Ok for the continuation of my trip...
26th december... Stayed in Shan tou for the night and got up really early to have brekkie at a road side stall eating Kway Chap. Its a tad bit different from the usual one i eat.. Took a tour in my distant cousin's factories... Finally got to see the production of batteries, super cool... From cutting of the carbon to form the cover to insertion of carbon powder into the tubes and witnessing the the very machine that gave batteries their energy and life. From that to the packaging of the batteries and quality control.. Every single one is a product of the many sweat and blood of the thousnad people working in there. Each aged from 16 onwards, all really young and uneducated most of the time. Moving on the the stainless steel factory. A really small factory but its just amazing how such a flat piece of steel could be moulded and welded and shaped into pots and pans. It must be tiring for everyone of them. Mum decided to walked around the village to have a look. The walk i must say is the most educational yet sorrowful walk i have ever walk. Seeing the condition of what i call a slumber really saddens me. The toilet with no door filled with all sorts of stuff is deemed as not usuable at all but yet this is the toilet of many families. Shower rooms without a shower head?? How is that possible?? I could not imagine the poverty people live in but now that i witnessed it all i can say is that, all they say is true, no exxageration at all! Having a whole family with kitchen and bed squeezing into what the call a house (to me it is called a room, probably even smaller than the one that i live in in Sydney) is what i thought was mission impossible but i am amazed, they did it. Wherever i walked, i had to keep my head down cautiously stepping over the shit on the floor. Rubbish in rivers and on roads is a common sight. How can they live in there?? Probably I'm just a blessed girl who doesn't know she is blessed at all! They have to worry about when the next meal will come, while i ponder over the fact that i have run out of clothes to wear tomorrow. Took a ride down to Chao Chou (Teochew) to look around at the culture. Went into Kai Yuan Shi Temple to have a look at the architecture. Really grand i must say.. but wat a joke. We had to pay for the entrance fee into the temple! There were loads of beggers around and i actually saw one with a muled face, really bad and saddening! Riding up the mountain to Tang Fu Yuan to see all the antiques. Really old and pretty! I Love the whole chinese antique stuff, it brings out the richness of the Chinese Culture. Had dinner at a restaurant and my dad ordered 6 plate of different cariety rice for like 8 of us. How intelligent!