I had hope that we could pick up Ariel before saying goodbye to Joyce and Almen since she was arriving with the boat they would leave with and about 20 minutes before that too, but because of check-in times, a slight delay and of course the migration process I had to wait alone for a few minutes between leaving Joyce and Almen at their gate and picking up Ariel at hers.
It was interesting to see Ariel, we have actually only met once before but we have talked so much online since then that I felt I have known her for a much longer time than I actually have. We went to her hotel first to check her in and wait for Kaj to come back so we could have dinner, it was already after 5pm after all so it shouldn't be too late. It wasn't very long after we had gotten her room that Kaj called that he was on his way back but we would still have to wait for his transport and getting ready, and after waiting in the room for a while we decided to take a walk instead. We took a taxi over to the shoreline and walked and talked along the coast for almost an hour, that is when I found the tandem and even weirder thri-seated tandems that I know Joyce would have loved to try if we had know about them earlier, for me and Ariel it was too late for that though so I quickly put it out of my mind and we just walked instead.
With the wait in the hotel and the walk it had already been around two hours when we decided that we were both really really hungry, but Kaj still hadn't called and he didn't reply messages, so we tried to get a taxi and just crash his room instead but we found out pretty quickly that the shoreline is not a commercial area in any way, it's is more like a transport route and the taxis driving there were all occupied and there were nowhere to stop anyway. So we had to keep walking and getting more and more hungry. We finally did get a taxi, by then it was already around 8pm so we were starved and when we finally got to Kaj's room he mostly seemed surprised.
Being so hungry and tired too we just had dinner at a Chinese restaurant at his hotel, it was pretty nice and not at all too expensive so it was totally fine. After dinner we where just all so tired so we only said goodnight and goodbye.
Of course I missed breakfast again on Saturday morning but we went out to have dim sum with Kaj in a place not far from his hotel when it was still quite early so I didn't feel starved at all. And dim sum is always nice. We had made a quite nice and flexible schedule for the day, dim sum in the morning (that is brunch), then go to some place where there is a nice statue in the water and after that we just walked, that is when we found the park with the kites and I bought the big one and it crashed into the tree and it was not windy enough etc.
Before we went to meet Janice at the boat we went back to dad's hotel for some rest, and dad had do do some unspeakable things too. Meeting Janice was as nice as meeting everybody else, we still had to wait for her a bit though but that was fine, just things you have to live with sometimes. I think all four of us were quite hungry when she came, or at least going to be soon, so we went off to have dinner immediately at a quite fancy Thai place that dad's colleagues had recommended. The food was real Thai-food, at least as real as I've had anywhere else and so much better than the not real stuff I found here in Chengdu. It was hot and curry and all good and nice, I just avoided the seafood that dad had to get like I always do. I really love those curry-coconut-milk dishes they have, mmmmhmmm.
After dinner we walked around a little in the area around there, it was close to the Macao border where Ariel and Janice would be going when they left and we were trying to find some kind of tea for grandma and would need some translation help with that so they stayed with us for a while there. The tea store we found was a bit too fancy so dad ended up buying tea for 180 kuai / 500g tea, he bought some other stuff too, candies and some weird jasmine flower and finally he payed up 400 kuai. It was fine though I guess, it seemed good enough and I think grandma might like it.
After that we went over to the border and said goodbye to Ariel and Janice, after the usual hugs and come to Chengdu and stuff it was once again just me and dad.
Showing posts with label Zhuhai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zhuhai. Show all posts
Friday, December 21, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Zhuhai - Part 3 - Dad
Dad was, as always, mostly interested in food, and he was especially happy to have me there and even more happy about Joyce, Almen, Ariel and Janice since that offered him the much wanted chance of having loads of different kinds of weird food that his colleagues refuses to eat.
Dad's hotel room was really awesome; a bigger-than-king-size bed, a rather big area with a desk and all sorts of computer connection you can need, including VGA that I think is for the flat 32" (or perhaps a little larger but not much) HD-TV in front of the bed (I didn't manage to get that to work though), a really big bathroom with both shower, a nice bathtub and that I actually use the last day after my workout.
