The Little Black Book

Beyond point of exhaustion

2010-05-03T22:13:00.002+08:00

Just the week before I flew to Mexico, I broke my record.
I managed to work continously for 4 days and 3 nights without sleep!
I don't know how I've survived this. Maybe it has to do with the marathon gaming sessions I had when I was younger. Litres of coffee helped as well.

My bosses knew, but we are really short of manpower. There was too much work to do, and I had to complete them before the flight.

Having to work for 2 days 2 nights straight is actually quite common, as the schedules are always very tight for this industry.
Most of the days, I finish work and reach home towards midnight, having to wake up at 6am to go to work again. Even on most weekends, it's the same process.

My in-laws and my kid came to Shanghai 2 months ago, so that my kid get to stay near her mom and dad. But I almost never get to see them because they are always asleep whenever I'm home. I get to see my daughter's cute smile only on rare occasions when I'm not at work. It's kind of ironic because I see them more often when they were in another city.
My work is taking too much time away from my family, and it's physically and mentally draining. On top of that, there's no OT pay for all these. Maybe it's time to look for a new job.

Plane crash near my hotel

2010-04-15T20:27:00.002+08:00

I'm in Monterrey, Mexico for biz.

Maybe I'm really suay. From the day I arrive, this city faced the biggest storm ever, flooding many roads as the drainage system cannot cope with the tons of water. Getting from places to places is inconvenient as many roads were closed.

And yesterday night, a plane crashed around 200M from my Hotel:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=123410§ionid=351020705

I'm lucky to be alive!

Blocked & Banned

2010-02-21T14:43:00.001+08:00

FYI, Blogger, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Vimeo, sensitive parts of Wikipedia, several western media websites, Myspace, etc are blocked in China.

Blogger has been banned for a year, which partly explains why I have not been blogging for so long.

For this, I have one thing to say to the Chinese authorities..... Thank you!

You have helped to free me from the shackles of the internet! No longer will I have to run my Facebook restaurant daily and checking in every few hours on Mafia wars to boost my stats. No longer will I spend precious time reading the mundane Facebook and Twitter updates ("XXX feels sick of work" "XXX is eating lunch" "XXX is in toilet making chocolate spirals"); or watching cat videos on Youtube.

Finally I'll have the time to spend on other time-wasting activities such as lazing ard in bed and staring at walls.

Thanks again!

blog entry 26 nov

2009-10-16T16:28:00.001+08:00

l Left/right hand drive, kept getting in from the wrong side whenever I return to Singapore.

l Applied for driving classes for local license, but didn’t go for it in the end coz of my transfer from TJ to SH. My wife stood in for me instead.

l For locals, they can pay someone else to take theory test for them for a small fee, quite a common practice. And medical checkups is not needed as all you need is to sign on the ‘completed’ form.

l Some already know how to drive (like my wife’s relative), but they’ve never get their license. They don’t have to go for lessons, and they get their license on the spot.

l Cost of cars here is damn cheap. Toyota vios is 60+K RMB, the same car costs ard 50+K Sing, that means for the same car in S’pore, I can get 4 cars in Tianjin with enough spare for a trip to HK disneyland

l Budden, even if got license, I still fear driving here. The traffic rules are largely ignored outside the city, and in some places, the traffic lights aren’t working.

l While turning at traffic light junctions, the vehicle has the right of way instead of the pedestrian in the case of s’pore. Very dangerous for first timers to cross the roads here.

l Traffic jams is atrocious, the choking smog is unbearable.

blog entry 25 nov

2009-10-16T13:10:00.000+08:00

I visited the dentist to get my wisdom tooth out

Hammer and chisel, 2 nurses vice-gripped my head – pounding in jaw – pounding in head

600rmb including X-ray, how much will It be in S’pore anyone know?

In Taiwan~

2009-10-14T01:32:00.003+08:00

Impression of Taoyuan (stayed for 2 days)

Lots of motorbikes, lots of Bing Lang meis, 24 hour Carrefour shopping, night markets, fried crispy chicken, mmmMMMmmm

Alicia is exactly 10 months old today.

2009-10-07T19:00:00.001+08:00

Alicia is exactly 10 months old today.
I just spent a week in Tianjin with my wife and daughter, who cried on the first day I entered the house.
It has been 2 months since we last met, she must have thought I was some strange uncle or something.
Thankfully, the bribes of toys and clothes from Hungary worked, and I was soon feeding and playing with her again.
Alicia has zero interest in the soft toys my wife bought for her.
Instead, she yearns to destroy any cardboard boxes/newspapers/magazines she set her eyes upon.
When we were in a relative's house, she ignored all the cute furry soft toys and went for the red plastic plane/large plastic fruits instead.
She is always full of energy; bouncing around the house on all furniture, screaming and throwing things around, Alicia is really a boy in disguise.

Back in S'pore

2009-10-07T18:45:00.002+08:00

Reached Changi 3 hours ago.
Am now in Bedok library replying company emails.
Company instructions are to remain contactable and respond quickly to emails.
Which means I am stuck in the library/cafe/McD's everyday in Singapore...

In Hungary~

2009-09-09T14:09:00.002+08:00

Finally escaped from the Great Firewall of China, where I can finally update my blog in peace. I'm in Budapest airport waiting for my transport. Laptop battery life is very low, and I've already combed the entire airport (airport is v small) but couldn't find suitable power points to juice up... So I'll continue in the hotel tonight then!

Overworked - body break down ...

2009-04-26T10:42:00.003+08:00

I'm currently resting at home. This is the first wkend I'm not at work.

This new project (new Blackberry model) has stretched me to my limits. When my body temperature shoots sky high and my limbs refused to move, I realised 'this is it, I need a break'.

I practically work from 7:30am to 11pm-12 midnight daily for the past couple of months, sometimes having to stay overnight in the factory to oversee the production of the prototypes. Sometimes I forgot which day is it since all my wkends and wkdays feels the same.

When my wife flew over to Shanghai for a short period of time, I had very little time for her. I feel sorry for her.

Maybe it's time for me to slow down a little. Maybe it'll have to wait till this project's finished.

Fatherhood

2009-01-19T09:56:00.004+08:00

Alicia is now 43 days old.
But it felt like she has been with us for much longer.
Maybe it’s because of the vast amount of time I spent feeding her, changing her diapers, cradling her to sleep. (Basically everything other than breastfeeding)
Time spent on carrying her, watching her grow bit by bit, thinking how wonderfully tiny and delicate her features are.
The same amount of time I would have otherwise spent on blogging, surfing net, watching movies, playing games, playing horn, reading books, shopping…
It's all just work and family now. Life will never be the same again.

From Little Black Book

Sometimes I’ll miss the old lifestyle, but when she’s in my arms, cooing, smiling, that depressing thought will vanish, the small sacrifice is all worthwhile.
This has been an amazing year. :)

China net nanny clamps down on bloggies again.

2008-11-25T10:03:00.001+08:00

It’s harder to blog nowadays. The China net nanny has clamped down on many websites again after the Olympics, which includes blogger. Facebook is abit cranky too; I have to hit the refresh button multiple times for each page to load properly.

I've been typing and saving blog entries in my office email and then upload it onto my blog whenever possible.

The road to work - boring routine

2008-11-21T15:59:00.007+08:00

Route to work:

Click for enlarged map

1. Home
- Wake up at 5:30am.
- Wash up, slap plenty of moistening lotion onto face (The cold freakingly dry weather here will cause unprotected skin to shrivel up like prunes)
- Change into work clothes quietly while lovely wife sleeps soundly
- Make breakfast (usually Chinese roast buns and tea-eggs, and non-melamine milk)
- Give wife goodbye kiss without waking her
- Pull on gloves, scarf and woolen cap before heading out of the door

2. Route to company bus stop
- Stunned by the sudden drop in temperature when stepping out into the open.
- Walk across the carpark towards the exit of my residential estate
- Attempt to cross the first road outside the exit, trying to avoid speeding cars not sticking to their lanes, and taxi drivers who’ll startle you with their loud car-horns and jam-brake right in front of you while you are halfway across the road, hoping that you’ll take their cab instead.
- Walk across the park next to a river, taking fewer breathes and speeding up my pace to avoid the watery stench, a result of people using the river as a make-shift toilet.
- Another road crossing again, repeat process of avoiding irritating taxi drivers who try to block your way across with their cabs.
- Reach a noisy underpass, a passing freight train roars overhead.
- Concrete walkway narrows down to a dirt path right next to a road and a massive construction site for the future metro station.
- Road is caked with centuries of dirt layers; passing vehicles kick up massive clouds of choking dirt and dust. Pull scarf over nose and mouth. Try to see the way forward through the smog, with blurred squinting eyes.
- Have to look up to avoid low-hanging high-voltage electrical cables.
- Cross busy road junction, jumping out of the way of speeding bicycles and vehicles that seem to be everywhere. No traffic lights here.
- Reached the safety of the company bus.

3. Company bus
- Sleep/Watch movies/Read newspapers or comics throughout the 2 hours journey
- Get annoyed by passenger in front of me who lower the backrest until it reach my thighs
- Snore on bus, irritating other passengers

4. Route home after work
- Route to company bus in reverse, only worse due to after work peak hours.

Cool 'fighting game'

2008-11-05T22:43:00.001+08:00

V nice

John Williams tribute - 'Star Wars'

2008-11-05T22:34:00.000+08:00

This is pure genius

Updates updates

2008-10-28T11:41:00.005+08:00

In case some of my friends still hasn't known about it, my kid's due in early December!

Woohoo~! I'm a Papa liao!

Don't ask if the baby's a boy or girl becoz I still don't know yet. The hospitals here have strict rules about revealing the sex of the baby (in case of abortion due to the one child policy), and also, I'd rather wait for the surprise at the end of the 9 months wait.

My wife and I went splurging on baby stuff over the past few weeks. Baby cot, milk bottles, bedding, bathing oils and lotion etc. It's very convenient here to purchase baby stuff online (http://www.lijiababy.com.cn/ and http://www.leyou.com/). We checked out the quality of their stuff at their outlets before buying them online. Free delivery provided . Baby stuff are cheaper here compared to S'pore's, other than milk powder.

