Home cooked Ban Mian

RED Banana

red banana

I bought this banana at Gubei Carefour. This was my first time I saw red bananas! But it taste just like a normal kind :) Nothing special... just different color.

Tokyo the Metropolitant

I was totally exhausted by the time i reached tokyo, it's already 9pm... It has been really tiring and i took absolutely AGES to find my hostel. its a bit rush because i had to check in before 10pm... again, the mrt route in tokyo make me headache !! its freezing at night, all in all a very looooooong day! i had a good night sleep~

This was the first time i got my own room, a very tiny private room... 2m x 2m... haha, i could not hardly believe it. everything is small in japan. but i love it here so far...everyone is so polite and friendly, streets are very clean, convenient stores are surprisingly fun and food is decent. people take time out to have lunch together.... everything is so kawaii (cute), vending machines everywhere, its new and exciting !!

i went shopping the next day--let me tell you, the shopping here is unreal. it's unending... neighbourhood by neighbourhood. you could literally spend several days shopping in SHIBUYA alone..... and GINZA, SHINJUKU as well......it's OVERWHELMING. oh my god~~ and the electric city IN AKIHABARA, i spend almost half a day to look at the cameras and mobile phones ... it's very cheap if you buy in duty free shop.

Foods are cheap compare to osaka and kyoto. i found 180 yen ramen !?!!? udons at 280 yen... mrt fares are cheaper too...

i shop like crazy on my last day in tokyo, and i got only half a day to do my shopping. but unluckily, shopping centers in tokyo are only open at 10am and close at 8.30pm......my flight back to shanghai is at 4.55pm (6 May)...... it takes more than an hour to reach Narita Airport from my hostel...

Kyoto The Ancient City

Kyoto is beautiful...., without doubt, the most romantic city in japan. a roughly 30 mins from osaka. because of its rich cultural heritage, kyoto was not targeted in the air raids of world war II, and as a result, it is still home to numerous priceless structures, temples and shrines. at the same time, kyoto is a bustling modern city.

i had my ramen at a small shop when i reach kyoto. its the most delicious ramen i've ever had. the soup is warm and the noodles r hot !! food and mrt are very expensive in kyoto. the most cheapest meal i had is 500 jpn yen for just a bowl of tempura udon ~

the most unexpected thing is, there's a lot of staircase !! haha, although i think the stairs are what attributed to me losing basically 1 pound per day during my 3 days visit in kyoto. i'd visited some temples which took 2 hours to climb to the top of the mountain... i'm glad i trained a bit back in shanghai cause i have been walking a lot of miles (or kilometers) since i got here.......

the backpackers hostel that i am staying in kyoto is very very clean. i met a few australians and british here. in the evening of 3rd May, l leave kyoto to tokyo. it tooks around 2 hours by shinkansen (bullet train)..... it's really FAST !!! normal train tooks 10++ hours to reach tokyo... can you imagine that !??!?!?!

Osaka - a city of stunning diversity and culture

I touched down at Kansai International Air terminal on friday noon, (29 april).... the word Kansai International Air Terminal is very very familiar to me. i did research on it for a project in school and it's designed by a very famous architect-Renzo Piano. and now.... i can't believe that i was stepping on this man-made island !!

well, japan... another very different place. I guess my experience really started at the airport...going thru customs, had my backpack searched.... but it was all good, they were friendly and i guess they were just doing their job.

i took airport limousine to osaka city center. osaka is a water metroplis. not only because of its proximity to the sea, but also because of the numerous rivers and canals that crisscross it. it was over the water that most commerce flowed to, through and from osaka. on the way to the city, i saw lots of sailing yatchs, industrial area, beaches....and flamingo ~~

my next big encounter was the mrt. what can i say.... its messy!! they have lots of routes, you got to spend some time to really look at the map. if you intend to travel to japan, make sure you get a 7 day or 14 day rail pass. travel without it is grosly overpriced. and much more if you want to catch the shinkansen (bullet train) anywhere else.

a few other strange things about japan. its not a very friendly place to visit if you are looking for friendly, hospitible locals. not many people speaks english here, and they always round of some japanese that i have no hope of understand. a japanese phrasebook would come in real handy. japanese are very kind and will try to help u as much as they can if u ask them. however, you will always seem to get strange looks from the locals, i guess i m 'gaijin' (foreigner)..... :)

so far everything has gone extremely well. the weather have been magnificent...sunny and warm during the day with a bit cooler evenings.

