不见不散

29 MARCH WE GOT OUR CHINA VISAS. PHEW! I should not think it would be a problem to get them but I was not 100% sure how the Chinese Government view giving 2 year multiple entry visas to Malaysian travelers. In the end there was and is nothing to worry about. It's all system go. The visas cost RM296 for 2 people. So in 2013 we do not require new visas.

We pop into nearby KLCC to have a cuupa and some local Malay kuih at La Cucur Express plus my favorite Auntie Anne's pretzels. I love their pretrzels with Parmesan cheese or cinnamon sugar. We make tracks for Petaling St Culture Street 茨厂街文化街 where SM's friends are students of chinese calligraphy and ink painting at this little joint up on a shop lot. They have decided to slow down in life now that their kids are older and they want to live their lives. So every Thursday a group of them "不见不散" in pursuing something they like doing and then spend a couple of hours having a leisurely lunch at a 茨厂街 lane way and drink cups of Hainanese coffee.

SM and her friends talk shop whilst I stroll to nearby Central Market and Petaling St to have a look see. I must say I am disappointed because these are really just touristy and stalls selling mass manufactured handy craft and nick knacks. Nothing that interests me besides the weather is humid.

 

We spend sometime with SM's parents and have a great home-cooked dinner with them.

Nice day out with the fly boys

27 MARCH WE CATCH A  LRT AND MONORAIL RIDE TO Bukit Bintang and this is the first time I am in a monorail ride. I am surprised how big it is and how many people it can hold. Basically it is stuffy and is full of passengers traveling to the happening area of KL. But it is very convenient for us and stress free to be able to use this mode of transport. Miraz is going to meet me at the Pavilion at noon to catch up. He is my fellow instructor at Bintulu and he is completing his twin engine IR training at Subang airport so he can apply to AA for an airline pilot position. 

We meet there and I take him to Jalan Alor for 黄酒鸡 lunch.

I also manage to change some TWD and HK$.

I tee up with Mitch and Jonathan Khoo for an afternoon coffee at Starbucks Tropicana Mall with me and Miraz. Both Mitch and Khoo are Snr. FO's with AA. Basically we talk pilot stuff and our lives; Mitch is happy with the income he is drawing now but not with AA. He bought a corner two story house at Sg Buloh last year and did it up nicely to his liking. He also just bought his dream car 2 weeks' ago so he seems to be reasonably happy at this stage of his life. 

Khoo on the other hand, is aiming very hard to emigrate to Wanaka, NZ in order to live out his dream life there. He is lucky his mom owns a restaurant there and has a farm just 20 minutes out and he can't wait to be there. He is an outdoorsy person and prefers such lifestyle rather than getting stuck in an airline pilot job. I am very happy for Khoo that he has just done his medical check and police check and he should be on his way to becoming a PR.

And he is leaving tomorrow night to Wanaka to spend 2 weeks holiday there and to see the Warbirds Over Wanaka 2012 airshow.

We also get to see his unit up above the Tropicana Mall. The location is fantastic and his unit, though small, is very cosy and comfortable. I like it for its location and convenience to retail, entertainment amenities.

Later on I treat them to a Malay/Nyona dinner at Mum's Place in Damansara Perdana. This is Mitch's and my favorite restaurant. We order food without needing the menu: cinjaruk chicken, four angle beans, foo yoong omelet, and chilly petai fish. 

The fly boys in front of Mum's Place

We adjourn to a local pub around the area and have Hoegaarden beer by the pint. RM68 for 3 pints which we share in 4 large mugs. I am not a beer drinker but I do enjoy its taste. It is low in alcohol I am sure because we soon order another 3 pints. And the pilots talk shop again about their flying and their experience.....

10.30pm I am back to Bayu, tired but enjoyed the boys' company and time..... We share a common interest and passion for aviation. The common bond is strong and interesting and I believe we benefit from listening to each other.

Home ..... Home???

25 MARCH WE LAND IN LCCT at 4pm with the pilots skirting the impending thunderstorms amidst some local turbulence on long final. As soon as we enter the passenger arrival hall from the parked aircraft the sky opens up. Thunders and lightning. Welcome to steamy KL and welcome to the rain, every afternoon at 4pm; on the dot ..... (and we are not even wet).

Owing to the Malaysian F1 Grand Prix  we are in dire straits of a cab at the airport. I buy the premier cab fare and we head for my KFC meal at the terminal to kill some time and to have our dinner. Hopefully we will get a cab in due course. I must say the chicken rice is great; really great. A bit fattening but yummy.

Finally, on asian soil and after our first meal, and hopping in our cab, we are in Bayu later on, still reeling from the humidity. No point complaining, we roll with the punches. Life's good and let's have fun.....

