Day 5 - Last day in Shantou

Nothing much to write on our last day in Shantou! It's a cosy, wet day and we had takeaway for lunch.

Our lunch only cost us RMB50. Guess we had the best deal on our last day!

Wonder when we'll go back to Shantou. Perhaps in 10 years, or never. Or maybe sooner than we think. Until the next time then!

Day 4 - Nan Ao (南澳) Island (Part 3)

After lunch we went to a famous well on the island - Song Well (宋井). The well is famous because no one knows exactly where the water comes from. It's not influenced by tides, nor rainfall, and the water level is pretty constant no matter how much water gets drawn. In the old times when the island was a fort, there were three wells dug to supply the military with water. The location for one of the wells was lost through time, and the second one was sunk underwater a few decades back. Thus, this is the only surviving of the three wells on the island.

That's the entrance to the park where the well is. To visit, you need to pay RMB10 per pax (about S$2).

There's a small garden in the park, fitted with decorations and pavilions.

Near the well, there is a beach where the locals call 白米库. Loosely translated, it means a rice warehouse. It was said that during one of the battles in Song Dynasty, this fort met with some trouble and was running out of food. The general leading the troops came to this shore and by some miracle, the sand turned into rice, providing food for the soldiers.

The walkway leading up to the well. Badly maintained, and has apparently, seen many rough tides and storms.

The well itself (surroundings don't look pleasant - with some construction) so I took the well and the well only. :)

If you're on the island, might as well pay the park a visit. It's worth it for the history of it, but other than that there isn't much to do there.

So by the time we went around the island, having lunch and visited the park, it was about 3pm, and we decided to head back to the hotel. On the departure, we missed a ferry (again) so we had an hour to take a look at the shops at the harbour. The shops on the island are more interesting!

That's a horseshoe crab, in Mandarin it's called (好), which literally translates to good!

And shops selling more salted seafood!

And a rooster... Though I doubt that's for sale.

And puffer fish decorations:)..

Day 4 - Nan Ao (南澳) Island (Part 2)

What's there to see on the island? We went to the general's residence and took a ride around the area before lunch. And salted stuff on the island is very, very cheap (compared to Singapore)! Let the pictures do the talking!

Here's the main front of the general's residence. The building is mostly rebuilt. Almost everything is new except for some of the exhibits, the well below and the tree outside.

The well which people in the residence used to drink from. The water is really cooling!

General's throne!

Weapons in the olden times!

This tree is still suviving after hundreds of years. It's been split into three during a storm when lightning struck it. The three branches are being supported by concrete columns.

Salted starfish, anyone?

After visiting the residence, we went to the beach side. There were some farms, resorts and hotels at the back, but we're at the coast where the shops are.

I supposed you can take a rest here, but even getting a seat needs money. Grandma says this is a sign that the economy isn't doing well. People are just charging for everything they can. We can tell how bad it is here.

We went to a seafood restaurant for lunch. There's no shortage in the variety of food you can choose from!

We got a fish, some seaweed, some abalone and got the restaurant to make us some dishes.

Here we got ripped off really, really bad. The meal cost us RMB700 (about S$120) in total. And the chef's cooking skills suck big time. Apparently the fire he used was too strong, and it turned the fish meat tough. We could tell that it's fresh from the taste but the texture just sucks. There are many other restaurants along the road - it could be better or worse we do not know.

More to come in Part 3 on the island after lunch!

Day 4 - Nan Ao (南澳) Island (Part 1)

Nan Ao Island, located between the coastlines of Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan, is an hour's drive and another hour's boat ride from Shantou.

The island is great for an overnight stay - to chill and relax, and enjoy nature and agriculture. Yes, agriculture!

Yup, each dot is a cage containing either crabs, oysters or clams. And this is probably only 5% of what is actually there on the island. About 50% of the coastline is dotted with farms like this.

Ok, let me rewind a bit. So we took a private tour and set off from the hotel at 8 o'clock in the morning. After an hour of car ride, we arrived at the harbour. There are some stalls at the harbour, some selling fruits like below, and others are coffee shops and convenient stalls. Don't recommend getting stuff from here unless you're tied for some fruit snacks!

Queue to enter the ferry - we're the first in line because.. we missed the ferry.

And there's our ride! Yup, the ferry takes people and vehicles from the mainland to the island.

There's a project going on to build a bridge to the island. But it's been delayed for 3 years. According to the latest update from the construction firm, the bridge will be completed by the end of this year (2014). It looks almost complete from the boat. There are only two segments, the most difficult ones, left.

The harbour on island's side is on the rocky half of the island. Nan Ao Island is loosely divided into two halves. One is rocky and mountainous. This part of the island faces mainland China and not many people stay there. The other half is good for agriculture and filled with construction - with soon to be hotels and resorts. There is also where the agriculture is. On the car we rode a little ways along the coastline and saw a park greeting all visitors on the island.

