Thursday, January 31, 2008
This is my December (Part 2)
Yeah, it's silly writing about December when February is just a day away, but I have to finish what I started. Also, I have a lot more stuff to write about in the next few days, so I'll keep this one short.
22nd December 2007 - SJBA YS 15 NOW
First of all, the Subang Jaya Buddhist Association Youth Section 15th Anniversary Concert: The Night of Wonders (aka SJBA YS 15 NOW) was a smashing success, at least according to my standards. Initially, I was quite worried about pulling the emcee role off (what else would I be good for?); I always try to be funny, but because everyone knows that humour is relative, during the full rehearsal, almost nobody at all laughed at my funny bits (and I'm not referring to what's tucked inside my pants).
But it was laugh after laugh during the real show, and there were even giggles at parts that I didn't intend to be funny at all, so it was all good. Heck, my name got printed in The Star (albeit only as a passing mention), too! Happy happy, joy joy. Now if only I wore contacts and remembered to cut my hair before the thing...
27th to 30th December 2007 - SJBA YS 16th Youth Dhamma Camp
It was one temple activity after another; I was one of the two programmers in this camp, the other being the aforementioned Alvin Low. Too much happened during that four days and three nights than I would bother to write about, so once again I'll let the pictures do the talking...
...except that I don't have any with me at the moment. Watch this space for updates, but if we're unlucky, you won't get to see any (I don't have any from last year's camp, either).
31st December 2007 - Countdown at The Curve
Fresh from the camp, we gathered once again to celebrate the new year at The Curve. It was quite fun with a turnout of more than 30 camp participants.
Jumpshot!
Another!
Jumping on TV!
30 or so familiar faces at The Curve.And I'm spent. For now.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
Hasbro is coming up with the Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition where you can buy property from cities around the world. The thing is; which cities would make the cut? That's where we come in. People can vote for their Top 10 choices at this site. You only have 30 days left! You can also check out the leaderboard here, it's really interesting to find out what the most popular cities are. KL is currently at 49! Only the top 20 will make it, plus 2 wildcard nominees.
For what it's worth, I voted Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Dubai, New York, Los Angeles, Dublin, Tokyo, St. Petersburg, Hong Kong, and London.
Zhen was here at 1:10 am,
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Friday, January 11, 2008
I Like Chinese
"I like China" would have been more appropriate, but I couldn't resist giving the Python crew a little nod. Anyway, Part 2 of my December updates regarding the emceeing job, camp, as well as what I did on New Year's Eve won't come up until I get all the photos to those things; it's not fun to post without pictures.
Back to the topic. But before I begin, let me just add that because this trip lasted a whole week, be prepared for pages of incoherent and probably grammatically-incorrect babbling (if Blogspot actually had pages). Also, my mom packed the wrong (borrowed) winter jacket for me, which resulted in me looking morbidly oversized in almost all the photos we took.
You were warned!
Day 1 - 2nd January
On the wee hours of the morning of the 2nd of January, my family joined a tour group (of only 17 people in total) to visit several cities in China. This is the first time my siblings and I are travelling to somewhere farther than Thailand, and the first time any of us will be experiencing winter. The trip got off on a good start; the flight was at 2am, and I spent most of it sleeping soundly on the plane as a result. We landed about five hours later in Shanghai. Soon we were up on a bus and introduced to our tour guide.
The first stop on our trip was a place was called City God Temple. The Chinese built an entire tourist hotspot around this temple, but we ended up not buying anything (because we'd be able to find them cheaper later during our trip) except a large Caramel Macchiato at Starbucks (which wasn't that cheap either).
The apparently perennial queue for the famous City God Temple Xiao Long Bao. At less than 2 yuan a piece, it's surprisingly cheap considering Shanghai city's high living standards. However, we didn't buy it because the queue was just too damn long.
Just messing around with a suspended teapot fountain.
Immediately after that stop, we headed straight for Wuzhen, an ancient town built around a river, some two or three hours away. If I recall correctly, the inhabitants of this town are paid a government subsidy to preserve the area's architecture. On the outside, you see wooden walls and brick and mortar, but on the inside, some houses had tiled floors and television sets. While some of Wuzhen's people lived in the 1900s, others were in the 21st century; a true anachronistic juxtaposition (big words omg!).
One of the traditional economic activities practiced there was the distillation of rice wine. They let us try some with over 50% alcoholic content, which led to a drunken brawl between my brother and I...
