Jan 28 to Feb 7, spent my first ever winter holiday with Lovey. Due to CNY holiday, trains availability is really low, had no choice but to split the visits to parts instead of concentrating touring in one place then the other: Hangzhou-Beijing-Harbin-Beijing-Hangzhou.
(most photos are by courtesy of Lovey;
lovey's camera + my camera = less cacat photos;
haha!)
DAY 0 - Tue, 27 Jan 2009 - BeijingIncident:
Took train T31 from Beijing to Hangzhou, departure 1539, arrival (next day) 0629, hard seat
Expenditure: train RMB199, lunch and dinner RMB55
DAY 1 - Wed, 28 Jan 2009 - Hangzhou, Hangzhou to BeijingIncidents:
1. Must be alert at all times and trust own instinct when something is amiss - to avoid getting into danger(ous cab).
2. Met with Lovey finally at the Hangzhou Xiaoshan airport finally! YAY!!!! When lovey puts on his winter hat, he looks like Paddington bear, haha!
3. Hangzhou really has nothing much to see. West lake seem so big on the map...
4. Took train T32 back to Beijing, departure 2258, arrival (next day) 0748, hard bed. BED to straighten our bodies, finally!
Visited:
西湖West Lake ,
河仿街Hefang Street.
Expenditure:
Lunch RMB12, dinner RMB40, groceries RMB6.5, transport RMB57, train RMB660, luggage storing RMB20, map RMB4
DAY 2 - Thur, 29 Jan 2009 - BeijingIncidents:
1. Found a shop in Liulichang cultural street provides Chinese painting printing service at rather low price.
2. Lovey had gastric because I was blur with time and directions.
Visited:
琉璃厂文化街Liulichang Cultural Street, 西单Xidan
Expenditure:
dinner RMB36, groceries RMB7.5, transport 24
DAY 3 - Fri, 30 Jan 2009 - BeijingIncidents:
1. Cycled to Yuanmingyuan and Summer Palace.
2. Yuanmingyuan is nothing but ruined site, the good statues are all placed in places like PKU, etc, no knowing why. Interesting maze walk though.
the maze at Yuanmingyuan3. Climbed through rocks and bushes just to discover there's stairs in Summer Palace to the temple on the hill.
Visited:
圆明园Yuanmingyuan the ruinned garden ,
颐和园Summer Palace ,
北大Peking University
Expenditure:
lunch RMB43.5, dinner RMB78, groceries 12.6, transport 10, entrance fees 80, map 6, cards 30
DAY 4 - Sat, 31 Jan 2009 - BeijingIncidents:
1. Bought a pair of warming boots finally with lovey's help to bargain
2. Walking along the street of Tian'anmen Square is a pain in the ass as the entire road is fenced up, we walked for more than 45 minutes to finally found the entrance into the square, then walked for another 15 minutes to find the entrance into Tian'anmen. Duhh..
Visited:
Pearl Market,
天坛Temple of Heaven ,
天安门Tian'anmen Square
Expenditure:
Brunch RMB42.5, dinner 96, groceries 15.9, transport 32, entrance fees 55, winter clothing 153
DAY 5 - Sun, 01 Feb 2009 - BeijingIncidents:
1. Entered from 神武门Shenwu Gate of the Forbidden City, everything we saw was from the emperor’s angle first then the people’s view. The Forbidden City was very big.
Shenwu Gate
故宫Forbidden City 
special 角楼”corner building” (literally)
the ceiling of one of the buildings, with a dragon statue
frozen longkang with coins and notes that silly people thrown in to make wishes, together with wastes 
the emperor's view of the palace. Supposedly only the emperors can go over the dragon-carved part of the stairs, but times have changed – if the emperors see the two idiots crossing the bar just to take photo on the dragon-steps, they’ll definitely sigh
the commoners' view of the palace
emperor's chair where he attends to official matters
the view of Beihai Park from the palace2. We rented a bicycle for an hour. The bicycle is like toddler’s bicycle (with paddles at the front wheel), except that the front wheel was replaced by a skating blade, and an oval iron bar is soldered to the bicycle so that it stands on ice all the time. Lovey and I went on one bicycle, he fetched me first, then I tried to fetch him, and we both tried riding alone. It wasn’t as easy to move as a bicycle is on normal grounds – the riding surface is ice, so obviously it’s extremely slippery, you’ve to paddle hard and paddle a few times to get it started moving. It’s definitely not easy to push someone from the back, for the pusher will probably slip first, unless his/her shoes were very anti-slippery. Lovey had so much fun drifting and “making donuts” (drawing circle) on ice, from the video he looked like a little boy trying out his new bike, SOOOOO cute! We were the only crazy bikers who were moving on “high speed”.
