48 Hours in Beijing

Yup, think I was a little mad to have spent only a weekend in Beijing. But you make lemonade out of lemons right? So while it wasn't my original plan, I made the most of annoyance my airline left me with. 

Having been to Beijing twice before, my priority was to visit the Great Wall, as I never had the opportunity to do so before. Didn't get to do everything I had wanted to do, but ended up doing a few other things that were not originally on my list so it kind of balanced out at the end.  I don't plan on spending my hard earned cash to visit the city again - but should it ever happen, there are definitely a few more places I'd like to check out. With a city as huge, old and innovative as Beijing - you will surely not run out of places and things to do and see. 

Itinerary - 

Day 1

• Arrived at almost 2 in the morning and froze my bum off waiting for a cab into the city
• Hopped into a hired car at 8 am and made our way out of the city for some site seeing!
• Cloisonné museum
• Great Wall (Mutianyu section)
• Lunch at some random resto out in the province - a bit dodgy but damn good food!
• Back in the city
• Coffee Break + Summer Palace
• Learned all about how to make silk 
• Drive by Olympic Village!
• Quick BBQ dinner (gah soooo goood) 
• Beijing Opera 
• Night cap with the girls at the hotel bar

Day 2

• Left hotel 10 min's before 8 to catch an 8 am Easter Mass.. only to get properly lost
• Found refuge (ie: breakfast!) at the Hilton
• Finally found our way to the Church - only to have JUST missed the mass :-/
• Peking Duck lunch
• Hutong Tour which included:
• Rickshaw ride around the area
• Drum and bell tower + performance at the drum tower
• Visiting a family living in one of the compounds
• Coffee break!
• Tried and learned all about Chinese Tea with a Chinese Tea master!
• 798 Art District
• Hot Pot dinner
• In the airport by 11:30, for my 2 am flight... which then got delayed till 3:30 :-/

Random musings, in no particular order:

• So excited to get up on the Great Wall, that I only realized when I was sitting in the cable car (think.. ski lift) on my way up: SHET. I AM SCARED OF HEIGHTS. 
• Beijing's MASSIVENESS never ceases to amaze me. Massive buildings, massive stretches of land, massive massive massive!!
• Getting a tour guide was the smartest thing we did. Primarily because it's so damn hard to make your way around, order tickets and even order food if you don't speak the language! Added benefit of course is the fact that you learn all about the China's history and your guide takes care of buying all your tickets and shuffling you about from one place to another. 
• Don't buy food at the Great Wall! I was so excited to try this one dish that (1) bought the wrong thing, (2) spent over 20x more than what it really cost!
• Food in Beijing is awesome
• Buildings in Beijing are amazing
• I will never understand why Asians love to collect all their phlegm at the back of their throats then spit it out
• I would love to spend more time in a country that experiences cold weather (though with how bitter cold can get, I know that'll bite me in the bum one of these days should that ever come true)

And as always, pictures pictures pictures:

Travel Munimuni

I was supposed to be on my way to Beijing yesterday evening. But Jetstar closed the flight so instead of flying out earlier, I opted to fly out tonight. Was livid at the time they moved my flight, but now, very glad it happened.

It's been really lovely to have a day to myself. It would've been awesome to wake up to stormy weather, but got my wish a few hours later anyway when it started to rain. In my effort to set routines and get enough sleep, I slept at midnight and got up at 8 am. Without the conscious effort, I would've been asleep by 3 am and up at noon! But yup, puttered around in the morning- cleaned, packed, did some work for the office, had breakfast, read, even napped! When I was done with my puttering, I was happy to realize that there was still so much of the day left! *squee*

I generally like flying out at end of a workday (ie: go straight from work to the airport), and used to do the same coming back in (ie: go straight from the airport to work). Traveling has always been such a sought after luxury for me that I like to maximise my time out. Explains why I generally like a full itinerary when I travel - especially on trips where you're visiting somewhere for the first time and you only have a few days to explore.

Not to say I don't like traveling less.. manically. I love it in fact - you feel well rested and you don't come back needing a vacation from your vacation. Alas, still so many places to see, and not enough time (ie: leaves!) in the year to do so!  In the meantime, will maybe try to bookend my trips with a little quiet time before jumping back into the daily grind.

