Beijing rendezvous

Was thinking on how to pen my first word on this, “Beijing here we come!” or “It was a hell of a trip!”, or so I think. Didn’t really like d first one but thought d latter wouldn’t weigh any better so I’ve come up to just make an ordinary entrance to this one. No, not gonna set off firecrackers or something, just a report on how things fared.

Pre Day 1: Mas Airline

Got up to an early plane, it was 12.30am Tuesday and didn’t manage to sleep well in there, you wouldn’t expect me to have enough sleep before d flight would you? Was dressed up in partial casual-formal, hoping to have a comfy ride and at the same time doesn’t look bad when someone pick us up. In an upbeat mood we lifted off to Nosejing. Thought you can actually get some sleep after all the boarding proedures? Wrong. Soon after taxing, the lights were up. “Would you like some late supper sir?” she said. “Yes, would you please gimme a loaf of bolster and 2 piece of pillow pls? I need some sleep and oh, you’d do me great favour if u switch off d lights and do us good.” I thought. “Yes, please.” And I replied.

After grabbing that polystyrene-packed bread w/ vegetable + fruit and placed them at the seat beside me, I shifted into sleep mode. But wait, your flight wouldn’t be complete without MAS’ signature Orange Juice. WT!@# wouldn’t you guys just leave us alone, or bring all things at one go? afterall it’s midnight, don’t you guys feel drowsy, or u’re just plain nocturnal??! Reminds me to a movie which I’m dying to see, a sequel to Twilight. Okay, back to orange juice. After d drink, I quickly settle myself for a dozing position. Mind you, the airplane engineers’ job is to care for passengers’ safety and, of course, to make things fly. These ppl don’t give a hoot about your backbone, or to the least the comfort of its poor boarding passengers. And so u’re up on a highly sophisticated man-made wonder but at the same time dealing with really shitty seats. Man I’d pay the engineers to actually seat on their own creation and fly from East to West and not hear them whine!

It was almost 2.30am when Part 1 saga ends, ensuring a relatively quiet rest time till about 5am but I reckon none of us will have d luxury of resting well under the above-mentioned circumstances. For once I even thought the turbine next to me(attached to the plane’s wing) was powered by those pasar malam generator. Had to use a headset and turn on to preset channels to ‘immunate’ myself to those horrendous pollution. Not sure about others but it works on me~

5am, early breakfast time, wasn’t allowed to incline my seat so I’ll have to seat up straight, and that didn’t help in my much needed appetite to gobble up chicken gravy rice w/ condiments w/ orange juice w/ tea/coffee. For the record I wasn’t even in the mood to open my mouth, I’M SO D@MN SLEEPY!!! Okay la, since I have to sit up right, might as well clean up the plate for them. Not too bad a meal I must comment, noting that there’s nothing much you could ask for being at 39000ft above your nearest Ramli shack.

The plane arrived on schedule and we went down only to find there’s little difference between Nosejing and Genting,

Nosejing- you pay loads of $$$ n travel 6 hours to feel the coolness of its breeze

Genting- A 1-hour drive but still costs you loads of $$$ should you really use its ‘money washing facilities’ there, but the cool weather is compliment from Genting.

Day 1 - Arrival

We managed to check-in to a hotel which is located next to China’s national stadium, aka The Nest and next to it the national water sports centre, aka The Bubble. Just a stone throw away is the 7star PunGu Hotel. From afar, it resembles the shape of a whole dragon- from head down to its tail. Really majestic I must say. And we spent the evening at a steamboat restaurant nearby with the hosts. The food has nothing to be bragged about, but we had been a little bit spoilt for white wine. -56% alcohol- it reads, n my mind reads, "Holy sh!t, you gonna be kidding me! I ain't gonna push that down my throat, i might actually catch fire!!!" Lol in the end we ended up emptying 4 bottles of it... no, i have nothing to do with that.

The Nest

Bubble - *where laundry was done*

7-star PanGu Hotel

(See its resemblance of a mystical creature?)

The Nest At Rest

PanGu in Bubble bath!

(Bubble in blue light, underneath)

Day 2 - Banquet

Early morning we were urshered to the Ballroom cum Conference Room. The scene was more like UN than meeting, with people coming from greece, US, africa, korea, pakistan, india, indo, france etc. Well, glad to make friends from around the world. And then at nite, the banquet! Again, the tiny lil' glass for white wine was sitted right next to red wine glass. Felt like there's a butterfly in my stomach, n this time a little idea pops up. "Excuse me gu niang, can i have a glass of pai kai sui ma?" (In China, it's dead-wrong to call a lady xiao jie, since xiao jie is mostly associated with an occupation rather than addressing someone). You're either asking for trouble by calling that or you're not asking for water at the first place. And so we had a great nite there...

Next post: Hotel: the insider story and Day 3...