23rd July 2008

Woke up early in an intriguing twist, moved bag to day room and then Charlotte and I made the long and rambling walk in the early morning heat to the Humble Administrator's garden. Successfully purchased tickets and spent a nice hour or so wandering around the rockeries, pagodas and water features, that were a bit same same. We only got roped into one photo extravaganza. After some confusion we found the entrance to the garden museum, which was a bit dull, outdated and full of old faded photos of the garden. By a random sequence of interconnected events we somehow found ourselves in a brand spanking new touch screen extravaganza of the same museum, entirely deserted but much better. Once more it turns out the garden was totally destroyed and it was all a remake AND the Dr Sun Yat-Sen garden in Vancouver, that I visited 4.5 months ago, was designed by the same person/team/company.

We meandered back through the back streets towards the city centre to meet Lydia in a random cafe. Did the normal coffee shenanigans, gossiping or whatever we do in caffeine fuelled, jazz environments. Decided on our fave noodle shop, after a quick shop in the slightly posh metromart, where I managed to get all manner of MSG containing foodstuffs. Ordered noodles via lonely planet Chinese character deduction and David texting the characters for the very option. Very nice, though nuclear heated as normal. Then bus->train, 16.44. Quiet boring, split into me David and John, and the others in separate compartment. But then kung fu hustle came on the TV and we watched it in between adverts.