Keelung Yeliu

i've been telling EC i'll go to Keelung since day one but i've been putting it off forever. yesterday i finally went. yay! so proud of myself. haha.it was much easier to get there than i originally expected. i nearly wanted to join a day tour bus by the hotel for NT900 bucks, but in the end, it took me just NT74 to get there! walau, the difference is damn great lah. luckily i went on my own!Yeliu is the main attraction in Keelung - it's a 1.7km long cape that juts into the sea, where wave erosion, weathering, and the action of the earth's crust have combined to create sea-eroded trenches. among the most spectacular and famous results of erosion here is the Queen's Head Rock.

i quite like this place for its serenity and fresh air - something you can't find in Taipei city. the water was very clear, i could see small fishes, crabs and other creatures. and it makes an ideal dive spot.

martyrs shrine taipei

The National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine is dedicated to the people who sacrificed their lives fighting for the Republic of China. the buildings on this compound were modeled after Ming Dynasty palaces. two military police officers stand guard at the front gate while two other officers guard the main shrine inside.the changing of the guards occurs once every hour and is quite an elaborate process. there were stories about the dark lines on the floor caused by the boots of the guards and their constant marching. most of the guards there were tall dark and handsome! it's a pity that they have ugly uniforms.i pretty much stayed in the hotel since i got back from Taichung, except to go to the shrine and to have dinner at Taipei 101's 85th floor. apparently EC was over the moon when Citi-bank finally sent her a replacement card to Taipei and not Pasir Ris (where they sent her first replacement card to). hmm..actually the Citi-phone operators quite dumb hor?

so she had to eat something "good" to celebrate (which usually means Expensive). yeah. our meal there last night came with a hefty price tag..it was like part celebration part revenge. haha. if you know what i mean. but i'm not complaining since my job was just to EAT. oh and in view of my appreciation for EC...i will help her write a complain letter to Citi-bank and to like ask for some freebies and vouchers in return. yeah!

weekend Taichung

i was so glad to get out of the oh-so-boring Taipei for awhile to spend the weekend in central Taiwan - Taichung. we went up to this place called Alishan which is about 2450m above sea level. it was quite a last minute decision cos we contemplated too much about going there after watching the exxagerated Taiwan news report about trees falling onto the scenic railway. and EC was like blaming me for watching too much TV lor.since we didn't really plan to go up Alishan we were not prepared for the change in weather. the temperature was 12°C and all i had was a pullover and 3/4 pants. which wasn't as bad as the time when i wore a pair of shorts and t-shirt in Korea even though it was less than 10°C outside. hah.the plan was reach the peak of Alishan to watch the sunrise at about 5am so we had to set off from the hotel at 130am! the cab driver who drove us up the mountain was driving so safely, in fact too safely that we missed the tram that's supposed to take us up to the sunrise spot by like 3 minutes! SIAN! damn sian. i was actually quite looking forward to singing "阿里山的姑娘" at the peak during sunrise one lor! plan failed.we paid NT5,000 (about $250) for the cab to bring us up Alishan and couple of other places.Sun Moon Lake...sucks big time. the water level has dropped and lots of construction works in the area. conclusion is: don't bother going unless it's on the way.Wen Wu temple near Sun Moon Lake.Pu Li Shaoxing Winery.super lots of shaoxing wine product sold over here, like shaoxing sausages, shaoxing ice cream, shaoxing jelly, shaoxing mochi, you name it they have it..oh and this interesting poster shows the different categories/types of drunk people. i belong to the monkey drunk 猴醉. characteristics of monkey drunk includes: singing loudly, jumping around, fast actions and quick reactions. you can check what's yours! haha.

chao sng ice??

chao sng = food turned foulit took me a while to figure out that the signboard meant 臭豆腐，酸梅汤，冰品

after 3 nights in Taipei...

i realised it was a bad choice to come here for 2 weeks. cos this place is so sian. HK is about 500% more exciting and vibrant. yeah. there's absolutely nothing going on around my hotel, except for a 24hr Mac. the weather's a little erratic too, alternating between very hot weather and a thunderstorm. i pretty much spent my time online and watching TV which is an amazing thing to do cos there are so many channels and variety shows to watch.

the amount of motorcycles on the road reminded me of Vietnam. well, one good thing about Taipei, it is less crowded compared to HK and back home. plus, so far i have not seen a single Ah Tiong, which is a good thing. you don't want too many of them when having a holiday, trust me.

