The year that was...2008

Forget about new year Resolutions. They never work and is not practical. Not Practical!

Rather than drawing up some unfulfillable resolutions, I'd rather think about what I've done and achieved in the yesteryear of 2008.

1. Completed my CLP in 1 sitting
2. Attended ATC's Grand Convocation the 2nd time
3. Started my pupillage
4. Attended my 1st company dinner
5. Went to Shanghai when the autumn season just started
6. Get tanned during my breath-taking summer holidays
7. Visited the disabled children's home in Taman Megah
8. Learnt how to do hair updos
9. Wore my 1st proper cheongsam
10. Had a mini reunion with the Bestarians 2002
    
11. Watched a European film
12. Going to Seremban for a dinner (for Christmas and Dongzhi festival)

And I've also compiled a pictures of my 'award winning' photos


Breathtaking aren't they?

And a peek into my whole year's compilation...


At least these memories are truly mine. Thank you 2008.

Hi 2009.. can you give me a SLR..please?

Bill of Cost, oh!

Now for the whole week, I'll be seeing Bill of Cost, eating Bill of Cost and sleeping Bill of Cost...

Blog oh blog...you remind me of my near holiday, hooray!

Shanghai, here we come!

The long awaited destination, Shanghai! Actually, we didn't get to see much of Shanghai except those I'm showing to you later. We've only been to Nanjing Street, Cheng Huang Miao, Huang Pu Jiang and The Bund (if I'm not mistaken). The following morning was in Song Ching Ling Memorial and some feng shui talk which ended up in coaxing us to buy the "Pi Xiu" and the last stop was at Tong Ren Tang medical hall.

The excitement of going into Shanghai

Observing Shanghaiese waiting for bus..hahah!

Nanjing Street where the rich does their shopping. According to the tour guide, it's a pre-national day, thus more people will crowd this area by 6pm. At the material time I took this picture was around 3pm.

One of the many shopping centres at Nanjing Street. I didn't like going in as it's very warm inside. Preferred to just walk on the street to enjoy the cool afternoon breeze and join the crowd. People there buy branded stuffs as though it's free of charge!


Took the mini tram which brought us tour the whole Nanjing street first. Cost about RMB2 per ride




Other side of the street. Manage to try the juicy pork bun. Something different from our pork bun back in M'sia.

Happiness in Nanjing Road is shortlived when we had to move on to Cheng Huang Miao, another shopping area and more affordable. It used to be a temple and old town in Shanghai.

Me at Cheng Huang Miao. We tried the Xiao Long Bao (which is actually quite big). Cost RMB12. For the extra plastic container to put the Bao, they charged RMB 1!!! Otherwise, it'll be too hot to hold with bare hands the Bao basket. How to eat: 1st, need to suck out all the gravy using straw. Eww...I was thinking all the fatty oils being channeled to my stomach. Then only you eat using chopsticks. I still prefer to eat mini Xiao Long Baos afterall.

The busy Cheng Huang Miao. According to the tour guide, Shanghainese would call this "Xiao Che Jie" meaning food street in direct translation.

They even have Starbucks! What a combination

After that, we had to rush off to Huang Pu Jiang as we're behind schedule to catch the ferry.

Here in this cruise, we'll get to see Pudong and Puxi and the beautiful Pearl Tower. At the cruise ship, I went on top of the deck. The atmosphere were so great that it felt like a cocktail party except that all of us were wearing jackets. At the same time, Fish Leong's song were being played. Made me feel so proud of being a Malaysian and a Chinese descent.

The Pearl Tower. One regret is that our tour did not provide us to go up the tower itself. Further, we didn't even go there per se. Only view from the cruise.

Puxi

The night ended at another Shanghai's old street where people used to stay there. Now turned into a cool western chill out place, like The Curve.


And then we're brought back to our hotel. Very cool hotel. Will tell you in the next post.

Suzhou

I'm a little bit outdated with my blog postings here regarding my trip to China 2 months ago ( 2 months!). However, my heart is still at China enjoying it's autumn/winter season. I longed to wear winter jackets and walk along the street displaying my imaginary pair of boots. Well, my physical is still stuck in Malaysia, particularly Kuala Lumpur.

Nevertheless, let's see where I've been in Suzhou.

A beautiful river where the lady would sing some old Suzhou folk songs while rowing the boat

Mini Venetta Ice-cream. Took forever to melt

Ou yuan is also known as the The Couple's Garden Retreat in Ping Jiang Road

This is one of the halls


The corridors to many rooms

This carvings is really marvellously done. 3D

The scenic pond in the house. Look at the clear reflections on water!

The hall proper


The old boats which will take us all back to the bus stand

Me and my mom enjoying the cruise

Listen to the lady sings

As we were heading off to another hotspot, I managed to catch this sunset. Do you remember that I took a photo of Hangzhou's sunrise?

