Day 3 - Shell China Trip

Day 3
I woke up yet again to bright sun shine, did my morning thing and had another bad hotel breakfast.


Our destination today was the province of Suzhou.

First stop on the list was Wuzhen, the "Water City". On the way, I finally had some entertainment in the form of mp3s because I found out that my PDA could be charged in the hotels so I didn't have to conserve battery power. The travelling wasn't so boring this way.

On the road to Suzhou, some people dressed in faded army pants and open jackets stopped the bus on the highway. I thought that they wanted to rob us. One of the other tour guys' went to hide his camera while I did the same. Luckily though, we found that it was just that we weren't allowed to take a road because of the buses' size. We weren't taking that road fortunately. They stopped us cuz it only looked like such. Chalk another one up to diminishing corruption in China I thought.

We stopped for a toilet break. The concept was really nice. It involved peeing on glass panels and behind the transparent glass panels were plants. I couldn't take a picture here because there were a number of people using the urinal and I was still quite happy with Life in general.

At another stop on another day however, I did manage to take a snapshot(see above). The differences were that the urinals at this stop didn't have that short wall separating us from the urinals as compared to the one in this photo that I took at a different rest stop and the plants at the first stop were not of the hanging variety.

We finally reached Wuzhen and this time round I took my coat with me(albeit I had to rush back in the bus to get it). After yesterday's off and on rain, after eating dinner and walking to the bus, this strong gust of wind caught me off guard and took my breathe away. It made me feel weak so I opted for the safe choice.


The villagers here, still use bicycles. This one is pretty rusted but looks like its still used frequently.

Bear with me while I dump the rest of my photos here.

Man walking with kid	Princess' Bed
Synopsis of Clothing	Window in a wall
Alley	Le Commies

While walking thru the town, I soon begain to smell the "stench" of Rice Wine. Soon enough, I found a distillery and a stash of vats. The sheer number of these vats was amazing. A villager there was giving out samples in small cups but I didn't want any. After tasting (and SMELLING) yesterday's rice wine, I thought that that was enough.

There were more stashes of these vats in other places in town.

The villagers in this town also make their own fabrics.

We were on the way to the "boat ride" when I took these shots. These houses, unlike Malaysian Kampongs, and more like Venice, are built on stone and cement bases.


Our boat man was singing the whole time. I didn't really understand what he was saying. But I knew that he was conscious of how we were reacting to his singing. At one point, his voice began to trail off so I turned to see what was happening but then his voice returned. lol.

After alighting from the boat which brought us to the exit, we went for lunch which was at a restaurant about 400 metres from where we were. Only the Duck appetiser and the Pork were any good. Well, the meaty part of the pig at least. Here's a picture of the Pork.

Next in line was the Singapore Industrial Park in Suzhou. On the way, we noticed that the roads were built around a river. Meaning a river is what separates the roads travelling in opposite directions. A river runs through it is another way to describe it.

Suzhou apparently has a lot of rivers and a foreigner was employed by the Chinese Government to design a road system that would complement these rivers.

We soon reached the Industrial Park area. One can tell the difference between this area and other areas. The hedges and bushes lining the road are neatly trimmed and placed a-la-Singapore and everything looks much more cleaner and less cluttered.

The story of the Singapore Industrial Park is this. The Singapore Government, run by the PAP, invested a certain amount of money in China to develop an Industrial Park. But after all the infrastructure was built and the project was almost complete, the Chinese Government took the money that the Singapore Government had paid them and made their own Industrial Park just next to Singapore's. They offered lower prices than that offered by the Singapore Government. Singapore lost out of course and if I'm not wrong, pulled out from the deal.


Our local Suzhou guide was waiting for us there. Since there wasn't much to see, we left for this place that boasted a padoda that had been standing for over 2000 years.

There was this cute little boy with red rosy cheeks just in front of the pagoda's entrance. I noticed that the boy's bum was showing. Thinking it was just a tear in the dude's jumpers, I didn't take any pictures.

Exposed Bums Again	Neapolitan Ice Cream

After touring the place, buying some toys for my little sister and learning that this guide could speak a "litterh engrish" (sic), we went back to the bus and headed of oo an area in Suzhou that apparently had historical and cultural value. The street, QiLiShan Tang Culture Street is set amongst some of the oldest buildings in Suzhou.