Lovey making “donuts”2. Took train T17 to Harbin, departure 2126, arrival (next day) 0826, hard bed
Visited:
故宫Forbidden City, 北海公园Beihai Park (the white bell is actually a Lama temple)
Expenditure:
breakfast RMB20, dinner RMB89, groceries RMB22, transport RMB35, train RMB277+277, entrance fees RMB90, ice bicycle RMB30, luggage storage RMB20
DAY 6 - Mon, 02 Feb 2009 – Harbin, Heilongjiang provinceIncidents:
1. It snowed! Because it was cold enough, snow flakes actually fell down in the shape that we see in children's books! We were pretty excited about it and tried to take pictures, but the cameras won't zoom properly. After a few minutes of walking in the snow, we started getting annoyed with the snow as they flew directly into our eyes and nose and mouth.
2. Snow and ice surface (including ice sculptures) look white and inviting-to-touch, until you touch. We tried to sweep off the snow on an ice-sculpture ox, and our gloves were dirty after that.
Visited:
索非亚教堂St. Sophia’s Church, 兆麟公园Zhaolin Park
a beautiful church-like structure near St. Sophia’s
St. Sophia’s roof covered with snow
(imagination) lovey actually wanted to help dig big Mickey's nose at Zhaolin Park, so he used the fattest finger :p
Disney on Snow at night
Aladdin's ice palace. We rode the battery-generated moterbikes free for 60 minutes (seen at the entrance of Aladdin's) and were freezing...Expenditure:
breakfast RMB60, dinner RMB90.5, transport RMB14, entrance fees RMB75, hotel RMB118
DAY 7 - Tue, 03 Feb 2009 - HarbinIncidents:
1. Frost bite
space seats
motor sleigh
tyre slide-and-bump
Visited:
东北虎林园Siberian Tiger’s Park, 冰雪大世界Snow World, 防洪纪念碑
1.
the jeep released a live chicken on its top before this picture. later the bus drivers (whose vehicles we were in) raced to the "finishing line", i saw some tigers gave way to avoid being hit...
2.
RMB10 and you may feed the tigers with a strip of beef, RMB40 and you may play God to end a live chicken's life, RMB2000 and you end a live cow's life. We witnessed 2 chickens' lives being ended in a blink of an eye, the chickens struggled so hard... sigh, cruel reality.
3. lovey managed to take
a snapshot of the panther right after failing to hump a female panther - it just so happened! Next to the black leopard’s cage were white tigers, lion and leopards
4.
beautiful ice sculpture of a Chinese architecture at the Snow World5.
Harbin beer - actually better than Tshingdao beer and tiger's beer in terms of smoothness and bitterness, in my opinion6.
the longest ice-sliding we tried, also the coldest - the slide end IN a pile of snowMy whole head was planted in the snow as I glided to the end, within 1 second I had frost bites, felt like being slashed by a thousand knives, no kidding, it was that painful. I quickly got up, saw that lovey glided ALL the way up - as in, legs on top, head at the bottom, then glide down into face-up sleeping position again. After that we went to watch a rather boring ice-skating show and an animal circus. Lovey said he read that foxes are difficult to train or domesticate because of their wild nature. Other animal shows including cat show, dog show, pig show, tiger show, lion show. The circus was so small, the animals were's all that well-trained either, hopefully they don't get too much beatings in the process of their trainings. Hopefully.
7.
