Woke up around 4:30am. Had a quick shower before meeting up with the rest of my family to set off for Aiport at 6am. Loitered in airport till 8:45am before going to the custom. The hotel had prepared packed breakfast of sandwiches, orange juice, cheesecake and banana before we left.

Am so glad to see some shops where I managed to buy mochi at 250 taiwan dollars for CM. Finally utilised all my taiwan dollars by the time I boarded plane around 9am. I was seated in 35G, 2 seats away from window again. Watched Pirates of Carribean: At world's end on the personal tv before me. Sad ending show for Turner turned into undying pirate captain and was separated from his family and his young son was hung in an anti-pirate exercise years later.

Had lunch of seafood pasta, cold salmon, jelly and coffee on the plane. After watching the landing scene of the plane on the personal tv at channel 4/5, we reached Singapore Changi Airport at 1:30pm.

Have just reached home after 4hours of flight from Taipei Tiao Yuan Airport lasting from 9:30am to 1:30pm. Am in process of transferring all my images and video files from tour now. Will update more later. Mum hasn't any mood to cook anything that evening and we had fried oyster egg and fishball noodles for dinner.

Woke up at 5am, showered and went for buffet breakfast at 2nd level around 7:20am with eldest sis for there was no anime to watch unlike the day before. Had some porriage, cereal, bacon, sausages, ice cream. This time, parents and other siblings came down around 8:20am.

Around 10:30am, we took 2 cabs to Shilin station.

From there, we took a bus to Yuanming shan.

Alighted 3 stops earlier and had to retake the bus again to go to the interchange there.

From there, we waited for the bus for around 20mins. From there, we took bus 108 at 15 taiwan dollars/pax.

We were aware that there was plenty of nice scenery to see if we alighted along the way, but there was totally no time to explore the place.

Left for Ximenting via bus to train around 2pm. Xi Men Ting is a shopping district for fashion stuffs, almost similar to Orchard Road in Singapore.

There, we had lunch in a Korean restaurant. I had noodle soup that came with white rice at 140 taiwan dollar.

After a bad experience with poorly tasted stinky beancurd the night before, I did not wish to try the same food there.

After having a quick tour, we went for Wufen pu around 4pm. Wu Fen Pu, like Xi Men Ting, was a shopping district, but it was more for make-shifted stalls/shops than fancy buildings like the former.There, I bought myself a top and a pair of shoes. Dun like the staff who sold the shoes coz of her unpleasant way of handling customers, maybe I should not have buy shoes from her. It started to dizzle and we quickly left for Taipei MRT shopping mall around 5-6pm coz bro wanted to buy some Gundum models there. There, I further bought myself a better pair of shoes as well as Inuyasha movie VCD and FMA OVA VCD. Dad was pretty pissed for bro took too long a time hunting for his stuffs. While buying some handphone decors, I kana some parrot shits on my forehead when I disturbed the 4 parrots in the crystal shop.

After waiting here and there, we finally made it to Dan Shui around 8pm after spending 60 taiwan dollar/pax on the train.

From there, we took a shuttle bus to fisherman wharf. As we were super-late, most of the shops in the fisherman wharf were closed, but I still managed to take some good shots while having some noodle and hor fun at an expensive looking restaurant. Went for Hokkaido pork burger at McDonald in the Dan Shui central where I finally had a taste of Frogs' eggs- some kind of Taiwanese dessert drink with jelly balls. As the time was reaching late and we were loaded with bedsheets, tibits, etc, we took 2 cabs back to hotel around 11pm. When I thought only Singaporean taxi drivers always lose their ways, our cab driver could not find our hotel after turning a few rounds on the road. Reached our rooms around 12am.

After washing hair and shower, I slept around 1am. Too exhausted.

Oh yeah, throughout my tour in the past 2 days, I've managed to try all public transport in Taipei-train, bus and cabs.

About bus, passengers usually pay either before or after each trip and there's a detailed route image above the windows. Like the train, there's a LED panel at the front informing passengers which stop it is reaching. Shuttle bus - 15 taiwan dollar/pax and normal bus trip ranges from 30 - 60 taiwan dollars.

Cab fare starts from 115 taiwan dollars onwards. Have explained train in earlier entry, so I'm not gonna repeat myself.

