小肥羊steamboat

Not all local Chinese are heartless bastards. My colleagues is a good bunch of people! And yes, they are local Chinese.

We had 小肥羊 steamboat for dinner. It was a 东北风味 resturant, inner Mongolia region. Mutton ribs was tasty! I basically cleared the plate of mutton ribs la. 凉皮 tasted great too but they said the ones in Inner Mongolia was better. The rest of the food is standard sliced meat and vege.

It's not the food, but the people who made the ocassion joyous. Guessed we were the noisest grp there( I can hear them from the toilet!), but who cares. Tested my beer endurance today. Toasted everyone present. Forgotten how many cups I drank already and not forgetting the cup of 白酒 I had at the start of the dinner. Apparently, I was one of the better drinkers there. Now they had the impression that Singaporeans are good drinkers liao. Haha!

Wished we had more dinner like this. Really put aside all my worries and enjoyed myself tonight! Great to have this bunch of ah tiongs with me! =)

Impossible IS Nothing_ China

heard a SHOCKING news yesterday!

Contents of a meat bun sold in Beijing is as follows:
40% fatty meat
60%cardboard!!!

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/12/asia/AS-GEN-China-Bad-Buns.php

WTF! 60% cardboard...shall I call them creative entrepreneurs or heartless bastards...they are defintely heartless bastards! Really made me lose faith in people here. These people deserved to be 枪毙. I might be eating cardboard for past 6 months or maybe something worse! 6 more months to go...

健康是最大的财富

Yes! Please bear this in mind...健康是最大的财富
One of my colleague has been "missing in action" in action for 2weeks and when I was wondering what happened to her, I was asked if I wanna visit her at her home. It was then that I realised that she was suffering from 水肿 (pls google what it is cos I dunno what it is exactly). From what I see, she has patches of blueblack on her feet; I deduced that the blood vessels inside burst and blood cant flow. She was very weak when i saw her; started to sweat after talking for a while and the doctors din know the cause. Her mother was by her and yes she looked worried. My colleagues contributed 50bucks each and give her the money to buy whatever tonics she needed; nice gesture from them I tot! I was also tasked to design a get-well card for her; another nice gesture. Sincerely hope to see you back in office in a healthy shape.

On a happier note, another colleague of mine has been missing in action for an equally long period of time. She was at home 养胎ing; 4 months pregnant already! Wow, like what my colleagues say, she really know how to hide. Eh, but she only got married in March leh. 无照驾驶， thats what they call it here in Shanghai. We call it 先上车后补票. Whatever it is, Congrats to You! I might be able to see the baby before i leave wor...

Alive N Kicking

To my few regulars audience of my blog who must have been wondering if I have disappeared from the face of earth, I am still Alive N Kicking in Shanghai. Sorry, plain lazy to update my blog. Just a quick update, I just returned from a 2weeks (minus 4days on the ferry) backpacking trip to Japan during the Chinese golden week. I will select the best moments and upload them onto http://www.flickr.com/photos/binghong/ soon, so check it out ya! I will also blog about my Japan trip when I feel not-so-lazy! Haha, so stay tuned. =)

Peek into my life in Shanghai. This is my 1st wedding dinner in China. Beautiful bride is my colleague Emma, probably the one whom I clicked best with in office. The wedding dinner is nothing spectacular though, pretty much like those we had in Singapore.

Alright, thats all for now folks. With love from Shanghai, 柄宏。 =)

西塘与西湖

Someone commented yesterday that I shud update my blog more often. Okok..this blog is specially dedicated to you ya!

jus came back from a trip to 西塘 and 西湖 last weekend! Yup..the 古色古香 picture on the left 就是西塘了！ As you can see, it's like taking a trip back in time. The buildings dated back to Qing Dynasty and I stayed in one of them. Though the 客栈 looks ancient on the outside, its interior is well furbished with heater, toilet with flushing system complete with water heater! This is really the ideal place to escape from the hustle and bustle of Shanghai.

The trip wun be complete with travel buddies. The chio bu with me in the picture complete my trip. U might recognise one of them. We were having our dinner by the river. How cool right! Great food, great company, great ambience make up for the not-so-great wine. This is LIFE!

And YEs! That's Tom Cruise you see running along the corridoor of 西塘. Yup, MI3 is filmed right here @ 西塘.

I leave 西塘 with beautiful memories. I will be back! when I feel like taking a breather from my busy city life.

