Damn you Firefox.. That's twice now you've killed my bloody blog entry.

And yes Facebook, you're to blame too.

Both of yous in fact. If I was in the US I could probably sue and claim that it destroyed my childhood etc etc.

And made me fat. Which is a blatant lie - only my face is fat.. And well, the love handles - I'm workin' on 'em.

Shenzhen is a pretty awesome place. It's actually awesomeer at night when the temperature drops to a bearable (but not cold enough!) 20 degrees :P Also, at night you can't see the mass smog surrounding the city.

In the day time smog is practically everywhere, so much so Shenzhen actually has signs saying:

"Warning, breathing Shenzhen air WILL cause lung cancer, a preference for KL air, and most certainly impotence".

Ok I made that up.

Ctrl-C just to back up in case Firefox goes nuts again.

Uncle Andy bought this China-produced (ie. NOT fake because it doesn't claim to be "Nokla" or "Mokia" or "Nokar") smartphone for about RM450.. Well, actually he bought about 4 of them. It has the uncanny ability to alter your voice during phone calls to either:

1. Male 1
2. Male 2
3. Female 1
4. Female 2
5. Kids 5

Not sure where kids 1, 2, 3, and 4 went to - maybe still in the sweatshops?

He had fun with it calling his son when we got back to KL.. I don't think Javin is parituclarly fond of his dad now after that :P

Ctrl-C..

Here's a tip: Next time you go visiting China, make sure you visit a place that doesn't just speak Chinese, but the right DIALECT. We more or less ate at the same restaurant for half the meals because some of the staff there spoke Cantonese. Ordering food basically consisted of pointing, making monkey noises and looking hapless.

Actually, none of the hotel staff could speak English. And by speak, I don't mean:

"Madam, if it be at your greatest pleasure and convenience, please allow this foolish worker to hold the elevator door at thy bidding".

Or:

"Nah lei yap seen".

But more of like:

*silence and continuing in Mandarin*

Which led to the bottled water being complimentary, chargeable and complimentary depending on which staff member you talked to.

Shenzhen is also home to some of the most frustrating signs in the world.. You can view me in all my shutterbug frenzy at this link:

(Also included: a picture of the Irish Coffee - Ai Lan Ka Fei - that actually had alcohol in it.. and a decent amount too, because I walked out a slightly tipsier person. KL cafes, take the hint.)




After Shenzhen, we went to HK, where we managed to check into this awesome 5 star hotel that we got on the net for 3 star price - ie. from 2500HKD to 800HKD. Awesome? Flip yea.

HK is much better because everyone speaks Cantonese and thsoe who don't can speak English. And for all the clutter and traffic jams you'd imagine HK would have, it's much much much much more organised compared to KL. Maybe we should've let the British stay longer.

The weather is better too, if also covered in smog. Kirstin mentioned it drops to about 9 degrees during January.. shame I won't be there to get a taste of it. It was about 22 the time I was there.

Perfect weather for singlet and shorts. Pity the only ones I had were those I wore to sleep. And even then I basically slept in undies because the air con wasn't that cold :P

Took the MTR (YES, MTR) from our hotel (L'Hotel Nina et Convention Centre) to Mong Kok stop to meet up with Jason and Kirstin on our second day there. Thanks for showing me around and putting up with my extreme fussiness when it came to buying jeans :P Somehow RM400+ jeans aren't too agreeable with my wallet :P

Speaking of which, I saw a pair at Seibu that were on sale - 40% off - that cost about oh.. RM2000. Eventually bought a pair for about RM250 (Levi's). no mo' jeans for another 5 years :P

Yay?

I mean, wan tan mee cost about RM15 on a regular basis. But beer is cheap.. Hell yeah. Well, cheaper than most places.

We (us male guys in our travelling group) took the tram up to The Peak where I think part of the attraction was the fact that it stopped halfway up a 45 degree incline about 500m from the base. Part of the attraction was also the thought of how many bits we'd splatter into if the brakes failed.

It is a LONG way down.

Couldn't make it to Aberdeen on our final night for seafood though, so we went to Aberdeen Restaurant instead. And had snails. Yum, snails :P Mom gagged on one. I can imagine what Jess or in fact, the NZ gang would say if they had to deal with it.

I think i wanna work there once I graduate :P

Pictures of HK at:




and also at:



Our final stop was Macau, which we had to take a ferry over to. It is more or less EXACTLY like Portugal. A van driver took us around the city in the daytime, and we wandered around the casinos and streets at night by ourselves.

Not that we gambled.

But if you're ever going to Macau, the Wynn hotel serves awesome free drinks in the casino ;)

Well, all of them do, but MGM wasn't open, Venetian was disappointing (well it was grand, but the Vegas one was impressive!) and the Grand Lisboa was too... gaudy and tacky.

Dad got approached by a street walker in the streets (duh streets). And to think Mom and I were like, 2 metres behind him :P

I've to say that Macau have the prettiest street walkers (and polite too - they don't cling when they get told "No") I've seen.

Not that I've seen street walkers.

Well Mom says the ones she's seen in Chow Kit and Thailand are Ugly McFuglies.

Couldn't get a picture of one though.. but you'll just have to imagine 20-ish year old petite, pretty Chinese women in non-tacky hooker clothing.

Nothing lasts forever, so eventually we had to leave on the 18th back for KL :(

Macau pictures:




And thus is wrapped up a slightly decent blog with an ending worthy of Primary Year 5 Karangan creativity and Kindy grammar.