Had a short sleep from 12am to 5am. After taking coupon from 2nd elder sis, my eldest sis and I made our way to the western buffet breakfast at 2nd level at 7:30am. There, I had bacon, sausages, scrambled egg, milk, cereal, ice cream (tea, peppermint, strawberry), black berry cake, ice yogurt, miso soup (salmon, bean curd and pork) for breakfast.

Went for a walk outside around 9:20am while waiting for the rest of the family who had just arrived the restaurant. Noticed plenty of shops starting business.

Returning to hotel around 10-11am, we met up with the rest and walked for 30 mins to the nearest train station-Minchiuan west station. The one way ticket was in form of blue plastic token which we were to scan it at the gentry and to deposit at the destination gentry.

About train, the leaning bars in the train are wider for people to place their stuffs on it, the waiting frequency is less than 3 mins, there are more sitting positioning variety.

The fares ranging from 20 - 60 taiwan dollar, announcement of stops in different languages, LED panel at the doors reflecting the next stops and reaching stops.

From Taipei station, we transferred to Government City Hall station. The trip costed us 25 taiwan dollar (around S$1:20) each. From the station, we took a free shuttle bus to Taipei 101 building. The first 5 levels of the building was made up of shops.

At the 5th level, there was a customer service office where visitors would purchase 350 taiwan dollar worth of ticket to level 89 for the scenery and we were required to queue up after security scan to take the lift. Inside the lift, we could see light images of shooting stars in soft music.

At level 89, we were allowed to loan listening devices that explained each area at the press of a number as reflected on the nearest wall.

There, we also had ice cream after discount of 10 taiwan dollar as well as witnessing the largest damper in the world. I ordered cheese flavour ice cream and swapped around with other family members. We met our cousin and her husband who had arrived via cab at later time. At an extra fee of 100 taiwan dollar each, we could go to the top level 91 for open view of the place but I rather forgo it.

Around 3pm, we finally made our way to free shuttle bus where we took our train to Taipei underground mall. Zhongshan shopping mall was located next to the mall.

There was so many shops along the way that my legs ached so much. I doubt I would get similar effect if I walk from home to Punggol end.

I had lunch of spicy and sour noodles, pork blood soup at 800 taiwan dollars. Sis ordered sweet not spicy (smiliar to liang tou fu in Singapore). Noodles was not tasty enough, there was strange ammonia taste in pork blood soup and I could not get used to the last food.

We also had dessert at a shop where I ordered tan yuan in red bean soup.

Around 6pm, we made our way to Shilin night market at Jian Tan station. There, we ordered 3 plates of fried oyster which was covered with tomato sauce and was full of starch. Tomato sauce did not go well with egg and starch at all. And the oysters were few and small.

After trying out yam milk tea and bought stinky toufu, we made our way back to hotel by cab (fare: 115 taiwan dollars per cab) early at 7:30pm. Tried the fried chicken cutlet. It was like fried cutlet sprinkled with MMG from maggie curry chicken instant noodles, tasted so-so. The toufu was even more dissatisfactoty and was so plain that I disposed it and retreated to bed around 8:30pm. I was too exhausted.

Woke up at 4am for our driver would pick us up at 5am. We had a bowl of instant cup noodles before we set off with our cousin and her husband. Along the way, we stopped for the local traditional breakfast of soya bean milk, you tiao and carrot cakes. The sauce was too salty and sweet for my preference. But the carrot cake was pretty crispy from outside.

The sun raised early around 5 something am. Almost more than an hour as compared to Singapore. Had a long journey from Taipei to Tai Chong where my nephew's school is located. We stopped for toilet break in the middle of journey and I visited the convenient shop along the way, noticing it sold sticked food which appeared popular in many other shops. The drinks in vending machine ranged from 12-20 taiwan dollars.

After 4hours of journey, we finally reached the school after passing through several rural area and our driver had great difficulty finding the place after asking at least 2-3 passingbys. Apparently, there was an open house there for we noticed many parents going there to visit their children.

We went to the 3rd level and had to endure 2 hours (8:30am to 10am) of senseless talk from the people in charge about how good the school was, blah blah blah..I could see most of my family members dozing off and one extremely 'ON' mother taking notes of the speech vigorously. After trying to reach other cousin (mum of nephew) over long distance phone charge, we finally located the mother and child in a classroom. As we are considered overseas relatives of the child, we had lunch in a classroom of Taiwan cold noodles with sasame sauce, yakult, fungus soup around 12pm.

