people. Anson, Jordan and I met up first and then our mission began with trying to find Josi and Gerard. Sigh..... Don't even wanna remind myself of the horrible experience of finding people in Beijing subway stations, just wanna say, OMG, Beijing is too huge!

Finally we met up with Jordan Chong at the restaurant, Fucheng (the logo looks kinda like a swear word though, hoho), a hot pot restaurant. To our surprise, there's such a huge group for Jordan's dinner, a lot of them which we don't know of, and most of them are AIESECers. It was impossible to fit all the people on one table, which the largest one is for a table of 12 people. We managed to fit 16 people onto the 12-people table and 6 people had to move to a smaller table. Getting through introduction and ordering the menu were a big challenge, soon Karina and I gave up in trying to get people order so we just took over the lead, wakaka, we will make the order! Karina recommended to get a pot with two shared flavours, one for spicy and one for curry, this suit everyone right?? Thanks to Karina for the great recommendation, I actually really liked the curry flavour hot pot.

Jordan Chong was so excited and happy today. He's too happy that he just remembers to keep drinking but forgot about eating, Karina and I got so worried about him for drinking so many of the strong shots (Chinese herbal alcohol). Poor Josi as well, for not liking hotpot at the first place, she then had to leave the dining table and went to buy her own dinner.

Birthday is such a special day, for the birthday person as well as for everyone. I think it's one of the only days where a birthday person can be a little bit more over the line or extremely happy without friends having comments. I like birthdays. Although I never celebrate it too big or anything fancy, but having a reason to gather my friends together is happy enough for me.

We didn't finish and leave restaurant until after 10pm and we are one of the last people there. Something about the shopping centre that I must mention though: the carton figure respresentative of the shopping centre and the theme. The theme of the shopping centre is underwater sea world, which is quite ok. But the thing is, the biggest issue, the biggest problem, the most revolting thing is the sculptures they have inside the shopping centre. On the top of every elevator, there are two turtle-looking-thing. Well, in fact, they are turtles I'm sure, but the thing is they're turtles with hair! The turtles are wearing wigs!!!! How abnormal and insane was this?! Everytime we saw the turtles, we just couldn't stop wondering, 'WHY ON EARTH would any designer do this'? Then we tried taking off the wig, man, the turtles look even worse!!! >_<

Day 43 in Beijing

27th December 2009, Sunday, the first day mum's here with me in China.

We (Anson's mum, Anson and me) all thought mum would be pretty tired from the flight and didn't expect her to get up till lunch. But seriously, mum is just so excited and energetic, my god, she starting talking to me and trying to wake me up since like 8am. Eventually she abandoned me in the room and went out to talk to aunty for the whole morning. Anson and I are still pretty much dead asleep when they are already preparing breakfast. My god.

Breakfast was awesome! Exactly what I love! Milk and steam buns~! Wakaka, so good~! The steam buns are without any fillings, just a bun, and it was made by a company that's really famous in Beijing, a lot of families will line up for it (according to aunty's experience). Aunty knows that my mum loves buns so she went and got these for mum. So nice ~

Today aunty will take us to one of her favourite shopping centres and we'll have lunch there. The shopping centre is called Chengxiang, outside of the Gongzhufen subway station. It's one of the bigger ones in Beijing selling all sorts of products and you can spend the whole day there without getting bored. Aunty and mum picked a Sichuan style restaurant inside Chengxiang and it was so funny that Anson and I got really worried about our rice not coming again. Yesterday's experience really gave us a bad impact huh? How can rice be difficult to get in China? Must be because of our duck fight yesterday with the managers that made our rice order extremely hard >_<


After lunch it'll be my responsibility in taking mum around the shopping centres while aunty and Anson go visit Anson's granddad. I kept on telling mum all these little tips about living in Beijing but I bet she didn't even pay attention to me because she's so focused on shopping.I had to constantly remind her to watch out for cars, not to buy street food, and the most important thing, must bargain when she wants to buy something! I made a good example for mum I think =P We saw this pair of pants on sale for 180RMB and to be honest, it was already a fairly good price for NZ standard. However, I kept mum away from talking to the lady directly so she doesn't express interest, and then I demonstrated my bargaining skills. Eventually after some chit-chat, and walking away etc, we finally got the pair of pants for 120RMB. It's formal wear, black long pants for 120RMB, we all think it's really good =)

