Beijing Zoo

It's time to see Panda in Beijing. One of the things you must do in China : See Panda.. :)

I bought the Canal Tour Ticket with student price only RMB 25.00, including the main ticket, ticket to the Panda House and the ticket using boat.

The First Panda I saw... sleeping.. 

The 2nd one was also sleeping.. :(

The 3rd panda was also.. sleeping.. :(

but suddenly, the panda turned around.. even he was still sleeping.. oooh.. so cuteeeeee...

The other panda.. I don't know what he was doing, poo? :)

And after that, he suddenly move to the rock and sleeping.. Hahaha.. All panda was sleeping..

The most interesting in Beijing Zoo is when we saw all the carnivore was being feed, all of them, from Lion to Panther was eating their food.

五塔寺 Five Pagoda Temple

You can go sightseeing by boat inside Beijing Zoo, there are 2 boats there, the first one will take you one way to the 颐和园, and the 2nd boat will take you around and back to Beijing Zoo. I choose the 2nd one, and one of the trip is stop and go around at Five Pagoda Temple.

The Five Buddhist Image, you can see the different of the 5 images from the hand of the Buddha.

The one that really interesting for me and my friend was how the Chinese People do when they go to the zoo. One time, when we were in Panther Cage, the panther was sleeping, but one of the chinese man shout really loud and shout the fake "aummmmmmm.." so the panther became aware. Not just us who think that it's weird, the other foreign guy also said "WTH he was doing?"

And in the Crocodile Cages, this is really mean.. The mother and daughter throw stones to the crocodile, when the crocodile was sleeping. Oh My God! If there is no cages, I bet the crocodile will go to them. And everybody else was also watching and laughing. Mean!! And in the end, both said "好玩儿！" It means, "It's fun!" Yeah, for you, not for the crocodile.

洛阳

龙门石窟 Longmen Caves is one of the UNESCO's World Heritage List . There are many caves with Buddha Statue inside. From the big one to the small one. 

少林寺 Shaolin Temple, go around Shaolin Temple, from watching the shaolin performances, then sightseeing the temple, and last, saw the Pagoda Forest.

I thought both trip Luo Yang and Xi An was good, I know we just have 3 days sightseeing in 2 different town, even my friend so surprised why we just spend one day at Luo Yang. But still, I'm satisfied, and lucky we don't get tricked by bad travel agent. 

Lost in Beijing : The Movie

Nope, it's not movie from my blog, hahaha..

But it's a Chinese Movie, called "Lost in Beijing", starring Tony Leung and Fang Bing Bing. The Chinese title actually is 苹果, it means apple, and the name of the main character.

The story is about Liu Pingguo and her husband who moved to Beijing, from North East of China. Liu Pingguo work as foot masseuse and her husband work as window cleaner. One time, Liu Pingguo drunk and passed out in her boss office. Her boss, starred by Tony Leung, suddenly saw her and then rape her, while Liu Pingguo's husband accidentally saw.

Soon, Liu Pingguo discovered that she is pregnant.

Honestly, I am not yet watching it, and from wikipedia, it is said that the movie was banned because of the material inside, about blackmail and rape in modern day. But the movie already had it's international premiere in Berlin Internation Movie Festival 2007.

西安

We had holiday from 14th to 16th of June, for Dragon Boat Festival. But before holiday, we had class in saturday and sunday.... :( But, well at least we will had holiday, and also I skip class on thursday and friday, because I went travelling with friends to Xi An 西安, and Luo Yang 洛阳. 

On Tuesday, 15th of June, we went to Xi An 西安 by train. It was the 2nd time I'm using sleeper train in China.

It was took about 14 hours to reach 西安, arrived in the morning, we directly continue to had a trip around city. The first place to go is HuaQing Hot Springs, it was the imperial bathing pool, and has been built for thousand years a go. It was said the Tang Emperor XuanZong built the bathing pool for Lady Yang, and spend the winter there.

The private bathing pool for Lady Yang

On the same place, there was memorial place for the "Xi An Incident", which had Nationalist Party and Communist Party involved, which also located there.

The highlight of trip is of course 兵马俑, the Terracotta Army, the soldiers and horses statue who build thousand years ago, and none of the soldiers have the same face. 