The climate on the island is windy, which explains the windmill on the mountain tops:)...

I'll continue the story in other parts at another time!

Day 3 - Onto Shantou

So the third day we travelled down to Shantou city from the resort. The journey took us about 2hours, and (despite the wet weather) the road trip view was pretty nice!

The east coast of China was recently formed (in the past thousand years) from sand deposits on costal area. Shantou is one of the places formed in this manner. When we travel seawards, we are actually going downwards towards the sea, and we can see the rock formations steadily getting smaller as we go toward the town.

We checked into Golden Gulf Hotel. It's an average hotel in Shantou, not one of the newest in town. Here's how the grand hall behind the reception looks like.

The hotel has a swimming pool and the interior is decorated in a classic manner. Overall, it feels like a business hotel rather than a family hotel. But we do see many families staying here.

Two beds and a couch (above), plus reading table and TV (not shown in picutre). Pretty classic business room.

Swimming pool on level 2. We didn't enter as it didn't look that clean. Pools are difficult to maintain properly.

Miniature wine for sale in the room.

View from the hotel room. This view faces the back of the hotel. Shantou is very built up, but it's only the third tier city. Wonder how the first tier city looks like now.

Perhaps the only big shopping mall left here.

Yup, the area surrounding the mall is empty. There were a few other shopping malls but they've been torn down and are relocated to a new shopping district about 15mins away from the hotel. Google Maps is outdated. I'm not sure which mobile phone maps are useful for use in China now.

We took a stroll from the hotel down a couple of streets and came across a shop selling seafood porridge.

Many many prawns!!

There were three of us sharing the seafood porridge pot, they gave us a crab each!! Grandma had fish porridge.

And fried oyster with eggs. Superb taste.

Shop name..

Cutlery wrapped in plastic. They try to show us it's sterilised but we found a cockroach in one of them. So keep your eyes open on what you eat here.

Fresh seafood.

We got ripped by the shop anyways. They charged us RMB400 for the meal. Though in Singapore dollars it's cheap (down to S$20 per pax), they probably earned RMB300 extra. I am interested to know how much they charge the locals.

We visit the mall and had dinner back at the hotel. Buffet dinner was cool, and came with rice and abalone.

 

And there actually isn't much to do after nightfall. Since we don't go nightclubs and don't know where the night markets are, we slept early.

Day 2 visit - out to the village and Teochew city

We got a car and driver to bring us around the village and Teochew city on Day 2. For a day trip which started at 10am and ended at 6pm, RMB450 seemed like a reasonable price. Usually a car for a day would cost between RMB500 to RMB700, starting around 8am and ending at around 6pm.

The driver was pretty nice - talkative and sharing some history and information about the places we visited. He is (in my opinion) a pretty rich man - owns three plots of land, does sustainable farming, roast tea leaves and owns a couple of shops. But driving taxi and bringing tourists around town is one of his activities too.

So we went to the villages. The villages are grouped according to the surnames of the families. In other words, for one village, everyone has the same surname. However, given the growth of population in the villages, the boundaries have started to blur. What we saw was all houses and the villages separated by narrow streets. Finally, we reached a village about an hour away from Teochew, the village of Tans.

Here's a photo of the ancestry temple of the village. On the board located at the left of the entrance is a list of names of people who donated to the village.

Some villagers do farming - the pond you see below is used to keep. Water isn't so clean though, perhaps due to the lack of water flow.

After some stretching we moved on to another village. The next village we went to is called 龙湖寨. It's actually a fort from a few centuries back. It's been listed as one of the national heritage sites. Here's the street view.

Scholar's house decorated with a board and some writing on the doors.

View of the river from outside the village.

Yup, this is the taxi driver who brought us around. No, this isn't the shop he own but it's one of the shops in the village.

Temple! Need to pay to enter though.

Now the tourist attractions have QR code. Too bad our phones do not have internet accessibility.

So after visiting the village area, we went to the city for lunch. Do note that you're expected to have lunch with the driver and pay for his lunch even though you've booked him for the day. So RMB450 only includes the driver, car and petrol. Doesn't cover admission charges, meals and other expenses. We also bought some stuff from him, since he sells tea and other stuff. But he is kind enough to give us some guava and potatoes for free. The guava is really nice - crunchy and sweet. Can buy those if you like.

So unfortunately it started raining after lunch. Most of the time was spent chatting with the driver at his place. We stayed for about one and a half hours at his place while waiting for the rain to stop. This is when we get to enjoy Chinese tea and chill lax.

After the rain slowed down, we set off to a few places. It was still drizzling. We went to the Song Bridge - picture below.

And passed by some monuments...

Took some shots of places in the wilderness.. ok maybe not wilderness since we are still in the city.

And that's all for the day.