Eventually we went home with loads of shopping bag and food. Mum's favourite food was actually corns! I can't believe this. This is something she said she really miss about China, the Chinese corns. Why do I call it the Chinese corns? eeek, it's actually very different to the corns we have in NZ. I don't remember the Chinese corns at all, but I love the NZ ones, sweet and juicy, bright yellow corn, I love it. But the Chinese one is very light coloured with less moist but more starch texture, not sweet at all, but just very chewy. Mum really love this type of corn, she said it's more chewy, have more texture while eating it and won't get sick of the sweetness like the ones in NZ. Eek.

Day 42 in Beijing

The day after Christmas, the 26th December, what used to be one of my happiest days in the year (boxing day for presents, wakaka). Today is the 42nd day into my journey in Beijing.

My mum will arrive in Beijing tonigh at 11.30pm and she will stay here with me for nearly 3 weeks. Today one of my main goals is to move all my stuffs to Anson's house where my mum will be staying in the next few weeks. So lucky to have Anson and his mum here in Beijing, made everything for mum so much easier. My mum won't even come visit if it aunty wasn't here in Beijing, sigh, I'm not important enough, haha. Looking at my extremely puffy luggage I realised, crap, I think it may be overweight already, crap!!! Lucky mum is coming, haha, she can help me I'm sure =P

Chrissy came to Beijing a few days ago, to spend Christmas with her family here in Beijing and today we're going to meet up for lunch before she leaves tomorrow. Chrissy is such a bubbly girl, it makes me really really happy to just see her. I call today 'The Kiwi Day'. Just look at the people that came to lunch (from left): Josi, Kayne, Chrissy, Gerard, Jordan Chong, Karina, Jordan Wang, Anson and me. All kiwis!!! All from AIESEC New Zealand, spending a fantastic 'summer' here in China, and now all sitting together for traditional Beijing roast duck in Beijing!!! What a small world?!!!!

We took the guys to Hong Lian Roast Duck Restaurant, the restaurant Peter took us last time. Due to logistic reasons we arrived at the restaurant at 2.30pm. Lucky we called yesterday to ask about the opening hours and the manager told us the restaurant opens from morning till night and there's no need to reserve the roast ducks. When we finally sat down and making orders the waitress told us that all the ducks were sold out and the kitchen is closed. We asked if they can open the kitchen again (well, start up the oven again) and she said they can't. We asked to speak to the manager because we were told yesterday that there's no need to make bookings or reservations. The manager kept on saying that they chefs are on breaks and they can't do anything for us, but we also had to explain our situation to her: we are all from overseas and now we're taking our friends who travelled from different cities in China to try their Beijing roast duck, and it's really bad if they can't serve us any ducks. The manager came back after talking to the chefs and gave us one of the worst replies: all the ducks for lunch time are sold out and the chefs don't want to make our orders with the ducks for tonight. This reason made Anson and I really unhappy and Anson asked the manager why would they not sell TWO DUCKS to customers who are already SITTING inside their restaurant but rather keep it for later, when they don't even know if they will have customers? I think this really got her and she went to negotiate again. Jordan played the nice guy on the table and kept asking her try; Anson played the bad guy and also pressured her to try more; eventually she came back with the good news and said that the chefs will make our ducks now but it'll take 40 minutes for it to roast. YAY!!!! Ducks~!

We were all quite happy that we'll finally get the roast ducks then we realised our main guest, Chrissy (who came all the way from Shanghai) is vegetarian! LOL!!! It was really funny but at least we're getting something after our hard effort of negotiating. There's one dish that I highly recommend though: corn with salty egg yolks. It's SOOOOOOO GOOD!!! Everyone loves it and it's the first dish to be finished. mmmmm I'm so gonna come back again, not for the ducks but for the corns!!!

