Wednesday, March 05, 2008

9th Feb (Day 3: 陈嘉庚纪念馆、鼓浪屿、百鸟园、郑成功纪念馆、利家厨具)

I know this is a long overdue post lah. *sheepish smile*

But 迟到好过没到 right? :D

First up, 陈嘉庚纪念馆!

Like the history we learnt in Singapore, Tan Kah Kee is seen as a 'hero' in the eyes of the 泉州 people. He's well-respected for donating all his money to the nation, contributing to the education of the citizens. Despite having many kids, he left none of his money for them.

And one of the schools built is the university you see in the picture.

Which makes me think, WHEN IS SOMEONE GOING TO MAKE NTU LOOK BETTER?!

Hee... I like these polka-dotted boats!

The memorial is pretty big. There's even a swimming pool. Girls and guys have separate swimming pools. In case you can't see the sign, it says “此地不许游泳”. The irony man!

It's low tide, the boats are either on dry sand or in shallow waters. And Little Red Riding Hood came to play!

I love kids!

Okay, a typical "I was here" photo.

CNY is a really big thing. Red will be plastered ALL OVER!

There weren't many cars inside, but there're quite a few of thse motor-trishaws for tourists. I think they are out to con moolahs out of ignorant tourists! Either that, or they are really doing lazy tourists a BIG favour.

Colourful flags (without any purpose) with my favourite 飞檐! This one has dragon-like designs.

More 飞檐! They remind me of 白蛇传.

The well-respected Tan Kah Kee. Exactly the same photo used in Singapore too!

You might be wondering what that empty space is doing there. The tour guide said there used to be Tan's portrait there. He placed Mao's portrait (apparently, Tan respected Mao) outside at the main gate. But someone asked "How can you put Mao's picture out to suffer in the sun, rain and wind, while you hide snugly here in the shelter?"

And so, there's the space.

Totally 白蛇传! You know, like those beautiful lakes the snakes travel past! I like! Especially the white little shelter on the boat!

I didn't know Tan had his grave in 泉州. The fresh flowers are mostly from the university students nearby. The round thingy at the back of the tombstone is shaped like a turtle shell. In fact, the whole tomb is like a turtle, without a tail, if I remember correctly.

Her Majesty suffers from Short Term Memory, so she forgot why there's no tail.

I have no idea how much went into the building of this memorial. There are alot of carvings on the walls, depicting what he did etc. Sound and look pretty much like a temple eh?

Hee, because my buddy Teako loves birds, here's an eagle.

I don't know what is this. But well, the birds are pretty big lah. I think they are almost life-size.

Right outside the memorial, the streets are lined with all kinds of street snacks!

Here's the quail eggs! They are cooked sunny-side style, but in these small trays in a tako-pachi way!

Combine them with chilli and other sauces, YUMMY!

Here's a China Popiah. Okay lah, it's some 葱饼. I think it tastes weird at 泉州; the Shanghai ones are better. :P

Peek-a-boo!

Aha! Now you see! Traditional Chinese art! With malt-candy!

I like the malt-candy found in Singapore Pasar Malam better though. The 'art' here is thin, hard, crispy, not the soft, stick-to-teeth type.

The artist at work! I think his hands are super steady! Will make a good photographer!

We had lunch, authentic 泉州 food. Prawn mee (different from the Singapore ones), 沙茶面，芋包，肉粽，五香 (totally like what my Ah Ma makes!)，葱油馃.

Next up, ferried to 鼓浪屿!

Darn alot of people visiting 鼓浪屿. It's actually a place with alot of little streets. The main aim is to reach the peak of the mini mountain (only about 92 meters).

There're no cars, only 6 small 旅游车. The people use 手拉车 to transport their goods uphill.

Ta-dah! Giant octopus! Its tentacles really looked like they are flipping in the air!

Among one of the many things you can find: seashells. Loads and loads of them. Almost every shop has them. Some shells are painted and made into windchimes! For some reason, they make me miss Ying loads! *sniff*

Any idea what these are?

