Kch - Kul - Pek Day 1

Our party from Kuching were made up of 12 persons. 5 of us are colleagues - C, CV, W, M and yours truly, while the other 7 are the family members of M's family.

We flew Air Asia all the way to Beijing. We left Kuching at 2.15 p.m. and reached there 12 hours later, with one stopover in Kuala Lumpur. Our flight from Kuching was delayed for 35 minutes ... and it caused us to be in a rush to catch our connecting flight in Kuala Lumpur. After dropping our baggage, we quickly made our way to the gate. On the way, we made a quick stop at McDonald's and grabbed a burger each. With a few minutes to spare, we gobbled down our burger outside our departure gate.

The distance between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing was 4900km, and flight time was about 6 hours. I sat in the middle row, along the aisle. I tried to sleep during the flight and I think I did catch some shuteye briefly. At 8.00 p.m., dinner was served. We pre-booked our meal ...

Nasi Minyak & Ayam Percik

This was quite nice; I liked the delicate flavour of the rice; there were only 4 thin slices of chicken, which I found to be very salty when eaten on its own. I could taste the coconut milk in the sambal, and I liked the sweet and sour pickles too. 

At 10.20 p.m., the plane flew over Hong Kong towards Wuhan, and thereafter to Beijing. We landed at Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 2 at about 1.10 a.m. It did not take too long to get out of the plane, but then, immigration was inefficient - there were only 4 Foreign Passport counters operating at that time. We were in the queue for 45 minutes before we were processed.

Beijing was about 21 degrees. I briefly enjoyed the cool breeze as I stepped outside the airport to board the tour bus. We were met by a representative of the travel agency, who shuffled us into a bus. It took 50 minutes to reach our hotel. I dozed off during the journey.

We put up at Maya Island Hotel for four nights. This hotel is located around the vicinity of the 4th Ring Road ... pretty far from Beijing City Centre. When I first went into the lobby, I thought I was in South America. This hotel has a Maya cultural theme .... with the Maya decor and art pieces all over the hotel.

The lobby

Check-in took a while to sort out, and we had to pay a deposit of RMB200 per room. By the time we got our access to the room, it was already 3.30 a.m. 

The room was rather dim ...

I abandoned the idea of a shower. Instead, I changed and went straight to sleep.