I arrived back at the Shekou port early this afternoon from my nice vacation away from China and the Olympics--I really don't find summer Olympic sports all that exciting.
We began our trip with an interesting encounter at customs, while departing from China. Apparently, the customs officers had a problem with the fact that my wife is from Xinjiang, though not a minority. They held her up for a few minutes and asked her some pointless questions: Are you Han? Where do you live? Where do you work? Why are you leaving China? And then her passport was passed around to another three officers before they allowed her to pass.
Everything improved as we waited for my parents to arrive in Macau. We found a great new restaurant near Senado Square--Dragon Mama Cuisine. It was inexpensive and quite tasty.
Malaysia was beautiful and we found that Kuala Lumpur is nothing compared to Malacca and Penang. We made a mistake by not planning more time in Malacca--the people and culture were amazing. Jia was upset that she saw more Chinese culture in Malaysia than she's seen in China. I have to agree that the Malaysians presented the Chinese culture in their country better than most places in China.
The most amazing part of the vacation was the fact that Air Asia was on time for all five of our flights. For an airline with such a bad reputation, this was a pleasant surprise.
I'll post more stories about the trip over the next week or so.
1 comment:
Customs in China has been weird. I returned with my g/f and another couple from Thailand a few weeks ago. HK airport and the ferry to Shekou were fine. After getting off the ferry in Shekou and having our bags scanned, the customs / security guards wanted to take some fingernail clippers. We already arrived in Shekou and were going into the country where we could buy as many as we wanted ! And they were saying security would not allow us to bring these clippers in.
And then last week I was flying from Ningbo to Shenzhen and security in Ningbo would not let me take a zippo lighter .... and it was in my checked baggage. Big argument too .... I know better than carry-on but when did lighters become a no-no in checked luggage .... I broke the damn thing before turning it over though (signed Yokie)
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