July Events

Recently I have been rather busy. You may wonder, “busy with what?” - friends’ birthdays, attending events and meetings, meeting old friends and going for trip. Events are such as MATTA fair, recycling programme, Bon Odori and farewell.

One of my counterparts has decided to move on to another position in my company. He was a loud person and we used to talk about the way he talked and his behavior. However, after he leaves, I sort of miss the times when he makes a lot of noise. It kills the silence and tension here. Whenever I moved to a new cubicle, I will feel that something is missing - voices of people surrounding me, their phone conversations and their laughter. Last time, I used to complain about an Indian fellow sitting near my cube. He always talks loudly. Every single word he said, we were able to hear it clearly. The situation got worse after office hours as his volume increased. But now, I would like to thank this “speaker phone” for his noisiness. Without his “voice”, it would be very quiet and scary in the office if I staying back for extra work.

During MATTA fair, I registered for a trip to Taiwan in November with my colleagues and some friends. Hopefully everything turns out well. A short trip to MATTA fair turns out to be a lengthy one. We had gone thru almost each and every booth. I predicated that we can go home at around lunch time, but it ended up to be supper time instead. My mum was calling my handphone for more than 10 times. As it was quite noisy in the stadium, I didn’t notice the calls at all. Or perhaps, I was too excited over the brochures and handouts. I was extremely hungry as I reached home, but it seemed that I had lost the appetite to eat as it was already more than 10pm.

It’s great to meet up friends once in a while. Recently, I met up with my lecturer and 2 secondary school friends. I have never gone out with my lecturer for a tea before that. After graduating, I got this “push” to meet up my lecturers. Dr Andrew was back in Penang for a few days, a de-tour for his business trip in Singapore. It was a small gathering between Khai, Wee How, Dr Andrew and I. Wee How turned out unexpectedly and that was the first time I talked to him even though we were course mates. Sir treated us the drinks in Starbucks and it was the first time I ordered Hot Chocolate Caramel. I grew to love this drink very much and was looking forward for another cup of hot choco in Starbucks soon!

Unpredictable weather

The weather now is really unpredictable. It’s raining in Penang almost everyday when the weather is supposed to be hot and sunny. Today it’s raining again and the rain is very heavy. From the glass in my office, I can see the trees moving from one way to another in a fast and heavy movements.

For those who are not in Malaysia, 端午节 is falls on tomorrow. It’s a season of Chinese dumplings and dragon boats.

Yummy Food #1

Here's some of the yummy food in my recommendation list, of course it's mainly based on the restaurants in Penang:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157600389899953/

Tasik Temenggor

2 weeks ago, I had a family trip to Tasik Temenggor in Perak. It was a last minute trip. As Tasik Temenggor is not a well-known tourist spot and my parents scared to be cheated by the marketing agent of the resort, we decided to check out the place first. We got to know about the place as they had setup a booth during the Floral Fest in Botanical Gardens, Penang. Tasik Temenggor is one of the few places popular for fishing fresh water fish. It is an extremely huge lake located in the mountains with many islands inside of it. It is the main source of water for many rivers in Perak.

Before we departed, we had decided that if the resort does not exist, then it will be a free and easy trip. It turned out that the resort does exist and we even met the owner of the resort. We loaded our belongings into the speed boat and headed towards the resort.

We took the 3 Days 2 Nights package. The resort is very new, around 8 months old. Many of the chalets are still under renovation. They are not very luxurious but decent. There’s only a few person in the crew and all of them are multitasking. Some of the highlights of this resort is:
- Water basketball
- Nice scenery (sunrise, sunset, moonlight)
- Steamboat dinner while the weather is cold
- Free flow of instant coffee and tea

Activities:
- Water sports (basketball, canoeing, swimming)
- Jungle trekking
- Visiting the orang asli village
- Fishing
- Water drifting (provided if the water is good)

Unless the usual islands trips, everything here is very relaxing. There is no rush between trips. If you do not want to do activities, you can lay around by the lake and do some reading, play card games and/or mahjong or watch TV (astro installed with some channels).

