China Trip - Day 6

Day 6 (19 February 2010)

After a nice rest at Zhang Zhou, we prepared ourself to go to a very special place today. On 9.00am we took our breakfast at the hotel's restaurant. After 30 minutes of meal, we start our journey to "Fu Jian Tu Lou" (Fu Jian = Hokkian, Tu = soil, and Lou = building). Fu Jian Tu Lou is a Hakka village which located on the hill, so the temperature is quite low. The unique about this village is their buildings are made into circle, and the material to build their houses are mainly in clay, gravels and sand.

After about 3 and half hour of journey, we reached to a hotel inside the village. The name of the hotel is "Hong Tu Lou" Hotel (Hong = red). This hotel that we arrived are once a mansion, then it had been preserved and made into a hotel. All of the surroundings, are unique and ancient. Since they're located on the hill, they doesn't need an air-conditional during summer, and they also doesn't have heater to call us around. We doesn't plan to stay a night (consider we're lucky), we just went to the hotel for our lunch. During lunch they're providing us some local Hakka dishes, one of them are chicken with black caramel sauce, which is very similar with my mom's cook (Lolz, it was surprise that I can taste something which is same as my mom's cook in China).

Picture 6.1 - The banner at the entrance of Fu Jian Tu Lou (located downhill)

Picture 6.2 - See how the villagers take their lunch (^^).

Picture 6.3 - The front view of the "Hong Tu Lou" Hotel at the main road.

Picture 6.4 - Me, with the name of the hotel.

Picture 6.5 - The staircase to the hotel, with some vegetables planted at the site of stairways.

Picture 6.6 - Me in front of the hotel.

Picture 6.7 - The garden in front of the hotel.

Picture 6.8 - "Yee" the Tian Ji (田鸡).

Picture 6.9 - Inside the hotel (Really ancient, eh...).

Picture 6.10 - Take 2. Ground floor, dining rooms; 1st and 2nd floor, bedrooms.

Picture 6.11 - The wooden staircase that reaches to top of the hotel.

Picture 6.12 - The ground floor view, from first floor.

Picture 6.13 - The walkway in first floor, on the left are the rooms.

Picture 6.14 - After our lunch (eh, eat until so clean?).

After our lunch, we walk around the hotel and have some rest. During rest, we tasted a very special tea made from various kind of flowers, it was very tasty, the sweetness of the flower can last for a long duration. Sadly, I didn't brought it. This kind of flower tea are just available in this village. Hope I would have the second change to go to this village and enjoy this tea again. After enjoying such a great tea, I went to the hotel's garden again. This time I saw a very special flower to me, the "Mei Hua". For me, every year I would see this flower, in my house; an which is artificial "Mei Hua" to decorate our house for the coming Chinese New Year. But this year, I can enjoy a real "Mei Hua" in this Chinese New Year.

Picture 6.15 - Me with "Mei Hua"

Picture 6.16 - A close-up view of true Mei Hua.

After some rest, we finally start to go to the main tourist attraction places. At 3.00pm we start moving to "Yong Ting", an ancient Hakka village. Below are some pictures that I had taken for the whole trip.

Picture 6.17 - A "Transport Vehicle" (don't know what I should call it) that took us to the destination.

Picture 6.18 - The places that we wait for transport (important here is the round structure, very special)

Picture 6.19 - The entrance to the "Yong Ting", need to pay entrance fee tim =(

Picture 6.20 - After the entrance we still need to walk = ="

Picture 6.21 - Yey!! finally we saw a building in front of us (a temple)

Picture 6.22 - A beautiful river view at the side of the road.

Picture 6.23 - The front view of the temple (the first building that we saw). We didn't manage to go in and have a look.

Picture 6.24 - A Chinese paddy wine shop just after the temple.

Picture 6.25 - Our first destination in "Yong Ting", the main attraction: "Zhen Cheng Lou". A round structure design with a very good "Feng Shui".

Picture 6.26 - Inside the "Zhen Cheng Lou"

Picture 6.27 - The hall at the center of the building.

