Our foreign tour guide, Xiao Kuok (young Kuok - Kuok like the famous Aaron Kuok Fu Sing) was already waiting for us at the airport. Speaks wonderful Mandarin - the words that go high and low like a song. Yep, I'm one of those people who thinks that Mandarin is the most beautiful language - spoken and written. (Unfortunately pretty tough).

He was kind to take a picture of me and my mom at the airport. More about him later under the topic people.

On our way to the Beijing city, we passed by a very 'authentic' toll booth. Very Chinese. (photo will be pasted here once I get it developed - it was missed out somehow).

It was time for dinner and we headed to a Thai restaurant. I was feeling a bit disappointed - I mean, Thai food while in China?

The Thai restaurant had a nice decoration - fake fruits and vines hanging all over the ceiling. We were treated to some Asian cultural dances. The dancers than tied red strings on one of our hands as a gesture of good luck. Mom was luckier, she was given a small souvenir (those dangling decorations) as well.

To my surprise, they weren't serving Thai food. I think the restaurant was just following the Thai concept for its ambience. Not the food. There was no tom yam, no green curry, no pandan chicken, no mango salad - those authentic dishes.

There were many dishes of meat and vegetables - the vegetables were really salty. I had expected this as one of my ex-colleague, Boon Siang informed me regarding the food prior to the trip. Our tour guides assured us that they do inform eating places to reduce the salt during food preparation. Guess the chef must have forgotten.