Below are some of the photos taken:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157600378931689/

Perhentian Photos

Hi girls and guys,

I have uploaded my Perhentian Island trip photos. Have a look:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157600286203741/

Perhentian Island

May 11, 2007 (Friday) – I departed to Pulau Perhentian with 14 people – my colleagues, and colleagues’ friends. The journey started off with some familiar faces and some strangers. However, we all mixed up well at the end of the trip. The bus departed at 9pm.

May 12, 2007 (Saturday) – We arrived at Jerteh, Terengganu at around 3.30am. Everyone was sleepy and surprised as the bus arrived much early than we expected. The van driver was still sleeping when we called up. We spent around 5 hours at a small shop near the jetty while waiting for the speed boat to Pulau Perhentian. It was a very long wait. At around 9am, we walked to the agent’s office. The speed boat to Pulau Perhentian departed from Kuala Merang at 9.30am. The speed boat was indeed very speedy. I felt wonderful as I rode on the boat; it feels like as if I was riding on a wild house.

The water in Perhentian is cleaner than the ones in Redang, even though the sea color is not as nice as Redang’s. The resort that we stayed was Cocohut. At first, we thought that it was a typo in the quotation and the correct spelling should be “Coconut”. But, Cocohut is the correct. I like the dining place and lobby. It looks a bit like Hawaii style. Our rooms were at the upper level of a 2 storey wooden building. Somehow, I felt that the building is not very solid. Our rooms are either dime or rather dark. There were 2 queen size beds for each bed, regardless of the number of people for each room. It was a better place compared to the resort that I last went in Redang.

The meals here were better too. Food was served according to the group of visitors instead of buffet style. We don’t need “fight” for our share of food. We had a snorkeling trip on the same day, shortly after lunch. As it was the first snorkeling trip, everyone was very excited. We putted on our sun block lotion even before the lunch and put more after lunch!

We went to 3 places for snorkeling. I was “too active” for the first round as I thought that that will be our only place for snorkeling. I used up almost all my energy, without any reservation. I was “half-dead” when reaching the second place. I was very excited to see the gigantic turtles that I swam with all my energy towards it.

Advise: Remember to make sure that you have enough energy for all the trips.

May 13, 2007 (Sunday) – We went to 2 islands for snorkeling – Pulau Rawa and Susu Dara. The second island has a lot of huge rocks and almost near sea level. Thus, it’s very hard to swim around without getting hurt. Things got worse when the waves were strong. After the rocky island, we stopped by at the light house before heading to the fresh water water spring. The sea is very deep at the light house and there are many corals and fish. It was fun jumping from the first level of the light house into the sea! Some of them scream with the all their might while we were waiting in the water.

It was already more than 2pm when we had our lunch. Most of us haven’t even bath. We were all very hungry! 2 of the girls joined another trip before the lunch. They were really too active! We took a nice and long bath after the lunch. Then, it’s photo session! We made a lot of weird and funny poses. It’s enjoyable.

We spent most of our free time playing Uno. Some of the beach boys even show us “magic”. The television in the lobby aka dining area is only available at 9.30pm. One of the guys was having a hard time catching up with his football games.

May 14, 2007 (Monday) – La Hotspring and Lata Tembakah, those are the 2 places that we went to after our Perhentian trip, while waiting for our bus back to Penang at 9pm. Those 2 places are far away from Jerteh, especially La Hotspring which it is located deep inside the jungle. It was named as La Hotsping because it is located in a village called La. It is a natural hotspring.

Before reaching there, we planned to hop into the hotspring and have a nice bath. However, the water was so hot that eventually, we only put our legs into the pond. Even though the hotspring is in then open air, we felt very hot after dipping our legs into hotspring. Our next destination is Lata Tembakah, which is located very near to La Hotspring. The highlight of this place is its waterfall. I was amazed to see such a tall waterfall up close. It’s a really wonderful scene! The place is not well maintained. Even though there’s a few changing rooms, some of the doors cannot be closed and some are too dirty. There’s hardly anyone inside the park. Leaves are all over the place. But, I like the scene of the tall trees, truly a tropical forest.

2 Nice But Sad Drama Series

Recently, I have been watching 2 sad Japanese drama series. I haven’t really being watching any Japanese drama series for quite some time already.

