Trying to finish blogging about my China trip before I forget all about it!

I didn’t take too many photos on Day 3 because it was more of the same: Eating and shopping in Humen.

Tried on the funny hat I bought in Zhuhai.

After adjusting the hat this way and that, trying different hairstyles, I finally decided that it looked too silly, so I didn’t wear it out.

Which was just as well. When we stepped outside, we dicovered that the temperature had risen and it wasn’t as cold as it was the previous day.

We had breakfast at a Chinese cafe, which turned out disappointing.

We ordered you tiao, which was nice enough to begin with, but started tasting of ammonia after a while!! Seriously.

The Goonfather took it to the counter and asked them why, and they actually replied that it’s supposed to be like that, and you’re supposed to leave it out for a while for the ammonia taste to disappear.

But it’s the opposite of what they said. It tasted okay for five minutes and then it was inedible after that.

In any case, since when is you tiao supposed to taste like ammonia at any time at all?!

It was so foul it made us sick even to smell it.

(LOL. The Goonfather just wallked past my PC and saw the photo and said, “What is that?! Is it the disgusting ammonia you tiao??!)

The other things we tried were pretty mediocre.

Shopping after breakfast!

We came across a little corner in a car park with a few kiddy carnival rides. It was quite weird.

It’s always interesting to see sights overseas that you think weird but which locals find absolutely normal.

Like, all cab drivers in China are encased in little cages to deter mugging.

I don’t know about you but I find it a little dehumanising.

Here’s one of the malls we shopped at.

Humen is supposedly a fashion wholesale city, which was why we went there (since I’ve visited Shenzhen before).

Indeed, there is a lot of shopping and it’s very cheap if you know how to bargain. But a large percentage of wares is quite old-fashioned, so we didn’t buy much.

I LOVE THE BOOTS THOUGH.

I could have bought a hundred pairs of boots if not for luggage allowance and lack of time.

The problem is that most shoe stores are little spaces where they can’t keep stock, so if you want something in your size, they’d have to send a runner off to the warehouse to grab it. It takes about 20 minutes each time.

And you have to settle on a price (or even promise to buy it) before they’d send the runner. And if the shoe comes back and you try it on and decide you don’t want it after all, they’ll make you feel guilty for not buying it.

It’s a huge pain in the ass!

(Not all stores are like that, though. Some are pretty patient and pleasant.)

I didn’t buy many things in Humen because of all that. We had originally planned to stay in Humen for another day, but decided to bugger off to Shenzhen the next day.

Our day ended at a restaurant called Zhu Du Ji (literally “pig stomach chicken”), which is a steamboat restaurant featuring a pig stomach with chicken soup base, which I suppose sounds pretty gross if you’re not Chinese.

The soup is really quite tasty!

I might have mentioned this before but I will mention it again.

The Chinese are crazy! (In China, I mean.)

It was the tail end of winter and the weather had turned considerably warm (like a warmish aircon room in Singapore) and yet many people were still dressed in warm clothes and long sleeves.

EVEN IN A STEAMBOAT RESTAURANT INDOORS.

I was feeling warm and almost sweating even before we started eating, and yet there were people who had been eating for ages wearing thick, fur-lined jackets.

CRAZY.

Another quirk: All plates and cutlery come vacuum-sealed. (Except we probably don’t call chopsticks and spoons cutlery but I don’t know what to call them.)

This is supposed to be a show of hygiene.

They also give you a pot of hot tea and a big empty bowl, and you’re supposed to wash your bowl and cutlery with the tea, emptying the “dirty” tea water into the big bowl.

You don’t have to wash the plate because it’s for putting bones and unwanted food scraps.

It’s very troublesome!

Okay, end of Day 3! I took a photo of the hotel toothbrush cos it looks so posh I can’t stand it!

(Here’s the post I talked about the posh Humen hotel if you haven’t read it.)

I brought one toothbrush home! Hehe!