I did not know that

there is such a big basement "mall" at the Singapore's Terminal 3. Every time we arrived at Terminal 3, we just exit out at Arrivals and gone. Today I did have a chance to walk around the entire Terminal 3 (wherever I was allowed).

I checked in the Crown Plaza at Terminal 3; setup my "base of operation" before the 1:30am flight back to Shanghai. I walked around and around. Then I noticed a sign pointing down and down deeper below the ground level. Wow. SGD 4.50 for a Hainan Chicken Rice. Nothing was more than SGD 6.00. And there was even a supermarket called Fair Price. Packed. The Departure Level of Terminal 3 looked so deserted compared to this basement level. People came here just to walk around! And students occupied tables to do group assignments and studies. Go figure! Who would have known this place is a popular hangout for Singaporeans!

I had this SGD 4.50 for lunch. Then had the urge to have something sweet. A piece of cake and a Cappuccino had cost me SGD 11.50. Haha, I could have two set lunches for that price.

At this basement level, all sorts of South East Asian food and dessert. Massage, spa, candy stores and always those so healthy cake shops and donuts shops.

Interesting.

Shelf design

We are in need of shelf space for all the documents and books. Mostly Iron-wife's. Me, PDF on my computers or maybe a Kindle ;-)

Here's a design I drew up based on an architect's proposed design. The desks we already have. Just the shelves. They are modular, total of 7 modules.

I didn't draw the design by hand. I have used Google's Sketch-up; it's free. And actually with this program I had dismissed someone's else design.

Take a look at the design from the rendition.

Seafood buffet

Not that often I could have a seafood buffet with vegetarian eating iron-wife. ;-) So tonight, I checked out the hotel's seafood buffet. I had an eye on that since we first stayed at this hotel more than a year ago. Fresh oysters, lobsters, scallops, shrimps, sushi galore, eels, you named it; they were all there! And on top of that, this buffet came with a main course of your choosing. Pork, Lamb, Cod fish, and two others I didn't care much about.

I tried to have this meal with a dry Gin Martini. Alcohol always went well with raw seafood. The waitress came back to confirm and wanted to save me money. "Sir, the Martini is 48 (SGD), may I suggest maybe some wine at Happy Hours price?". What? SGD 48 for a dry Martini? That's CAD 37 and then some change. No, I thought not. So I had red wine instead. This seafood buffet was only CAD 32.50.

I had enough of sushi (salmon, tuna and white fish) and then oysters followed by a black pepper sauce White Cod w/ baked potatoes. With my 79Kg weight, I am sure I have added about 1Kg of fish.

All I could say, nice seafood buffet. Incidentally, I am staying at the M Hotel in Singapore right now. Tipsy w/ Red Wine. Just can't hold my liquor anymore. ;-)

Nanjing

Just got back from a weekend trip to Nanjing. Take a look at the report by clicking here.

Pollution

Yuck.... My throat is kinda raw, noise hair stuck with black stuff, face maybe clogged with CO2 particles. What more can I say? Take a look. I was waiting for iron-wife to finish her teaching so I took these pictures from a 7th floor office. The first picture is the map in relation to the pictures. The lower left corner where marked as "1" and "2"; that was my vantage point taking the pictures. Bear in mind, all pictures taken were less than 2 KM away. "A", "b" and "c" are the direction of the pictures being taken.

Direction where "A' was pretty much is a landmark for the most highend shops on Nanjing Road. That area and where my apartment is, on average is about RMB 40,000/sq meter cost. Does it sounds like you pay for what you get? Pay for crap air is more like it.

Choking....

The air here is so bad the last couple days.... Makes my "walk about" have a new meaning. "Lungs fill with crap". Constructions, exhaust fumes, crap blowing in from outlining factories. All those nice particles are being brought in by the weather system. Have not seen blue sky. Just hayish gray. Yesterday we were walking and my iron-wife asked what's that in the air. Right. Smog.

