China National Day

For those living in China, we will soon have a long holiday from Oct 1-8 for the Chinese National Day celebration. This year will be extra special, as both Moon Cake Festival and National Day falls on the same week. Moreover, it is China's 60th anniversary celebration and they are really making it big!

I took this picture from my office. There is an empty space there and I can see the tankers and soldiers there rehearsing. There are road closure every week for the practice. Chiu! I can't even go to Hyatt for my favourite lunch buffet over weekends because no taxi drivers are willing to go there. They are afraid to be stuck there due to the traffic because of this.


Yesterday, I receive this email from my office admin:

"From Beijing Capital International Airport :
All morning domestic flights to and from Beijing, China will be canceled on 1 October 2009, from around 9:00am to 12:50pm, mid-day, local time, because of security concerns for the National Day parade. International flights from/to Beijing will be postponed. Flights take off time will be resumed from 12:50pm onwards.

The order was issued to increase safety for the 60th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China.

Police have already set up checkpoints and are inspecting all vehicles entering Beijing at nearly 200 major road intersections. "

Wuah... lucky me that I have not booked any air tickets... else really vomit blood!

Super Stressed Out Lately

I think I’m gonna break down soon. So much happened in a week.

Beginning of the week, I get confirmation from my Hubby that we will be relocating to Beijing, effective immediately!! OMG! Told my boss about it and he agreed to transfer me over. Thank God.

I rushed out to look for agents to get me a home in Beijing. Dear Hubby is already over there is currently staying at a serviced apartment. Have bought tickets to Beijing tomorrow to view a couple of units. Movers were also contacted, quotes given (at super high speed), visited my place for an estimation of cubic meters of space required.

Today, BOOM! Email saying that I need to fly to US this Sunday for a 3 days meeting in US. WTF!!!!! As if my schedule is not hectic enough… I will DIE with all these flying around. OMG!!!

Do I have a choice? I'm a modern slave…and the answer is NO. No choice. Go US, or risk losing my job.

Google Legalised the illegal

Google China has allowed users to download songs legally in order to fight with China's national search engine, Baidu. It doesn't really make any difference to me since I have been downloading songs illegally from Baidu. But since Google claims that we could now legally download songs from their site, I went into Google.cn to search for mp3s.


It is indeed much easier to download songs from Google instead of Baidu, so I am switching to Google for Mp3s download from today onwards. Yohooo!!! Free MP3s... legally!!! For the first time.. I am loving China internet!!!

Apartments are like Roti in China

I really need to blog about this. My colleagues here are talking about buying and selling houses like it’s roti boy back in KL. Houses means, Apartments.


Last Thursday, this guy from Wujiang factory who stays in Suzhou (45 mins drive away from Shanghai. Something like Senawang or Port Klang) says that his apartment is too small and that he wanted to sell it. Today, he said it has been sold, in less than 3 days of listing. OMG!!!! The Chinese are buying and selling houses as if they are roti boys in KL. And this guy is buying another house today. OMG!!!

Another colleague bought an apartment in Shanghai with a size of 100 sq meter at RMB13,000 per sq meter; not at the center of Shanghai, somewhere a bit far (comparatively like Serdang) That’s 1.3 million yuan for the entire apartment and that was in February 2009. I don’t want to further elaborate that he paid RMB600k cash as down payment. I nearly faint just listening to them talking about this everyday during lunch. Today, his apartment is worth RMB16,000 per sq meter, that’s 1.6million yuan. If he list it for sale, it would be grabbed up like hot cakes within days and he would make RMB300,000 just like that, within 4 months!

What is this!!??? I have been listing my house for sale in KL like for 3 years!!! And I only get donkey people viewing the house for fun and no serious buyers. WTF!!!

The Great Firewall of China - The Motherblocker

I HATE it when it happens again! Yes, and it happened this round. China has yet again blocked all major anonymous site and Blogspot!! This is so frustrating. This round, they are wiser and blocked blogger.com as well. Not only we are barred from reading blogs, we can't post anything as well. Damn!!! 

The Great Firewall of China, you Motherblocker!!! 

I can still blog and I can still read blogs... no matter how you block, people still find the way around it because WE CAN!!!!!! Block you!

This tool that I am using is so sophisticated and unlike the previous Privoxy TOR that I used, it does not slow down the connection rate at all. Perfect tool! I ain't afraid of you, you Motherblocker!!

House Chores

Hubby just left for airport and heading to US. I am alone again. I did some cleaning, putting away all the winter stuffs. I know I should have done this long time ago but I have been busy for the past weeks.

I bought vacuum bag for compacting bulky clothes last night. I was trying to see if it works coz Winston told me his does not work.

This was how my winter sheets looks like.


