The Rawpinions Weblog

Ant’s probably going to kill me but I’m thinking of dropping the whole London-holiday thing.  Both the money and time could be put to better use, and at this point in time I should not be holidaying.  It’s not a confirmed decision (nothing is really ever definite when it comes to me) but not going is the option I’m leaning towards at the moment.

Let’s not forget that I had initially planned on living with Ant’s family for two whole weeks.  They’re nice people with good hearts but confined to an environment with anyone I’m not used to for two whole weeks can be quite excruciating for me.

If I don’t go to London, I’ll be off to Seychelles.  Time seems to go by more slowly in Seychelles, (mainly because my sleeping schedule isn’t messed up there).  The cool thing is that I’ll be able to meet one of my long-term penpals who’s from Germany.  She’ll be in Seychelles on August.  I’ll probably be able to clear my head back home (which is something I desperately need).  My mum would probably be nagging at me half the time but that sort of thing doesn’t get to me anymore.

*Sigh* And blogging in Seychelles? Wow, I’ve never done that before.  Both times I went back, I started calling Shanghai “back home”! The more I think about Seychelles, the more I want to go back (just for the holidays of course!).  The huge disadvantage is that I’d probably go back for 2 months (the last time I was there, I was on Mahe for only 4 days - 2 of which I caught the nasty summer flu which started in the plane to Singapore!).  2 months in Seychelles could be fun - except I will not be able to properly do some buying/selling online.  I’d have to renew my domains well ahead of time.

I’m off to get something to eat.  My appetite’s back (but I still have a slight fear for eggs).  MY UCG appointment is tomorrow afternoon.

Current Mood: Confused

Just a second ago, Ant and I had a conversation on MSN Messenger and she’s convinced me to go to London with her this summer! She’s been there numerous times before and she’s also got family there so let’s hope I’m in good hands IF I decide to go.

I must admit, back in high school I was the only person I know who didn’t care much about visiting Europe (or US).  Travelling has never been my thing.

My sister’s planning her dream trip to Mongolia (Gobi Desert) and Xinjiang (Muslim province in China) and I was actually considering going back home to laze around while my mum cooks my fave foods…

But at this point in my life, I really should be visiting places I’ve never been to.  Ant wants to visit Wales & Scotland too, as well as Paris for a weekend.

Besides, I really should be taking advantage of the fact that I’m carrying a Seychellois passport…Seychellois don’t need a visa to UK!

Current Mood: Bored

I realized, that the one thing I don’t ever talk about on a trip is the actual journey from one place to another.  Many times, it’s actually quite memorable.

I woke up early this morning after only almost 4 hours of sleep.  My plan was to take a taxi about 2 hours before departure time.  Unfortunately, {Twin Sister} had some sort of food poisoning so she needed the bathroom (to puke).  So it was about 10am when I finally got into a taxi.

I told the taxi driver that my departure time was at 11 am (I lied, it was actually at 11:30 am).  This weird dude started talking to one of his mates, and at around 10:20 he stopped at some weird place and told me to transfer to his friend’s taxi.  I was starting to freak out, especially because I didn’t know how long they’d get me to the airport and because I didn’t know the normal domestic-flights check-in time.

The second taxi practically zoomed to the airport and luckily, I got there in time.

For the first time in my adult life, they gave me a seat on the front row of the economy class (no, I don’t travel in first class >:-/ ).  The last time I sat on the front row, it was when my mum brought me to Thailand…and it was a pleasant flight on Cathay Pacific.  But today, I was not in a good mood.  The table thing was way too small, and for a second there I thought I was being punished for something.  I don’t remember buying a 50% discount ticket. >:-/

An old Chinese lady sat next to me.  She was in a cheery mood, so I was nice enough to help her with her seatbelt and when lunch was served I helped her extend the whatchamacallit table thingy.  After a few minutes, she spills her tea all over my jeans and right shoe.  She didn’t even apologize.  She just gave me a “buhaoyisi” kind of smile.  I returned a “that’s fine” kind of smile.  Later on she offered me her miniature tomatoes helping (which I declined BTW) so I guess she didn’t mean to spill her tea on me.  That settled, Shanghai Airways (or Airlines…whatever it is) need to know that kids should be placed on the front row.  They love the tricky table, they love the spaciousness, and and best of all, it prevents them from kicking the seat in front of them.

