Jun 21 Mu Tian Yu Great Wall

I decided to visit Mu Tian Yu Great Wall again, since it was raining during my trip 2 years ago.

Nothing much need preparation except transportation. If not mistaken, a taxi/rented-car with driver cost around RMB 500 2 years ago. Due to previous uncomfortable rented car experience, there are two choices available: bus or taxi. So when we took taxi to/from work, if we enjoy the taxi driver ride, we will ask for the price. It ranges from RMB 600 - 750, including toll and parking fee. Oh yes, if you will ever rent a car or taxi to great wall, need to verify if the price includes toll and parking fee, if not you will usually requires to pay more. On the other hand, I was curious on the experience of taking a bus there, and it seems to be quite straight forward. Due to a major concern, we'd decided to take bus. It is more flexible. In case if weather turn bad, we can still postpone our plan. If we reserve taxi, feel not so good to change plan last minute.

We leave our house on 6am, take bus to DongZhiMen, then take 916 bus to HuaiRou bus station. That journey took around 1 hour and 40 minutes. Before we reach HuaiRou bus station, the driver asked us how do we plan to go GreatWall. In my mind, I was thinking taxi should be easily available there, thus I just answered him. Then he offered to drive us there, normal price is RMB 40 per person, but he will charged us RMB 30 per person. I was a bit shocked when heard the offer, I would prefer official taxi though, thus by giving some reason, turned down his offer.

After reached the bus station, a lot of people coming and asked if we need a ride to great wall. Well, none of them is driving 'official taxi'. We shake our head while trying to spot for official taxi. Finally found one at the opposite road, so we walked there. While we walked there, there was an uncle who keep following us and talked to us, although we keep rejecting the offer. Oh no, that official taxi is under repai. Well, let's take breakfast and get some information from the restaurant waiter. After talking to him, manage to find out those unofficial rented car is the normal way to go to MuTianYu great wall here. After breakfast, the uncle come in to the restaurant. (He is so keen to get the business, he 'spy' on our condition outside while we were taking breakfast, once we finish, he came in and talk to us). After few minutes of negotiation, manage to get RMB 70 for return trip. Here we come MuTianYu.

The ride is about 30 min, going up slope at later part of the journey. While we were in the car, we chat a little bit. The uncle is just curious which country is SH from. He guessed Korea :D then we told him is Malaysia. He also trying to offer us some trip to other places, but we didn't buy any, our target is MuTianYu Great Wall for today! After that, we seldom chat as SN and I were busy chatting. Pity SH forced to enjoy the scenery along the road :p

After uncle parked the car, I just recalled I forgot to clarify the parking fee with him, aiya. I remembered the parking fee is not too expensive, fortunately (It was RMB 5). There are two ways to reach the great wall, hike or cable car. To go down, there will be 3 ways, hike, cable car or speedway.

It took us around 20 min to reach great wall, all stair case like below:


I am glad that my stamina has improved compared to 2 years ago :D Thanks to the determined training to hike KK last year :D

During my last trip, there were map showing how long is the opened section length. Unfortunately those map are not clear anymore, so just walk and walk up there.



We hike up as indicating by the light blue line, upon reach, turn right to reach to one end of the trail. After that, follow green line to hike to the left hand end, took cable car down from there. We did not complete whole open section as we missed out the red line portion. By the way, those blue, green and red line are added by me to illustrate better :D

We started on10.30am and reach foot hill around 1.45pm. Maybe question pop up in your mind, why did I mentioned 'end' at both left and right side of the great wall. Isn't great wall long? Well, great wall is long, but not all great wall are under maintenance/restoration. Only the green + red portion are maintained. When we reach the green line end, there is sign board to request visitor to stop. You may see some tree/bushes grown up at the not maintained great wall as below:



After talking to a local colleague here, get to know that those great wall are called 野长城 (wild-great wall in mandarin, which means abandoned great wall), and one of his hobby is to hike those abandoned great wall, the scene is usually nicer, fresher air and challenging :D

If I got to know those earlier before it is getting too hot, I will probably plan to join some local hikers group to visit those abandoned great wall, but it is too late to say anything now, it's just too hot now. Also, he mentioned the nicest great wall is 箭扣长城 JianKou great wall. Why I never thought of searching 最美的长城 in baidu again? I did that 2 years ago but it was not in the list that time. Off a bit, there was a recent case that someone striked by lightning at JianKou great wall :p He was using handphone during rainstorm.