These buildings, our guide explained all had white walls and black roofs.

Our guide also explained on the way to the place that there are 3 types of women in Suzhou. Those good at sewing, those good at cooking, and those good at making silk. Our guide was a lady FYI. She then went on to explain that the reason for their good skin complexion (I just thought it looked OK though) was because they eat pig skin everyday.

I refer to a previous picture.

Yucks!!

The Suzhou guide recommended that we try the fried dumplings there so we did and it tasted really good. At just 40RMB for 8 pieces, that equated to about S$0.10 per piece.

You see that metal pot in the picture with the ladel in it? The amount of oil required to fill that one up to about a quarter of it's height is what is used in that big black flat pan with the wooden cover which the guy in the picture is using to fry the dumplings.

This dinner saw wayang singers with their chinese guitars and their shrill and nasal voices coming to our tables to entertain us. We also had, as one of the dishes, scallops on a shell that looked almost similar to Shell's Logo. How appropriate. lol

After dinner, we then headed off to a "Mall Street" i.e. a big street with branded and a few "branded" shops lining the street. Sorta their version of a mall I guess. Some of their stuff was really cheap. Like my mom's shoes which were going for like only 40 or so RMB (S$8).

Along this mall street, we encountered this beggar carrying her child around and asking for money. We had been told not to donate anything to these beggars not only just because we could not tell the veracity of their situation, but also because it would mean that all the beggars would throng that area once they found out that the people there are very generous.

The funny thing was at the end of it all, we encountered this lady again, this time selling flowers with her little boy no where in sight. lol. Pretty funny eh? Would've been more effective if she sold flowers with her son in tow.

We went back to yet another hotel after that and we hurriedly tried to put ourselves to sleep again. The wake up call was 7.30 this time. That was a little hard cuz this hotel room had absolutely no windows. But I managed to.

That was the end of Day 3.

Part 3 of 7

Day 2 - Shell China Trip

Day 2
Groaning at the bright light that filled the room as my dad(whom I was sharing the room with) opened the curtains, his way of saying "Wake Up". Apparently in China, the sun rises very very very very very early. FUCK.

Our destination today was Huangzhou and a long bus ride was ahead of us.

So after doing all the customary "Morning Business", I headed down to the breakfast area.

The food was terrible. The only dishes of remote quality were the fried rice and the bread-crumbs coated fish. The soya bean tasted very watery, the orange juice tasted like those vitamin C drinks where you pop a pill into a glass of water where it fizzes until the whole thing turns orange. It was very unappetising.

After breakfast and admiring the surroundings(We were in a metropolitan area with dense old buildings and dirty roads, KTVs right next door, and dilapidated hotels elsewhere.), we went to the bus.

That's when we saw this police officer standing in front of "our" bus. Talking with a bunch of other people and "our" driver. At first we thought that the policeman was looking for some money.

Later though, we found out that the bus' spare tire had been stolen. I don't know if it's bad that I felt relieved, but I did because I was afraid that we might have been having a situation. I was glad to know that corruption wasn't all that widespread. At least not where we were at. One place among many, but still, "one down".

After a bit of commotion, we were on our way to Hangzhou, our second stop.

The roads were jammed pack and we saw a number of accidents on a number of the crossed 2 lane elevated roads.

According to our guide, elevated roads were introduced because there was no more space to build wider roads. So most of these elevated roads(not unlike the way the MRT is elevated) were built over existing roads as a form of highway.

Our tour guide was explaining that China is no longer a pure Communist country. China started introducing mild forms of capitalism in the early 1980s. According to him, China was not advancing fast enough with relation to the rest of the world and even regressed 10 years during the Cultural Revolution so shortly after Mao Zedong died, the government of China slowly began to introduce more and more capitalist elements into their country. China began to grow significantly after that. Not withstanding that China started out from zero, a growth rate of 20% is still quite interesting. Not to mention the fact that China was unaffected by the Asian Financial Crisis. Capitalism was formally introduced(sort of) into China albeit under a different name. The Socialist Market Economy.