Another such activity is weaving and dyeing. Frankly, I thought they were shabbily made.
From Wuzhen we immediately went on to the city of Hangzhou, another couple of hours away. Had dinner there and lodged at a hotel for the night.
Day 2 - 3rd January
Hangzhou is rather developed but didn't have as many ongoing construction projects as Shanghai did. As a result, I felt as though we were in a middle-class part of Japan in the 1980s... or at least, how middle-class Japan looked like on TV in old serials and movies (I've never been there).
Our first stop in Hangzhou was the West Lake, yet another beautiful tourist destination. It rose to prominence thanks to the works of a certain poet named Su Dongpo. It had a small exhibition centre and a series of parks surrounding the lake.
This just shows how huge the place actually is.
Then we went on a boat ride around the lake, during which I took pictures of various objects of interest propped up against its banks. For some reason, nobody in my family was as excited about the winter scenery as I was.
The well-known Leifeng Pagoda. It was rather misty that day.
Then we got off on a different part of the park, with acarp koi carp pond and (oh boy!) free-ranging peafowls.
I'm quite fond of this picture I took, except for certain parts where the lighting's screwed. I love taking pictures but loathe changing camera settings.
In the afternoon we headed to a plantation selling the renowned "West Lake Dragon Well Green Tea" aka Xi Hu Long Jing Lu Cha. We bought a couple of packets back, but we later decided that we sort of got ripped off somewhat; they were expensive! And even then, you're not sure if the quality is 100% up to par. Who were we to know, eh?
Nothing far too interesting happened there except for what I called a 'magic show' by the tea sellers.
Day 3 - 4th January
We were still in Hangzhou. That morning, we were taken to a Chinese traditional medicine pharmacy for tourists where they had a guy promoting to us their products, just like the tea plantation did the day earlier. However, being somewhat skeptical of traditional medicines as well as not knowing much of neither Mandarin nor Cantonese didn't help with the boredom. Instead of staying to listen, I ventured out to the garden/park right outside to take even more photos of the scenery. But first:
Trees with red leaves are always nice subjects.
Up close!
I took a photo directly at sunlight just to see how it'd turn out. Not too bad I suppose.
My current desktop wallpaper!
They had electric streetlamps that looked like this. I thought they were cool.
Hence the fetish with lamp poles.
Certainly a much better way to spend 30 minutes instead of sitting through a sales pitch for products I know I'm never gonna use, right? If only I were any better at photography (I completely suck), I would've gone crazy over there. After I rejoined my family who ended up not buying anything (phew), we waited for the tour bus to arrive. In the meantime...
We waited out in the open; the sun made it warm enough for me to take a picture without my jacket on. Finally!
Who the man?!
This, my friends, is an electric bicycle, the number-one choice of transport for the Chinese, next to a traditional bicycle. Note the pedals on the thing. I think they're pretty cool, plus they're cheap and super economical. Maybe I should find a way to import one into Malaysia in the future.
And after that, we had lunch and headed straight for the next stop, Suzhou. During the two hour long ride I took the pictures of a few interesting sights:
This huge church was right outside where we lunched that day.
Travelling on highways and passing rural areas, you see houses occasionally bearing advertisements like these on their walls. I think the homeowners do it to supplement their meagre income.
Our first stop in Suzhou was the Hanshan Temple. It was okay as temples go; while travelling in Suzhou, I saw grander temples around the place. I'm still wondering why our tour decided to head there instead of one of the bigger ones.
They reared geese in the temple! How quaint.
From there, we went to a nearby fort, or more exactly, its remnants. Known as the Panmen Gate, it was the oldest landmark in Suzhou, estimated to be around 2,500 years old. Of course, it's still around due to reconstructions and renovations over the years. Not much to do except take photos over there, and fending off ever-present street peddlers.
After dinner we went to a shopping district/road in Suzhou, similar to Orchard Road in Singapore when at night. However, it wasn't that big, and all I bought was a cheap sweater.
Day 4 - 5th January
Went to a place of interest of which name I cannot recall at the moment. However, having been to Wuzhen town earlier during the tour, this spot in Suzhou wasn't as interesting.
Next, the tour guide brought us to a silk factory. The stuff there was (unsurprisingly) mostly expensive, so my dad only bought a pillow for himself. Frankly, I found Suzhou to be the most boring stop in my tour. We soon headed for Nanjing.
