BERJAYA

Tuesday, April 06, 2010
1:17 AM

Peaks

Finally my mum and sis were here to visit me in Hong Kong. I would have loved my dad to visit, but he was unable to take leave because of work.

Honestly I don’t think I’m a great tour guide. I like too much of ruggedness, adventure, maybe drinks and other than that, shopping and food! So I make a great tourist, but not a guide. So going out with me is just lots of food, especially my mum and sis aren’t particularly shopaholics. It’s more fun shopping with people like Rainna and Jazreel, who have similar tastes and enjoy shopping and looking for great bargains! Neither are my family the snacky sort of pple.

I had plenty of things to do on my list, but was ready to modify according to my family’s speed and stamina. So I took out Disneyland, Ocean Park, Big Buddha and the islands, and instead did the Peak, Mongkok/ TST, Shenzhen and Macau. It was in fact my first time trying the Peak Tram, and it turned out pretty fun.

One. Shenzhen. I wouldn’t have normally put Shenzhen on the first day, but my sis and I had to make sure we get our bus ticket to Yangshuo, so we headed over to procure it. It was my second time to Shenzhen, and honestly I wasn’t sure where to get the best shopping and food. After all, you can’t rely on Lonely Planet to get such info. Massage was pretty good and cheap as the locker lady recommended the Chinese sinsei teacher to us. But dinner was disgustingly oily Sichuan food.

I got a headache from Shenzhen, probably from the bad air and pushy crowds. There’re also so many dodgy people in Shenzhen, standing around, alone, and constantly staring at us, and our bags. Fortunately we all had our handbags clasped tightly before us, and under our armpits. And despite our southern-accented Chinese, people still could tell we were non-Chinese, probably from our dress sense. We had them guessing we’re from South Korea and Taiwan, and none guessed we were from other parts of China, which I find really strange.

Dessert was beancurd at 晶晶甜品, which is our favourite dessert place at Tin Hau, back in Hong Kong. This small stall’s beancurd is so smooth it makes Rochor Beancurd look bad. I’m lucky to be staying near the foodie/ dessert street!

Two. Central, Hong Kong. Maxim’s Palace is perhaps one of the best places to try traditional push-cart dimsum. Of course there’s Jade Garden, which I’ve never tried before. My mum and sis didn’t seem to be impressed, but I guess frequent comparisons make me appreciate Maxim’s 糯米雞and 奶皇包 a lot more.

First time on the Peak Tram

On the Peak!

Cute dogs on the Peak!

Sunset!

Yung Kee was fully booked, so we skipped roasted geese for 車仔面 which turned out to be the wise choice, as my mum and sis were stuffed at possibly 1/3 the price at Yung Kee’s and with a much healthier, low-fat, no-MSG dinner. Moreover the restaurant is much undervalued, that it’s always empty, though my family and friends will agree with me that it serves the best 車仔面 around!

Three. Macau. Macau is probably not as glitzy-looking as Vegas, but its gaming revenue is the highest in the world, way ahead of Vegas. It’s also a great place for history, fusion of Chinese and Portuguese cultures and awesome food. Probably why I like Macau so much!

Rua da Felicidade

Senado Sq

Lunch was 蝦仔面 and the best fried wanton in the world, at Rua da Felicidade!

大三巴

Teatime was Margaret Cafe de Nata’s Portuguese Egg Tarts, eaten hot! But Belem’s egg tarts are still unbeatable!

It was also my first time visiting the Grand Lisboa, which was indeed grand! It’s no wonder the Chinese people like to gamble in Lisboa so much. I’m no architect, but the high ceilings, bright gold colours and spacing between the tables signal good fengshui. Wynn Macau does not look too impressive on the outside, especially after seeing the gawdy and AA Lisboa, but we were attracted by the musical fountain that performs every 15 min. Some shows even have fires! The shopping gallery was very posh and nice to walk in, and the horoscope dial was so pointlessly grand and huge!

