Xia Men Ancestor Hall Trip 2008

(I know you guys have been waiting for ages, here it is haha. and this is the longest entry i blog about my trip the rest of the day will just get shorter one… i’m sure, so now you can enjoy looking at the picture and words of day1 will i continues to blog about day2? haha!)

Introduction.

how excited it could be if you are visiting your grandparent’s hometown? actually, i din’t put much hopes since most of you guys will have a good understanding on how hometown is like, and how the stay will properly look like right?

but it’s been years i last took a plane. i last have a good real holidays. i last have a good rest away from work. it’s been years. the last time i took a plane was with school to beijing when i was only secondary 3 (age of 15) and after 7 years, here i am leaving on a airplane once again (with excitement)

hence, i am kind of looking forward to this trip though the main purpose was the ancestor hall open ceremony. thinking that the weather was super duper cold, i was feeling quite happy to escape this super hot weather for a good exchange!

totally looking forward.

what’s more is that my idol – lam fung was actually from xiamen too. visiting “our” hometown seems to be really excited especially, his birthday was on the 8th, the 2nd day of visit. perhaps i can see him too, and yes you are right, thinking too much does not help me in getting to see him. haha!

did i mention who else heading there with me? it’s a family ancestor hall thingy, definitely is a family trips. i was with my daddy, my big aunt and 2 cousins. and of cos, relatives from philippines, china and hongkong will be there too.

the day before i was still chatting with friends at msn. haha. guess i just cant fall asleep because i am way tooo excited for anything that going to happen there, from the weather to the seafood. haha! and yes about the flight too!

Day 1. From Singapore to Xia Men on 7 December 08

so, woke up quite early like 4 because 5plus the cab will be here to drove us to airport. as in me and my daddy haha! having waking up that early does not seems to be difficult for me at all. haha! well, reached airport around 615am. cab fare was a bomb but it worth it because we wanted to reach airport on time too. haha!

the feeling of reaching airport is fantastic especially you know that you will be on the plane in just hours. haha! the excitement from me is HUGE haha. when all of us reached the airport, we check our flights and checked in our luggage! 🙂 after all these is done, you know that everything is reality… (that i am really really going to take a plane and fly to xia men!)

took silkair this time. it’s my first time taking silkair. i wondering how big is the seat or rather how big is the airplane. is the kong jie pretty or not!!! is the kong jie going to help me cover myself when i dozed off in a dream? anyway, i din’t sleep because, i know that they are serving breakfast soon. i won’t be stupid to reject breakfast right? haha! i love breakfast!

so in about 3hr 45mins i will officially landed on somewhere far away from singapore. haha! i’m so happy! cousin aries sat besides me. oh ya, before we really landed at xiamen, cousin aries already bought something on the plane. is this the most ultimate shopping therapy? she got a nice wallet & necklace from the silkair brochure. haha 🙂 shopping queen right?

first dramatic happen at xia men airport. one of our luggages cant be found! what i feel is that lucky is a not a clothing luaggage. if not, how am i going to endure the cold weather? haha! anyway, not sure where the luggage is at right now. but we can’t possibly do anything to it after all, it is not at xiamen now. so, we can only make a report on the loss of luaggage and etc. then we headed out to meet the rest. obviously the atmosphere will not be as great as the luggages to be all found la haha… lucky everyone get back to the mood fast. heng, so is an enjoyable start!

my first time here… facing the weather! shiok like crazy. it’s told to be around 15degrees. cooling like mad! oh ya, quite a number of people fetch us. the feeling is great when you saw your cousins whom you hardly see right now 🙂

they bought us to the famous temple at xiamen (the city area). so, we ate our vegetarian lunch there. it’s good. somehow, the flour have the chicken taste haha. i have no ideas how they do it. haha! btw, we got mixed up with… barley drink and corn drink….. we wanted “yimishui” but they thought is “yumishui” anyway, it taste werid to me. haha 😛

experience the first time in the werid traffic. i not sure if you guys know, but over at xiamen, usually people drives euro car (rich ya?) and, they change lanes from one and other within seconds. hardly you will see it in singapore. it’s really eye opening! even buses and big truck drives like motorcyles in singapore. how scary and fast! and when u are driving on the lane, you can actually see car travel towards you. haha. impressive hor?