On Saturday when Ariel was there and before we went to pick up Janice at the ferry terminal we went out walking and found a big park where a lot of people flew kites and stuff, I wanted too much of the cake of course so dad bought me a really big kite, I felt like a little child again but I soon discovered that I had swam out to a little too deep for my comfort, the kite was heavier than the regular ones and the kind you steer around, but that also meant that it needed a lot more wind which there of course wasn't enough of, so after a tree crash we gave up and our instructor and sales man asked us to come back in the morning the day after when the wind is heavier to try it for real.
Of course the day after I was too tired, mostly because dad snores like a... well I don't know what to compare to, a yet engine doesn't really cover it, and there are no fully automatic 110mm cannons either so that doesn't work either, let's just say that its loud. So after three nights I had hardly gotten any rest at all but for once I manged to get up for breakfast at least. After that we just stayed in the hotel room for about half the day until the cleaning staff wanted to come in and then I went to the hotel gym and dad went out to find some kind of misshapen floor patterns he had seen and thought was really fun.
The workout was probably the best I've done in months, or even years, I know I've lost weight but still I was surprised how much energy I had despite my cold, that has been rather bad recently. I did a sitting bike for like 20 minutes, I want to say without breaking a sweat because it sounds cool but I sweated like a pig, it's just that I didn't die from it, after that I did an overall workout and it felt really great, the best part that after that my cold was nearly gone. When I got back to the room dad was already there, it was time for lunch and I was extremely hungry but I had set my mind to taking a long bath first, which I did and it was great. I am just a little over 90kg now by the way.
We finally got out for our lunch and for the first time we were without Chinese guide and of course we found a restaurant that didn't have any English speaking staff, we still managed to get some food and even though I didn't really fancy it dad was as happy as always. Time pressed though and I didn't dare letting dad finish it all, we went back to the hotel and I packed up my stuff, the kite had to go with dad, there is not much of a wind in Chengdu anyway. The hotel staff helped me get the taxi to the bus station but of course the taxi took me to the wrong station and after about 20 minutes of trouble I finally got, with the help of Jane on the phone, a woman to help me to the right station, just about 5 minutes walk for there, which was partly what had confused me in the first place, I thought it was basically the same station, but it wasn't.
The bus wouldn't leave yet though, and with that and the three hours bus ride I got to the airport about 60 minutes before departure, this is normally no problem in an airport but in this one where the structure is pretty much non-existent, it was actually hard to find any check-in desk and not any easier to find the right one. And after that it was hard to find the security check because there was no obvious connection between entrance, check-in and security, and add to that that I was pretty much starving so I ran off to a McDonald's and got two double cheeseburgers before I went through the security. Now I was in quite some hurry, the boarding had started before I even got the the security but I still managed to get on the plane. And to my surprise and happiness I found that I had been upgraded to business class! That made the flight home a wonder, it is freakishly much more comfortable to fly business class.
Back in Chengdu I just wanted to get home as fast as possible, I was tired and there were people; taxi drivers both real and fake, everywhere who wanted money to drive me home, I did a stupid mistake and agreed to have this pretty little girl, with a pink phone and that looked totally harmless, hook me up with a driver, that of course was fake and of course had two others in his car. The taxi ride home took little more than an hour and it should have taken about 30 minutes in that traffic, he basically drove around the whole city with the two other guys before getting me home, I came home and crashed! I had survived at least, hehe.
Dad's hotel room was really awesome; a bigger-than-king-size bed, a rather big area with a desk and all sorts of computer connection you can need, including VGA that I think is for the flat 32" (or perhaps a little larger but not much) HD-TV in front of the bed (I didn't manage to get that to work though), a really big bathroom with both shower, a nice bathtub and that I actually use the last day after my workout.
On Saturday when Ariel was there and before we went to pick up Janice at the ferry terminal we went out walking and found a big park where a lot of people flew kites and stuff, I wanted too much of the cake of course so dad bought me a really big kite, I felt like a little child again but I soon discovered that I had swam out to a little too deep for my comfort, the kite was heavier than the regular ones and the kind you steer around, but that also meant that it needed a lot more wind which there of course wasn't enough of, so after a tree crash we gave up and our instructor and sales man asked us to come back in the morning the day after when the wind is heavier to try it for real.