When you travel alone, it also allows you to sit down and look around at other people.  I noticed that many people (guys) are travelling with their laptops (and showing it off).  Normally, I’d see up to 3 guys with their laptops.  But on this trip, it almost seemed as if everyone had one.  This made me feel like a shitty, shitty geek.  In fact, next to them I wouldn’t even consider myself a geek.  I don’t have a laptop, I don’t even want one.  But unfortunately I now have to start saving for one because I don’t want to be the only person on earth without one…hmm…or maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

I exited the airport gate, and then I got on the shuttle bus No. 3 (Pudong Airport to Galaxy Hotel 银河宾馆).  When the bus got to LongYang Rd., the girl sitting next to me asked me if we were at Xujiahui.  I told her we weren’t, and she told me to please let her know when we’re there.  I was like “um…uh…” and she thought I said “恩”.  When we got to LuPu Bridge, I saw a huge Xujiahui sign so when she asked me if we were at Xujiahui I said “是的” but right before she stood up I sort of gave out this laugh and said “不不不…还没到!”.  I then told her the Xujiahui was on the next stop.  When she asked me if she’d be able to find the metro station at Xijihui, it hit me that she wasn’t from around here (heheheh) so I asked her if it was her first time to Shanghai.  Was I nasty? I finally felt like a Shanghainese.  Weird enough, she said it was her first time in this part of the city.

The girl had a Nokia.  She was scruffy and pretty much panicky.  I really ought to find out how big Shanghai really is.  I hear Nokias are cheaper away from the city centre.  I pity the girl.  Right before she got off at Xujiahui, she was decent enough to turn round and thank me for my help.  I gave her my best “you’re-very-welcome-and-have-a-good-day” smile and thought ‘what’s the chance of meeting a fab person like me on your first hour in this bustling metropolis?’

Current Mood: Bored

So tonight is my last night here at Chanchun. It was unfortunate that we didn’t have enough time to check out the Changchun Movie World (if that’s what it’s called). Although we managed to check out PuYi’s Palace (伪皇宫). Who’s Puyi? He was China’s last Emperor, aka “Puppet Emperor”. Thankfully, they had a souvenir street on the palace grounds so I was able to add a few more viewcards to my lovely collection. I bought the following viewcard sets (10 yuan per set):

- Chengzhou (old) viewcards
- The Winter Scene of Jilin
- Vintage YPAI viewcards…I don’t really know where that is but they look really old so that’s just great LOL…after all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right?
- The Scenes of Jilin
- Scenery of Guangdong: Shenzhen (quite old)
- The Eight Main Departments of the Puppet Manchuguo Govt.
- The Puppet Palace Museum of Jilin Province of China
- Jilin Provincial Tourism Bureau
- The Qinmin Building, Changchun China (which the seller gave me for free).

Then I got another Changchun set but it’s still in my shopping bag and I’m too lazy to get it out right now. So apart from Changchun City and Harbin, I now have Shenzhen, Jilin Province (not the Changchun part), and a place (YPAI) which I think is part of Greece.

How do you get to PuYi’s Palace from Northeast Normal University （东北师范大学）? Take bus No. 265 to XinMin GuangChang （新民广场） and from there, take bus No. 264 to Wei Huang Gong (last stop). You’re bound to see the Palace right where the bus stops.

After our little Palace tour, we took bus No. 264 and somewhere around our 2nd stop (I think) from the palace we spotted Carrefour! At first I thought it was a bit odd that the huge Carrefour sign seemed pinned up right in the middle of nowhere. Right before the bus stopped, {Twin Sister} and I saw this huge building called New World Living Mall （新天地购物公园）. Apparently, Carrefour was in it. All of a sudden, it all made sense to me: this was a place I had to check out. So when the bus stopped, we decided to be spontaneous and jump out to check the place out.

The mall was bigger than I thought. They had boutiques on the first and second floor, the 3rd floor had some boutiques too but the 4th floor was really cool; it was the entertainment floor and they had arcade games, restaurants and food stalls, as well as hangout places, a pet stall (uhh…) and crafts lounge (where you can make your own crafts using their tools).

I’m not feeling well…I’ve had a headache almost every day for a week now. It just comes and goes. {Twin Sister} assumes it’s obviously dehydration…let’s hope that’s just what it is. My guess is it’s that I’m low on caffeine. I have only one cup of tea a day and that’s just not normal.

We’re supposed to hangout at May Flower tonight…May Flower is pretty much the equivalent of Shanghai’s Windows…excluding interior design which can be compared to Shanghai’s Bon Bon. I’m not really in the mood to hangout, but it’s my last night here so maybe I should do something.

Current Mood: Confused & Bored

Only about 10 days away from Shanghai; away from my dorm room and I’m already feeling this sense of mental instability. I’ve stayed away from my domaining hobby for all this time, and it’s just a completely different lifestyle.