1. Karei naru Ichizouku is a tragic story between a father and son. The story is set shortly after World War 2. Japan’s economy was focusing on heavy industries such as metal. Economy was not stable and there had been a lot of changes for all the industries. Teppei grew up in a wealthy family. His grandfather established the first family business which is metal. After the success of the metal industry, his grandfather founded the banking business. Teppei who has great interest in metal succeeded the metal business while his father succeeded the banking business. Teppei and his father had never been in good terms. There were a lot of family secrets and tragedy inside of this wealthy family, unknown to the public. What is the main reason causing Teppei’s father to dislike him so much to the extend that he wanted his son to disappear?

(Spoilers will not be provided. Go watch yourself!)

Throughout the story, Teppei has shown great values of a true leader. He never gives up while his company was facing obstacles. He fought until the very end. In addition, he is a kind person who helped out his subordinates regardless of the danger. Despite his status, he mixed around with his subordinates like normal friends. Because of this, he has gained a lot of respect and trust from his subordinates. This great spirit has inspire the people around him to work harder despite facing difficulties.

2. 1 Litre of Tears (1リットルの涙, Ichi Rittoru no Namida?) is about a girl who was diagnosed with a disease called Spinocerebellar Degeneration when she was 15 years old, and was able to continue her life until her death at the age of 25 years old.
The plot is based on the true story of a Japanese girl named Aya Kito, who died in 1988. She kept writing in her diary to remember her experiences until she could no longer hold a pen. Aya simply wished to live until the end of her life, and the purpose of writing in the diary was to remind herself to not give up. She shed tears many times, at the same time encompassed by the rich love and support from her family and friends. Her diary titled 1 Litre of Tears was published shortly after her death. It encouraged many people, healthy or diseased, because of its inspiring and courageous messages. As Aya wrote, "Just being alive is such a lovely and wonderful thing."
– adapted from Wikipedia

From this drama, we can see the healthy and active Aya getting weaker and weaker, and eventually passed away. She has been struggling a lot after getting the disease. She has to give up her favorite sports, leave her school and friends, getting strange glance from people around her etc. However, despite all the struggles, she wanted to help others facing the same disease. Her diary has touches the hearts of the other patients, encouraging them to live on the remaining of their lives to the fullest.

Bukit Hijau

Recently I have been “adventurous”. 3 weeks ago, I went to Bukit Hijau with a few colleagues. It’s my first trip with most of them. Bukit Hijau is famous for its waterfall, it is located in Kedah. I haven’t been there for more than 10 years. I only have pieces of memories of the place when I was young. I still remember that I was very lazy to climb up to the top and my dad nearly drowned near the waterfall back then. We had a great time there even though I didn’t join in for the “water-fun”. Lunas is a small place, well known for its roasted duck. However, I was disappointed when I heard that they are not selling “pi pa” duck anymore, which is the one that I miss the most.

Click below to view some of the photos taken:
http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a146/dellachew06/BktHijau/

Public Holidays

Today is a “supposing” public holiday declared by my company as a replacement for the Wesak Day that fell on the same day as Labour Day. Yet, I was working on both days. Many of colleagues came to work as well. After all, it’s month end and also quarter end. Thus, working extra hours is unavoidable (meaning working OT is not something optional as the workload is heavy and we need to meet the dateline).

In Malaysia, Labour Day is almost equivalent to supermarket sales. Many department stores will be having discounts on a variety of items. I brought my mum for a dinner at Secret Recipe and shopping in Sunshine Supermarket. It can be considered as an early Mothers’ Day celebration as well.

I will *try* to keep this blog up-to-date :)

Yunnan - Day 8

Day 8, Saturday – It’s the last day of my Yunnan trip. It’s also shopping day! Our first destination of the day is a bazaar selling a variety of things, except food. It is called the Luo Si Wan Bazaar. It’s the whole sale market for other places in Yunnan. Things here are cheap even without bargaining. I bought some clothes and umbrellas. I was very excited to the huge soft toys hanging outside of some shops (taller and bigger than I).