Of course the day after I was too tired, mostly because dad snores like a... well I don't know what to compare to, a yet engine doesn't really cover it, and there are no fully automatic 110mm cannons either so that doesn't work either, let's just say that its loud. So after three nights I had hardly gotten any rest at all but for once I manged to get up for breakfast at least. After that we just stayed in the hotel room for about half the day until the cleaning staff wanted to come in and then I went to the hotel gym and dad went out to find some kind of misshapen floor patterns he had seen and thought was really fun.
The workout was probably the best I've done in months, or even years, I know I've lost weight but still I was surprised how much energy I had despite my cold, that has been rather bad recently. I did a sitting bike for like 20 minutes, I want to say without breaking a sweat because it sounds cool but I sweated like a pig, it's just that I didn't die from it, after that I did an overall workout and it felt really great, the best part that after that my cold was nearly gone. When I got back to the room dad was already there, it was time for lunch and I was extremely hungry but I had set my mind to taking a long bath first, which I did and it was great. I am just a little over 90kg now by the way.
We finally got out for our lunch and for the first time we were without Chinese guide and of course we found a restaurant that didn't have any English speaking staff, we still managed to get some food and even though I didn't really fancy it dad was as happy as always. Time pressed though and I didn't dare letting dad finish it all, we went back to the hotel and I packed up my stuff, the kite had to go with dad, there is not much of a wind in Chengdu anyway. The hotel staff helped me get the taxi to the bus station but of course the taxi took me to the wrong station and after about 20 minutes of trouble I finally got, with the help of Jane on the phone, a woman to help me to the right station, just about 5 minutes walk for there, which was partly what had confused me in the first place, I thought it was basically the same station, but it wasn't.
The bus wouldn't leave yet though, and with that and the three hours bus ride I got to the airport about 60 minutes before departure, this is normally no problem in an airport but in this one where the structure is pretty much non-existent, it was actually hard to find any check-in desk and not any easier to find the right one. And after that it was hard to find the security check because there was no obvious connection between entrance, check-in and security, and add to that that I was pretty much starving so I ran off to a McDonald's and got two double cheeseburgers before I went through the security. Now I was in quite some hurry, the boarding had started before I even got the the security but I still managed to get on the plane. And to my surprise and happiness I found that I had been upgraded to business class! That made the flight home a wonder, it is freakishly much more comfortable to fly business class.
Back in Chengdu I just wanted to get home as fast as possible, I was tired and there were people; taxi drivers both real and fake, everywhere who wanted money to drive me home, I did a stupid mistake and agreed to have this pretty little girl, with a pink phone and that looked totally harmless, hook me up with a driver, that of course was fake and of course had two others in his car. The taxi ride home took little more than an hour and it should have taken about 30 minutes in that traffic, he basically drove around the whole city with the two other guys before getting me home, I came home and crashed! I had survived at least, hehe.
Zhuhai - Part 2 - The Helicopters
Finding the Gongbei market was not a very easy task, mostly because it's name is not Gongbei market but The Landmark. We did get to Gongbei street though, the same place where Joyce, Almen and I had been walking around the day before, and we did find some kind of shopping mall, the the one or even the kind we were looking for. After a few calls and a lot of questions of people around us we finally find it but that was not enough, the place was a maze and dad was utterly confused; he had apparently gotten in at the first floor and the helicopter should be on the third floor, the problem was really that there were only two floors and the whole complex is an underground thing where one entrance, the one dad got in through the first time, is in a tunnel, where as the one we came through was an escalator from above ground, so it took us quite a while before we found any helicopters.
We finally did find helicopters, even though it was not the same store as Kaj had seen before, and after a lot of bargaining Kaj bought three of them for 1200 yuan (400 yuan each for those of you who might have problems with math), they did not have any extra rotor blades though so we would have to find that somewhere else. And that issued another problem, going up to a store with three brand new helicopters and just wanting to buy the rotors might cause some problems, besides, dad didn't have enough space in his tiny suitcase for the extra luggage we had just bought, so he basically needed a new suitcase, again...