There is only restroom near cable car station. But the weather is dry and sweat a lot, so I don't feel the urge to go restroom up here :p There are also some local people selling drinks, and unhealthy snacks :p If you do have any chance to come here, prepare some food :)

Some of the steps are quite steep, but don't worry, you will be able to do it from the encouragement of the nice view :D






We took bus 916 express home after that. In overall, the transportation fee is RMB 25 per person + RMB 4.8 * 2 (Single bus fare is RMB 4.8) total up to RMB 34.80, as opposed to RMB 200 of taxi fare per person.

Not only food episod 2

Recently read a software web UI design article. If user never complaint about your website for commercial transaction, that is probably a good sign. It indirectly means the web interface is design quite well so that use is able to complete the transaction without much difficulties/complaints.

But there are something that I found is good here in Beijing, by realizing it so much, after staying here for almost 2 months.

The street name sign board here is well structured. It is very similar to US, with direction (north/south/east/west) on the street name sign board. There are both Chinese name and English name available. If I want to be picky, I would say the alphabetical system can be improved. For example, a road name 建国门外 Jian Guo Men Wai will usually be concatenated with small letters became Jianguomenwai, which I found it sometimes is harder to read. It will probably easier to be read if written as JianGuoMenWai. Hmm, I always hope Malaysia street name sign board can be improved, have to count on Vision 2020?

The public transport is good too. Most of the places are connected by bus, with very cheap bus fare. Some of the bus route is only RMB 0.40 per trip regardless of the distance, if using the touch card! Currently MRT is RMB 2 per trip, regardless of number of connection and distance too. There is always room for improvement :) Some MRT station is too far away from bus stop. If both system are connected then it will be even better :D Oh talking about the touch card, it is both usable at bus and MRT, even in KFC! When is our Touch N' Go really go into the role?

People here is still family centric. They spend a lot of time with their family. This could be due to they can have only one child. Nevertheless, can frequently see family gathering in the park.

There are more cultural activities here as well :D In the park, there are people who practice traditional arts e.g. tai chi, caligraphy, 踢毽子; choral, dancing and lots more. There are quite a few of theatre here hosting a lot of cultural show e.g. musical show and opera. I will share my water cube swan lake experience later :D

Another I like is of couse book, the local published book is really cheap, half the price than Malaysia. Unfortunately not all chinese book are available especially taiwanese book. I heard english book is expensive.

Beijing Da Dong roasted duck 大董烤鸭

After 1.5 months here in Beijing, finally we went to try Beijing Roasted Duck. As recommended by IV, we went to Da Dong Roast Duck 北京大董烤鸭店 located at Dongsishitiao-东四十条.

I tried Wang Fu Jing Quan Ju De Roast Duck 2 years ago, and I still remembered the disappointment :p Thus I did not put high expectationthis time.

When I stepped into the restaurant, I am surprised the environment is very nice. Oh yeah alright, you may say it is so westernize, but I still found it very creative and innovative design. I am only attaching 2 pics here, there are few more but I wish to talk more on the food instead :D



Here come the dishes we ordered:



From top right, counter clockwise:
1) Fried bamboo shoot - I think the taste is special but the guys doesn't seems to like it :p
2) Scallop - It is nice too :D
3) Cod fish in salt - This is really special. The cod fish are wrapped in lotus leaf, then buried in a pot filled with salt. (The fish losts its life, so I used the word buried here :p ) The texture is nice as it is just done. The taste is ... nice, only a word haha.
4) The star of the day, roast duck - The chef will first bring you the whole duck, then they will cut the duck step by step, took around 7 minutes.