and weather turns a little colder when at night when there is no sun. oh ya, when is about 4 plus, the sun start to set… when is about 5plus, you start to experience the dark night! it’s look like as if it’s 8 already! haha 🙂

heading back to hometown this time. from our understanding it took about 2hours max to travel from the xiamen city to the hometown. during 20years back then, when my grandmother was here, it took her half a day! it’s totally OMG right? haha 😛

headed to eat at this restuarant. the food is good, and the building across the road was putting fireworks as if it is free. haha 🙂 so near! it’s just outside of my eyes haha. it even closer than you view it at stadium during NDP haha!

knowing that we loves to eat OU JIAN. they order 2 plates. but it’s scared me because they PLATE is actually very HUGE and the OU is alot like crazy! in singapore, you hardly able to find this style of cooking… or in another words, you wait long long lor! haha!

we suddenly feel the COLDNESS when we walked out of the restuarant. i swear it feel like 8°C haha! 😛

then we went to visit the ancestor hall as well as the rebuilt house of our ancestor. it’s nice and big. and at this point of time, the night seems to be like midnight… when it is only around 9pm and yes it is very cold and i love this feeling 🙂

din’t take much picture here because we are able to visit here again on tuesday!

so we headed to our grandaunt house who we are intend to stay a night there. their house is REALLY BIG. a total of 7/8 levels. first floor was their “factory” and storage of their frozen food. they do frozen food. for more details in that, i really dunno whether they do packaging only or the whole thingy. but they have a big fridge that contains lots of frozen food haha!

we went up to level 4 for a sleep. only level 4 and 5 are fully renovated. the rest are still on-going haha! imagine… we drag our luggage up the stair till level 4? haha! anyway their living room also big. it’s like 3 or 4 size bigger than my current living room? haha!

we drink tea. self boil tea and chat over the table. and have a bath later on before sleeping. guess what, the bathroom in the room right… have no door! so, when we bath we close the main room door. haha! the weather is too cold for a bath seriously. even we on the high temperature (the room is smokey when we bath – hot air!) we still feel cold once we switch off the shower head and wear our clothes… i shiver from the bathroom to the living room. it’s really maddness haha! because of the clothes i wear for sleep = what i wear for sleep at home, i decided to wear a long sock to cover my toes. the blanket i have is like the similar one tht i have at home.. (see how cold i can get!) first night was hard to sleep. especially after bath… i wake up suddenly thought that it’s already six. and to my disappointment it’s only 1am in the morning. the coldness really can’t let me sleep man hahaa! most pro is the blanket. my cousins and aunt have a big thick blanket but mine was just a simple one like that one i have at home. haha!

anyway after that, i went for a good sleep on that funny bed with thin blanket.

first day here, i still can’t believe i am away from singapore. it’s good to have a break away from everything and just enjoy at the moment, you know la without handphones/works/trouble haha haha and yes i forget about this – the counter at singapore, DROP our luggage when we checked in. and SO STUPID right? this is what we call 5 star ranking airport?

i start to begin to love here 🙂

P.S. please be patience with the day 2. i not sure when is coming on the way but yes i trying hard posting up the pictures in the entry… text is getting shorter too! coming!!

Day 2. All the Visiting on 8 December 08

it’s already morning. we woke up with the coldness in us. haha 🙂 lucky morning was pretty okay because weather are not as cold at night though they might of the same degree. haha 😛 when they come singapore that time, remember that grandmother actually prepare them 4 eggs for breakfast each. (i think it was a tradition) and, yes when we are there, we were given 4 eggs too for breakfast! it’s really way too much for us. so here are the remaining. haha. we all ate 2 each. and to our surprise… they still doing breakfast for us. omg. *_*

we went to our grandaunt’s old place. (same grandaunt la) haha!

then we went on to visit our big grandaunt house. it’s different comparing to my small grandaunt house. small grandaunt house was big and new and she stays with her son and grandchildren. while my big grandaunt stay in a old middle size house and staying alone. it’s quite compare for people in china that they leave their family alone. the worst thing is that my big grandaunt look rather depressing when we visit her and she feel so much happier when she saw us. (from this you can know actually not much people have visit her so far!)

i feel so happy that we actually visit her. the last time she comes to singapore was when i am super small. i shall dig out a picture if i can found and post it right here 🙂 *i super dare to post my old time pictures because i think i look much more cuter last time… ok is a sad news!*

(i haven found it yet! and my laptop cant sync with the scanner too! soon la i will post it tgt!)

follow we went to visit our first granduncle (grandmother side). before i came here i already know how bad is the situation for my first granduncle. but i din’t know that the rest of his brother actually stay in quite a good house. nevertheless, let’s talk about my first granduncle. he look very happy that 5 of us actually visit him this time round. he share with us alot of stuff at the living room. chatting. and on top of that, we knows that his legs are not functionally well as compare as the last visit he came. thanks god that he is staying with his family. at least he could see his grandson jumping and laughing with him. it’s sort of a bliss in some sense.

