We lost our camera on valentine’s day, and finally bought a new camera today! Digital camera in China is so much more expensive. I made a call to check with my brother and he said he paid like 600sgd for his Cannon powershot G9, and that was like 2 years ago. The same model was tag at around 4500rmb and the upgraded G10 was listed at about 4800rmb.

After spending lots of time trying to bargain for a better deal, we still pay a dear sum of 4300rmb for the G10. Ah, so expensive, but we really need a camera.

No more kiddie friendly visits today. Forbidden city and such were off my itinerary as they were too touristy and crowded. Plans were made to visit 雍和宫，国子监，孔庙 in the morning.

Well, 雍和宫 was the former residence of emperor 雍正 and birthplace of 乾隆 and was later converted into a Lama monastery. Bringing children to monastery or temple weren’t a relaxing experience. First, they architecture didn’t interest them, secondly, they simply couldn’t follow the instruction not too step on the 门槛 (doorsill)。Anyway, the children disrespectful behaviour of stepping on the doorsill did not annoyed the monks or the Buddhas, instead, a friendly monk who was on duty to change the 供品 (offerings) gave the 3 children present an apple each. Oh, that attracted lots of attentions from the people around. The guide then told me it is considered great blessing to receive the offerings.

Next stop were 国子监 and 孔庙 which were just a street away. They were so much deserted compared to the other tourist attractions around. I hope the children could absorb some of the positive elements present at these educational institution but they clearly didn’t. They were more interested in playing with the wooden plaques (for blessings) hung around the institution. Zeeyau was tired and complained of leg pain and 弟弟 kept wanting to touch the relics on exhibit. I had to flee the various rooms before getting chased out of the premise.

James finally joined us in the afternoon for the visit to 恭王府(Gong Wang Fu). The huge and beautiful mansion was definitely overcrowded with tourists. The show at the 戏楼 (theater) was too short, too commercialise and lousy, what a waste of time. There was a long snaking queue to touch something, should be something to do with fortune or blessings. We weren’t keen in doing that and left our tour group before the queue start and wander around on our own. Well, no guided tour, but at least we didn’t have to endure the guide rattling uninteresting information into our ears.

We ended our tour with a trishaw ride visiting the 胡同 (Hutong, small lanes) 四合院 around 什刹海 (Shichahai). Many of these traditional Beijing houses were undergoing renovation or restoration. It would be interesting to live in such houses, though the floor area seems rather small.

We booked a private tour guide to bring us around since the father was away on his business. The guide cost 300rmb per day, cheaper if we booked her directly instead of going through her company, but having an extra pair of hands to help shepherd the children around will help greatly.

1st day in Beijing and I thought I should entertain the kids first before boring them with temples, monuments and imperial gardens.  So our fist stop was the 北京动物园 (Beijing Zoo), got to visit the pandas! The animals in Beijing zoo are quite different from our rain forest theme zoo in Singapore. There was a quite a large number of various colourful fowl and birds, and the children seems to enjoy looking at the beautiful birds. The Chinese tigers look more magnificent from our Malayan tigers, but most of the big lazy cats (tigers, leopards, lions) were either sleeping or lazing motionless in their enclosures. A lot of walking was done, and the boat ride along the canal allow us a good rest.

The 2nd place to visit was the 北京自然博物馆 (Beijing Museum of Natural History) as there is an ongoing Woolly Mammoth exibition. I thought I could see the real, whole woolly mammoth. The big woolly mammoth on display turned out to be a replica, the real things are only the bones and the head. The kids weren’t too interested with the mammoth, so we make our way to the main exhibits at the main exhibits. They separated the two area and we had to purchase tickets to visit both areas, damn!

Anyway, the dinosaurs, animals, bugs and plants interest the children way more then the mammoth. Its funny that we just visited the real animals in the morning, and then looked at their specimens in the afternoon. Nevertheless, the children enjoyed the trip.

Believe it or not, we have moved to Shanghai for almost half a year and have never been visiting any places except 城隍庙 (Chenghuang Temple) and 世纪公园 (Century Park), and maybe a few shopping trips. It was either too cold or too wet (raining) or the father away for business trips during the weekends.

We have plan to visit Beijing but was postpone several time. I almost wanted to postpone this trip again due to the swine flu outbreak. Heck, China isn’t affected yet, at least not from what we known, so we made a last minute decision and bought the tickets to fly out tonight.

And after battling the horrible peak hour traffic for 1hr 30min, we finally arrived in the domestic airport just in time to check in. Beijing, here we come.

Should we start using organic food?

My sis has a friend who owns a pomela orchard in the southern province of China. During her visit to the farm, the friend told her pesticide and other chemcials are used generously in most Chinese farms. They practice that too, but have a few speical pomelo trees which spcifically cater to their own needs and the fruits are wrapped carefully to free them from chemcials.

He also told her that human waste are precious to the small scale farmers. He doesn’t need to spend money to engage companies to clear his sewage at home, the farmers would happily come remove all the dump and use them as fertilliser.

I was watching “The Toilet Man” on National Geographic channel and it was showing me exactly the same thing- farmers scopping free human waste toilets and apply them to their vegetable patches.

While I told my sis those human waste were all natural, the idea of having raw salad that might have been laced with them aren’t agreeable at all. So, either have the veggies coated with chemicals from the larger scale farmers, or have those fertilised with all kind of “organic” waste from the smaller scale farms.  Yupe, time to check out on the organic greens.