Speaking of milk powder, there's the melamine scare now. We are lucky that our baby will be drinking safe milk by the time he/she's born.

My wife and I are reading lots of pregnancy/baby related books and mags. I highly recommend books from the American Academy of Pediatrics, especially 'Your Baby's First Year'. Their books are quite cheap and are chock-full of useful and practical information.

Craziness in learning English

2008-10-28T11:03:00.003+08:00

I've been on my futile search for bookstores selling English books ever since I moved to Tianjin.

Last week, I was in Tianjin Books Building. It is this gigantic 7 storey high mega-bookstore, unlike anything that's found in Singapore. There's really lots of books of almost every kind there.

On the ground floor, there’s a huge section on books and multimedia stuff about learning the English language. I asked a shop assistance if there are English novels or books, there are none. Only the English language learning materials. This reminded me of the libraries I’ve visited in Shanghai where English books cannot be found as well.

What’s the use if someone has finally ‘learnt’ English but there aren’t any English stuff to read?

'Heroes', 'Prison Break', Desperate Housewives', etc, these are some of the English Language learning materials out there. Will this really help you pick up the language? Ask any person who watches Korean and Japanese dramas.

I received a company email offering massive discounts for company staff to attend English language learning courses (in China). The 3 months beginner course costs around S$3000! Well above what the locals earn actually.

The search for English books continue...

Goodbye Shanghai, Hello Tianjin

2008-10-01T15:16:00.000+08:00

It’s been almost 1.5 years since I started work in Shanghai…
Hence there was a bit of reluctance when I boarded the plane on a one-way trip to Tianjin.
Goodbye friends, goodbye Shanghai. I’ll miss this place.

Oktapodi

2008-09-06T09:02:00.000+08:00

Olympics so far - metro security

2008-08-24T01:06:00.003+08:00

The closing ceremony for the summer Olympics is less than a day away. So far the Olympics has been pretty good. In China, you can watch from around 3 to 5 tv channels which are showing different events live. Other than the Olympics, security around participating cities like Shanghai has been 'tight'.

Let's just talk about the metro security first. I think it's a damn big failure in Shanghai, it's like a big Wayang. The old security guards at the entrance would pick people at random carrying bags, place a metal detector against each bag, and then let the person go. My bag always has a laptop inside and the detector never beeped. It never detect anything from other passengers as well. I later found out that the thing was turned off all the time!

Sometimes the guards would ask me to go to a counter to open up my bag, but they never ever bothered to even take a peek inside to see the contents. There was even once when a guard checked just the smallest side pocket of my bag without opening the main compartment. What's the point of all these 'work' if not done properly?

And metal detectors can't detect explosives right? There are numerous times when I see passengers bringing buckets of paint onto the train. There was even once when I saw an auntie carrying a 2 litre bottle of cooking oil onto the train. Why are these allowed? Security and safety is heavily compromised here.

Claymation Zombie killing maid

2008-08-23T00:27:00.001+08:00

Lots of red ... clay. Not for the squeamish.

Olympics opening ceremony

2008-08-09T08:50:00.003+08:00

I'm watching the repeated telecast now. Ya. My second time watching this spectacular event.

The Chinese people have really topped themselves with this truly epic performance. You can see the immerse pride of the people here in China. They really go all out to put on the best show ever. Though the money spent may have gone to better use ba..

There are really tons of stuff I like about the opening ceremony, actually I love about almost Everything about yesterday's memorable night.

Minor gripes:
- The poor cheerleaders on high heels who started out jumping, clapping and dancing during the beginning of the parade of athletes. And they pretty much ran out of gas towards the end of the exhausting parade.
- The repetitive music during the parade of athletes. Okay, there are 4 music groups performing (bagpipes?? Why??), but the parade was so long that they have long exhausted the list of music they can perform.
- And ya, the parade of athletes felt like an interruption to director Zhang's magnificent 'movie' in the bird nest.

But still, I love the opening ceremony. Especially the fireworks (from the country which invented them)! How I wish to watch the entire thing live...

Olympics~! It's finally here!

2008-08-09T00:54:00.003+08:00

In Shanghai, or China for that matters, the summer Olympic games is a really BIG thing. Turn on the TV and there'll confirm be a few Olympic themed gameshows, concerts, documentaries etc. There's even an Olympics channel which for the past few months have been broadcasting China and her athlete's preparations for the games. Almost all advertisements here attempts to relate to the Olympics.

Just now on my way home from work (ended earlier coz colleagues wanna go home to catch the opening ceremony), the streets are almost bare with few vehicles. Alot of shops are closed. Everyone's home, glued to the tv sets to witness the first ever Olympic games held in their homeland.

And ya, the opening ceremony is truly spectacular. From the heat pounding electrifying drums segment, to the final lighting of the Olympic flame, the opening ceremony is truely an epic! And not forgetting the tons and tons of fireworks exploding in the air throughout the ceremony. You can't help but think that this must be the most expensive event every held in China, ever. Really, no expenses is spared. From the construction of the Olympic venues (bird nest, water cube, Olympic village, etc), and the improvements to the environment by limiting cars on the road by half, and making factories stop production etc. This economic loss is not small. But the results is nothing but spectacular. And with the Sichuan earthquake disaster which happened only a few months ago, one can't help but be impressed with the resilience of the people here.

And I'm sure everyone's glad that the Opening ceremony ended successfully. The constant terrorist threat is an unresolved problem.

My wish is for the games to continue smoothly and safely ba.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

2008-07-27T10:05:00.002+08:00

Randy Pausch a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. This is a video of his 'last lecture', a talk modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk," i.e., "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?"

No more plastic bags

2008-07-26T04:41:00.003+08:00

A month ago, China made a bold decision to restrict the use of plastic bags to cut down on waste. Plastic bag waste (or 'white pollution' as the locals call it here, coz most plastic bags are white) takes centuries to break down and the usage rate is tremendously high. So by restricting the usage, hopefully it'll cut down land waste significantly.

If you shop in supermarkets or other retail stores, you have to bring your own bag, or you can purchase one of those recyclable carrier bags to carry your groceries in. Plastic bags are still available but they are no longer given free. A fee of ten cents to a dollar is needed to pay for each bag.

Although initially, the move brought inconvenience to shoppers, but everyone adapted pretty fast, and payment for plastic bags became rare as there are numerous cheap and attractive carrier bags around.

I hope S'pore follows suit. This requires a slight change in habit, but a little change goes a very long way in saving the environment.

Next up, I hope China will do away with disposable chopsticks in all eateries. They are really a big waste of wood, and it's easy to carry a pair along with you for meals.

Super duper hot and uncomfortable in Shanghai

2008-07-09T19:57:00.007+08:00

It has been around 38 degrees here in Shanghai over the past few days.
The best description for summer here would be the word 'sticky'.

Oh, and you tend to wake up at 5 in the morning coz the sky's already bright.
When it was my first summer here a year ago, I used to wake up thinking that I'm late for work because of the sunlight filtering through the window curtains, and then when I finally got out of the house, I glance at my watch and head back to bed for another couple of hours.

Ok, back to the word 'sticky'. It's hot like Singapore. But the feeling is v different. The air here is terribly stuffy and still. You sweat really alot, and yet all that sweat doesn't make you feel cooler, but rather the sweat functions more like a dust magnet. Thus you end up uncomfortably drenched in sticky dusty smelly sweat everyday.

What's worse is that this is also the mass breeding season for mosquitoes (do they breed in pools of sweat from pedestrians?). And boy are there so many of them. At some places, you can catch dozens of those pesky insects by just waving a piece of cloth around.

On Friday night I stayed in my colleagues place. And because we are all expats, none of us knew how to protect the house from mosquitoes. One of us left a window open because the room was so hot and stuffy, and you can see a dark cloud of migrating insects being welcomed into the room. I slept in the living room, which is a bad bad choice, as mosquitoes were attracted by the dumb human offering himself as a free-for-all buffet. I must have killed more than a dozen mozzies with my well-bitten hands. In the end, I just gave up and wore my winter long sleeve jacket which was still lying around there, and carried on sleeping. I'd rather sweat to death then to be bitten swollen without rest.

Now I appreciate the fogging sessions in S'pore...

Bling Bling

2008-07-08T23:03:00.001+08:00

Bling Bling Ring Ring Armani Watches~

I miss my wife ...

Living in Shanghai - Bookz and stuff

2008-07-05T23:21:00.003+08:00

I think I've blogged about this before, but I'll say it again. One thing I really really miss about Singapore is the accessibility of our national libraries. The National Library Board has done a great job in making visiting libraries so easy and simple. In a way, the NLB succeeds in fostering a nationwide reading habit amongst citizens.

In Shanghai however, libraries are hard to come by. I've visited some of the libraries here, but the selection of books are very limited. So far none of the libraries here have English books, which I find pretty weird. I would have thought that a nation so bent on picking up the English language would have made English reading materials much more accessible.

In the bookstores, the only books that can be readily found in the English language section are the western classics. Other than that, there's only a very small selection of other imported books with imported prices.

Luckily, you can always turn to the street vendors peddling pirated books! In fact, they usually have a better collection of books than the usual bookstore.

Most of my books are now in Tianjin, here's a few I've bought recently. The difference between the pirated books and the original ones is only the quality of paper and binding used. And each book costs only between 15 to 20 RMB (S$3-4)! At such prices, I would freely mark phrases using my highlighter or jot down notes in the books without feeling guilty. :p

The Muppets pays homage to America's July 4th

2008-07-05T09:20:00.002+08:00

The Muppets pays homage to America's 232nd Independence day.
I wonder why the Swedish chef is involved in this ...

Damning noise from upstairs

2008-07-05T08:34:00.002+08:00

As I'm typing this, my neighbours directly upstairs are renovating their apartment. I really don't know if it's the materials chosen for the construction of China's buildings. But whatever they are doing upstairs, the noise gets amplified and reverberates throughout my entire house. No room in my house is safe. The same deafening noise can be heard in my bedroom, in the living room, in the kitchen, anywhere.