10.30pm ZZZZZZZ

26 MARCH WE WAKE UP at ..... 4am; that's 7am Melbourne. The old body clock works like old charm! By 6.30am we are in KL, going for brekie of roti canai, and nasi lemak; washing them down with Nescafe. So far so good. 

9am At the Chinese Consular office we file our application for a 2-year multiple entry visa, and are promised that we will get them on Thursday, in time for our journey to Taiwan on Sunday. Beautiful. The system is working like a well-oiled machine. Across the road by 11am we have settled some other matters at the bank. Another 5km down Jalan Ampang we have cleared another hurdle at SM's insurance company ..... This has been a fantastic day and it's not even 1pm.

We meet Captain Mitch for lunch at his favorite Sri Petaling driving range restaurant and enjoy fried garlic chicken, clay pot tofu and stir fried sweet potato leaves with fermented tofu. Always good food, always great prices at this restaurant. We have a long yarn about life at AA, his life, our lives, other people's lives.   

We go to the Mines Mall and buy some essential supplies, have a look at some stuff, and have our dinner nearby of "I LUV HOKKIEN MEE". Big fat juicy hokkien mee with black soy sauce + pork lard. Just the right taste and texture. Welcome to the culinary world of suburbia KL. I pat my tummy and I know my strict regime of brisk walk and careful food intake is officially, history ..... Tomorrow's another day.

BAD NEWS and getting smarter

Pink butterfly deleted her account accidentally and as a result her diary is gone. So sad......

In another world.....

I was doing my on-line research last night and chanced upon the possibility that one can fly direct from Taipei to Kinmen (Jinmen) which is an island off Xiamen in Fujian Province, using Mandarin Airlines; and then catch a ferry from Kinmen to enter mainland China (Xiamen).  Many Taiwanese do that since 2008 and apparently it is also allowed for foreigners to do it this way.

I never thought about this route and had already booked TPE-HK and then on to Meizhou and Xiamen by coach/ train. I am dumb founded by this "discovery" and kick myself why I was in the "old world" thinking. This is a shorter route and costs less time and money.

Today I decide to cancel my China Airlines TPE-HK tickets and incur a small penalty loss of TWD1400 (A$45) and I am also prepared to take a loss on the coach tickets I already bought for the HK to Meizhou route of HK$210 (A$25). Instead I am going to rebook Taipei to Xiamen direct using China Airlines. I decide not to go via Kinmen just in case foreigners are somehow not allowed to enter Xiamen from there and then I am stuck in "no man's land". From Xiamen I can trace my route to Meizhou via Dabu or Yongding ( a distance of some 300km to 400 km depending on which way I take) so I can visit the UNESCO world heritage Hakka Fujian Tulou 土楼 sites there. It will be an event by itself.... immersing in one of the great Hakka culture and architectural past.

HAKKA TULOU - YONGDING, FUJIAN, CHINA

现存最古老的土楼——龙安寨。

 

最令人震撼的土楼群——初溪土楼群。

经典土楼最多的土楼群——洪坑土楼群。

最壮观的土楼群——南溪土楼群。

最具侨乡特色的土楼群——中川土楼群。

规模最大的圆楼——承启楼。

楼梯最多、最奇特的土楼——集庆楼。

最像布达拉宫的土楼——奎聚楼。

品位最高的五凤楼——福裕楼。

最富丽堂皇的圆楼——振成楼。

最具书香气的土楼——衍香楼。

最秀丽的土楼——振福楼。

现存年代最久的五凤楼——裕隆楼。

占地面积最大的土楼——永隆昌楼。

最高的土楼——福盛楼。

最大气的土楼——遗经楼。

防御功能最突出的土楼——五实楼。

最富传奇色彩的土楼——环极楼。

直径最大的圆楼——福盛楼。

最华美精致的土楼——永康楼。

最像仙境的土楼群——岩太土楼群。

围数最多的方形楼——绳庆楼。

This new route of travel also makes more sense now because I do not have to land in HK, travel north east to Meizhou, then south east to Xiamen and double back west from Xiamen to HK. I can now land in Xiamen, travel north west to Meizhou and then south west to HK in one shorter, "unified" direction.

The latest update on March 15 is that the refund from China Airlines has been processed. CAL are amazingly efficient and no fuss. I am so glad I chose them for the TPE-HK flight. I can now go ahead and rebook us on CAL for TPE/Xiamen. I am also happy that after one whole day of research I have now booked our hotels for Taipei and Taichung. Yes!

I am also keen on a 4-day train holiday covering Alisan, Kaohsiung, and Hualien 豪華環島遊．阿里山+高雄+花蓮 豐富4天(中部出發) with departure from Taichung and ending our journey in Taipei in time for us to catch our flight to Xiamen the next day. I trust the recommendations from The Man In Seat Sixty One and will use eztravel.com.tw for this special train journey. Quite frankly, wherever possible, I would prefer to use trains and coaches for domestic travels. And in Taiwan and China this is very much possible and the journeys can be enjoyable.

