Beijing and Shanghai 2013

Beijing

We went to Beijing and Shanghai for a week. Reese was the happiest because he got to see the historical and the modern architecture of these two cities. Our first stop was Beijing and we hired a local English speaking tour guide and driver to take us around. Prior to the trip, Reese did his own research about the two cities and as expected, he knew a lot of the historical facts and totally impressed the guides. :) Reese can very well be our tour guide for every time the guide told us something, Reese would have something extra to add to it. 

This trip is part of Reese's homeschooling. It is history, culture, science and architecture lessons for him.  Nothing better than hands on experience! 

The Great Wall of China

Cable car and toboggan ride up and down the Great Wall

The happy boy

The Great Wall of China is breathtaking. We love it and the best experience was taking the cable car ride up and toboggan down. It is a must try! We went to Mutianyu's section of the Great Wall.

Reese drew this after his second day in Beijing

Temple of Heaven

Oops...forgot the name! :)

Went to watch a nice Kung Fu performance

The Forbidden City

Family picture

Regular folks playing chess in one of the famous park

Summer Palace

 Peking duck and beef hotpot.... they were sooooo good!

Local home cooked meal at the Hutong

Tianamen Square

My very happy boy

Shanghai/Suzhou/Tong Li water village

The Shanghai skyline taken by Reese

 Reese on the high speed train to Shanghai (5+ hours) and Reese and daddy in front of The Oriental Pearl Tower

Shanghai at night

A walk into Shanghai's past... The museum in Oriental Pearl Tower

Sticky sweet rice in Suzhou

Fruits everywhere

Our guide for Suzhou and Tong Li water villages

Seeing the real thing.... we only read about these fishing birds in the book The Story About Ping.

Street vendor

Our first try of stinky tofu

Local residence of Tong Li water village

One of the famous dumpling shop in Shanghai. We queued for more than 40 minutes

Worth the wait! It was that good!

Our lunch at Suzhou. 6 dishes for 2 adults and 1 child....crazy!

Suzhou's water village

Suzhou water village, very commercial

 Reese and his favourite buildings

Looking at Shanghai's skyline from the China World Financial Tower

At the highest observation deck in the world

Overall, we are satisfied with the trip. During our stay at these two cities, we felt very safe because every where you go including the subways, bags are scanned and sometimes police officers will conduct body scans! Traffic is horrendous. We got stuck in traffic from A to B literary a few times, Malaysian traffic jam is nothing... haha.... 

Dislike restaurants with no enforcement on smoking patrons. People are loud and the restaurants are smoky. Toilets are considerably clean and mostly have cubicles. I had encountered one toilet with no cubicles. Just 3 squat WC. I just couldn't do it. :) 

Beijing and Shanghai are so different. Shanghai is a more modern and civilised city as compared to Beijing. Moving around in these two cities for people who can't speak or read Chinese aren't that bad at all. English signboards are everywhere. Public transport is good too except for peak hours...the subway is crazy crowded.