Another thing that really made us going crazy was with our rice! We ordered a big bowl of rice to share for everyone right at the beginning (when we were also making orders of meals)but the rice just won't come to us. We slowly got really impatient and kept asking for the rice. Every time a waitor/waitress that heard our request will run to the kitchen so we thought, yay, rice coming soon. But, nope, they just run into the kitchen but never comes out with the rice. Even if some waitors came out with rice it wasn't for us. Eventually we pretty finished the dishes and not everyone wants rice now, so we asked if we can just have two bowls of rice but PLEASE HAVE THEM NOW! The manager took the order and asked the waitress to quickly go get our rice, and then there's our wait again. I bet they're unhappy with our 'duck issue' before and that's why they're not giving us our rice. When we finally got the rice (after we finished our meal), the waitor brought us the big bowl of rice....then there it goes again, we had to explain again and again why we don't want this and we want 2 little bowls only. When our poor rice finally came, we all applaused and cheered, haha, we must be crazy for everyone else in this restaurant. The english-speaking + noisy + crazy table.

Looking at the satisfying faces on everyone's face (excluding Chrissy) when we finally got our ducks, we all knew it was worth it to come here today. Especially for Jordan Chong, Kayne and Karina, they have never tried Beijing roast ducks before. Jordan Chong even took one of the pastry with him and was sniffing it on the way when we left the restaurant, haha, he must've really liked the roast ducks.

We went to Xidan shopping centre after lunch, partly to see what's good to buy with the big Christmas discounts. There is really nothing much we can do in China apart from eating and shopping, (apart from all the tourist-y places that we don't know about, hehe). After walking a few hours around Xidan, we decided to find food again. LOL!!! What a day! Just walking and eating!!! We went into the Joycity Shopping Centre in Xidan and sat down at a place that specialises in rice noodles in Yunnan style.

Here goes my day, I can't believe I just spent one day walking and eating, haha, what a day! I guess walking around counts as exercise in some way right? OMG, I can't imagine what my scale will say when I get back to NZ...... It's more than common to leave China with an extra few kilos piled on the body, all thanks to the tasty and cheap food. hmmmmm I need to do something about this, to save my wallet and save myself from the heartbreaking weightgain.

Mum arrived tonight a little bit earlier than her scheduled time. Anson went with me to pick mum up, to give us a hand with the luggage, thanks Ans =) Mum was so excited and couldn't stop talking and telling us about her journey on the plane from Auckland to Tokyo then to Beijing. This it the first time mum left New Zealand after we left in 1997, and obviously the first time for her to come back to China since we left. She is DEFINITELY VERY EXCITED! I miss mum, I really do, and it's so cute to see her going on and on with her stories (which even made our taxi driver laugh, lol). One thing I remember about mum's flight to Beijing was when she was passing the boarders at Beijing airport, the guy checking her passport noticed that she haven't came back to China for a long time. Mum told the officer that she haven't been back for more than 12 years and the officer was so surprised! He read out my mum's name and said, 'I'll remember you, have fun!'. This was surprising for me too. I thought these officers won't even bother talk to people because they're just doing the repetitive work everyday and won't have the desire to talk. Such a nice officer =)

Welcome home mum =)

Day 41 in Beijing

Hohoho, Merry Christmas~!!!

25th December 2009, my 41st day in China, my first Christmas in China! Today we have a full day plan and it's gonna be fun!!! Gerard and I will be up early in the morning to go to Carre Four for some Christmas shopping. Jordan also got up real early to make us Christmas breakfast. He said it'll be a surprise for us and we will definitely like it. Hoho. By the time Gerard and I came back from Carre Four it's near 11am and to our surprise, the table is full of food! Jordan made french toast for us~! I miss the kiwi breakfast!! Everyone of us have a bowl of fresh fruits as well, and guess what? Look closely at the photo, there's kiwi fruit!!! Haha, thanks Jordan! It really makes us happy to see something that reminds us of home. Kiwi fruits are so expensive in China, it's like 8RMB for one or something. Man..... kiwi fruits will be so cheap now in NZ, especially in the summer time. After breakfast, Jordan and Josi were washing the dishes, Gerard is preparing for his gifts to his students, and I'm busy packing. I'm moving out tomorrow >_<

What's more exciting than opening up presents on a Christmas day?! We sat down around the coffee table and started giving each other presents. I gave my Christmas presents to each one of them few days ago whenever I bought it. I don't want to leave it till Christmas day just in case if they bought the same thing for themselves. For Gerard, I bought a pocket-size book for him to learn practical and easy Chinese; for Josi, I gave her a pair of pink ear muffs so she can stay warm and look bright (I think she didn't really like the bright pink, hehe, it's too happy for her); for Jordan, I picked a black and white scarf and force him to wear it too (Jordan don't like scarfs, but it's too cold in Beijing to not wear a scarf).

