海南岛

Nostalgic
Last weekend, wj and i caught a glimpse (a glimpse as we were in the clients' car and i only wound my window down to take some photos) of Haikou city's famous 老街 after a long meeting at the clients' office.

simply put. It was dreadful.

No, not the old street. But the meeting. It was held early in the morning and I was like a vase the whole time. Why, becos they were speaking in a dialect which i didn't understand at all. The jokes that they made, i didnt even bother laughing. What for? When i dun even understand a word u are saying mister. Okay i did try my best to listen to what they were saying and pick out certain words which sounded like mandarin. But it was tough and i end up losing my concentration. At least i didn't pout. Hmm, then again i may have done so not knowingly.

Rite, back to sightseeing...It was a very long stretch of old shophouses, dilapidated and run-down. Electricity was generated in big kettle drums at junctions of roads. i think back home, nobody would want live in these sort of slum-like places anymore, it reminded me of those squatter housing which i saw in my history textbooks when i was young. However the street was bustling with activites, it was very much alived and not abandoned; an old man pulling a wheel cart packed with cardboards and recycleable products, women with pointed straw hats riding on bicycles and lots of roadside hawkers selling WenChang Chicken. Suddenly i felt that i was wheeled back in time to the 40s.

maybe next time if we both ever come back here again,

we should really pay wj's relatives a visit.