A Smoggy Day in Beijing

We’ve been in Beijing last weekend and here are a few photos taken there.

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The Forbidden City

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The White Pagoda

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The Nest

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The Bell Tower

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A Park

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A View from The Bell Tower

I cannot remember how many times I’ve been in Beijing but this is by far the worst weather condition I’ve seen there. The sun was shining brightly and the temperature was relatively warm for Spring but boy, it was so smoggy! As you can see in the pictures, the air is much polluted. Everything which is 10 meters away is hazy.

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This picture is taken from a short distance. ;-)

We’re Leaving on a C-Train

We’re leaving for Beijing later in the evening but not without having dinner in our favourite restaurant Sol Latino. Tonight, I’ll get the chance to take photos of the place and perhaps I can thoroughly write about it next time.

Becuase we are unlucky to get hard sleeper tickets instead of soft sleeper tickets, I’ll bring my own sheets so we have something to use in the train. That’s additional weight in my baggage but I would like it more to use our own sheets than what is available in the train. Don’t ask me why.

If Marcus won’t bring his laptop then I will bring mine even if it is 10 times heavier than his laptop. I won’t mind the weight. Better to carry a heavy load to go to Beijing and back than not being able to visit my blogs for days.

By tomorrow, we will be there.

It should be nice.

Hard Sleeper

I went to the train ticket office yesterday to buy some tickets for our upcoming Beijing trip. I was meant to buy four roundtrip soft sleeper train tickets. The idea was Marcus, Daniel, Anne and I will be travelling together in one cabin. That would be fun.

Unfortunately, soft sleeper tickets are sold out so I don’t have any choice but to take the best from what was left and that would be top bunk hard sleeper tickets. I told the awful news to my travelling companions but they said that though they are not eager to sleep on 3-storey bunk beds in an open cabin with strangers, they think they can do it. So we’ll proceed with our tickets. Rescheduling or upgrading to plane tickets is not an option.

The European men assured us that it would be ok and that they are ok with it but I can bet my sexy ass that they will frown and complain more than Anne and I. When I learned that there are no more soft sleeper tickets available, I called them first to confirm if they want to go with hard sleeper tickets because I know that they won’t be comfortable sleeping in the same room with strangers. (I would like to add a lot of adjectives before the word stranger but I might be offending the most populous race so I won’t)

Well, good luck to us. When I am out of this country, I’ll probably say more but right now, I’ll stay quiet.

Filipino Things my Austrian Husband Likes

He likes…

1. Jolibbee’s regular burger
2. Jolibbee’s chilli con carne burger
3. Kapeng Barako (native coffee)
4. Tupig ( a rice powder, coconut and sugar kind of cake wrapped in banana leaves)
5. Kakanin (rice cakes)
6. Rebosadong Calamares ( Calamari Fritters)
7. Mango Shake
8. Passenger Jeepneys
9. Private Staineless Jeepneys
10. “Home made” vehicles
11. Barbecued Pork Chop (my dad’s secret recipe)
12. Crispy Pata
13. Lechon
14. Tocino
15. Cockfighting (he doesn’t like to bet, the cockfighting atmosphere just amazes him)

There should be more but I can’t remember them. This is all I can say, it wasn’t just me who had a good time in the Philippines. Marcus had some real fun too.

Ice Ice Baby

So here’s my second entry for this day and it’s about yesterday’s exhausting but cool trip to Harbin by bus full of Marcus’ colleagues and their girlfriends. I could have uploaded more pictures but I guess it would be too much so here’s my selection:

Lovely couple in the cold cold cold city of Harbin

Fabulous Ice Sculpture Park

Europe Influenced Chinese Street

Harbin’s Ice and Snow World

The World’s most kitchig (kitchy) place

My Love

Frozen Fishes