Shanghai Motor Show 2005

Lamborghini concept car Exhibition booth with water feature Mini Cooper

The exhibition was held in the neighbourhood of Pudong in Shanghai every 2 years. I heard this year's show demonstrated a huge effort to be an influential and a large scale international show. Not only have local auto makers stepped up the quality of their exhibition booths and presentation (with some English catalogues) but all international brands were flexing their muscle. More than 1,000 exhibitors from around 26 countries and exhibiting area of 120,000sqm made the auto show the largets one ever.

Sarawak Laksa

Winter BBQ ?? At Oriental Green Haven - Somewhere near Shanghai

Winter BBQ

We had a BBQ today at Oriental Green Haven. A wonderful place with gentle scenery, ponds and lakes, gardens, bamboo woods... It's quite a huge place. The BBQ garden was located at the northern part - an area where you can see architeture with British, American, Spain features or something, each equipped with adequate modern holiday facilities such as tennis courts, sand volleyball courts, natatoriums etc..

The Eastern part is where the martial aircraft carrier stands tall and upright near the lake bank, show you the secrets of modern military science. I think the most exciting part is the "Bravers Trip". On the 200m long road for bravers, you can climb, jump, creep, run or whatever your body can do without tools in order to pass the military barriers and net twine labyrinth.

Well, the barbecue food was not nice. Was said "Unique Barbecue Food" with beverage and snack included. We booked 5 BBQ pit with little food and choices each pit - taiwanese hotdog, fish balls, half pigeon, few slice of beef, and 'man tou' (chinese bread). I don't like it personally... :) but I do love the scenery!

The Holidays that I've been waiting for

Left China to Singapore and Malaysia for holidays, Finally....!

The first few days in Singapore are always odd after staying in Shanghai for more than a year. It's probably a reverse culture shock! @.@

It all started by how polite everyone is in Singapore. When you buy something in a shopping mall or retail outlet, the staff will say "Thank-you", smile and proceed to wish me have a good day. When I bumped into someone, I always have to remember to say "sorry" or "excuse me" and they will invariably say "sorry" back. Scene like these will never happen in Shanghai! I've lost count of the number of times I've been knocked off my feet by people to get pass me and they just looked at me in shock and anger and continue onwards without showing the slightest bit of remorse!!

When you are walking on the streets, it's amusing to see cars stop by the zebra-crossing to allow people to pass by. You see all cars stop at the red light at a virtually empty intersection, patiently waiting for the light to change to green before they head on.

It was refreshing.

Beijing Golf Club in Winter

Ok, Nellie and I was so excited about this photo that we took during our site visit. A beautiful and peaceful scenery with a bicycle under the tree... The first things we did was change our desktop photo to this pic, haha!

Beijing Trip Update

Back from Beijing. It's freezing !! Well, the construction site is actually located beside Beijing city, 2 hours drive from Beijing Airport.

A so call "hotel" that we are staying was the lousiest hotel I have ever stay in! It's just like a motel with broken ceiling... but we are told that's the best hotel in town :)

I was thinking that finally, we can try the authentic Peking Duck (a famous dish in Beijing) but instead, we had some other authentic dish like fried chicken ankle!!!... in a so call high class restaurant :) But it's a lot nicer then Shanghainese food. Beijing people are friendly. We are so glad that the big clients that we met speak English! The guy is a HK born Canadian PR while the lady is married to an American. They speak good English!




From the left: Van (Our Art Director), Me, Client, Client, Nellie and the one holding the camera was our technical designer! :D

Beijing Trip

Just a quick post... will be going outstation to Beijing later for a Golf Club House and Hotel project. I am now writing this blog while waiting for my driver to fetch me to the airport at 6am later. Well, it's winter time and guess Beijing will be colder than Shanghai.