Flood Control Monument at around 8pmThere are firework sellers everywhere.
Expenditure:
breakfast RMB30, lunch RMB60, dinner RMB77, fruits RMB20, groceries RMB26, transport RMB112, entrance fees RMB375, hotel RMB118
DAY 8 - Wed, 04 Feb 2009 - HarbinIncidents:
1. Yuling’s sister’s friend Wang was so nice to send the ticket to us at the hotel at 7.30am…
2. Took train T18 back to Beijing, departure 2110, arrival (next day) 0831, hard bed
Visited:
none
Expenditure:
food RMB32, dinner RMB123.2, transport RMB25, train RMB544
DAY 9 - Thur, 05 Feb 2009 - BeijingIncidents:
1. Had the most expensive “let’s-con-the-tourists’” breakfast, had stupid homemade tofu RMB30 which is the mamak stall tofu but smells like smelly tofu, kampong chicken (with such long neck) RMB85, seaweed soup RMB39, 2 bowls of rice totaling RMB8, we were given a “discount” of RMB2, and on top of it given 2 bottles of mineral water “FOC”. Seen the most ridiculous “English menu” though.
2. burning lorry with pears
3. We took a (very old) cable car and climbed up to East Tower 8 then towards East Tower 1. Later we shared a flying fox to descend over the half-frozen stream, an absolutely wonderful experience!
5. promised to learn to make dumplings (and more, haha)
Visited:
司马台长城Simatai Great Wall, 奥林匹克公园Olympics Park
the amazing Great Wall
司马台Simatai Great Wall (the closer one in this picture) and 金三岭Jinsanling Great Wall (the further one) are connected by a suspension bridge. 
Simatai map
Simatai
on Simatai Great Wall
flying fox over the half-frozen stream from Simatai East Tower 8 to the entrance
Olympics 2008 Stadium - Bird's Nest
Water CubeExpenditure:
brunch RMB140, dinner RMB160, postcards RMB10, transport RMB260+40+28+14+24+30, entrance fees RMB60+100+70
DAY 10 - Fri, 06 Feb 2009 - BeijingIncidents:
1. Took train T31 to Hangzhou, departure 1539, arrival (next day) 0649, hard bed
Made a terrible mistake by screwing up the traveling time, left lovey all alone in cabin 12 while I went to cabin 7 to try to remedy, created unnecessary stress for myself and lovey, felt very very bad, sigh…
Visited:
Carrefour
Expenditure:
breakfast RMB50, lunch RMB55, groceries RMB204, transport 16, train 660+293(penalty)
DAY 11 - Sat, 07 Feb 2009 - HangzhouIncidents:
1. Had such long talk with lovey, about studying, about memorizing skills, about future…
2. Taxi driver – parked Audi – Toyota, another stupid taxi driver
3. Airport custom guard
4. Airport bus service
Visited:
Expenditure:
brunch RMB77, dinner RMB58, transport RMB51, “entertainment” RMB22, hotel RMB178
DAY 11b – Sat 07 Feb 2009 to Sun, 08 Feb 2009 – Hangzhou (alone)Incidents:
1. Will take train D310 to Hangzhou, departure 2008, arrival (next day) 0735, soft seat
Visited:
Expenditure:
transport RMB20, train RMB
Had a overall wonderful holiday with lovey, we were sad when it’s time to part to go back to our usual lives. Meanwhile looking forward to see each other again, we’ll try do our best to see where future leads us to.
Thanks dad, thanks mom, for allowing me to spend my holiday in overseas by myself.
Thanks lovey, for sharing such a great time, for your forgiveness (for my stupid carelessness of the train incident), for teaching me how to memorize, for teaching me how to use the exposure feature of camera, for giving me a hand along the steps of the Great Wall and more, for loving me so so so so much. For everything.
Tseren
snow!
the maze at Yuanmingyuan
Lovey making “donuts”
Disney on Snow at night
RMB10 and you may feed the tigers with a strip of beef, RMB40 and you may play God to end a live chicken's life, RMB2000 and you end a live cow's life. 
a snapshot of the panther right after failing to hump a female panther