Now Shanghai has moved ahead of HK in the most expansive city to live, I wonder what other "honor lists" it will be on. Just hope the Western Media is not going to give Shanghai the "smog news" treatment as when Beijing was hosting the Olympics.

Moving? Hmmm... Rental is quite high. Artificially controlled by the stimulus pac. Same with the real estate. People are buying because they believe stock market is losing steam and risky. Real estate, not. So piling cash into apartments. Dropping in price, nope. But where the heck do people get all these money from? By my calculation, if we follow every single rules and taxes paid as well as the annual salary and cost of living adjustment, there is no bloody way! The only way I am thinking "buying" is possible are: (1) local bank loans - bad debts to the hill, (2) cash from families and relatives, RMB 20,000 here and RMB 20,000 there...., (3) virtual cash from some numbers in thin air and was accepted, (4) really don't know. Throw out the traditional logical analysis. You just can't.

Another day

still blocked with all those websites used to be able to get including this one.

Various news:

1) Travel plan starting next weekend: Nanjing, Singapore (Jakarta for iron-wife), Beijing (overnight flight back to Singapore then same day turn around to Beijing), Mumbai then US. I think there is a trip to Jakarta again in July and then Vietnam in August.

2) Flying ants everywhere. June time. Wet, humid and hot.

3) Another high position official bite the dust. Implicated in the same ever widening circle of corruption originated from GOME's CEO. Now, a real major vacuum in Guangdong province.

4) There was a People's Congress representative store over 40million RMB over 4 year period. he wasn't arrested or prosecuted because of his status. Now, he's gone; no one knows where.

5) Our Steelcase "Please" chairs finally arrived today! Yeah!!!!

Blocking continue

After today, tomorrow will be back to the land of blocking. Seems this hotel has a by-pass of the C0mM!E content filtering. Iron-wife just said this complex is own by the Li family group from HK; ah, that explains a lot by when my Google start page automatically displays the HK-based Google search page. Wonder how that happens that this property could get a bypass without going thru the "official Internet connection feed". Ummm....

Seen these

This the season for these two types of fruit in China. To the left is the Chinese Bayberry (杨梅） I mentioned before and the right is the Lychee, the BIG one.

Fruits tasting in Penang

Last morning before leaving Penang we did a fruit tour. This reminded me of the time in Bali back in 1996 December.

Take a look here:

Durian tree; can you believe a tree can bear fruits that heavy with hard sharp shell?


Opened Durian fruit; yellow, creamy and tasty


Harvested Durians; one tree can bear about 200 of these over a season.


Fresh nutmag. Have you seen them before?


Durian eating binge


Banana tree fruit. Seen that before?


Inside a Cocoa fruit


Spice shop


Rubber tree

spider

This close-up picture was taken at a food stand at a road side fruit stand in a Penang hilltop. I looked up and saw this spider just finished wrapping up a meal piece.

Yummy food at KL

Now that I have time, a little bit because it's raining outside when I am only a block from Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City. And the unblocked. I can post my blogs.

The pictures show a common Thai appetizer and dessert.


Appetizer: you wrap the peanuts, lime, dried coconut, dried shrimps, chillis and then a nice sweet sauce.


After the preparation, this is what it looks like:



Dessert: sticky rice with mango and coconut sauce

Beijing, the first day really immersed

The subway is so convenient and cheap! RMB 2.00 (CAD 0.06). Does not matter how far you go. There are 5 lines plus the Airport Express. The Airport Express is RMB 25.00 (CAD 3.8) compared to taxi to hotel for abut RMB 75.00 (CAD 11.5)

Pollution. What pollution? It was so beautiful here today. Blue sky. Warm.... Reminded me of Regina in the Summer when it was 31C. That was how it felt for me.

Met up with Bick's god-daughter for lunch after we arrived. Nice to have another "Regina-ian" around. Except she speaks much better Mandarin than I. It was Iron-wife, then her and then "me". Mandarin speaking that is. Haha... In Asia, if one can speak fluent English and Mandarin you are set. And if you can do Cantonese, You are really set!

