I welcomed the year 2008…

The year 2008…

It was started…out of my expectation.

Not that I didn’t expect 2008 to come…

But… it started… wrongly.

The feeling of welcoming 2008 was almost the same when I welcomed my 20^th birthday…

The water that splashed over me is not joy or freedom; but is disappointed and loneliness…

If God will collect every tear everytime His children cried…

By now, He can creates rains for the world…using mine.

I’m going back to the hectic life soon.

I seriously hope to get some sweet memories back to KL…

So that they can cheer me up when I need them.

But do you really care?

God...are you listening…?

Your gift of patience is making me…suffer.

' Happy’ New Year to me.

There are some interesting facts and phenomena that I found out in China… Hmm…to make things easier…I’ll compare Malaysia and China…

Obviously, China have more population than Malaysia…In China, you will see a lot of people, cars, motorbike, bicycle, bus and tall building…most of them stay in apartment or condominium because the cost of land is expensive. Erm…not only land, u need to be rich enough to own A CAR. Their road tax and petrol expenses are quite expensive, it was because the government doesn’t really encourage them to drive car but drive motorbike or bicycle or a more hi-tech bicycle which it runs using a rechargeable battery.

China petrol and diesel price are quite high also. I saw long queue in most petrol station, if you see there is no vehicle in petrol station, that means the petrol station is run out of petrol or diesel. Every vehicle that use diesel can only pump RMB100 each time. So if you want full tank…hmm…you mite need to go at least 4 petrol stations. Well, because of this, drivers actually fight for their petrol…yea…I saw two drivers fight over their turn to pump diesel…Hmm…if you think the petrol price in Malaysia are high, think about those in China, their price is higher than us and they fight for petrol and diesel also…

Our country is proud of our proton cars until we use them as our taxi and police car. In China, they use Volkswagen as taxi and in certain state, they use Sonata as taxi too. The most common car you can find on the road is Volkswagen. 

One of the bags was given by my uncle in Shanghai. My uncle who is a pilot is working in Shanghai for Great Wall Airlines. At first, he told us that he won’t be around when we reach Shanghai, but he didn’t tell us that he is back the night before we leave China…aih…it’s was a coincidence that my family and my uncle and aunty met. The last night when we are in Shanghai, after the Pearl Tower, we went back to hotel. So, as usual - supper. We went to the next door shop (something like 7-11) and during that time my uncle and aunt went in the hotel to look for us. In the end, we met in the shop instead.haha…so took 10 minutes walk to their apartment and I got to online using my aunt’s laptop that night, bro enjoy cartoon and the adults having some chatting time.

Hmm…that’s all ler. I’ll be away (again) for 3 days because I’ll be attending girlz night camp in church.

Wuxi – Although it’s still raining, we still go to the Lingshan Great Buddha (which is an open air place with a bronze Buddha standing on top the mountain, again, they are stairs to reach the Buddha. Some of us stay at the entrance because it’s too cold to walk in the rain and wind. For those wanna go, we took the mini train to skip the stairs. BUT, the train will only bring us to the 2^nd last platform because they believe that we gotta have a heart to complete the journey to reach to Buddha no matter how hard izzit. It was too cold for me and my family to continue, so we take a rest at the temple there while waiting for those who are ‘big hearted’ to go to the top. Then there is a musical fountain show on how little Buddha is born. Suddenly there was a strong wind blow towards where we al standing at while we enjoying the show. Although we are holding our umbrella, but most of us is wet…aih…and we are getting colder n colder…the local guide said, usually seldom people got to ‘feel’ the splashing of the ‘holy water’…we are lucky…yea yea yea…we are too lucky…ish…Then the next da y, we visited the pearl factory then to the Romance of Three Kingdoms. (where we took a cruise through the Taihu Lake. Besides that, we visited the palace of the kings, enjoyed some shows…actually this place was build to let famous director to shoot their once upon a time movie like The Banquet, well of cause the movie The Romance of Three Kingdoms…My Fair Princess – Huan Zhu Ge Ge…So many famous artists and director been to this place before…The local guide told us that the movie Mummy 3 crew was shooting a few scenes in that place a couple weeks ago…)