It’s back to Shanghai for me in just a couple of days. I’m yearning for that alone time that I have grown to be dependent over. I’ve enjoyed Changchun, in fact we’re heading to PuYi’s Palace tomorrow I think, and we might visit the Changchun Movie thing (not sure what it is really). I’ve decided to skip the skiing bit of this trip. It’s just way too far and I’m getting tired because we’re literally up and about almost every single day, visiting as many places as possible.

Before I continue, I want to say something about the lack of images: I’ve decided not to post images that belong to my sister. For obvious and rational reasons she will only allow me to have her images here if I watermark them courtesy of her blog and for now I’m not quite comfortable with that. Besides, it’s my fault for not settling the whole camera issue so it should be my loss, and that’s that. So I apologize that I don’t have any images to display. I’ve sent some friends pictures my sister took at Harbin and Changchun so if you’re a friend of mine and you’d like to see some of them just send me an email or something to let me know.

Ok, getting back to the holiday experience: I like Changchun more than Harbin. Harbin is one messy city. I don’t really get why any foreigner would be there. Traffic there is horrendous, vehicles are just all over the place - even diagonally on a straight road…! Thing is, Harbin is Heilongjiang’s most popular city I think…so I didn’t expect Changchun to be better. They really need to sort their taxi drivers up at Harbin. These official taxis spend 70% of their working hours doing “pirate taxi” work and only about 30% of the time running the meter. It’s just ridiculous. Worst of all, they’ll be willing to kill the price only if you agree to have another set of passengers in the car as well. So the best thing to do is to use the public bus. It’s killer cheap (1 yuan).

Ok, so apart from the whole holidaying thing…the semester begins this coming Monday. Huge thing for me, I’ll have a whole lot of runarounds to do because I’ve been immensely uncooperative & truant. So I hope after I beg for forgiveness I’ll be cut some slack by the teachers.

Current Mood: Cool & Bored & Cool & Bored & Cool & Bored & Bored & Cool

It’s a few minutes to 2:30 am and we’re chilling at a net cafe opposite of Harbin’s railway station. We had an extremely adventurous day: we visited the Siberian Tiger Park (东北虎林园­) way up north of Harbin, and then we checked out the famous Ice World (冰雪大世界). Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera’s recharger with me on this trip so images are courtesy of my twin sister. I’ll post them up when we’re back at Changchun.

Siberian Tiger Park
The best thing about this experience is that you get to see Siberian tigers…and African tigers too. We were also fortunate to see a lion! This park is actually a nature reserve so they actually have plenty of space to roam around and play with the other tigers. We were going around in a mini van.

Worst part of this experience is the part where we stopped to see the African tigers at snack time. We stopped, saw a tiny caged van drive in and dropped off a live white calf. The tigers started to run after it and it started bleating. Then they caught it and within 2 minutes, it had been literally ripped into several portions. The tigers were also fed live poultry; hens to be exact. In their natural habitat, that’s just the way the system works. But in this case, I guess it was really not fair on the calf and the hens.

Ice World
We got here from the Siberian Tiger Park by bus. We asked this guy who was exercising and he was kind enough to walk with us to the bus stop, which wasn’t really on the main road. We didn’t even have to pay him anything, so I guess nice people still exists in this world. We took bus No. 85 which took us directly to the Ice World for a fare of RMB1. The Ice World is opposite of Sun Island (太阳岛) Snow festival thingy. One of our “party members” was on a budget so we had to choose between the Snow Festival and the Ice World. The Ice World accepts student cards (i.e. offers discount rates) so we paid 75 yuan per person, instead of the regular 150 yuan.

It was an amazing sight. Ice castles, ice sculptures, ice monuments and basically ice everything (hence the “Ice World”). It was freezing cold in there, I had never experienced anything colder. The temperature was even way below any typical freezer section of any typical refrigerator.

Best experience at the Ice World: I got to carry a “White Fang” puppy. The poor thing was acting like an abused animal so I’m guessing the owner don’t treat it well. We told the owner to place the puppy on the floor to see what it would do and the bastard threw the puppy on the ground. Then when we were walking away, he carried the puppy by the skin on the back. What did the puppy ever do to him? That poor excuse of a man was probably sadistically abused by his stepfather.

Worst experience was the freezing bit…I could barely feel my toes. To make matters worse, a cup of tea in one of those small cafeterias costs 30 yuan.

Taking the bus around is the best and cheapest option here at Harbin. The drivers of taxis and other means of transportation will cheat the heck out of you.

I really want to shop for Harbin souvenirs but the only souvenirs I can find are Russian souvenirs. Why that is so is beyond me. It’s great for the Chinese who can’t afford to visit Russia, but what about the people who are interested in present-day Harbin? I have 0% interest in Russia quite frankly.

