Highways in China

I will let the pictures do the talking.

The highways are like PLUS back home, only they drive on the right side of the dual carriageway. The fast lane for overtaking is the left lane. The exits are not as prominent as PLUS. Especially at night, a not-so-familiar driver may miss it because it is not brightly lit.

One pic shows some work being carried out. No, they are not extending another lane like the Penang Bridge here. In fact they are repairing the bridge after it was hit and damaged by a barge. Quite a major job as you can see.

Day 2 _ Tu'tu' ride to visit Kungfu masters

After yu char kwai + tauchui breakfast , we went to the bus station to take a bus to Fo Shan, the birthplace of great kungfu sifus; Master Ip Man ( sifu of the late and great Bruce Lee) and Master Wong Fei Hung. The journey took about 2 hours through Highways. I didn't realise that my destination was actually quite near to Guangzhou already.

Getting down from the express bus, I hopped onto a tu'tu' ( motorised tricycle like the one in Hatyai). That was really a bone shaker. My hands were shaking so badly that I had a hard time focusing my camera . The machine was struggling to climb the sloping bridge, carrying the fat lady driver and 2 passengers.

The place is Chu Miao ( literally means the granddaddy of all temples). It is a very old temple with heritage status. In fact it is in the midst of a grand scale restoration, costing millions of yuans. It houses two museums, one for Ip Man, while the other is for Wong Fei Hung.

I just realised that Master Wong's real name has the first 2 mandarin characters identical to my father's name. Only the 3rd character is different. What a discovery!!!

The display shows all the Hong Kong actors that had acted as Wong Fei Hung in hundreds of movies , spanning many decades

There is daily kungfu demo and lion dance, but we missed the chance because we arrived late.

Lunch was some local flavour noodles. The bitter pill to swallow was that the noodles was served in plastic bags placed in the bowl. This is the common thing done here.

Yuck, so environmental unfriendly and unhealthy. Maybe they wanna save the dish washing detergent. No need to cuci pinggan ma!

Souvenir hunting

This is a backdated post.

After I crossed the China border at 拱北, I immediately went for souvenir hunting, to clear my mind of bothering what to get throughout the trip.

So I got this, not one or two, but a total of NINE of them!

Dinner in Xin Hui

Xin Hui is famous for its claypot eel rice. So that was our main course for dinner. A 5 course treat for 5 pax cost abt RM 120, quite reasonable.

Wedding entourage in China

While in Ku Ching, we chanced upon a wedding ceremony at a village. The bridegroom is from another town and the entourage consist of a bridal car (VW Passat) and 2 vans (Toyota Hiace). The gang had a hard time gaining entry to get to the bride because the bridemaids demanding hefty angpow of 9999 yuan. While negotiation were on-going , 2 'heros' climbed over the wall, not knowing that there were more than 1 door!!!

Actually I know none of these people. They don't know me as well. Me, the penceroboh

First Day ___ afternoon

After lunch I took a local mini bus to another town , Jiangmen. Travelling time is about 1 hour through local roads.

The bus driver seemed slightly annoyed when I was a bit slow in paying the fare because I was not familiar with the Chinese notes. One more thing, he honked at every damn thing in front all the way. Maybe that is his destress strategy. hahaha!!!!

At one of the stops, an old lady with a small child got onto the bus but all the seats were occupied. I feel awkward so I stood up and offered my seat .The makcik was a bit surprised at my gesture and thanked me numerous times, even just before she got down she said TQ again. Maybe around there offering seat to others is not the norm anymore.

One good deed leads to another. At another stop another mother and child got up and this young chap in front of me immediately got up and offer them his seat. Hahaha I felt like a boy scout and became a role model of the day.

I even noticed the change in attitude of the driver towards me because he voluntarily notified me where to get down in Jiangmen. See, it always untung to do good thing.

Jiangmen is a bigger metropolitan town. We went shopping along the streetmall ( pu sing chea )

The town is at the edge of a river. There is this long and tall pedestrian crossing that facilitates people getting across the town. But omg ....... bicycles, even motorcycles are being pushed or riden up and across. China Boleh!!!!

I was told mainland Chinese are a bit sensitive to being photographed. The street hawker with a red cap scolded me, through his mic somemore, when he sensed he has been captured in candid camera. I quickly said ' tui pu chee' and cabut !!!!!!!!!!

First Day

I went to small rural town called Ku Chin ( old well )in the Quangtung province. The town was named as such maybe because there are a lot of wells here. Mostly I see old folks around. The young ones have migrated to big town to cari makan . This place is famous for roasted angsa. They taste good because they are roasted by using lychee tree as firewood. The whole street is lined by shops selling this speciality. Billboards are put up showing HK movie stars patronising their joints . We bought one for lunch.The meat is very tasty but a bit too oily.