I place them in the bag and used the vacuum cleaner to remove the air. The effect was indeed quite compact.



Ta da!!!! Big difference between the 'before' and 'after' effect. It really saves so much on storage space. Not bad, I have decided to get more of these.

Alone Again

Hubby came back a week ago and now he is gone again. He left for London and he will be away for 1 month. I feel so empty without him. It's a pity that I could not go with him this round as he will be staying at a serviced apartment near Tower Bridge. 

I woke up early this morning and bid my Hubby goodbye. Went for a massage and facial, came home, clean the house and threw away all the unwanted magazines. The satellite TV console is down, so I have no international channel but chinese programs now. So sad. 

My Mum will be down in Shanghai and time will pass by pretty quick for me. I dread the coming months where he will be away for 2 months in the states after this London trip.

I hope this will be a quick week for me. Hoping to see Mum and cousin sis Rachel in Shanghai soon. 

Wednesday Spotted

Spotted... Hari Rabu selling items from South East Asia at Tian Zhi Fang, Shanghai.

Tian Zhi Fang is a nice place with a combination of modern and old Shanghai. A great place to have a nice meal or just relax with a cup of coffee.

Me, Deisy, Nicole, EC, Keng Fei, Wendy, Winston and KK went there on Saturday for lunch. Here are some pictures taken there.

Oct 08 - Chengdu & Huang Long

Chengdu

October holidays started off with an early departure to Shanghai Pudong airport where we headed to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China.

After we checked into our hotel, we went for a quick lunch and headed to the Chengdu Wuhou Shrine. This shrine was built in 223AD and it is the residence and temples of Zhuge Liang in Shuhan of the 3 kingdoms, known to many through the story ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’. Those who read this book will truly enjoy this historical place, but to me, it is just another palace during the Tang and Song dynasty in China.

Here are some of the pictures taken.

We head back to our hotel and had a rest. Then, we headed for a Sichuan style hot pot for dinner and went to the Shu Feng Ya Yun Teahouse for a Sichuan opera performance.

This is a truly entertaining performance, which included the ever famous Sichuan ‘Changing Faces & Fire Spitting’.

Huang Long Valley (黄龙–Yellow Dragon)

Day 2 started off with an even earlier wake up call to catch the 7am flight to Huang Long – Jiuzhaigou. It was freakin’ 5 degrees at Huang Long and the first thing we did after getting our luggage was to open them straight away, take out our sweaters and cardigans put on the layers of clothes. We then booked a tour cab to bring us to Huang Long before sending us back to our hotel in Jiuzhaigou.

Here are some pictures taken from the plane.

I will describe our tour to Huang Long as follow:
Mesmerizing, breathtaking and surreal but at the same time, exhausting & torturing.

Huang Long is one of China’s World Cultural and Natural Heritage Site and is located at an altitude around 3500 meters above sea level. We have to hike up the mountain to view the Five Colored Pool (五彩湖) we were darn tired and breathless because of the lack of oxygen at high altitude.

The Five Colored Pool was truly amazing and worth the torturing hike up. Many have told me that if I have seen Jiuzhaigou, Huang Long will be meaningless because Jiuzhaigou is so much more beautiful. But looking back, I am glad we went to Huang Long because what we saw here was totally different from the scenery in Jiuzhaigou.

We walked for more than 7km at Huang Long and was left with darn painful legs; but it sure was worth the pain and effort.

Oct 08 - Jiuzhaigou

Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟)

Day 3 and 4 was spent in Jiuzhaigou. This is truly a place where I will refer to as Paradise and Heaven on Earth.

The scenery here is simply spectacular, awesome, stunning, out of this world, jaw-dropping, fantastic, wonderful, magnificent, astonishing, peaceful, surreal, breathtaking; and there can be so many more words to describe it.

I will just let the pictures do the talking…but even the pictures cannot truly tell the beauty of this place. You really have to see it for yourself. The scenery is really many times more beautiful than what I have captured with my camera.

Shuzheng Lake - 树正海

Shuzheng Fall - 树正瀑布

Tiger Lake - 老虎海

Long Lake - 长海

Five Colored Lake - 五彩池

Nuorilang Fall - 诺日朗瀑布

Swan Lake - 天鹅海

Arrow Bamboo Lake - 箭竹海

This is the place where Zhang Yimou directed the movie 'Hero', the scene where Maggie Cheung lies in the middle of the lake while Jet Li and Tony Leung were battling.

Panda Waterfall - 熊猫海瀑布

Panda Lake - 熊猫海

Five Flower Lake - 五花海

Pearl Shoals Beach - 珍珠滩

Pearl Shoals Waterfall - 珍珠滩瀑布

Mirror Lake - 镜海

Dragon Lake - 双龙海