Travel Gadget

I wanted one ever since I saw CCE's.

The only one I found in SG was a manual (thanks to Mom & Tima's scouring in Mustafa).  While a great help, a little more difficult to check if you're living by yourself.

On a flight back to SG from MNL, finally found an electronic one being sold onflight. I couldn't help it- I bought one.

More and more I prefer not to check anything in (1. my trips are quick so I don't need to bring too much, 2. it's the fastest way to get in and out of an airport, 3. i'm too cheap to pay the extra cost for check in baggage), so keeping things below 7 to 10 kg has always been a bit of a challenge (especially when you get 100 and 1 bilins to bring things home).  I guesstimated it in the past (yes - a weighing scale is one of many more things I don't deem as necessary to have at home), but with these little gadgets, I'll know right away.

Love little things like that this make your life simpler!

Just Because

Great 1st time around, fantastic the 2nd time around! nom nom nom

Seriously - i think if I wasn't doing what I was doing now, I'd be perfectly content taking pictures of food and new places I've visited. Then again, who wouldn't right?

You can never go wrong with lamb chops 

This was a chicken & pork dish - but special mention goes to the awesome red rice and the cinnamon saba!

I know i JUST posted this pic - but it was just divine. Sweet lamb tapa with scrambled egg drizzled in truffle oil & garlic red rice?! YUM! 

Tasty squid ink pasta. Al dente goodness!

This was heaven - truffle cream pasta

That it is! 

Jumbo red velvet cupcakes for the new graduates!

Called crispy milk but it's pretty much deep fried panacotta. SO. DARN. GOOD!

Crunchy on the outside, delicious on the inside!

March

March has been ridiculously mad - and by mad, I mean mad madness!

• Singapore-Jakarta-Singapore-Manila-Pamgpanga in 3 days!
• Destination Love: S & T's funtimes wedding weekend in Pampanga
• BBQ + night out dancing to old school tunes
• Manila again for R's graduation 
• Watching a great production with my siblings & tita + seeing L, M, J & A
• Warhol Exhibit + movie night with J & M
• Drowning in work + days running on 1-3 hours of sleep

It's been a mixed month - always happy and grateful for opportunity to travel and see family and friends, but reality and expectations at and from home can also be draining and stressful. Excited to be learning about new things at work, but accelerated growing of a never ending to do list is keeping me from enjoying it. Thankful for opportunities and the luxury to do different things on the weekends, but takes away from hours I could be resting! Especially since I really have had sh*t sleep recently!

So all in all I'm pretty darn tired. 

27 days left till I leave my 20s (sheeeet) and enter my 30s. I'm getting down to basics and focusing on me:

• Prepping for 2 upcoming trips in April - so they'll be more enjoyable than stressful
• Fixing how I run my day - which means upping productivity at work, getting appropriate amounts of sleep and scheduling in time to exercise
• Streamlining my finances so I can get out of debt sooner rather than later and get around to saving for me and my future

Ok well - reading that list again, parang that's my focus talaga this year and not just these last few day of being 29. But ya, you get the point - I think i've reached my peak stress levels this quarter so I need to dial it back. April doesn't look to be slowing down with the things that need to happen, but I'm hoping I can take it in stride, instead of being such a schlumpy and grumpy me!

Nothing like Pancake House comfort food

Quick breakfast with the family before heading out to Pampanga

Photo op with T&S; last night as singles

Beautiful set up at the church

The newlyweds!

At the reception

Happy graduation!

My delicious Lamb Tapa - one of many delicious things we had at Mamou

Quick coffee with some of  the original ACS kiddies 

Seeing the doggies is one of the top reasons I want to go home - stress relievers! <3

Don't usually fly during the day - so this was a nice site to see!

Dinner + "In The Heights" - awesome. Filipinos really are so talented

Chloe trying very hard to look like an inanimate object

I almost brought her back with me

All done with school!

Checking out the Warhol exhibit - i love museum design! Thanks  for freebie M!