Peking - old palace
The room although old but yet remarkable. I had
a good night sleep and awaken up early at 5am. Everything was in order and the front desk staff was friendly enough to give them a 5 over 5.
We had pushed out by 7am and decided
to take slow walk of 1km to a branch of a famous snack shop. The Protect Country Temple shop was one of the oldest breakfast shops in Peking. They sold
a variety of food from main dish to desert. The taste was interesting and some
of the food that I had never tasted before. However we were still reluctant to order this green bean juice which was one of the classic of Peking. It was
made of fermented green bean leftover which smell and taste like spoiled food. It take "balls" to take it
Price was acceptable but yet after my tongue being
trained by food from the ghost island. I felt that it is just up to the
standard. There were better food that I have tasted back in the ghost island.
However we had also taken away some meat roll and
meat puff for lunch. We arrived at the meeting point and minutes later our guide
came. A middle age lady who could speak English. She led us into the palace and
started the tour. It was a 2.5hrs tour where we were introduced to history of
the old palace. The tour ended by 11 and we started our own wandering around
the palace.
The mainland treated it as old palace museum as
compare to the one on the ghost island. Frankly said, the main exhibition is
the building and not the collection. We were allowed to walk outside most of the building and only
allow to walk into some of the building which was decorated as exhibition hall.
We covered 80% of the assessable area by 3pm
Both of our lower limbs sore and we could
barely walk back to the hotel which was another 2km walk….
As we hit our room by four plus, everyone of us
was exhausted and we could only pace out for dinner after seven.
We headed to a mall and we had HALAL food for
dinner. 2% of the resident are Muslim and some of the signature dishes is HALAL.
We had Peking duck, Beile(prince) BBQ and other side order. Special meal and
very salty compare to what I usually eat. On the way back, we had grabbed a
load of sour milk as most of them were packed in a special small vase-like
bottle and Ving just like it.
The TnG epayment was the best compare to Wechat
payment. Straight forward authorization as simple as I use it in Boleh land. I was lucky enough to have some cash inside my PB account.
The area we were residing was previously
knocked as Prince Gong Mansion. The residence was previously owned and built by
a Duke who was the biggest bride collector in Qing dynasty. When the Duke was
arrested and his property confiscated, the big house and land was awarded to
the Prince Gong who later become the regent acting on behalf of the CiXi queen.
The area was abolished during the CCP ruled and converted to a shopping area
where a few shopping malls was erected around the area.
The market was cold and only some shoppers were
patronizing the area during Sunday night; it should be crowded with people but
yet it wasn’t.
The 1st day was filled with excitement and the
second day was another day of thrill as we had to travel to the major bus terminal
by 7am by MRT. With the help of Dianping app, I was able to find 2 shops to
stop by before we hopped onto the tour bus. One for breakfast and the other for take away lunch at the Great Wall.
Could our legs which was filled by lactate
survival another strenuous walk ? I couldn’t
bare to think about it….
Source:
Peking - old palace
