a stitching shot of the overall circuit from the top row of the grandstand. from the view, basically, i could see all other various sections of the circuit.
the chinese F1 grand prix stage.
couple of the F1 cars passing by the grand stand. i am still learning how to take best picture for fast sport. maybe an upgrade of the camera is necessary. hope the stock market will move up as fast as the formula 1 car... haha
picture with the car passing by...
when we reached beijing the next morning, we bought our return tickets just outside the train station. headed to the taxi queue. many private car drivers were touting to get us to use their transport but we declined as i know that the taxi cost to the hotel were only 15rmb max instead of 100rmb that those sharks were asking for. i should talk more about the behaviours of beijing people as i goes. taxi queue was long but the taxi comes once after another, so it was moving at a pretty decent speed. in 15mins time, we boarded a taxi. showed the taxi driver the address, he does not know how to go... i was very surprised. i called the hotel and handed the phone to the driver so that he can communicated to the hotel staff. i noticed that the taxi driver were rather rude to the hotel staff over the phone. my wife was in another taxi with two other friends and the same happened. beijing maybe a very commercial city but the civilization is not as good as suzhou.
a must visit in beijing, the Tienanmen (天安门) and the forbidden city right behind the mao zhe dong picture.
within the forbidden city. clockwise, starting from top right. a) keith posting with his china flag. b) this was where the emperor had his morning session with all his governors. c) pretty busy on a weekday. d) the big stone carving measuring 16.75m in length, 3.07m in width and 1.7m thickness and a weight of 200 tons.
the last emperor puyi love his bicycle given by johnson. for his convenience, he ordered that the door sill of various door be saw off. see green arrows in the picture.
the birdnest. very big in tv, but as i saw it, it is not that big that i expected. anyway, still looks grand and colorful. we did not purchase any entrance ticket as it was late and probably nothing much inside.
the cube, where the water sports were held.
look at the crowd queing for the slide up the greatwall. 人山人海. we went through at least 20 zig-zag to reach the slide. it was rather well managed because the queue only allow single person width. no cutting queue was allowed.
a smiling ah ma enjoying the queue. she is probably at least 80 but she looks very healthy. many chinese are very healthy because of the food and the way of life is. walk, walk and more walking...
this was the slide that i was talking about. the ticket is 60rmb for a return trip.
GREAT wall, GREAT friends, GREAT funs.
HS bought 10 wooden mobilephone accessory for his friends back in singapore. he requested the stalk owner to engrave the name on each of those accessory. that poor man... anyway, i understand from another friends in suzhou that we bought it at 3 times the price. look like we are being conned... the stall owner must be laughing to the bank after we left his stall.
this is the phone accessory that i am talking about. it has a very nice tong li drawing on each wooden plate about the size of 2cmx3cm.
wee turning for a picture while sir chua heading forward with his video cam capturing more live video.
these birds catch fish in the stream. their neck is tied with a string so that every catch the bird did, they were not able to swallow the fish. the woman would just squeeze the fish out from the birds.
the white tree. can't remember what it is called.
one of the many gardens in tong li. we visited at least 4 of these gardens. these gardens were stayed by wealthy people 400/500 years ago.
well synchronised picture. right leg crossed.
all these 3 friends are actually my ex-colleagues from WD. we had been working together for 6 years before the company started to shift the operation out of singapore. top left is Ah Wee, a coolman and very eager to go beijing to meet his china "female" friend. top centre, Ah Lim (aka handsome), funny guy, always create lot of joke but those cold joke "冷笑话" if you know what i meant. Top right, Sir Chua (aka Tungsten Chua)A great guy but eat a lot of meat. Sir Chua, you have to slow down your meat intake. Ofcourse, my wife, Selina, my son Keith and myself were in the pictures as well.
in the 重元寺, backgroud is the Goddess of Mercy pogoda.
closed up of the pogoda that has a height of 46m
a very peaceful statue of the Goddess of Mercy in the pogoda. this tallest in-door Goddess of Mercy in China has a height of 26m and it is made of 88 tons of bronze.
the day when we were there, it was the birthday of Goddess of Mercy, many devotees were there to pray.
a typical scene in china. throwing coins to some ponds or statue. actually, i saw this habit in western countries as well.
it was clear blue sky when we were at tai hu. lot of little make/shift stalls selling windmills of different shapes, sizes and colors.
weather was cold that day, Wee and Sir Chua bbqing their ice-cream to melt it. maybe it was the melamide.
wee trying out the pineapple while sir chua tried the stinky tofu at mudu town (木渎古镇). i have yet to try that in china. too stinky for me... haha
夕阳西下，小船流水。
this picture is when andy sang "苯小孩".
the fans of andy lau, look at the far back, those sat paid 300rmb.
the plastic chair (use by kopitiam) for 880rmb seat
after the show before the crowd started to leave, we quickly took a picture.
these are the friends who visited me. that particular day (14th Mar) was a clear day with blue sky. in the back drop, it was the Suzhou Science & Cultural Art Centre.
colleagues have been crazy about f1. to join in the fun this year, i bought 2 set tickets for the 3 days event at shanghai. it will be from the april 17th to 19th. this would be my first f1 race. i am execited...
a very well printed ticket holder. the ticket holder indicates the section and the entrance for that section. this will help the crowd control on the actual day.
our 2 tickets for the C2 section. we looked at the various C-sections but found that the available tickets for C2 is the best. at the back of the ticket, there is a line seal that proved the authentity of the ticket similar to those on the yuan notes. this is a level of authentication. a colleague told me he happened to buy some fake ticket at the entrance for last concert. thus, it will be good that always get it from authorised agent.
the floor plan. C2 is still close to the stage. there are other tickets (un-colored) that are on the 2nd level of the stadium. those ticket price range 100rmb, 300rmb and 500rmb. Note that the tickets, the holders are colored coded to the seating section.
andy lau is staging a concert tour in china. he will be performing in 7 concerts in varous province throughout china from 24th Mar till 27th April. one of the stops will be suzhou. as i love to sing his songs, 来生缘，男人哭吧不是罪 and many more, i will be attending his concert in suzhou the 28th of this month. i have not decided what ticket to buy but i am looking at the 880rmb tickets or the VIP ticket that cost 1280rmb. whatever it is, i will go for the concert as i believe it will be more expensive back in singapore.
there are many parks in suzhou, most of them are very commercial and are mainly tourist attractions. there is this one that i found out from one of the cycling forums in suzhou. free entrance, no stalls selling toys, food and it is very natural. it looked very nice and with bamboo, nicely planted trees, narrow paths, little huts, small streams, children playground and many more. it is a perfect weekend escape with family. this man-make park is located between tong li town (同理镇) and zhou zhuang town (周庄镇). click here for the location.
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