Josi started sharing her presents too us too: she bought a long grey scarf for Gerard because his one was too short, it looks really good on Gerard; she gave Jordan a pair of gloves, again he don't like wearing gloves (and also because his own gloves was too feminine, haha, I think this is the real reason); and thanks Josi for buying me the red scarf!! I really really like it! Thank you thank you~! Now I really look like I'm in Christmas, haha, so red.

Jordan gave us the presents too: he bought Gerard a pack of Mentholatum facial products (facial wash and moisturiser); gave me a cup (for work) and a spoon to add to my collection; and lastly to Josi a pair of warm slippers because the ones she's wearing in the flat was too big for her. We all bought stuff for each other based on what we will need, this is really good! Things that can be used are much more practical and won't become a waste~! Thanks guys!!

We tried to watch our Christmas movie today, it's called Four Christmas. It's a 2009 movie by Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, a love comedy about a couple who have to visit all four parents during Christmas time and how the things change between the couple with the influence under the four different families. It seems to be quite an interesting movie but our stupid TV is so quiet whenever we played movies through our laptop!! Josi and I couldn't really hear what they're saying and only Jordan still knows what was going on, why? Not because Josi and I have bad hearings but because Jordan had already seen this movie before, hehe, 'cheating'. We eventually decided to not watch the movie during the day and will try again at the night, it's more quiet, hopefully it'll be a bit better.

At about 3.30pm we started packing and start to make the trip to Changping. We need to go to Sun Village for the special Christmas party the school is holding for their students. When we finally arrived at the party venue (which is another site of the school) we were so shocked by the amount of children attending this party. Originally Gerard expected just few of the classes to be here but in fact, this room was packed by students and their parents. Frank (the owner of Sun Village) welcomed us and showed us the special seats they reserved for us (right at the front facing the crowd of students) and told us that they didn't expect that many students either.

Tonight's party is like a gala show. There's a long list of shows where some studetns and some teachers will be performing in. Some of the performance tonight include hip hop and ballroom dancing, singing, taekwondo performance, magic tricks, quizzes and etc. We were first up in the list and we started off by giving a little introduction of ourselves. Gerard is the main host and I was at the side translating for him. A lot of the students and parents who have never seen Gerard before were obviously realy curious and won't stop looking at us. Then we got together and sang some Christmas songs for the crowd and asked the kids to follow us too. There were just way too many kids in this room and the noise level is insane. Luckily we used microphones and speakers, but yet, it's still not quite enough to talk over the noises.

When we told the students that we'll play games with them and whoever that answers our questions correctly will receive a gift from NZ. OMG, this stirred up even more noises and 'competition' between the kids. LOL! It took us a while to finally get the game going, and it was really just we ask a question (in english) related to Christmas or New Zealand, and the student must answer correctly in English. Some answers were really funny, e.g. Gerard asked 'what is the name of the old man in Christmas time', and some students answered 'Snow man' or 'Old man'.

Unfortunately we couldn't stay until the end of the party because we made a special dinner booking at Max Brenner. That's right, Max Brenner! It's the chocolate boutique shop Josi saw around PKU and we decided to make our Christmas dinner a special one. Chocolate fondue for Christmas, hoho, sounds sooooo good. After a long journey back into Beijing city, we finally arrived at Max Brenner just before it closes. We flipped through the menu and we decided to only have chocolate fondue with bananas and mashmellows to fill our cravings. It was a little dissappointing to see how little the chocolate fondue was but you know what? Anything to do with chocolate is enough for me. mmmmmmmmmm anything that's chocolate can make me melt in joy, mmmmm cold winter Christmas night, close friends, chocolate fondue, there's nothing more I want for tonight~ mmmm ^_^

