Note: This post is written by Suanne. Ben’s comments are in quotes.

After visiting the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall, we went for afternoon tea. Guess where we headed to?

Yeah, with all the walking we were dead tired and certainly needed a drink.

We had milk tea with red bean pearl.

Isn’t the red bean pearl lovely? I like it but I know people in Vancouver would find it odd. It is more odd than the plain black pearls.

We also had lotus seed Portuguese egg tarts. You must have guessed it now. Yes, it’s KFC.

The milk tea and egg tarts were RMB19 (about CAD 3.20). The egg tart is not as big as those we get in T&T but I love them. They are slightly bigger than the dim sum size.

Super crispy shells isn’t it? It is so unbelievably crispy and yet did not flake as much. Yeah, I can eat this all the time.

After the afternoon tea, we went to another museum near the Tiananmen Square. This time, we went to the Beijing Railway Museum. The entrance is RMB20 (about CAD3.30).

I brought Suanne to the Railway Museum because the railway is such an important infrastructure to a vast nation like China. In the past few years, China had been building their highspeed railway system like mad. Despite the high profile accident a few months ago, I believe that this network of highspeed railway will do to China what the interstate highway system and aviation industry did to the US the past century. Today, China has the largest network of highspeed railway and also the fastest trains on the planet (although they did slow down all the trains after that accident).

But Suanne was bored stiff here. I can see it in her eyes. LOL! I guess girls do not take to train as much as boys do. Trains are boys toys.

The museum displays various railway artifacts and pictures such as the first steam engine and railway tracks made by China on its own, new D-train models, the miniature of the newly-built Beijing South Railway Station, the Hongqiao Railway Station, the new Cheng Du railway station, the new Xi an Railway Station, the new Wuhan Railway Station, the new Guangzhou Railway station.

There are also displays of  a collection of the train tickets from different phases of the railway evolution . there are even some Taiwan train tickets on display. Here you can see the train tickets used during the late Qing Dynasty, the tickets during the Kuomintang Reign Period, tickets that came in diversified shapes and designs since the foundation of the Republic of China.

Also on display is a old style brick-and-mortar tickets printer that can produce the old style hard-board ticket. Resembling a piece of dried tofu and made of hard paper , this kind of ticket has date, value, serial number and station names on it, It had been in use for more than 70 years.

The display that made the most impression to me is the new high speed train. I got a chance to ride on one later when we were in Xian.

We also watched a 3D movie here which brings us to see the development of the railway system here including the subway. The movie costs RMB20 (about CAD3.30).