Tree Pruning

I engage Total Tree Care to prune our gum tree and silky oak tree because they have overgrown to an extent they may pose risks to our house and our neighbor's yard. A few weeks ago one of the dead branches came crashing down as a result of a freak storm and it was blowing gale force wind then. 

The trees are probably about 40 years old now and are still healthy. They have provided us shade over the years ....

Silky Oak

 Gum Tree

 New profile

The tree people are really professional, courteous and they know their stuff.

10,000 steps a day - PART 6 (Review Summary)

Weekly Average Day data:

                         Steps    Distance (Km)    Kcal    Fat (g)

Wk of 13/2       7409     5.1                    174.7   10.5

Wk of 20/2       8948     6.2                    208.1   12.5

Wk of 27/2       8597     6.0                    220.3   10.7

Wk of 5/3         8569     5.9                    226.6   13.7

Wk of 12/3       6090     4.2                    177.4   11.1

Wk of 19/3       8698     6.0                    224.6   13.3

Wk of 26/3      11783    8.2                    333.0    18.7

Wk of 2/4        20426   14.2                   579.1    32.7

Wk of 9/4        17504   12.2                   492.9    27.7

Wk of 16/4      16179   11.3                   442.7   24.9                                     

Wk of 23/4      7344     5.1                    174.1    9.6 Wk of 30/4      9217      6.4                    234.9   13

ＨＯＮＧ ＫＯＮＧ ＴＯ ＭＥＩＺＨＯＵ ＰＲＥＰ

AFTER MANY HOURS OF RESEARCH on the internet on transportation to China I finally am able to say "Phew, I got it". I stumbled upon this coach company which offers daily coach transport to Meizhou/Mei Xian. GDHK is also the coach company that my dad used when he went to Meizhou some 8 years ago but unfortunately he hasn't been able to recollect the company's name until I found out.

 

GDHK contact info:

Address: Room 3108-3112 31^ST Flr, Hong Kong Plaza, 188 Connaught Road West, Hong Kong
Telephone:(852) 2559 8348
Fax:(852) 2540 0389
Email:gdhk@gdhkmtc.cn

粤港汽车运输联营有限公司  
电话: （852） 2559 8348 传真: （852） 2540 0389

地址: 香港干诺道西188号香港商业中心31楼3108-12室

Unfortunately GDHK does not offer on-line booking of coach tickets and so I called the company in Hong Kong (852- 2559 8348) to enquire about it. The call center lady referred me to ring their HK ticketing agent (China Travel Service Hong Kong) which offers on-line ticket purchasing. I felt I was chasing after a glimpse of light when I heard this info and so I rang CTSHK customer service hotline on 852-2998 7888 in order to make things happen.

Life is so difficult without the internet and on-line trades.

The long and short of it is that yes I can purchase the coach tickets on-line (Hurray!!!) but I will need to register as an on-line member with CTSHK and then everything will be sweet as. I was also able to obtain some other pertinent info which will help me to make my mind up as to where I will stay in HK before tracking on to Meizhou. Oh one more thing. The CTSHK English website does not show the route for HK-Meizhou or other Chinese city routes they operate into except Guangzhou . It's one of my misgivings about the site because I have to navigate the Chinese version of the site in order to view and to purchase their HK-China coach tickets! This is testing my Chinese to my limits. 

And so I found out there is a daily 7.10am coach and a 12.30pm coach that leave from the BP International Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, for Meizhou.. The fare is only HK$90 per pax each way. The coach ride takes about 3.5 hours and so I think I will catch the 12.30pm bus and that will give me a free and lazy morning in HK and we will arrive the Meizhou city in good time to check in to our hotel before dinner time.

PICK UP POINT IN HK:

柯士甸地址: 柯士甸道8号童军中心地下跨境巴士总站
电话: 852-23177900

BP INTERNATIONAL HOTEL and Hong Kong Scout Centre 8 Austin Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

ARRIVAL POINTS AT MEIZHOU:

华侨大厦地址: 梅县江边路12号
电话: 0753-2192005

12 Jiang Bian Lu, Mei Jiang Qu, Meizhou, Guangdong, China

梅州公共汽车客运站地址: 梅县梅石路2号
电话: 0753-2222137

2 Mei Jiang Da Dao, Mei Jiang Qu, Meizhou, Guangdong, China

With this info I got today I am so much more relaxed now because I can plan ahead my HK itinerary and know exactly when I will get into Meizhou because I will have CONFIRMED coach tickets. This is so awesome.