We walked out from Max Brenner after chocolate fondue and was very much still hungry for more food (LOL). Most restaurants around the area are closed, Christmas isn't really a special day for Chinese shops to open late for. But guess what we saw outside the gate of PKU?! The little carts selling street food, like BBQ skewers and skewers of spicy food which you can pick and choose from. This is it, this is our Christmas dinner, hehe. Each skewer was only 50 cents and the noodles is 1RMB. Even Josi and Gerard joined us for the food. Tonight was sooooo cold and we are standing on the street eating food in the cold, haha what an experience. The spicyness really helped us against the cold but our fingers are so red and frozen after the meal. I love these spicy skewers~ Cheap and tasty, haha, but I bet it's not too healthy and clean. Oh well, a little treat every now and then is not too bad right?!

Home sweet home, finally after a long ride we're back home. We thought about the cake Karen sent us. Oh yeah, haven't wrote about it yet. Few days ago, Gerard received a call from the delivery company confirming our address, he directed the call to Jordan. Ever since then we've been guessing what the delivery could be. Until eventually we found out it was Karen (AIESECer from Auckland) who ordered a cake online and will be delivered to us. So nice~~! Thank you Karen~! We got home, fooled around and started sharing the cake. The cake is yellow with a 'happy birthday' sign and 2 little santa claus figures as decorations. Jordan thinks the santa claus looks like that octupus guy in Priates of the Carribean. The cake is a very typical Chinese style cake with the Chinese style cream. Only Josi liked it because she think the cream in NZ is too sweet for her. The rest of us thinks the cream here in China is very plastic and fake taste. What we found that's really funny about the cake is that the decoration on top of cream was tomatoes!! Yep, that's right, tomatoes!!! It was so fun laughing about our cake, thanks Karen for the sweet gift!!!

The night ended with Jordan going crazy while eating the santa claus man (refer to photo) and us finishing our movie, The Pursuit of Happiness, together.

Merry Christmas =)

Day 40 in Beijing

Waaaaaaa, 40th day!!!! Wooooo~~~!!!!! Christmas Eve, the 24th December 2009, stepping into the 40th day of my journey in Beijing 2009/2010. Woohoo~!

Today I made a special trip to Changping 昌平 with Gerard. Gerard's workplace is in Changping, in a school called Sun Village. He needs some help with translation at work and to prepare for the Christmas Party Sun Village, so I took the day off and went with him. Gerard always asked all of us to go to Changping one day for a visit. From what he described, Changping is very rural and really not fun at all. It's a place that he wouldn't go unless required, lol, we always make jokes around this topic.

Changping is located at the 30kms north west of Beijing and is at the south side of the Great Wall. This is a city with very long history and very protected for its resources endownments and ancient history. If anyone wants to go to Badaling part of the Great Wall, you will definitely pass Changping, and therefore it's also a town for tourism.

We took the the subway to Jishuitan and caught the express bus 919 to Changping. The total journey lasted about 1 and a half hour. Poor Gerard >_<>

We were going to go to the Christmas Party held by the AIESEC MC team in their flat. But eventually due to logistic reasons we decided not to attend. It's pity that we couldn't attend but we made sure us four still stay together for the festival. Gerard and I met up with Josi then eventually meeting Jordan at The Palace. The Palace is a high class shopping centre in Chaoyang and is famous for the massive screen up in the air. We were hoping to see the undersea animals showing up in the screen, but it's Christmas, of course there will be Christmas related things instead. It's such a cold night tonight, but there are still a lot of people around in town, especially young people. It's just too cold though, for us to stay out for long so let's just go home for a warmer night =P

(LOL at Gerard and Jordan trying to pose like penguins!! hehe)

Christmas Eve, us four spent the night together, as close friends, flatmates and most importantly, as a family. Gerard bought a little Christmas tree just a few days ago as a surprise, and you know what? It really makes a difference in our flat. Christmas is rather commercialised and really designed to attract young couples who wants to celebrate together. The little Christmas tree shines in our flat, glowing with mini red lightbulbs, warm and fluffy~ I love Christmas~!

Day 39 in Beijing

The 23rd of December 2009 = the 39th day into my Beijing journey.