Next stop--> Tian Du Qiao

Over here, 2 of our lucky tour members managed to buy all 4 bags of ginko at RMB10 each! Damn cheap!

Next morning, we visited the Silk factory

How does my new jacket looks like? Bought in Suzhou


Behind me, the Silk factory. I bought 2 silk pillows at total RMN480

Wish list..

Being a technology friendly person, I always took interest in what they have to offer. Below are the list of my wishlist so that anyone who intends to buy present for me can start saving up:

• SLR camera
• Dell inspiron mini laptop
• Sony Ericsson C905
• HTC PDA
• And a humble Perodua VIVA

Can I add a new pair Hush Puppies court shoes so that I can run up and down the courts comfortably and energetically.

The Chambee

Greet me...the 2 weeks old chambee. Everynight when I'm back home, all I can say is TIRED and SLEEPY. 

I miss everything about holiday. I miss holiday, i miss holiday...i miss Shanghai, eventhough the people there are ruder. But because during holiday i'm in such a perfect mood, I don't care about rudeness.

Goodbye, 'court shoes'!

Court shoes is the worst kind of invention for womenfolk to wear on their beautiful feet.  It causes sweaty feet and thus, blisters will come if you do not wear socks. Because of the elevated heels, women's standing posture is jeorpardized. 

Once the agony is felt, walking 1 metre seems like forever.

Hush puppies or not...it's all the same.

China Trip (Wuxi-Suzhou)

Good morning, Wuxi. Most of us were rudely awaken by the tv blasting away in our rooms. Why?

So please switch off your tv completely before going to sleep

Wuxi's morning was great with a visit to the Three Kingdoms City.

Since I've just watched Tony Leung's Battle of the Red Cliff not long ago (and eating meat burger with my eyes wide during the slaying scenes), I enjoyed my visit here.

I imagined that I'm the wife of either Zhuge Liang, Zhou Yu or Sun Quan or the sister or Sun Quan, Sun Shangxiang. I want to ride a horse and shoot bows!

But I'm just a tourist

This is how Liu Bei's chamber looks like

Zhuge Liang's modern wife holding a camera

Why do I chose Zhuge Liang and not Sun Quan or Zhou Yu? Because the character (in Battle of Red Cliff ) was acted by Takeshi Kaneshiro and he looks smart as Liu Bei's advisor. Ok, Chang Chen as Sun Quan is not too bad too. However, I can't stop thinking about the bedroom scene in Lust, Caution when I watched Tony Leung here.

The miniatures of Battle of Red Cliff

We were treated to a live show on how the battle of 3 kingdoms looks like

I still prefer the movie itself. The 'warlords' here look simply too young but they have good horse riding skill. At the same time, there were many (MANY) school kids with their teachers there as well for school trip. I saw a boy's bag were filled with packets and packets of sweets and chips. Good gracious! I wanted to ask him why is he bringing so many junk food on a healthy school trip.

Next, we had to board a battle ship in case Cao Cao came and attack us. It was in Lake Tai (of course the real battle wasn't held here).

Nice eh?

On the deck. We're supposed to be fighting against Cao Cao, not taking pictures.


Back to the peasants' life

Upcoming: Suzhou...

"Datuk" ?

Datuk Shah Rukh Khan? Read here.

Even Amber Chia hasn't got it and Michelle Yeoh took years to get it.

I still remember the movie Finding Mr.Perfect (2003) acted by Shu Qi, Simon Yam and Andy On were shot in Sutera Harbour, Kota Kinabalu and some beautiful island nearby. I'm sure Sabah's tourism (or at least Sutera Harbour's business) must have improved during that time. Yet, they were not conferred any Datukship until now.

Funny...funny.. *shakes head in disbelief.

China Trip (Nanjing-Wuxi)

On the 2nd day, we proceeded to Nanjing. Our 1st stop was at Yu Hua Tai. The historical park of Yu Hua Tai houses a monument built to commemorate the Chinese martyrs.

China's national anthem in 5 languages


There are actually some Feng Shui theories for such architecture and design of the park (about why there's a pool of water in the middle etc..), but because of my incompetency in mandarin, I'd rather have my readers to check wikipedia for more information.

After that, we proceeded to the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge.

One thing I like about Nanjing is the cool breeze. When we went up to the tower, the wind was blowing like anything, and I only brought a pashmina, which was of little use.

On this day itself, the temperature dropped to 22 degrees celcius. Cool!

Yangtze River

After that, we visited the war memorial (or mass grave of 300,000) during the Nanjing Massacre.

As a sign of respect, it's best not to take photographs. The excavated human bones were real.

And peace to the departed souls and the nation

After that, we proceeded to Wuxi for the night.