Nanjing was more interesting, having been the capital city of China for several dynasties. Our first stop was the City Wall of Nanjing, a huge wall surrounding the city's ancient borders. This made for a number of nice photos.
And then we went to another one of those Orchard Road-like places. This one was much bigger than Suzhou's, and the entire tour group just went crazy with shopping and haggling. I'm a little proud of myself to have managed to get the price of a bag down to one-fifth its original selling price (I usually suck at bargaining). And because we were all so busy shopping, not many photos were taken.
You can see the obligatory tour group flag in this picture.
The neon lights were so loud, even the deaf covered their ears.
*Ba-dum-cha!*
All in all, most of us went back to the hotel happy.
Day 5 - 6th January
Today, we went to the Nanjing Yangtze River/Chang Jiang Bridge in the morning... all of 80 metres up in the air.
Facing one side of the bridge.
The other.
Downstairs, they had a gallery of this amazing artist who draws pictures on the inside of transparent pots, globes, and vases. Once again, unsurprisingly expensive.
These are just two that we managed to shoot before we were told to put away our cameras. The amount of detail was mind-boggling.
From there, we headed for a jade shop...for tourists. In fact, the place was called the Nanjing Shopping Centre for International Tourists or something along those lines. Like the tea, medicine, silk and thingamabob shops before this, tour guides seem to always drag you along to places specially catered for tourists (do I hear a "Duh!" somewhere?). Even more interestingly; all of those doing the sales pitches speak Cantonese (at the tea farm, the pharmacy, all of them!). And all of them try to give you a run for your money... Sigh.
Anyway, jade is expensive too, so we didn't buy anything before taking the bus to Wuxi. We went to the Three Kingdoms City, a huge spot in Wuxi built specially for the CCTV series based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. When we arrived, we were greeted with a reenactment of the battle at Hulao Pass where Zhang Fei, Guan Yu and Liu Bei fought against Lu Bu.
The extras, bored from trying to look busy. Or were they busy looking bored?
Zhang Fei and Guan Yu against Lu Bu in the middle. It took two of them plus Liu Bei to drive Lu Bu off... What wimps. Then again, you don't give Lu Bu the highest stats in Dynasty Warriors for no reason.
The set was huge, all 350,000 square metres of it. The Chinese converted it into something akin to a mini theme park. It was fun to go trigger-happy there.
They had nylon back in those days?
At night, of all places, the tour guide brought us to Parkson. Parkson!!! A small part of Malaysia smack-dab in the middle of China. That's what happens when you join tours, people.
But who was I to complain? My brother and I bought a pair of original Converse shoes each for cheaps over there, heh heh.
Day 6 - 7th January
The second last day of the trip started with a visit to a pearl farm, apparently the largest in the world. The guy in charge (who unsurprisingly speaks Cantonese, too) opened a young oyster for demonstration, as well as told us the method of differentiating genuine and fake pearls. I don't know how accurate or even how true it is, but it was a convincing show.
After that, we went to a traditional Chinese teapot factory (for tourists, *groan*) where we weren't allowed to take pictures. Bummer. But everyone haggled like mad for good deals and my dad being the tea-drinker came home with two sets of teapots and cups.
Finally, after lunch, we move on to the last destination on our trip, also the first: Shanghai!
It was already rather late in the evening when we arrived; the ride took us about four hours. We went straight for the Xintiandi, or "New Heaven and Earth", a place where old Shanghai buildings were refurbished to become an extreme-upper-class shopping and dining area. It's not just expensive here, it's exorbitant. But the place looked cool, so...
Who the man?!
After dinner, we took a ferry cruise around the river cutting through Shanghai. Even more photos abound, including the city's several landmarks. We also took pictures of the Shanghai Bund, but they were on my brother's camera because my dad's went out of batteries. Sad case.
The young couple Kevin and Maxine plus the three of us siblings. An interesting story: Kevin was an ASEAN Scholar from VJC and Maxine is a Singaporean who used to be in NJC. And they were both from the 2004 batch! We all had mutual friends to gossip about. Plus my mom acted as their surrogate mother when haggling for cheaper prices at the aforementioned jade place. By the end of the trip, the whole tour group was well-acquainted and hunted and hounded for bargains like a huge extended family. Talk about relatives you never knew about, haha!