The feel of this town has the aura of authority. Very funny actually. The reason I said that is that people automatically follow the instruction on the sign. "No Entry" means no entry. People just follow what the signs say. In a way, I thought I was in Tokyo. Driving, of course is another story but much much better than in Shanghai. None of the left turn yield, what's that type attitude. Hence traffic seems to flow better despite heavily busy.

One thing I noticed though, I saw empty buildings - residential. Ready for use but no tenants. I am staying at the Grand Hyatt just a block away from the Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City. The prime real estate, the room rate is RMB 998 (CAD 158.00) plus 15% service charge. In Shanghai, or normally the room would have been at RMB 1,800+ before any taxes or service charges. On my way with Audrey to visit her client, inside the elevator was a big billboard promoting the RMB 998 per night for Grand Hyatt. Ummm... I have not been to many other places so cannot see if this town is hurting as well by the global economy downturn. Tonight coming back from dinner, the lobby's lounge was busy with foreigners. So may not be that bad after all.

Talk about RETARD

No, I am not talking a specific person but a whole company. Well, I guess policy is made by people so yes, I guess I am directly to a specific group of people.

The HSBC saga is just one bad thing after another. Wonder why people are still thinking it is a good company.

The other day, I tried to transfer some money online from one account to another account. After I did all the currency exchange and all, AFTER I FILLED IN ALL THE INFORMATION, AFTER I CLICKED THE CONFIRM BUTTON TO GO AHEAD. It stopped me on my track saying my account balance is zero. Huh? And I had to click this down to fill out a form. Huh? I double-checked my account balance. More than enough. Went thru the same process of filling out the online form, clicked the confirm button, reviewed details and clicked the go ahead. Same error message! What the Fxxxx! I emailed my HK-based relationship manager. Well as it turned out if I don't do online transfer for more than 6 months, I have to re-apply in order to have it activated. What? Excuse me? You want me to do things online so you can save cost and save me time. And now what? On top of that, the most funniest part, I had to personal go to the bank with form and my passport so that I can reactivate. Right, you want me to fly down to HK with a stupid form just so I can do something online that is suppose to be part of my convenient package? Get real!

Rather than flying to HK on my own expense to do this stupid form, I had to take time out of my work and went to the Premier office in Shanghai with my form and my passport. And then, they photocopied the proper documents and DHL off to HK. DHL off!!!! How about scanning and then emailing it? What kind of bloody f<<>>Nking policy of this stupid policy has to achieve?

So the company is trying to cut cost due to losses in sub-prime mortgage. Wonder if the same group of stupid people making this 6-month policy also decided on doing the sub-prime mortgage.

And because of blocking me to do the transfer because my online transfer was deactivated, it let me to believe everything was good. So I did my currency exchange. I could have saved myself more $ if I knew I couldn't do it and wait!!!!!

more blocked

haha even my CBC and IT related podcast URLs are blocked over here. Talk about paranoid. A sound place to do business then?

Blocked

Everything is blocked. I mean things that is beyond the control of the almighty here. The fourth D@y 0F jUnx many many years ago. So will probably have very limited site access to anything. This site for my blog, I had to go out from a different route.

Will post my Penang pictures next week.

Flight to Pudong

HKG to PVG (Pudong airport, Shanghai). We were on the plane for over an hour before taking off. Traffic control. Actually more CoMm!E airspace control. You wait. Not our problem.

Sitting in the seat, there was no comparison on how comfortable it was compared to the Malaysian one. Wow. Flight took off, the usual commentary, etc....

The fun began just after touch down. Oppsss... This kid just puked. And I meant puked!!! Great, now the c--mm!e was for sure going to put us in 7-day isolation in some cheap hotel for Swine Flu isolation. Actually, the immediate concern was the smell from the rotten food. Full blast on the air cond vent. No luck. Then the aliens came aboard. All the tourists were snapping photos or movies at these aliens as they moved from the front of the cabin to the back. Darn, I left my Nokia camera phone in the overhead compartment. Shoot, shoot!!!!

