The end...

The next day, I decided to travel around Beijing myself (because the rest were too busy with their projects and decided to stay in the lodge for the whole day instead...).

I decided to go to Rem Koolhaas's CCTV building. It has been closed since February because of a huge HUGE fire. It wasn't even the CCTV tower itself that caught fire but the neighbouring Oriental Mandarin hotel which is part of the CCTV complex. The complex was supposed to open May this year. See here for article. It is now a very huge expensive white elephant.

It was hard to see the CCTV in all its 'cantilevering' glory with the 10m fence fencing up the whole complex:

Finally a peek:

So wasted!:

After that I went back to pack up to make my own way to the airport (I was flying back earlier because I wanted to celebrate Hari Raya Haji in Singapore; I already missed last year's when I was down under). Yeow, Huiloh, Pam and Ashley decided to stay in Beijing for a couple more days before staying in Shanghai for a few days.

I took the domestic flight to Shanghai. The new terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport was designed by UK architect, Norman Foster's firm:

I was there too early and my flight was delayed indefinitely. I was really worried because my flight from Shanghai to Singapore was in the morning the next day. I HAD to fly back to Shanghai without delays! Luckily, after much pestering the lady at the check-in counter, she gave me an earlier flight out back to Shanghai.

So I flew back to Shanghai on my own and reached Shanghai Hongqiao Domestic Airport (Shanghai has two airports - the domestic one and the Shanghai Pudong International airport which are more than 40 km apart!). OMG, MY BAG. It was like shredded to pieces. When I first arrived in Shanghai, the top part was torn off; my book and my batteries where left scattered on the luggage belt. This time, the bottom of my bag was torn off completely, leaving some of my stuff dangling outside like the intestines and stomach after a bad road accident! Note to self: NEVER EVER bring a backpack to China ever AGAIN.

Hongqiao airport is 13km from the city centre and there were no other ways except for by taxis and buses to reach the city centre. I missed the chance to take the cheaper shuttle bus to Pudong Airport. Instead, I took a cab to May/Liangping/Wenhui's place to crash for a few hours. Queueing up at the taxi stand is HELL. Chinese people DO NOT know how to queue. Not to be outdone, I squeezed my way through and blocked all those queue cutters. Damn you if you think you can squeeze me out...

After a hectic queue for the cab, with my bagpack in my arms like roadkill, I got myself a cab and directed the cab driver to their place. Of course I had the address written in Chinese to give the cab driver but I was drilled by Pam and Huiloh earlier on to memorise and get the intonation for the name of the street right. The ride was cheaper than I predicted and he took me by the shortest route - cause thankfully, Shanghainese cab drivers are always never honest. I tried to converse with the driver in as much Mandarin as possible so that I won't sound like a 'non-local' (what? it was dark...). Coincidentally on the cab ride, there was a song playing; sung by some Chinese singer and the title (and some of the lyrics) was 'Aku Cinta Padamu'. STRANGE but TRUE! How coincidental was that??? A Malay guy took that taxi and the song the radio station was playing had some Malay words in the lyrics!

So I reached their place (even manage to pass through the security guards there) and had a quick rest (a nap and I had to tape up my bag with only masking tape) before they sent me off to the Maglev Train station to Shanghai Pudong International Airport (a cab ride there would cost about 250RMB!!! Its almost 40km away from the city centre).

Maglev trains are really fancy and travel at speeds up to 581km/h! Within half an hour or so, I reached Pudong International Airport. Only to find my Malaysian Airline flight was DELAYED for almost 4 hours! Weather conditions my FOOT. All the other flights took off except for mine.

I got vouchers for food at the airport. Then took the flight out after rotting for 3 hours at the airport. Thankfully, I was given the immediate flight out of KL (had a transit there before Singapore).

And I reached Singapore, 3 hours later than the original arrival time. Only to go to JB, Malaysia, (to spend Hari Raya Haji there) a few hours later at midnight.