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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Beijing. Day 5 (Day 6 by itinerary)

Skiing day!! Woohoo!! So excited to be going out to a Ski Resort where we will get to ski although it's on man-made snow. So my parents also decided to try out the skiing and we got ourselves an instructor just for 2 hours. Can't learn much during this time but we probably wouldn't get anywhere if we didn't get an instructor. I suppose all the instructors there come from the North East, primarily Heilongjiang. The one we got has a regular job but comes to Beijing to earn extra from the winter skiing opportunities. Haiz, the things people do just to earn more money. It's so competitive in there, little wonder why they want to come out of China to work too.

It's quite fun chatting with them actually. Especially since the instructor we got didn't quite know about Singapore but he's all like we're all Chinese anyway! He asked me who the President of Singapore was, then decided he wanted to ask about the PM and then we finally figured out he was trying to ask about the Philippines and that terrible excuse of a President who smiles at people's tragedies (recall the hijack of the HK tourist bus and how el presidente handled it with a smirk?).

I was quite disappointed with the afternoon's itinerary. The main reason why I picked this Chan Brothers package was that it included a half day worth of free time for us to spend as we please. I had planned to being my parents to 白云观 (Baiyunguan) which is a rather important Taoist temple in Beijing. When we booked the package, we were told that we would fly in one day in advance due to flight timing of Jetstar. So basically I was given to understand that I would fly in today and tomorrow I would start the itinerary proper as opposed to SIA and Air China flights which start on the day they arrive. My SG tour leader said that was not the case and we were actually short on time to complete the itinerary and thus we could not afford the half day free time. I wanted to suggest that we give up the half day arranged for us after the skiing as that was when the half day was supposed to happen anyway but she was concerned about us leaving the group.

She suggested that we consider not joining on the Chengde leg or the Tianjin Leg instead but I felt my parents would prefer to go to those places rather than half day worth of shopping. Anyways, my mum decided that it was ok not to go to Baiyunguan and we could try to go another time so it was decided that we would stick with the group for the shopping.

Our original departure and arrival dates given when booking the package was 8th Dec depart SG. 17th or 18th Dec arrive SG. When we went for briefing the arrival date was confirmed as 16th. Seriously, Chan Brothers needs to make sure their sales guys know their stuff. If I had known that the half day was iffy... I might not have gone on this group. It's not even that cheap since you also have to add in the tips here and there and the expensive places they bring us to for shopping (think commission).

Anyway the rest of the day was just shopping. Boring.

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