2 more days and i'll be on my way home...



i left Beijing and went to another small Chinese city, Weihai that turned out looking pretty decent until some incidents happened. At the international passenger terminal, i was approached by a man asking if i'm carrying any liquor or ciggarettes to Korea when I stared at him blankly as I couldnt understand what he said at first. i then explained i was frm Malaysia and he still persisted on asking the questions which I declined in helping him to carry any of the mentioned items. he did, went off, telling his friends outside the terminal, about where am i from, and asked if i need a tour in Weihai. there's just no way i would go anywhere alone with these people.



i sat there and took out my book, reading it for the 3rd time this trip. he came around again to ask about Malaysia and somewhat to understand my command of Chinese. he concluded that i have a good understanding of the language and welcomes me to China and walked off... I guess that's good. I decided to change my seat so that I would not be so easily harassed by strangers, but before i did that, i headed to the ladies whereby I found two other ladies were following me to the washroom trying to initiate a conversation.



i ignored them and went about my business and return to a new feng shui seat. one of the lady that followed me to the washroom sat next to me, reading what i was reading. so, i just shared the book with her without showing any interest in chatting with her. after she gave up, i went to the counter to get a cup of coffee, which i was approached by that counter lady to carry items across the border. i declined but she tried convincing me the 'security' of the items. they would pay rm200 to help carry the things into S. Korea.



i, of course, declined, and the counter lady, brought her ally, which was the other lady tat followed me to the washroom earlier. both of them tried to convince me that the liquor, chillies and herbs that they want me to carry is legal. no thanks. right even before i boarded the ferry, another lady came over and asked if she could borrow my boarding pass to buy some restricted items, but i just pretended i dont understand what she was saying.

alas, i was so relieved to be in the ferry, in my own bunk, although shared with another 3 other chinese girls, but there were pretty harmless. a man came over and talked to the guy sleeping on the upper bunk and suddenly sat on MY bunk and said he has something to negotiate with me. i said no, i'm not carrying anything for anyone for whatever the price. that's final.

finally, i reached Incheon, and then Seoul and stayed in the Guesthouse before heading to Suwon to meet my students. It's a relief seeing familiar faces. They planned a trip heading towards Gyeongju and Busan to visit Korea's historical site, and it was 4 hours away. Busan, the southernmost part of Korea has a very famous beach, Haeundae which I find it rather scenic but, although seaside is my favorite place, being there during winter is something really foreign to me.

We came back to Suwon on Sunday, and went to Seoul to visit Changgyeonggung and Namdaemun. Also went to Changgyecheon and there were Christmas decorations all over the city. That reminded me of Christmas in Singapore last year.

It's my last night for this trip and tomorrow morning, i will be returning to Malaysia. I have a list of things to buy and pack home. ughh...

i'll be home soon!

I blogged yesterday, after sitting an hour poking on my PDA and turned out, it wasnt publish coz the connection was shitty.
yesterday, i was at the Great Wall of China freezing my ass off. I woke up late... actually i didnt wake up until the reception girl came to my room and knock on the door. it was at 6.50am and we were supposed to leave at 7am. yeah.. i jumped out of bed and changed in the room despite my other two sleeping roommates. (to hell with modesty).

Great wall was INCREDIBLE. it's really the one thing that i know at least deserved the title "Great" with its name. I took a number of pictures. we were back in the hostel around 2pm which i realized i havent had my shower in more than 2 days. although hungry, i think hygiene comes first and I'm beginning to smell something really rotten in the room. so, i'm guessing it's me. wahahaha. stinky!! i took my shower in the men's room without realizing it. shit. i also used the men's toilet without knowing it. isnt that sad??

after shower, i ate at the hostel, and went out with new found friends to Silk Street for shopping and Wangfujing street for dinner & shopping. I bought 2 skirts for less than RM75, a Russian doll for RM 3.50 and all types of handphone accessories of Beijing Olympic 2008 mascot and a batch of supplies of hairclips and rubberbands to last me 3 years. I also bought a collection of badge for the Olympic games 2008 for RM15. it's the cheapest thing i can find from that authentic shop.

Today, i went to Forbidden City and walked around for 6 hours in the city and again, broke my leg. I took a LOT of photos... almost every corner... and my camera died on me at the final part when the Chinese army marched out of the Forbidden City, across the road (while entire Beijing was put on hold) and into Tian'anmen Square. I lost my handphone cover and 20yuan in the process running around and not realizing that i dropped things and gotten pickpocketed.

oh well.. it's alright i guess... i've gotta go and grab souvenirs and do some shopping before tmrw when i leave for Weihai and to Incheon on Thursday. And i shall remember to shower tonight, and tomorrow too.

yoohoo.. i'm finally in china after the gruelling 17 hours ferry, 4 hours waiting for my high speed train and 6 hours on the train. my god, i've been on the road for more than 24 hours and i'm cold, hungry and tired. Summary of experience:

1. God damn cold.
2. I lost my gloves
3. I finished my reading 2 books and still have to travel back to Korea (almost 40 hours) on Wednesday.
4. I should have chosen the real Korean food instead of the cheap ones, and just pay the bloody RM2 difference.
5. I will never eat any Korean bread ever again.
6. Ferry looks pretty classy until late at night, when the people went for their karaoke, drinking, and starts getting drunk and passes by you and give u a weird look. then when u are in the toilet, someone comes banging into the toilet and pee, and to come out from the cubicle was a drunk Korean man staring at you.
7. Korea is expensive.
8. I did the public bathroom thing.
9. China is windy, or as far as Qingdao is concerned. Chinese are pretty much a hostile race where i was kinda scorned by some other train passengers for taking up the wrong seat. my train was D54, and i sat at seat 54, while on my ticket was 76.
10. I have bad choice in my first meal in China.
11. Also experienced China at its worst, the toilets. EUUWW... I shall never eat for another day.
12. The Chinese have some serious spitting issues.
13. I understand why China needs to control the population now. See it to believe it. You only need to send those people in Beijing Station Subway to intimidate US instead of their military power.
14. Some Chinese guys in uniform really looked good.
15. I've been trying to speak Korean and Chinese but failing miserably.
16. I'm going to the Great Wall tomorrow at 7am, so I need to sleep.

I think that's all i can remember. Good night people.

Day 2 In Korea

The flight seems like forever because of the multiple transits. If I actually appreciate buildings and structure then it would be so bad. Unfortunately, I dont what i can conclude is, HK airport Wi-Fi is far superior than KLIA's but the ppl there sucks!
When i landed in korea, i came to realization that i've not been warm for more than 48 hours already. i'm pretty much in several layers of clothes and boy, when i went out of the airport, no one puts on a jacket faster than i did. in fact, i was the only one with gloves. was wondering if people here have hands of steel. althought, i got hold back several times by immigration at the airport.

the guesthouse that i am staying in is great. there are pretty much over friendly and i didnt talk to them, but at least i joined them by listening to their conversation. pretty much people from US being in Korea for the longest time.

anyway, i should be getting ready to leave for China. there's a little toddler here, staring at me going online. so, i'm just gonna leave the place and let her use it. :P

update soon.