Apparently, in Shanghai, the city is divided into rings, with the Inner Ring being an invisible cirle surrounding the city's center, and so on. Property in the inner ring is apparently quite high. And so it is for the other rings too. An exorbitant 10000Yuan(Another name for Renminbi[RMB]) or something like S$2000 PSF for the inner ring. And considering that these people's wages are along the S$1000-1500 area, the costs are extremely expensive.

<Pictures Removed>

Pretty soon however, everyone in the bus was starting to sleep. Not because it was boring or anything, but because many of them didn't get enough sleep, especially those that were eating steak up till 3am.


I stayed awake though and I managed to see some familiar sights like buildings for Carrefour and CapitaLand.


We finally reached Huangzhou. We navigated through the city to reach our first stop. Xihu Lake (West Lake).


Soon we were off the bus and walking to the lake. It was a bit chilly but not unbearable for me... Not till the wind started to blow. Based on my experience of being able to tahan(sic) cold weather, I had decided not to bring my coat.

When it got too chilly, I did what I usually did to overcome cold and steel myself up. I tensed my muscles and tried to control any trembling. Then I forced myself not to shiver when the wind blew. I kept this up till I didn't feel the cold anymore, usually about ten minutes later. In this case, the cold never really went away , but it was enough for me to tahan. (I did the same thing before in Malaysia's Genting Highlands during rainy weather and it worked rather well. Albeit, when I got back to Singapore, I felt postively on fire. lol)

According to Chinese Law, when entering touring a province, you must have at least one tour guide from that province to follow you around. So in our case, when not in Shanghai(where our Chinese Guide was from), we had our Chinese Guide and the Singapore Guide and a local Guide.

However, at the lake, the tour guide was no where to be seen and it was beginning to rain so we headed to the restaurant, but not before making a quick stop at the loo(You'll find we made a lot of toilet stops in this trip).

Toilets at the Huangzhou West Lake

Interesting(vaguely) sights on the way to the restaurant.

(External Image - Not actual picture)

The restaurant had this funny umbrella holder. For each slot where you put your umbrella, there was a lock and a key. So when putting your umbrella there, you can lock it so no one can steal it. Well, at least in theory.

After a lunch that included many fatty and near tasteless dishes, we went for boat ride across the lake. To be honest, it was one of the most boring things I've ever done on a trip. It made me very doubtful that the rest of the trip would be any fun at all.

The boat was very slow and the attractions were non existant. The fog was incredible so that any view of pagodas and hills were obscured. It was raining too so staying out in the rain with a camera at the ready wasn't really a good idea(But I did it anyway).


The boat took us to the opposite side of the lake where we where our bus was waiting for us. But first we had to walk through another mini park that had this pond full of Kois (or something).
After some dangerous road crossings, we made our way to the bus in one piece. Oh. Did I forget to tell you? Apparently in China, Zebra crossings don't really mean much. And also, horning someone in China is more like a "Hey". Whereas in Singapore, horning is more like "What The FUCK you FUCKING asshole? What the fuck is wrong with you you fucker? Fuck you. Fucking dumbass. Fuck off!". Bicycles and pedestrians regularly intermingle with themselves and with other vehicles on the roads. And also, unlike in Singapore, there isn't much finger raising, oddly enough.

Our next spot on the itenary was the school of the based-on-truth legend of the Wansong Academy a.k.a Taihe Academy a.k.a Fuwen Academy where the lovers Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yintai were said to have studied together for three academic years.


At the time, girls were not allowed to study. But this lady(dunnoe which one of them is the lady) was said to have sneaked herself in. When the guy found out she was a girl... Well u can guess the rest of this typical romance story. No brokeback action here though.

The place is also known for it's miniature, near-vertical, 3d model scenes.

Our next stop was this tea place. I decided to stay in the bus and sit that one out because I wasn't really interested someone telling me about the history of tea and how I should buy their tea, all in a foreign language, both literally and figuratively.

About an hour and a half later though, some of the tour participants began trickling out of the place to board the bus. By now, I needed to pee really bad so I decided to go to the toilet. Well duh! I left the bus to go to the chinese styled building and realised how friggin cold it was. It was only 22°C but it was raining and very breezy.

Now you know these Chinese Chinese(sic) are real crafty people right, so they made it such that to go out again you had to pass by a special path that passed every bit of the shop that this people had for selling tea. People who play Warcraft's Tower Defense will know what I'm talking about. So I spent a good 5 minutes walking thru this maze of sales.

