Disastrous Beijing Trip

A family trip to Beijing to fulfill mum's wish of visiting The Great Wall turns into my worst ever package tour experience.

5 days tour package booked through Apple Holiday
Flew by HongKong Airlines which has transit flights in HongKong before landing Beijing.
Apple Holiday's local partner for the tour is 北京友协国际旅行社有限公司.

Our transit flight from HongKong to Beijing was delayed.
Bad start, bad sign In fact out of the 4 flights, 3 were delayed. How punctual can HongKong Airline be?
This whole flying experience with them was so bad i had to send a complaint letter to them upon reaching home.
Other than flight delayed, the service from the crews were lousy and i'm talking about basis services like serving drinks and food.
It was worse than budget airlines frankly.

Let me introduce my tour guide from 北京友协国际旅行社有限公司, Ms Sophia.
Only 1 word to describe her: unprofessional.
Firstly, her commend of English is weak.
Very often, we have to help her translate whenever she wants to convey message to a family from Philippine within our tour group. At times, we even had to help Sophia translate the introduction about those tourist attraction sights to them.
On a daily basis, she will "remind" us we have to spend at those shops that she brought us to as they are the sponsors for this China tourism until i got flared up and got into an argument with her.
But during attraction visits, she kept her mouth shut tightly with very limited description of whatever we are seeing. Very often, she just kept walking infront of us holding her umbrella.
No phototaking stops unless we own-self took the initiative to go take photo then catch up with the rest of the group. She doesn't even turn around and checked if everyone is following closely behind her loh.
i strongly believed her role at the co. is sales not tour guide. Throughout the 3 full days, we visited 8 commercial shops.
Jade, 景泰蓝 cloisonne wares, silk, 北京同仁堂, pearl, foot massage medical products, jewellery & Chinese tea. I was super duper turned off by the time she brought us to the 4 shops. Anyway, because our flight was delayed, the only thing we could do upon reaching Beijing on the first day was to have Peking duck.
It wasn't the most famous 全聚德 restaurant but rather we were brought to 龙潭烤鸭店.
i can only say the roast duck stall at my house hawker produced much crispy and tastier duck.
i have no comparison with other Peking duck restaurant in Beijing as this was the only duck i had throughout my 5 days visit.
So sorry to say the 道地 Peking duck failed to impress me In between the very packed schedule of bringing us to the commercial shops, we managed to visit the following attractions:

The Great Wall of China
Basically we just climbing many many steps of stairs.
The steepness of the stairs remind me of Angkor Wat.
人是多到 it's impossible to take any photos without 路人甲乙丙丁.
Now that we have been to 长城 we are now 好汉 liao!
Ming Tombs
where 13 out of 16 emperors of the Ming Dynasty were buried.
To put it in simpler terms, it's a cemetery for the Ming Dynasty emperors.
i'm baffled why people take interest with visiting cemetery.
But it seems like a must visit in China. i'm reminded of the Xi An trip where i visited the Qing Dynasty cemetery. The museum within displayed some articles excavated from the tombs like crowns, ornaments, and utensils.
Beijing National Theatre
We were only brought there, viewed it from far and snapped a 到此一游photo.
i have no idea how it look inside and what's this place for.
Tiananmen Square
i learnt that within the Square, there is a Monument to the People's Heroes has been erected, the Great Hall of the People and the Revolutionary History Museum (now National Museum of China) were erected on the western and eastern sides of the square. Also can be found there, is a Mausoleum and a National Grand Theatre.
i learnt the above through wikipedia because sales person Ms. Sophia shared nothing much as we walked through the Square.

Forbidden City aka Imperial Palace
once the home of emperors of China.
It's just like a scene out of period drama. Think 环珠格格 or 金枝慾孽.
The crowd here was so scary for a moment i thought it's a public holiday.
Challenging venue to play hide and seek. The only memorable part about this place?
Oh! u have to jostle with the jam-packed crowd just to see how the interior of each 宫 looks like.
i was breathless and exhausted after the first bulldoze experience.
Summer Palace aka Imperial Garden
This 290 hectares plot of land served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi.
Very flashy lifestyle, no wonder she got China into deep debts under her control. this old man was writing calligraphy on the pathway using a mop looking brush
We also experienced Trishaw ride touring 胡同 and local old 四合院 local old 四合院 are traditional courtyard residences.
This 四合院 that we visited actually still has a family living there in a fusion style.
The decor and architecture are traditional yet the house is also well equip with modern appliances like hood & hob, oven, TV & aircon. The trishaw also brought us to this stretch of pubs along the riverside.
Very much like what we have here at Boat Quay.
In case u're wondering, no i did not have the chance to sit down and have a drink here.
天坛 Temple of Heaven
used for worshiping the heavens & prayer for good harvest during the Ming & Qing Dynasty.
Before reaching the main temples, u will first passed through a park and we noticed lotsa elderly idling their time there with all sorts of activities; tai chi, chess game, knitting, beading & gambling. another round of bulldozing to see what's the interior like at the main Temple my sis trying to 离开地球表面
After all the 老 koko attractions, finally a modern one!
Olympic Park where Bird Nest - National Stadium and the Water Cube - National Aquatics Center are.
Again, we only view it from the outside. No chance to see how it looks like inside. Kite sellers flying their kites high up to attract some monies from tourists Besides kite sellers, there are all kinds of street vendors there.
The most despicable among them must be those dressed in Disney characters mascots.
They took the initiative by dragging you to take photo with them and then demand to be paid.
All these without pre-informing. So many tourists were caught by surprised.
Watched an Acrobatic Show
Shopped at 雅秀 which looks like Platinum Mall in Bangkok & 王府井 street which is their equivalent of our Orchard.
Didn't bought any clothes.
Only 1 tripod for myself and some random stuffs as gifts for friends when i found something suitable.
Daily buffet breakfast at the hotel was so boring and predictable that i ended up having cup noodles with egg by the 3rd morning.
Every other meals are 10 courses meal.
Very wow~ until u see for yourself what are the dishes.
Chinese tea is a must
sweet & sour pork is a must
deep fried fish until very dry is a must
bland tasteless soup without any ingredient is another must
plus they can have solely fried onion 1 dish, solely fried cabbage 1 dish, solely fried capsicum 1 dish. *roll eyes* until the last dinner we had Coke & Sprite then we were all super excited and happy.
For someone like me who don't really fancy gassy drinks, i was happy to have that there and then!
That shows how deprived we were! And we tried their 糖葫芦 fruits version which was quite nice.
Sweet and sour so it's a nice combination. Unlike the traditional ones which is overly sweet. 1 last interesting thing to share, the hotel we stayed in changed the carpet in the lift daily.
This is the proof
To summarize, my flights were delayed, my guide was lousy, we had very limited time to shop and the food we had were nothing fantastic.
The only great thing of this trip was the weather.
Nice chill weather of about 18 to slight over 20 degrees but with sunshine!
Good for lomo!