I don't know if there's a noise limit imposed by the local government. The constant drilling noise from a dozen or so power-drills is causing me headaches every weekend. No kidding, the noise is really really LOUD. I can turn my tv to the highest possible volume and I still can't hear the tv above the noise. I can't even hear my own alarm clock or my phone when it rings! Everything in my house is vibrating coz of the noise. Place a glass of water on the desk and you'll see ripples forming.

Many times I've wondered if my ceiling is really paper-thin. And I'm terrified of having my ceiling plaster falling apart with all the violent activities going on above.

I would not have complained if it lasts only for a short while. But the bloody renovations always starts at 8am on a weekend and lasts till the night. And since the contractors are the hardworking type, they never stop drilling. The only time I get some relief is when they are taking their lunch break.

This is already the second weekend of construction. Last week, I simply spent my day outside. But today I just want to sleep at home. I've already forgo sleep for 2 days at my supplier's place, just to get them to deliver goods on time. Now when that ordeal is finally over and when I can have some rest, I have to deal with This.

My next door neighbours had gone up to complain about the noise an hour ago. The noise is so loud that they are affected as well. But in China, complain always leads to loud shouting matches which inevitably doesn't solve any problems. After the argument upstairs, the noise began again. Somehow I feel that the noise level is higher, maybe they wanna spite the person who complained. I'm the direct casualty...

History of the super soaker

2008-07-04T22:49:00.002+08:00

I was web surfing when I found this gem. Ahh, nostalgic memories ... it made watering plants fun, as well as giving showers to stray animals ...

http://www.isoaker.com/Info/history_supersoaker.html

Our Wonderful Nature

2008-06-29T22:37:00.000+08:00

Link: sevenload.com

Pretty damn funny~

Looking for work in Tianjin~!

2008-06-29T18:11:00.002+08:00

Hi, I've decided to settle down in Tianjin permanently for the next couple of years. Hence I need to look for work there, preferably in TEDA (Tianjin Economic - Technological Development Area).

Anyone got work lobangs in Tianjin (or Beijing)?
Please lemme know hor. :)

Wedding banquet in TJ ~

2008-06-29T14:42:00.003+08:00

Last Saturday, I was in Tianjin for our wedding banquet. It's was the happiest day recently, not only because of the wedding, but mainly because my wife and I have not met each other for weeks, hence the reunion was a very happy one for us.

The banquet is a small but heart warming affair; 6 tables of relatives and close colleagues squeezed into Tianjin Sheraton's small function room. All the ladies have to wear the red 'double happiness' decoration on their hair (see photo). My wife and I walked around the tables the entire night, entertaining guests. We greeted everyone. Older relatives will give red packets to us, and we have to give red packets to the kids present. Everything else is just like the wedding banquets at home.

Msn me if anyone wants to see the wedding photos. Some of the photos are posted in my facebook account. :)

I thank my beloved wife for organising everything in Tianjin

Naps are important~

2008-06-19T02:54:00.003+08:00

Studies and research has been done (on myself) and shown that taking short afternoon naps is a sure-fire way of keeping the rest of your day fully awake. I took lots of afternoon naps during university too! Each nap usually last an hour and it always starts when the lecturer starts talking. End result => longer hours playing games late at night! So it works.

Here's the 'official' study on taking afternoon naps vs long night sleep vs coffee
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/33058/title/Take_a_nap

How to take naps for beginners (click image for larger view)

Sebastian's Voodoo

2008-06-15T10:52:00.001+08:00

A neat animation about a voodoo doll's sacrifice to save his friends.

Watch the high res version here (link)

Having watched the clip, it makes me wanna go out there to get a doll myself, to pin whoever that has stolen my stuff....

Stolen...

2008-06-15T07:59:00.004+08:00

It's been a horrible week. Nothing is smooth on the work front; being reprimanded by managers, possibility of being sacked maybe. Is it my fault that projects which had gone horribly wrong and on the verge of failing were assigned to me? Expecting me to deliver a miracle in a few days? Actually I've made the miracle happened in just 3 days of hard work. But then I was blamed for the 'failure' BEFORE I took over the projects. This is SO unfair and ridiculous. Anyway, this is not the main focus of the blog post.

I'm now a couple of thousand dollars poorer.
It happened yesterday at my supplier's place.

I was there to ensure prompt delivery of goods to our plant.
I was given a meeting room to do my work in.
I received a phone call to review a production process, so I left the room, turning off the lights and closed the door.
When I got back an hour later, my company's laptop and my bag are GONE.
I asked the receptionist and the security, and some of the factory staffs combed the meeting rooms again.
Nothing turned up.
We made our way to the security room to review the camera tapes.
From the tapes, we spotted a blurred image of someone hiding behind the frosted wall panes:
After hiding for a couple of minutes
He walked across towards the door, holding an umbrella to hide his face, and closed the door.
He then turned off all the lights in the corridor.
We can't see anything else after that.
There's an exit where he's hiding, which should be where he left after taking my stuff.

The factory staff drove me to the nearest police station to make a report.
The officers attending to me is nice and friendly.
They said it's to foster S'pore-China relations.
They told me that their station chief is informed of this and promised to work hard in solving this case.
I only hope to get my data and documents back.

I lost my company's laptop,
my fuji F10 camera,
my passport and plane ticket to Tianjin next wk (for my wedding banquet)
my 2 4Gig thumbdrives with all my work,
company's uniform, id tag, etc
4000rmb...

I even lost my house keys, and had to stay in a cheap motel until I get a replacement today. I've been wearing the same clothes for 2 days.

Lousy day indeed.

Skiving at work~

2008-06-09T11:59:00.002+08:00

These should be useful for friends who needs an excuse to take a break from work. Not that I use these stuff anyway :p

Fake Progress Bar
http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/fakebar.html

Online novels made to look like powerpoint presentations
http://www.readatwork.com/

Happy Dragon Boat Fest~!

2008-06-08T14:03:00.003+08:00

端午节(duan wu jie), or more commonly known as the dragon boat festival, is now officially declared as China's national holiday. So that means no work on Monday. Yeaaaa~~~

But without my wife by my side, having the holiday feels so meaningless...

Happy holidays to all my China friends.

十味观 (shi wei guan) restaurant

2008-06-07T09:09:00.004+08:00

Since we are now on the topic of restaurants (see prev post), I might as well introduce one of the must go places whenever my S'porean friends come visiting. For this the credit goes to my wife, who brought me there last year.

The restaurant is located in central Shanghai, and is famous for its soup dumplings. The Discovery Channel had once featured them before. How do I know this? It's practically written everywhere in the restaurant. On the menu, in the free restaurant introductory booklets, on posters put up around the entrance,etc. Not that it's bad or anything. And the food is not too bad. It's one of those restaurants that I know will appeal to S'poreans.

(photo from online source)

The 2 must-try dishes in the restaurant is the 五色汤包 (5 colour soup dumplings) and the 蟹粉大汤包 (crab flavoured large soup dumpling). Each of the coloured dumplings is of a different flavour: herbal, Shanghainese, foie gras, crab, and vege. The large soup dumpling is like a thin bag of soup. There's no way to pick it up without breaking the skin and have the soup spill out. The only way to eat (or drink) it is to bite a hole in the skin nearest to the edge of the plate, and suck out the soup first. A pretty interesting and memorable experience I may add.

Dong fang ... what???

2008-06-07T08:30:00.003+08:00

This is a KFC subsidiary fast food restaurant found across China. Pronounced as 'Dong Fang Ji Bai'. I wonder if there are restaurants in Fujian, coz the Hokkian people will definitely have a great laugh over the name.

"I dun wan Eastern one, I want Western one"

For clueless friends, please ask anyone around you who can speak Hokkien vulgarities. :p

Spreading Spam ...

2008-06-06T23:36:00.002+08:00

I had spam for dinner yesterday.
Okay, that's besides the point. What I want to talk about is the amount of spam in my mailbox each day.

I have plenty of well-meaning friends who have the constant urge to spread the word about some shocking information someone else had spread to them. They were so shocked that they can't control their fingers on the mouse and automatically forward the 'news' to everyone else on the contact list. It's like a mutated chain letter. Only that you don't need to spend time and money mailing them out. One thing about these spam mails, is that they are almost always not true. A little common sense and logical thinking will suffice in stopping useless junk from flooding your friend's mailbox.

Anyway, I have to admit, I do enjoy reading some of the ridiculous untruths and revel in the idiocy. Here's some of the most recent stuff from my mailbox:

KFC has been a part of our American traditions for many years.
Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously.
Do they really know what they are eating?
During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire,
they found some very upsetting facts.

First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently,
the company has changed their name?
Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC.
Does anybody know why?
We thought the real reason was because of the 'FRIED' food issue.

IT'S NOT! !

The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore.
Why? KFC does not use real chickens.
They actually use genetically manipulated organisms.
These so called 'chickens' are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies
to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure.
They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet.

Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them.
This is great for KFC.
Because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs.
There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet.
The government has told them to change all of their menus
so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this.

Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken.
I find this matter to be very disturbing.

I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know.
Please forward this message to as many people as you can.
Together we make KFC start using real chicken again.

Deidre Williams
Mis Tech, Boston/Hingham
Boston (617) 6...
Hingham (781) 740-1600 ext.112

This mail was accompanied by photos of featherless chickens, though thankfully they have their beaks on. Maybe those are prosthetic noses, who knows.

It's easy to see how much of a hoax this is by the sheer ridiculous-ness of it all. Snopes (link) provides a good and detailed account of this.

Here's another one:

*Interesting thing to know....*

PIN NUMBER REVERSAL (GOOD TO KNOW)

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your Pin # in reverse.

For example if your pin number is 1234 then you would put in 4321. The ATM recognizes that your pin number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine.

The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.

This information was recently broadcasted on TV and it states that it is seldom used because people don't know it exists.