This must be a movies week for me; tonight is another movie night. Bodyguards and Assassins, the most recent martial arts movie by a HK director Desen Chan, famous producer Peter Chan and loads of big actors and actresses. A movie must be seen, and it must be from the movie cinema, wakaka. There's a cinema in the APN shopping centre in Wangfujin. It's only 30RMB per ticket, it is a domestic film so it's relatively cheaper than other international blockbuster movies.

Bodyguards and Assassins is a movie about an assassination in Hong Kong on the 15th October 1906. On this day, a group of bodyguards made up of revolutioners, businessmen, begger, cart driver, student, gambler, circus owner etc, were trying to protect Sun Zhong Shan (孙中山). The businessman hosting Sun Zhongshan (who's coming to HK for a planning meeting for the upcoming revolution against the Qing Dynasty of China) found out that the Qing officials has sent a group of assassins to kill Sun and therefore the businessman gathered a group of individuals and combined their unique skills to protect Sun in Hong Kong.

The characters in this movie are mostly made up for the storyline but everyone one of them have a very interesting and unique background. Each individual have their own reasonings behind why they agreed to join this dangerous plan.

Firstly there's Shaobai Chen 陈少白(actor, 梁家辉Tony Leung). He's the planner and initiator of Sun's visit to Hong Kong, a revolutionist. He is willing to sacrifice everything for the upcoming revolution because the only way out to make a better life for everyone in China is to take down the emperor and his dictatorship, and to do so there must be a revolution. He always borrown money from Yutang Li (a businessman) as the funds for the revolution and is also the teachr of Li's son, Chongguang Li. I learned from this character how one can suffer from guilt and the lack of ability to choose even from doing something he believes in, when he had choose between protecting his student/close friend's only son, or letting this young revolutionist contribute to the plan. This is one of the two only remaining bodyguards left behind at the end of the day, it leaves a trail of thoughts for me.

Then there's Yutang Li 李玉堂(actor Xuexi Wang王学圻), the financial backbone of for the revolution taking place in Hong Kong. He's the owner of a large business Hong Kong, very well known and every businessman or politicians in Hong Kong all gives very high respect. Li supports Chen's plans and actions for many years with an intial intention of keeping Hong Kong peaceful so he can grow his business. When he realised that his only son was taking part in the revolution he tried every effort to keep his son away from the 'danger'. But with Chen being kidnapped by the Qing assassins and the instabilities within Hong Kong, he was slowly dragged into the whirl pool mess of the plan and eventually became the leader of the bodyguards group. From Li, I saw the pride of being someone who believes in the country and belives in a brighter future. No matter how he tried to stay away from dangers, when he realised that he can in fact make a difference he took the lead undoubtedly and bravely, stay calm and did everything to make the plan happen. This pride of leading the group, giving them the mental support and guidance, staying calm in all kind of situations and the fatherhood love he gives to his son are what attracts me to this charater the most.

Chongyang Shen 沈重阳 (actor Donnie Yen甄子丹), is one of the best fighters in this movie. He's also addicted to gambling and often lose all this earnings. He was paid to keep an eye on Chen and Li and report everything to the assassins. From what he found out about the plan, he indirectly led the assassins to the circus and the circus owner Fang Tian (one of the bodyguards) was killed. The night before the 15th October he went to visit his ex-wife (Yue Ru) who is now one of Li's wives. Yue Ru found out about the plan and realised that Li will need as much help as he needs to even stay alive at the end of the day, so she told Shen that the her and Li's daughter was actually Shen's daughter. She asks of Shen to keep Li alive because Li is the reason why his daughter was still alive and living a happy life now. Shen changed from that night and went out of his way secretly protecting Li and his bodyguards ont he 15th October. This is one of the saddest stories in this movie for me. Shen sacrificed his life going against the most dangerous assassin because he believes that only if he can end all these, then his daughter will still have a 'father' to take care of her. Donnie Yen is one of the best martial artists in Asia and his fighting scenes deserves the most applause in this movie. There was a 10 minutes long fighting scene between Shen and one of the assasssins (Kung, the world champion fighter). To be honest, before this movie, I wasn't a fan of Donnie Yen at all, but from this movie I am really amazed at his martial arts and his acting skills. He made his character the most important and heart breaking for all audiences.