The bartering for the suitcase was fun, he started at around 350 yuan I think and after a lot of ups and down, with me almost speaking Chinese, we gave up at 220 yuan and left, he looked like he was about to cry when he came after us and offered 200 yuan, which was our limit so we got it. Packing down the helicopters we soon found another place where we could buy ten sets of rotors extra, so now with the including set and the one already mounted we had 16 sets of rotors to break between three helicopters. And I tell you one thing, it really is necessary!
On Saturday evening after we had left off Ariel and Janice at the Macao border we went back to Kaj's room and while he was writing emails and checking Internet stuff I started my first airtime with my helicopter, in about an hours time I had managed to get some real fly-time and of course already broken 3 rotors, all from the lower set. It was really fun though but flying in the bed made some stability complications, the helicopter basically has to start off from level ground, but crashing wasn't so bad since it was soft.
Once home I was rather eager to try out the helicopter too, but I didn't have much time and I really needed to clean up my place first, so not until Tuesday night when I had dinner with Jane first and then got back here to play I finally got to try it out. I played around a little first and had some minor crashes, no biggies, and then I let Jane try it out; it went quite well at first but then she lost control and flew it forcefully up in the ceiling and then just free fall down, crash - bang... When the noise had settled we picked up the pieces, the ones we found at least, and discovered that the damage was both less and more than we had expected, there was not really any visual damage except on the rotors and a small piece of plastic from the tail that had gotten smashed off and so far it was fine, but one of the rotors had bent around the axle in a really weird way.
I fixed it up as best as I could but I didn't have the tools to change the rotors that were broken so I just wanted to see if I could lift off with the too seriously damaged rotors, they were not broken off anywhere but the cracks in them were big and the bending had done its share to damage them too. That was one we found the real damaged; first the rotors wouldn't spin at all, then when it came around the lower set just died after a few revolutions and then it refused to start off again. After some research it seems that the front engine, the one for the lower rotor set, has been burnt out, or there could be some problem with the gyro.
Jane was feeling really bad about it and I was a bit sad, but it's not like it's unfixable, we will just take it the the toy store here and have it repaired, I doubt it will cost very much, a spare engine shouldn't cost much more than 50 yuan.
To be continued...
I will add photos and some of the videos later when I have changed them to a smaller format.
We finally did find helicopters, even though it was not the same store as Kaj had seen before, and after a lot of bargaining Kaj bought three of them for 1200 yuan (400 yuan each for those of you who might have problems with math), they did not have any extra rotor blades though so we would have to find that somewhere else. And that issued another problem, going up to a store with three brand new helicopters and just wanting to buy the rotors might cause some problems, besides, dad didn't have enough space in his tiny suitcase for the extra luggage we had just bought, so he basically needed a new suitcase, again...
The bartering for the suitcase was fun, he started at around 350 yuan I think and after a lot of ups and down, with me almost speaking Chinese, we gave up at 220 yuan and left, he looked like he was about to cry when he came after us and offered 200 yuan, which was our limit so we got it. Packing down the helicopters we soon found another place where we could buy ten sets of rotors extra, so now with the including set and the one already mounted we had 16 sets of rotors to break between three helicopters. And I tell you one thing, it really is necessary!
On Saturday evening after we had left off Ariel and Janice at the Macao border we went back to Kaj's room and while he was writing emails and checking Internet stuff I started my first airtime with my helicopter, in about an hours time I had managed to get some real fly-time and of course already broken 3 rotors, all from the lower set. It was really fun though but flying in the bed made some stability complications, the helicopter basically has to start off from level ground, but crashing wasn't so bad since it was soft.
Once home I was rather eager to try out the helicopter too, but I didn't have much time and I really needed to clean up my place first, so not until Tuesday night when I had dinner with Jane first and then got back here to play I finally got to try it out. I played around a little first and had some minor crashes, no biggies, and then I let Jane try it out; it went quite well at first but then she lost control and flew it forcefully up in the ceiling and then just free fall down, crash - bang... When the noise had settled we picked up the pieces, the ones we found at least, and discovered that the damage was both less and more than we had expected, there was not really any visual damage except on the rotors and a small piece of plastic from the tail that had gotten smashed off and so far it was fine, but one of the rotors had bent around the axle in a really weird way.
