Initially, our travel plan (or lack of) was to walk around and explore Shenzhen at our own leisure. And of course, hitching the subway to Lao Jie (literally translates as Old Street) for shopping.
Yes, you read that right. Shopping. Don't say you didn't see this coming. Women. It's in our blood.
Back to the subject.
My dad had this friend who recommended a one-day tour to this small city called 珠海 (Zhūhǎi) and a little bit of 中山 (Zhōngshān). And at the end of the day, this tour ends with a ferry tour around Macau Island (澳門), the Vegas of the East. You board the ferry for RMB80 (approx. RM40) and then it'll ferry you AROUND Macau Island just for you to catch a glimpse of it. You won't get to get off at Macau cuz you'll need a visa for that.
People fight to get on the boat FIRST, to get the best seats. One half of the trip, you see the crowd concentrated at the left side of the ferry cuz Macau's on the left side. When the ferry does a U-turn back to the port, the crowd almost instantly shifts toward the right side. Witnessing the whole scenario was really entertaining and hilarious. Just thank God the ferry didn't topple over with the unequally scattered crowd. This is what I would call a TRUE kiasuism spirit. Now that alone can be a whole other post.
Meet my new friend, Donkey. He grinds soyabean and rice for a living.
Oh, and people would just fight to take photographs of themselves posing with some Macau landmark in the background to make it look as if they have already been to Macau. When the closest one can get is approximately 25-30 feet from the shore. The ferry actually rent out binoculars to passengers so you can peep admire the island up close.
That was the dessert of the day. You know. The ultimate, sweet and most hoo-haah event of the whole tour. Everyone in our tour bus was just so excited waiting for this part of the trip even before sunrise.
I, on the other hand, very much prefered the earlier part of the day.
At Zhuhai (珠海), we didn't exactly tour around the city but we were taken to a few places with historic significance. And also, to places where there are people promoting and selling stuff as always. Always the most uninteresting part of the whole tour thing. They always bring you to the most expensive places in town, promoting products you probably haven't heard of and selling them at prices you wouldn't even dare look at.
First off, a typical old and BIG ancient traditional Chinese rich family house. Like the ones where you normally see on TV shows, except that this is real.
This is the frontyard of the house.
Apparently the big tree you see in this picture *points upwards* lived for hundreds of years. Just look at the compound man.. this family's filthy rich.
This house belongs to the Chen family (Hope I got this right), which is the family of a former senator of Zhuhai. He was quite a prominent figure as he encouraged and tradings and businesses with the Americans, which ultimately contributed to the immensed growth and development of Zhuhai as a city.
The verandah at the back of the house leading to the back garden. Old. Neat.
This senator guy had two wives; the first one was a Chinese while the second one was an American-Hawaiian called Julia. Wanna take a wild guess how many children this Senator had in total? Not six, not eleven, not fourteen, but 19 children in total.
How about guessing how many did each of the wife gave birth to? The first wife had three children. Which means Julia, the second wife, bore the Senator SIXTEEN children - Twelve girls and four boys to be exact. One heck of a strong lady, ya think? They actually posted up a family tree in the main hall. Her kids had names like Melanie, Aurora, Henry, James, etc. Very least expected, especially coming from a family living in the older Chinese era.
Personal living room? Personal entertainment centre? Personal hangout?
Each bedroom in this house is connected to a personal living room. Big family. Two master bedrooms and estimately another 20 bedrooms (for the kids and guests) with personal hangout space each..
My imagination tells me this is a really humongous single-storey house.
Nevertheless, we didn't get to see the ENTIRE house cuz being in tour group means you have to abide by their rules. They speak, you listen. Even if they're speaking through their noses and you simply can't make out what they're saying. They say "let's move on", means we move on. They say eat, we eat.
And besides, I don't think that the family would actually open up the entire house for tourists. I wouldn't do that even if my dad was Elvis Presley. I mean, a family home is something sacred.. where we have privacy.. where we share joy and pain.. where family share bitter and sweet memories. A home should always be kept sacred.
We did visit a few other places after this. There was the Zhuhai Aquarium, which all five of us (my family) basically walk once through by ourselves, not following the Aquarium's tour guide. It was pretty short. Nothing much to see. Didn't snap any photos. Didn't see any of my kin, Flowerhorn.
Then there was this other park we visited, which we had taken some photos. But I don't have it in hardcopies yet. The film roll which contains those pics has not been used up until the end. And my mom's adamant to get it used up and not waste the entire film for the 14 pictures we have in there. Sigh. She's got a point.
So what do I do for the rest of the film? I have 22 pictures to snap! Snap what?
I guess that's it for Zhuhai. For now.
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