I regretted not bringing my library book along for I've wasted most of the time napping in the classroom or exploring the school compound till 4pm for a tour bus to pick us up back to Taipei. After passing by several night scenery, the tour bus dropped us somewhere near Paris buffet restaurant and from there, we took 2 cabs back.

That night (9pm), we had dinner of che zhai mee with meat stew soup and pork blood cake at a shop near our hotel. There was glutenous rice mixed in the pork blood and I was unable to get used to it. There was slices of pork meat in the noodles which tasted so-so, but the meat stew soup was excellent, it was almost similar to shark fin soup except the ingredients were different.

Am in Changi Airport now after having a lunch of seafood bee hoon of $3.50 as well as a cup of rose drink. Food tastes so-so.

The check in custom is now changed to auto. Instead of staff checking in for us, what we only need is to scan our passport to activate the first gate before scanning our fingerprint for second gate.

Had went around taking photos.

I had also saw a model of terminal 3 which was scheduled to be opened next year Jan..

Plane will take off in an hour's time. So I'm surfing the internet which limits each usage to 15 min at a time. Other than internet, there was also massage chairs, but I did not have the time to try them out. Instead, I checked bits of RP comm..

My family and I were to board China Airline economy class.. We proceeded to waiting room 20 minutes before boarding (i.e 2:10pm) and I was issued red card that determined the sequence of passengers according to their arrival time to the room, cousin and her husband were late so they were issued green cards. Sequence was as follows: yellow -> red -> green

At 2:45pm, we finally boarded the plane. All passengers had a small personal T.V. before ys. There was a remote control which was detachable from the seat to choose the shows we want to watch. Everything was satisfactory, except the space was too crumpy.

I chose Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix. There was plenty of cut and pastes and omission in the plot as compared to novel version. Am glad I've never rent its VCD to watch. Still, it was slightly better than movie 3 and 4. Had a snack of nuts and orange juice. The plane took off at 3:30pm. The entire journey took 4 hours. I had choice between fish rice or chicken. In the end, I chose chicken with tomato sauce, cheese cake and cold duck meat, completed with orange juice and coffee around 5:30pm.

After watching initial bits of Pirates of Carribbean 3: at World's End, our flight finally landed on Taiwan TiaoYuan Airport at 7:30pm.

A hotel representative fetched us and sent us to hotel around 8-9pm. Initially, there was a free half day tour planned for us but because of our fixed schedule to visit our nephew on the same day, it was cancelled.

Along the route, the journey was dark and isolated, reminding me strongly of Tokyo's airport route to hotel.

Shortly after we've placed our luggages in our rooms (my eldest sis and I shared room 418, 2nd sis and mum 422, bro and dad 622), we set off to explore the street where many of the shops had already closed and was pretty dark and quiet. We went for Japanese grilled meat, ordering 2 shares of beef, 1 share of pork, 2 shares of chicken, 1 share of mushroom, 5 shallots, 1 jug of chicken soup, totalling $1090 taiwan dollars.

Along the way, we made our way to convenient shop where we bought 2 cup noodles each, ranging between $25-49 taiwan dollars. We reached our rooms around 11pm. The hall of our hotel-Golden China Hotel looked like this:

Went Haw Par Villa after a lunch of Prad Thai-Thai noodles in Vivo City straight after work, which costs $3.50. Tastes so-so. In addition to that, I was extremely displeased with the don't-care attitube of the stallholder when she served other customers who came after me with their orders and DID NOT even apologised after I have paid and told her off for not serving on first-come-first serve basis. As a result, I grabbed a plate of prad thai when it was placed on the counter, not caring whether it was the right order or not. Serve them right if I've grabbed chicken prad thai instead of normal one which was cheaper than the former! I was still fuming when I stormed out of the foodcourt. Went to second level before proceeding Haw Par Villa. The staircases to the rooftop and first level was under maintenance. And the weather was hot and dry today.

Took some shots from from the second level of Vivo City towards the bridge to Sentosa... Was tempted to check out the roof top scenery, but it's too hot and dry today, plus I was too exhausted from the meeting the night before.
To cut down my time outdoor, I made my way to Haw Par Villa.