Taiwan has very strong Japanese influence. Jap restaurants everywhere and most of them are quite good. SOGO stores are everywhere too. went for dinner at this restaurant called Momoyamma and the food was neat. the set meal i ordered cost NT1680 and that's about $84. it has shabu shabu beef with lobster soup. haha shit, did i say my plan was to lose weight here?!

what goes around comes around

today a friend called.

she told me X applied for a position in her company. she happens to know that i am a friend of X...so i was asked to be a character reference.

now what you have to know is that X wasn't too kind to me before and i obviously do not like X as a result. so i had nothing positive to say. but i did not sabotage X's chances of getting the job by defaming. i merely told my friend my honest feelings about this person. which i think is the rightful thing to do.

now if X does not get the job because of my comments, X probably would never figured that i had a part in it. it's so bizzare and difficult to imagine that i was actually one of the determinant factors in X's career...

it's amazing how this world is round and everything is so inter-linked. and that you will never know who you have to deal with in future. it always pays to be kind to people and not say or do bad things. this shall serve as a reminder to myself.

shop till i drop

what i am feeling now is as if i have just finished a 10K run this morning. i am super exhausted from all the walking, trying on of clothes, queueing up for payments and carrying of shopping bags.

i realised i only have today to do all my shopping for office wear before i leave for Taiwan tomorrow! so it was madness the entire day trying to get enough clothes into my 'office wear wardrobe' so that it can last me for at least a week before i think of Plan B later.

i bought 3 pants, 2 skirts (yes it reads: SKIRT), 1 jacket, heels and bags. hopefully it is enough for me to get started. office wear = sian + uncomfortable + must act gu-niang. argh... good thing is, with the Great Singapore Sale going on, i was actually able to get all the items at a pretty good bargain! :)

Taiwan here i come!! i hope to lose some weight while i'm there so that i won't look like a short fat blob in my nice office suit. and since Sheraton comes with a nice gym and a super nice rooftop swimming pool + the last time i was in Taiwan i didn't think too highly of the food there...i think my wish might just be able to come true!

two things

1. i signed the offer letter this morning. i am employed!

2. i booked my ticket to Taiwan after i signed the offer.

both happy and nervous about my new job. happy = to end my unemployment + nice office + not bad pay + branded company + good benefits. speaking of benefits, when the HR lady was talking to me about the health benefits, she pointed at the "Vision Care" section...and said: "For example if you think you need some eye protection from the sun, you can get yourself a pair of Chanel sunglasses or any brand lah..provided it falls within $700." WOAH...hahaha..it's damn funny lor!

nervous = i suck at Finance and i think it is the last thing i will ever comprehend in this world, apart from Accounting concepts that is. and i am desperately trying to look for my Yr 1 Finance textbook to erm...yah "refresh my memories". but...take a step at a time i guess? i strive to work hard and to do well in it. wish me luck. :) hope i don't kena "pok-ed" too soon!

will be flying off to Taiwan this Sunday, for 2 weeks. last chance to enjoy before i work! LL sorry to say i cannot join you for Gigi Leung's Shanghai concert in August, cos cannot take leave for first 2 months leh...your offer is indeed damn tempting. but... sigh! i can buy the pom poms for you to bring there to cheer for Gigi lor...

others screw more

we should always believe that there will be others who screw things up even more than you!

yes, even when i had a pretty bad idea of what equity, forex, bonds and all the shit are...BB called to offer me a job today!! it's pretty decent pay for an entry level.

this wednesday i am invited to their nice office to discuss the offer letter in detail with HR. i am inclined to sign on the dotted line already! oh...and LL said, BB uses a super stylish bright orange file to contain their offer letter. i know, we sound so cheapo. haha.

time to find a nice pen and practice my signature liao. my signature is like kindergarten writing! i think i need to come up with something nicer. something that i can still use when i reach CEO level in future hahaha think too much! woot!

don't ever say "good luck" to my face again

it was supposed to be a 2nd round interview with them. it turned out to be a video conferencing format. cool. never tried it before. i thought i aced that interview! then they told me if i could spend 1 hour shadowing a staff there...just to observe how she works and sort of to let me have a feel about what to expect.

that must be a good sign right? i mean i must have done well enough in 2nd round for them to want me to stay on to observe...

later, i was told that the Sales Manager would like to see me for the 3rd round, since i was there. it caught me totally off guard. but well, well, another good sign right. people always say usually the 3rd round is just for formality...chances are, they'd hire you.

WRONG!

i screwed the 3rd round with the Sales Manager!!!! his questions were damn tough!!!