For the duck skin, just dip with sugar and eat, it is surprisingly nice and not oily. You can feel it melt in your mouth, although it is not m&m sweet :p As for the duck meat, it is serve with ingredient below:



Follow the same rule:
1) 'Lotus skin' - The skin used to wrap the duck meat.
2) Some sauce and pickle.
3) Biscuit. I will explain more later :D
4) I made these.

There are two way to eat the duck meat, wrap in Lotus skin or biscuit. For Lotus skin, first dip the duck meat with some black color sauce, apply some on the bottom part of Lotus skin, then add some spring onion if you want to, wrap it and that's it. To serve with biscuit, it is even easier. Dip the duck meat with black sauce, put into the hollow biscuit, then put in some cucumber, spring onion, picket and there you go. Either way eating it also nice, as Lotus skin is thin, the biscuit is a bit crunchy.

After that, we'd decided to order some famous local dessert, as the dishes here is so nice, we have more interest on their food :D

Again, our tongue feeling good:



Left to right, top to bottom:
1) Home made tofu - Special but the green herbs is too strong in taste sometimes.
2) 驴打滚 (or in english http://en.beijing2008.cn/spectators/beijing/food/list/n214257881.shtml)
3） Riped persimmon in cup - Free dessert from the restaurant. The persimmon so ripe that it is in liquid form in cup.
4) 艾窝窝 (or in english http://en.beijing2008.cn/spectators/beijing/food/list/n214258018.shtml)
5) Opps, sorry I forgot the name :p It's red bean paste.
6) 豌豆黄 (or in english http://en.beijing2008.cn/spectators/beijing/food/list/n214258014.shtml)

Feeling hungry? ;)

Jun 10 Solana

I know, this is very old story which happened on Jun 10. I was really tide up for the past two weeks, sumimasen :)

From office, we took bus then walked there from a bus stop. It was around 10-15 minutes walking, but I started to get used to walking in Beijing (what a nice phrase, walking in beijing :D ) with laptop on my back sometimes.

It is a huge complex, with shopping mall, distribution center, food street, bar street, and quite nicely decorated environment with lots of different kind of flowers, alike with US complex store in my opinion.

Let's take a quick look, the first photo is a stream next to the complex, then follow by complex entrance, and some of its building.




The guys chosen to try out vegetarian buffet. Well, I always like vegetables but this could be a 'challenge' for them to make such decision :p Some of the dishes are quite good. They also provide a small hot pot for mini-steamboat. Dislike Malaysia vegetarian, there is no imitate-meat here, solely vegetables and fruits :)

After dinner, we spend a few moment to walk around. The environment is cozy, with some breeze, as it is just next to Chao Yang park. And now here come the Solana at night:




Surprised to see Bata at the top left photo? ;) On the bottom left picture, this is a music fountain, smaller scale of Las Vegas Bellagio. Definitely Bellagio is still the best! Guess what, English song is played while the water is dancing. Music were played while there is no show, and we heard only English and Korean song thus far :D

Oh Malaysia oh malaysia, I don't think Bintang Walk can beat this. More room to grow.

For more information, www.solana.com.cn

Standardize Words 2007 docx header quickly

Engineers cannot be exempted from documentation life as well. Although you are not engineers, but if you do have a needs to update single Header format to multiple Microsoft 2007 Words document (.docx), can try this : How to: Manipulate Office Open XML Formats Documents (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa982683.aspx).

I tried and updated few documents to have same header format quickly. Since this is just one time job, I do not write any program to do so. I browse the programming samples in given link and it doesn't looks difficult.

