Current Issue In China ( March 2009)

One of the hot issues in China at the moment is counterfeit money. You can hear about it in the news nearly everyday. People has been advised not to accept notes bearing serial no. CE or CH because they are counterfeits.

When you pay for your purchase or food with big bills ( say 100 yuans notes) , the cashier or waitress will read out the serial nos to you and you have to nod your head to acknowledge.

This routine is to prevent you from denying they are yours if the notes turn out to be fakes.

The crooks try all sorts of way to circulate the fakes. They go to the extend to join half a fake note to half a genuine one. Then they deposit it into the bank's cash deposit machine. The machine can't detect its fake because it has half real one. After that they withdraw the same amount in good money from ATM. Smart ler!

Toured 43 countries

Don't believe it?


See, This is my passport


These are the immigration stamps when I enter the
countries. Altogether 43 of them!




and........
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.
.
.
.
These are the places of interest I visited

Taj Mahal in India


House Of Parliment , London


London Bridge, London





The Colosseum, Italy


Angkor Wat, Cambodia



L'Arc de Triomphe, France



Eiffel Tower, France



Kyongbokgung, Korea


Borobudur, Indonesia


Japan



Royal Palace, Bangkok Thailand





and many many more.............

Shopping in Shenzen

See the number of people? so 'lau juak'!!!!

But I always had that insecure feeling; takut kena pickpocket,

takut kena tipu,takut...............................

A peculiar scenario: when an alien(ya they address

foreigner as alien) walks into a CD shop, a few fellows will

swamp around him or her to peddle cheap cheap DVD as

soon as he comes out from the shop. These people are quite

persistent and will follow you some distance before giving up.

There is some kind of reminder somewhere that says when

one pays for cheap DVD with big note, the change received may

be counterfeit money. Ya. counterfeit money is the hot current

issue in China.

There is a food outlet that sells all parts of a duck: meat,

wing, leg, neck, head , tongue, internal organs ................

I was not that adventureous, duck wings will do. But don't

know what type of seasoning is used, it tastes not only hot

and spicy, but can even numb your lips and tongue after

eating it.

Shenzen here I come

My original plan was to travel from Jiangmen to Hong Kong by ferry.

http://www.cksp.com.hk/eng/route/main.html

But I have taken that route before, why not try something new?

So I changed my mind and decided to visit Shenzen.

I took an express bus from Jiangmen to Shenzen. Travelling time is

2.5hr , roughly equivalent to travelling from Penang to Tapah.

This is the view from my hotel room, looking at the Shenzen

railway station. The long line of taxis are queuing up to fetch

passengers. The line is non-stop and moves rather fast,

indicating the passenger volume of this station is really huge.

I had the honour to visit the first Mc Donald in China, not

to makan , but to pee..... paiseh.

Xi Chiaw San ( Xi Chiaw Mountain)_ cornered into a tight spot episode

After lunch at Fo Shan I took a cab to a scenic spot called
Xi Chiaw San. Distance is about 30Km, travelling time abt
40 min and taxi fare is 75 yuans ( abt RM40). This is a
mountain abt 500m above sea level and is located near a
small town, Xi Chiaw.Around the mountaineous area there
are 8 scenic spots. Comparatively is like Air Itam, Kek Lok
Shi and Air Itam Dam in Penang. Difference is visitor has to
pay $ to get in.
The taxi man dropped us at the main gate . Immediately a
man on a motorbike approached us, offering to take us up
the hill for a fee of merely 8 yuans for 2 pax( the bike can
carry 2 pillion riders!) He said to walk up the hill may take
hours. So we hopped on and broooommm.................,
not realising the 'best' is yet to come.
Brooommmm ............ this fellow took us uphill and right to
the door step of a small and old temple. 3 locals(2 men and
a woman) greeted us, offering us some 'free' joss stick to
pray to the gods there.After that the man asked me to grab
some rice grains from a bowl and put them into an angpow.
He even asked me to blow some air into it before sealing it
and asked me to take home and put it into my rice urn.
That will bless me to have rice to eat forever. I felt like a fool
going through these superstitious ritual.It was an insult to
my intelligence. Worst still, when it was done, the man showed
me a book and asked me to jot down my name and write some
wishes. I didn't realise he was partially covering part of the
page with a card.Eventually he pushed it aside and wa..lau..eh..
there were 3 columns on the right for me to list down my
donations for 3 different purposes.I glanced at the rows above
me and saw quite hefty figures. Shit! I was cornered into a tight
spot. I was deceived. I didn't mind donating, but not in this
manner.
As a sign of protest I merely wrote 3 yuans for each item.
That fellow must be cursing, kiamsiap !

When I came out, my wife had just made a wish in front a wishing
tree ( suggested by the woman) .The lady was asking for 30 yuans
for the wish. My wife protested because she doesn't know Mandarin,
so can't understand the label on the tree. But what to do, we are in
foreign land. Pay lor. Chiaklat.
Ah! China! macam macam ada!


That's not the end of it. The biker took out a brochure and showed
us 8 locations around the area. He wanted 80 yuans to take us there.
Alamak, the initial cheapy 8 yuans was just a bait. Sekarang baru
nak sembelih. Kena conned again!!!!!


Fed up, just topped up 5 more yuans for him to fetch us to the Kuan
Imm statue, that's it.

Along the way he hookwinked us again to part with 15 yuans to buy
some joss sticks from his contacts, telling us that it would cost more
at the temple.

I felt like I sudah kena kongtau man!!!!!!!








You often see this type of tree in the Hong Kong TVB
serials. Write down your wish on a piece of red paper, tie it
to an orange and throw it up. If it hooks, your wish will
come true. China pun ada woh!!!!!

We have to track down hundreds of these steps to get down
the mountain.

This taufoofaa is super smooth, supposing made using
stream water......

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!