The Queen's Classroom 여왕의 교실

A new series, and it's just into the fourth episode but been crying buckets from ep1 to ep4.

It's a school-based story, with a seemingly evil/malicious/mean female teacher who looks scary when she doesn't smile. But when she smiles, that's when she's even scarier!

The stars of the show are actually the small kids. Three child leads: Kim Hyang-Gi (as Shim Ha Na), Cheon Bo-Keun (as Oh Dong-Goo) and Kim Sae-Ron (as Kim Seo-Hyun).

Very early in the show, it has been established that Shim Ha Na is just your average kid who's happy-go-lucky, born into a middle class family. Oh Dong-Goo is the resident class clown and Kim Sae-Ron is the quiet top student who's a loner. As usual, the class will have cliques and the usual rich-poor divide. Not only that, the moms have their own cliques as well. As if the kids don't have enough issues on their own, then, comes this mysterious heartless meanie of a teacher who effectively became their homeroom teacher at the start of a new term. And her sole purpose is to make them especially, Shim Ha-Na suffer. Poor girl...

Gradually, the three main leads friendship began to strengthen through their suffering together. In Episode 4, Ha-Na and gang stood up for one of the outcast student, Eun Bo-Mi, but in the end, they got betrayed by this girl. Aiyo... This Bo-Mi then became a spy for the teacher. Tsk tsk...

Apparently, the original version of this show is a Japanese drama series. Ooh.. maybe I should go watch that too!

Here's a link to the dramawiki.

Beijing Experience Part III

It was after lunch and we were walking towards the MRT. An elderly lady was pushing her bicycle and she has two dogs following her plus one more in her bicycle's basket. Thought the dogs looked exotic, so was snapping their pictures.

Talked to the lady abit (I called her 阿姨) and she was more than happy to share information about her dogs. Turned out the brown dog was a stray that she picked up. She said the dog was in very bad condition initially and now, he has healed somewhat. But can see that the brown dog tires easily and sometimes will have spasm where its head twitched uncontrollably for a short while.
 

formerly stray

pure-bred pekingnese

Keke, tried my conversational Mandarin on a local. Not bad, quite fun! =P

Eventually, we managed to get to Tiananmen Square. Huge, huge place.

touristry shot

Ok, I lost my colleagues while we were there. Too busy snapping pictures till can't see them anymore. And there wasn't any phone signal either.

panoramic shot (an inkling of how huge that area is)

Fortunately, managed to reunite after half hour search. From that day onwards, I was known as the one who went missing.

Forbidden City outer gate

Forbidden City was literally forbidden as it wasn't open on a Monday. From there, we proceeded to the Donghuamen Night Market, enroute to Wangfujing (Princes' Manor?).

BBQ seafood stalls at Donghuamen Night Market

sellers of Xinjiang lamb skewers

Wanted to try the braised intestine, but somehow ended up with a bowl of unrecognizable porky parts. Worse, it didn't look quite cooked...Took a few bites of the braised tofu and abit of intestine before passing the bowl to my colleagues who didn't mind. Fear factor... The lamb skewer was more acceptable but I think our satay tastes better...

The food stalls kept recurring. Not sure why they needed so many stalls that sells the same stuffs...

Wangfujing is very much like Orchard Road. One can find mid to high end retail stores there.

retail shops at Wangfujing

night fall

The Beijing Experience Part II

Beijing's weather was quite likeable. Day time temperature of between 26 to 28 degrees, while night time was a much cooler 18 degrees celcius.

average day looks like this

best weather day!

Out of the seven days that we were there, there were only two days where the weather was pristine with distinctly defined colours.

Every morning after breakfast, we'd trudge our way to the Beitucheng (北土城) MRT station.

Beitucheng MRT

The exhibition venue was just two stops away at Beijing Olympic Park station. Best part of MRT transportation in Beijing? A flat fare of ¥2 per exit. Heard from colleagues that Line #1 and #2 are the most crowded. Thank goodness for our daily destination was on Line #8. For people entering the MRT stations, all bags must be scanned prior to boarding of the trains.

event's venue

empty, before it starts

our booth was placed within the animation sector

We only ate once at the exhibition venue. It wasn't nice. Super difficult to get seats, long queues and no one liked the cold food. Plus it was expensive at ¥40 per pax (for a plate of rice with tofu, vege and pork, an apple, one yoghurt and a bottle of water).