Then there was this sales lady who gave me a hard shove to reach an Ang Moh(Red Hair i.e. European) who was about to buy something. Fucker.

Nevertheless I made it out in one piece and was greeted again by the cold weather which made me want to pee again but I held it in and made my way to the bus where Johnathan(A fellow tourist and son of a Shell guy) was praising them for their excellent sales tactics. Something about how they sell you a product and once you're keen on it, they offer you another product which they say is a much better buy, and because you're already keen on the product, you'd be more willing to upgrade to a better quality one.


Anywayz, we went for dinner after that at another Chinese restaurant which served duck as an appetiser and had fatty pork as part of it's 10 courses, not forgetting of course the all important watermelon finale. Most of the places we had been too looked the part(or nearly) but none lived up to expectations.

I also learnt the difference between Chrysanthemum Tea and Chinese Tea and had my first sip of rice wine. It smelt and tasted absolutely horrible. No. Actually, it smelt worse than horrible.

When back on the bus, our guide told us about this optional package plan that allowed some of the guests to view some more stuff about China's History over 3 nights. Because we were so tired, some of us decided to skip this plan.

That's when the guide dropped a bombshell. He said because the hotel was about an hour's drive away, and the show would only be an hour, we had to wait for the show to finish so we could all go back together. At first, everyone was passive about this. But then James, one of the higher-ups' in Shell and one who was going for the show, spoke up saying it was "not right". In the end they sent us back first, and from what we heard, those at the show browsed around while waiting for the bus to come back and pick them up.


The rooms in the hotel were friggin huge. I did manage to sneak a glance at the prices before we actually saw the room and saw that the "standard" rooms were 400RMB per night, roughly around S$80 per night. I presume we got the standard rooms of course.

And that was the end of the second day.

Part 2 of 7

Day 1 - Shell China Trip

Day 1
After arriving at Changi Airport at 2pm, my family and I checked in the "express lane" while everyone else had to follow the group. It seems a family and church friend had helped us book the tickets online.

All of the Shell Sponsored trips that I had been on meant that we would be changing hotels everyday. However, on this trip, to make way for shopping, the itenary was changed so that the last 2 days of this 7(really 6) day trip(11th May NIGHT - 17th May NIGHT) would be spent in the same hotel.

We then went to eat lunch in this Thai restaurant while I sat there and waited for them to finish. I didn't want to eat cuz eating before a flight only made me want to fart. I theorise that the more-than-normal amount of gas produced by my inefficient stomach is enough such that when it expands when reaching higher altitudes(albeit expanding very little), it fills my stomach and intestines such that farting in inevitable. My corollary theory is that as the intestines expand, it makes it easier for any waste to travel down to the exit which also explains why when I refuse to "release the pressure" while in a plane, I get crippling stomach aches after.


Anyway, after the 6 hr flight and enjoying the oh-so-beautiful KrisWorld(SIA Inflight Entertainment System), i.e. watching shows like Big Momma's House 2, Syrianna, and a number of TV Comedies, we finally arrived at the Shanghai Airport at about 11pm.

Lemme tell you. I was shocked. After those years of "education" in schools about how communists shared everything and were generally very poor, I must say that the airport looked completely opposite of what I had been told(or was led to believe) commies live like...

So I did what any good tourist would do and took photos of their insanely spacious airport(except for their travelators).

After moving to the ground floor in a lift of insanely large proportions (Could fit around 15ppl with their luggage [1.5-2 bags per person]), we were greeted by 16°C of cold air.

With a slight wind blowing, I was beginning to get a bit chilly. I don't know if it was the cold or if I was just simply excited, but I couldn't stop grinning.

(External Image - Roads on the opposite side of the airport to what is being described below.)

The roads leading to (and away from) the airport were beautiful. Clean and neat with curving lateral arches of raised roads crossing over each other, some high, some low, but all over a big beautiful lake.

The roads were empty which served to indicate that the Chinese don't really hang out much late at night. At least not nationally.

Two things about the roads here was this.
1 - The overhead green signboards were not unlike Singapore's, albeit in Mandarin(presumably).
2 - The second thing is that the Chinese drive on the right side of the road, like the States.

