Tuesday, 16 March 2010It's Day 1 of our trip to Shunde (Shuntak in cantonese), the hometown of Roemary's mum in Guangdong. The group of six of us (which included brother Weng Chiew and sis-in-law, brother Steven and nephew Mark) were making a visit to see the many cousins still living in the 'old home town' from where mum had fled to Singapore in the 1930s.
We met up at the Budget Terminal at 4.00 am, had a quick breakfast and caught the Tiger Air 6.30 am flight to Guangzhuo......it was our first time going with Tiger Air - and we were pleasantly surprised that everything went off without any problem.......
We arrived at the BaiYun Airport at about 10 am, got our bus tickets for the trip to Foshan where we were to meet our Shunde hosts......
It took an hour for us to reach the Foshan bus terminal where we were met by Cousin No. 1 and 3rd Cousin's wife and in their two cars we were whisked to our hotel in Sunde - the Le Yuan Hotel, not a 4-star hotel but adequate for our short stay there......
First order of the day - a 'welcome lunch' organised at the Restaurant where 1st Cousin worked . It was a sumptuous seafood meal with lots of the classical cantonese dishes....
There were a lot of catching up to do - so much to tell each other, so many stories to share.....
We reluctantly ended the first 'reunion session' with a group photo.
At 4.00 pm, we were picked up for the trip to the town of Rongui where Cousin no. 3 stays. The town was nice and so was 3rd Cousin's house - very nice house indeed.........
it is a four-storey mansion, with great design, marble furnishing.........
a large koi pond and rose garden.....
a roof garden and a mahjong room complete with 'automatic tiles washing' mahjong table....
The catching up continued with more sharing of old tales, we especially enjoyed those related by old Uncle Loh, mum's brother (from grandpa's 3rd wife - he had four in all! )........
Although we did not make it for the neice's wedding, we still were able to watch the wedding ceremony on video.........
3rd Cousin gave us a nice dinner at the same restaurant where the wedding dinner was held.
then 3rd Cousin's family.....
4th Cousin's family
and....5th Cousin's family
First order of the day - a 'welcome lunch' organised at the Restaurant where 1st Cousin worked . It was a sumptuous seafood meal with lots of the classical cantonese dishes....
There were a lot of catching up to do - so much to tell each other, so many stories to share.....
We reluctantly ended the first 'reunion session' with a group photo.
At 4.00 pm, we were picked up for the trip to the town of Rongui where Cousin no. 3 stays. The town was nice and so was 3rd Cousin's house - very nice house indeed.........
it is a four-storey mansion, with great design, marble furnishing.........
a large koi pond and rose garden.....
a roof garden and a mahjong room complete with 'automatic tiles washing' mahjong table.... The catching up continued with more sharing of old tales, we especially enjoyed those related by old Uncle Loh, mum's brother (from grandpa's 3rd wife - he had four in all! )........
Although we did not make it for the neice's wedding, we still were able to watch the wedding ceremony on video.........
3rd Cousin gave us a nice dinner at the same restaurant where the wedding dinner was held.We had so much to eat, but more importantly were able to meet more relatives who turned up
to meet us....
After dinner it was back to 3rd Cousin's house where we took more photographs with each family......starting 1st Cousin's family
then 3rd Cousin's family.....
4th Cousin's family
and....5th Cousin's familyAfter that we went house visiting and ended the night with a nice 'Chinese Tea Party' at the nearby house of the sister of 3rd Cousin's wife.......
1 comment:
The story of your nostalgic trip to ShunDe was of gret interest to me. Not only am I from Shunde (well, actually my parents are from there, I was born in S'pore ;))but from RongGui as well. That makes us doubly close in roots, hahaha! My father was one of the founding members of the ShunDe Clan Association in Singapore. I represented Singapore at the 6th World Conference of ShunDe Worldwide Friendship Association in SanFrancisco in 2008. Cheers!
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