For those of you who frequent my blog (though I can’t imagine who you might be), the first thing you’d notice is I have (finally) gotten around to changing my layout. Mostly because I managed to catch James on Facebook chat and so yes, here be a new layout. It’s called um.. lightword (I think).
Right then, moving on. More after the jump.
Yesterday pretty much defined my weekend, and almost ensured I can’t do anything today. Because I ache. And it’s raining. But the rain usually wouldn’t bother me as much. Not with my trusty Continental Airlines umbrella. But more on yesterday.
One of the reasons I love my job is because no matter how close my destinations are to Hongkong, I get to travel. (Okay I better get to the point here) Yesterday I attended a lychee picking activity with Kempinski Hotel in Shenzhen. I got up rather early (for a weekend anyway) at around 11 in the morning (bite me, I slept at 2 the night before) and made the 1 hour plus journey to Lok Ma Chau MTR station where the HK-Shenzhen border is located.
Crossing over to the mainland was hardly exciting I suppose. It’s pretty much the same as crossing from Singapore to JB except the facility looks about a billion times better.
Now I did bring both my cameras (400D and FLO) but honestly I couldn’t be bothered to take them out so you’re gonna have to depend on your imagination for this.
My colleague Iris and I took a cab to the hotel where we were then whisked away to the lychee plantation. Rows upon rows of lychee trees stood on a gently sloping hill and the weather was… hardly fulfilling. But considering this time of year means either pouring rain or sweltering heat as the two extremes on the spectrum, yesterday’s slightly mucky but genuinely cloudy atmosphere wasn’t too bad at all.
For someone like me who hasn’t been on a fruit picking expedition before, admittedly lychees are a fruit that perhaps I wasn’t extremely excited about (not only because I don’t eat it that much).
But I was quite surprised that it really was pretty enjoyable. I pretty much liked to pluck one to see if that tree had some good lychees and if I liked what I tasted (which I did most of the time) then I’d pluck some. Soon enough I had quite a basketfull and that eventually meant that the cardboard box they gave us to take the fruit home couldn’t be closed. I took too much.
And it didn’t quite help that upon arriving at the hotel, they gave us yet another box of lychees to take home. (I’m eating lychees as I type this)
The trip home was the one that really killed me because I had two heavy boxes of lychees to bring back across the border and right to Tsuen Wan. What was nice though is there’s a shuttle bus service direct to Tsuen Wan from one of the borders between Hongkong and Shenzhen. Carrying those boxes did give me the aches though I have to admit.
Immigration did give me some problems though. Something to do with my passport looking old and foggy. About time I get that new passport then I guess. Gah.
But the best part is I now have 2 boxes of lychees sitting in my fridge and I can spend today eating them and probably the next week to come too. I’m gonna be so sick of lychees after this.