*Please pass this along to everyone possible.*

Best regards,

Sean Phua
Customer Service Officer
Call Centre
CISCO
Hotline: 1800-747 2888 / (65) 6747 2888
Fax: (65) 6! 744 0039
www.cisco.com.sg

Actually the method is 'seldom used' because it's not implemented in the first place.
Although it may sound like a good idea, but to ask a frightened girl to remember her pin in reverse while someone's stalking her is not feasible. And what are you supposed to do after that? Wait at the atm machine until the police shows up much later?
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/reverse-pin-ATM.shtml
http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/pinalert.asp
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_reverse_pin.htm
http://urbanlegendsonline.com/emails/panicpin.html

Well, the websites above are good places to start in verifying a spam email. Some have been around for many years (since email was invented), each time a new mutation will pop out. Luckily, most of these spams are pretty harmless (putting you off KFC does great for your diet).

Creative ad for the Zurich Chamber Orchestra

2008-06-06T23:07:00.000+08:00

Married life, wife's absence...

2008-06-04T22:52:00.001+08:00

It's been a long while since I've blogged about my life. Not that anyone would wanna read it anyway.

Here's a brief summary of what has happened in the last few months:
I've bid farewell to my singlehood. I'm now a married man.

So besides work, most of my time was spent with my beloved wife. And in order to do that, I had to spend at least 4 hours on the bumpy crowded bus, transiting between our home and work. Blogging got kicked down the priority list to near bottom, along with 'learning guitar' , 'watch purchased dvds', and all that stuff which I've never got around doing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. Being together with the woman I love most is the best thing that has ever ever happened in my mundane life. A tiny sacrifice won't hurt much.

Oh, I just remembered. Some of my wedding photos are in my Facebook album (just click the facebook button on the bottom right). There are more photos to bore you with if you ask me for it. Kidding.

So there. I'll probably blog more over the next few days, coz my wife's was sent to Tianjin for work assignment... I miss her already

Do make use of the chat box on the right to let me know what you r interested in knowing, so that I'll have an idea what to blog about the next time. Okay?

In the meantime, cheerios.

Famous opera tunes

2008-06-04T17:50:00.001+08:00

Got these vids from Neatorama (link)

Pretty nice

Amy walker's 21 accents

2008-05-23T00:16:00.003+08:00

Why no Singlish in there? :p

I love the world

2008-05-11T12:08:00.000+08:00

I love this ad too!

Lousy phone reception ...

2008-03-27T23:20:00.002+08:00

Phone reception here sucks.

For every 10 phone calls you make,
5 will not get through for these reasons:
- Network failure (displayed on screen)
- automatically hangs up before the call connects
- 'Sorry, the number you have dialed is not available'

for those that managed to get through, there'll be other problems:
- automatically hangs up
- neither party can hear what the other person's saying
- you speak into the phone, only to hear your own voice in the phone earpiece

For most of my phone calls that gets through, it'll always end up with lotsa 'Hullo's'.
'hullo?' 'hullo?' 'call hear me?' ' hullo?'

I miss s'pore's 99% coverage ... hahaha

Snow in Shanghai ... and flight delays

2008-02-05T22:06:00.000+08:00

Haven't had the time to blog... work takes up majority of my time. Anyway now that I'm back in S'pore this week for CNY holidays, here's the first update for year 2008!

I took this photo as I dragged my luggage out of the door, on the day of my flight home a few days ago. It's the first time Shanghai has snowed so heavily. My colleagues and friends had fun building snowmen and throwing snowballs, while the rest of China kenna the worst snow disaster in recent history.

As I pulled my luggage behind me, I was also dragging large piles of snow along, v tiring. Cabs crawled slowly on the icy, slippery road, all occupied. I managed to hail a cab after a long wait.

At the airport, I found out that the flight's been delayed. The airport staff let us board the plane 2 hours after the initial boarding time at noon. I fell asleep as soon as I got into my seat.

When I woke up, it was 2:30pm. Looking around, I was shocked to see that the plane was still on the ground! So it turned out that the planes have to queue up to take off from Pudong airport due to the icy weather. There was only one de-icing machine. So the passengers waited patiently.

At 4:30pm, it was announced that we are the second plane to take off. Everyone was glad that we were finally taking off.

At around 6pm, we sensed that something's not quite right. Some passengers went to investigate the delay, and found out that other airline companies had paid to fly off first. Our airline company refused to pay, and hence we won't be flying off. A quick look outside the plane window show that only our airline planes had remained while the rest are long gone. The passengers are angry, S'poreans especially. One lady stood up to scream at the flight attendents: "I WANT TO GET OFF THE PLANE NOW! NOW! NOW!", another shouted "I WANT TO SEE HU JIN TAO!", some shouted "WHERE GOT ICE? HOW COME I DON'T SEE ICE?". All s'poreans.

The matter was finally resolved, though no one know how. Coz we were finally taxi-ing off to the take-off lane for de-icing at 8:30pm.

I reached S'pore on Sunday morning at 1:30am.

Happy New Year in advance~

2007-12-31T12:28:00.000+08:00

It's a pretty good year for me so far. Worked in a bookstore, now working overseas, made lots of new friends, and I finally met someone to give my love to.

I've not abandon my blog yet. The main reason why the blog posts dropped is becoz my housemates and I have cancelled the internet service at home. The internet was too slow and disconnect too often to justify the high price we paid. But coming January, I'll have internet again, and I'll post photos up again! Especially of my recent Hong Kong X'mas trip with my gal. Looking forward to blogging again!

"Extra" ingredients in my food.

2007-12-12T20:26:00.000+08:00

My company staff, irregardless of senior engineers, management or entry level operators, have our meals in the same canteen.

The canteen works like this, we queue up and move along while caterers dumps semi-food into our metal trays like a conveyor belt. Kinda like those prison movies you see.

Anyway, I was hungrily eating away, when I spotted a brown rock in the pile of green vegetables on my tray. Upon closer inspection, the swirl patterns on the rock and the slime-like meat hanging at the end confirmed that the rock was actually a snail.

One of the caterers saw the offensive thing and rushed over, offering to clear my tray and replace my food. I refused, mainly because I'm already full (servings here are huge), and also because the replacement food would have come from the same source anyway. So the caterer pushed lotsa fruits into my arms while apologising.

What's amusing is that the exact same thing happened yesterday, at the same canteen. I had found a small snail along with a large insect in my food, and I got lotsa fruits in return too.

I wonder if that's a form of bribing, coz the canteen caterer was responsible for a mass food poisoning a couple of weeks back.

Maybe I should complain. Maybe I'll complain when I get third time lucky with snails.

V v v v v busy nowadays ....

2007-12-08T02:49:00.000+08:00

It's really hard to find time to blog nowadays.

My workload is pretty heavy. I'm typing this at almost 3am in the morning, and I'm still in the factory. Currently I just want to take a break before going back to work soon.

Whatever time I spend away from work, it'll be spent alone with her.

Well, I don't get enough sleep each day, but I'm not complaining.

Sidetrack: Watched Snow Show here in Shanghai finally, coz I missed the performance when it was in S'pore a couple of years ago.

Winter soon in Shanghai

2007-11-18T16:37:00.000+08:00

I was shopping with friends today, and it was noticeably colder than the last few days. We were near Yaohan, where you can hear 'Backstreet's back' from the boom boxes attached to the bicycles of audio cd vendors peddling their wares. Apparently, Backstreet boys is terribly popular here, becoz you'll hear their music EVERYWHERE, as if they are the only English language singers around.

Walking along the peddlar-filled street with trinkets, worn clothing, pirated books, sad adorable puppies, paintings spread all over, leaving little room to manoeuvre around. The crowd there are mainly young people in fashionable clothes, girls wearing thick furry coats while wearing mini-skirts, exposing their thighs to the coldness.

We were wearing at least 2 layers of clothing plus a jacket, but it wasn't enough to keep the cold out tonight. Time to get a thicker insulated down-filled jacket. Ever since the weather got cooler last month, I had been spending alot of money on jackets, long sleeved t-shirts, thick socks etc, as well as winter blankets and heaters for my bedroom. Weather reports states that there will be a sudden drop in temperature soon. It's a heavy investment for winter. And I'll spend more over the next few days.

Happy day~~~~

2007-11-10T02:31:00.000+08:00

o {o}
( )\/[ ]
][ ][

Funny thai ad

2007-11-08T00:50:00.001+08:00

Unlucky weekend for factory 8

2007-11-06T23:21:00.000+08:00

Factory 8 in my company is notorious for having the highest accident rate amongst the entire company. But last weekend, it took the top prize for being the unluckiest place to be as well.

Last friday, 2 of the factory girls fought, and the girls called for backup from outside. The police had to be brought in to settle the dispute. Later in the evening, it was announced that a girl was killed in a road accident. A truck had ignored the red light and crashed into the poor girl on her bike. She was seventeen. On Sunday, the factory had a food poisoning outbreak, 100+ girls had serious diarrhoea and a doctor was called in. Talk about suay.

Part time tour guide~

2007-10-31T02:02:00.000+08:00

Last week, some of my friends visited Shanghai, and I was their tour guide.

ML came with S'pore Chinese Orchestra, who took part in the Singapore Senses, part of the arts festival in Shanghai. I brought ML to the Nanjing East road and the bund on the first night, and brought her friends along to shop on the second night. Basically they were looking for a place for good food and shopping for clothes, so I brought them to Zheng Da (Super brand mall).

SH and her colleague came the next day.

Because they want to see Shanghai within a day, I planned a super compressed tour from 7pm (after dinner) to midnight! Basically we were just rushing from venue to venue via cab. But we managed to cover the entire Nanjing east street, the Bund, the shopping in Zheng da, took photos of the pearl tower, shopped for pirated stuff near Yaohan, ate at the famous snacks paradise street on wu jiang road, and to Xin Tian Di! That's basically most of the important landmarks in Shanghai, and we did it in an impressive 5 hours. Of cos that also means limited shopping and resting time though.

I hope they had an enjoyable time here.

