Okay, some of you may be demanding an explanation for my absence ever since I came back from China on the 17th December, only showing traces of activity on my tag-board. Unknown to some, I fell sick on the 2nd day of my trip, and hence I have not recuperated enough given only 5 airplane hours (please note that an airplane 5 hours is not equivalent to on-ground 5 hours; the difference is about many kilometres). Plus, I have an irritatingly annoying cough that doesn't seem to go away each time I force one out. Argh, the flu bug caught me before I escaped China. :D
By the way, if you are expecting a step-by-step, day-by-day, location-by-location synopsis of what I went to see in China's various exotic places, then you have come to the wrong place. I'm sorry, I don't have the luxury of time as I'm rushing out my Christmas programme.
But here are some snippets of the morally upright and cruelly down-wrong(?) things I encountered in China.
- China toilets are not as ugly and dirty and run-down as everyone thought: Hello? We live in the 21st Century? Things do have to change right? What, you want a picture to prove it?
- China does have 5-star hotels, some even more advanced than Singapore ones: Yes, there is a hotel we stayed in where there was an automatic shower curtain; one that slides up and down much like a projector screen, controlled by a switch. Weird thing is, the curtain opens up to a transparent glass panel, where the guests in the bedroom can see your bathroom antics.
- Singapore's Watsons cannot wage a war against China's Watsons: The Watsons in China can be equated to be the Orchard Road of Singapore, even on a weeknight. (Please do not mind the contrast, it is meant to be, since China is 1000 times the size of Singapore) They are filled to the brim and queues of people are always present, no matter how long you wait.
- China citizens are helpful VS Singapore citizens are less helpful: Picture someone knocking over a nicely stacked pillar of toys. In Singapore, the norm would be that everyone will be walking away from the "crime scene", as if there was an evil aura lurking in the corner. In China, I saw a guy (a teenager; might add to emphasis) picking up the two dropped items when someone else knocked over. Of course, it is not a very wholesome conclusion that I should make, but nonetheless.
- China toilets are very dirty: Why would I make such a contrasting statement? A contradiction, in fact? Well, although the toilets are much cleaner than we thought, they are still very dirty. People leave their business all over the place, (now, aren't you feeling lucky I didn't post any pictures up here?) and throw their used toilet papers into waste baskets provided in every cubicle instead of just flushing it down the hole. EUGH.
- China is a spit haven: 'Nuff said.
- China's Hangzhou is the real Clean & Green (sometimes Orange) city: Who said Singapore was "Clean & Green"? Who said this standard was enough? Hangzhou is the model we should learn from. It is by far the cleanest city in China I have ever visited.
- China's food is very oily: Oily food makes me puke. Every meal, there will always be this dish known as braised pork. Just the sight of it now (I just had it tonight) makes my stomach turn.
- China's Wuxi Pai Gu is the best: 超赞!
- China is a big city, and by big i mean B-I-G: It takes 4 hours to travel from Shanghai to Nanjing, and we only have 2 rest-stops (which means, toilets!). Furthermore, every trip we take to and fro places is like a short rest for our souls. Worse still, our flight to Shanghai didn't allow us much sleep; we were living zombies roaming the streets of Shanghai. Imagine, 12:00am is sleeping time, while 6:00am is your wake-up call. What is the difference between that and school?
Meanwhile pictures here! click here
Please note however, that there are only 200 photos (limited by Flickr); I'll try to get everything up by next week! (:
Meanwhile, Merry Christmas to all! -waves candy cane-
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