i think he miss my grandmother (his one and only sister). he asked why my grandmother did not come this time. actually my grandmother would like to come but because of the cold weather, my grandmother would hardly able to endure hence, she did not come this time. properly my aunt will bring her again when is around summer period 🙂

then we went to see my grandmother side ancestor hall. obviously is not as nice and pretty as the one we had and came for.

next we went to our 5th granduncle house.

and lastly our 6th granduncle house which is quite nice in fact 🙂

(the next thing you will ask might be how come so much difference from the brothers. i also dunno. but i just hope for the good health for my 1st granduncle.)

Followed up we went ahead to visit a very popular temple there. Shall describe more with the pictures. and i tell you why is it so popular too!

then to our surprise.. they bring us to the biggest shopping mall in our hometown – SM MALL. and the best and surprised part was that – i saw WILBER! i didn’t expect to see him instead. lucky he did not know of raymond. (yes i thinking too much haha).

the shopping mall was just like another vivo city! it has all the branded store there. Levis, Adidas, Nike… all of it are so much expensive than we actually thought too! All the stores we get in, they sells at least 100 dollar per items, i am referring to SGD. and the stores excludes Levis, Adidas and Nike. It’s too expensive for me to get anything actually. haha 😛

and yes, i didn’t bought anything. surprisely expensive! and we finally eat something different this time. No Seafood. Ate their McDonald 🙂 Even their mac taste better than SG. And my uncle taste mcdonald for the first time. It’s quite impress that there is actually people who don’t eat mcdonald before for at least 40 years. and in singapore, you hardly named anyone who never eat before!

(let’s me figure out how to post the video here first, hha! i will post it soon la?! HAHA! it’s funny!)

then we headed to some museum which was quite newly built and is interesting! but but but, we went on the monday. it’s closed on the monday! how sad right? wasted trip! 🙁

as usual, we headed to some other temple at the other “estate”. it’s was quite impress on how you see everything on the road. how they make business, how they stopped the cars. haha! it’s something that you won’t able to see in singapore! sometimes travel really educate you a little. haha 🙂

we even went to a popular mosque there! even the malay guys that sells some sweet stuff outside the mosque speaks hokkien and chinese. super interesting! and the mosque look quite empty, it look like how the jumper (the movie) scene are! haha… and we need to pay tickets to get in! haha. it’s quite a surprise man. haha! then we headed to this temple which is enter in through a super narrow road. haha! i just can’t describe in words on their driving skills. speechless haha! they can just drive so much faster and stable! haha! *clueless*

then follow up a small temple inside a small alley, you won’t imagine that we can actually drive it in. haha! super crazy way of driving you can see in there but what can you ask for more when the place is so clean haha!

then we headed back to grandparent’s house. take a clearer look at the house this time. 🙂 saw grandmother’s bed when they used to stay there. we even headed up to the balcony and have a clearer view too! we also put color flag on our house because it’s means that we are doing a BIG EVENTS soon! 🙂 we also have little tours around the house too 🙂

then we headed for dinner around 6plus 7. 🙂 it’s SEAFOOD! it is told as the most popular and cheapest restuarant in town. haha 🙂 but the waitress is seriously powerfully rude. i guess this won’t happen in singapore. the customers will just go crazily scolding them only. but right now, nope. we just wait. haha 😛

and guess what, our (other) cousin drives his newly BMW us back to HOTEL! i’m shocked! the 3 of us is going to stay in the hotel while my daddy and aunty will headed back to my HK cousin’s china house to rest/sleep. haha! how shiok is the hotel man! it’s has INTERNET!!! it has HOT WATER TOO! that the best of everything… and it has a transparent glass door HAHA!!!

watch their funny series, actually is a NEWS! but it seems more dramatic so i think i call it series, you can ask for more details if you want when you see me! haha!! and headed to sleep 🙂 because tmr is a long BIG day!!!

Day 3. Grand Opening of Ancestor Hall.