OMG~, Youtube's Blocked in China~

2007-10-22T03:00:00.000+08:00

And blogspot is now unblocked.
Wikipedia is still blocked.
Why do they have to block youtube? There's like so many video sharing websites around! Sianz

Toronto trips, in details

2007-10-22T01:59:00.000+08:00

Trust me, it's not an enjoyable trip. 17+ hours of flying, 2 hours transit to rush through customs procedures, sleep in the hotel for 5 hours, take another 17+ hours back to Shanghai. Repeat the process 3 times (more to come). You'll bound to end up with a severe headache from the ever-changing timezones, from airplane food overdosage, and mindless watching of the same repeated movies. You'll get severe cramps from the same sitting position for hours. It's pure torture.

Okay, questions:

What am I doing in Toronto?

Delivering mobile phone parts to customers here.

Why not DHL or Fedex?

They take longer to deliver. Hand-carrying is 1-2 days faster. The customers needs them very urgently.

Why me?

I'm holding S'porean passport, meaning visa is not needed for many countries, including Canada. My colleagues (including M'sians) needs to apply for visa to visit Canada, which will take up weeks of admin time.

My first trip there was a disaster. Being the first time visiting the country, I have to go to the immigration counter. I queued for 5 fricking hours in a relatively short but non moving line!
Processing the first person took about an hour, and only one counter was opened. The counter was then unmanned for half an hour before another officer came. People in the line complained, I asked the staff if things can be speeded up, and the reply was: "You just have to wait, coz if you don't clear immigrations, you don't go anywhere."

I finally cleared immigrations and thought everything would be fine, but then I got stuck at the customs because of the commercial goods I carry. The officers there told me that I need a broker to clear the goods. What broker? My company had forgotten to inform me about that! So I wasted lotsa money on phone calls, mainly because I pressed the wrong area code. 100RMB was equivalent to only 10CAD! (plus 3.50 admin charge) And because of the wrong codes, I ended up making 2.50CAD/min calls to the company! That's like 100RMB for just 4 mins worth of talktime! (Or 3.75SGD/min calls) I have bought 70CAD worth of phonecards! This is my fault. I know better now.

What made matter worse was that my Starhub autoroam costs me around S$3/min! Which rapidly drained the stored value.

Before the flight, I had to fork out S$2000 first from my own pocket for the excess baggage (4 packages of goods). (the company will reimburse later.)

So in the end, I was almost made a bankrupt while at Vancouver.

I had to get friends and family to continuously top-up my prepaid SIM card, and a colleague to transfer cash into my bank account.

And then I was finally informed that the broker will come the next morning, hence I decided to stay in Vancouver airport for one night.

Empty Vancouver airport at night (click to see full view)

Main entrance

What I can afford, cheap coffee from 7-11

My broker came the next morning and everything went more or less smoothly.

I finally returned to Shanghai on the next day, but while in the cab from the airport, I got another call, asking me to make the second trip... and then the third

Luckily both trips went smoothly. I couldn't managed to stay in a hotel though, coz I ran out of money for the credit card I'm using. It doesn't matter coz I'll just stay in the hotel for 5 short hours anyway, so I rather stay in the airport playing games on my laptop. I do hope I don't have to make more trips there again.

Back in Canada again

2007-10-15T21:59:00.000+08:00

Ya, here I am back in Toronto, typing this in Carlingview Airport Inn now.

Last week, I reached Shanghai on Friday night. On my way back to work (yea, straight from the airport at night), I got a call from the company, where I got confirmation that I'm coming here again on Sunday. So here I am yet again.

I've borrowed cash from the company, and alot of the airport procedures are completed so much faster compared to the last trip, which gave me a little sightseeing time. Of coz I can't venture out too far from the airport because of the lack of time and money.

I'll blog in details when I get back to Shanghai. (I realised I always say that)

In Canada now~

2007-10-11T09:45:00.000+08:00

I'm typing this from Holiday Inn Hotel in Toronto. And I'm staying for just one single miserable night here. Yea, I'm here for work. But so far things have been pretty horrible. I ran completely out of cash at transit because of the heavy, customs, extra luggages etc, and had to depend on cash transfers from friends. I had to make lotsa overseas phone calls which sucked my prepaid card dry multiple times (thanks to my family and friends who continously topped up my card), even with the phonecards I bought, the overseas calls are really taxing hard on my little available cash. It's just so terrible expensive here!

Okay, enough complaining. :D
I'll blog the entire experience here another time.

I just hoped that I can repay my friends ASAP...

Back in Shanghai~!

2007-10-08T19:24:00.000+08:00

Storm hits with big winds and heavy rain. Lots of accumulated work to do from tomorrow onwards ... :(

My holiday in S'pore is almost over~

2007-10-06T01:46:00.000+08:00

I've not blogged for the past few days, coz it has been a really packed week. In summary, it's all about meeting lots and lotsa friends, as well as continuously stuffing myself with local food.

I'll usually leave home early in the morning, go for lunch/dinner/supper appointments and won't reach home until damn late at night. It's actually more tiring than working, but much more enjoyable. Haha.

I feel that my short stay here is relatively well planned. Never have I met so many people in such a short period of time before. Even friends whom I've not met for months and years had turn up for appointments. :D

Here are more pics of food eaten over the past few days!

Bubur Pulut Hitam; Ou Zut (Black Porridge in Teochew); Hei Ruo Mi (黑糯米), or any other given name. This is one of my fave desserts. It's actually available in Shanghai, but strangely, it's served chilled there.

More local desserts here.

TCC~! I miss gourmet coffee~! This outlet in Bugis is pretty cool.

Mango sago dessert, pretty good, found along Liang Seah street.

Coffee flavoured steamed egg~!

Old Chang Kee currypuff. Now ten cents more expensive ($1.10). An old favourite.

Carbonara spaghetti in Pastamania

Rice beef burger from MOS Burger. The chili sauce for the fries still tastes great! Why don't they have chilli sauce in Shanghai fast food restaurants?

Bak Kut Teh (肉骨茶)~! The herbal version shown here. I'm now eating my mom's version which contains much more herbs. I prefer a super thick herbal version of the dish, which isn't available anywhere else actually.

Indian rojak in Chai Chee.

Excellent Masala prata (Roti prata with masala spices and potato inside) with fish curry! Plus a mug of teh terik, and you've landed in food haven!

Laksa house. Ya, this may not be the best place in S'pore for laksa, but the quality is still not bad.

Nice S'pore Laksa, plus an fish Otak to boot! Sedap!

There are much much more food I've eaten over the past week, but with no photos to show. :(

Okay, 2 more days before I return to Shanghai. 2 more days of feasting.

Weekend in Singapore~

2007-10-01T11:28:00.000+08:00

This was how I spent my weekends here: with lotsa friends and with cheap great food!

Okay, Fish n'Co not counted as cheap la, but it's been a long while since I've ate fish without all those little bones! The fragrant oozing cheese from the crust made the already tasty fish extra special~

Goreng Pisang~!!! How I missed this so!

Nasi Lemak~! I haven't ate lemak rice for very long. Jialat, the hawker centre food I miss are those with lots of frying and lemak in them. Must not eat too much else kenna sick.

Wood fired pizzas, price is reasonable and the pizzas are good. Here's the smoked salmon pizza.

And this is the 5 cheese pizza

Black pepper buta (pork) in ichiban sushi! Okay la, I don't miss Jap food coz can find in Shanghai. hahah

Ya Kun kopitiam~, I had forgotten to put soy sauce and pepper in my runny eggs for this photo. The chocolate dip for the roasted bread is excellent! I miss kopitiam style teh and kopi siah.

And I missed TCC kopi too, though the waitress there forbids me from taking photos of the nice environment and gourmet kopi.

Thai insurance ad ... depressing

2007-09-28T20:16:00.000+08:00

Woo hoo, back in S'pore~

2007-09-28T19:20:00.001+08:00

I touched down yesterday at 4 plus PM. The flight was delayed quite abit due to unknown reasons. I got to know a Shanghainese fashion designer going to S'pore on holiday, she was sitting beside me on the plane. She was detained at the customs though, for unknown reasons again. Hope she's alright.

Anyway I'm home finally, haha. Not much changed, and I found out that I don't really miss S'pore afterall. Maybe it's because I've not really been away for long. When I'm deciding what to eat at a hawker centre, I realised that I didn't have the cravings for local food too.

I supposed I've already quickly adjusted to life back here. Now in Bedok Library surfing net and clearing company emails, sianz, have to bring work home to do. Well, at least working at home means can work wearing shorts and slippers.

I've also took pictures about living in S'pore, at the request of a few Shanghainese friends. When I snap away at my camera in a hawker centre, a mee siam seller noticed and beckoned me to his stall.
'Why you take photo of hawker centre huh? Very nice meh? You terrorist?'
'Err, nope, haha, I'm working abroad and want some photos of home.'
The mee siam seller actually quite nice la, hahaha. He said he would have treat me if his stall isn't closed for the day liao.

9 more days left in S'pore.

Of Muppets and Men

2007-09-27T02:25:00.000+08:00

A behind the scenes look at one of television's greatest classics.
Oh the nostalgia!

The video is only the first part of six. Watch the rest here!

Mid autumn fest~ ... and packing for home trip

2007-09-27T00:05:00.000+08:00

Mid autumn celebrations in Shanghai is a rather muted event. Other than mooncakes (with meat fillings, anyone?), you don't see anyone selling lanterns or those little flour pigs in plastic cage thingy, etc, anywhere. Most of my colleagues also commented that they don't eat mooncakes coz it's 'too sweet', so there's virtually no celebrations at all.

I really miss the snowskin mooncakes in S'pore, especially those of durian and green tea flavors. But I probably won't get to eat it. Sianz, should have gotten friends or my family to buy them first, coz I'll be back in S'pore in a couple of hour's time.

---------------------

I had just removed my luggage case from the top of my cupboard and opened it. There were farewell cards and b'day cards given at the airport on the day of my departure ... boy, that was 5 long months ago! Reading the cards and letters again reminds me of all the friends I had left behind when I work in Shanghai. This week while I'm back, I'll have to meet up with as many of them as possible.