Our tour guide was a Mandarin speaking man. Unfortunately, many of us didn't fully understand what he was saying, either because of his twang (albeit only slight), or because we didn't really speak Mandarin.

So our Singapore Guide, P. S. Goh, translated for us.
He said: "Tmr's wake up call will be at 6.30am. After breakfast, we'll then check out at 8am." Everyone in the bus groaned. China is the same as Singapore time by the way so that meant that we would be losing precious sleeping time.

Goh then reminded us that we had to look Left, then Right, then Left again instead of the opposite that we do in Singapore.


Most of us retired to our beds almost immediately upon reaching the hotel. Some others went to the nearby shops for a glance. Others ate steak till about 3am.

So that's how the day ended.

Part 1 of 7

Fishing in Chermin & Ray Alley

I love Fishing.

The seaside does wonders for my complexion. Unlike this dude: http://shelivesonmystreet.blogspot.com/2006/04/revealing-new-me.html

WICKED LOST SHIT!!!!!

Was laughing my ass off the whole time.. Too bad it's so short...

http://jakechristie.blogspot.com/2006/04/how-to-discuss-lost-intelligently-even.html

Serenity - The Movie

This movie is based on the Firefly Series where the spaceship's name was Serenity.

The series got cancelled because of "lower" ratings. Lower than a number of other programs, but not low when viewed in it's own right.

This semi "sci-fi" show features 8 main characters and has some very interesting story plots.

The only down side, imho, with this show is that some methods of "cutting and transitions" are a bit too fast. Cut from one scene to the next and then to another and to another. This of course only happened in but two episodes of the entire series.

Because of time constraints and also because the series was probably never going to be resurrected again, the big screen storyline was changed a bit.

But it really tied up a lot of loose ends that were left open in the original series which greatly satisfied it's throng of faithful followers. For those who watched the original series, it's a must-see.

There's no title.

Woke up with a headache but slowly began to fade away as the day progressed.

Think it's sleep related.

Some interesting stuff: US 911 Centre Lets Kid's Mother Die.

Building Relationships Stuff that happened

After this whole month of playing and researching board games, I've learnt one very important thing that I didn't always hold so dear.

Building relationships is important. It helps u along the road and stabilises ur positioning, wherever/whatever it may be.

Anywayz, on to the less boring stuff.

Had this game session at Settlers again today.

If there's one thing that's true in this world is that alpha plus and colin goh absolutely suck at recommending games for us to research. Of the games we played today that were recommended by them, 2 out of 4 of them sucked. And... Only 1 out of the 8 suggested was a board game. And we're supposed to be creating a board game here. bah!

Then after that I went for this dinner that my 96 year old great grand father was throwing where I met my cousin whose name I forget. lol...

Building relationships there.. lol... But c'mon. I mean, it's fun to know ur cousins no? lol

For a long while the only cousins I knew where my mom's sister's & brother's children.

And last on my agenda of wildly documenting my day's events, my bro told us this story of how he was on the bus to school when he suddenly heard someone shout, "Oh God!".

So he looked around but then quickly realised that it was because he was drooling. The kicker here is that he just pretended to go back to sleep without sucking it all back in!!

Anywayz, I'm tired.

I've got this splitting headache that Panadol Extra couldn't cure and I'm about ready to throw up.

Crazy Woman

I was coming home the other day on the train when I heard a "toy cellphone" ringing. Then this lady beside me, put the phone to her ear and started talking to... no one.

She even gave pauses in between as if to let the person on the other line speak. The only problem being that when you're using a toy phone, there's unlikely to be a response from anybody. Save IMH.

Whenever I played with my phone, she would repeat that. It was really very funny. But I didn't laugh though. Laughing at a retarded person would be impolite now wouldn't it.

About 2 stops from Simei, my stop, the train suddenly emptied itself from the throng of people that occupied it earlier.

So this lady got up and moved to the opposite set of seats. Which was when I snapped this picture of her. It was also when I realised that she looked perfectly fine, save for the phantom phone calls.

Having never taken a photo of someone on the train before, the picture below may look a tad off. The lady did look oddly familiar though. Like the lady from Under One Roof, i.e. Andrew's Wife...