Good Morning, Beijing~!

Which part of Beijing did we stay? Both of us have no idea. We can read the map but if you look at Beijing's map, it seems like Beijing's map was so much more complicated than studying the world map. We had no idea which part of the world were we at neither do we know where the metro station was. We reached our hotel at 1:40 a.m. and we had to wake up early and get ready to leave at 7:30 a.m. I was wondering where the restaurant was so that we could have our breakfast. When I woke up, my question of where to go for breakfast was answered with someone rapping on the door. Beijing people have weird Chinese accent, like every word was staccato-ed. I saw a trolley with lots of oily plastic bags and when she asked how many people, I said two and the lady shoved me two oily plastic bags of food. I thought it was such good room service until Pinky told me that's our breakfast. You see, I don't like to waste food, but Beijing food was just so horrible that I had to apologize to the food for dumping them straight into the dustbin. There was something totally different with the egg. I'm a chicken and egg-lover so I'm very sensitive when these two dishes were spoilt. That was just hard-boiled egg but it tasted so powdery and it was hard to swallow. I almost choked on the dry egg. The 'siao long pao' my my... the ingredients stank like some dead animal found in a pitch dark hole. They used too much chives and I can't stand the smell and was that pork inside or some other kind of meat? We were suppose to hurry up and get ourselves ready so that we wouldn't be the last one to board the tour bus. Pinky asked me to open the hotel window at the side to test the temperature. Wow... I didn't know I'm a thermometer. I haven't have a glimpse of Beijing, the capital city of China. To my horror, I was staring at a big pile of rubbish. Don't they have rubbish bin to throw it in. Penang is so much cleaner than this. We have the metro train map with us but we didn't where we were at that point of time. Anyway, we were joining the tour group, paid for it, so we wouldn't be walking the massive city on our own. But you know us, we are very good in exploring on our own. I have no skills in taking orders and following instructions and Pinky just loved to walk around to get familiar with the surroundings. It took us half an hour to dress up. I have my leopard-furry-tights inside, a thick woolly half-leg covering, my woolly socks, my new furry boots, Judz' sheep long sleeves, my paper thin t-shirt, a woolly jacket and that thick insulated red jacket, the woolly bright red scarf and Loki on my head. I have no vocabulary to describe winter wear. Pardon my woolly description. I only know that Malaysia is 365 days hot, hotter and hottest. Loki is my American Facebook friend's husky and because I have no access to Facebook and I miss my little doggie at home, I bought that furry friend on my head to cover the losses that I've felt. I don't care how much it cost, I just wanted it to feel at home. Pinky and I went out of the hotel building half an hour earlier. There were so many stalls selling piping hot paos and noodles. We wanted to buy some but we were afraid that the food was horrible then it would be a waste of money. Both of us carried very limited cash because we were reminded time and again by her mom not to bring too much cash. We were warned about the tasteless food in Beijing, how horrible it would be. I've tasted food that was not delicious back home but I didn't know that Beijing food was more horrible than that. I was fasting for the few days that I was in Beijing. I've never fasted before because I love food, but I just couldn't swallow anything, not even the white rice. The smell of the food wasn't inviting at all... I ran whenever I smell Beijing's food. At that point of time, I was salivating over Shunde's delicious cuisine and thanking God for Pinky's grandma for cooking such wonderful dishes. And I thank God for my ability to cook very delicious food, thank God that I'm from Penang, thank God that I don't have to live in Beijing or I would be stick-thin. The temperature in Beijing was 6-degree Celsius on the first day that we were there.