Map of Haw Par Villa
As usual, I took a few shots at the entrance of Haw Par Villa...

After it was converted to free admission since dunno-when, the place had been almost neglected. I could see dying fishes, missing information plate, algae-flooded ponds.. It was a relief that all statues are still in good shape. Was pretty curious with the meaning of some animals dressed in human clothes. Dunno what are they supposed to mean. Due to my exhaustion and the hot weather, I managed to make my walking within an hour.

Did not visit the 18 Level Hell exhibition which required $1 entrance fee. I have went there a few years ago and there wasn't much to see there, saved a few statues within artifical caves. Had a couple of shots before leaving Haw Par Villa to catch up with sleep at home.

Had a long nap on sofa the moment I reached home and I did not even follow my family members when they went Chinatown to see the lightings for Moon Cake Festival.

I’m beginning to miss my blog and Internet access and I don’t feel good having too long a break of 8 days, perhaps I should consider a 5-day break to Japan a few years later. I’m seriously thinking of winter Hokkaido if possible. Lazed around on bed till 6:30am before I got up to brush my teeth. Unlike the 1st and 2nd night, we did not have instant coffee in our room as we were allocated 2 sofas instead of one.

We proceeded to ‘Salt and Pepper’ restaurant at level 1 for our buffet breakfast at 8am. I had dumpling noodle soup. The texture was more chewy and soup more tasteful as compared to last time.

As we would be having free morning, we proceeded on cab to Chao Tian Men Square at 9:30am.The driver seat, unlike the system in Singapore was on the left instead of right side. I paid 13 RMB for the ride. I wonder what’s the purpose of zebra crossing when drivers never bothered to stop to give way to pedestrians. We made our way to the warehouse areas and saw a lot of stalls selling shoes and bed sheets. Vehicles honked and passing sellers shouted rudely to get people in front to give way to them. I was being yelled at for a number of times. Dad bought fruits again. After enduring till 11:50am, we managed to flag down a taxi to return back to hotel. There was a plastic shield between driver and passengers probably to avoid robbers. Dad paid 15 RMB for the fare.

As for lunch, we bought 3.50 RMB of mixed sauce noodles for me and beef noodles from nearby noodles stall for mum and bro, dad stuck to instant cup noodles. The noodle was packaged in a different way from Singapore’s. There was no cup cover and the cup was made of water-proof paper. The quantity was huge though I ordered the smaller cups. The noodle was chewy and sauce tasteful, the only complaint was, it was too oily (I had to sacrifice the soup). Mum’s beef noodles soup was slightly spicy and was pretty tasty. The hotel staff passed the washed clothes to us around 12pm.

At 2pm, we met our Chongqing guide at level 1 lobby and checked out from Holiday Inn. There was a change of site from hot spring to an ancient looking settlement due to lack of interest of tour members in the original plan. Luckily, I did not wear my swimming suit within my clothes or I’d regret it.

There, we took a number of photos and I saw a number of cats and dogs running freely along the ancient looking houses. By 5:30pm, we assembled for dinner.

There, we saw a number of westerners adopting Chinese orphans sitting nearby. The tour guide managed to order a plate of pork blood for my table as per mum’s request for me (I loved pork blood, but it was banned in Singapore due to hygiene reason). After dinner, we were drove to airport at 7pm with nothing to do till 10:45pm when we could check in. We were allowed to board the plane around 12:30am.

My seat number was 15B-between mum and dad. On the plane, I had fish with rice. The rice was softer than the one I ate on my way to Chongqing. Throughout the flight, my parents changed seats with me so that they could go washroom more conveniently while I slept all the way till the plane reached Singapore at 5:15am.

I woke up at 4-5am to do a final check of my luggage before proceeding for my breakfast buffet at 6:45am. After showering, I drank tea in cooled water (hot water and instant coffee was not replenished on the last day of cruise). Mum and I passed the rest of the morning by watching some boring programme. During the night, the cruise had already stopped at the port of Chongqing.

After a quick look of the port, we went for breakfast at 6:45am. The waiter kept forgetting my order for minced meat noodles. Nevertheless, the noodle was quite chewy and minced meat tasteful. By 7:30am, mum and I got our luggage out to be sent down the cruise. After struggling with our luggage at 8am, our same Chongqing guide took us to visit the nearby Chao Tian Men Square. I stayed in the coach to update my physical diary.

