Macau-HK-Jie Si-Guang Zhou Trip (China Trip Part I)

'You smelled of Macau', joked Laura at Hui Xin's party on the day after I came back from the China trip. The question that everyone asked, 'how was the trip?' Now, how do I start putting down my mixed feelings? This trip has its fair share of good and not-so-good experiences, but each experience is part and parcel of life.


Macau
An island like Macau is undoubtedly easy to manage like HK and Singapore. Though people speak with the familiar Cantonese and the restaurants' styles resemble that of HK restaurants, the pace of life is much slower than that of HK. And as everyone knows, it is rich in Portuguese culture, so the architechture of their historical sites resemble our A Famosa back in Malacca.


What strikes us as weird is that, all the signs in airports, roads, buses etc. are in Chinese and Portuguese (both languages are the official language of Macau). However, when inquired, we found out that the students in Macau do not learn Portoguese, unless of course, they pick it up themselves!! The Macau government really goes the extra mile to preserve the heritage in order to boost its tourism.


Of course, the dark side of Macau- gambling and prostitution. I am not writing a fairy tale so I will not attempt to paint only the nice pictures. As we walked along the streets back to our hotel, we saw a hotel with partially tinted glass door, full with heavily made-up girls sitting at the staircase of the hotel lobby. The signboard of the place? ' XX Hotel' So decent that it would deceive any innocent ones as they walk along the street during day time. Oh well, to be fair, which city in the world is free from prostitution?



Hong Kong
The transportation system rocks!! In every MTR station, you can get a map upon request from the customer service staff and every landmark, bus stop and tourist attraction are listed clearly. The customer service staff are very friendly and are fluent in mandarin, cantonese and english.


20 years back, Hong Kong was notorious for its impolite people. Shopkeepers who gave you the glare because you were waering simple clothes and were not seen as their potential customers. People who were too busy to try to figure our your questions, put together in Cantonese that they are unfamiliar with. Gone were those days, indeed. I was truly impressed with the attitudes of the MTR staff and the staff at the theme parks, not forgetting too the man who directed us the way to a dim sum restaurant.


The downside? FOOD. My expectation wasn't met. I have grown up having the impression that you can find nice food anywhere in HK, be in at the roadside stall, char chan teng (traditional coffee shops) or restaurants. You can't brag about 'Eat it at XXX' if you can only find chun dim sum in 5-star restaurants in your country, can you?


When my parents were in HK for their honeymoon, my mom loved the food a lot. She could easily get mouth-watering roast goose leg anywhere they go. Mind you, it wasn't costly. What happens now is that you get more fast-food like char chan teng, serving mee soaked in heavily ajinomoto-ed soup, and below-par meals that come in exhorbitant price. I was warned that Disneyland's food wasn't nice (I shouldn't have trusted my friend beh who didn't enjoy Disneyland); however, the grilled chicken and roast chicken wings there were the best food that I ate in HK!


Oh, and the chilli sauce. No country can make chilli sauce like MALAYSIA coz we rock! Our chilli sauce is a result of fusion of the 3 races. When we asked for chilli sauce in HK, the guy asked, 'Oil or sauce?' Oil is the orangy chilli oil that we usually find with sambal belacan but over there, it is erm..orange oil. Sauce is the manufactured chee cheong fun chilli sauce that we get here. Argh. They fail to appreciate the goodness of chilli that comes simply by chopping fresh chillis/ blending them, and adding some lime juice, a bit of sugar and soya sauce.




Jie Si
This is a place in Guang Dong province, about 4 hours bus ride from Shen Zhen. Most of the people in Jie Si are Hor Po (subset of Hakka). It was part of our itinery because mom wanted to meet up with her distant relative whom she kept in touch with via snail mail when she was younger.


My nightmare began in Shen Zhen when we failed to locate the bus station at Cao Pu Street; 4 of us were lugging out heavy luggages, desperately asking passers-by and traffic police for directions but to no avail. Raindrops started to fall, I was tired, sweaty and felt helpless as we trudged along the wet, dirty street. It didn't help when some china man approached us and spoke in some dialects we couldn't understand, presumably was trying to sell us bus tickets. (we managed to locate the bus station by that time). We had to guard our luggages while watching out for the bus to Jie Si.


You see, china transportation system is a havoc. The bus station is merely an empty land where buses come and go. There is no schedule of the arrival or departure time of the bus, no counter that is selling tickets. So when the bus heading to your destination arrives, you simply hop onto the bus and pay the conductor. Yes, it is that bad. When I realised that, I was like OMGOMGOMGOMG!!! It was until 2 pm plus that we decided to catch a bus to Jie Yang (assuming it is near Jie Si) and we bought the tics from a company nearby, simply because we saw more system in it. (Later we found out from our relatives that even private companies with counters cound CON us. They CONNED us!! Each of us paid RMB 200 for a bus ticket. It was so obvious that they took advantage on our plight.)



Enough about that bad encounter. The distant relatives were very warm and friendly to us; my sisters and I played with the kids while my mother talked to them. We couldn't stop sending this message to the kids, 'study hard and get a good job next time. Education can change your life'.



Guang Zhou
I brought along a foldable bag because we aimed to shop, shop, shop in Guang Zhou. The bag wasn't put to use. The 2 days in Guang Zhou were spent eating with a relative (the aunty is really hospitable) and shopping at Beijing Road and Shang Xia Jiu Road, which we we stayed.


My best buy was a pair of Nike shoes at RMB396 in one of the malls. Earlier on, my sisters each bought a pair of Nike shoes at Sogo in Hong Kong.


I guess the places which we went didn't offer much accessories. What a let down. In my previous trip to China (Shanghai-Su Zhou-Hang Zhou- Nan Jing), I saw a lot more accessories and managed to buy a few pair of earrings at a really cheap price.


Ah, let's get to the pictures, which will better illustrate the trip. I bet some of you who are unpatient must have scrolled down to the pictures part without reading my thoughts.



With sis at Ruins of St. Paul.





Pharmacy at a nostalgic building ^_^ How I wish to be the boss of pharmacies like this hehe.




Kuan Yin Statue.



During Star Ferry Harbour Tour.



Breathtaking view of HK city.




Night scene at Victoria Peak.



Tram to and fro Victoria Peak.



Night Scene at Victoria Peak.



At entrance of Ocean Park.



It was so hot that we 3 sisters folded up our pants. Never mind about fashion.


The specially designed MTR that brought us to dreamland.



At the entrance of Disneyland !!



We queued up for about 45 minutes for this shot ^_^ Thanks to teamwork, we didn't have to wait under the scorching sun for that long (though we had umbrellas) coz 2 of us went to the exhibition place (With seats and air con) while the other 2 lined up. After some time, we swapped over.



Anywhere in Disneyland is magical. If you look closely, you could see a girl in green lining up. That's me waiting for my turn to take pic with Daisy (I went there first before the mickey-minnie one coz the queue was short!! Pics in the 'ancient camera'.lol)



A fabulous Golden Mickey show. I guess I am 'older' now; the oooph I used to have for thrill rides have faded, instead, I really enjoy shows like this.









A great firework display to mark to end of a magical day.


What a long post! I am quite tired now and I have to wake up early at 6 plus tomorrow morning for the industrial attachment at bangi. So stay tuned, I may upload more pics from my camera phone when I am free ^_^