Lisboa

Wynn's exterior pales in comparison

But grand on the interior

Dinner was the famous Fat Siu Lau. I usually love Macanese food, but it’s African Chicken was not particularly impressive. Its famous baked vegetables was not fragrant either. Neither was the simple baked seafood rice dish yummy. Even Pastamania and Swensens’ baked rice is better. Overall the food was not bad, but not as awesome as I thought or worth the money! Singapore’s Crystal Jade Macau Café is 100x better!

African Chicken

Baked seafood rice was not so great

Baked veggie macanese-style

Four. Kowloon, Hong Kong. Finally the highlight of Hong Kong, the real Hong Kong. With Alicia’s recommendations, I made my way to Mongkok Food Center to try the famous Macanese foods, 牛腩農夫包, 豬仔包 and simple 伊面. It turned out the 農夫包is huge, and my mum and sis’ favourite is the simplest of all -伊面.

牛腩農夫包 set

牛腩農夫包

Very simply, 伊面

Shopping at Argyle, Fa Yuen St and Sai Yee St is not as fruitful for my family as my previous visit, where I had 6 bagfuls of clothes, underwears and handbag, as the clothes are slightly different this time. But the caramel milk tea, 芒果亮晶晶 and 勁辣魚蛋 made up for everything!

芒果亮晶晶

勁辣魚蛋

Dinner was with my sis’ friend, Junlio, at Ippei-An Ramen, which was famous in Hong Kong, but which I felt paled in comparison to those in Central and River Valley back in Singapore!

Pork ramen

After that was doing the very HK thing – visiting the beautiful Heritage 1881, checking out the view at Avenue of Stars, taking the Star Ferry back to Central and then the 老爺叮叮back home.

Beautiful Heritage 1881

Hazy night view

Five. Hong Kong. The plan was for my mum to go home, and for my sis and me to head to Shenzhen for our sleeper bus to Yangshuo. So we had a lazy morning, simple Thai food near my place and then we were on our way.

It was half the price of the train ticket to Guilin, but double the adventure. The beds did not seem as clean as those I took in Vietnam, and the bus was a brand called 浙江青年. It said ‘no smoking’ but you know it’s not possible in China, so I was dying from the smoke. Apparently, they overbooked the bus and it turned out that some people don’t have beds to sleep on. They had to sleep along the aisles on the floor and some had to sit at the front of the bus! This couple was making a big fuss about wanting to get off the bus and take the plane as they had a kid, and couldn’t take such a long ride like that. In the end the kid and the dad had to sit at the front of the bus. I refused to get off during the toilet stops due to inertia, but my sister did and she experienced for her first time the open-concept toilets!

Six. Yangshuo. Upon reaching Yangshuo we were fortunate to have the people from the youth hostel to pick us up. To our surprise, the hostel had extremely clean rooms, huge and comfy beds, aircon and super conducive common area for watching movies! It was close to West St and even provided free water and hot water for showering. The view from the rooftop was so awesome as it was the highest in the town overlooking the Li River. It felt so much like home, we really should’ve stayed longer in Yangshuo than go to Guilin.

Kinda fake but still nice West St

The pathetic river due to the drought

View from the top of the hostel!

With recommendations from the hostel and LP, we decided to take a bus to Yangdi town where we could take a bamboo raft down the most picturesque stretch of Li River in Guilin. Apparently Guangxi was suffering its first ever drought in 500 years, so I was a little worried about only seeing the river bed! However it started raining the week before we arrived, and was drizzling the whole time we were there since it’s Ching Ming period. The drizzle, though made the air cold and wet, did good to the view as the dust settled, and the mist made the peaks look romantic, just like in the paintings.

Our very nice boatlady from Yangdi town

Hiding from the cold rain

Student praying to Guan Yin. Looks quite like it!

The lady was so nice she gave me a jacket to wear in the cold!

Old man watching the apple. I couldn't figure out the old man part.

柳树 grows slanted

八仙过江, but I could only make out like 4?

This view is featured on the back of the 20yuan note

九马画山. I couldn't even make out any.