Day 7 - 8th January
Our last day in China was the most uneventful of the entire trip. We headed to a Feng Shui shop specialising in the making of Pixiu (something akin to the Qilin/Kirin) ornaments, large and small. Because I've stopped believing in Feng Shui and astrology some time ago, I was bored out of my skull. We were also brought to yet another shopping district, but we've seen everything before at Nanjing and at cheaper prices, so it was just a matter of wasting time until the bus came to bring us to the airport.
There's no end to Chinese piracy; this was the fourth or fifth Clio Coddle store I saw during the trip.
One of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games mascot! He looks really shabby though.
You could easily tell how bored we were.
And it didn't stop there; it took almost an hour to get to the airport, and the flight was delayed from 7.30pm to 8.30pm, and it was a five hour flight... Everything just screamed boredom. To alleviate it, we gave China the farewell it deserved with one last photo.
And I didn't actually reach home until 2.45am the next morning. But all in all, I found the trip to be extremely eye-opening; the China I saw was a lot more developed than I expected (none of those dirty toilet stories you get from people visiting Beijing). Plus our first brush with winter was great experience! I've never worn the same bunch of clothing for so many days in a row before, and my feet had never been smellier.
I would go on more about what I thought about the trip, but if I do this'll go from a short story to a novella. Furthermore, 90 uploaded pictures is a new record for me. To sum it all: The trip may have been draggy, but it certainly was fun enough for me. Thanks for watching!
Pointless Fact of the Day:
Come on, you got this far already. Just click the link: Linkety link.
Back to the topic. But before I begin, let me just add that because this trip lasted a whole week, be prepared for pages of incoherent and probably grammatically-incorrect babbling (if Blogspot actually had pages). Also, my mom packed the wrong (borrowed) winter jacket for me, which resulted in me looking morbidly oversized in almost all the photos we took.
You were warned!
Day 1 - 2nd January
On the wee hours of the morning of the 2nd of January, my family joined a tour group (of only 17 people in total) to visit several cities in China. This is the first time my siblings and I are travelling to somewhere farther than Thailand, and the first time any of us will be experiencing winter. The trip got off on a good start; the flight was at 2am, and I spent most of it sleeping soundly on the plane as a result. We landed about five hours later in Shanghai. Soon we were up on a bus and introduced to our tour guide.
The first stop on our trip was a place was called City God Temple. The Chinese built an entire tourist hotspot around this temple, but we ended up not buying anything (because we'd be able to find them cheaper later during our trip) except a large Caramel Macchiato at Starbucks (which wasn't that cheap either).
The apparently perennial queue for the famous City God Temple Xiao Long Bao. At less than 2 yuan a piece, it's surprisingly cheap considering Shanghai city's high living standards. However, we didn't buy it because the queue was just too damn long.
Just messing around with a suspended teapot fountain.Immediately after that stop, we headed straight for Wuzhen, an ancient town built around a river, some two or three hours away. If I recall correctly, the inhabitants of this town are paid a government subsidy to preserve the area's architecture. On the outside, you see wooden walls and brick and mortar, but on the inside, some houses had tiled floors and television sets. While some of Wuzhen's people lived in the 1900s, others were in the 21st century; a true anachronistic juxtaposition (big words omg!).
One of the traditional economic activities practiced there was the distillation of rice wine. They let us try some with over 50% alcoholic content, which led to a drunken brawl between my brother and I...
Another such activity is weaving and dyeing. Frankly, I thought they were shabbily made.
From Wuzhen we immediately went on to the city of Hangzhou, another couple of hours away. Had dinner there and lodged at a hotel for the night.
Day 2 - 3rd January
Hangzhou is rather developed but didn't have as many ongoing construction projects as Shanghai did. As a result, I felt as though we were in a middle-class part of Japan in the 1980s... or at least, how middle-class Japan looked like on TV in old serials and movies (I've never been there).
Our first stop in Hangzhou was the West Lake, yet another beautiful tourist destination. It rose to prominence thanks to the works of a certain poet named Su Dongpo. It had a small exhibition centre and a series of parks surrounding the lake.
This just shows how huge the place actually is.
Then we went on a boat ride around the lake, during which I took pictures of various objects of interest propped up against its banks. For some reason, nobody in my family was as excited about the winter scenery as I was.
The well-known Leifeng Pagoda. It was rather misty that day.Then we got off on a different part of the park, with a
I'm quite fond of this picture I took, except for certain parts where the lighting's screwed. I love taking pictures but loathe changing camera settings.