After that, the coach sent us to an ongoing constructing sports complex space and Yangtze river museum for toilet relief. There was a number of locals doing morning dance there. The toilet usage was charged 30 jiao.

After that, we were drove to visit Eling Park to see memorials for Russians who died in China during WWII, old photos of Chinese leaders and an old building. I could see the hazy city from the top.

Outside Eling Park, many of us went shopping in the nearby shops. Dad bought fruits and I noticed an Internet Bar.

The guide drove us to a silk shop where I sneaked out to see the street.

We had lunch in New York building in the middle of the busiest district of Chongqing. After lunch, we had free time between 1:30pm to 3pm. There were a number of statues on the street, bringing an interesting scene for passingbys who went shopping there. I was surprised to see so much cooked animal organs and preserved vegetables in supermarket. My only regret was that I did not take photo of its food court. It was almost the same as that in Singapore, except the utensils used were not as uniform, its surroundings not as better furnished and the type of food sold differed. After walking around, we even went to McDonald for a rest while waiting for the time to be up. The strawberry sundae did not taste as nice as that I've tasted back home for the strawberry sauce is too 'jelly'.

We went to Holiday Inn to pack our stuff at 4pm. There was a delay in room cleaning and we could only return to our rooms at 4:20pm. Mum and I were allocated room 918 while dad and bro room 908. I called up room service to send my jeans, mum & dad’s coat and bro’s jackets and jeans for washing before assembling at level 1 at 5:30pm for Chongqing steamboat.

There was limited food (beef, mushrooms, squids, bird eggs, vegetables unless you don’t mind pork brain) to go with the steamboat and I disliked the slippery taste in the spicy part of the soup. We continued with our instant cup noodles bought outside Eling Park earlier that day while I watched the later part of ‘Blade: Trinity’ on HBO which I couldn’t watch on cruise due to television reception problem.

I had an early sleep around 9:30pm with weird dreams of going to Taiwan and being pursued by demons. I kept having the strange feeling of the floor rocking, probably due to after effect from my cruise trip.

Attempted to watch sunrise at 6am, but failed due to the heavy haze.

I went for breakfast on level 5 (crew seemed to ignore my presence, a sharp contrast with the first day) and proceeded for buffet breakfast at level 2 around 7:20am.

We went off the cruise at 8:30am, which stopped at a port around 2am onto a coach after climbing up around 100 steps from the port, avoiding sellers and beggars.

After several scenic views of mountains and rivers, we reached Xue Yu (Snow Jade) Cave. There were a number of stalactites that were carefully protected with plastic shields.2 staffs followed us so that they could shine the dark steps for us to see.

We had lunch at 12:30pm with roast pork in black pepper sauce and other usual stuffs. As we were spending our last night on the cruise, we spent the rest of the day, watching passing factories, rural settlements and packing our things.

Dad had bought 2 branches of grapes and I finished one of them throughout the afternoon. I also finished up my bottle of coffee coke that I had bought in Yi Chang before I had boarded the cruise. At 6:30pm, we listened to the speech of cruise manager on our departure schedule at level 5. I was astonished on his openness for request of tips.

We had a farewell dinner with champagne, salmon sashimi and ice cream plus the usual stuffs at 7pm, accompanied with captain’s speech. Mum and I went to discuss tips matters with dad and bro in their room at 8pm and we rushed through the questionnaires placed on our pillows during our dinnertime. In total, dad contributed 700RMB for all the crews’ tips. I rushed to watch Chinese movie ‘The Banquet’ (it had a very confusing ending) which started at 8:30pm on level 5 with dad and bro. Got mum to open the door for me at 10:30pm before I drifted off to sleep.

Had a very smooth sleep throughout the night, except some interference with weird dreams about job matters. I woke up around 5:30am. Without my knowing, the cruise had set sail around 6:30am. I went for the usual buffet breakfast at 7:20am and had fried noodles and curry potatoes.

Around 8:30am, our guide called us to level 6 to introduce the 2nd Gorges of the 3rd Gorges- the peaks of Wu Gorges.

