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One thing that I noticed about the coastal cities of China is that they are covered in a veil of perpetual smog. At first I thought it was just the morning fog, and should clear up if the day was sunny enough. But was I wrong or what. The ‘fog’ lasted all day, every day, and some days worse than others. Asking around the locals, I found out that the fog was actually caused by severe air pollution.

Lion Grove Garden (Shizilin) in Suzhou

This is not surprising considering the rapid industrialization that is going on in China now. It is sad to see that the conservation of the environment has taken a back seat in the name of progress.

You can still see the smog hovering in the skyline.

Although the pollution in China is pretty bad, you can still find pockets of greenery amongst the hustle and bustle of the city streets. The Lion Grove Garden was such a sanctuary nestle within the city of Suzhou. It was a welcomed relieve from the honking motorists and the exhaust-fumes belching cars and lorries.

Limestone rocks in strange formations. But where are the Lions?

This historical garden boast a labyrinthine rockery that is made up of limestone arranged ingeniously to look like lions in different postures and verves: playing, roaring, fighting, sleeping, or even dancing. This is actually how the garden derived its namesake. However, due to the changes and ravages of the time and climate, the rockery now only bears little resemblance to its original arrangement.

Fishing for fallen leaves.

Autumn is here.

Labyrinth of rocks

It wouldn’t be a Chinese garden without bamboos.

Let’s hope that this historical garden will not be replaced by a skyscraper anytime soon. With the dizzying pace of development in China, there is no guarantee. But if that do happen, we can be sure all that remains of modern China will be a forest of concrete building covered in a perpetual fog of smog.

A bunch of us went to this restaurant called ‘My Village Barok’ last weekend. It was on the other side of the Sarawak River, right opposite the Kuching Waterfront.

The short boat ride across the river only cost RM0.50, cheap and efficient. No life jacket was provided though. It was a good thing we didn’t hit any iceberg along the way.

I was pleasantly surprised by the unique kampung style decor and the relaxed atmosphere of the place. It beats your typical kopitiam in spades. There was even a live band performing traditional native tunes. But their rendition of the music had quite a distinct contemporary flavor to it. The music was actually pretty good and it nicely complements the whole ambiance of the place.

The only thing that bothered me about the place was their abysmally slow service. They were slow to take orders, slow to prepare, and slow to serve. But I guess when you have a restaurant that is ‘village themed’, everything is naturally gonna be slow paced. Maybe it is us city-folks that are to be blamed, forever trapped in our fast paced lifestyle, quick to point our fingers at those that can’t catch up.

So maybe we should take our hand off the fast-forward button of life, and slow down once in a while.

Many of us only know Sarawak Turf & Equestrian Club as the proprietor of the Special Cash Sweep or Big Sweep (大萬) lottery. They are one of the ‘Big Three’ gaming companies here in Sarawak, competing with Magnum 4D and Sports Toto.

Although the 3D+1 lottery is their main source of revenue, they also organize horse racing and the obligatory betting activities that comes with it. Their racetrack is right here in Kuching.

Situated around 10km away from Kuching City, the Turf Club’s racetrack can be seen right next to the main road going from Kuching to Kota Padawan. Just opposite the racetrack lies the 8th Mile Penrissen Army Camp.There is no fee for admission into the grand stand building. They even allow children to go in, so the spirit of gambling can be instilled on our future generations at a tender young age. Brilliant.

There were TVs up on the wall showing live footage of the current run on the track. Several counters were opened for the punters to get their betting tickets.For the record, I didn’t bet. And that’s not my hand holding a ticket. Honest.

The grand stand looked pretty run down. Wooden seats are worn out by the weather and the metal rails are all rusty. The whole place could use a fresh coat of paint too. This place sure ain’t no Ascot.

The tracks seemed somewhat maintained. At least they still trimmed the grass.

They have a manual scoreboard, updated only when the ‘pakcik’ have finished his tea break. Very old school.

The crowd was sparse but they still cheered enthusiastically for the steed of their choice as the horses galloped down the final furlong.

It wasn’t exactly a photo finish as the winner won by a mile. From the reactions of the disappointed punters, it’s safe to say that the biggest winner that day was none other than the Turf Club itself.Kaching kaching! $ucker$.

Last Sunday, bored and feeling bloated after a heavy lunch, Swee and I went looking for the Japanese Cemetery which we heard was located somewhere in the Batu Lintang area.

After a bit of searching, we found the cemetery, located just beside the Telekom buildings.

The cemetery is fenced. It’s partially fenced actually. The section of cemetery which borders a housing area is fenced but the section adjacent to the road is not. I think the fence serves to indicate the cemetery’s perimeter rather than to keep out intruders.

The entrance to the cemetery is in the form of a cement archway. The chinese characters at the upper portion of the archway denotes the name of the cemetery, which roughly translates to ‘Paradise Mountain’. The gate wasn’t locked so we let ourselves in.

Inside the cemetery, there are rows of neatly arranged graves with either stone or wooden headstones (or is it headwoods?). Just in front of the graves is a stone monument. The monument looks new compared to the headstones. The chinese characters on the monument means ‘Soul-Comforting Monument’. Pretty self-explanatory eh?

There are some flowers left on the monument, along with some sacrificial offerings.

Just next to the stone monument, there’s a smaller and older looking monument.

A ceramic plaque was affixed on the monument, explaining its origin.

The origin of a monument

During the Second World War when every able-bodied men had enlisted in the Japanese war efforts, a group of young boys fishermen aged 15-16 volunteered their service to help the country by ferrying food supply to Japanese Troops of the the Southern fronts.

These courageous boys were from the fishing port of Yaizu which was famous in Japan for its plentiful supply of bonito and tuna fishes.

In their tiny 50 tones worn out fishing boats the boys began ferrying food supply to the southern battlefronts.

Toward the end of the war when massive counter attacks by the Americans and the British had cause heavy defeats of the Japanese army, the young Yaizu fishermen took up arms to help defend their country.

The youthful hands which had only held fishing nets and had only been used for making KATUOBUSHI now held guns and firearms.

Between 1942-1945, 81 of the Yaizu boy fishermen lost their lives in the call of their patriotic duty.

On behalf of the war bereaved, we held this service to honor and pay our deepest respect for the brave boys and to pray for their eternal peace. This year of 1991.

(TAIJI SUZUKI)

The Chief Priest of YAIZU Shrine.

The cemetery looks pretty well maintained. Makes you wonder who is caring for a cemetery of full Japanese soldiers that died half a century ago.

Weird.