So, lunch on subsequent days we'd be at a nearby mall called Xin'ao Shopping Center that's about 10 minutes away.

at the mall

Just before one heads towards the mall, there's a corner nearby that looked like this:

can you spot the fake Disney characters?

If you ever see those people in costumes lurking there, please turn and run far. They're sort of like tourist trap. Unsuspecting passerby (like us) would snap their picture and all of a sudden they'd be willing to pose with you. Not one but at least 3 poses. And when you're done, they'd ask for payment which was ¥10. They'd follow you till you pay up! Hahaha. But gotta hand it to them too. In costume on a hot day is no joke. Just that they should declare upfront that they charge for posing with you. They're not right, yet not wrong too. Just opportunists.

my ¥10 shot

The shopping mall was rather new and modern. Spacious too. It has a 4D theatre, lots of restaurants, cafes, food court and retail shops.

Level 1 of the mall

Had lunch there twice and was quite happy with the food that I ordered.

Seven Nana's counter

beef curry Japanese style (¥25)

Another beef rice from a HK-style cafe. Which I think tried to be authentic but without success as two out of the three dishes that we ordered, failed. At this said HK-styled cafe (which btw, was packed during lunch hour), never order the curry chicken rice nor the claypot mushroom sausage rice.

beef brisket rice (牛腩反) from a HK-styled cha chan teng (茶餐厅)

We also found KFC near the MRT that was beside Xin'Ao Shopping Center. There's no two/three piece plate here. Just single piece fried chicken (if you must have fried chicken). Most people was observed to be eating burgers. There's no chili sauce for fast food joints. Only ketchup is available.

err...fishball soup with KFC, anyone?

doesn't taste like the 11 secret herbs and spices of the Colonel's...

The Beijing Experience

This was quite the last minute opportunity. Was sent to Beijing on a work trip for an event there. Many firsts. First time applying for China visa. First time to China. First time taking a non-direct flight. First time flying to a suitably far place on my own. First time rooming with a colleague whom I've just met once. Hmm. Feels like school camp, all over again. Hahaa.

Thankfully, was booked on a Malaysian Airline flight so I got comfort plus food. Only drawback. The four hour wait in between.

RM9 kopi at KLIA to pass time

to Beijing, woOohOo!

Aisle seat for me, all the way. This way, am free to go toilet anytime without bothering anyone. Yay.

dinner

Arrived at Beijing T3 around after midnite, and my fellow colleagues travelling via AirAsia were at T2 20 minutes after mine. Beijing International Airport, specifically T3 was nice. Huge space. Spent some 15~20 minutes waiting for my luggage. -_-'''

Then, waited like another 10 minutes to take the airport shuttle to T2 which by now runs at 30 mins interval. All this while, was inhaling large volume of ciggy smoke as everyone seemed to be smoking there. Found out that T2 and T3 aint exactly near. Took about 10~15 mins bus ride before it reached.


Reunited with colleagues from KL HQ, only to find out that T2 taxi stand has a long stretch of passengers waiting for taxi. -_-'''

Then, we were approached by a guy who offered us a ride in his private car. Ok. Our encounter with the notorious black market taxi that coincidentally was in the news recently. My colleagues decided to risk it, and thus we were asked to follow them. Quite dangerous, come to think of it.

Anyway, the price was ¥300 (~SGD61) per cab and we were split into two cabs as their private car couldn't fit all our luggages plus barang barang for the exhibition.

These are young chaps, probably not more than 26 years old. Our driver revealed that he sleeps during the day and drives at night. Normal metered cab fare would've costs somewhere around ¥100~¥200.

Our driver had to rely on his GPS because he has never heard of our hotel name nor of the address. He ended up having to work abit harder for the extra ¥100 since we were lost somewhere along the way, and had to circle the same area twice before we managed to find the right way to our hotel.

Guess we were lucky because he did send us safely to the hotel, plus helped us with our luggages upon reaching the destination. =)

our hotel

twin sharing

bathroom

The Holiday Inn Express Beijing Minzuyuan was pretty modern, comfortable and clean. Just don't expect fluent English speakers nor bell-boy services.

Beijing night weather was nice, cooling at 18~19 degrees celcius. Went out for supper at nearby congee and noodles fast food shop, then slept at about 4am and our next day started around 830am.