My luggage was packed within minutes. There wasn't much to bring back. 2 sets of clothes, one pair of sandals, a couple of books to bring home, and that's it. Anything else I would need, I will find them at home. So my luggage's only less than a quarter full. It became half full when I included all the potato chips (12 tubes of Lay's of various flavors) a friend had wanted me to get. Looking around my room, I threw in instant noodle packs, and a couple of stuff I don't need in Shanghai into the luggage to fill up space. I still have space, only two thirds have been filled. Looks like I may have to do some last minute shopping later at the airport when I have the time.

I'll leave home in less than 4 hours time. The next time I blog I'll be back in S'pore hopefully.

New CPR method more effective

2007-09-23T22:10:00.000+08:00

I read this article while thinking about the current CPR method being used throughout the world. Current methods had to be administered within a few minutes after the heart stops, breaks ribs leading to punctured organs and restricts chest compressions, air blown during mouth to mouth enters abdomen instead of the lungs, increased risk of infection, and it's very tiring for the rescuer, and after all that, has a success rate of less than 10 percent. It's about time to find an alternative method of saving lives.

Here's a list of advantages (from the article) from administering OAC-CPR (Only rhythmic abdominal compression)
- OAC-CPR eliminates the need to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
- OAC-CPR requires only one rescuer.
- OAC-CPR eliminates backward blood flow caused by chest compressions.
- OAC-CPR eliminates rib fractures.

I wonder if the abdominal compressions works for people with large tummies.

Hopefully the study really works and gain acceptance worldwide.

Love the music of Lisa Ono

2007-09-23T12:10:00.000+08:00

I guess it's abit late for me to discover the beautiful music of Lisa Ono, but late is better than never. I happened to hear her bossa nova in one of the bookstores in 正大广场 (Super brands mall), and I fell in love with the music immediately, haha. Bought CD liaoz. :D

Study shows attractive people attracts our attention ...

2007-09-23T11:26:00.000+08:00

Wow, I didn't know about that! I need a research paper to tell me that I stare at pretty girls! haha. Anyway here's the article (link). Actually there are other interesting insights in the same article, such as people in relationships checks out attractive people of the same sex, probably to assess their competition. Hmm, come to think of it, ugly obnoxious people attracts our attention as well...

Typhoon strikes shanghai~

2007-09-20T00:30:00.000+08:00

After so many news reports on Typhoon Wipha hitting eastern China (including Shanghai) for the past few days, I must say that we are rather fortunate that the typhoon have weakened considerably now.

It has been raining heavily on and off, with occasional strong winds, for the past 2 days. School's cancelled for the kids today, but work still needs to go on. Weather forecasts have postponed the arrival of the typhoon time and time again. Wipha was supposed to strike yesterday, and then this morning, and then this evening, and now it wasn't to happen after all.

Actually amongst my colleagues and friends, we were feeling kind of excited about the storm. Everyone I know was eagerly anticipating the grand arrival of Wipha, only to be a little disappointed by the no-show. But it's still good news nevertheless.

Street shoe polishers

2007-09-18T22:58:00.000+08:00

If you walk along Nanjing Xi Lu, you may bump into a pairing of an old man and lady in tattered, soiled clothes, each carrying a wooden box of creams, bottles, rags and brushes. If you are 'lucky', they'll approach you and refuse to go away. "Just 5 yuan!" they say, "Treat it as a contribution to my livelihood." I was lucky last week.

My friends and I were queueing for dinner outside a restaurant when the odd couple approached us. Although we were wearing sports shoes, they were very insistent and we relented. At least they are earning an honest living. The old lady kneed in front of me, rest my feet on the wooden box, and starts greasing and scrubbing the tiny spot at the tip of my sports shoe that was not made of fabric. The spot was whiter. Granted that I've not washed my sports shoes for more than a year. Any sort of scrubbing would have remove the accumulated dirt and grime.

I paid my 5 yuan and wished for her good health. She thanked me and went off looking for the next customer.

Nice ad

2007-09-14T00:45:00.000+08:00

Volunteer for Beijing Olympics~

2007-09-14T00:01:00.000+08:00

I signed up for the Olympics volunteers thingy through this website: http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/html/EV.htm

Chances of getting selected for the Olympics are slimmer than winning toto, 4d, big sweep, at the same time, without buying the lottery tickets. Anyway if really heng heng get selected, it would also mean taking long leave off work to go down to Beijing.

I volunteered for the archery field btw, something which I still know a little about and is not as popular, meaning a slightly higher possibility of getting it. Anyway the results will only be made known next year March, a long way to go.

Yea, going home in 2+ wk's time!

2007-09-11T23:58:00.000+08:00

I'm flying back to S'pore on the 27th morning! =^_^=
Wow, so fast siah, I've been in China for over 4 months. Say short also not short la, like alot of things happened, met tons of new friends and colleagues. Life here still considered not bad la. Budden I think I still prefer life back home abit more.

I'll be home for only 1 week plus plus only, and there's so much I wanna do before I'm stuck back here in Shanghai for another few months. First and foremost, must breathe in deeply once I touchdown in Changi. Long time never breathe clean air liaoz, and also must breath to keep calm while smuggling pirated dvds and stuff.

Then I must go makan at hawker centre, nasi lemak, laksa, goreng pisang etc ... hmm, when I go back, the plane surely overload liaoz...

And then of coz have to meet friends and family! The family part is okay, budden the friends part abit troublesome, coz they probably have to call my Shanghai number to contact me, and they are probably only free on weekends, which means clashing appointments on the 2 days (Sat and sun) when I'm home.

And then have to worry about bringing souvenirs to S'porean friends, and later bringing stuff back from S'pore for colleagues. I wonder if there'll be enough space for my own luggage siah ...

Colleague's Wedding at Zhu Jia Jiao (朱家角）

2007-09-08T23:23:00.000+08:00

Zhu jia jiao (朱家角), is one of the ancient water towns around Shanghai, and my colleague had her wedding there today! So early yesterday morning, my housemate and I made our way to the company where a chartered bus there brought us to the beautiful old town. We had ample time for sightseeing before the wedding banquet in the evening. The entry ticket price was 10RMB, though we later found out that we don't have to get the ticket to enter the town.

Anyway, here are some pics I took while I was there:

Lots and lots of restaurants offering tiny lobsters as part of their menu. Live lobsters are placed in plastic tubs in front of these restaurants. And boy do they move around. Some are seen fighting with other lobsters, some attempt to climb out of the tub, some are just scurrying around. I had tried them before, but there wasn't much meat on these little critters. Better to makan the big versions.

Being a water town, there's alot of water there (Duh). Kinda like a tiny version of Venice. We didn't take the boats though, coz they are kinda ex and we had taken the same vehicles back in Zhou Zhuang, another ancient water town.

There are some temples there. Some had ongoing prayer sessions where believers dressed in robes and chants in circles. Others housed multiple gods and deities, some I don't know who they are. But the temples provided plenty of photo taking opportunities!

Even the phone booths have a ancient-tiled roof shelter sorts.

Well, the town was actually pretty small. We covered the entire place in less than 2 hours. So we decided to rest in a little Italian cafe there (Yea, the place was a little commercialised). The place was rather cozy, and my housemate and I somehow managed to fell asleep on the comfortable rocking chairs, woke up to play a round of Chinese Chess, while admiring the nice view outside the window. We spent around 2 hours there before we left the old town for the hotel where the wedding was held.

We were in time to watch the setting off of fire crackers. And these things are really loud! Many cars nearby got their alarms activated from the explosions. We almost went deaf despite standing several metres away.
Something new witnessed at weddings.

The wedding was somewhat similar to SE Asian versions. The banquet, the bride's various wardrobe changes, the toasts, the powerpoint presentation of the bride and groom, etc etc. There are still differences though. For instance, my housemate and I were arranged to sit at the main table, the table with the bride and groom! In S'pore and M'sia, the main tables are reserved for immediate families, and we aren't close relatives or anything, so it was a little awkward with the bride (my colleague) next to me. Another main difference is the food served. Quantity wise especially. There had to be at least 30 dishes served yesterday evening! Our local weddings had only 8 main courses. But that meant we can't finish most of the food served to us. A bit of a waste if you ask me. The banquet timing was also rather short. Makan time was only around 2 hours. And at 830pm sharp, everyone left the restaurant heading towards the chartered buses catered to guests. Kinda early compared to ours, but it is because Shanghai is so big, the journey from the restaurant back to our home took about 2 hours!

All in all, it's an eye-opening experience.

English names ...

2007-09-07T21:27:00.000+08:00

Instead of the common John, Grace, Adrian etc around, the folks in China had to invent unique English names which are occasionally more humorous than special ... A sample of the English names I come across at work. Hope my colleagues aren't reading this: There's Leaf (pronounced as lee-fuu here), Flying Pan (Pan's the surname) Mountain, Josieing, Rui, Damoell, Cassell, and more ...

S'pore is no.3~

2007-09-02T13:21:00.000+08:00

S'pore takes the number 3 spot for Forbe's Most Powerful Women in the World. And the person is none other than Temasek Holding's CEO...

Shoppers in Pyjamas ...

2007-09-01T20:30:00.000+08:00

One of the weirdest (but common) sights in China is seeing people wearing pyjamas to shopping malls and supermarkets. I don't know the reason for this. Maybe they wanna try out the mattress or pillow they are buying, maybe they forgotten to change out of their pyjamas before they left their house, maybe it's the latest fashion trend around, or maybe they are sleepwalking. I don't know, and I'm not curious enough to start asking these people for the reason.

Finally, a blog post about work~

2007-09-01T09:54:00.000+08:00

Some friends have asked, how come I've never blogged about work, especially after working in this company for so long. I don't know why either, haha, so here's a post about my work in Shanghai.

The company I'm working for is an OEM for lotsa brand names, specialising in plastics injection molding. There are tons of plants in China, S'pore, Poland, etc etc, each plant focus on one of these areas: telecommunications, computers, cars, home appliances etc. blah blah blah, and so on. haha.

I'm in the telecomms part, specifically the mobile phones section, now doing projects for the big N()|<*@, haha. So I'll receive projects now for phone models which won't hit the market till end of 2008. My job would be to help big N move their phones from the design stage to the mass manufacturing stage. Not easy actually, cos have to coordinate lots of departments, engineers etc, and because the model's new, there'll bound to be problems during each testing. The design changes frequently and the schedule is very tight coz mobile phones models gets old fast in the market.