Picture 6.28 and 6.29 - The right side and the left side of the building.

Video 6.1 - The center of "Zhen Cheng Lou".

Picture 6.30 - The side of the building, we can see that there's many rooms surrounded the building.

Picture 6.31 - This picture shows there're many family staying here.

Picture 6.32 - The "Yang" well, which located on the left side of the building, the "Ying" well is on the other side, just opposite the "Yang well.

Picture 6.33 - A heavy metal door that really heavy.

Picture 6.34 - A picture shows the top view of "Zhen Cheng Lou".

During our visit in "Zhen Cheng Lou", I had brought a sets of cookies for my mom. If I don't, I'm very sure that she will mumble me (lolz). Well, after our visit of "Zhen Cheng Lou", we straight to a building where we can meet some talents in this ancient village.

Picture 6.35 - The stage to watch the local talents present their show.

Picture 6.36 - The "King" of whistle with a leaf. He really does some magnificent songs for us.

Picture 6.37 - A local playing two pi pa. (is it pi pa ah? if I was wrong please tell me)

Picture 6.38 - A master that can play many instruments at one time.

Picture 6.39 - She (on the right side) was singing an local Hakka song.

Once the local finish their performance, we start going back. Before we go back, we went to the wine shop to buy a bottle of "mi jiou" (paddy wine). When we visit the wine shop, I found out that they have various ages of wine, starting from 1 year old, 3 years old and 5 years old. I tried the first two wine, it taste really good, but I didn't try the 5 years old wine. So I brought the 5 years old wine.

Picture 6.40 - Front view of the wine shop.

Picture 6.41 - This is how they store their paddy wine, the room is warm.

After we brought our things, we straight to the bus and start heading to Shen Zhen. We reach to Shen Zhen about 6.00 am. (We shall continue on my next post)

China Trip - Day 5

Day 5 (~18 February 2010~)

On early morning, we start our journey by finding a place for our breakfast. On 8.25am we packed our luggage and went to a Taiwanese style restaurant called "Yong Jie Tou Jing Fang", a restaurant which mainly sell soya bean drink. When we reach there, the stall was out of electricity, a total black out and just depend on the sunlight at outside to shine in. For breakfast, i ordered a Udon noodles fried with black pepper and a soya bean soup. Well, this is the first time I drank such a delicious saya drink, the taste is a bit salty, just like soup, and also some "ikan bilis" taste (don't know whether they insert ikan bilis or not). I don't like soya taste, but this really change my mind, truly a great soya. Perhaps is because the taste like soup, so I kinda like it. Besides that, we also ordered "You Tiao" (a.k.a Yao Chao Guai) which is also famous in Fu Zhou. The You Tiao is really crispy, you must try it when you reach to Fu Zhou.

Picture 5.1 - Me, prepared for breakfast.

Picture 5.2 - Inside "Yong Jie Tou Jiang Fang", showing total black out.

Picture 5.3 - My Udon Noodle fried with black pepper and a bowl of soya soup.

At 10.00am we start moving to "Xi Chang Shi" (sorry, I don't know how to write Chinese). Well Xi Chang Shi is a large place for people to pray to the gods (Taoism probably). Below are some photos that I had taken. I'm sorry that many things that I couldn't explain deeply about this place, as I was at that time just walking around and enjoy the scenery. I was hopped that someone would explain to me the history about this place.

Picture 5.4 - The front gate of Xi Chang Shi

Picture 5.5 - The front door of Xi Chang Shi.

Picture 5.6 - Inside the entrance. (Look at above, ancient Chinese crafting)

Picture 5.7 - The lake that I saw in Xi Chang Shi, with a Guan Yin.

Picture 5.8 - The bridge that pass though the lake.

Picture 5.9 - two large buildings and a pagoda that I found in the area.

Picture 5.10 - A entrance to a temple, with a dragon crafting on middle to staircase.

Picture 5.11 - A lady trying to place a coin inside the dragon's mouth

(believe that it will grant our wishes)

Picture 5.12 - Another entrance to the temple after the first entrance.

