Li Jiang

5 Days Stay in Yang Shuo

Reception area of the Youth Hostel, small and cosy.
Yong Shuo Backstreet Youth Hostel. A private air-cond room with 2 single beds and attached bathroom cost RM 40 a night.

Third visit to China

Recently I visited China for the third time. Just like the previous 2 trips, I flew AirAsia from Penang to Macau. Then I crossed the border to Gongbei in Zhuhai. I have toured areas around Guangzhou , Shenzhen and Hong Kong. This time I want to venture further. So I took a sleeper bus, travelled 13 hours for a distance of about 700km and end up in Yang Shou in the Guilin province. This is the happening place in Yang Shou, the famous West Street. I arrived at 6.30 in the morning, so the street is deserted.

My next DIY

One of my Merz's electric fans is not working consistantly. It needs a knock before it starts spinning. I guess the carbon brushes have worn out. Maybe can DIY to replace the carbon, or replace the whole fan with a used unit. To take out the fan, I need to dismantle the bumper and the headlights. I have observed a mechanic doing the same job before. It looked easy. But if I gonna do it, don't know will experience any hiccup or not.

Nostalgia :My first car

This looks like the first car I owned. My first car was a British Ford Cortina GXL , not the Japaneses Ford model that was produced after Ford and Mazda joined venture.
It had a 2000 cc SOHC engine and most of the parts are made in England, like Locus brand etc.
Mine was a yr 1974 unit. Brand new would cost about RM12K. I bought it in Dec 1978, 6 months after I started working, as a 4 yrs old used unit at RM6400. Down payment RM24oo, took a loan of 4000 at interest rate of 10%. So monthly installment was RM200 for 2 yrs. For comparision, a 4 yrs old basic Jap car like the 1300cc Toyota Corolla KE20 would fetch a market price of 7K+. I pay less for a better car, why not? Of course petrol consumption would be higher because it was a bigger cc conti car. My logic was: use the 1K + I saved in taking this comfortable "exercutive" conti instead of the Milo tin Jap to subsidise the petrol for at least the next few yrs la. At that time petrol was about RM2 per gallon (4.5 litre). But on the other hand don't consider resale value la, the conti will depreciate badly if I wanna sell later. Itu belakang kira. Enjoy the ride first.
I got it from the Ford sole agent Wearne Brothers. It was a "love at first sight" affair when I saw it while passing by the showroom. I was attracted by the sexy "coke bottle" shape. In fact it was already my dream car during my schooling days.
The car served me well for 11 yrs. I sold it in 1990 for RM1.5K. During those younger days I was quite ignorant about car maintainance. So this poor car was badly maintained and the engine was in bad shape. The other shortcoming of this model was that the aftermarket Champion MARK IV air cond unit has to be hung under the glovebox on the passenger side because the centre console has temp and fuel gauge. So passenger legroom and cooling effectiveness to the driver was compromised .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gF23n_ZlAI&feature=related

Bocor

My Merz has a bocor rear end. It is farting quite loud lately.





It is time to change . Money, money, money............


From the label, it is an OEM unit from Germany. I wonder whether the former owner has it replaced before, or it is the unit that came with the car from the assembly plan. 15 yrs already, can it be?

Now my dilemma is whether to fix a locally produced unit (cheaper), or to get an OEM unit from Germany, or to search for a 2nd hand unit from chop shop. Is there anybody that buy a 2nd hand muffler? I won't want to be a laughing stock. Who knows, the chop shop guy may laugh to death when I ask for a 2nd hand exhaust pipe. Hahahaha.....

DSLR

Has been quite a while since I last posted. May be sudah hilang steam?

I have a compact point-to-shoot digital camera, the Panasonic Lumix FX9.

Generally it has served me well. It can produce beautiful pictures. Recently I have been pondering whether I should go 1 mark up and get myself into DSLR territory.

But to use a DSLR to its full potential, I have a lot to learn . Will I have the passion? Will it be just hangat-hangat tahi ayam? ????? ..... pening......

Anyway, here are a few shot I experimented with my son's Canon 40D