Last time used to see plenty of mobile phone shops in S'pore, but only recently then I realise how much hard work went into making those phones.

Expats and 'high pay'

2007-08-30T23:36:00.000+08:00

With my colleagues, the conversation topic I fear most is about salary. We've never reveal the actual figures, but since my colleagues knew that I'm paid in Sing dollars, it naturally lead to them thinking that I'm getting 5 times their pay in RMB for doing the same job, leading to uncomfortable scenarios where colleagues starts to comment how rich I am etc. I've always chose not to respond, coz that'll only make matters worse. And they are right to assume that, coz the fresh grads earns only 2K RMB (S$400) a month. A factory operator with primary school education in S'pore can earn around S$800 a month which is 4K RMB! Twice of what degree holder engineers in China earns!

The point is, it's not fair to compare the salaries this way. No one can survive on 2K RMB in S'pore, coz the cost of living is different between the 2 countries. Granted that I'm spending Sing dollar in China which means my dollar goes a longer way here, but still, I'm probably not gonna stay here forever. Once I'm back home, my salary would amount to nothing much. And I'm still relying on instant noodle meals and cheap bus rides here to save up money for my family too. It's not like I'm living life like a king or something. Any lesser salary package would not attract expats at all, and also, American and European expats are paid in their currencies (or in RMB pegged to exchange rates) which are 1.5 to twice as much as I have (making that 10 times of local engineers). Who would want to work overseas away from family and friends and from home and familiar food if the pay package is much lower than what your country can offer you?

Trying to explain all these would not help my colleagues to understand, coz almost all have never been overseas before. The notion of exchange rates and differing costs of living is very foreign to them. One thing remains stuck in their minds though, which is S'pore expats here "earns 5 times" as much as them.

Sad news...

2007-08-29T22:20:00.000+08:00

A friend passed away in his sleep this morning, a fellow musician whom I've performed with for many years... you'll always be remembered, Sonny...

Chinese customs in Shanghai.

2007-08-27T23:33:00.000+08:00

If I were to write about the type of Chinese celebrations in Shanghai, it'll be a very short post. After staying here for a couple of months, it appears that majority of the people here do not observe some of the festivals and customs celebrated by Chinese elsewhere around the world.

I guess the main reason of this is because, overseas Chinese emphasize on these age-old customs and keep their practices as a form of self-identity, or to remind them of their ancestral roots.

Just take the Hungry Ghost month. Many of the colleagues I spoke are not aware of such a thing. Some do know that there's a Hungry ghost festival on the 15th of lunar month July, but they do not observe it. In fact, I've not seen any joss paper around at all. No shops sell the thing. The festival is virtually non-existent. Explaining the festival to colleagues, and they'll say that they are not superstitious.

Even the upcoming mooncake festival do not seem to be popular here. Just take the variety of mooncakes now found in supermarkets and shops. There's no 'bing pi' mooncakes here! The flavors are restricted to the traditional flavors (although there's a beef flavored mooncake too), unlike the rainbow of choices and flavors found in S'pore.

Scary Japanese home videos

2007-08-27T20:23:00.000+08:00

Just the thing to watch this 7th month.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Why fight over little things???

2007-08-25T00:34:00.000+08:00

Maybe I'm a magnet for trouble, coz it seems like wherever I go, arguments and fights will occur. I've blogged about the cab incident where a motorist picked a fight at the traffic light, and actually such things happen pretty often around here. What I don't understand is how a fight can happen because of the littlest things.

Take today for example. A lady at a supermarket cashier counter wanted one additional plastic bag for her groceries. The cashier refused to give it to her, saying that she don't need it. They started arguing. The lady's husband came over to say "why pick a fight with a lady, you are not a man", the cashier retorted "you are not a man either", a scuffle broke out, only to be stopped by a security guard. All because of one dumb little plastic bag. I was queueing right behind that lady by the way, so after the incident, the still-angry cashier threw my groceries violently into the plastic bag after scanning the price tag. I didn't want to start another argument.

Or take the final day of our military training, where a company bus came to pick us up for the next destination. The driver parked his bus on the parade square instead of the designated parking lot a few metres away. A high ranking officer asked him to park at the parking lot, coz we are using that parade square for our drills and stuff. The driver refused. An argument broke out, and the driver insulted the officer. Since we were in an army camp, more and more soldiers joined the swelling crowd around the 2 men. The bus driver shouted out loud that the soldiers are bullying commoners and threw punches around. The soldiers around kept both angry men apart until the men cooled down. The driver agreed to move the bus and the crowd moved away. But the driver didn't get into the bus. Once the crowd has dispersed far enough, the driver sped towards the officer and another round of shoving and pushing started.The crowd came back again to separate the men. When they calmed down again, the driver reluctantly returned to his bus and drove it to the parking lot. And all these wouldn't happen if the driver just park properly in the first place!

There are too many such cases to list. These 2 incidents are just part of the everyday life in Shanghai...

Posh cinema~

2007-08-22T00:07:00.000+08:00

A friend and I went to watch the newest Harry Potter movie today. Since the ticket costs only half the usual price (For tues, weds, before 4:30pm and after 10pm on every other day.), I bought 2 VIP tickets for 60RMB each (S$12).

The cinema hall has less than 40 seats inside, paired into 3 columns of 6s. Each seat is a large comfortably-cushioned armchair with controls to raise/lower the backrest and leg rests. Each pair of seats have a snack table attached for popcorns and drinks.

Despite the great movie watching environment, the movie was butchered by the censors. I counted around 5 times where the dialogue/scene was abruptly cut and jumped to the next scene. At one particular censored part, the movie blanked out for several seconds before it continued again. Luckily I still have the 'friendly' version of the movie to fill up any plot holes I may have missed.

易初莲花 (Yi Chu Lian Hua), Lotus Center

2007-08-16T00:19:00.000+08:00

I must be damn bored to blog about hypermarts, hahaha. Anyway, Lotus Center is a Thailand chain of hypermarts, along with Carrefour, that are spread around Shanghai. Hypermarts are very common here. Where S'pore has only 2 Carrefours,there are 6 here. On top of that, there are around 10 Lotus Centers around Shanghai.

Imported stuff like Nescafe coffee etc are more expensive here than in S'pore. And there are things sold here that are not found in the hypermarts and supermarts back home too.

Like these beef candies.

And these wedding gifts

Experiential Training in Tianjin

2007-08-13T23:55:00.000+08:00

Right after the army training, we travelled again to another training ground. This time it's deep in the mountains further up Tianjin.

It's an OBS-like training ground, and for 3 days we did a series of games that tests our teamwork, physical, tactical and mental skills. There's the standard fare such as the trust fall, the sky ladder and the human wall (pictures below), and there are games that takes place on top of the mountains.

We pitched tents at night, feast on great tasting home-cooked meals, had a large campfire where we danced and played through the night, climbed the beautiful mountains and walked through the woods. The first 2 days were lots and lots of fun, though tiring.

On our final day there, we spent half a day scaling one of the highest mountains. There are fruit farms scattered near the foot of the mountain we were about to scale. One of the farm owners treated us to deliciously sweet and juicy peaches freshly plucked from his trees. The journey up the mountain is very very tiring. Imagine climbing endless flights of steps up a stairwell. But the beautiful view around us and the occasional cool breeze kept us going.

On top of the mountain is a stone pillar. It marks the point where Tianjin, Beijing, and He bei boundaries met. From that pillar, the ancient great wall extends like a thin white ribbon over the curves of the mountain range. Unlike the BaDaLing great wall we visited in Beijing before the military training, this great wall is not rebuilt and lies in ruins. You can't see the end of the wall, and the fact that the wall is built so high on top of the mountains, goes to show how much work it took and the years that went into the magnificent structure.

View from the top

After taking hundreds of photos up there, we made our way back down the mountain. The return journey is so much easier compared to climbing upwards. And with this we finally concluded our training in Tianjin and the next stop is Shanghai where the trainees have already started their orientation training. Since we were on the same train cabin, the return journey to Shanghai is filled with fun and laughter as well. It has been a really swell 2 weeks for everyone. Friendships (and romance) blossomed, and their 2.5 months training in Shanghai will further strengthen this bonding. No more training for me though, it's now back to work.

Military training

2007-08-12T02:06:00.000+08:00

Here's an add on to the blog post about the training I put up a few days ago.

The camo-uniform we got is actually an imitation of the actual thing. The quality is pretty bad. The pants rip easily and by the end of the training, almost everyone's pants had been patched/re-sewn at least once. The shoes is exactly like those cheap panda shoes we used to wear in pri school, with rounded soles, where moving around took some getting use to.

Each bunk contains 7 double decked beds, which is basically a plank of wood with a super thin mattress and a straw mat spread over it. The pillow is just a mini bean bag with a small towel spead over it. There is a mosquito net for every bed, which is a real life saver at night, especially when hundreds of mosquitoes attempt to invade through the net every night.

Daily schedule is about the same each day. Waking up before 6, alternate between drills and running, breakfast, drills or fighting technique training, lunch, noon nap to 2pm, continue with drills or fighting technique training, or other games, dinner, special program/free time.

Drills is a torture for my feet, coz of flat feet and the lousy shoes, especially when made to stand in sediyah position for 30 minutes. My ankles swell up pretty bad after each drill training. Last time during NS, the boots I wear can conceal feet movements which can alleviate the pain, and somemore the sediyah posture back in NS is different from here: where the body has to lean forward until the heels of the feet lifts slightly off the ground. Painful painful ankles everyday.

The 军体拳 (army fighting skills) demonstration on our 'graduation' day.

For meals, we are separated into tables of eight, and every mealtime, each table has 2 rotating 'duty' personnel to wash bowls and plates, as well as serving food for the rest of the people at their tables. Even when having meals, there're commands to sit, arrange chairs, start eating, etc.