In the afternoon we headed to a plantation selling the renowned "West Lake Dragon Well Green Tea" aka Xi Hu Long Jing Lu Cha. We bought a couple of packets back, but we later decided that we sort of got ripped off somewhat; they were expensive! And even then, you're not sure if the quality is 100% up to par. Who were we to know, eh?
Nothing far too interesting happened there except for what I called a 'magic show' by the tea sellers.Day 3 - 4th January
We were still in Hangzhou. That morning, we were taken to a Chinese traditional medicine pharmacy for tourists where they had a guy promoting to us their products, just like the tea plantation did the day earlier. However, being somewhat skeptical of traditional medicines as well as not knowing much of neither Mandarin nor Cantonese didn't help with the boredom. Instead of staying to listen, I ventured out to the garden/park right outside to take even more photos of the scenery. But first:
They sell Iguana-on-a-stick! Actually a gecko... But if you got that joke, you're my new best friend for a day! Then again, most of you who got it probably are some of my best friends already, haha. Anyway, the garden/park/garpark was beautiful:
Trees with red leaves are always nice subjects.
Up close!
I took a photo directly at sunlight just to see how it'd turn out. Not too bad I suppose.
My current desktop wallpaper!
They had electric streetlamps that looked like this. I thought they were cool.
Hence the fetish with lamp poles.Certainly a much better way to spend 30 minutes instead of sitting through a sales pitch for products I know I'm never gonna use, right? If only I were any better at photography (I completely suck), I would've gone crazy over there. After I rejoined my family who ended up not buying anything (phew), we waited for the tour bus to arrive. In the meantime...
We waited out in the open; the sun made it warm enough for me to take a picture without my jacket on. Finally!
Who the man?!
This, my friends, is an electric bicycle, the number-one choice of transport for the Chinese, next to a traditional bicycle. Note the pedals on the thing. I think they're pretty cool, plus they're cheap and super economical. Maybe I should find a way to import one into Malaysia in the future.And after that, we had lunch and headed straight for the next stop, Suzhou. During the two hour long ride I took the pictures of a few interesting sights:
This huge church was right outside where we lunched that day.
Travelling on highways and passing rural areas, you see houses occasionally bearing advertisements like these on their walls. I think the homeowners do it to supplement their meagre income.Our first stop in Suzhou was the Hanshan Temple. It was okay as temples go; while travelling in Suzhou, I saw grander temples around the place. I'm still wondering why our tour decided to head there instead of one of the bigger ones.
They reared geese in the temple! How quaint.
From there, we went to a nearby fort, or more exactly, its remnants. Known as the Panmen Gate, it was the oldest landmark in Suzhou, estimated to be around 2,500 years old. Of course, it's still around due to reconstructions and renovations over the years. Not much to do except take photos over there, and fending off ever-present street peddlers.
After dinner we went to a shopping district/road in Suzhou, similar to Orchard Road in Singapore when at night. However, it wasn't that big, and all I bought was a cheap sweater.
Day 4 - 5th January
Went to a place of interest of which name I cannot recall at the moment. However, having been to Wuzhen town earlier during the tour, this spot in Suzhou wasn't as interesting.
Next, the tour guide brought us to a silk factory. The stuff there was (unsurprisingly) mostly expensive, so my dad only bought a pillow for himself. Frankly, I found Suzhou to be the most boring stop in my tour. We soon headed for Nanjing.
Nanjing was more interesting, having been the capital city of China for several dynasties. Our first stop was the City Wall of Nanjing, a huge wall surrounding the city's ancient borders. This made for a number of nice photos.
And then we went to another one of those Orchard Road-like places. This one was much bigger than Suzhou's, and the entire tour group just went crazy with shopping and haggling. I'm a little proud of myself to have managed to get the price of a bag down to one-fifth its original selling price (I usually suck at bargaining). And because we were all so busy shopping, not many photos were taken.
You can see the obligatory tour group flag in this picture.
The neon lights were so loud, even the deaf covered their ears.*Ba-dum-cha!*
All in all, most of us went back to the hotel happy.
Day 5 - 6th January
Today, we went to the Nanjing Yangtze River/Chang Jiang Bridge in the morning... all of 80 metres up in the air.
Facing one side of the bridge. 
The other.Downstairs, they had a gallery of this amazing artist who draws pictures on the inside of transparent pots, globes, and vases. Once again, unsurprisingly expensive.
