hey! my 100th post!

Unfortunately it's not about anything very eventful. I went to the Summer Palaces yesterday. Maybe I've done too much sightseeing, or maybe I've already seen the best, but I wasn't very impressed.. it was nice enough, but not 'wow'.

Old Summer Palace:
Ruins in a big park. Almost all the pictures I took were of the wild flowers growing by the path, or of the sunset.. ruins wise, it's nothing compared to Rome, which it was like in a way.. 1700s stone structures in pseudo European style. Perhaps fascinating to the Chinese, but there was nothing there to interest me.

New Summer Palace:
ok. big lake. the usu style of buildings. the marble boat that cixi built. But I was still meh... I guess seeing 西湖，网师园， 黄山，紫禁城，天坛公园， 洪村 all in one trip has spoiled me for pretty much everything else... was not really impressed by much else, baring the usual beauty of nature kind of thing...

Today I will attempt to go wander ard in hutong, and, if time permits (prob not, knowing me, and pending when the cleaning aunty can come in), also go to the 798 galleries again. Both areas seem to have nice cafes I can just sit in for hours... and try not to shop.

I dropped off the dreadfully packed and slow and jerky and super long bus journey yesterday coming back from the summer palaces early - I think I would have puked if I had stay on. Ended up on a street with all the music shops. Some selling both erhu and trombone. People practising with their instruments on the sidewalk, a lao-wai on an erhu being instructed by an old man... it was not far from XiDan, one of the main shopping areas, where I popped into a mall to use the loo, which turned out to be a dressing room.. very nice. Better than sg hotel loos =P

Made the mistake of looking ard the neighbouring mall as it looked like an interesting bldg from the outside, and had a great lighting system over the entire façade. Nice on the inside too. Malls here can really be done very well. Walked into Uniqio. Damm. Lots of things I wanted to get, at prices I wouldn't have blinked at back home.. my debit card couldn't be accepted though. Phew? but being an upscale shopping mall, there was a stanchart atm for foreign cards only (and yes, i felt a bit atas while using it, because the locals before and after me couldn't get anything out of it )... but I managed to tear myself away w only a nice plain black tee =P v tempted to go back though. it's all v comfy, good quality material, fits me well, is classic yet fashionable... >.< I should just have stuck to the far east plaza kind of teenagers' mall across the road... though uniqio and muji are def more me style-wise...

I've seen some nice bldgs here, many of them from the bus or cab so I have no idea where they are, what they are, or who built them.. some nice ideas, some just done well, some just attention grabbing...

ok, i'd better go. my last full day in beijing!