Next, we went to the local food shop to buy some local specialties. The price of the food here is not cheap. It is advisable to shop at the normal supermarkets, such as Parkson. I bought a lot of tidbits, especially 乌梅 (“Wu Mei”). It’s a type of “asam-asam”, huge and black but not soul.

We had our lunch at a shop specializing in mushrooms. The supposing “nice” meal turned out to be bad. The wrong mixture of mushrooms caused me to have a bad appetite. Things became worse when I had a stomachache.

After lunch, we headed to the silk shop. The cheapest blanket cost around RM180, without the silk covers. The whole set of silk covers actually cost more than RMB 2K. There are other silk products such as clothes and handbags.

Our last destination is the flower market. In the market, there’re fresh and dry flowers. The flowers are very beautiful. After shopping in the flower market, we said goodbye to our local tour guide and flew back to KL.

Yunnan - Day 7

Day 7, Friday – Today we headed back to Kunming after breakfast. Our highlight of the day is West Mountain Dragon Gate. We went up there by cable car and came down by a “small car”. Things sold there are cheaper as there are fewer tourists. From the top of this mountain, we will be able to have an overview of Kunming city. The locals here will hike up this mountain on the 3rd day of CNY. I find it not very fascinating. I will just give an average rate for this spot.

After the mountain trip, we headed to a medical shop selling honey and different types of Chinese medicine. We have a trial on a special medicine for cueing sickness related to our legs. There’s free massage service for the leg as well. I feel much more after the massage. According to one of the massager, there are Chinese medical students. Of course, when there’s special service, we tend to give up to the sales person and bought some of their products.

We had our last dinner at a shop specializing in herb soups and wine. We had 4 pots of soups and I really feel a bit drunk after the meal. My face was red, luckily not as red as a tomato.

Yunnan - Day 6

Day 6, Thursday – It was cold in the morning as I reached the Yulong Snow Mountain station to take the bus and then the cable car. I can some rain drops falling onto my face when I got out of the bus. To be exact, those were not rain drops but tiny little snow flakes! I was very excited as it shouldn’t be snowing at this season. There are jackets for rent at the station for 30 RMB. The view along the way to the mountain is very beautiful. This was my first time seeing real snow! The queue for the cable car was very long as the wind was strong. I waited there for more than an hour. There were many tourists, both local and foreign, queuing up for the cable car. We had prepared some oxygen tanks with us, just in case we need them. Every cable car can only fit in max 6 person. We were enjoying the beautiful view of the mountain in the cable car, shooting photos of here and there. There are different types of trees as we went higher and higher. As we reached the park, there is nothing but snow, rocks and the mountain. But, the view up there sure is simply marvelous. However, this mountain is not suitable for skiing due to its landscape.

Our next destination was Bai Sui River (“Bai Sui" means white water). After the snow of the mountain melts, it will flow down to this river. Its water is crystal clear. The reflection of the sky on the water makes it even irresistible. It looks like a perfect picture, with the snow mountain as the background and clear blue water. “Gan Hai Zi” (sweet sea) is not a sea as its name implies, it is actually a meadow. When it rains heavily, it looks like as if it is a sea. Long long time ago, this meadow used to be covered by water.

We were all very hungry after the snow mountain trip. We had lunch at “Yu Sui Zai”. It is the holly land of the Dong Ba Culture. This place has a very nice view of the rivers and mountains. (In short, I can say that in Lijiang you can see many nice views of water and mountains.) There is a small museum for stones here. In this museum, there’s exhibitions of natural stones that looks like food. The stones all look so yummy.

Our next stop is the Spirulina shop. Lijiang is one of the 3 major places in the world producing natural Spirulina. After this, we said goodbye to our Lijiang tour guide and headed back to Dali. After lunch, we did some shopping at night in the old town. There are a few bookshops there, selling only Chinese books. There are a lot of books there which you cannot find them in Malaysia, especially books on the different minorities in Yunnan. I managed to buy a book at less than RM20, which is price at more than RM80 in Malaysia.

p/s: Your bargaining power must be really good if you want to buy things at a cheap price in China. It’s better to make some surveys around first before purchasing.

Photos - Yunnan - Part 1

Here are the some of the photos taken during Day 1-6 in Yunnan: (correction)
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v635/dellachew/Yunnan1/

Enjoy!