They are hats! They opens up like umbrellas and you can put them on your head. One bad thing though - there'll be little holes where the sunlight seeps through. And you'll look like you have a colourful beehive on your head.

Nice seashells! I'm not sure if they are real though. The starfish looks cool right!

The people made little ornaments out of the smaller seashells. They are like what I made in primary school!

Yea! PIGGY!

This is some mansion, left to wither.

A closer look shows that there are GLASS BITS on top of the wall fences! *ouch*

Kindergarden! For the 鼓浪屿 kids! Because the skies are grey, the colours didn't turn out as they should be. In reality, they are really bright and gay!

Horrendous english that I like. I think it's the yellow and white combination at work. 'Silly girl coffee my home hotel'.

Tralala... It makes me feel like spring is here!

There's an attraction on the island... 百鸟园!

Most of the birds are not kept in cages. The whole park is like a giant enclosure. The birds are free to roam, except the more precious ones.

Singapore Bird Park should learn a little of those signs! Don't pray pray wor!

A stock! Look at how big it is! All along, I thought it's really small, and wondered how stocks are able to carry heavy chubby babies with their beaks!

White peacock.

Weird, I thought swans are predominantly white. But there're more black swans than white ones.

Blah, I just wanna put this cos I think it's really pretty! Its head reminds me of jackfruit!

Yea! My mum has this beautiful picture taken of her and a peacock with its tail opened! And I took one (without myself)! I think the peacock actually knew people were shooting away - it opened its tail for quite some time!

Haha.. to climb all the way up without help will be a nightmare for us tourists. So we took the cable car! It looks DANGEROUS, as with all other China stuff!

Training?! Train who?! I think either they secretly train their army here, or had their atheletes hidden here for training. :X

This is how high above the ground we are.

And we reached! (That's our tour guide!)

We climbed a bit, but never really reached the peak. The above shows how far we are from the peak.

Why, when we're so close, did we not go up? Are you blind or what? There're so many people! How to squeeze up without becoming sardines, hur? And since it's only a little height difference, the view wouldn't be very much more magnificient!

Even lazier people at the bottom.

Ta-dah! Here is my official cam-whore buddy!

My hair looks weird here... Hm...

Nice view.

Too bad it's spoilt by the fog.

The Chinese Brokeback Mountain! They even have those castle-like steps!

Welcome to the hot igloo!

Make me mad and I'll bomb you!

Hungry Tee Rong. That's what we snacked on for days: biscuits, biscuits and more biscuits.

On the way down, we visited 郑成功纪念馆.

郑成功 was this successful general who won numerous battles and wars. However, he lost one important battle, and died because he was unable to accept defeat.

Raffles put his arms in front, 郑成功 put his at the back.

Before we head back to the hotel, the tour guide brought us to this place called 利家厨具. It's probably for her to earn extra bucks than anything else.

From the name, we can already guess that the company sells kitchen appliances.

And true enough, we see KNIVES. Loads and loads of them.

It's amusing how companies here have little 'classrooms' for tour groups. The guy in the picture demo-ed the knives. Apparently, the knives have history related to bombs! The bombshell remains were used to make knives and so the knives were super sharp.

There were a few different type of knives, and one of them can actually chop a thick metal hollow pipes! They gave each of us a fruit knife as a door gift. In the end, the whole tour had to check-in when we return. -_-

Our tour group was mainly made up of aunties and uncles, except for us and two other girls. The girls met their friend at night, and we tagged along. Their friend were out on a business trip at Singapore (what coincidence!) and were back for CNY. Anyway, he brought us to a seafood restaurant which serves pretty decent food!

On a side note, his girlfriend is really pretty. Their love is really precious, 'cos throughout the many years they were a couple, they were apart for more than half the time. They are 厦门 people, the guy went to Shanghai Fudan University to study, and now he's away on business trip in Singapore. Who says LDR don't work? ^^