The 20yuan view

We then took a buggy to Xingping town before taking another bus back to Yangshuo to enjoy our night. That day, for the first time I experienced the open-concept toilet. It was the worst of its kind, so open that once you enter the toilet, you see butts, that my sister refused to use it. My bladder was bursting so I had no choice but to hold my breath. It was such a culture shock for me as I witnessed someone changing her pad before me, and seeing someone’s pee flowing down my way from another cubicle in the drain. Besides the concentration camps, I don’t know where else I can find such toilets, seriously. Not even Myanmar or Cambodia!

That night, I was underdressed for the cold wet weather and my sis was sick so we didn’t go out to drink. Instead, we caught Impressions. Liu San Jie. Thing is, I saw the posters everywhere but didn’t know what it was, until I recalled Michelle mentioning a Zhang Yi Mou show that was very good, and after confirming it with my LP. As I sat that swatting the mosquitoes, the recorded 山歌 started playing. The lights shone on the peaks behind, and that set the background for the stage.

Right now I can’t remember the exact order of what happened, but basically boatmen started arriving from upstream and downstream, rowing their boats towards the water stage and portraying the fishing life. They started tugging some cloths and waved it on the waters, portraying the river of life in an artistic way. A lot of people suddenly appeared from nowhere. Then it was red colour, morning, women washing their clothes by the river and roosters crowing. Some dance. Then for a part of the show, it was night time and stars appeared in the form of light carried on rafts. So once again the scattered ‘stars’ from up and downstream congregated above the fake moon with a singing dancer on it.

Then for another part, women clad in traditional Zhuang tribe costumes started appearing, with white light on the rims of the costumes. Now imagine these women were standing one behind another and started walking slowly on the narrow wooden platform on the water in a long line. So you see one, two, three…. Ten, twenty, many, until they filled up the whole rim of the stage. At this moment, you should feel goosebumps as it’s so beautiful. Then they switch off the lights, and red light is shone on them. You see how the costume really looks like. Then pitch dark again, and the women’s costumes are lit again. Then they alternate the lights, then they switch on and off to the music in an unpredictable but purposeful way that makes it so beautiful!

For most part of the show, it’s merely portraying the Zhuang tribe’s simple way of life by the river, and the life of the river, in a very artistic way. The show is merely lights, music, dances, a lot of people and the natural surroundings, which I felt made it so ingenious, so amazing.

Seven. Yangshuo. My sis was sick with sore throat and lots of phlegm so we decided to do something a bit more relaxing. We cycled to Yulong river where we took a bamboo raft down. It was indeed a beautiful river, so something we shouldn’t have missed anyway, but it took 2 hours and we were falling asleep on the slow river. Only at the 7 drops were the rafting fun.

I have admit, the river was really beautiful

Our chatty boatman in the background

The expensive black fish can only be found in Yulong river, and has no fins no scales

Quite yummy!

Wedding photos!

After a sleepy rafting trip, we cycled to Yueliang Shan which was interesting, but that was it. And then we visited the big banyan tree which was in fact very big, and probably significant because it was featured in the movie, Liu San Jie.

Yueliang Shan is called thus because at different vantage points, it looks like different phases of the moon cycle!

All in all, Yangshuo is a really a tourist’s place, where you had to pay entrance for almost everything, where almost everyone you see is a tourist, and everything on West St more expensive than normal China. Compare Guilin 米粉at 3元 with fried rice at 25元! But it’s still pretty cheap considering the ambience in the cafes. But what makes me want to stay there is that West St is away from the road traffic, the weather is cool and nice, people friendly and fun, and the hostel so homely.

That night, we met a girl from Beijing, who looked like she was 25, but was in fact 30 years old! She’s a writer and travelled alone, was in Yangshuo for her fifth time, drinks a lot of beer and was super extroverted. We had a good chat about life, travelling, work, her marriage and she treated me to beer. I guess sometimes when you have troubles, it’s easier to tell a stranger and maybe I was that vent for her. But she also made me think about life, about my ideals and my dreams. And I realized, maybe I don’t have dreams. I have many ideals that I reshaping all the time, but I don’t really have any dreams. Was it to be a philanthropist? Was it to be a documentary diver? To marry a prince? I don’t really know. But in fact, most people don’t have dreams…

So her problem was that she’s a rather practical person, but she earns good money, loves her freedom, her sister and her life. Her husband, on the other hand, earns peanuts and lives his dreams too much. Perhaps too practical I may sound, but having a guy who earns less than the woman is just a seed for problems in the future. Unless the guy earns a lot already, so the woman was just earning a hell lot.