Another fighter in the bodyguards was the begger, Yubai Liu刘郁白 (actor Leon Lai黎明). He was a rich and handsome young man with unique martial art skills inherited from his family (using a super heavy metal made fan as his weapon), but he fell in love with his father's woman (actress Michelle Lee李嘉欣) and ended up witnessing the death of his father and his lover. He was struck really hard by their deaths and became a drug addict and eventually a begger. He joined the bodyguard gang because of the support Li (the businessman) has been giving him since before the collapse of his family and now he's paying back his loyalty to Li. All the audiences in the cinema was really surprised to find out that the scruffy looking begger was Leon Lai (one of the most famous artist from Hong Kong). Thank god his appearance was changed later in the movie and was showing a very artistic martial art performance (Leon does not know kong fu).

Nicolas Tse 谢霆锋 was Li's cart-driver, A-Si阿四. A-si is a very pure and extremely loyal character. He's at a similar age as Li's son (let's call him Li Junior for now, lol) and are very close to Li's family. For A-Si, the most important thing in his life is the safety of his masters, Li and Li Junior. He dreams of marrying this girl from a photoshop in town and asked if his master, Li, is willing to introduce them. A-Si is the most naive character in this movie, he do everything for and only for his loyalty to his masters, and dreamed of having an happily ever after life with his girl. But loyalty brought him death, and he was killed by the leading assassin (who also killed Liu the begger, and Shen the martial artist, and pretty much every other important character in this movie). I was so touched by the scene when he got really beaten by the assassin but still presistenly holding onto the assassin's leg to make it harder for the assassin to follow his young master. Not my favourite scene.

Li Chongguang李重光 (actor Bojie Wang王柏杰) well I call him Li Junior, is the only son of Li (the businessman) and the young master of A-Si. He's the yongest character in the bodyguard group, aged 17 years old. He's deeply influenced by his teacher, Chen (the planner), although he's still childish and naive at times but possess a very determined heart towards revolution. This often leads to the big debates and fights between him and his father. One person must be chosen to play the role of Sun during the day while Sun is actually hiding in basement for the meeting. Li Junior's name was being drawn out from the pot. His father didn't realise it was his son that was cover and was in deep shock to realise it was too late to pull him to safety. Li Junior was eventually stabbed to death by the leading assassin (who still believes it was Sun himself inside the cart). A character of determination and strong beliefs, although he's young but he knows he can make an impact. Very interesting character.

All the bodyguards in this movie who knows how to fight (martial arts) were male except for Fang Hong 方红 (actress: Li Yuchun李宇春). She's the daughter of the Fang Tian, the circus owner. Fang Hong is very fast and flexible in her martial arts, her personality is very strong and stubborn but secretly dreamed of a peaceful and stable life. The sudden death of her father left her with nothing but shock and anger, and therefore she joined the bodyguards group to revenge for her father. On the 15th October, while she was chasing after and fighting the assassin who killed her father, she accidentally found the trap set by the assassins where they plan to set a bomb to kill all the bodyguards. The limited time and ability left her with no choice but to sacrifice herself and set off the bomb to kill the assassin, including herself. What's most interesting about this character wasn't about the character Fang Hong, but about the actress Li Yuchun. She's the most famous singing competition idol winner in Chinese history. Her appearance is rather non-feminine and was definitely a new stream of fashion for young Chinese. I always wondered why on earth would she become the Chinese idol winner that year and why is she still famous now. She's not a great singer, not a great dancer (although she believe she is) and also not a great actress. In this movie, her character is to be honest, made for her, the character and the story behind the character were made for Li Yuchun. Li Yuchun's commercial value is undenyable, she was voted to be the idol winner and this is the first sign of democratic in China. This was published by the Times magazine (Asia version) and she was the cover person. Can you believe this? I still couldn't agree to why she's one of the top leading artist in China now but I cannot neglect to the Li Yuchun effect in China.

