Articles from this Category
4 December 2013
Killing time I slept till 0700 and did some admin on the computer till 1000 when I had brunch of fishball kwayteow soup. Uniqlo beckoned again and I went to their flagship store next to Times Square which was impressive even before their expansion slated for next week. That killed half a day and I […]
3 December 2013
Immigration was a breeze today. It always seems to be the case when I need to kill time and when the queues are shocking, I have a tight self-connect to make. I took the A21 bus into Mong Kok and was at the Lucky Hostel by 0730 waking up the manager from bed. I was […]
3 March 2013
I toyed with the idea of replacing my phone. I have a Sony Ericsson Android which was getting badly scratched on the screen; it does everything but in slow motion as it has a slow single-core processor. I felt no urgency in replacing it though; I like its more compact form compared to most smartphones. But on […]
18 December 2012
It was a 0600 arrival into Hong Kong and that saw me reach downtown Nathan Road by around 0730. I’ve been let into hotels at this time before but luck wasn’t with me today. For a start, the hotel reception didn’t open till 0900 which meant that I had to go sit at McDonald’s with […]
17 June 2012
Above: Gentrified hutong area of Beijing known as Nanluoguxiang. Final exploration My last day in China today. I fly out at 2355 bound for Dubai and continuing to Karachi. I walked to a gentrified hutong area known as Nanluoguxiang. It was quite nice and shaded by willows as it was a 37degC day. Most shops […]
16 June 2012
At breakfast I met my fellow-countrymen. Funny that in China and when I travel, I’m normally unmistakably ethnically Chinese. But for other Malaysians on the road, I’m usually of Malayo-Polynesian extract … being Iban, Bidayuh or even Malay. As I’ve been in Beijing a couple of times, I had done most of the sights before […]
15 June 2012
Above: Traffic jam in the hutong of Beijing. I had an early wake up to take the 0740 train from Pingyao to Taiyuan only to find that the train had been delayed by 30 minutes. It was the first delay I’ve encountered. The 1h30 hard sleeper was warm. It was interesting listening to people talk […]
14 June 2012
I booked a day trip with the hostel last night for this morning. My back and hip doesn’t feel too good; an after-effect of an injury from earlier in the year. The excursion consisted of a shared minivan to a couple of sights rather far away from Pingyao (otherwise necessitating trains and taxis). First stop […]
13 June 2012
Wonder in almost everything I see … I slept till nearly 0800 today; a new record in sleeping in on this trip. Pingyao is the first place in China this trip that is on the backpacker trail so I managed to gets some sort of a fruit and muesli for breakfast. There are places in […]
12 June 2012
This morning I trained from Zhengzhou to Taiyuan (with a connection there on to Pingyao). I took my seat and shortly after a young lady took the next seat and proceeded to eat her yummy-looking takeaway dumpling soup. Then she produced a plastic glove; rather strange. Then she unwrapped a few ducks feet so my […]