Wanchai Livelihood Place

Po, Yan and I spent a day strolling around Wanchai and Admiralty.   Our government is actually demolishing to the older part of Wanchai in order to build some “modern” buildings… this Wanchai Livelihood Place is where we can get a bit of old Wanchai, and to reminisce the “good old days”.  it’s sad to see how our government not doing anything to protect our cultural heritage, but to destroy it.

 

The place is actually very small, not many people were there when we arrived.  Funny thing was, we bumped into a group of students, they were LSS students!  Mrs Chan was there and we talked to her.  She was my Maths teacher while I was in school, funny how she is not as tall as I remembered her, I’m all grown-up now you know!

 

The ceiling is what the government ordered to keep.

 

Some relatively “old” things, but looking cute and nice.

 

Different cabinets.  There were some leaflets in the left cabinet and some souvenirs in the right cabinets.  All those things seemed to be really “old” to me, we don’t use those anymore.

 

 

Chinese typewriter and English typewriter.  I’ve never seen a REAL Chinese typewriter before. 

 

Real “Blue House” vs the 3D picture :)

 

New vs Old.

 

Blue, Yellow and Pink houses. HAHAHA!

 

Also went to 北帝廟, an old temple….

 

Plus the old old old Post Office.

 

Saw something interesting along the way and later on…

 

Went shopping in Pacific Place!  HAHAHAHAH!

 

 

del.icio.us Tags: Wanchai Livelihood Place,cabinet,typewriter,ceiling,souvenir,Blue House,Post Office,temple,shopping,bag,wedding

Kitty :)

My mum always complains why didn’t we take pictures of our cat.  Ay, it’s just not so easy!

Anyway, here is one picture that I really like…

 

My current MSN display picture :)

Zhengzhou - Day 6 (25 Dec 08)

On Christmas day, Cindy’s boyfriend took me to another bus station to go to Dengfeng.  HOLY CRAP!  The bus driver spent more than half an hour driving round and round to get more customers.  It was really irritating.  Later on I learned that they were bending the rules, if they get caught, they will be fined.

 

It was freezing cold, with constant wind blowing my head off.  The sun brought no warmth, but still, the weather was really nice.  I arrived Dengfeng, asked around and took a bus to the study 嵩陽書院.  As you can see from the picture, there was hardly anyone around….

 

These beautiful flowers are called 臘梅.  They only blossom in Winter.  They smell really nicely.  I could almost smell the sweet, pure smell by looking at this picture….

 

 

So this was the right place.  How come they charge everything?  Crazy.

 

Confucius was once teaching here… so that’s what this study is famous for… well, may be plus 2 really old cypress trees - believe it or not - more than 4,000 years old.

There were 3 originally, but one of them died…. how sad. 

 

This monument is so old… it’s from Tang Dynasty, my favourite dynasty of all time.  I felt young standing right in front of it :p  There were Chinese carved all over, though it wasn’t all readable anymore.  China is so historical, I wish Chinese government had done a better job at protecting the monuments.  They are part of our culture and history.

 

In the middle of the picture.. well, a bit to the left, did you see a temple?  That was where I wanted to go… seriously :)  I asked a kid who was walking towards me, how long would it take to get there, he gave me a painful and surprised expression and said it was impossible, haha, well, he was the local but I decided to walk and see what I could get.

 

THAT COW, please pay close attention to that cow!

After talking to several people on the streets, I learned Fa Wang Temple (法王寺) was not too far away (actually it was quite far!), so I took my time and strolled there.  On my way, clearly, I saw that farmer and the beautiful cow.  I’ve never seen this type of cow before, with horns.   The farmer saw me taking pictures of the cow, he yelled at me “come down and get the pictures done”.  Alright, I had time, therefore I went.

 

It gave me that look.  After I crawled all my way down to get the pictures.  Those plants got thorns, damn it!  I got scared when it got closer and closer…. OK, I admit I ran a bit… In my mind I pictured myself chased by this cow, just like in a corrida….  After I crawled back to the road, I realised I lost my lens cap.  :((((((  It was Christmas and I had lost the lens cap.  I crawled back down again to search it among those really tall thorned grasses…. of course it was nowhere to be seen.

 

 

It really did upset me, plus all those negative feelings I had the day before, I had to call my family.  I talked to my family, my mum told me my dad had asked me to go home if I found this trip too unbearable, I didn’t dare tell her I lost my lens cap but to lie I had a great time.  Then I called Yan, my best friend, and I almost cried.  Aw, it felt so good to hear her voice!  She told me she was going to a party.  I missed Hongkong terribly much, oh, I was such a baby!

 

I walked and walked but still couldn’t see the temple…. the sun was hiding behind the mist.

 

There I was!

 

The left picture I asked the only one I saw in the temple… who was a rather old lady (you could see her in the right picture climbing the stairs), haha, she told me she didn’t know how to take a picture, so I asked her to just press the botton… and that’s what I got on the left.  It made me laugh!  A minute later, I saw this young monk, so he helped me take another picture, look, he did a really good job, thus the picture on the right!  (Hehehe.. I was super bulky!)

