My PDA Replaces The Book!

That day, my girlfriend and I went to two parks, which were the Bei Hai Park (as mentioned earlier) and the Jinshang Park. As it's approaching winter, it gets dark at about 5.30 pm. So, we left the parks on our rented bicycles and went to look for a place to eat. We decided to go to Wang Fu Jing - a street closed to vehicles with "branded goods"-infested shopping malls on both sides of the road.

We were pedalling along when I saw the street approaching. But there was no way to turn into that street as I was on the opposite side of the highway! There were 5 lanes on each side of the highway so I had to cross 9 lanes to get to that street!

I took out a pre-printed map of the street, passed it to my girlfriend and asked her to look for a way to get there. As it was dark, it was hard to read the map. I quickly pulled out my TH55, turn it on and loaded up the PDF map you see below.

Beijing map

I was able to quickly locate the street I was in and find the nearest route to get me across the street. It was only a matter of minutes for me to locate the route that I needed to take to get me to Wang Fu Jing.

It was getting even colder and I was already shivering. Cycling in the cold isn’t an easy thing to do if you do not have gloves. So I stored my PDA and continued pedalling to Wang Fu Jing. Even with the help of the map, I arrived there some 20 minutes later. Just imagine how much longer it’d take if I did not have the map with me. I could be pedalling in the cold for over an hour.. and may not even reach it!

Chinese Characters

On the fifth day, we headed to the Summer Palace. We were both not fluent in Mandarin and we were totally clueless when it comes to Chinese characters. It’s quite hard to get around if you can’t speak or read the language.

Luckily for me, I had already prepared for it earlier. I copied Chinese characters of famous landmarks and put it in a graphic file with a 480x320 resolution so that it fits my TH55 screen when viewed with RescoViewer.

Beijing map

I just showed bus drivers where I wanted to go and when the right bus came along, the driver asked me to climb aboard because the bus passes by the Summer Palace.

Now, the Summer Palace is a huge place. They actually sell maps at the entrance so that getting around will be much easier. However, I didn't have to buy any of those maps because I already had an overview map of the area stored in a PDF file!

It was a breeze getting around with the map as it provides me a bird's eye view of the entire area. It also ensures that I do not miss any of the exciting sites. You will be able to see the PDF map below.

Summer Palace map

At The Great Wall

Here’s a photo of me entering text into the TH55 with my Sony KB100 keyboard on top of the Simatai section of the Great Wall of China!

Me, on the Great Wall

It is an amazing experience walking on the greatest wall in the world. It's really inspiring to see what man is capable of creating. It is still beyond my comprehension how the Great Wall was ever built. The wall seems to stretch to infinity!

What more can I say? Its beauty can only be appreciated by those who have been there and actually stood where countless Chinese soldiers have stood defending the Great Wall from the Mongols!