A Moody Friday

I have been really busy for the past 2 weeks, with so many changes in the project itself. I was working my ass off and the Irish thought I went crazy to be discussing issues with them at 10.30pm local time.

Changes at work is norm. But right now, I am also expecting some changes in life. I am not sure if it’s going to happen, and I can’t say that it’s good or bad. But am feeling moody these days…

One part of me is happy if this change happens, but another part of me sad. Well, I am not going to think too much about it as it may not happen after all. I don’t know. Just feel a little moody and lost on this rainy Friday.

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Shanghai Safari

My parents in law are here to visit again. We wanted to bring them to Shanghai Flower Port but it was closed after spring season. So, we brought them to Shanghai Safari instead.

There's nothing really interesting about this Safari, except they have a section where it's enclosed and animals such as cheetah, tigers and lions roam around freely. We have to go in by bus, and it feels like we're going into Jurassic Park feeling.


We saw the lions up close. Because it was after meal time, all the carnivors were not active during that time. They are really huge.

At the bear area, the people on the bus in front of us threw out food to feed them. It's really dangerous because the bear stood up to grab the food. They could just snap up the person's hand. This bear thought we would feed them and waited but no one in our bus had any food with us. This guy is really huge.

That was actually the most attractive part of the Safari, getting very near to the animals.

After that, we went out to the normal 'Zoo' area. Took some pictures of the cute-cute Panda.

Like usual, every zoo has some performance and we were just in time for one.


After that, we went to the feeding area and I fed some lemurs. They are so, so cute!!! I love them. They just climb on me and held me tight while I fed them apples. So adorable!!



Then we saw the Red Panda. This fella is so adorable as well...

Went home exchausted because it is summer now and the weather is really hot and humid. The safari and feeding experience is really nice though... I still miss those cute lemurs.

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Happy Father's Day

Today is Father's day. I send my love to Dad, I really love Dad very much.

At the same time, I also feel sad for 2 reasons:
First, my Shanghai good friend's Dad is diagnosed with last stage of colon cancer and is now in hospital.
Second, my KL good friend's Dad met with a horrible accident and he is still in hospital. Both of the Dads are in a bad condition.

I know the feeling of a daugther who loves her father very much, if such unfortunate thing happen, I can feel how my friends are feeling right now. I really hope their Dad get well soon.

I pray that my Dad will have good health always.

I LOVE YOU, DAD!!!

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1 Hour of Pleasure and Torture

Last week, I signed up for a slimming and beauty course. It's under promotion and it's really cheap, RMB3,800 for 33 mixed slimming courses. I think worth a try to see if it's effective on my tummy which looks like I'm 4 mths pregnant.

I went for my second day today. The first 40 minutes session was really good. It was a relaxing massage from a machine which aims to break-up my fatty cells. I almost fell asleep. Love it!

After this, I transferred to another room where I was being tortured by this monster:

OMG!!!!! It's darn painful and it's 35 mins of torture here!!! This machine sucked and squeezed my tummy like making dough for pan mee out of me!!!

The beauty consultant says that 35 mins of this torture is equivalent to 35 hours of workout... hmmm. I was screaming and asking her to slow down but she told me she is using the minimum power on me. OMG!!! Can't imagine if it's full power... I think this machine can break my bones!!!

Now I am aching all over!! Shaks!!! Is this really equivalent to 35 hours of workout!? Shall see the results. Oucchh!!!

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Feeling lazy today

Today is a public holiday in China to replace Sunday's Duan Wu Jie, and I am feeling so lazy at home. I did not eat any ba zhang yesterday. Will be cooking nasi lemak again later. Gosh... I signed up for a slimming program last night and I cook nasi lemak today... I need to seriously think about my diet change.

On Saturday, I went to the Shanghai Science and Technology museum with my Hubby, Elizebeth DL and her hubby. We had some fun and also felt a bit cheated. Here are some odd stuffs that we saw there... use your imagination.

We met Winston for dinner that night and I took some experimental photos with my new Sony Ericsson Walkman phone.