 

This temple was even better than Shaolin.  Well, I didn’t really see so much in Shaolin Temple, did I?  On the contrary, this Fa Wang temple was really huge, quiet and in there I was so calm.  I forgot all about my sorrows and worries.  And I had to think about Kyle and Shane… how they missed such a great place!

 

The picture on the left is the Sharmon tree, legend goes like this… in the middle of the night (there isn’t any ghost, OK?), the tree will produce the “monk chanting” sound… I think that’s pretty scary :p

 

I particularly liked the picture on the left :)  It’s just so beautiful!  And the paintings on the wall on the right…

 

An overview of the temple :)  I will go back one day!

 

Those 2 pagodas are really old.  The right one is also from Tang Dynasty, the left one is the “Fa Wang Si Pagoda”.  Extraordinary!

 

That was my Christmas day… Nothing special… I went back to Zhengzhou quite late that night, feeling sad and lonely (again), thinking about my lens cap and all.  Cindy and her boyfriend really worried so much about me … I’m sorry.  Sometimes I just couldn’t control my hot temper, sometimes I thought they were annoying because they called every 10 mins to check where I was…. I know, I know.  I will be patient the next time!  Though, please, do have faith in me, I’m not so young and innocent as I look, I can take care of myself.

 

del.icio.us Tags: misty,quiet,padogas,monuments,stone,Fa Wang Temple,Sharmon tree,cow

Zhengzhou - Day 5 (24 Dec 08)

It was very silly of me to call the hostel and told the receptionist that I’d like to talk to those 2 laowai right after 11pm.  The receptionist wouldn’t let me though, haha, she insist they were sleeping already.  So in the end I left a message with my Chinese mobile number to Kyle and Shane.  Did they ever get it I never asked.  May be they did, may be they didn’t, but it isn’t something I care anymore.

 

Anyway, Shaolin here I come!

 

It wasn’t all that difficult to get to Shaolin Temple.  I went to the main bus station at around 9 and bought a ticket to Dengfeng (I didn’t know Shaolin was in Dengfeng then :p  had to ask around a bit!) I almost missed my bus because I was waiting in the Waiting Area rather then going out to look for my bus (I was too naive and too innocent of course); funny thing was, I was the first one to get on the bus, no one else was there, so suddenly I wasn’t sure if I got on the right bus.  There, back then, was a young guy on the bus and crazily I asked him if I was on the bus to Dengfeng, he was dumbstruck by my question.  HAHAHAHA!

 

It was such a harmonious place, this Shaolin Temple, though I still can’t believe I had to pay 100 kuai to get inside.  Student card is of no use!  The landscape was breathtaking.  I felt like I was in the Utopia…

Wait, wait, wait, stop right there, I lied.

 

This is not something you would see in Utopia, or…?  Did you even see those clothes?!  How could those monks use the Martial School as clothing lines to dry their clothes?!  No matter how sunny it was, that was crazy!

 

Seriously I really liked this place, but…. what is that?  I even went uphill to check this place out, as RED was my colour last year (it also is my colour this year :p).  Nothing was inside….. Hm.

 

I started to really miss Kyle and Shane.  I missed having companions to travel with; I missed my family; I missed my cousin; I missed my best friends; it was Christmas Eve but I was all alone, in a beautiful place without knowing anyone; and I was missing… someone.  I felt like shit.  And there weren’t many monks to be seen!  THIS WAS SHAOLIN, DAMN IT!

 

Excuse me but I’ll skip the part when I felt like shit and jump to the part when I felt alright again.  I sought solace in the Talin (塔林), wah, that was how sad I was. 

I saw there were 2 monks playing Chinese chess in Talin, hahaha!  Monks just don’t care about the rules of this earthly world anymore, do they?  I didn’t play, I didn’t even say anything, I just watched and shot.

 

Ay.  I can’t remember how upset and lonely I felt back then, but I paid the car driver, he took me to see this small waterfall.  It was really funny because you could hear the sound of the waterfall though the surface of the stream was frozen.  There was no one, absolutely no one around.  Could you even imagine how I have felt?  Then I called my friend.  He was sick but even so he asked me to enjoy everything.  ENJOY EVERYTHING!

 

So in the end I didn’t see Kyle and Shane again.

 

I liked this place, it was so undisturbed (weren’t many tourists) and quiet, my mind was rather peaceful in the end, but my limps numbed.  I think I will come back one day, only the next time I won’t be there alone.

 

This was not a really good shot but that was how I remembered Dengfeng.  Very beautiful.  I left at around 5pm and got on the last bus back to Zhengzhou, and guess what, I bumped into this young guy who I met this morning.  Haha, he told me he was totally shocked to hear me asked him THE question :p  We talked and talked (he had to type all he wanted to say on his mobile because he has super strong Zhengzhou accent and I totally couldn’t understand him!!!) till we got off.  I lied about where I was from though… let’s just say I don’t really trust people in China.  He told me where to go in Dengfeng, and with the desire to meet Kyle and Shane again, I decided to come back tomorrow.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Shaolin Temple,evening,monks,peaceful,martial arts,waterfall,Chinese chess,hostel,Dengfeng

Zhengzhou - Day 4 (23 Dec 08)

I don’t remember when did I get up the next day, but I surely didn’t sleep well enough.  The bed cracked whenever I turned, crack, crack crack!  The night before we agreed to get up at 7 am, Kyle’s alarm rang at 7 and I sprung up :p  Anyway, our first stop was the Longmen Grottoes.  My notes didn’t help much in pointing us directions, Shane and Kyle’s guidebooks did a great job… I still don’t want to admit it!

