Skip to main content

China Ancient Trip, Day 7-8: Xi'an

It was a leisure free & easy on the day of the 7th. I was half-day away presenting a conference paper at Shaanxi Hotel, 12 km  to the southwest. I'm all alone when my family stayed in, and it feels a bit worried having difficulties to communicate with local. Anyway, things like this was a revelation of how much I missed my family when I simply dissipated to travel alone.

By noon, with much of the hardship to hail a taxi to the difficulty communicating, I safely back to my family at the hotel, and we made a comeback to the Muslim Quarter for lunch. As the day progresses into more anticipating, as we look forward to Beijing tomorrow, that afternoon we uneventfully spent that day soaking in the city life.



Our stomping ground
Yup, that is RMB 35 per person
The bell tower erected during Ming Dynasty
Could be the biggest bell in the world?
Nicely done architecture
He used to be a scholar during Tang Dynasty
Is Nu'man having bad mood?
Bought one of the local delicacies made up from sticky rice
When I was about doing my planning for a trip to Beijing from Xi'an, the best way to experience it is by high-speed train. We had booked train tickets to Beijing through China-DIY Travel as it would almost not possible to buy the tickets online. It's only in Chinese and only accepts Chinese bank cards. In fact everything was in Chinese-characters when I received the booking receipt. Anyhow, China-Travel DIY really did an awesome job! Everything comes to detail and simple instruction, from 'where and how to pick-up the ticket', 'how to read the ticket', and even on 'how to navigate the train station'!

G88 was our train to Beijing!
Tickets come with goodies
Do's and don'ts while you are on board
It was cozy, isn't it?
Whoaaa... We're reaching 300km/h
Yet another drama that we went through when we reached Beijing. The driver arranged by Maggie supposed to meet us at the Beijing railway west station exit. Maggie did sent an email saying that the driver will be late due to the traffic. Undoubtedly we don't have the internet access, felt something wrong might happen, we started looking for ways to go to our hotel. Back then, we didn't do any internet surveying or anything about the train station, even the metro map. We came out from the underground station and trying to hail for a taxi, but to no avail, the traffic make things even worse. We rendezvoused to the platform, hoping that the drive be there at the exit we supposed to meet. By God graces, after almost 30 minutes of the uneventfully moment, a guy approached us and it was the driver! Sigh...

We reached the Emperor Hotel by 7pm. The hotel located just beside the Palace Museum and near to the Jingshan Park. Judging from what was happening once we arrived in Beijing, that day gone off with what we could say the most impressive hotel we had booked. Apart from the great location, it's a really spacious room and bath with modern-look design. In fact, the hotel room was given a name with my name in Chinese!

An awesome hotel's welcoming desk
Let us do some googling
These loungers were in our room!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Journey Review

Thinking of the same idea as what Zarin did in his wrapping up post, I'll do the same for the sake of my own record.  This post will be updated from time to time. Some of the trip may have a  specific write-up  and you may click on the travelling month. Here is the world travel map, courtesy of TripAdvisor. A bit of Statistics: Total countries visited = 22/195 [Last updated : September 2023] Our Travel Map. [Courtesy of TripAdvisor. According to them, we only covered 13% of the Earth at the moment :P .... still long way to go and we didn't show USA map as to when we will be there]
3 comments
Read more

Indonesia Island Trip. Day 1: Lombok - Gili Terawangan

Sarapan pagi  kat airport We had been rotating to visit the Southeast Asia country each year and this is the fourth time visit to Indonesia after Bali (2010),  Bukittinggi (2012) and Bandung (2014). Looks like we made a return every 2 years, that's interesting! We may need to consider other countries like Brunei, Philippines or Cambodia in the near future. Three hours later, we arrived Lombok International Airport at noon. We were welcomed by Pak Ibrahim's staff shortly after clearing immigration and collecting our luggage. The weather that day was slightly overcast. En route to Teluk Kodek Port, we stopped at Sukarara Weaving Village. By the time we reached there, it was raining heavily. It is a traditional craft of weaving center located in Lombok West Nusa Tenggara. Not much seen as it felt, we had  ayam taliwang for lunch at Taliwang Alam Nyaman restaurant, known for its famous local dish. Alpukat Jus (Avocado Juice) is also a must try whenever you vi...
2 comments
Read more

Singapore Trip: A lion-city escapade

Watch out! It is a zika-free :P trip to the city of light that we had on the 2nd mid-term school holiday, apart from the 'balik kampung' to Ipoh and JB on both week end. My wife managed to secure a stay for 2 nights at the 'Rumah Peranginan Persekutuan' where it supposed to be a big family trip with my siblings.  It was a big vacation house, which I believe can cater at least 15-20 people. For some reasons, they had to turn it down. Note: Pictures taken are not in the best quality as I'm still get my hands on the new DSLR camera.. wink.. wink..
Post a Comment
Read more