If you are still interested to read and if you know 7-zip. Before trying the steps above, I know .docx is in compress format and styling information is excluded from document body. Thus I just wish to try to figure out on my own first. I tried steps below but unfortunately it doesn't work, although it looks similar the steps in given URL.
1. Right click on .docx document which you have the header format ready. Select 7-zip | Open Archive and extract the header1.xml, copy headerl1.xml to somewhere else e.g. Desktop.
2. Right click on .docx doc which you want the header to be updated. Select 7-zip | Open Archive and replace its header1.xml with header file in Step 1, e.g. header1.xml on Desktop.
3. Open doc in step 2, the header information is not updated :(

Let's talk about food today

It's friday, let's talk about food today, after disappeared for few weeks :p

2 meals I'd taken:

Dinner at a small local shop, it can fit only 6 table, and each table can serve 4 people only. We were lucky to arrive earlier, after 5 min we placed the order, there were people queueing for seats.



1) Top left: Beef Gui Lin Vermicelli牛腩 桂林米粉。
2） Bottom left: Fish ball Vermicelli 鱼丸桂林米粉.
The soup base are the same for both vermicelli, just different ingredient. I like the vermicelli, it's smooth, soft but chewy.
Look at the right column, the first two are 2 different type of chili sauce. The first one looks similar to chicken rice chili sauce, the second one looks like sambal. Surprisingly, those are very very hot and spicy. (I know it is not correct to use 'very' twice in a row, but sometimes Malaysia chinese use this, yes the malaysian style broken english :p ) Just dip very little with the chopstick and you can feel the spicyness. Well, add a little to the soup and stir it, the soup base taste even better :D

The last pic is herbal gel 龟苓膏. Disappointedly the 'fruit' on top is from can, can fruit mix with fruit jam...

On the other day, the lunch we took:




Northeast quadrant: Sashimi bento set
Northwest quadrant: Clam in sake soup, we can merely tasted the sake.
Southwest quadrant: Beef bento set. The beef are grilled with one type of sour sauce. I am female and I also felt it is quite sour, guy might not like this so much. The beef is tender though :D
Southeast quarant: Roasted beef with vegetable hot pot bento, sukiyaki soup base.

Feel hungry? ;p

Not only food

Time flies. It has been a month staying here in Beijing.

Let's talk no food today, but culture. One said it may take very short time to develop China because China is rich, but it will take at least double the time to develop the culture. I truly agree with that after 'localized' for a month here.

The resident here still spitting. I agree it might be less compared to few years ago, but the phlegm is still easily noticeable at pedestrian walkway very frequently.

The resident still talk so loud. If two are chatting at one corner of the restaurant, the rest of the customers can hear their conversation clearly (provided if the rest of the customers do not talk loudly). In office, I can hear someone's phone conversation clearly even though he is at least 5 or 6 cubicles apart.

People here smokes everywhere, regardless if there is obvious signboard of No Smoking. Probably in high class restaurant/hotel then they will follow.

If someone is taking photo in front, you would probably take another route or wait till he finish, so that you will not appear as a background item in their picture :p But 99% of people here will just ignore you. And sometimes even stand in front of your camera, I do not know if they did it on purpose or not, but sigh... Another obvious sign is after you are done taking picture at an interesting spot, one will usually leave asap to let other people take the chance. But here, they will just continue to stand there, talk to their friend loudly but not related to the photo, or just do nothing... while ignoring other photographers in the queue.

From this trip, I learn that aggressive drivers are everywhere :D If the company get me a rented car, I would rather walk or take other transportation. There were few incidence that we almost got into accident. To the driver, maybe it is normal, so they can react very quickly and save us from the accident. Drivers here like to horn, flash light, scold other driver/pedestrian loudly. One said, looking at a person driving attitude we can know his character, e.g. patient, polite, give way and etc. So I guess I learn a bit of the grass root character from the taxi drivers :) Of course, there are some good drivers too :) Another thumb up is most of the driver here follow the traffic light very strictly. Whenever they see a yellow light, they prepared to stop, unlike Penang where some drivers were actually pressing the oil pedal :p

Of course there are some good culture. They enjoy life, go to park and do exercise, dislike some of the malaysian rather stay at home and watch TV (if you are Malaysian and always do that, please go for more exercise :p )

That's all for now ;) What I'd just mentioned could be inaccurate, no offense. I am just sharing my thoughts :)