Shanghai Bund, Pearl Oriental tower & YuYuan

I came back from 6D5N trip to Shanghai and Hangzhou. It was winter time so the air was dry and very cold. It reached -3 celcius the day I arrived in Shanghai.

Goodbye Malaysia, a must take photo in front of Air AsiaX plane. We arrived in Hangzhou at about 1.30pm, taking the train straight to Shanghai and checked in hotel at about 7pm. It was a really long journey taking up one whole day. Quickly we grabbed out winter coats and jackets and rushed out to experience winter. It was too cold unbearable and the temperature dropped even worse after dinner. There were construction everywhere, kinda spoil the view along Shanghai Bund overlooking the city. We walked along Shanghai Bund for some one hour and rushed back into hotel to rest, preparing for next day.

The next moring, we checked out any shops nearby that sell breakfast. It was too early that restaurants were still closed. It was winter, so the day started earlier. End up, we bought some meat paos from this shop. Overall the pork was really sweet. Some said too salty, anyway I loved it.

We saw some groups of people doing tai chi along the road or under roof or next to a building. There was something I didn't manage to snap which is the Chinese loves playing badminton. We saw many people playing badminton in heavy winter jackets, at town, or during hiking in a park.

Somewhere nearby Yuyuan (Yu garden) , lots of gold jewellery shops along the road.

2010 is Tiger year. They already started setting up this tiger statue from Pepsi cans.

Next we went to City Temple. They collected fees for us just to go in take picture. It was not cheap either. The place was so small hardly a size of 6 badminton courts, and tourists were not allowed to go upstairs. Everywhere in Shanghai and Hangzhou need $.

We simply took picture of anything to make full use of the entrace fee.

We walked around Yu Yuan market for a while. They were selling expensive stuff overprice for tourists there.

We queued up for quite sometime for seats in this restaurant. The higher floor you go, the higher minimun expense you have to spend on the food. We went to this floor which required us to spend at least RMB60 per person. The xiao long pao is very expensive on this floor compared to below where crowds were queuing up to eat in the cold weather.

nah. This is the shop name. See from the tissue packaging?

We tried some cold and hot dishes and 4 baskets of xiao long pao. They were divine sweet xiao long pao. Juice splitting into our spoon, each bites spelt heaven. We spent over RMB360 for 6 people.


At Yuyuan Garden entrance. 30 yuan each i think the fee.

Some pictures taken inside the garden (1)

Some pictures taken inside the garden (2)

Remember the famous Pearl Oriental tower in Shanghai?

At first we wanted to go up the tower but it cost over RM100 to get up there. No point if we go to half the tower right? So we decided a smarter way. If we want to see the tower, we should not be in the tower. That's why we took the cruise along the Huangpu river which cost us I cant remember is rmb70 or RM70. In this way, we can view both sides of the river, we can see the city and the bund.

That's the end of second day from my trip in Shanghai. I am suffering from flu right now due to the coldness back there.

A healthy and happy year for everyone I love

In 1 litre of tear series, Asou-kun asked Aya-san to the zoo. Wee Liem was happy to acknowledge that guys like to visit the zoo. So does he. He watched the series with me.

In one of the weekend where we went down to Taiping to attend wedding reception, he made a plan to visit Taiping zoo in the day. It is somewhat his dream to visit Taiping zoo. He is one of those kids who love to watch National Geographic and animal encylopedias.

I was pretty amazed of the many animals there compared to Zoo Negara where I have been twice in my childhood days. I hate Zoo Negara because once I got lost and separated from my family when I was too concentrate in watching the tigers, they left without me. I was crying and walking alone until my dad found and came running after me. Thank God I was still at the tiger place that made it easy for my dad to search for me. And the place stinks. And too few animals. But it has KFC unlike Taiping zoo, there have no food chains in there.


This picture of the ostrich upper body which WeeLiem giggled so much while taking it. He found it funny to just photograph the neck and head of this animal who lost so much feathers. His body was so poor 30 percent bald.


It is starting of the year 2010. A new decade. I am not going to write any new resolution this year because I won't be looking much into them either. It is just some black and white objectives that we want to achieve, but if I already know what I want to have, I don't have to write it down. It Is In My Head.

This is most probably more appropiate if I make this wish in Chinese New Year but I want to make it early. I wish for a healthy year for my family and myself. I wish everyone I love is happy all the times, a prosperous year ahead.

Happy New Year 2010 !!!

Only photo taken from PDC beach blast. Happy New Year !!!

Awal Muharam long weekend

It was some continuous long weekends in Selangor from 2 weeks back till 2 weeks later. They had Sultan birthday, Awal Muharam, gonna have Christmas and New year holidays.

I went home for some personal matters, at the same time to attend Pei Li's bride side wedding reception. I missed Alan's house warming. I already missed Her Hau's one in October. Sad.