These are just two that we managed to shoot before we were told to put away our cameras. The amount of detail was mind-boggling.From there, we headed for a jade shop...for tourists. In fact, the place was called the Nanjing Shopping Centre for International Tourists or something along those lines. Like the tea, medicine, silk and thingamabob shops before this, tour guides seem to always drag you along to places specially catered for tourists (do I hear a "Duh!" somewhere?). Even more interestingly; all of those doing the sales pitches speak Cantonese (at the tea farm, the pharmacy, all of them!). And all of them try to give you a run for your money... Sigh.
Anyway, jade is expensive too, so we didn't buy anything before taking the bus to Wuxi. We went to the Three Kingdoms City, a huge spot in Wuxi built specially for the CCTV series based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. When we arrived, we were greeted with a reenactment of the battle at Hulao Pass where Zhang Fei, Guan Yu and Liu Bei fought against Lu Bu.
The extras, bored from trying to look busy. Or were they busy looking bored?
Zhang Fei and Guan Yu against Lu Bu in the middle. It took two of them plus Liu Bei to drive Lu Bu off... What wimps. Then again, you don't give Lu Bu the highest stats in Dynasty Warriors for no reason.The set was huge, all 350,000 square metres of it. The Chinese converted it into something akin to a mini theme park. It was fun to go trigger-happy there.
They had nylon back in those days?At night, of all places, the tour guide brought us to Parkson. Parkson!!! A small part of Malaysia smack-dab in the middle of China. That's what happens when you join tours, people.
But who was I to complain? My brother and I bought a pair of original Converse shoes each for cheaps over there, heh heh.
Day 6 - 7th January
The second last day of the trip started with a visit to a pearl farm, apparently the largest in the world. The guy in charge (who unsurprisingly speaks Cantonese, too) opened a young oyster for demonstration, as well as told us the method of differentiating genuine and fake pearls. I don't know how accurate or even how true it is, but it was a convincing show.
Finally, after lunch, we move on to the last destination on our trip, also the first: Shanghai!
It was already rather late in the evening when we arrived; the ride took us about four hours. We went straight for the Xintiandi, or "New Heaven and Earth", a place where old Shanghai buildings were refurbished to become an extreme-upper-class shopping and dining area. It's not just expensive here, it's exorbitant. But the place looked cool, so...
Who the man?!
The young couple Kevin and Maxine plus the three of us siblings. An interesting story: Kevin was an ASEAN Scholar from VJC and Maxine is a Singaporean who used to be in NJC. And they were both from the 2004 batch! We all had mutual friends to gossip about. Plus my mom acted as their surrogate mother when haggling for cheaper prices at the aforementioned jade place. By the end of the trip, the whole tour group was well-acquainted and hunted and hounded for bargains like a huge extended family. Talk about relatives you never knew about, haha!Day 7 - 8th January
Our last day in China was the most uneventful of the entire trip. We headed to a Feng Shui shop specialising in the making of Pixiu (something akin to the Qilin/Kirin) ornaments, large and small. Because I've stopped believing in Feng Shui and astrology some time ago, I was bored out of my skull. We were also brought to yet another shopping district, but we've seen everything before at Nanjing and at cheaper prices, so it was just a matter of wasting time until the bus came to bring us to the airport.
There's no end to Chinese piracy; this was the fourth or fifth Clio Coddle store I saw during the trip.
One of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games mascot! He looks really shabby though.
You could easily tell how bored we were.And it didn't stop there; it took almost an hour to get to the airport, and the flight was delayed from 7.30pm to 8.30pm, and it was a five hour flight... Everything just screamed boredom. To alleviate it, we gave China the farewell it deserved with one last photo.
And I didn't actually reach home until 2.45am the next morning. But all in all, I found the trip to be extremely eye-opening; the China I saw was a lot more developed than I expected (none of those dirty toilet stories you get from people visiting Beijing). Plus our first brush with winter was great experience! I've never worn the same bunch of clothing for so many days in a row before, and my feet had never been smellier.
I would go on more about what I thought about the trip, but if I do this'll go from a short story to a novella. Furthermore, 90 uploaded pictures is a new record for me. To sum it all: The trip may have been draggy, but it certainly was fun enough for me. Thanks for watching!
Pointless Fact of the Day:
Come on, you got this far already. Just click the link: Linkety link.