Wednesday, 20 Nov 2024
After breakfast, we checked out from the hotel. Our train to Beijing is later at 2:26PM, so we had 1 place to visit in the morning.
We visited the Xi’an City Wall, which is the old city fortifications from the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE). It was further enhanced during the Ming dynasty in 1370 CE. The fortifications were huge, high up, and covers a large span of the ancient capital. There were people riding bicycles on the wall!
We entered a mini exhibition in the City Wall where there were photos and models of how the old city looks like (from Tang dynasty).
After we were done with the tour, we went for early lunch. It was quite chilly so everyone was quite hungry.
From the lunch place, Lina sent us to the high speed rail (HSR) station. The Xi’an North Railway Station (not to be confused with the Xi’an Railway Station) is dedicated to serving HSR. Typical of buildings in China, the HSR station is a huge.
I started to notice a problem with our HSR ticket yesterday. I told our travel agent in Malaysia (ARBA travel) that we wanted business class. The tickets they got us was an economy ticket. They didn’t inform us upfront that the business class tickets were sold out. Honestly I was quite upset about the whole thing as our expectations were different. We could have bought tickets at a different timeslot had they told us sooner!
Anyway, the economy seats was rather okay, and the whole journey took 4 hours 10 minutes.
When we arrived in Beijing, our local tour guide named Kenny picked us up. My initial impression was that he isn’t as friendly as Lina.
Kenny took us for dinner at Western Mahua. It was a halal food chain serving Uyghur food. I am beginning to get the sense that most halal restaurants in China are Uyghur type food.
As we started driving from the dinner place, I noticed another problem. The hotel that ARBA booked for us, Derreal Hotel, is way outside of the city centre, it is near to the old airport. Beijing is notorious for its heavy traffic which means a lot of time will be wasted in the car. This also became a problem on the last day as our departing airport is Daxing Airport which is located far south of the city.
We arrived at our lodgings, Derreal Hotel, one hour later. There was no mall or interesting shops in the immediate area. Honestly this would be the last time I ever let the travel agent book a hotel for us.
Related posts: China 2024 part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5
Imran Jaafar 