Anyway, things happening at home both cheered me up and brought me down. It has been months since Celine's birthday I last saw the two babies. Both had grown so much. Celine is walking now, like a man walking on stick balancing herself using her legs. Cheryl has become a big sister answering everyone's question confidently. She can recognise all A-Z, reciting after us and spotting some common animals pretty amazing for a two year old plus. This is what happen when she has a highly educated mommy at home coaching her in everything.

3 pretty ladies. Ops, babies. That's baby sucking her yummy thumb all the times

I cannot make it for Pei Li's official chinese marriage ceremony this weekend as I have other programme to attend. Year end is always busy period for everyone. I rushed to her wedding in time to help at the reception desk after the long journey back from visiting sister. Aileng said I looked tired though which is very true. Above photo is compiled from Aileng's camera and 2 below were stolen from Shiao Shuan's facebook. I have to do so as I don't have any photo with bride in it.

Another table of our friends.

Bride and groom with friends at KEC.

Kaya spread

I'd done many things but there is one particular task that I have not done before. I made my own kaya spread last weekend. It is not any new thing in my family because my mom used to make our own kaya spread since I was a kid but it was my first try. I followed my mom's random instruction and ingredients like 2 bowls of sugar with 3 eggs and coconut milk with portion less than one coconut. So end up I had to pour everything into pot and reheat and adding in much more coconut milk because the spread still grainy of sugar texture after it was cooled down. I know the concept of try and error so I didn't whine. It turned out pretty okay and I absolutely love this morning breakfast.

I recover from Cullen's fever, normal now

Time flies, realizing I have not write anything regarding my birthday yet. I had just came back from watching twilight new moon. Ed Cullen looks like a corpse when he was topless. He had the worst freezing cold body comparing to muscular 108 degree Jake Black. His acting skill was awfully in shame that he is lucky he was filmed in good looking way by the movie director or else no millions of girls will be melting over the romanticness in the scenes. I sincerely prefer Twilight to New Moon. Anyway the movie is still great if it doesn't hang at the ending like this one. I would not grade it as bad movie because I love the story. I finished reading all four books, so I already knew what will happen in the next two movies. Not sure why, there were a lot mosquitoes in the cinema today. I had a few mosquitoe bites on my elbow, thigh and back. I was scratching a lot which caused discomfort, GSC should look into this problem.

Anyway back to my birthday celebration, I had a simple one with weeliem and it was the best among past years because at last I got a necklace that I had longed for years. I don't mind what necklace it is as long as it is a necklace, so it is a good gift. I received presents from sweetie herhau and xwei too , a birthday lunch with the usual lunch gang and many birthday wishes. I don't remember what was my birthday wish already at this moment, anyway there is no point of remembering because my wish never came true before.

I made a carrot cake on weeliem's birthday also to accomplish my dream of making one when I have my own oven. I made it although it was not a perfect one, with too moistured texture. Next time, I will surely remember to heat up the oven first before putting in the batter for bake and lesser cinnamon ground. I don't fancy strong cinnamon taste, so I have to reduce the mix on my next try. Practise makes perfect. I took the cake to office and force my pity friends and colleagues to try. I hope it doesn't taste too bad. I would like to make use of the stand mixer weeliem got me, cookies maybe?

My first sewing machine

2nd big thing I got for myself this year. Finally I managed to test it out after 2 weeks laying in the room, and yay! It is working fine. I have to find myself some time to go out and buy material and sew something before end of 2009.

Yam rice

Mom gave me yam last weekend and I made yam rice out of it. I tried not to have direct contact with the inner side of yam at all because I don't want to itch all night long. WL helped me to chop the yam into pieces and I cut them into smaller cubes without touching them with my hand. I don't want the rice to be dark black colour so I added only drop of dark soy sauce. I love today's dinner though it was my first try making yam rice.

Steamboat for 3

My sister is here over the weekend. It gave us excuse to have a small steamboat treat.

Pumpkin Patch

Random pictures from pumpkin patch that I visited in short hour back in Hillsboro.
Pumpkins everywhere. It was a happy colour.

Animal barn visit

More pumpkins. Pick your favourite shapes for Halloween, weigh and pay.

Barn ride. We were seated on hay stack, pulled by this green tractor

Images by me, Oregon Coast

Leaving Oregon - Autumn 09

I am leaving today, in the airport currently.

Good bye autumn
Good bye chilly weather
Good bye beautiful scenery
Good bye yummy Korean food
Good bye green trees
Good bye foggy morning

Note: Photos are taken by Chun at different times and spot

Painted Hill & Sheep Rock

Everywhere was reported to be cloudy, shower or wet on last Saturday. The only place that didn't rain probably is the place we went. I visited some colourful hills with a bunch of monkeys. LOL. The name of this place is Johd Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

(Note: This pic is from Bong's camera)

It is in a very outskirt area near Mitchell. There are no restaurants nearby Painted Hills, the nearest is the tiny one in Mitchell. We visited the Painted Hills which looks like watercoloured hills. The sands and soils has some kind of minerals that create yellow, red, green, goldish colours. Some parts of the hill are very fragile that walking on the ground will cause the soft surface to sink.

