Day 05:
Cultural Site: Summer Palace
The kick start for day 5 of our study trip was a visit to Summer Palace
(颐和园), where Ci Xi Princess lived. We toured around part of it as the whole palace tour would take up many hours. The new tour guide filled us with many interesting stories of Ci Xi which were very astonishing. We saw Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake too!
Every artifact in the palace has its own unique story. The whole palace is filled with all the stories to be unfold and heard.
This piece of rock actually represents Ci Xi's son.
The palace is so beautiful, we cannot stop snapping pictures.
There was a store selling accessories like the crowns Ci Xi or the princesses would wear.
There was an old man with a big paint brush and a pail of water wearing chinese quotes on the concrete floor of the palace. The words clearly came from someone with good calligraphy! Its also a good way of displaying art as the words are there for a while for passerby to admire while it evaporates and not leave anything and destroy the palace's original sight.
We got to peep into Ci Xi's room which was kept in shape since many many years ago. It was really once-in-a-lifetime sight, very different from what we see in Chinese traditional dramas.
This clock is not just an ordinary clock, it has a story behind it. Ci xi princess was actually in bad terms with this other person in the palace and had a quarrel with him. To spite this person, she gave a pair of clock to him as a birthday gift even when it meant bad omen. The Chinese believed that giving clock is a bad symbol, meaning to send someone off.
In order to chase off the bad omen and still keep the clocks, the man had placed two quotes at the entrance of his door to change the meaning of the clock and in turn spited Ci Xi even more.
Nearing the end of the tour, the tour guide had us to sit down and listen to some of Ci Xi's princess famous stories.
One of which is that Ci Xi princess has a whole hall of clothes for her and for every birthday, she would have to give herself money and 50 sets of new clothes. She was able to finish wearing them within half a month.
She lived in luxuries and for every meal, she would have 3 tables of food, one for consumption, one for display and one for her to look at. For every dish, she can only take a maximum of 3 mouthfuls and if she wants more, the kitchen would have to come up with the same new dish. This is to avoid people knowing her favorites and poisoning her.
"The sun was so brighttttttttttttttt!"
Before we arrived on the bus, we saw an old lady selling hairbands that resemble those that princesses wear and hence, we brought them from her! Do we look like Chinese Princesses now?
Cultural Site: Beijing Olympic Park, National Stadium & National Aquatics Center
The next stop is Beijing Olympic Park! It is the Beijing National Stadium, designed for use throughout 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. It costed US $423 million. Beijing National Stadium (BNS) was a joint venture among architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron of Herzog & de Meuron, project architect Stefan Marbach, artist Ai Weiwei , and CADG which was led by chief architect Li Xinggang. It is the efforts of many architects.
This is the Bird Nest everyone is talking about!
I brought 5 hairbands at the stall nearby! They were so pretty, like those where you can find in Disneyland.
This is the Beijing National Aquatics/ Aquatube Center, 北京国家游泳中心! It is an aquatics center that was built alongside Beijing National Stadium in the Olympic Green for the swimming competitions of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Till date, the Aquatics Center hosted the swimming, diving and synchronized swimming events during the Olympics. Water polo was originally planned to be hosted in the venue but was moved to the Ying Tung Natatorium. Many people believe the Water Cube to be the fastest Olympic pool in the world. It is 1.314 meters deeper than most Olympic pools.
It was also open to public on select days of the week beginning from June 2009 and was the production site for movie, Lake Swan. It was a pity we can only see the place from outside.
Cultural Site: Trishaw Ride in Hutong Ancient Street
Aftermath, we had our very first trishaw ride at Hutong! We toured around the ancient street! The ride was very fast, faster than we thought! The man riding it was really strong! It scared us for the swift speed!
The structures in the ancient street were very old and rich of China's history.
We stopped by a house for a tour. It is one which is many many years old and everything inside remained the same without any changes so as to allow visitors to experience the type of house the China people used to live in.
There were 3 dogs which looked the same but this one caught my attention! He is 4 years old but looking very sick and tired. I kept stroking his furs but he still looked so gloomy!
On the contrary, this dog was so fierce and barked at everyone who went near him! He even tried to bite one of the trip mates who touched him! The owner however said that as long as you have the friendly aura, he will sense it and let you stroke him.
This is how the house looks like!
The windows are really like those you see in China's dramas.
I love animals!
Aftermath, we toured out of the street by trishaw again and went to Pipe Xie Jie, Yan Dai Xie Jie! They sells very creative stuffs like leather bracelets with gems, cartoon plushies, local designers' shirts, China's tidbits etc.
The streets is also very clean and nicely decorated!
Owners would also try to inculcate art into parts of their stores. Like this quote on the stairs of the book store!
Signboards were so special as well.
Sculpture outside the Post Office.
Shoes designed by local designers.
Even the map is 3D!
We ended our day at a restaurant with usual chinese food!
Dog I played with at a store nearby the hotel!
Day 06:
On the last third day of this trip, we visited a cultural site and 2 companies at a go!
Cultural Site: 798 Art Zone
This cultural site is 798 Art Zone/
Dashanzi Art District (798艺术区). Basically, it is in the Chao Yang District of Beijing that houses a thriving artistic community, among 50-year old decommissioned military factory buildings of unique architectural style. It is often compared with New York's Greenwich Village or SoHo.
The Dashanzi factory complex was vacated at around the time when most of Beijing's contemporary artist community was looking for a new home. That explains the reconstruction of this place!
We were captivated by every single thing in the streets! Look like this inverted strawberry!
In my own opinion, Asians are very talented! I could not be able to do this on the wall just like that!
The quotes are equally meaningful as well!
This is so cute! It's a replica of the site on the net!