Sales Manager: tell me why shd i hire you?
me: because i am bla bla bla bla...
SM: no no no, you know i don't want to hear that! pls, tell me something more interesting.
me: ok i bla bla bla...
SM: oh dear you sound just like anyone else on the street, nothing special. i can't think of any reasons to want you. i am not at all convinced.
me:......

SM: ok tell me about the equity market.
me: ......
SM: how about oil prices...stocks and bonds?
me: ......
SM: you must know something about Forex?
me: ......

SM: alright i think that's all i have for you today.
SM: Good luck!

WHAT GOOD LUCK??!?!....i wanna hear "hope to see you again" leh!!!! what do you mean good luck? good luck for your other job search? good luck cos i am not going to see you again? good luck cos you'll have to remain unemployed for awhile more now...

SHIT! i doewan "good luck" lah!!!!!!

ROAR!!!!

anything

today at a drink stall...

me: auntie...do you have "Anything"?
auntie: we have everything...and it's all here.me: ^^"

tamade. stupid name.

this is about how i am so happy today

i found an old school dessert shop that serves the bestest mango sago in milk i ever tasted and i had FIVE(5) bowls of this today. yes, FIVE.
my exam results are out and I SCORED WELL!! i obtained 2nd Upper Class Honours!! that fucking Studentlink kept hanging on me (cos everyone was rushing in to check results at 0000hrs). the waiting for the results page to load part totally killed me. i was shivering all over, and felt like slapping someone.

but all that wait was so worthwhile when i saw this:i felt like crying lor..it's like..i finally feel like i have done something to make my family proud and all that money dad spent on me can be justified. i finally can put on my resume "Obtained 2nd Upper Class Hons" instead of something dodgey like..."Expected 2nd Division Hons"... hahaha...

Happy Valley, Aberdeen and Market St

finally got a chance to watch a horse race in Happy Valley! so fortunate to catch the last races of the season! the place is damn grand, clean and vibrant!the horses are so so beautiful. it looked like they are made up of 100% muscles! their fur so bright and nicely groomed and they had an ass i could die for! they are so sexy.most tourists visit Aberdeen for the junkboats and the JUMBO floating seafood restaurant.but i came here for this:yup that's right, a chinese cemetry. not just any chinese cemetry, but the one that keeps appearing in HKTVB dramas and movies. hahaha. looks familiar right?!

the Hongkongers are very serious about their food. they like it fresh, and that means, alive until the time it is ready to go into the pot. at about 4pm in the afternoon the market was filled with people. they buy their groceries fresh everyday, unlike us where we buy once a week. it was quite an eventful day to see chickens being culled on the spot, and fishes being clobbered to death...

guest blogger

yup some happenings in HK can also be found at:
http://doramon02.blogspot.com/2007/06/champion-chen-in-house.html

food updates

wan ton min!! with more shrimps than pork. sibeh important.krispy kreme is in HK and not SG! that's not very fair!Teochew orh nee!! i eat it as if i'm having calories insufficiency!tau fu far from Tang Chao! the same thing Gong Li ate when she was there!salted chicken + goose meat rice. somehow i forgot how to say "breast" in Cantonese so in the end they gave me the thigh part which i hate. but...still very tasty.



ahaha yes! i finally ate the poor bird. it's my first time eating a pigeon. altho it's tasty cos it's from Maxim restaurant. but somehow there's still a mental block. cos i see them in front of my windows everyday leh..to eat them it's like... abit...

and it didn't help when they served the whole bird with its broken neck/head staring at me.

what's up with the Ah Tiongs and their umbrellas?!?!

Glossary:
"Ah Tiong": directly translated from 阿中 (where 中 = 中国) - a term widely used by Singaporean NTU students when referring to China students in school. for example: "let's sit there, cos here got alot of Ah Tiongs..."

instead of checking in to the hotel after arrival in HK, i went directly to the Big Buddha since i was already at Lantau Island. wanted to take the NgongPing360 but the queue was super long and everyone in it was, who else, but the Ah Tiongs. so i decided against it and took the bus instead. it was a great ride too cos can see scenary and costed so much less.


i climbed up 250 steps (yes i counted!) with a 13kg backpack on a 32°C Sunday afternoon just to see this. it's my second time at the Big Buddha, the monument is still as awe inspiring and magnificent. but the surroundings are so different now - super touristy. they even built fake Tang Dynasty houses and put 7-11 inside...^^"...

my previous experience (in 2004) was much better. it was quiet with not too many people and the weather was about 18°C.






and yes, back to my point about the Ah Tiongs...

they are seen in every corner, every bend...EVERYWHERE. they spit and act as if it's the right thing to do. they stink, for some reason.

they carry umbrellas everywhere they go and cannot be out of the shade for even 2 seconds it's like as if they are afraid their cosmetic surgery nose will melt under the sun. and the best thing is, they shove it into your head and walk away happily without saying sorry...i got shoved like 10 times while trying to walk up and another 15 times while trying to walk down. ARGH!