**** Photo removed. Winston says he looks ugly****

He looks happy enough... hehe.

Another Small Recognition

Today, I received a small gift from my Project Manager as a token of appreciation for my effort in Phase I of my project. It was a USD100 Parkson shopping voucher.

USD100 is not a lot, but it meant something and I am happy that my hard work is recognized.

Seems like it's my company culture to recognize staff's hard work and effort. So far, this is my second recognition after working here for less than a year. Not bad huh!

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Can I be a good leader?

Last Saturday, I went out with Elizebeth DL and we talked about our assistant. I recently have a new assistant and today, another person joined my team, making it 2 assistants for me.

We complained a bit about our assistant, their tardy work and bad documentation, bad english, etc and I told Elizebeth DL that I end up being their assistant instead for spending time correcting all wrongs in those documentation.

Today, I talked to my Hubby about being a leader. My Hubby was rated as one of the best leader in the entire firm, beating hundreds of other senior management's rating. I asked him what did he do to get that kind of rating.

He told me that one thing about a good leader is to know how to share and to know how to help your subordinates improve themselves. It is important that one can approach you easily when they face problem in their work and you have to guide them on how to solve it. Not helping them solve it, but guide them. Teach them. He gave an example of me having to amend the work of my assistant; He says that if I do not guide her to improve on this, she will never be able to help me. If I managed to help her improve on this, my life will be much easier in the future.

He is right. All the time I was afraid that if I teach her so much, then she will overtake me. But I never think of how she will make my life easier if I just managed to guide her on how to improve work and I will never have to spend so much time correcting those mistakes in the future.

I put myself back in the shoes where I was a junior, and I realised that I love to work with those leaders who are really willing to teach me. Why can't I walk the same path as my previous leaders? I was so silly.

So I have drafted out a job allocation sheet, and team goals and have decided to have a meeting with my team to share my thoughts. It is also important to get their feedback and support to what I want to do so that everyone shares the same goal.

I now believe that I can make my team one of the best team in my organization with quality work & deliverables. I want to achieve this. Will I make it?

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Benny in Shanghai

My good hamsup friend Benny and his wife Jo came to China for holiday and extended their stay here. We went out happy on Sunday and I brought them to Jing An temple area for lunch.

Benny is expert at taking photographs. He brought his tripod and we were able to take some pictures together.




After lunch, as usual, me and my Hubby brought them to the same old The Bund.


Ben took a lot of pictures here and I also took pictures of him with my Sony handphone.

Among the pictures taken is the panorama view of the Pudong taken from The Bund. Spot the obvious difference between the 2 pictures below.

We took the Huangpu river cruise. This is the first time I take this ride after being here for over 2 years.



Jo holding on to the Oriental Pearl Tower.

After the cruise, we wanted to visit Shanghai Museum but it was closed. So we just took a picture at the entrance for memory. At least we have been to the entrance.

Since the first museum is closed, we went to check out the famous wax museum, Madame Tussaud's. The entrance fee is blardy expensive, RMB135 per person. I did not bring my camera so didn't take much photo except some taken by Benny. Ben spend at least 5 minutes each time for taking pictures with individuals like Bill Gates, Li Ka Shing, Bill Clinton, Bruce Lee, etc. Here are a few pictures taken.

See Ben trying ham sup Angelina Jolie... bagga.

I saw Yao Ming... ewww.... so bushy armpit hair.

And took a pose with Micheal Jordon.



I then helped Tiger Woods aim for the hole.... golf hole that is.

Then I saw ex Mr Bond and took a pose with him too... mmm... nice chest.

I saw Tom Cruise, without Katie Holmes. So decided to take a pose with him.

Then I tried to act like Mrs Beckham... but I was a total failure... not even close! Sigh!

I even pretended to be an astronaut.

Eventhough all these are lame and lousy poses, I still won the best actress award. Anthony Hopkins presented me with the Grammy. I was so happy! :P

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Cabbies

Read the above from thestar.com this morning. This is something that really irks me back in KL. I cannot understand how a civilized country like ours can have such uncivilized taxi drivers.