The place was so big, I never imagined it will be that big, and some places was still not complete researched yet and it's believed many pits still waiting to be discovered. The statue actually have coloured before, so it must be beautiful and luxurious when it was back then.

The 2nd day trip, we visit The Goose Pagoda, next to the fountain. Ok, I will admit that we have Chinese Guide, and with our basic chinese, we can't really understand what she was said. When we went to the Pagoda, what was in our mind was why she took us here, it just big fountain park. And after searching, that Pagoda behind it was the truly main attraction. 

It was said the pagoda was built as big library contained many books from India, and had successfully translated by one monk, who journey from China to India. (When I read these, I can't help but imagine the famous story of "Traveling to the West", about one monk travelling to the west with help of 3 friends, including monkey king. )

The 2nd tourism object was City Wall of Xi An, it was looked like defensive wall in Historic Chinese Battle, completed with many defensive weapon used then.

 

The last, we went to the local market, and we met local muslim people. It was the first time I saw Chinese people whose muslim. In Indonesia, Chinese was identical with Buddhist or Christian. 

IKEA 宜家家居

I never been to IKEA Store in my life, before Beijing. In Indonesia, there is no Ikea Store located, I think simply  because Indonesian people don't live with minimal lifestyles or like the mass produced furniture, they like the one uniquely made or luxurious looked like, (like my father..). 

When I moved to my new house, I simply designed new wardrobe, inspired by IKEA, but still the wardrobe was not made 100% like I wanted it too.

Well, go on.. I thought IKEA located very far from WuDaoKou, since all my friends said it's too far, but one of my friends also said we can reach IKEA by motoche / electric bike , so it should be not that far. Long story, My friend accidentally know the bus who can take us to IKEA. So one afternoon, we took bus 656 to 望和桥东，then continue journey with bus 628 to 望京桥东, it tooks about 20 minutes to 30 minutes. Not that far..

Well actually, we lost first, because when arriving at 望和桥东, my friend not confidence if it was the right places, since there was no IKEA seen on 望和桥东 so we continue the journey 1-3 more stops before getting off, and ask for directions. The fact it was true, and we still need to walk straight along the road, or take bus 628.

The reason we went there, simply to window shopping and eat dinner..

I never been to place where it's so crowded and many peoples using the display furniture to relax or even sleep on it, I don't have the pictures myself, but these one I've got from the internet.

photo by : David Pierson/LA Times, 'Beijing loves IKEA -- but not for shopping'

From the article, you can see that many Chinese People come not for shopping, but try the furniture and using it like it was their, I also love IKEA, and I came simply for the food and window shopping, but I never imagine to use or even sleep on it..

World Park

Want to go around the world in Beijing?

Taj Mahal

Candi Borobudur, Indonesia

Is is true? Hahaha..

Pisa Tower

New York Replica, with Black Liberty and Small WTC

Eiffel Tower

I thought the park is beautiful and interesting, but I'm so disappoint with the management, they don't really take care of the park. The lake was dirty and the small theme park with rides was closed down. You can see from the benches, and the statues, for example the liberty statue, it should be green blue, but it was black.. :(

How I got there? I took subway from WuDaoKou to QianMen, then took bus 特7, from QianMen to World Park. Maybe you can find the better route, since it was took almost 2 hours trip from WuDaoKou to World Park.

798

Do you love arts? These are the places, you need to visit when in Beijing..

In these places, you can find many art galleries, small shops selling many unique things, from paintings to clothes. When I went there, there were an event, called "Round Trip, Beijing - New York Now", there were art collections from many artists around the world. The event are held from May 30th to July 4th.

798th Street is a big place, the place is divided to 6, from A to F. From Wudaokou, I took subway and get off in San Yuan Qiao 三元桥， then took bus 401 (if i'm not mistaken) and went to Da Shan Zi, 大山子路口南.
From the information I've got, you also can take bus 410/402/405/418/813/909/944/988/991.

Even along the street, you can find something unique, see the picture below..

The buildings are looked like some kind of old factories that has been renovated and reused as art galleries. You will definitely love these places, if you interested with arts.