For night activities, we had the opportunity to handle weapons (AK47 & some pistol), watch movies, watch propaganda news reports on tv, etc. Towards the end of the training, we rehearsed some performance items. Coz there's this 八一 (first Aug) celebrations to commemorate the forming of China's Red Army. We sang a M'sian mandarin song (月亮圆) as our item for the night. Actually we had prepared another song (童谣颂), but since it has malay lyrics (we even taught some of the Chinese girls to sing the verses), and because there'll be high ranking officers from elsewhere attending this celebrations, we were told to scrap the song coz of the 'foreign' language.

At the end of the training, we've become really really tanned. My forearms and shoulders are like the yin yang symbols, one side black and one side white, with a distinct line where the end of the uniform sleeve is. And yea, I'm definitely thinner than before. More importantly, I'm grateful for the friends I've made during the training. :D

Happy National Day~!

2007-08-09T22:12:00.001+08:00

No celebrations this year though, since I'm now overseas, meaning I still need to work , and my roomies are non-s'poreans so they aren't interested as well. Oh well, I'll try to catch the parade online.

Happy National Day, Singapore!

Beijing, day 2

2007-08-06T22:20:00.000+08:00

On the second day, we got onto a bus which got us to Beijing in 4 hours. We only have a couple of hours to tour Beijing cos we were starting our military training on the next day and had to get back to Tianjin by nightfall.

Our very first destination, to Tiananmen Square. The Gu Gong nearby is closed for renovations. We signed up for a one day tour which promised us to get us back to the bus pick-up point before the last bus to Tianjin leaves. The tour is a scam of some sort, making us pay extra after we got onto the tour bus. The tour guide 'explained' that all tour agencies are as unscrupulous, actually she's just brutally honest, and the extra was not much after factoring in our exchange rate. But we only visited 2 of the 3 venues scheduled, before we had to leave the group and rush for our last Tianjin-bound bus.

But at least we've managed to climb up the Great Wall of China. The steep steps and high altitude makes climbing the structure a tedious and terribly exhausting journey. But as the saying goes, 不到长城非好汉，上了长城一身汗。

Day one of Tianjin Trip

2007-08-06T01:25:00.000+08:00

Too much has happened over the past 2 weeks, it's impossible to recall every detail of my days spent in Tianjin and Beijing. So I'll let these photos summarise the first day of the trip.

The high speed train from Shanghai to Tianjin, a 10++ hour journey. The sleeping compartments are rather comfortable, though sharing a compartment with a noisy kid who shouts "Dao le dao le!" (We're here!) every few minutes is kinda irritating after a while.

The motel I stay in. Though not as good as Motel 168 in Shanghai, the large number of provision shops and internet cafes nearby provides much needed convenience. The motel is located in the middle of a very young neighbourhood, the streets are filled with teenagers wherever you turn. Amongst them, a high percentage are girls. This is becoz there are hostels nearby for these factory operators. The streets are clogged with food hawkers whose main customers are these girls. At night, the young crowd disappears, leaving behind a filthy street.

Chinese Viagra. Found in the vending machine of the motel. Never tried it though. :p

Cute little wolf pup locked in the cage. Found near the motel.

Walked around Tianjin's Tang Gu district. Visited Wai Tan as well as a shopping belt nearby. For the entire trip here, I've not been to Tianjin city at all, only the outskirts near the shore. A pity really, but bo bian, really got no time to travel to the city.

We watched Transformers at the cinema there. Cheap, yes. But the entire movie is mandarin-dubbed. Not only that, the names for every character are different. Optimus prime became 擎天柱，Megatron became 威震天 (wei zhen tian), Bumblebee became 大黄蜂 (da huang feng), Deceptacons became 霸天虎(ba tian hu) and so on. It's weird to hear "汽车人,变形!" (qi che ren, bian xing) instead of "Autobots ,transform!". Hearing the robots speak mandarin is strange. Anyway I'll probably get an English 'friendly' disc later.

Day two to Beijing!

SPIN

2007-08-01T00:33:00.000+08:00

A really cool short flick

Ended military training in Tianjin~!

2007-07-31T22:39:00.000+08:00

We had our passing out parade this afternoon. I'm now in an internet cafe near my motel in Tianjin (Super fast connection at S$0.40 an hour).

The military training here is nothing like the National Service (NS) we s'porean guys undergo, for my Malaysian and Chinese colleagues, it's their first time. Actually the training is very slack compared to NS, like a holiday camp, and the instructors are so much nicer. To my colleagues however, the 2 weeks is a torture. Whenever my colleagues enquire about NS in s'pore, I don't really know how to give a reply. NS is very siong, but after years of sitting in front of the computer screen during university, my inflated tummy and flabby arms gave a bad impression about our own soldiers.

Basically all we did are military drills and combat skills. The commands given in mandarin took a while getting use to, and there are commands given for things like putting on/taking off jockey caps and sitting on stool. The posture and arm/leg movements for each command are also very different from what we have here.

I'll blog more in detail (will post tons of pics!) when I reach Shanghai this weekend. There'll be an experiential training starting tomorrow morning for the next couple of days, where we scale mountains and wander through forests and finally climb the great wall of China. No internet access again as we camp outdoors.

Final post before leaving for Tianjin

2007-07-12T22:28:00.000+08:00

This will probably be my last post until I'm back from Tianjin 3 weeks later. After half a year with the company, they are sending me to military training in Tianjin. Actually after other colleagues said about their training experiences, and after viewing photographs, it seems like the training will be like a mixture of BMT and OBS, meaning it'll be rather fun (and tiring). Kinda look forward to it. :D

My colleagues and I foot 138RMB each to scale Shanghai's tallest tower, the Oriental Pearl, only to see ...
It's a terribly foggy day. You can't see much outside the windows. The higher you go, the less you'll see.

Finally a good photo, after some heavy photo editing. The night view of the world's tallest building from the tower.

A museum on old shanghai located within the tower. Tons of lifelike wax figures here. As shown by this chiobu here.

More wax figures. Actually the museum is much more interesting than the tower itself.

A final picture of the tower before heading home.

Bye bye Shanghai, hello Tianjin

2007-07-09T23:03:00.000+08:00

I'm leaving for Tianjin this coming Friday.
Will be taking the train along with 2 other colleagues.
Will be a long journey, 10 hours on the express train.
The aim for the trip is to take part in a mass military training in Tianjin.

No, I'm not going to war.
It's just part of the company's leadership/character building thingy.
Some weird idea came up with the higher management.
Hope they don't visit this blog.
They are mighty handsome men (just in case they come here).

Duration for the training is 3 weeks.
From the mouths of other colleagues who went for the thingy,
it's just drills, the entire day.
"Don't worry, you've done 2 1/2 years worth of NS, 3 months is nothing" they say.
"Err, that was like 8 years ago", and I look down at my white swollen belly.

Training will be conducted by a real army instructor.
My NS drill commands will change from "kekanan bu---seng~!" to "xiang yoooouu Zhuan~!" and so on.
I will confirm 100% guaranteed gabra.
I will faint from the lack of exercise over the past few years.
~~die~~

Actually it won't be so bad la.
I'll treat it as my reservist duty.
With full engineer pay.
With no work.
Will be fun.

Eh, Just watched Pirates on the big screen...

2007-07-08T23:47:00.000+08:00

I was at 正大广场 (Zheng Da Guang Chang) with my colleagues. Like any other newer shopping centres in Shanghai nowadays, it's damn huge. It's really freakingly huge, machiam the size of 2 or 3 Vivocities. Anyway that's beside the point. We were hoping to watch Transformers the movie and were disappointed when it wasn't released in China yet. And we saw that the price for Pirates of the Carribean 3 has dropped to 70RMB (S$14), and the more important thing is that the movie length is 150 minutes! Though around 15-20 minutes worth of the film is still censored, it beats the other cinema we went to which only shows 100 minutes worth of the movie. I don't know how the censorship actually works, but anyway we decided to catch the film.

The cinema is great. Large screen, great sound system, plenty of legroom, comfortable seats, and more importantly, the seats can swivel so that you can watch the movie while leaning back or sitting up straight! We bought drinks too, which was delivered to our seats before the movie starts, talk about good service.

In the end, Chow Yun Fatt appeared and disappeared quickly, leaving us clueless about what really happened. Luckily I still have the pirated Pirates disc to fill up the plot gaps.

When I don't feel like going out ...

2007-07-08T10:22:00.000+08:00

... I can rely on the cheap (friendly) DVDs for entertainment.

My 'collection'

Each DVD costs around 3RMB (S$0.60) to 5RMB ($1.00) depending on where you buy them from and they can be found almost everywhere. Games, softwares, animes, Korean/Jap/HK/Taiwan/China dramas, movies, documentaries, variety shows, etc etc can all be found.

The quality of the discs are excellent, provided you know what you are asking for. I usually get DVDrips for movies and stuff, cos if it's a new movie just released in the cinema, you cannot expect to see DVD quality version in these stalls simply because the original DVD is not out yet. Strangely some of my colleagues failed to see the point and thus bought many movies which disappointed them.

My only exception is the film-in-cinema-quality Pirates of the Carribean 3. I wanted to watch it on the big screen, but the censorship here removed the entire Chow Yun Fatt portion, reducing the viewing length from the original almost-3 hours movie to only 1 hour half. And somemore the cinema prices here is really high, (80-100RMB or around S$20 for imported shows) and for most of the timeslots, you will be watching the movie, dubbed in Mandarin. There're only a few slots available to view the English original.

On the other hand, to keep with the pirates theme, it's right to get the pirated pirates of the carribean. Hahaha.

Wah, pretty ladyboys

2007-07-07T11:20:00.000+08:00

This is from a Japanese program which attempts to find the prettiest ladies around the world. The formula used is this: find a pretty lady from the streets, get her to introduce a prettier friend, visit this person, get her to do the same, and the cycle repeats until the 20th time. The lady at the end of the cycle would be the most beautiful in the country. Actually the formula doesn't really work, haha, it's just used to lengthen the show and at the same time show you 19 other pretty ladies.

Anyway the show's in Thailand for this episode, and the aim is to find the most beautiful ladyboys in Thailand. And boy are they pretty, haha.

Part 1

Part 2