I know many times, I have been complaining about the cheena here and talking about how uncivilized they can be, the spitting, the quarrels, the loud talking etc. But Malaysians who have been the Shanghai will experience one thing which we could never experience back in Malaysia – civilized and honest cabbies.

Let me list down how civilized cabbies in Shanghai are:

• In Shanghai, when we enter a taxi, they will greet us and ask us our destination.
• When we tell them our destination, their first question to us is which route do we want to us to get there – this is to ensure that they are using the route of our preference.
• If we enter the taxi near traffic lights, they will not raise the taxi meter until we pass the junction – they do not waste our money with the idle time at the traffic lights before the journey begins.
• If we complain that he took the wrong way, the taxi driver will pull down the meter before we reach the destination. Meaning, he do not charge us for the rest of the journey.
  

Friends in Malaysia, do you get to experience that with our cabbies back at home?

Of course, having said all the above, there are always a percentage of cabbies here that are rude. But so far, honestly, I have not met a lot of these in my past 2 and a half years stay. But one sure negative point about the cabbies here is the way they drive scares the hell out of me!

Stupid Fools

Few weeks ago, I contacted our consulate in Shanghai, asking for the passport renewal process. I called in few times and there was no answer. So I decided to email them instead. I clicked on the general inquiries email address and wrote this:

"Hi,
May I know if we could renew our passport here in Shanghai instead of flying back to KL to do it?"

2 days later, I received this reply:

"Please use proper salutation when contacting the consulate, such as Dear Sir instead of Hi".

KNNCCB!!! First of all... that was a general inquiry email and how the heck would I know that it will be directed to our mr. consulate, unless there is only 1 person doing all the work there. Second, why are they taking 2 days to reply a simple email? Third, what's wrong with "Hi"? Should I be addressing him as 'Your highness' in my next email? If this person is really so hard up for respect, then do something about your department and gain the respect! Pick up the phone!!!

Yesterday, my Hubby complained to me again. He tried to call the consulate in Shanghai and tried so many times without success. There was just no one there to pick up the f*cking phone!!! He asked his secretary to help him call and she too, could not get through. It wasn't a public holiday here in China or Malaysia, how come no one pick up the f*cking phone??!!

When his secretary finally get through, she was told that the passport renewal for Malaysians will take 2 months to complete. OMG!!!! 2 months!!!!! 2 f*cking months to renew our passport abroad. Wow... how efficient that is! Can't believe them! I'm speechless!
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3 mins of Silence and he was laughing!

Today at 2.28pm, China observed a 3 minutes of silence to mark the earth quake.

Before 2.28pm, a Snr Mgr from level 9 called my Hubby on level 10. Both of them were chatting about work when 2.28pm hits and everyone was standing in silence. The other Snr Mgr asked my Hubby: "Do you noticed the silence? Another earthquake!! RUN!!!" Then they started to laugh. They totally forgot that they are supposed to show respect at that moment.

Imagine, in an office when everyone was silent... when you laugh... almost everyone can hear you. I am sure people on level 10 were cursing at my Hubby and those on level 9 were cursing at the other Mgr.

When my Hubby came home and told me this, he got another scolding from me. I said he was a terrible person! He says he totally forgot about it and blamed the other Mgr for calling him and joked about it.

KNN! Both of them are Malaysians... really sia sui. I need to punish my Hubby. No sex for one month!!!
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My Sunday

I bought a pair of jeans from H&M last month. They have a 30 day return policy and I went back to return the jeans because I realised I don't really like it. This is the second time I am returning clothes back to H&M because I can easily change my mind and don't like what I purchased earlier.

I must say that I am really impressed with their efficiency. I spent less than 5 minutes for the return procedure. While the cashier credited the money back to my credit card, he quickly checked the jeans and place those theft detector back onto it, and hang it on the hanger. Then the credit card processing was ready. He explained to me that it will be credited back to card within 2 weeks and asked me to sign the stub. I am really impressed. So efficient. No questions asked. They must be really well trained.