Yesterday, we visited the Sophia Orthodox Church (art gallery and museum). Entrance fee: 15 yuan. We were actually just walking around ZhongYang Street (中央大街) when {Twin Sister} spotted it.

Next stop: 731 Museum, and if time permits we’ll go to Zhaolin Park. We’ll most probably taste a bit of Harbin’s nightlife tomorrow night/early hours of the morning. More like bar-hopping really.

Current Mood: Cool

Visited Nanhu (South Lake) Park today, and it was about -15 to 20 degrees celcius.

The interesting thing about Changchun is that it’s a whole lot faster to get round. Taxi fares start at 5 yuan, so it’s a whole lot cheaper than Shanghai where it currently starts at RMB 11.

Woohoo, skated on ice for the first time ever and best of all, I was lucky enough to successfully prevented myself from falling. It was actually a little more difficult then I thought though, especially because skating on ice is less predictable then skating on the streets. It was an awesome experience, and I definitely want to do it again! I really want to try indoor skating and I’m guessing it’s even tougher especially because it’s probably flatter and glossier than skating on the frozen lake.

It was also my first time to see penguins…they were so cute! The whole place was pretty cool (well extremely cold rather ) and it’s a must-visit if you’re “chilling” on this side of China.

Leaving for Harbin early tomorrow morning. Wish us luck, heh heh!

Current Mood: Cool

Arrived at Changchun Longjia Airport at about 10:50am this morning. It was supposedly -12 when I arrived. I’m now sitting at {Twin Sister}’s desk which, I think is a whole lot cooler than mine and if she’ll permit me to have a pic of it on my blog then I’ll upload it.

The sun was out practically all morning and afternoon, but {Twin Sister} says it’s definitely going to get a whole lot colder this evening. In fact, we can already see some condensation happening on the window pane. It’s just a matter of time for it to turn to ice I think.

I just took a picture of the view from the window but {Twin Sister}’s PC don’t support my camera’s memory stick so tough, I might have to either buy a hub or I might have to access the images when I go back to Shanghai. Well, I’m “signing off” now. I’m psyched and I don’t mind freezing my arse off outside.

Current Mood: Bored

I spent yesterday at Yiwu. What was I doing there? I don’t know…it’s sort of like the time I went to Suzhou: spontaneity. Yiwu is popular for being one of China’s ‘manufacturing city’. It’s a definite must-see for suppliers, exporters, importers, etc.

A friend and I met at the Shanghai railway station some time around 6:30am. We were supposed to take the bus but then we decided to take the train instead because:
1 - we would get there sooner
2 - it was cheaper

It took about 4 hours and 15 minutes to get there, then we had to take the 801 Bus to the International Trade City (国际商贸城) which took another 30 minutes out of our day.

Many people brought their cameras into the buildings…but we were not allowed to take shots. So it’s actually Yiwu’s fault that I don’t have the really juicy pictures. Here are the few I took outside the International Trade City (not sure but I think these were taken near district 1 & 2):

I did see a little more than a handful of foreigners there, almost every single one of them had a Chinese “assistant” helping out. Nevertheless, I was surprised at the “turnout”. I expected there to be a whole bunch of people bargaining like crazy…sort of like Qipulu on a Sunday afternoon. But I was very mistaken; everything was pretty dead. Things were deader than my grandfather’s funeral in 2004.

You can buy individual items but they’re only willing to kill their retail price (i.e. offer wholesale price) if you buying wholesale. But then again there’s always the alternative method of achieving the wholesale price: bargaining.

Tip: winter is definitely NOT the right time to visit Yiwu’s ‘IT’ City, especially if you’re going to spend only a day or two there (meaning you’ll have to walk a lot). It was freezing there yesterday and it really “kas mon cool”.

That’s pretty much the only time we had, I wanted to spend not more than one day at Yiwu. Unfortunately, when we got to the train station to buy our ticket back to Shanghai the tickets had been sold out. So we had no choice but to settle for the 1:30am train - with no available seats! Fortunately, it costed only RMB39 and the train turned out to be quite empty actually so I did get a seat, and slept until we got to the Shanghai South Railway Station.

I was so glad to be back “home”…that’s the beauty of living in Shanghai I guess; I’m always glad to be back.

Is Yiwu truly living up to their slogan: 魅力城市，美丽商成 (Altavista Translation: “Charming City, Beautiful Commercial City”)? I have absolutely no idea. I’ve only seen a small part of the city place I’m in no position to judge.

But for now, say: “魅力城市，美丽商成” and I’d assume you’re talking about Shanghai.