Another most-talked-about actress in China now is actress Bingbing Fan范冰冰, acting as Yueru月茹, the fourth wife of Li (the businessman). She was the wife of Shen (the martial artist) and left him once she found out she's pregnant with Shen's child. She realised that this martial artist and gambler will not be able to give her child a happy and stable life, and therefore left him and married to the businessman as his fourth wife. Fan Bingbing was only acting in supporting roles for many years until recently people started to realise how different she is now. She's very hardworking, very very hardworking, just look at the amount of productions she had this year. She opened up her own production company and became a producer herself for her own movies. She is very beautiful, maybe, one of the most beautiful actress now in China (for many people) and she never fails to stir up massive discussions and debates in the entertainment industry (from her appearance, to her company, to her productions, to her rumours, to her fashion sense etc). I actually like her a lot, her acting skills are quite good and she's open to act anything. I really like her performance in Zhang Ziyi's new film where Fan was the mean and nasty girl in the movie.

In the society now there's never a strict rule in the entertainment industry that only actress and actors can be in movies, or only singers can sing, or whatever. Now anyone can be an actor as long as you fit what the producer and director wants, or as long as you can bring some value to the production, or if you have any commercial value. Just like Mengke Bateer巴特尔, a very famous Chinese basketball player, took over the role as the tofu seller in the movie, Fuming Wang王复明. This role was definitely created for Bateer and Bateer only. In the movie, he's a monk that left Shaolin and became a tofu seller on the streets in Hong Kong. He looks very scary because of his size but he's in fact a very kind and naive person. His favourite hobby is gardening, haha, so cute. Li (the businessman) invited him to join the team and he agreed because of his loyalty to the country. In the movie, he wasn't a good kongfu fighter but definitely made a huge impact in defending and protecting his team mates with his size. There are several interesting shots in the movie where he was throwing cabbage like a professional basketball player at the assassins, haha!!!! In the movie, everyone calls him 'tofu' because he never shared his past with anyone. Eventually he used his full strength to fight against the hundreds of assassins and was killed. Before his last breath, he said to A-Si, "my name is Wang Fuming". I really like his character, not only that it is interesting how the producer incorporated Bateer's professional basketball skills into the movie and used it as his strength, but also because how kind and warm he was. After doing a little research on him, I found out that he's a mongolian, he was already 1.88m tall at the age of 8 and joined the Mongolia Basketball team at the age of 12 (2.1m tall). Through many years of practise and experience, he became the first Chinese NBA winner in 2003. Woot!!!!

Now finally comes the bad guy. There were 10 bodyguards against 500 assassins, but only the leader of the assassins were really the main character and the strongest fighter in the movie. The leader of the assassins, Xiaoguo Yan 阎孝国was by actor Jun Hu胡军, one of the top actors from Mainland China. Yan used to be the best student of Chen and was being raised up under the western education system. He became very much against westerners because of what they did to China and joined the Qing Dynasty troops. He believes that the revoulion led by Sun will never succeed and when he found out that Sun is coming to Hong Kong, he took on the role and led the assassins to kill Sun. Hu Jun is not a martial artist but he was trained for a long time for this movie and his role. He's definitely one of my favourite actors now, his professionalism and performance were amazing. No matter how bad and scary he was in killing so many bodyguards, but if we think from another point of view, he's really just doing his job and sacrificing himself for his loyalty to what he believes in. His only aim was to kill Sun, which he believed that Sun is inside the cart (by that was Li Junior inside the cart as a cover). Yan followed the cart and killed everyone that came into his way, after stabbing the person in the cart to death, he got shot from the back by Chen, his own teacher. He turned around and said nothing but 'I've completed what I must do'. A lot of audiences hate this role because he's the 'bad guy' and killed a lot of the 'good guys', but I like this character, for his passion and his loyalty.

After watching this movie, I was very moved by the passion of the revolutionists and the assassins. It's very easy now for people to loose faith in what you believe in and not standing strong. This film isn't based on a real story but definitely coincides with a lot of similar stories in history. A dream can bring strong and capable individuals together, no matter how much one person can contribute, the collection of all sacrifices is the essence of becoming successful.

Bodyguards and Assassins, a movie among my favourites, a movie I strongly recommend, a movie I will watch over and over again. Bravo!