I fixed it up as best as I could but I didn't have the tools to change the rotors that were broken so I just wanted to see if I could lift off with the too seriously damaged rotors, they were not broken off anywhere but the cracks in them were big and the bending had done its share to damage them too. That was one we found the real damaged; first the rotors wouldn't spin at all, then when it came around the lower set just died after a few revolutions and then it refused to start off again. After some research it seems that the front engine, the one for the lower rotor set, has been burnt out, or there could be some problem with the gyro.
Jane was feeling really bad about it and I was a bit sad, but it's not like it's unfixable, we will just take it the the toy store here and have it repaired, I doubt it will cost very much, a spare engine shouldn't cost much more than 50 yuan.
To be continued...
I will add photos and some of the videos later when I have changed them to a smaller format.
Zhuhai - Part 1 - Joyce and Almen
A way too early start for my comfort, I had to get up at around 5.45am, I tried to catch the first bus to the airport. I found quite quickly that I could have slept at least half an hour longer though, the bus stop just outside my house also has a stop for the airport bus so I didn't have to walk the 15 minutes I had expected, and I was really early anyway. The bus never showed up though so finally I gave up and took a taxi, paid 80 kuai which is about twice of what it should have cost but I didn't care much. What surprised me mostly that morning was how sufficient my clothing was
, I only had jeans, t-shirt, a fleece sweater and my hat, gloves and scarf; it really wasn't cold at all. The reason was that I was going to some place really warm and couldn't really bring any thick clothes, and I figured that it would only be a short ride to the airport then it would all be fine so a little cold cold be survived, but there was no need even.
I hadn't had any breakfast, all places were still closed when I left, I did get a quite decent breakfast during the flight though, some kind of rice porridge that was quite ok. After being up from before 6am, waiting for nearly 45 minutes in the cold, airport businessing for 45 minutes, flying for about 2 hours, more airport business, a bus ride for 3 hours from the airport to Zhuhai and finally a 20 kuai taxi ride for the 500m from the bus station to Joyce's and Almen's so called five star hotel, that is nearly 7 hours of travel time, I was pretty starved. The hotel was rather nice actually but I still wouldn't call it five star, at least not if comparing to dad's. What was a lot nicer was seeing Joyce, well and Almen too of course but that is not really comparable.
The girls where hungry too so we went to one of the hotel's restaurants and had a really big lunch and basically just catching up. After lunch we went out to some small shopping street that seemed to be the city center for Zhuhai, also like 500 meters from the hotel and actually it turned out to be just where my bus stop was. We just walked around tiredly and didn't really do anything, finally we tried to localize ourselves and somehow found the way, after a whole lot of confusion, back to the hotel by foot.
We decided to rest a bit and then go to a park, but before our rest was done dad called us and we took a taxi to his, real five star, hotel and then went out with him for dinner. We went to some seafood restaurant, of course, and had loads of dishes, I actually don't remember half of it, damn I was tired.
The night was not over yet though, we went to find a shopping mall where dad wanted to buy helicopters, but that one is another story. After that we went back to Joyce's and Almen's hotel to drop off our newly acquired stuff and then went to a cafe near there to have some drinks and play with their weird fortune telling machine, apparently I have 5 stars in luck and 5 stars in love... Kaj and Joyce both had some weird jelly drink stuff that looked really fun but Joyce said it didn't taste that good, Almen had some other drink and I just had some ginger Coke. After that we went back to their hotel, took some funny pictures and tried to make a movie that I intend to upload here then we all went to our owns and slept.
The morning after I overslept breakfast but so did the girls, dad was working of course so it was just the three of us now. Again we had lunch at their hotel but in anther restaurant, much nicer in my opinion actually, we mostly had some dim sum and I really love the sweet bun dessert with some juicy mixture in them.
We pretty much stayed at the hotel the whole afternoon, first we went to play bowling, I think it was really fun despite the low scores we all got. Joyce had never played before but she caught up quite quickly, her low score was mostly because her concentration was just up and down all the time and after a few games I guess she got rather tired. My scores was probably also low because of concentration lack, it often like that for me when bowling, I can sometimes strike three or even four times in a row and then do total misses for two or three times. This time I managed to impress with a strike at the first throw and then not do anything good at all. Almen played quite steadily I think, both of them actually managed a strike or two, which is quite impressive for someone who has never played or only played once.
