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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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“Last day in Beijing... and looking forward to going home” |
THURSDAY 5/4 - Beijing to Singapore
Up 7.30am for shower/breakfast/emails and glad to add one "donated" Great Wall picture on the blog - it's from Scott, a Queensland teacher, who we met on the Wall day trip. The pic "yak hat and all" is likely to generate a laugh or two. We head out for a final bit of sightseeing - the ancient Beijing Drum Tower used to announce the time - well before chronometers were invented - via a complicated series of drumming messages many years ago. These days the performance for the tourists every half hour is offered by a costumed troupe of five drummers, vigorously banging some of the largest drums you are likely to see in the world. It reminded us a little of campanologists (bell-ringers) all contributing individually with exquisite timing to offer a grand corporate sound. We were also impressed with the ancient and intricate water-flowing brass timepiece which triggers every quarter hour the clash of small brass cymbals held by a Chinese "warrior".
We taxi home via one final shopping centre after a walk around the "hutongs" district - tiny lanes with ancient houses, all set on a north-south axis according to feng shui principles. The majority of the houses do not have private bathrooms or toilets, so there are lots of public conveniences in that area, normally discernible by the fragrance prior to sighting any signage! Sadly many of these ancient hutong communities are being ripped down to make way for ugly apartment blocks which the authorities deem to be more appropriate, but clearly much will be lost if some of these areas aren't preserved.
We call into a local bike shop where Mark drools over a shiny new Avant electric bike - very tempting at $240 but he passes up the opportunity much to Jan's relief - she couldn't see how it would fit into the overhead locker on the plane!? Another confession - we call to the golden arches for drinks and a pit stop before some more last minute purchases at the Sanlitun Clothing Market - using up some of our Chinese currency. Jacket, shirt, blouse and skirt, all duly haggled for and purchased - we taxi home c. 12.30pm for a quick bite of lunch with Graeme and Linda - one last photo call before we hand in our embassy security ID cards and hail a taxi for the 30 minute/67Y/$11 run to the airport. So just after 2.00pm we check in all okay - our combined backpacks weighing in at 37 kilos - any wonder we're feeling fit and trim! We read and sit and ponder while we down a coin-in-the-slot orange juice and snack on more peanut brittle, awaiting 4.00pm departure for Singapore.
A good flight - we watch "The Queen" which we haven't yet seen - and are impressed with the acting and excellent casting choices, especially the Tony Blair lookalike, and Helen Mirren is one of our favourite actors... the film is poignant for us as we were still in the UK in 1997. Diana's death coincided with Megan's 14th birthday and our final "farewell" day at Ilkeston United Reformed Church, so the emotions were flying high that day - the film brought back much of this for us - the many flowers in tribute, newspaper headlines etc.
We arrive in Singapore around 10.30pm - it takes about 20 minutes for the plane to taxi from the runway to the arrival gate - we then walk about 1km to the departure gate, go through stringent security checks and then it's time to board the 11.30pm flight to Melbourne. Feeling a little weary and ready for the second leg of the journey.
previous travel blog entry
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