 

That’s Kyle on the left and Shane on the right.  People were staring at me when I was with them, did they all think I was a traitor?  And obviously all of them wanted to rip us off!  The Longmen Grottoes was so huge and serene (because of the cold and the lack of tourists at the time?), I was so impressed.  In the picture you can see this BIG Buddha, Kyle and Shane are just too tall.  There were too many damaged Buddhas, big and small…

 

So there were my 2 newly met friends, at first it was hard to understand what they were saying because of their Scottish/Irish accent, luckily I got used to it quickly.  Those two young a*holes (pardon me) sometimes talked about me right in front of my beautiful face in a language I couldn’t understand!  So rude!  And they surely knew how to make good use of their heights to bully me!  It wasn’t fair!  Aw, I was so mad!

 

Hilarious picture :D  Even the Buddha did the super Hong Kong stylish “V” sign :D  We Hongkongers are so cool!  There were some tourists groups following right behind us, it wasn’t really that agitating at the beginning, but once the guides took out their microphones, we really just wanted to kill them all!  (How could they speak in some dialects which I couldn’t understand?)  That’s outrageous!  We waited till all those groups were gone and took some really amazing pictures with my super cool camera!

 

There were so many steps and too many Buddhas…

 

 

The best picture of the day (in my opinion anyway), very nice, no tourists in sight other than us, those Buddhas were amazingly enormous!  How the only empress in Chinese history managed her people to get it done is of course beyond me, at that time my only thought was “this is so crazy”.  If I were the empress, I’d definitely make better use of my human recourses.. like making my soldiers to seize all gold in India… may be?

 

The weather wasn’t really that good that day, and it was freezing cold.   My mood was good and my head was sober.  I had been travelling alone for a couple of days, I was so lonely at the time and was so glad to have some company.  I was so weak, mentally.  Though Kyle and Shane could be annoying sometimes, I really enjoyed our time together :)  They were so childish but that made them unbelievably good travel companions.

 

I saw the sign and asked them “What does ‘Wast’ mean?” without reading the Chinese translation.  WAST HILL!  HAHA, Shane immediately corrected me.  It was so hilarious, there came this great picture.  If you look closely at Shane, you could see him smiling too!

 

This is how Longmen Grottoes looked like from across the river.  You see the enormous Buddha in the middle of the picture?  That was where we took our “Picture of the Day”! :)

 

In this temple we met the famous 18 Bronze Men (十八銅人).  Actually there wasn’t much to see in this temple… except…

 

This MALE DO NOT sign located right outside the female washroom!   HAHA!  I just love China!

 

After Longmen, I wanted to go to Guanlin temple 關林 which was my last destination for Luoyang.  I have already bought a train ticket back to Zhengzhou when I first arrived Luoyang, which left at around 16:20, but it was technically Kyle and Shane’s first day in Luoyang, so I thought they wouldn’t go to Guanlin with me but in the end they decided they would :D  Thank Kyle for the ice creams (it was so beautiful to eat ice cream in the freezing winter!) :D  (oh, I so want to write about this man sitting on the ice cream drop but I’d better not :p)

 

Haha I think this is another really beautiful picture with our Kungfu poses!

 

My handsome, young, and funny friends!

 

The shining, golden Guanyu Statue!  Now you know why I wanted to come here :D  I just love everything gold!  It was very interesting to see a police man worshipping this statue, Hong Kong Police do that too, but why?  What is the connection between Guanyu and the police???  Anyone knows this please fill me in!

 

Nice shot of Kyle :)  My seventeen years old friend!  He lied and told me he was 22!  I only learned the truth after I came back to HK……  he surely looks young :)  Hm, just like me! :p

 

This is the only shot I have of  Shane smiling “normally” to my camera!  He said he looks better without a beard and the reason why he had the beard was to keep his face warm.  Hmmmmmmmm.  No comment :p

 

The last picture of the day.  The only thing worth noting was the player embedded in the…. thing :p  How could I ever learn how to call those Chinese things in English?  It was quite odd to see the player (CD player?) in such a holy (and golden) place like the Guanlin temple!!

 

Kyle and Shane saw me off in the train station and there we bid farewell. I wanted to have their contact numbers, but they didn’t have mobile phones with them… I truly appreciated their companionship in such a lonely time, they were really funny and I had a great time travelling with them.  Even though just for one short day.  We were all going to Shanlin Temple the next day, it really was up to fate to decide if we could meet again there then.

 

Bye for now, Kyle and Shane.

 

del.icio.us Tags: zhengahou,guanlin,guanyu,scene,Longmen,Grottoes,Wast,West Hill,CD player