Yunnan - Day 5

Day 5, Wednesday – Today, we went to Lijiang. The journey is shorter this time. On our way there, we stop by at Shi Zhai Zi. It’s a village selling jade, crystals, local food and antics. What attracted me is the stone mountain opposite the village instead. We reached Lijiang a around 12.30pm. Our original schedule to go to Yulong Snow Mountain after lunch was cancelled as the wind was too strong. I was a bit disappointed as the mountain is so near, yet so far. There are 2 highlights today, Lijiang Old Town and Suhe Old Town. Lijiang Old Town is a very busy place with lots of shops and lots of people. We need to bargain in order to get the things at a cheap price, and this requires special skills and techniques.

Lijiang is famous for its water canals. The water here is very clean. Suhe Old Town is quite similar to Lijiang Old Town but there are not many visitors and the life there is more relaxing. The locals here like to play mahjong during their free time. The things selling here is also cheaper, even without bargaining. There are even more canals there and the water is really clear and clean. At night, there’s a place with fire and people will be dancing around the fire. It’s fun!

p/s: For Lijiang, ladies are address as 扮金妹 (“Ban Jin Mei”) while guys are address as 扮金哥 (“Ban Jin Ge”). I will continue on the "story" for Day 6-8 next week (hopefully...).

Yunnan - Day 4

Day 4, Tuesday – We went to Dali by bus. The journey was around 5 hours. The wind is stronger in Dali and the air is cooler and dryer. Er Hai is a very huge lake with shape of an ear. Er Hai Park is a small park located at the South of the lake. There’s nothing much to see there. Dali Museum is another boring place located inside the Dali Old Town. Tian Long Ba Bu Movie Studio is an artificial place built for the filming of Jin Yong stories. Jin Yong is a famous writer for the martial arts stories. There are several countries in the studio, built based on the stories by Jin Yong.

The Bai minority have been ruling Dali for 50 years. For the Bai minority, we can recognize whether a lady is single, engage or married by their hats. The hat is known as 风花雪月 (“Feng Hua Xue Yue”). For single ladies, their hats are of ½ moon shape. For married ladies, their hats are of full moon shape. It is a tradition that any man who touches a ladies’ hat must work for her for three years, unless the girl shows no interest in the man. For single ladies, when they reach the age of 18, their mothers will give their daughter a jade. This jade has been passed down for generations and will be inherited by the eldest daughter of the family.

The 3 cups of tea by the Bai Minority is something unique. The 1st cup is a bitter, the 2nd cup is sweet and the 3rd cup is a bit spicy. This also represents the sweet and bitterness of our life. For proposal, the man must prepare 6 pots of wine, 6 boxes of cigarettes, 6 chickens and a jade for the lady being proposed. The wine, cigarettes and chickens are for her parents to show his sincerity. If a lady is married, there’ll be jade on both hands. During weddings, the bride will wear sunglasses. It is said to hide her tears on the wedding day. Villagers, passersby, relatives and friends can give their blessings to the bride by pinching her. For the Bai minority house, there are 2 levels. The lower level is to stay while the upper level is to keep food.

We stayed overnight at Landscape Hotel, which is located in Dali Old Town. The design of the hotel is of an old building and the room is very unique. It is classical. The blankets prepared are made of silk.
p/s: For different place, we will have a different local tour guide. This is their government policy. For Dali, ladies are address as 金花 (“golden flower”) while guys are address as 阿鹏哥 (“Ah Peng Ge”).

Yunnan - Day 3

Day 3, Monday – The highlight of the day is Stone Forest. Long long time ago, this area was under the sea level. The Earth plates hit and this place surfaces as what we see now. Stone forest is popular due to its unusual formation characterized by hundreds of stone peaks jutting out from the ground with majestic grandeur and in different poses and various sharps. Inside the park, there’s a “5 star toilet”. There’s a mini LCD inside all the toilets.

The most popular tea in Yunnan is “Pu Er”. Unlike other tea trees, the tree for this tea is very tall. By drinking more of this tea, ones can become slimmer as the tea will wash away the fats in our body. Thus, it is known by some people as “slimming tea”. The longer the tea leaves are, the higher the value it is.

