My Game of Life

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Ah! It's so good to be back home in Singapore, albeit a very wet one. Apparently it's been raining for days on end during the time I've been in China due to the monsoon winds, and looking at the reports in the papers, it looks like there's been much flooding also. My mum was kiasu enough to buy 2 small umbrellas to bring to China, and we ended up not having to use a single one of them there, but the moment we were out of Changi airport they had to be opened immediately. At least my mother's efforts were not in too much of vain.

Not that we had an easy time over at Chian either. It's praactically the extreme opposite from Singapore, being utterly freezing and dry. My whole body erupted in an outbreak of rashes on the very second morning, and the ugly red spots haven't subsided yet. A lot of the other tourists in the tour group, including my mother and brother (who now has an excuse for his itchy hands), were affected too. And my face would probably be all as cracked up as its made to be, if not for some hated Johnson's baby oil which I had to apply every day. Ugh.

Enough about the weather. I'll try to cover the activities in the few days not mentioned in my previous blog posts, which unfortunately were the height of all the sightseeing and shopping.

So, on the third day, we visited the Great Wall of China. It's almost 4000 miles long (or 6,352 km, according to Wikipedia) and was counstructed over a period of more than 2,000 years, which is quite a great feat considering the sort of technology they had back then. Since it was my first visit, i had thought all we had to do was to climb up a flight of stairs to the top of the wall, where it would be a flat slope for the rest of the way. Instead, it turned out to be nothing but stairs, stairs and more stairs, and it would be almost impossible for us to reach the highest point of the wall, which was in the mountains quite a long distance away. Some of the younger children even innocently asked whetehr we would be walking the entire length of the Great Wall. Well, sure you can, but it's probably going to take at least 4 years, and would be even more tiring than a marathon around then world.

For the record, i climbed up a grand total of approximately 1,127 stairs, and reached five watch towers before turning around. And the trip up and down took just one hour. In contrast, my mother gave up at the first tower, which wwas probably less than 200 steps up, and some of the older folk didn't attempt it at all, preferring overpriced coffee instead. And i was rewarded with aching and wobby knees for my so-called feat.

As usual, some enterprising Chinese were selling "certificates" some way up the Great Wall which stated that so-and-so had climbed the Great Wall on some date. Their giant advertising poster said: "If you climbs the Great Wall. You are a hearo", with appropriate pieces of paper with corrections stuck over mispelled words, erroneous grammar and stray punctuation. Seems like some civic-minded American was kind enough to point out the mistakes to them.

The rest of the day and the next day was spent on mostly sight-seeing to an emperor's palace, garden, temple or tomb of sorts. Really, it looks like most of China's tourist destinations are only of historical value, which does get boring after a while. Frozen-over lakes, large (but very empty) palace grounds and long descriptions of an emperor's routine, anyone?

Other than that, we would be visiting various factories, where we would be given a presentation of benefits on this-and-that, after which we would be encourage to buy the goods at "special rates". I have no doubt that the tour company receives commission from such trips. In conclusion, it's not worth talking about.

On Day 5, it was finally the activity that the kids were all looking forward to: skiing. Sadly the snow at the nanshan Ski Resort was man-made, so we didn't really get to try out the real thing. But that's perhaps because prices there are the cheapest in the world. Skiing is, after all, an expensive sport.

After spending nearly half an hour gearing up and listening to introductories by the instructors, we finally got to try it out, but only at a small and gentle slope for beginners. Another 45 minutes spent on getting the right posture later, we were finally headed for slightly steeper slopes. It's quite a nice feeling whoosing down at a greed speed with the wind hollering at your ears and face, and definitely fun. But i daresay i still prefer ice-skating over skiing, even though the basics of the latter are easier to grasp and you're not as liekly to fall as often. The main reason is because ice-skating is definitely much less expensive and more widely available. I probably won't go skiing again. So if you're ever going on a skiing trip, i wouldn't expect too much out of it, unless you're willing to burn your pocket in the snow or you're a professional (which is unlikely in both cases.)

On a side note, the ski resort we went to is open for only the 4 months when it is cold enough for the fake snow not to melt. I suppose you might think they might have though of someone innovative to do with such a huge plot of land then, but no, the entire place is emptied out until the next time the chill comes around. Quite a waste of money and resources.

I can't say this holiday to China has been satisfactory, much due to the cold and the food - we got almost the same dishes with rice every meal, until we got so sick of rice eventually. My family has vowed not to touch rice for the rest of this week until we can get over last week's intake of carbohydrates. But it was cheap, at less than SG$1000 per person. Like they say, "一分钱，一分获".

To end this off, here's the 5 most memorable things which should be remembered about China:
1) The record for the most amount of blobs of spit on the ground every 10 paces;
2) The record for the lowest amount of 'Thank You's or 'Sorry's one hears in a day;
3) The record for the highest prices stated proportional to the actual price (up to 10 times);
4) The record for the greatest fluctuation of given prices within a time span of 10 seconds;
5) Never to go to China for a holiday again, if possible.

'Twas teh winnar at 11:47 pm.