Yummy desserts

Eight. Guilin. Now, Guilin is a city, and the reason we came here was so we could travel to Longji rice terraces. We immediately regretted our choice for leaving the lovely Yangshuo as Guilin was dirty and dusty. The hostel was dark and hidden in a dodgy back alley, though highly rated on LP and Hostelbookers. The common area was lovely and great for meeting people, but the bed was thin and uncomfortable. Aircon was screeching the whole night, and we had to stand naked in the shower room for 3 minutes before we could feel hot water coming out. It made me appreciate the hostel in Yangshuo sooo much.

We tried the Guilin 米粉 where we could add our own chilli, soup and preserved vegetables. Very simple dish with absolutely no nutrition, but super cheap and quite nice.

We headed to take the public bus to Seven Stars Park to see the peaks, the beautiful Rhododendron flowers and the super huge Seven Stars Cave. It was all very nice and it was in fact the biggest cave I’ve been to in my life, but I highly discourage anyone from paying that kind of money unless you’ve not seen a cave in your life.

Camel peaks

Rhododendron flowers

Nine. Longji Rice Terraces. It would have been easier joining a tour, but we decided to visit Longji on our own, so we could make it in time for our bus back to Shenzhen. So we were on our way to adventure, starting with a 1.5h bus ride to Longsheng which was 85km away, and another 1-1.5h ride to Longji 大寨村, which was 13km. And I thought the bus was travelling at 20kph, so it was in fact slower than that. The long ride was somewhat irritating but at the same time, very fun and adventurous. Not only did babies, elderly, farmers and workers get on the bus, goats and chickens did too!

It’s not called 龙脊 for nothing. It was indeed a dragon’s backbone as it was so winding. But it was a disappointment compared to Sapa which was breath-taking and jaw-dropping when you first see it. It was a combination of comparison and the wrong season that made it not as memorable. But the women here have super long hair! Knee-length! I saw one washing her hair, so that was novel. We were received with kindness in a hotel restaurant, and had awesome chap chye rice, with veggie soup and stir fried toufu which was pretty yummy!

Ten. Hong Kong. The ride back to Shenzhen was not as comfy as the ride there, with even stronger smoke smell, non-existent suspension, lousy driver that brakes fully all the time, narrower beds, unfriendly bus operators and more people sleeping on the aisles. It didn’t stop at Lo Wu so we had to take a bus to Lo Wu from wherever and then head back to HK from there. So lucky Norwegian backpacker, Karl, met us who helped him find his way to HK, and even got a free breakfast treat from me, an act of kindness to spread the kindness I received while backpacking in Europe and Asia. This guy had a 20kg backpack, was travelling alone for half way, finished Latin America and China, and is going on to HK and Africa. Omg, I better get started on my planning for Tibet and diving in Philippines and then probably NZ, Africa or Latin America next year! Can’t wait!

Finally a gym session after more than a week, and then hotpot with my sis, before watching Shutter Island! Good stuff just nuah-ing!

Eleven. Hong Kong. On my final day of holiday and my sis’ last day here, we had a good dim sum brunch with my sis’ friend, Debbie at 富聲. I loved their fatty 叉燒, 叉燒菠羅包 and 生煎蘿蔔糕. My sis loved these non-traditional dim sum more than Maxim’s. My sis then had her last go at shopping in Mongkok, checking out the silly toys and trying the HK snacks and milk tea before heading back home!

Among the best char siew I've tried in HK

生煎蘿蔔糕

Simple, oily, but pretty good!

The best 叉燒菠羅包 ever!