I HATE THEM...(BUT i love my china friends ok) just....people from China in general. they just lack...that something. graciousness? manners? EQ? i don't know. ok enough said about them. after Big Buddha i went to Cheung Chau beach. i found a secluded part of the beach and changed into my bikini behind the bushes (yes it's so secluded that there were no changing rooms) haha. and suntanned the entire afternoon away. took a nap cos i was too tired from the night before. saw something interesting; i caught a group of para-gliders landing on the beach. they jumped off the peak of Lantau Island and glided in the sky for about 50 minutes before landing here. so cool.next up was Tai O, also in Lantau Island. second time here and the feeling is different. i really like Tai O. its serenity, fresh air and simple life is captivating in itself.the sunset was amazingly beautiful. the elderlys are there for the sunset too.

then i found this XXXXLarge sized salted fish. woah...siao. how to finish eating? haha.

hmm, ok, if there's one thing i don't like about Tai O, it must be the shops selling sharks fins. very sad. why can't people get over sharks fins? it has ZERO nutritional value, it's expensive and also at the expense of killing sharks for their fins. essentially it's upsetting the eco-cycle and also wasting food. cos they kill the big shark only for the fins.

SAD.

i'm leaving on a jet(star) plane...

3am now. must reach airport 4am...

not packed yet. still blogging...

[music and lyrics] is very nice.

ah siao wants to scratch my DVD.

saturday's Straits Times very thick.

EC called and sounded half dead.

i stink cos haven't showered all day.

Jetstar sucks but boh bian.

thinking of MacDonalds again.

la la la...

Hong Kong Here I Come!

off the beaten tracks

the great plan was...

1. to finally do something healthy together (all we ever do is to eat and gossip)
2. wake up sibeh early despite a public holiday
3. prepare healthy food for a breakfast picnic by the park
4. conquer MacRitchie Treetop Walk
5. SWEAT! and burn calories.

all of the above...did not happen. hahaha.

we all...overslept. forgot to prepare breakfast and didn't feel like sweating. so, obviously no more Treetop Walk nor healthy living/eating. But! it was still an awesome day for us as we took a road trip around Singapore to explore off the beaten tracks...which later extended all the way to JB for, what else, but SEAFOOD and PIRATED DVDS!!

the gang entrusted me to be their driver for the day. (well not like they had a choice) half blinded to road signs, i thought i did a pretty good job chauffering them around in the super duper heavy downpour halfway through our "discover.sg" trip.with only some lousy directions i got from my dad, we managed to find all the Kranji farm-farm thingy. our first destination in sight was Qianhu Fish Farm. i never gave too much credit to Qianhu's boss, that is until i saw a wall Full of his newspaper clippings and awards. and a wall mounted TV that was screening his Bloomberg interview on repeat mode...i must admit i'm impressed.



we unexpectedly found a dragon fruit farm and went in. i bet no one here knows how a dragon fruit tree look like lor! wasn't too excited about the actual fruit itself though. i hate it, i thought it tasted like a weird meat embedded with sesame seeds. nasty!















next up was Hay's goat dairy farm. if my memory didn't fail me, i must have been here when i was like in primary school! wow, must be at least 15 years ago. and yeah, it still smells pretty much the same.and since we were already at Kranji, we thought we'd just "pop by" JB to restock our pirated DVDs and to pump some cheap petrol home. haha. then car must eat, human also must eat mah. we already tried to exercise alot of discipline liao...three persons eat six dishes...only.i love mangosteens. my all time favourite favourite fruit!time to head back home...and it only means one thing - TRAFFIC JAM! so it's tailgating all the way past Woodlands checkpoint. with my superb lane cutting skills and my "don't-ever-signal-cos-people-won't-give-way-so-just-chup-into-their-lane-and-give-them-the-finger-if-they-horn" theory...we managed to get out of the mess in about 70minutes. btw the above theory only applies at the Causeway. in Singapore i am a "signal-early-drive-safely" kind of driver hor.

i love my friends. they are awesome friends. even when it was pouring outside, it never dampened our mood. not even for one second. this is real companionship.