Weekend again, as usual, cooking time. I cooked pork ribs curry and terriyaki chicken wings.

Hubby went for basketball game and came back really hungry. We had our first round of makan at 4.30pm. I guess we will be hungry again very soon. I also have red bean soup for dessert. It's the first time I boiled red bean soup, and it's a success! Yay!

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The Earth is Raging in China

Today, around 2pm, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hits Chengdu, Sichuan. This quake sent tremors to Beijing and Shanghai.

I felt dizzy when Winston buzz me... asking me if I felt anything. At that time, I really felt it and I immediately sent an email to Nicole and Elizebeth DL asking them if they felt it. After a few moments, my phone rang and Elizebeth DL told me she is on her way home as her office block has evacuated everyone. Her office building was shaking! A while later, Nicole called me and told me her building has evacuate everyone as well and she is going home while Winston told me the same thing but he was downstairs standing, walking around and that many of his colleagues went shopping instead. Hahaha.

I was at level 10 and the tremor was just a slight one. People from higher level went out from the building. My boss went down to 'pat' and he came back with an insurance agent's namecard. People are taking this opportunity to sell insurance... WTF!

It was reported that there is going to be another quake tonight between 10-12am. Nicole says she better wear a bra to sleep tonight, just in case anything happen, she can just run out. I think I better wear a bra to sleep as well... and place my passport somewhere where I can grab easily. Hahaha!

With 3 months away from the Beijing Olympics, and so many happenings near Chengdu (the recent T*bet case) and now earthquake, seems like Mother Nature is very unhappy.

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Durex Play

Has anyone seen this and used it? Saw it at convenient store today and wonder what it was. Bought it, read it and found that it's a vibrating tool where both players can have fun. Seems like you need to put the ring around the penis and then insert into the vagina. Hmmm... have yet to try it, but sounds interesting. Not sure if it will work right for me and my Hubby. Hahaha!.

Will try... but maybe not tonight. Hehehe...

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Makan Session

Today, I invited my Malaysian friends over for lunch. I cooked bakuteh, mushroom chicken and sambal prawns. Winston, EC, Nicole, Elizebeth DL and her Hubby were here for the makan session.



It was a fun session. It's nice to get together and cook. Sometimes I wish I could cook more geng chau dishes like what my Mum cooks so that I can invite more friends. Maybe the next session I will have nasi lemak and mee hoon. But I need to learn how to cook mee hoon. So far... it has been failure. :)
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Would you give your boss....

Would you give your boss....


a Bally leather belt?


or a Liuligongfang Chinese glass ornament?

or a crystal bracelet?

Crystal bracelet may be cheaper, but China's famous Liuligongfang art glass is not cheap! And Bally leather belt cost a bomb in China!!!

These are the gifts that my Hubby's staff gave him for his birthday. The Bally belt was given by 1 person, not even shared. And that 1 person is a female. Blardy....

Would you give your boss any of the above??? I definately will not!!! I am soooo jealous! Don't know why she gave something that expensive to my Hubby. Hmm... fishy.

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China Wonder Cream

Please click on the picture to read.


For those who can't read chinese, here's the translation, translated by Nicole for me:

Aier Disinfector

• Kill Spermatozoom
• Destvoy HIV
• Disinfector
• Lubri cate
• Shrink Cunt

5 main professional standard, no side effects, you can trust!

Product inside vagina will have chemical reaction. Long term usage will not destroy the natural PH balance of the vagina and will not destroy the vagina self-cleaning capability. Will not irritate. Easily absorb, no need to wash. One time usage. No worry of side effects.

Instructions:

1. Open the plastic cover, take out the insertion device. Remove cap, squeeze out sufficient amount of cream and apply to vagina.
2. Use the insertion device to push the cream deep into the vagina.
3. Push in and pull out so that the cream can be fully pushed into the vagina for best results.