Yunnan - Day 2

Day 2, Sunday – Everyday morning we will have buffet breakfast in the hotel that we were staying. There are 2 famous gates in Kunming called Jin Ma Bi Ji Fang. It is believe every 60 years the shadows of these 2 gates will meet. So far, no one has witness this phenomena and how true this legend is remains unknown. The main tourist spot of the day is the cave in Jiuxiang. This is also one of the shooting places for the movie, “The Myth” by Jackie Chan and a female Korean actress. This place is much more beautiful comparing to “Gua Tempurung” in Perak, Malaysia. It is windy inside of the cave and there are great views of the river and cave. We took a small boat ride around the area before exploring the cave. It’s a very huge area and we spent more than 4 hours inside. We took a cable car back to the entrance after exiting the cave. I was very worried while I was on ride as it was windy at that time and the seat was slightly shaking.

Along the way to the cave, we were able to see the long, solid and old railway track connecting Yunnan and Vietnam through the mountains. This railway was built by France around 103 years ago to transport the minerals of Yunnan to Vietnam and then to France by ship. France took 6 years to complete and repair the railway. Many people had been sacrificed during its construction, including several of its engineers. The train here is going on a very slow pace; the gap between 2 rails is relatively small compare to the usual standard.

Before that we went to an herb shop before going for our dinner at a special restaurant. The seats and table are very low; the floor is covered by pine leaves. For the locals, their floor must be covered with pine leaves from the day before Chinese New Year (CNY), till the end of CNY. They will change the pine leaves after several days, replacing the old ones with new pine leaves. The famous dish in this area is roasted duck. With the addition of a bit of salt, the roasted duck tasted good, but oily. A lot of vegetables were served. The fish served always contained a lot of fine bones, while the pork served always contained a thick layer of fats. The food is so oily that you can feel that your lips are covering by a layer of oil after eating. A dish of egg and big plate of bread with red bean sauce filling were always served as well and they were the children’s favorite.

We stayed overnight at the best hotel in a small town. It was a quiet town during the daytime and even more quiet at night. We had dinner at the hotel and it was terrible. The chopsticks and plates are not very clean. The local customers there sure have a bad way of taking their meal. The bones and food were all over the floor.

p/s: In Yiliang, we normally address the girls as 阿诗玛 and guys as 阿黑哥. 阿诗玛 is referring to beautiful and intelligent ladies while阿黑哥 is referring to honest and brave men. For dishonest men (playboy, lazy etc), they are known as 阿白哥. The wedding meal there normally starts between 3pm and 6pm. They’ll directly open up the presents given after receiving them. The “ang pow” given is quite expensive, ranging from a minimum of 480 RMB (around RM240) to a few thousand RMB.

Yunnan - Day 1

Day 1, Saturday – My tour guide is a young and tough lady, Lili. This is the first vacation with my mum after I work. I departed with the 9am flight to KL and then another flight to Kunming. I reached there at around 3.45pm. There is no time difference. From a far, we could see that Kunming is a developing city. There are a number of tall buildings but most of them have the same design and color. At Kunming International Airport, we were welcomed by our skinny and humorous local tour guide, Kevin. Our luggage was transported to the hotel separately by a truck as our bus was too small for the entire luggage. The weather is not as cold as I anticipated.

Our first spot is the Grand View Park. On the way to the park, I noticed that there were a lot of cars and bicycles on the street. It was weird to see people dressing up nicely in coats and boots cycling on the street. The Grand View Park is a scenic park with many flowers, lake, bridges and the classical 柳树 (“Liu Su”) along the lake. It is a lovely park. I love the 桃花 (blossoms). They look a bit like Sakura. In the park, there is a building called 大观楼 (“Da Guan Lou”). This building is famous for its longest 对联 (“Dui Lian”) in the world, consisting of 90 words for each side. The first part described the beautiful scenery in Yunnan whereas the second part talked about the history of Yunnan.

