It's good to be back home...though I hardly slept since i had to go down to PD for a meeting. Anyway, made it in one piece what with my painful knee and shin. Oh well, guess if I survived moving around during our trip to China, driving two hours to PD wasn't that much of a problem. This trip was organised by my daughter's school's PIBG group led by the school principal and PIBG Chairman. there were 24 of us on this trip, mainly teachers and their spouses. My family members included my hubby, he is with the PIBG, myself, my sister and my daughter Joanne, a student of the school.
Let me see, my daughter Jo would be downloading pictures via Facebook...so you all can have a look there. The trip was not as nostalgic as the one I took last year doing the Shanghai historical country tour. This time round, the trip was more relaxed, not much rushing around from one place to another. There was more free time during the day to walk around and also at night. The hotels were something though, the 1st and last night was ok, i'd give t 3 half star. the other 2 in between, probably 2 star. Anyway, the food was ok, tasted the dishes in each county or city. There were more meat dishes compared to the Shanghai trip whilst watermelon as dessert still ruled. I guess we were most at home when each meal was served with chilly padi and soy sauce. There was also the ever present duck dishes as well as fried prawns in chilly. But nothing beats home cooked food or food from our own local restaurants.
As usual, any tour to China won't be complete without the usual stopovers at Government localities. This time, we were taken to visit the bee farm, tea shop, jade shop, silk store, biscuit factory and last but not least, a reflexology center. Oh and I must comment on the tour guides, Let's see the local guide that came with us named Alan, was nice and helpful. The local China tour guide, called Ah Hua, over there was really friendly and very informative, only problem was half the people on tour did not know Mandarin and he just rattled on. It would help if the local guide could do some interpretation but he had some problems speaking English so he decided to keep quiet and all information was given by the group leader, in this case the school principal, so as one may expect, his translations were all short and only when giving instructions.
Some of the places we visited included the Sun Yet Sen Memorial Hall; the Opium War Museum, a ride up a hill via the cable car; took in the Chime Long International Circus which was really awesome; a night cruise and watching the beautiful lighted buildings, the fortress in Shenzhen and of course major shopping areas in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In fact, every city in China so far that I have seen is modern and old at the same time. Cities with sky high buildings, beautiful bridges and highways adorn each city, the country side filled with old houses complete with gardens and farms and fish ponds. One thing I noticed though, roads are wide, some are eight-lane wide, the highway roads are great, there are plenty of toll booths and roads even back lanes are clean! One thing that we will never forget are the toilets I guess, the usual rest areas have toilets that are ok...but when in China one can expect toilets with no doors and that was what we were greeted with at the fortress! Still when nature calls, we just do the job.
Anyway, as I said, the trip was a leisurely one, but it ended quite abruptly with all of us rushing to make it to through Customs, and taking in the sights of Macao in one short day trip. So though we got to take some pictures at St Paul's Hill, there was no time to visit the Cathedral nor the museum, so near yet so far. The rest of Macao was seen from the bus on the way to the airport and even my dream of playing in one of the many casinos turned to nought. And so it ended with us rushing to the airport and flying home in the wee hours of the morning. Reached KLIA around 1am, then took the bus back to the school, where we first met, reached at about 2am, took our car and hub and daughter decided they needed supper, or was it breakfast already, so we had kwan lo mee at 2.30am and finally reached home around 3am. By the time i sorted things around, put the first round of clothes in the washing machine, took a bath and finally turned in at around 4am. It was a really long day. Got up at 7.30am then saw to the household chores the whole morning before driving down to PD. Glad I am still in one piece. And so here I am till tomorrow when I will drive home again. Hoping for good weather cos' I really don't like driving in the rain. Well, the hot weather in China and back here seem to have added the toil on me, and so I have this very sore throat and a somewhat blocked nose to match. Oh well, that's my short holiday abroad...I hope my next holiday will be somewhere else...Cheers!
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