西湖 is not -so-great though. Just not our day I had to say. Kena "locked out" of 西塘 early in the morning! fyi, we had to pay an entrance fee to enter 西塘. While having breakfast, we unknowingly wandered out of the pay zone of 西塘. Further, we were only a few shops away from the so-called entrance. So we had to call our 客栈老板 to smuggle our in AGAIN! Again because we were smuggled in previously as well. =p

I was told that train services in China are seldomly delayed. But thats what happened to me! Damn! We reached 杭州 at 2pm and had to catch our train back to Shanghai at 7! 5 hrs how to see 西湖. So our trip to 西湖 was effectively 走马看花。。。and 西湖 was overcrowded with tourists la..hey, i was supposed to escape from the hustle and bustle. The flowers are beautiful though..are they 桃花 or 樱花? Pls enlighted me! The flowers are the only things worth my time at 西湖 during this trip. BUT I will be back for MORE!

Okay..thats the latest update from Shanghai! My dear frens ...pls leave a msg to let me know u are reading my blog. =)

series of unfortunate events

well, my day started well enough...had more than 7 hours of sleep and woke up feeling refreshed and had a hearty breakfast as well. The plan for the day: to extend my visa and go Fudan for lessons. Simple BUT I done none of the above at the end of the day.
unfortunate event #1 : As I was walking to the immigration building, it suddenly occured to me that I din bring my passport along. I was like thinking of what are the necessary documents to bring along and forgot the most obvious item! But then XY was going back home to take her passport and she can bring along mine as well. Lucky me, I tot. So the plan then, skip my Fudan lessons and do the visa in the afternoon.
unfortunate event #2 : We were queueing at the counter to do our visa. FUCK! I din bring along my pink slip. fyi, the pink slip is a useless looking piece of paper and no one would have tot u need that to extend ur visa. But in fact, this useless looking piece of shit is an essential item! And so I got to go back to the immigration building the next day for my visa with this useless looking piece of shit. WTF! okok,no use crying over spilled milk. Fact is there is nothing i can do now but come back again the next day. Plan then: Go home and have a good rest and watch some episodes of slam dunk maybe.
unfortunate event #3 : As I was about to enter the lift back home..FUCK! I left my keys in my 羽绒服 which i left at home! Decided to go for foot massage after which MR was home to open the door for me. I was finally safely home. Certainly not a good day. The good start and good end to my day and the pizza hut meal in the middle offer some consolation though.

Plan tomorrow: settle visa in the morning , back to work in the afternoon and home for dinner at night. Simple enough and no more screwups!

The Best of 黄山！

My fav pic! The backgounds looks like the setting of a 武林大会！

For the sake of folks in S'pore who miss me already, this is for u! haha

The sunset is brillant and it feels like I am in heaven, seriously! Sadly, I miss the sunrise though...

At 1860m, 光明顶 is the 2nd highest peak @ 黄山。

HuangShan is beautiful...but u gotta conquer these flights of stairs first!

始信峰。Apparently, a poet long time ago dun believe that HuangShan was really that nice until he came to this 始信峰 。Hence the name "start to believe peak"!

同志们，thats all for today..for the full set of 黄山 pics, please be patient. I will upload onto flickr when I am in the mood.

Home Sweet Home

ME, BRO n MILO

Some things changed, even if you were away for only a month! Haha, i am talking about myself now. The 1st things my bro said to me wasn't "kor, i miss you" or "kor,u become more shuai after one month" BUT "kor, you look like a ah tiong!". And I wasn't even wearing my made-in China 羽绒服！fyi, 羽绒服 is a outer coat the ah tiongs wear during winter. The only thing Shanghainese about me at the airport was my haircut. Haha, imagine my tiong-ness when i come back one year later!