I guess you got to expect a really short and lesser pictures entry this time, because, my camera went flat halfway, and most of the morning we are all climbing rocks and stuff, as well as, the night events since i cant be there, i can’t took any pictures as well, i know what a waste right! but well, i happen to see…. (see below for more details! haha)

WAKE UP early but there is still room service calling too. i thought they will just heck care us, but well, afterall, is our cousin’s friend hotel.. they could not be treating us far too bad too haha 😛 anyway you all should have seen the hotel picture in previous entries. it’s nice right? loving it man! with PC & Internet + LCD TV and my LOVELY HOT WATER for bathing… what can i ask for more? haha!

i know my dad is upset about not able to see his grandmother when she is alive. me too actually. only my family she never get to see. i know is upsetting right?

after which, (i think i start to forget thing especially without photos haha!) anyway, i remember that my cousin drove us back to our anchestor home, but was just a little while only because he bring us all out for a lunch once again. and is a big feast one and we really can’t finish it. it’s really scary on how they eat man! HAHA! 😛

then cousin bring us back to hotel to get my chargers for all my stuff inclusive of my camera, vcam and itouchiee as i know today will be a long long day for me…. :S but thanks to cousin to make a special trip all the way back to hotel for us… before we headed back to the place which is in time for it… i guess is around 1 plus… what a rush? 😛

What really happens after that i really can’t remember i guess haha… i should have blogged it in hotel during that day… and i totally forget without pictures as my cousin never takes pictures as much as me… and i don’t really can recall as well… but well…. this following is what i remember 😛

(okay, i remember some liao! lol!)

we ate the famous – 姜母鸭 which right now, i am still searching where i can find that same exactly yummy food in singapore. 😛 i am not a person who enjoyed duck meat… in fact, i reject all duck meat in singapore… hate duck meat actually… haha! but i super in love with this 姜母鸭 at xiamen. it’s super nice… it’s taste better than chicken actually. it’s so much yummy… actually 姜母鸭 remind me of the TW series i finished months ago…. haha 😛 it’s really nice, if you really happen to go xiamen maybe you can try eating that.. it’s so delicious! cousin order 2 plates and it’s dry up! can you imagine, usually we just leftover so much stuff… but this time round, only this is DRY UP! haha 😛

After which, cousin drove us back for like few hours of rest and we took bath because, we are going to head back to ancestor home for the ancestor hall ceremony which will takes from midnight all the way to the next day!

it’s seems to be just like awhile and we headed back to achestor hall already. i passed my vcam to my cousin because, tiger are not suppose to see the ceremony. so left me and my hk cousin who are both tiger to be back to achestor house for a rest and sleep because we cant see the whole thingy… 🙁 *i feel is a waste but my hk cousin say is nothing interesting….*

hk cousin bring me up to the rooftop… to see fireworks and firecrackers 😀 it’s non-stop since i reached the place till around 4plus… nonstop of firecrackers can you imagine.. how are you going to fall asleep? HAHA! it’s very noisy really noisy… haha! everyone is doing it because is a happy occasion, when someone do it also, it’s either from our CHUA family, or they are just simply happy for us so they can do it too! :DDD actually, it is more noisy than this because the govt there STOP us from doing this because, we are located “under” the route of the some flight… which might causes some dangerous for fireworks… and imagine, we din’t put firework already so much already haha! and fireworks are so much nearer to us…. it’s really WHOA!

after which, we both headed back to sleep since it is a long day till next day morning haha! my cousin lend me his dslite, but i told him i have itouchiee already so, he can still use it to play 🙂 i continues to watch my show… i have no ideas which show i am currently watching at that time haha! but i remember it’s should be japanese series haha!

after awhile, my 2 cousins headed back because they say is boring so they come back to sleep too! haha! while i continues my drama till, my aunt come back too… and 4 of us squeeze in a queen size bed, seriously, it is so so so much hard to sleep in such position actually. omg position haha 😛

and here i got some photos from my Philippines cousin of the events. so, you can actually have a clearer look and view of it too! 😀

anyway, all these happen over midnight, hence it shld be day 4 right? haha! i shall start day 4 with after we waking up! 😀

Day 4: Ancestor Hall Opening Gala Lunch

How times flies when you don’t have to work and when you are oversea man! how i wish everyday could be like this… i know i am thinking way alot 😀

weather is still very cold and we can’t possible really able to bath because there isn’t any heater in ancestor house. so, we have to endure… lucky we have already bath the day before heading here.. though that we have no way to sweat with that temperature but somehow we are used to bath in the morning, or rather me haha… but i have endure that messy hair la… bth 😛 anyway, we headed to brush our teeth because…. and guess what, the way coming from the tap is way too cold for us.. so we get the water from the well… interesting hor? and the water from the well are super clean and not as cold as from the tap too haha… brushing teeth outside our house… first time did that.. haha too bad, i din’t manage to take a picture of it.. wasted! but well, video capture! :DDD

and then, we have our lovely breakfast – yu tiao and soya drink! 🙂 my lovely breakfast! you all should know how much i love breakfast haha 😛

as you know the ceremony started early this midnight… hence it continues today too 😀 it’s more likely to welcome us kind of ceremony haha 😉 there’s even a band playing to welcome us man! it’s so funny and i’m so proud of it… it’s just like… walking at the red carpet of the oscar award haha! same feeling man 😛

and we went to visit the old anchestor hall first before the “march in” to the new anchestor hall. 😛 and continues a ceremony.

