A few hours left 'til the sun's gonna rise
Tomorrow will come and we’ll soon realize
It’s time to savour, our final ovation.
Just one last dance,
Before we say goodbye.
Monday, April 14, 2008 { 5:48 AM }
14 nov.

We met our tour guide – May 姐 – and then went for some horrible breakfast. Okay it wasn’t that bad, at least not the worst meal during the trip. Saw the first sign of pollution too, imagine a chimney right behind a hospital. Totally laugh out loud.

Headed off to Grand View Garden (大观圆) and was obviously not accustomed to the coldness since we just got away from the Singapore heat.

The Grand View Garden is located at Xuanwu District, in southeast Beijing. It was built in 1984 and construction lasted five years. Unlike other such gardens, it was not built as a private or imperial garden, but as a site for the making of the TV series, A Dream of Red Mansions (红楼梦).

A Dream of Red Mansions is one of four famous Chinese novels, the others being Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin and Journey to the West. This important literary work, written by Cao Xueqin, follows the tragic love between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, and depicts the entanglement and conflicts between the father and the son, the brothers, wives and concubines, masters and servants. The saga depicts actual circumstances of the nature of a feudal society. In the novel, Jia Yuanchun, eldest daughter of the Jia family, is conferred as Yuan imperial concubine, and an extremely luxurious garden is built for her to live during her visit, hence the garden becomes the site where the tragic stories unfold.

The real-life garden occupies an area of 13 hectares (32 acres), a truthful representation of the fictitious extraordinary garden. Charming pavilions, twisting cloisters, thriving trees and flowers and lakes with clear ripples make up this dream-like place.

http://www.beijingtrip.com/attractions/grandview.htm


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Got some mineral water thing with a very unique name. -.^

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After which we went for lunch at some steamboat place where apparently everyone liked except me. I hate steamboat to the core because 1) it’s so much of vegetables – I don’t take any, 2) to hell with the fire – I have this phobia. So I was stoning down there with this sad face, emoing silently to myself...

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And then we headed to Temple of Heaven (天坛). It was SO crowded.

The is a complex of Taoist buildings situated in southeastern urban Beijing, in Xuanwu District. The complex was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest. It is regarded as a Taoist temple, although Chinese Heaven worship, especially by the reigning monarch of the day, pre-dates Taoism.

The temple complex was constructed from 1406 to 1420 during the reign of the Yongle Emperor, who was also responsible for the construction of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The complex was extended and renamed Temple of Heaven during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor in the 16th century. The Jiajing Emperor also built three other prominent temples in Beijing, the Temple of Sun in the east (日坛), the Temple of Earth in the north (地坛), and the Temple of Moon in the west (月坛). The Temple of Heaven was renovated in the 18th century under the Qianlong Emperor.

The Temple of Heaven is a now very popular park for exercising, and particularly for practicing taiji bailong ball, which is a paddleball variation of Tai Chi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Heaven



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Dropped by at some deserted street after that, used to be some business/trading place. Nothing much now already, just that it looks like a pretty good place to model for emo pictures. -.-

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And then some acrobatic show, it was pretty good although they screwed a bit. And I slept a little cause I was too tired rofl. The auditorium sucked, must be around a hundred years old?

After the show ended we went to have dinner at some 皇帝餐 where they apparently served meals that emperors ate...SUCKED big time. Although the appearance and all was good – deceiving. And there was some Cixi’s favourite desert which I spat out as soon as it entered my mouth, like how come Cixi has such horrible taste zomg.

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Called jianyang when I went back to the hotel without knowing I had to pay. -.- And then I bathed, read and slept. :D

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I LOVE THE FREAKING 5-STAR HOTEL.