After freshening up with a warm bath under running hot shower, sent out the relevant messages to people about my inland flights schedule. Basically informing them the dates I would be in the respective places.
A quick check with the hotel staff about what could be done for the rest of the day, I hopped out to find my way to Houhai, cutting through Smokers' Alley. Houhai lake was completey frozen! You could skate on the lake itself! I think the temperature was below zero degrees but it felt like it was warmer.
The Drum Tower (enroute to Houhai)
The plan was like this: Houhai-Forbidden City-Tiananmen-Wangfujing, however when I got to the Forbidden City it was like 45 mins before closing! But since I was already there so just soak up whatever that could be covered in that 45 mins. Eventually it was like an hour 15 mins or so in total, I was the last few to leave the place before the gates were shut.
The best place in the Forbidden City I think was 坤宁宫, the place where the Empress lived. It was also THE place with the most tourists/visitors peeping behind glass display windows that it was impossible to pose for any photos other to zap the insides of the place.
If you don't look upwards, one might miss the riches above!
Such intricate carvings!
Another fab ceiling shot!
The flag lowering ceremony in front of Tiananmen:
The long stretch of street food in Wangfujing, some stuff were simply YUKS! No way am I taking in stuff such as scorpions, starfish and other creepy crawlies! Makes my hair stands on ends but quite an experience actually watching others savouring them.
There was another street food cluster the start of the shopping area, so many foods you will be spoilt for choices to snack on. Watching people eating them sort of makes you also want to try each and every delicacies there is on display, but of course that is impossible unless you want to skip proper dinner (and maybe breakfast the next day too!) altogether!
Ended the day with a re-visit to check out the night scenes of Houhai and the fabled bar streets. The area was full of drinking places, pubs, live music etc. and business must surely be tough because of all that is happening around the world's financial crisis. Not as crowded as I expect and there were many touts chasing after customers. It is OK if you do it around where your place of business was but to do it half way around the lake? That sure tells you alot about how competitive or badly the business has been affected.
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