Hi all, Here are some selected photos from my trip to Beijing. My girlfriend and I backpacked there and travelled around entirely by our own, using only the Rough Guides travel book and some maps I printed from the Internet. It's fairly easy to travel provided to speak some Mandarin - otherwise, getting message through can be quite tough. Common words like `bus', `metro' and `taxi' is surprisingly not common at all over there. I borrowed my bro's DSC-F717 for the trip and it did wonders to the pictures I took. It was equipped with 2 512MB Sandisk Memory Stick Pro. 1GB may seem a lot but when you're in Beijing, everything's so huge, you gotta take 3 or 4 shots per scenery. I used Photoshop to slightly adjusts the contrasts and brightness of the pictures and resized it to a more manageable 1024x768 resolution. Other than that, the picture's pretty much what I took on the camera. The pictures here are in no particular order. 01 Sunset at Yi He Yuan (Summer Palace) - I love this shot. The shot was taken at 4.59pm local time in Beijing (GMT +8 - same as Malaysia) by the lake of the Summer Palace. I tried to get a second shot by the bridge but I couldn't. It took only a minute for the sun to set behind the mountains after this shot. 02 A typical scene at Summer Palace - The buildings are beautifully constructed amidst the huge rocks and sets a very mystical feeling. 03 Nite shot at Wanfujing - This is the famous Wang Fu Jing street; somewhat like Bangsar and it's catered mainly for tourists. Here, you can find branded goods (which is pretty scarce in China), souvenirs and lots of food outlets. This picture is basically one of the back alleys where you can find the local food on display. 04 Live scorpions - Yup... you read me right. The scorpions are still alive. I think if you purchase one, they'd cook it and fry it for you. You can find fried grasshoppers and starfish for sale as well. 05 Ducks at Beihai Park - Peking ducks!! Yumm, yumm... except that this is not for eating; or is it? 06 On top of Jinshang Park overlooking the Forbidden City - Now, here is a top view of the Forbidden City. It's a huge place that took me about 6 hours of walking time to cover only 3/4 of the place. 07 Locals fishing at the lake in Summer Palace - The title says it all. 08 Nice shot overlooking the Great Wall - Me and my girlfriend on the Simatai Great Wall. It takes about 3 hours by highway from the city center to get here. We started climbing at 5.15am in the morning with 3 other French tourists. It was freaking cold and pitch black. This shot was taken on the way down from the top and it was about 10am then. 09 Sansan at the Simatai Great Wall - I thought this was a very interesting shot. She was waiting for me at 1 of the watch towers and with my camera ready to shoot, I aimed and took it. 10 Peking University lake - I was at Peking University to visit one of my friend whom I met in Poland 2 years ago in a project by UNDP. This is one of the lakes found in the University. She's now in her 2nd year doing her Masters in International Relations. 11 A pelican in the Beijing Zoo - Yup, there were Pandas there but more interesting was this one. I like how this picture shows the Pelican in motion. 12 A Hutong alley near Zhu Shi Kou - This is the famous hutong alley found in China. Houses were like that a long long time ago... 13 This bowl of noodle costs only RM1.90 - Yup!!! It's only 4RMB! Food is so cheap there but entrance fees to places of interests are exorbitant. To give you an idea, to enter the Forbidden City, I have to pay 60RMB per person which is about RM30. In summer, it's 120RMB which is about RM60 per person! 14 Nice shot of a rose at Temple of Heaven - This is a no big deal shot... amateurs like me take shots like this but I thought it's nice to share a Rose with everyone... 15 Couples dancing to tunes in a park - Yup... Chinese people in China are pretty expresive in their own ways. You can find people dancing, practising Tai Chi and Singing in parks! Cool! 16 A full stretch by an old lady - Wow!!!! 17 Japanese students admiring the artwork of a local writing chinese characters on the floor - I have no idea what he is writing... but it looks cool... 18 My girlfriend with the backdrop of the greatwall - I like to take shots like this... soft background with a strong object in the front. She wasn't posing and I had to be really quick with my camera. Again... bravo to F717! 19 Chinese Acrobatics - An astonishing 1 hour performance. They have performances everyday. I expected it to be not authentic but I was surprised. It was really good and they made some small mistakes here and there which really made the show even more interesting. 20 Inside the metro - This is how their train looks like. You pay the same fare regardless of which station you stop at. Changing to a different line will be charged accordingly. 21 Family enjoying the Koi garden in Peking University - Aww... that's so sweet. 22 Clean street - Really... Beijing is a very clean city despite people still spit (A lot!!) I hope you enjoy the photos. If you're going on a similar trip, do let me know. I can extend out some tips that might be useful. Regards, Jason Wong
Haha... thanks a lot! I went to the Great Wall. I went to the Simatai part - it's considered as one of the most authentic part of the wall has not been restored (unlike the heavily restored part at Badaling - where all tour groups go to) Sure! Go ahead... glad you like it.
Damn those pictures are awesome and given the right reason, I wouldn't mind crunching on those little suckers. ERMM! If I'm not mistaken, the writings on the floor was accomplished with water which explains the missing/partly completed characters.
Yeah, he has the "touch"! Damn.. Jason, I think Dad picked you out from the dumpster or something. How come I don't have the same "touch"?
Haha... the camera itself did lots of wonders I guess. Thanks bro for the camera!!! I wonder how my pictures would have turned out if I had rely solely on the Nikon Coolpix. Toilets? There are toilets everywhere now in China and it's all free to use. Surprisingly, they are all pretty new and modern (with marble tiles) - read 9th November's Star papers on Beijing Perspective - Beijing is now preparing for some Toilet convention or something like that, hence the beautiful toilets. For some reasons though, they still stink from a mile away (even the new ones). You can always sense when you're coming near a toilet. They would prepare a waste paper basket beside every toilet bowl. After you clean your ass with the tissue, you throw it in the waste paper basket - not the toilet bowl because it'll get stuck after the flush. Somehow, their flush system is simply water gushing out to the bowl, washing down your shit into the hole - it doesn't have the power flush like we do here So, if you put in the tissue paper, your shit will get stuck. I know - I did that twice (in the hostel's toilet)... and the 2 days of stinko pooh/shit + tissue was still there in the toilet bowl on the 3rd day!!! Yeah! Of course I have pix of panda's! Tell you what, later I'll post a few more pictures up. I understand that not everyone of us here have broadband. So, I'll use the forum's attachment to upload the files and you'll get to view the thumbnails first before deciding if you want to view the picture in full resolution.
Okay, here are some more pictures... I'll upload 5 at a time. As requested, here are some pictures of Pandas as well. Pic 01: This is the Panda from Beijing Zoo - They look dirtier in real life than in picture. I sure hope the Zoo is taking good care of them. Pic 02: Another picture of a Panda. Pic 03: This is a picture of the inside of a watch tower at the Great Wall. Pic 04: A nice view of the Great Wall from the top. The Great Wall stretches along the mountains and it look really impressive from the top. It makes all the greatest structures in the world seem like nothing at all. Pic 05: Here is a picture of a street at Zhu Shi Kou. You can see all the buses lining up. Traffic jams can get pretty messy. That's why a lot of people are still using the bicycle and they even have a dedicated lane for bicycles... More pics coming up soon!