We headed to this store which sells many items ranging from accessories to decorative items using recycling materials! It highlights to us consumers to protect Earth & recycle!
Transformers using scraps of metal!
Sculptures that tell a lot.
Chinese army!
Beautiful designers' clothes that costed a lot!
It's very hard to have a favorite store, every store is oh so unique!
Old school.
A picture speaks a thousand words.
We passed by this site but we did not have any tickets to look at the exhibitions!
Almost permanent advertising.
Used bottles.
Our lunch was at an English restaurant in the district. We had western lunch, salad & burger!
Company visit: Hyundai Company Limited, Beijing
Moving on, we visited Hyundai Company Limited! Look at the cars with autographs!
Where the company is located, all around the world.
How the engine looks like in a Hyundai car!
The spokeperson played a video to introduce the latest cars and operations.
The front door.
Other than that, we also headed to their manufacturing factory but we were not allowed to take photographs! Here are some of the things we learnt:
- Assembly department: 10th Anniversary, 3 factories, 1 research factory for modifications at the oldest factory. 100 million cars can be produced.
- Hyundai factories are highly labor-driven. There are also many steps to follow in the manufacturing process of a car.
Firstly, the painting of the cars and it is a mixed production of all models. Not like every model has its own production line.
Wiring storage where there are many blue boxes and 1 box contains 1 car's wires. There is a maximum of 800 boxes on storage.
Aftermath, it is the internal built in where cars are raised up so as to see the internal wiring under base installation.
Final stop would be the storage of internal seats and audio systems. And one cool thing that I have learnt is the OK Line, it is for adds-on for the cars. OK line ensures detailed checking on cars, workers trying the cars and hearing the sounds made by the car.
The Di Pang Line is for final checks on the car. Every car is to be done via a manual. Matching and combining parts into something. Removing parts would not hinder painting of inner side.
Hyundai goes by a JIT, Just In Time production and red labels would indicate different car models. They would only import parts when needed. A final product only requires 2 hours of production.
To ensure that the car is of good shape, predelivery inspection would be made, 400+ checks in total!
The factory can produce 66 cars in an hour. Robots will do the gluing of windscreens and the cars are transported via transporting rails.
In the final checks, wiper fatigue tester and poor window regulator tester are being used.
Company Visit: Hui Yuan Fruit Drinks Company
The next stop we went was Hui Yuan Fruits Drinks Company, the company we are working on. Ms Li, the spokeperson brought us around and told us more about the famous drink company.
It is the biggest drinks company in China and its first office in China is a Shandong Entreprise, not Beijing.
In 1992, they started off with apple can fruits then making pulp and only apple juice in 1993. As nutrients could be lost, water level goes down by 8 times. in 1994, blending not see yet so they ventured into concentrated juice as fresh fruit juice may be dirty. Hence, Hui Yuan would cleanse the fruits.
Year 1997 and 1998 is the fastest two years where they started organic plants, fruit juice and fruit pulp. In February 1997, they publicized and became well-known.
Till date, they have 18 years of history and 23 factories worldwide. Different fruits are being processed at different factories. They do imports from Brazil for oranges, Spain & Xing Jiang for grapes, Pineapples from Thailand.
Some may have wrong thinking that the fruits we eat are fruits Hui Yuan used for juices. It is wrong. The fruits they use may not be physically appealing but is high in water content. America Apple are highly imported for apple juice.
The director is China's first juice entrepreneur. The company contributes the society by public welfare activities. They have 100% market share in orange and tomato. 74% share in the whole market. For every 3 mouthfuls taken in, 2 of which are of Hui Yuan.
Some drinks are only catered to hotels, not available in super marts. There are also different tastes and preferences which affect their products distribution. Beijing do not like peach tea while Fujian and Guangdong likes. Nanjing people like kiwi and Shangdong likes milk. Cartoon designed bottles are catered to America.
237 different products sold widewide and 154 in Beijing itself.
We also got to look at the manufacturing process of Hui Yuan company. The packaging in black would be 100% orange juice for hotel and in 1 hour, 7,000 bottles are produced. After which, they are being stored for 7 days at lower temperature before being sold. 12 months of storage for the drinks and they must not be manufactured and sold immediately. They also have men in caps who are engineers in production lines. The production line used is Norway Production Line.
Washing of equipment takes place for 4 hours, daily whether day or night. Division of juices via orders. Concentrated juice has 2-3 years of shelf life. Pure juice do not have sugar added while beverages have sugar added, 10-99% sugar! Pure juice is more popular in Beijing as they have better purchasing power.
One of the many steps of producing the juice would be removal of air, suppressing molecules to be smaller using homogenizer for better taste and removal of germs can be done in 15 seconds. 108 degree celcius of juice in 30 seconds and cushion platform, straw applicator, straw box are equipment being used. Last step of all is packaging!
It costs RMB 0.76 for a packaging box. And their packaging has 7 layers of materials including aluminium.
Ms Li was very patient with us throughout the tour! Very thankful for that.,,,
We got to bring back a bottle of the drink! It was so good, even better than Fanta soft drink!
We also had a short Q&A session with Ms Lin where we asked about their Guo Shu Ji Hua, their sales line. We found out that they do not actually sell the items, instead they passed it down to the wholesalers to do that and they only supply to special clients and hotels, not to supermarts.
In the night, we had so much fun because we went to a hair salon to get our hair cut and styled for only S$8! For a hair cut I go in Singapore, it is around $20+! The hairstylist was very patient with me as I was not certain of which hairstyle to change to and he showed me pictures! I had fun communicating with the other assistants too! We had a short exchange of culture too!
We are very satisfied with our hairstyles!
