After an enjoyable time in Seoul, I took Jeju Air, a budget Korean airline, on a short flight to Qingdao, China.
The main reason for me to visit China on this trip is to utilise my amex millenium hotel voucher in Beijing as it is due to expire end of 2018. After reading favourable online reviews, I decided to stay at Beijing's millenium hotel for a night.
Having visited Beijing thrice, I decided to visit Qingdao and Tianjin on this trip as well.
From Qingdao airport, I took the airport bus from the domestic terminal to the city train station. I bought a ticket for the same night's train to Beijing before exploring Qingdao.
Qingdao's train station is conveniently located close to the main tourist attractions and the seaside. It is only a short walk away.
Jeju Air is a typical budget carrier with similar seats on its narrowbody aircraft. It has a flight magazine and a separate catalogue for buy-on-board services. The flight itself is uneventful.
The main reason for me to visit China on this trip is to utilise my amex millenium hotel voucher in Beijing as it is due to expire end of 2018. After reading favourable online reviews, I decided to stay at Beijing's millenium hotel for a night.
Having visited Beijing thrice, I decided to visit Qingdao and Tianjin on this trip as well.
From Qingdao airport, I took the airport bus from the domestic terminal to the city train station. I bought a ticket for the same night's train to Beijing before exploring Qingdao.
Qingdao's train station is conveniently located close to the main tourist attractions and the seaside. It is only a short walk away.
Unlike the big metropolitan Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Qingdao is not crowded at all and I felt pleasant just wandering around by foot.
For other attractions, I depended on the subway to get around. Qingdao's metro is clean, cheap, safe and comfortable to ride. Its stations has a map of Qingdao showing the locations of the main tourist attractions.
As the sky turns dark, I made my way back to the train station to board my overnight train towards Beijing, reaching the capital next morning.
I bought a ticket for the more expensive soft sleeper as the cheaper hard sleeper is sold out. It is an enclosed compartment with four beds. Quite comfortable! The only issue is there is no onboard food or beverage service or power sockets.
On China's overnight trains, the train attendant usually exchanges my ticket for a card and wakes me up when the destination approaches.
Once I reached Beijing, I transferred to the local metro and made my way to Beijing's Millenium hotel. Took a long, long time to find it. The hotel is in a convenient location, connected internally to the metro station and an adjacent shopping mall with supermarket.
I think I was assigned a bigger than standard room, with views of the surrounding office towers and street scene.
Even the toilet and bathtub has great views!
However, the hotel is located far from Beijing's main attractions, namely the forbidden square. Anyway, as I have previously been to the area, I decided to wander around nearby.
After a wonderful one night stay in the Millenium hotel, I checked out and headed to the railway station for a short, comfortable bullet train ride towards Tianjin.
A giant bear 😀
The main attraction in Tianjin is the culture street located within walking distance of a metro station.
An authentic experience walking along the streets of ancient China!
As it turns dark, I took the metro to Tianjin airport for my overnight AirAsia flight to Kuala Lumpur.
In conclusion, it was an interesting trip to China for the umpteenth time, the sole reason is to utilise my hotel voucher. The Millenium hotel in Beijing is definitely worth the free night stay. I took the chance to visit a different part of Beijing, as well as the cities of Tianjin and Qingdao.