Note: The action of pulling in and out must be done concurrently.

OMG!!!! WTF!!!!

Guilin, Yangshuo trip

Me and Hubby went to Yangshuo, Guilin during the May holidays. We reached Guilin on the 1st and went straight to Yangshuo to avoid the crowd coming in from Guilin.


First thing we did when we reached after checking into the hotel is to go look for food. We went to the West Street, something like Petaling Street, but much bigger and better! We ate at a restaurant called 没有饭店 (Don't Have Restaurant). Nothing special, we just need to get our tummy filled.

After lunch, we head immediately for a hot air balloon ride. This ride cost RMB650 per person for a 1 hour ride, and it was really cheap compared to those overseas, but it's expensive for those students biking around, so not many people took the ride. We were lucky as both me and Hubby took one balloon to ourselves. The balloon could carry 4 person.

When the balloon took off... I can hear those people cheering from below. It's like the 'Just get married' feeling. Haha!

The balloon went higher...

And higher...

And higher...

Until we were up at 800 meters above. Wow! I cannot believe that I leaned out and took so many pics from above. Now when I think back, legs also shaking. The wind was not very strong on this day, so we did not travel far. It was quite foggy as well.

Most of the best photos are those taken when the balloon was going down. The view was absolutely fabulous! This place is full of mountain peaks in odd shapes and sizes ... I think thousands of them.

After an hour on top of the world, we bid farewell to our balloon. We rush back to our hotel to freshen up before heading to the Impression Shanjie Liu show.

Before night fall, we went to watch the Shanjie Liu Impression. (印象刘山姐）

It was really impressive and geng chau. Now, what is so special about this show? It was directed by Zhang Yimou, the same director for the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. It is staged on the Lijiang River... and I mean the river is the actual stage, with real mountain peaks background!

There are more than 600 performers, revised 109 times before the final version and the production of it took five years and five months!

This is the stage!

When the show begins, lights were shined onto the background peaks and actors and actresses started to come out into the river on their bamboo rafts. The coordination and lighting were simply amazing!




We were very tired after this but still took a tuk-tuk taxi to the West Street again for supper. We tried the famous Beer Fish but it was nothing special to us. Perhaps we didn't went to the right stall to makan.

On Day 2, we woke up pretty late and had brunch. We wanted to take the river tour along Lijiang River but were told that there were many big boats coming in from Guilin so it will be dangerous to ride on the small boats along that river. So we took a bike and went biking into the villages instead.



We came to a small harbor at Yulong River and took a ride on the bamboo raft.

The view along the Yulong river was simply peaceful and serene. It was truly beautiful and very relaxing. We managed to escape the crowd because at the time we went for the ride, all other tourist were busy having lunch.

Here are some of my favourite pics. It's a totally different feeling and scenery taken from the river compared to the scenery from above the sky.

After the river experience, we continued our journey around the village and then out to the city. We passed by some nice tourist site where many people were taking rides along the river.



Then we came the Big Banyan tree site. This tree is said to be over 1,400 years old.



Me posing like a villager...



After that, we passed by the Moon Mountain... very exhausted at this stage. We cycled for more than 4 hours by this time.

Another scenic spot that we passed by after the Moon Mountain.

The Butterfly Cave was the last spot that we passed by before heading back to Yangshuo town to our hotel.

In total, we cycled for about 5 hours and I think more than 10km. Totally exhausted. At the end of the day, I got a minor sunburn, better cycling skills, and a sore buttock and aching muscles.

On the 3rd day, we head back to Shanghai. 2 days in Yangshuo was definitely not enough for this trip. There are so many to see and appreciate. The scenery was really beautiful and something different that we could never see back in Malaysia. I wanna go back to Guilin again someday. I have not taken the Lijiang River cruise and have not seen the Nine Horses Mountain.

Overall, this trip was really worth it and the views and scenery were truly amazing and simply breathtaking. Words cannot describe. I strongly recommend Guilin and Yangshuo as the destination that must be visited if you come to China. Thumbs up!!

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