Sunday, March 06, 2011

A trip to southern China

It was an 8-day trip to southern China, my friend and I travelled from Xiamen, to Fuzhou, to Guangzhou, to Xiamen and Zhangzhou, before heading home to Singapore. It was a pretty tiring trip for me, with all the travel, and my body was not able to adjust to the food. For a few days towards the end of the trip, my body was not able to eat much, except some drinks and fruit, with a little rice. Yet, it is still a fulfilling trip.

First day upon arrival, we went to Gulangyu, walk around and visited the pedestrian street in Xiamen. Early next morning we headed for the rail to go to Fuzhou to meet up some friends and visited the mountain, a beautiful place, on a valley between mountains. We stayed here for 2-3 days, understanding the place. Perhaps here was the place where I started being not used to the food.

After that we headed to Guangzhou to attend Zaha Hadid's talk at the Guangzhou Opera House. It is true that I heard of the bad workmanship of this building, still, it stands as a beautiful piece of architecture, perhaps one of the best in terms of interior for a theatre design, the sensual fluid form, which is a challenge to be built for such an immense space. The design is unique, one that is non typical of a theatre, one becomes enchanted in such a space.

After 2 days here in Guangzhou, where I lost appetite for food, and was pretty exhausted by then, we made our way back to Xiamen, to stay at my friend's relative's place at Zhangzhou, where We visited the tulou and Taxia village. It is a beautiful sight, a place that even make architects ponder at the wisdom of construction technology of so many centuries ago, and so beautiful are these tulous, they are really worth the "motion sickness" up the mountains. But I guess once in a lifetime is enough, unless the Lord has something for me to do there. Almost every photo taken is postcard ready. And also thank to the hospitality of the relatives.

Definitely I need some good rest. A bit exhausted from the trip. But thanks be to my dearest Lord Jesus who has already gone before me, and prepared for me, I totally need Him for seeing me through. I enjoyed the trip despite of a tired body.