Milo changed too! Milo is my Schnauzer i got last July. He is looking more like my brother!~fatter that is. No wonder they say Schnauzers take after their owners! Other than the horizontal growth in size, Milo is still as active and still knows how to go toilet to pee and shit. And he still remembers me! My good Schnauzer! shall plan an exercise regime for u this week, to be carried out by my equally needy bro! Haha

Alright, that's all the changes i have noticed since i came back. Hopefully everything else either remain the same or changed for the better! Shit, I am still the lousy mahjong player that I am! lost $30 to my "chio bu" 堂妹 last night, thats RMB150! equilvalent to one month supply of 饺子！It's 大年初一，wish my parents 身体健康！my bro 万事如意！and all my friends 恭喜发财！Time to wash up and collect "ang baos"! Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

回家了！！！

Night view from my apartment

My tatami room

My bags are packed and air tickets checked, I am going back to my hometown for Chinese New Year! pw asked just asked me if I am happy going back. Well, of cos I am! Chinese New Year is my FAVOURITE festival! collecting ang baos aside, I love the once-a-year reunion dinner and my favourite mahjong after that. Hmm, wondering if TCS will be showing Jacky Chan movies this CNY eve again...haha

Been in Shanghai for a month, feels like i am one of them now. Had happy times; i celebrated my birthday here, and frustrating times too; rmb the time we were house-hunting. There was this particular day when i feel like 老天爷was playing with us. We fell in love with this house, went hunting for gorcery n stuffs when the agent called us and said the landlord wants to find trouble. And when we given up hope on this house, the agent says the deal is on again. Landlord is playing hard to get sia. And the rest is history. And boring days when I had nothing to do for the entire day in office and i will wonder whether i had made the right choice in coming. They shall all stay as memories in me.

Now that i am truely settled in shanghai; kinda miss the city and my housemates; the one whose hands are too short to reach the window handle (u noe who u are), the one who cooks for us, the one asks me to do everything for her(haha,not that i mind), the one who is already back home and the one who sleeps beside me every night.

Good Bye Shanghai. See you in a week.

Lunchtime Blog

I shall dedicate this post to my lovely colleagues at GEA After Sales Business Unit (ASBU) since today will be my last day in office for the chinese lunar new year! will be catching a plane back to 老家 tomorrow.
I have 13 colleagues at work, (Dong Yang, Michael Cui,Cindy, Saniya, Lily, Angel, Jenny, Emma, Sandford, Li huimin and finally, Water, River and Bridge, who btw are not related in any way), each of them unique, all local Chinese and mostly Shanghainese. I hate it when they started conversing among themselves in Shanghainese cos I dun understand a single word! Now i know how my Melayu and "GEk Leng" friends feel when the chinese started talking in Mandarin.

老Dong, Shanghainese, aka Manager of ASBU. Charismatic leader and well-respected leader in ASBU. A leader with a personal touch, he will get out of his office and joke amd talk cok with us whenever he is free. But he is no softie! In my 1st meeting with 老Dong, I saw him f**king the company bus driver up-side-down! To me, he is a fatherly figure though.
Me: 老董，我这个周末要到黄山去游玩。
老董：那么你这个星期一别来上班了。爬黄山很累的，你还是留在家里休息吧。
A quote from our conversation to show his fatherly side. I will try my very best it stays this way and make sure i dun end up like our company bus driver uncle!

Sandford, Shanghainese, aka my 2nd fatherly figure in office. Standford is my neighbour in office. He is quiet by nature but will slowly warm up to people(a bit like me). We seldom talked to each other initally, but has since "warmed up" to each other. His has a keen interest in language; he has a german,danish,english and chinese dictionary in office! and he reads english literature! Apparently, I reminds him of his niece. He has a niece currently schooling in Germany, who is about the same age as me. An old head who gives sound advise and a pleasant neighbour to have beside.

I shall stop at the two fatherly figures for now, got to get back to work already. More to come in my next episode of lunchtime blog...

黄山 road trip: intro

yES! iT'S finally up. It shud have been up a few days ago; tried setting up a wordpress but cant get past the Great fireWALL of China. Damn! My 黄山 trip this weekend gives me the extra motivation that drives me to finally set up a blog. It's my 1st road trip in China.Here is a little info on my trip. 黄山 is in the 安徽 region, 6 hours bus ride from Shanghai, it's machiam from Singapore to Ipoh. I will be leaving tonight and returning on Sunday night. 黄山 is a must-see, according to my seniors and colleagues. It known for its beautiful senery and its highest peak stands at around 1,800m (i guess). So i am definitely expecting something much better than our very own 武吉知马山！And I might see snow if I get lucky. It seldom snows over at Shanghai;has been a snowless winter thus far fyi. I shall be trigger-happy on this trip. A blog is a must. wanted to upload my would-be beautiful pictures and share my 1st road trip experience here.

五岳归来不见山
黄山归来不见岳

Can someone please explain to me what it means? I guess it's a poetic way of describing 黄山's beauty. So stay tuned for a update on the 黄山 trip!