Once bowling was done we still had about an hour before going to the ferry terminal to leave off the girls and meet Ariel, so we went to the same café again and had some more weird drinks, or I had a weird one this time, I think it was watermelon juice, and Joyce and Almen just had mocca. We had some nice desserts too, some weird pancake things, one with peanut butter in that that was absolutely delusions and another sandwich thing with melted cheese and ham, goodie! We finally had to go to the ferry terminal but Ariel's boat was a bit late so they never go to meet her, we said our goodbyes and then they left.
, I only had jeans, t-shirt, a fleece sweater and my hat, gloves and scarf; it really wasn't cold at all. The reason was that I was going to some place really warm and couldn't really bring any thick clothes, and I figured that it would only be a short ride to the airport then it would all be fine so a little cold cold be survived, but there was no need even.
I hadn't had any breakfast, all places were still closed when I left, I did get a quite decent breakfast during the flight though, some kind of rice porridge that was quite ok. After being up from before 6am, waiting for nearly 45 minutes in the cold, airport businessing for 45 minutes, flying for about 2 hours, more airport business, a bus ride for 3 hours from the airport to Zhuhai and finally a 20 kuai taxi ride for the 500m from the bus station to Joyce's and Almen's so called five star hotel, that is nearly 7 hours of travel time, I was pretty starved. The hotel was rather nice actually but I still wouldn't call it five star, at least not if comparing to dad's. What was a lot nicer was seeing Joyce, well and Almen too of course but that is not really comparable.
The girls where hungry too so we went to one of the hotel's restaurants and had a really big lunch and basically just catching up. After lunch we went out to some small shopping street that seemed to be the city center for Zhuhai, also like 500 meters from the hotel and actually it turned out to be just where my bus stop was. We just walked around tiredly and didn't really do anything, finally we tried to localize ourselves and somehow found the way, after a whole lot of confusion, back to the hotel by foot.
We decided to rest a bit and then go to a park, but before our rest was done dad called us and we took a taxi to his, real five star, hotel and then went out with him for dinner. We went to some seafood restaurant, of course, and had loads of dishes, I actually don't remember half of it, damn I was tired.
The night was not over yet though, we went to find a shopping mall where dad wanted to buy helicopters, but that one is another story. After that we went back to Joyce's and Almen's hotel to drop off our newly acquired stuff and then went to a cafe near there to have some drinks and play with their weird fortune telling machine, apparently I have 5 stars in luck and 5 stars in love... Kaj and Joyce both had some weird jelly drink stuff that looked really fun but Joyce said it didn't taste that good, Almen had some other drink and I just had some ginger Coke. After that we went back to their hotel, took some funny pictures and tried to make a movie that I intend to upload here then we all went to our owns and slept.
The morning after I overslept breakfast but so did the girls, dad was working of course so it was just the three of us now. Again we had lunch at their hotel but in anther restaurant, much nicer in my opinion actually, we mostly had some dim sum and I really love the sweet bun dessert with some juicy mixture in them.
We pretty much stayed at the hotel the whole afternoon, first we went to play bowling, I think it was really fun despite the low scores we all got. Joyce had never played before but she caught up quite quickly, her low score was mostly because her concentration was just up and down all the time and after a few games I guess she got rather tired. My scores was probably also low because of concentration lack, it often like that for me when bowling, I can sometimes strike three or even four times in a row and then do total misses for two or three times. This time I managed to impress with a strike at the first throw and then not do anything good at all. Almen played quite steadily I think, both of them actually managed a strike or two, which is quite impressive for someone who has never played or only played once.
Once bowling was done we still had about an hour before going to the ferry terminal to leave off the girls and meet Ariel, so we went to the same café again and had some more weird drinks, or I had a weird one this time, I think it was watermelon juice, and Joyce and Almen just had mocca. We had some nice desserts too, some weird pancake things, one with peanut butter in that that was absolutely delusions and another sandwich thing with melted cheese and ham, goodie! We finally had to go to the ferry terminal but Ariel's boat was a bit late so they never go to meet her, we said our goodbyes and then they left.
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