And we move on.....

Howdy folks! Sorry to inform that my previous blogsite under http://fireflies.eponym.com/blog will be discontinued due to technical support problems. During my last post, I did drop a line that we will be taking a week's vacation in Shanghai, China. Well, after our 8 days-7 nights circuit tour of Shanghai-Suzhou-Nanjing-Wuxi-Hangzhou-Shanghai, we also took the opportunity to spend another two days in Kuala Lumpur before returning to Bintulu last Sunday.

After almost two weeks' of relaxation, good food, company and biting cold, we have finally came back to real life on the run. The break had been a refreshing one for us and Ruth, after a year's of hardwork and studies.

The tour had been an eye-opener for us, especially for Ruth on her first visit to her ancestral "homeland". Most of the cities that we visited were very modern complete with state-of-art infrastructure facilities. For one, Shanghai is a modern, bustling metropolis with a population of 20 million. Traffic jams were common with the motor vehicles horns blaring incessantly. Part of the tour intinery included a night cruise on the Huangpu river, along the famous "Bund" with a spectacular view of the city and night life. We also visited the city's most famous landmark, the Oriental Pearl Tower. Hailed as the third tallest tower in the world and the tallest in Asia at 685M, it also provided a spectular view of the city from its observation decks. Shopping was a hurried affair, but we still managed to grab some souvenirs and local delicacies.

The city of Suzhou is unique in its 2,500 years history, complete with its many restored historical buildings and water villages. We even took a tour of one of the water villages in a "tourist boat" specially designed and decorated for this purpose. This was one of the highlights of our tour.

Hangzhou is essentially a local tourist attraction with it's panaromic "West Lake" and the birthplace of the chinese classical romance of "Liang San Poh" and "Chu Ing Tai". According to the local tour guide, their graves are located somewhere in Hangzhou. All through the tour, we had the opportunity to sample the local deliacies and visited some of the government owned tourist shopping centres. Some numbers of our tour group bought tea leaves, silk, crystals, jade, pearls, tea-pot at I must say, quite exhorbitant prices. Maybe we had been ripped off without our even knowing it.


So much for our tour, before it turns too boring. We had another two days of visiting and some shopping in Kuala Lumpur before we headed for home sweet home. It was an enjoyable trip, except for the biting cold. With an average temperature of 13 degrees C, most of us were caught shivering in our pants even with several layers of warm clothing.