The whole scene was like tourists visiting a wild life park. The wild life was the four fully gowned health department officials checking body temperatures. Can you imagine every flight coming in must subject to temperature checking? We did. And then these two dumb asses. Their temperatures were a little bit high. So they were ordered to take a more detail temperature reading under the armpit. They refused!!!! I would say, just shoot them. So because of that, the entire experience lasted close to an hour!!! One good thing, the luggage would be waiting for us rather the other way. Finally, after some checking and all... we were allowed to deplane. We arrived at 6:15pm and didn't get out until close to 7pm. Made a long day for us.

Another crappy airline

Malaysian Airlines. The website was crapped. Looked great until you start using it. I had problem putting in my name "as appeared in my passport". So how can I buy a ticket? Then the buy today fly tomorrow. If you are less than 24 hours, you are Sh!t out of luck. You have to pay more than full fare to fly the next day! After I struggled getting iron-wife a ticket, it was less than 24 hours. From the website, it would not let me book on the "economy" for the same route. The cryptic message on the website said "Choose next day or another class". Huh? If I were to book online in less than this 24-hour period, one way is equivalent to iron-wife's total cost for the same flight. I complained but of course, true to Malay fashion - forget about it.

I booked via my Shanghai travel agent. End of story on this one.

Check-in. Yeah, what f^&*Rnking alliance partnership. It does not provide its alliance partner any privileges. That was just crap!

Service to KL was ok. Food was good; but the seat was very uncomfortable. Seemed the cushion was cheaply made too. Felt the piece of plastic on my butt. We shook for 4 hours going there out of 5 hours. Turbulent. Nothing the airline could do about it.

The way back... Yeah. Let's talk about that. We got there an hour and half. Lined up. The Malay check-in speed. Slow and easily distracted. Out of the entire experience I believe there are more idiots than smart people. Either they don't care or they are not properly trained. The smarter people, they are smart and very efficient. Anyway... I digressed. Check-in. After snaking thru the line, we had about an hour before our flight departing and we were only half way thru the check-in lineup. Announcement came on. "Flight 388 check-in please come to counter E18". OK. We got there which required us to do some acrobatic move and ironwife tripped but not fallen. Got to the counter, not that many people ok. Then tick, tick, tick, tick... The check-in counter, the staff was busy distracted by one task or another and by idiots that didn't know how to travel. Finally at 830am (now we had lined up for over an hour with no progress), a senior staff came over and said "sorry we have overbooked the flight. We are making other arrangement for you". Then walked away. Umm... do you want our reference numbers? 10 minutes passed by, the same senior staff came back asking for reference numbers. Ha. Then at 845am, tickets in hands this lady gave us the voucher to check in for a flight to HK then from HK to Shanghai. Great, passing thru the Swine flu territory with no masks. BTW, the 915am flight we were to catch, they are holding it for us. Those poor passengers that have already on board.

Then the kickerS with a capital S. 1) we were suppose to line up on the same queue to do the check-in but there was no staff. Haha.... WE kinda complained and was moved to another counter; but that lady initially refused to check us in. Go figure! Then, I had to follow this guy with our bags to a X-ray machine. Not sure why they could not send our bags thru with the conveyor belt. I had to tip the luggage guy after the bags were thru other side. 2) They kept taking our tickets back because they forgot this stamp or another stamp. Gee.... 3) Big line up at the security check in. Malay speed. If you want fast efficient service, expect NONE. And expect half ass. You might find faster speed at the race track or the super wide highways around KL.

Dumb airline. There were 10 of us that are holding a plane of over 200 passengers. And on top of that, we were on our own to go thru immigration and all just like other people. There was no special usher to limit the amount of time of holding things up. No concept.

On the way to HK, we were so ready to get off the plane just like when we flew China Eastern from Shanghai to KL. Service on the way to HK was so so.... Serving lunch and then forgot drinks. Gave us back the water bottle without a lip. Hilarious. Makes flying Air Asia, a low budget airline, looked professional.

Hong Kong to Shanghai flight was a different story to tell.