Our cruise stopped at a port around 9:30am where we boarded a smaller motor boat to see the smaller gorges. To view better, we went onto the starboard. The wind was rather strong and I had to wear my long sleeved shirt for the first time. I could hear the howling of the wind against my ears. From the guide, one of the bridges would be pulled down during the construction schedule in a few days’ time. From Mini-Three Gorges, we were transferred to a sampan to continue our trip. There wasn’t much to see, except songs from the locals. I also noticed men in charge of safety matters stationed at certain areas.

We returned to our cruise at 2pm. After our lunch (2pm-3:30pm), I stuck to HBO channel for ‘Constantine’ instead of listening to talks on Qutang Gorge. Between 6 to 6:30pm, I proceeded to the starboard at level 2 to watch sunset scenery before going for the next day tour speech at 6:30pm and dinner at 7pm.

Other than usual stuff, we had an extremely hot beef (which dad failed to get chilli tips from the waiters) and strawberry jelly.

There was a performance by the crews at 8:30pm which I rather sacrificed as I wanted to watch ‘The Island’ on HBO channel at 9pm till 11:15pm.

The cruise continued to sail throughout the night.

I woke up at 5:30am to tour the cruise at 6am.

Level 1: staff rest/bed rooms, meal area. They were rather dull and shabby and I saw their breakfast of porridge and salted vegetable in their canteen.
Level 2: Main hall, dining hall and guest bedrooms
Level 3: Guest bedrooms, clinic, reading room, Internet room (10RMB/Hour)
Level 4: Guest bedrooms
Level 5: Mini bar, majong room, KTV Lounge and gym room
Level 6: Wine bar and starboard

At 6:30am, I proceeded to early bird breakfast of pastries and coffee in the mini bar at level 5. They tasted ordinary. At 7am, I proceeded for my breakfast buffet in the dining hall at level 2. I learnt that other than the 16 people in my tour group, there were 20 people from Hong Kong and 3 people from Shanghai who joined us on the cruise, which made up a total of less than 40 people. I had fried hor fun, chilli noodle soup and orange juice, the noodle texture was better than that in Holiday Inn hotel. I noticed all fellow tour members reached the hall the earliest at 7am, people from Hong Kong came around 7:30am while parents and bro dragged to the hall at 7:45am. Meanwhile, the housekeeping staffs proceeded to clean our rooms at 8:30am, so we could only enter the room after they finished the work. We were told that as the towels would not be changed during the three days on cruise, we could only ask for replacement upon request.

Port of Yi Chang
At 9am, we came down the cruise with our boarding pass (orange band) to tour the Three Gorge dam; mum was again pestered by the sellers to buy their maps of Yangtze river.

It was drizzling and raining later heavily, I dropped my poor digital camera 2 times throughout the trip and had to wash my hair the moment I returned back to the cruise, shivering in cold.

There were several dishes for our lunch at 12pm. Out of which, I enjoyed roast pork with honey best, I could taste its juiciness and sweetness beneath its crispy skin. While we ate, the cruise departed from the port at 1pm.

We spent the rest of the day listening to talks on changes in Three Gorges and I actually slept during the talk between 4:30pm to 5:30pm. Couldn’t resist my sleepy bug.

The cruise stopped at Baidong port.

We had dinner at 7pm. Other than some usual dish, we had minced chicken noodle soup (plain) and coffee cheesecake that was not cheesy enough. After a short rest in our room, we proceeded to a welcome tea at 8:30pm. I was given a champagne before I shrank away from the crews to a table with bro and mum. After the captain’s introductory speech, there were games and snacks that I gladly avoided to catch night scenery on level 6.

I rushed back to level 6 again after returning back to room when I heard sound of fireworks from nearby cruises. Somehow, I’m glad to be in this trip for I never watch fireworks and firecrackers before till I came on this trip.

I woke up at 6am instead of my morning-call time at 7am. Couldn’t resist my brain clock, can I? We went to ‘Salt and Pepper’ restaurant for buffet breakfast at 7:30am-8:30am.

I tried fried rice and ordered a bowl of ma-la noodle soup. After waiting for sometime, I went to fetch the noodles. The soup was not spicy enough and the noodle was rather soggy.

We set off for our internal flight (10:30am-11:30am) to Shangxia airport in Yi Chang province. My seat was 19A, which was fortunately next to a window again. I slept throughout the flight.