but well, the cousins and my aunty got bored of it, we went to shop and discover BIG THING! 😛

then we went to have a nap around 30minutes at grandma’s old ancient bed at the new anchester house. hehe. the bed that my grandparents use to sleep everyday when they are in china. hehe. surprisely it’s still working perfectly fine with 3 of us on it. hehe.

and it’s noon time for lunch. it’s a big lunch because it was the closing lunch for the ceremony where all the CHUA FAMILY who are there will joined everyone eating as a big family. nevertheless on how great the lunch goes as you can see from the following pictures haha! oh yes, they have this “concert” at the same time while you have your lunch. it’s so fun!

then we visited the place one last time before we will leave china in 2 days time.

then, we followed up visiting gu gong’s house. we stay there awhile, while aunty called back to grandmother who is at singapore that we are now at gu gong house 🙂 had dinner there nice dinner i say! but as usual, where is the CHICKEN? haha 😛

stay there awhile and have tea at the same time. you know we drink tea every moment man. haha 😛 lucky i like tea. what happen if they are drinking coffee instead? oh man! haha 😛

Cousin came to fetch us this time. we bid farewell to gu gong & family because we will be leaving for singapore in 2 days time and which means, it will takes a long while to visit them once again. 🙁 i feel so upset 🙁 🙁 :(. i wish i can visit them often.

well, cousin bring us back to hotel get packed and we changes our clothes and headed down to shop? haha! and tour tour around! hehe!

everything is expensive! really expensive. lecoq sportif was freaking more expensive that you will never thought of getting anything back home from there man. anyway shopping is just awhile. though KTV there was pretty cool because the whole building is just KTV and there is so many of them. oh man, but well, we didn’t w bv ent ktv.. but we went to…. FOOT MASSAGE!!!

i know you must be envy me like crazy. haha 😛 it’s really shiok! i think i will just tell you more with the photos about how it goes man e.g. ginger? haha!. anyway, the rooms have 7 of us, and 6 of us are cousins with one is our cousin-in-law 🙂

after the foot massage, we went to eat at the roadside. i guess you must have read it from somewhere or get the info from somewhere that roadside food are always better and nicer and you don’t know the reason why. haha 😛

(my dad told me, the day before, cousins bring him and the rest to the roadside to have the dumpling which is so called the famous one… but when my dad saw how they wash the dish, he cant eat already because they just simple dip the used plate into the water and take out to serve again….)

the next thing we know, we are already eating the dumpling that my dad rejected the previous night haha. but i can say the taste is different. really different 😛 and the ou jian is good, really good man! 😛

it’s already 3am when we reached back hotel. have a bath and sleep because we have a early trip the next day haha :PP

As usual, we watch ke nan and slowly went to sleep. it’s a long day for us already 🙂

Day 5: Ma Zu Temple

This entry will be purely picture with a little bit of text and text. haha 😀 because this trip is just mainly on the ma zu temple. quite a very simple and easy day for us, but well, it’s a long day. we start of very early and end every late. 🙂 and yes, we are all very happy and excited for this trip. it’s just like an oversea trip because we have to travel for hours…

Starting with Breakfast.
we started of with breakfast because, it’s a long journey from our hometown to the other place. i have lost track of the name, but well you can get to see it in a while in the photo 🙂

Day 6: Home Sweet Home.

i just can’t believe 6 days just end so fast. it’s just a wink only. after what i have wrote for the past few entries, i’m sure you also agree that the days pass so much faster. (basically, their daytime end very early like around 5 hence… it’s seems to pass really fast!) seriously, i really enjoy myself… i just wish if only i can just stay a little longer… 🙂

Packing & Breakfast.
we packed our luggage so that after our breakfast we can just come back fast for our luggage and off we go to airport. it’s a packed day.

took some photo in the hotel before leaving…

Breakfast at the youtiao place.
because we mention we love the youtiao place hence here we are 😀

headed back to grandmother house first… long story.. end story is i thought i lost my jacket. heng!