Picture 5.13 - After the second entrance, came the Hall of Heavenly Guardians.

Picture 5.14 - Behind the Hall of Heavenly Guardians, there is a temple, where many people went for worship.

Picture 5.15 - After visit the temple, I head towards the pagoda.

Picture 5.16 - Finally reached the pagoda, but it was restricted to go in.

Picture 5.17 - After visit the pagoda, we plan to visit this large building.

Picture 5.18 - The front of the big building (another temple as I believed), lazy to go in, so just snap the front view of this building.

Picture 5.19 - A very big tree located in front of that big building. I took this photo before I start going back to the bus.

Picture 5.20 - "Goodbye Xi Chang Shi. I'm heading to another interesting place."

After two hours of visit in Xi Chang Shi, we started our journey to a popular lake called "Xi Hu" (西湖).

Xi Hu is a very large lake in the middle of the city. The unique about this lake are there're many beautiful scenery that we can enjoy on the walkway which surrounds the lake. Besides that, there's a fun park located inside the area too. Also you can have some water cycling around the lake. On that day, we was lucky to view the flowers exhibitions around the lake, it was magnificent. I nearly catch a cold while I was in Xi Hu, that day the temperature is still consider low, but the wind around lake are strong, when the cold winds swings around me, it chills me from the top to bottom. Here are some photos showing the specialities on Xi Hu.

Picture 5.21 - De' Xi Hu.

Picture 5.22 - The water cycling activities on Xi Hu.

Picture 5.23 - One of the walkway around the Xi Hu.

Picture 5.24 - One of the entrance to Xi Hu (Total of 4 entrance if I'm not mistaken).

Picture 5.25 - One of the beautiful scenery.

Picture 5.26 - A walkway suitable for jogging in the morning.

Picture 5.27 - An interesting classical walkway.

Picture 5.28 - A scenery with trees and flowers.

Picture 5.29 - Beautiful trees around the lake.

Picture 5.30 - One of the display for the flower exhibitions.

Picture 5.31 - Another walkway with Chinese lantern hanging around the side roads.

Picture 5.32 - Can you see where is the wind blows? (Ans: towards left, "Cold~")

Picture 5.33 - Another flower display for the flower exhibitions.

Picture 5.34 - The Lovers' Bridge??

Picture 5.35 - No, I know is other name, and I don't know how to read it.

Picture 5.36 - A bonsai exhibition.

At 2.00pm we start moving from Xi Hu, and went for our lunch, at the same restaurant that we had our lunch yesterday. At 3.25pm, we planned to start moving to "Xia Men" (下门), but during that evening, heavy traffic jam occurred during our journey, we didn't manage to reach Xia Men in time, so we changed our plan and straight away head to "Zhang Zhou". After 7 hours of journey, finally we reached to a hotel in Zhang Zhou. During that time, it was raining. The surroundings are freezing cold, it shivers me down. After we took our luggage to our selected room. Me and my friends, with my boss went to a restaurant for supper.

Once again, it's alcoholic drink time, Ah Chong again, brought two bottles of white wine. Luckily I didn't forced to drink that nasty drink, but I had to drink beer. That night, we ordered "Zhe Chuan" (四川) famous dishes for our supper, it was so delicious until my mouth can't stop chewing on all those foods. Also, one more thing, that night also is the night that I first time ate "Ma Po" Taufu, thouse taufu really delicious (this was the first time I said taufu is delicious for these 20 years ++).

Picture 5.37 - The hotel that we choose to say a night.

Picture 5.38 - Yummy Zhe Chuan dishes, all hot and spicy!

Picture 5.39 - The restaurant that we had our supper.

During that night, I really had my wonderful time with my boss, he really talks many about his experience in China, and many of them are very funny. Besides that, my friend, Ah Chong was drunk, along with someone (which I can't tell who it was). When they are drunk, they done something silly, if you were there, you will shock about it. At 2.20am, after everyone was tired, we head back to our hotel to have some rest (The restaurant is just few steps away from the hotel).