Upon reaching Shan Xia Airport, the guide there greeted us; she seemed to have great dislike for Japanese (couldn’t blame her, you know, Japanese had killed a lot of Chinese during WWII) and she harped on the cruelty of Japanese in each site of Yi Chang province. In addition, she explained a lot in English, which pissed mum as she could not understand English.

We were ushered into a restaurant built out of caves and were pestered by the restaurant staffs there to order a fish steamboat worth around 480RMB. Dad proceeded with the order without consulting his fellow table mates (a bad habit of his again, sigh…, it was a good thing that they did not complain when they returned him part of the cost of the order).

Nevertheless, the soup was sweetened with milk and the fish was rather flesh being newly slaughtered. I did not like the filling of the minced meat buns, as they were not appropriate for my likings.

After lunch, we proceeded to visit the nearby San You Dong (cave). There, we saw fossil stones, Zhangfei statues, listened to music played using Qin Dynasty instruments, stones with names of famous people and visited a number of scenery areas. After that, we were drove to visit a research center for living fossil fish between 3:30pm-4: 30pm. As the visit was not included in the itinery and was chargeable for 50RMB per person, I rather remained on bus alone for short nap. As there were plenty of time left before our dinner time, we asked our guide to take us to a shopping area in Yi Chang between 4:30pm-5pm. The guide was over-exaggerating about our water supply on the cruise. As a result, many of us bought mineral waters from stores (which were proved redundant in later part of our journey).

We had our dinner around 5:20pm and witnessed the celebration of several elderly who reached their 62nd birthdays. Firecrackers were released that I witnessed for the first time in my life (Singapore had banned fire crackers years ago due to safety reasons).

After looking at the ongoing construction work at the Three Gorges that was scheduled to be completed in 2009, we boarded New Century Cruise via an electrical tram down the slope.

I was allocated room 215 with mum while dad and bro took room 211. There was a slight disappointment, as it did not have as many facilities as Star Cruise. According to mum, the cruise would sail at 7am tomorrow morning.

My brain was still in my job-working mode, it was hard to get my mind off my working matters. As a result, I woke up at 5:40am, stayed in bed till 6am before I showered and ventured out onto the street. Holiday inn was surrounded by a number of private condominiums and several buildings under construction. I had difficulty controlling my bedroom lights, as a result, I woke mum up unintentionally.

At 8:30am, I went to the restaurant named ‘Salt and Pepper’ at level 1 at 8:30am for breakfast buffet. I had fried bee hoon, hush browns, cold noodles and dumplings. Overall, the food was rather hard and salty and I was not very used to eat ice-cold noodles in chilli oil.

We spent 1 and ½ hour traveling on our coach before we reached a restaurant for our lunch. The city of Chongqing was covered in haze in most part of the day; hence, the city was blurry for me to take much shots.

Based on my past experience traveling in China in the last few years, after we were served with dishes in the restaurant, we took bits of food from each dish on our own plates till the white rice was served in the last part before we started tucking in. Then, we continued our journey for the next few more minutes to go to our destination- Hei Shan Gu (Black Mountain Valley). Along the way, the haze was so thick that I could hardly see the settlement below the valley. There were mixture of suburban areas and terraced vegetable fields.

Upon reaching Hei Shan Gu, we took cable cars in pairs up the valley. Mum and I joked our way upward. She was taking 2 trips of cable cars, as she did not want to walk a long way (6km) back later. As it was drizzling, the stone steps were wet and slippery. To make matters worse, I had to cross the jerky bridges, which shook whenever people moved on it. As a whole, the scenery was breath taking, but seeing too many of them dampened my enthusiasm in the hazy mountains and running rivers. Around 5-6pm, we took a vehicle back to our coach. Dad bought 4 cup noodles for all four of us.

At dinnertime, I had a good view of night scenery of the busiest part of Chongqing. There was a number of steamboat restaurants along our way and many used flashing neon lights for their advertisements. Due to the quality of my digital camera, I couldn’t take many of the night scenery. We turned in to our hotel around 9pm.

We had our instant cup noodles. Mum’s was braised beef favour while mine’s spicy beef. After finishing our cup noodles, mum and I took a walk in the nearby shops.

There was a change in our tour schedule. We were supposed to visit Hei Shan Gu on the 7th day of our tour and to tour Three Gorge on 3rd day. In the end, we visited Hei Shan Gu on the 2nd day and our Three Gorge cruise was pushed back to 4th-6th day of our tour.