We had a luxurious dinner at a grand restaurant with Siamese design, but serving local dishes. The highlight of the night is 过桥米线 (direct translation, “cross the bridge noodle”). There is a story behind the name of this noodle. To keep this short, I will leave out the story. First, a very hot bowl of soup with some oil on top of it is served. The oil is to keep the soup hot. Next, put in the slices of meat (normally chicken and pork) into the hot soup. Then, the noodle, follow by the vegetable is put into the soup. We need to wait for a while for the food to be cooked before dining. The noodle looks a bit like the white noodle for “laksa” but a bit different. It is the local’s favorite food as well. They can noodles for every meal, of course with a different way of cooking. The waiters and waitress are very polite. (For every lunch and dinner in Yunnan, there will be beer.) There was a short performance during dinner. Kevin commented that the performance is not nice. The weather in Kunming is much cooler after sunsets. I need to put on my thin jacket so that I won’t catch a cold.

After the dinner, we check-in for our hotel. The hotel is located in the middle of the town. Thus, it’s very convenient if we would like to do some shopping or walk-around at night. I visited the city park at night and it’s beautiful with all the lights. The McDonald there is a bit cheaper and offer more variety of choices. I heard that it’s more delicious than Malaysia’s but I did not try it out myself as the dinner served was too much.

p/s: In Kunming, we normally address the girls as 小姑娘 (“Xiao Gu Niang”).

Yunnan in General

Since there’s a lot to write, I will cut down on the details and go straight to the more “interesting points”. Yunnan is a place in China. It’s located above Vietnam. In Yunnan, there are many places like Kunming, Dali and Lijiang. Kunming is a spring city. The average temperature throughout the year is below 30 Celcius. There are a total of 52 minorities in Yunnan. Among the 52 minorities, 25 of them have more than 5,000 people. The culture of the minorities is different from each other, such as clothing, songs and dance. Most of them do not have their own writings. For different places, they have different ways of addressing people. In general, the toilets there are dirty, some of them do not have doors, the doors are unable to be locked or the doors are quite low.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Wow… I haven’t been updating my blog for months. I guess the main reason is I am too lazy to get my hands moving after work. I received a very unique greeting card from Yushu shortly before Chinese New Year. Thanks a lot! I think that it’s an envelope to put money rather than a greeting card.

BJun had departed to Korea for her studies on February 21. She made a 1 day visit to Penang before her departure. It was great talking about the happy moments that we had during our training. Those are the great moments! We took a number of photos of our funny poses and in the toilet. They sure look very artistic, but I am not going to upload all of them here. *Else BJun is going kill me* Sorry for all the blabbing about Korea, I still haven’t get over the trauma of missing Korea. Eileen is going to be an air hostess. That is shocking news for us, but all the best! As soon as BJun arrived in Korea, I received messages from her. She said she miss us all and our beloved senior, Wei Shi. I wonder how it really feel, when I go back to the same place with different people, but with the moments of my previous visit. “Yesterday Once More”, this is such a nice song to describe my feelings now. This song also brings back a lot of memories. We always sing this song during karaoke session in Korea.

Many people have been changing jobs recently. Here’s a small advice here. It is better if you not change job frequently as it won’t look good in your resume. It will give a bad impression to your future employees as well. I am sure that if you are the boss, you wouldn’t want to hire someone who quits the next moment you hire him/her. To those who are facing doubts, just do what your heart say, but remember to listen to advice from people who care for you. Responsible for your own decision after you have made it.

Before Chinese New Year (CNY), I had been receiving SMS greetings from friends. ASCII art sure is nice. There are tanglungs and pigs. This year’s CNY is not so hot as there’s rain fall in between. I visited Fort Cornwallis on the first day of CNY. (Fort Cornwallis is the fortress that Francis Light used during the war with the Sultan of Kedah) It’s a great view up there! There are a number of performers from China as well. I was able to detect them from their Chinese slang. CNY always mean home visiting and this year is the same. As usual, we had steamboats at my uncles and aunties places. Unlike other steamboats, we had specially made “wanton”, nice ingredients, fried nuggets, herbal chicken and red wine other than the usual fish balls and soft drinks. My immediate neighbor invited us for a buffet lunch at their wonderful house. The house is even better than a hotel, very well designed and comfortable. He even gave us 2 huge packets of goodies!