Luoyan, China

Ahhh...and so, we went to China for 8 days. We visited Luoyan, a provincial town in the Fujian province. It was our first "mission trip" as a family. It was more like KY doing all the "mission-ing" while I was the gleeful wife tagging along and doing little spots of shopping. Well, it couldn't be helped really, his command of CHINESE is MUCH better than mine so obviously I let him do most of the talking lah. I think for once KY wished I talked MORE instead of LESS. Hahaha. Oh well, short though it may be, it was nonetheless a pretty fruitful and eye-opening one.

Here are SOME HIGHLIGHTS of our trip:

Xiamen Airlines in-flight service is yucks

Being so accustomed to the good service from SIA and other airlines, I was quite taken aback by the seemingly lower standard of service at Xiamen Airline. Besides the rather brusque service staff, our lunch was "served" to us in little boxes. I felt like a refugee receiving rations! lol

What also peeved me was, despite indicating in our bookings that we have ONE child with us and hence we are ordering a CHILD meal, for BOTH the trip there and back, our special order seemed to be "non-existant". At least for the flight back we managed to get our special order but then again, we had to ASK the air stewardess for it. It's not like, just because you have a toddler with you its a given that you have special food needs (like with OTHER airlines). The air stewardess even told us, "oh you changed ur seats so we didn't know who the child meal was for". Hello?? How may children do u see on board? and isn't it part of good service to ASK passengers? So slip shod. Tsk!

Don't believe what you are told!

Case 1 - 5 minutes does not equal 5 minutes.
So many times we were "dubbed" into thinking places that we wanted to go to were nearer than we thought. Once, KY asked for directions to the NEAREST toilet and was told it was "very near", a mere "5 minutes walk" from where we were. Thank God I wasn't the one with a high tide, because the "5 minutes" walk was actually 10 (or more for me)

Case 2 - A "little further on" really means a few more kilometers!
One of the afternoons, we decided to "conquer" the "small" hill Feng Shan in Louyan together with a group of newly found friends from one of the church groups in Singapore who were also here in Louyan.

Going up up UP! Still very energetic and spritly at the start...

All of us were tired by the time we reached the summit and although there was a big "playground" as a reward for making it to the top and Janine was having a ball of a time trying the different apparatus, I and a few others were quite ready to head on home. But our guide suggested we walk down by the other side for a different view and he ASSURED us it was a pretty fast way down too. THAT walk down not only took us slightly more than an hour before we reached the bottom, it meandered round and UP the hill too! So there were many times instead of walking DOWN stairs, we were walking UP MORE stairs that seem to lead DEEPER into the hill. Argh!

Going down...NOT!

Already exhausted from the initial climb PLUS worrying that the little girl is missing her afternoon nap PLUS the fact that the water bottles we brought along were near empty and we are not even near any form of civilisation made one pretty grouchy me who was trying VERY hard NOT to grumble and complain any more than I already did to KY :P

Well, THANK GOD that the wonderful people from Fuzhuo Methodist Church were with us for the walk and the younger more energetic ones (Kor2 Gerald and Chey2) took turns to carry and entertain the little girl for us from the start of our climb to when we FINALLY made it back to base. What a GREAT help they were!

Toilets

While there is marked improvements in the design of their cubicles ie MOST toilets now have DOORS, whether the locals USE them is another thing! I have on a few occasions walked in on ladies, with nary a care in the world, half way through their business with the toilets doors WIDE OPEN. Talk about cultural shock!

The worst toilet that I have been to most certainly is the one located "5 minutes" away from the barbeque site we were at. Although there were individual cubbies, it was almost as good as a hole in the floor which everything went down to. You can also imagine the "aroma". The girls' loo was also particularly bad compared to the guys'loo because there were USED sanitary napkins littered everywhere! Eeeks! To keep my lunch down I got KY to keep watch while I steal a few moments in the guys' loo instead :P

Road ettiqutte

Although there is suppose to be a highway code in existance, most locals (motorist and pedestrains alike) don't observe them! Lol. But I must say, while traffic may seem haphazard and the drivers drive fast and tailgate, they GIVE WAY when another vehicle indicates their intention to change lane. So unlike Singapore. Singaporean drivers are too aggressive for their own good I feel. That explains why our country is reputed to have the highest no. of traffic accidents.

The people in Louyan

While my initial impression was that they were a rather rude, impatient and somewhat unfriendly kind of people (from the experience on the plane plus a lot of experiences on home ground!), the week we spent in Louyan showed me that the Chinese population in Luoyan was different, well, at least those that we have met and gotten to know better. They showed us that they were very warm and sincere people who, if you were in a fix, would try to go all out to help you. Or they would try to match their timetable to yours. It's really all about putting the needs of their guests before them. So it goes without saying much that we did enjoy quite a bit of pampering from our hosts ^^

They were also a people who will hold you in high esteem. Nobody will address you by your given name. You are always addressed as "XX lao shi" ("teacher" in chinese), XX being your surname. It would be highly disrespectful if you or they were to call you by your given name. Very different culture for me, because back home its the reverse! I call (almost) everyone by their first names, even my bosses! Here's something we can learn from them! While it's a little formal and stiff, but sometimes, without such formalities, we can appear to be rather rude and uncouth ourselves.

It was cold cold COLD!!!

Mornings aren't so bad. But come evening, when the sun sets, so does the temperature! the lowest it has gotten while we were there was 10 degrees at night. To make things even more "intereseting", the room we were staying at did not have a heater! I have never worn so many layers of clothes in my life. Even with a proper fleece jacket (plus many layers of clothes), walking around at night was quite a challenge!

According to Suit Khuin, the weather actually warmed up a bit for us while we were there but they are expecting it to drop more as winter sets in! GOSH! While the cold is a refreshing welcome from the blazing heat and humidity we are used to on our sunny island, I told KY I doubt I can withstand such cold temperatures for an extended period of time :P That said, I think the only person who didn't mind the cold was Janine! She took it better than the 2 of us! Maybe because most times she was running about the place and was always in constant motion! Haha! Anyway, because of the cold, she had some really nice rosy cheeks after the trip ^^

My daughter never ceases to amaze me

She kills a wasp-like insect BY HERSELF! No fear *faint*

She makes friends with total strangers! Here she is holding hands with a little girl whom she met at the Fuzhuo zoo while looking at giangantic gold fishes just a few minutes before this shot was taken.

She can charm the adults there (except her parents) into getting what she wants. Here she is getting "unauthorised" access to pat the parrots at the zoo. By right to even get the bird to fly to you, you need to wave a dollar bill up in the air and the birds will swoop down on the note, land momentarily and fly back to their handlers. By left, Janine just walked right into the enclosure and charmed the "chey chey" there into acceding to her request to see the birds.

It's amazing what kids can get away with. Good for us too! *chuckle*