Happy Christmas! o<|]:D China was more fun than i expected. It was a tour with two other families. A couple (Allan and his wife) and a family of five (Mr and Mrs Ong, Nicholas, Keeran and Clara Ong). Took some sub-average airplane under China Eastern Airline. It has no entertainment facilities but I didn't need any anyway cos the flight to China was early in the morning. Toured KunMing, LiJiang and DaLi which are located in YunNan. Did plenty of sight-seeing. Scaled mountains and scurried around in shopping centres. It's winter in China from December and January, so it was freezing cold. The temperature could go as low as 0 degrees celsius. Piled myself with layers of clothing. We saw not-so-ancient villages, chunks of ice at the side of roads, The Stone Forest etc. At tThe 3 Pagodas, there was a lake called Nine Dragons bathing Buddha. Haha, steamy. There were different minority groups. In each cities, the citzens were adressed differently. In KunMing, the women were called'Ah-Shi-Ma'. In DaLi, the women were called 'Jing-Hua' and the men were 'Ah-Peng'. In LiJiang, the women were called 'Pang-Jing-Mei' and the men 'Hei-Ge'. It really depends on which minority group it was. It is legal for China citizens to spit phlegm and blow their noses relieving it of snot on to the streets. Most my time walking on the streets was spent dodging spit and snot puddles and the occasional horse poop. There are loads of pirated items sold in China. Like fake jade and even phoney-baloney herbs! There was on herb which look like a toasted caterpillar with a tiny twig as a tail, the fake ones were either real roasted caterpillars with tooth picks stuck through them or lead sticks. Pretty sick and deadly. If fooled, you'd be harming your body instead of healing it. The food was okay. Some were good on some days. The public wash rooms were seriously gag-worthy. There was one where this guy was squatting, smoking and excreting in an open-run down-cubicle. There was a cool DVD store though. Not sure if the DVDs were pirated, but they give really good picture quality. They were alsocheap too! Wanted to see the fmaous Golden Monkey of YunNan but didn't get a chance to. Wanted to take a picture with one and claim it as me Daemon. Hehe. The journey home was terrible! It was Christmas Eve. The flight was scheduled at 9 pmbut it was delayed till 2 am the next day due to engine failure! Took them 5 hours to come to their senses and change to a new plane. The holding area was really uncomfortable. The seats were metal benches, so it was painful to sleep on. Most of the passengers on the flight home were Singaporeans. A group of rowdy ones started repeating 'We wish you a Merry Christmas (x2) and a Happy New Year' over and over again in a loud out-of-key tune at 12 am. Those were the only line of lyrics they knew! This annoyed the hell out of us instead of spread the 'Christmas cheer and spirit'. Reached Singapore at 4-5 am. It was certainly quite and interesting China expereince. But I'd like to visit other cities and provinces for obvious other reasons.