By the time we reached there it was in the afternoon where the sun was above our head.

There is a trail where we can walk on to get closer look at the hills.

After that we went to visit Sheep Rock which is the fossil monument. There are a few trails for people to hike and we took the shorted one which was like 1km.

There is this place called Blue Basin at the end of trail. Green or blue-ish rocks/hills. It was quite a boring place because all were hills and hills and hills, number of humans we saw didn't exceed my finger counts.

A group photo at last. We were back to Hillsboro at 11pm. Tired

Fall & Trillium Lake

I am here in Oregon during fall. All the leaves beginning to turn yellow, some to red.. and orange. It is my first time experiencing fall, to tell the truth. The scenery is beautiful. Perfect for a peaceful weekend if you want to spend it slow and comfy.


It was my second and last Sunday morning in Oregon. I wanted to go somewhere that I can take a photo with Mt Hood behind me. Lovely Aichee and hubby introduced me to this place called Trillium Lake where it supposed to have Mount Hood reflection on the water.

This is the photo I took of Aichee accidently when I was swinging my camera. Anyway, I kinda love it. Feels like the world around her moving nonstop, going back in time.

We stopped by the road side on the way up to the lake, and took some photos, which looks something like Yosemite valley.

There is supposed to be Mount Hood at the end and it's reflection in the calm water. However it was really cloudy and grey on Sunday. There isn't any hope to see the mountain at all. We hung around for like thirty minutes or plus hoping for the cloud banks to slowly shift away. But they didn't because there was like clouds everywhere. Anyway, it was nice to just be there. Twillight kind of weather..

This man had the lake all by himself. He was out there fishing with his small little puppy on the floating boat. We went for dimsum later on, not a dissapointment because the food was not bad.

My Grand Canyon trip

I squeezed a tight Grand Canyon trip on the next day I arrived in Arizona. I asked Wee Meng if he would like to go with me again to Grand Canyon because he visited the place many times before. I always see pictures of the magnificent Grand Canyon from people that travelled to The States but I haven't been there myself. Despite the short trip, to be exact 3 days, I had to Chandler, hardly I must visit the sandstone hills at least once in a lifetime. There isn't much chance to travel here again after this trip, I guess.


Early Sunday morning, we departed from my hotel. The drive took about 4.5 hours. Luckily I had Wee Meng to chauffeur me as I have not drive in any road in Arizona before.. Pity him that he has to hold the steering wheel whole day.


This is a must-take picture to prove that I have been to Grand Canyon National Park. The wind was strong that day. The weather board put 100m/h of max wind. After the stop to snap this photo, both of us decided to put our jackets on.

We were told to drive along the road which we will see the canyon from all the different points, from the map. We stopped at all the points near east entrance station, South Rim.

I can't really remember which point all these photos were taken because the views look almost the same from every point with the Colorado river flowing in different direction but the canyon stand still, layer of different brown tone. It was very windy, too strong that I can feel my body were leaning to a side and both my legs were not touching the ground whenever the wind blow. There were a few times my bag almost flew away if I didn't hold on tight to it.

This view I am not sure where it is. It can be either Grandview, Moran , Lipan or Navajo Point

There is a viewing tower to watch the dessert view

The dessert view

This was about an hour before sunset. This is the hermits rest. We came here in shuttle bus provided from the village

I have to show at least one picture of Wee Meng because he is the honorouble tour guide. He was trying to act courage by sitting at one of the cliff overseeing the canyon. Kill me if you want me to sit over there.

We watched sunset in one of the point. I am not sure. I think this is Hopi Point at ~6.10pm. It was once in a lifetime opportunity, to watch sunset and Grand Canyon, one of US's national park.

I was exhausted from this trip because continuosly I slept only 4 hours everyday until the day after I reached Oregon. Anyway, a big thank you to Wee Meng for his generous time accompanying me.

I left Arizona!!!

After the rush trip from Penang to Arizona, at last I am settling down in Oregon for a short time. This is a place where I love to be. Chilly. I like seeing trees, grass and green more to rocks, sand and brown. But this is not for long. I will be back in 2 weeks time. Anyway, things are really crazy here and I missed lunch on the first day I was in Arizona, not forgetting about how I ate the melted polystrene foam for dinner. It was pathetic except for the golden opportunity to travel and the good friends I have when I landed in the stranger's land. Basically they are the best people I met when I first landed.

Thanks for picking me up from airport, the help to solve my rental car issue, sending me to my flight at 5am in the morning, home cooked lunch, company for dinner and 3 days of feeling home when I was there.

Gonna sleep soon, lack of sleep lately.