Hangzhou – A well developed place. If Shanghai is KL, then Hangzhou is Penang. We spent 2 nights in Hangzhou. The 1^st night in Hangzhou, we enjoyed a show which is more like a musical drama, dance describing the unique of Hangzhou. We got to see the Shaolin Kungfu, a short musical drama about the Eastern Romeo and Juliet – Liang Shan Bo and Zhu Ying Tai, the plucking-tea-leaves-song (well, Hangzhou famous for its high quality tea – Long Jin Tea) and the thousand-hands-kuan-yin. The next day, we took a cruise on the West Lake – Xi Hu. Around the West lake there are a lot of garden where you can have morning walk, jogging, enjoying the nice scenery of trees and flowers…But because it is winter in China, we only get to see a lot of leaves under the trees, the botak trees, the no-flower-during winter flower garden…while the nice ones are maple trees and ginko trees which not botak yet…Then proceed to the tea plantation (Hmm…I would say that our BOH plantation in Cameron Highlands is more like a tea plantation rather than the tea plantation in Hangzhou…hmm…I dunno…when I reached there…I’m like…that’s it?...this is the tea plantation? haha…) We manage to enjoy the sun set scenery by the West Lake…took a few pictures on a bridge call the Long Bridge (this bridge is not really very long, the name of the bridge was taken from a sad love story…like most no-happily-ever-after-love-story in China, the couple can’t marry to each other because the rejection of their family, they commit suicide on this bridge. But why Long Bridge? hmm…not the couple bridge? the suicide bridge? or something…? LOL). The famous White Snake Lady love story – which is just a legend, made two places famous. One is the Broken bridge (which the bridge is not really broken, but it will look as it is broken during winter when the West Lake freezes. The bridge is where the white snake lady found her true love.) the other one is the Lei Feng Pagoda (where the white snake lady was kept under the pagoda by a monk) The Chen Huang Pavillion (which is just a pagoda, and nothing much to see) and Qing He Fang Street is quite near to each other, so went up the pagoda with escalators and go shopping at the street (which it is a historic street with pasar malam stuff?hahaha….) Then before we going back to Shanghai, we visit WuZhen water village which is on the way back to Shanghai. This is a place where we really experience the old-china lifestyle.

Next entry I’ll be telling you more about my trip to China...

I’m back!!!...from China…

In 8 days, me n my family went Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi and Hangzhou…

Shanghai – is a modern place. Well, is something like KL + Melaka. We didn’t really spend much time in Shanghai, although we were there on the 1^st night and the last night. The places that we visited in Shanghai were the Nanpu bridge, Cheng Huang Miao (in Chinese means Cheng Huang temple, but there is no temple because the temple was destroyed or collapsed during a war or something…which I also forgot what the local guide told us. To me, it is like a china town), Nanjing Road (which is like the Time Square of China), Mdm. Soong’s Mausoleum (where we learned something about feng sui from the feng sui sifu there).The last night in Shanghai, we visited The Bund (where we can see the Oriental Pearl tower and the beautiful view of the Ye Shanghai which means the night scene of Shanghai), then we took the Sightseeing Tunnel to go across the river to reach the Pearl tv tower.

The SPC gang...hehe...

China coffee is like tea...so...for those who like coffee...sorry...you might not survive in china...the best coffee...is still starbucks coffee...

At the Nanjing road...

The time square of China...

The Nanpu bridge...

The mini monorail in the Sight Seeing Tunnel....

Inside the tunnel....

The Pearl tower...the 3rd tallest in the world....and...KL tower is defeated...LOL...

Took this picture from the pearl tower...the upper right building (the one in gold) is actually Shangri La Hotel.

Suzhou – Hmm…went there to visit Lion Forest Garden (haha…I still remember that local guide pronounced the lion as lying. Well, I’m having some hard time understand their English.haha…what worse is I need to translate into Cantonese and Bahasa during the trip…The garden is not a place where you can see lion like in a zoo. It is just a place where the stones inside the garden look similar like lions. It’s a beautiful garden and according to the local guide, one of the emperor like this place very much. Whenever the emperor is going out of his palace to visit the city, he will never miss coming to this garden.), one of the famous silk factory (where we see how they make silk and enjoyed a mini fashion show), Hanshan temple (which is famous for his ‘God of love’?haha…well, they believe that every couple must go there and worship and pray for happily ever after life with their spouse, and peacefulness in the family.).

Can you find...9 lions in this pictures?

Nice scene in the garden. By the way...the yellow tree is actually ginko tree...

That's my brother...

Fashion show in the silk factory. Hmm...according to the local guide, Suzhou and Ipoh have a similary. Both the places produce pretty girls..LOL...

In the Hanshan Temple. The plants in the picture...are actually called wishing trees...the ribbons are the wishes...

This is the HanShan tower...

Nanjing – Reached there during evening, so we went for a evening walk in Dr. Sun Yat Sen mausoleum (oh, by the way, Dr Sun and Mdm Soong are related.they actually is a couple but when they died, they buried at different places. Mdm. Soong is buried with her family in Shanghai while Dr. Sun is buried alone in Nanjing. We climbed up the 200++ stairs to enjoy the nice scenery of Nanjing, some fresh air but more on cold freezing air.) In Nanjing, we went to a 5 stars restaurant for dinner. Is more like a hotel from the outside, but it’s actually restaurant and hotel. The 3 storey restaurant is so high class that they provide nice lift for you and also a small tv in each individual toilet. That night was the 1^st time I heard English songs sang in the restaurant…the group actually sang Pussycatdoll’s song...LOL), in the morning, the driver drove us to Chang Jiang to see the scenery of this long and wide river of China. For your info, that morning was 9˚C. Then we proceed to the city wall of Nanjing (which more like a place for retiree to spend their time chatting and tai chi-ing.),  (but end up we didn’t visit the the whole museum, the local guide brought us to see, enjoy, understand jade…swt…), when we came out of the museum, it was raining outside. (Brr…cold….very cold)