I had last minute rush to Changi Airport at 4:30pm after work.

While waiting, I rushed to terminal 1 food court for a bowl of ban mian at $2.50 before returning to terminal 2 to rejoin my parents waiting for bro.

We went to Gate 5 to get onto our flight. There was a short disruption at the check point for there was a pair of scissors in dad’s bag, so after a short delay, we finally got onto the plane to Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport.

My seat was 15A which was next to a window. We were served with choices of chicken with rice or fish with rice. I took minced chicken mixed with egg and rice. The rice was not very thoroughly cooked and the minced chicken did not go well with mixed egg.

Toilet on the plane
However, the sunset scenery outside the plane was great as it took off from the ground. During our 4-5hours’ journey, I spent time reading my notes and the flight magazines in front of our seats. Though there wasn’t much to watch from the television that only screened Japanese variety show and ‘Just for Laugh’ shows, time passed easily. This was the first time I ever enjoyed the freedom of not turning on my mobile phone since I started my current job. As the plane touched down to Chongqing airport around 11:50pm, there was a small delay due to trash blocking the runway. As a whole, the journey was pretty jerky and there was very little walking space on the plane.

In Chongqing airport, dad spent a lot of time looking for his luggage when all along, it was moving before his eyes on the tray. As a result, we were the last to leave the arrival hall at 12:30am and were greeted by our Chongqing guide with our other 12 tour members. Though the announced temperature was 19 degree C, I found I could manage in my short sleeve shirt easily. The Chongqing guide told us that there was only one flight between Singapore and Chongqing at 12am midnight.

Around 1am plus, our coach reached Holiday Inn hotel to stay for 1st and 2nd nights.

The best part of this stay was that mum and I had a key card each so I could run all over the place anytime I liked. In addition, the bathroom was in shower style, so I would not have to worry about falling in bathtub.

Went to Punggol End for a walk and took several photos along the way.











Cross-posted: sg_snapshots, sg_fotographers and photographers

Somehow, I can't help, but wish to bring up my latest trip in Botanical Garden on 24th December'05.

Wonder how it looks from within a waterfall? Well, here's the answer!


Evolution garden. It took me a long time to reach there from the main gate. It showed trails of how vegetation evolved when life began on Earth.


Sunset scene taken from the red brick path. The sharp light contrast brings more colour in the photo.


Love this path scene as night falls while I walked. It looked kinda mysterious and romantic.

This morning's tour turned out like a shopping tour as parents bought alot of food from factories and farms. Nevertheless, the overall trip was a great fun. Lunch was provided in Ah Yat Seafood resturant in Turf City shopping centre and I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch and the more rural side of Singapore tour. I took around 110 photos and here are some of them...

We set off at 9am after group photo taking.

We went to the followings:

Soil-less Bean spout farm (Seletar Farmway)
Otah and Chinese yueh factory/retail shops (Hougang)
Yueh factory (Kakit Bukit)
Bun factory (Bedok North)
Vegetable farm
Soil-less Wheat grass farm (Turf area)

Young bean spouts in soil-less farm. Mum and dad bought quite a number of veg there, including abalone mushroom. Never did I thought I would have a bad trip when I went to washroom a few minutes later. The female toilet was locked so I had to proceed to the male one to wash my legs.



A cat in the farm. There were actually 2 cats running around the place. A trip participant helped to pick up a cat while I took photo of it. Bet he loved cats alot too.



Process of making otah. I took some sample there. Tasted so-so and the o-tah's quite expensive.



Watering of crops through mechanical sprayers. Saw a lot of crops there, including lady's fingers, etc.



Peacocks in the farm. There were quite a number in the cage with large lizards. In other cages sat a hen and a snake. Wonder why the snake never attacked the hen.



View across the wooden bridge. Nice scenery when I was in the veg field.



Satellite dish. Thought it looked nice as the bus drove across the expressway on our way home, so I took photo of it.



On the whole, we spent around $90 on the food and reached home around 4pm. I'm going to go for another one again should there be another such organised group. Teeheehee..

Never tried creating a community under my current user name before, this is the first time...



Anyway,

HIATUS!

till further notice (if I manage to go on a long trip somewhere long time later)!