Friday, February 15, 2008
~*~ Happy CNY 2008 ~*~
I know this post is very late. But but, it's still the CNY festive season! So CNY is still not over cos it's 15 days long and I still have chances to collect hongbaos.. hohoho.. the thought of it feels great! Unlike my friends from China, they are considered as working le and they need to give hongbaos liao. Their hongbaos super loaded with cash one loh... but they don't anyhow give hongbaos to just anyone la, they give to very close relatives only la. Think the market rate of hongbaos (from your relatives and other married adults excluding your parents) in Singapore ranges from $4 to $12 bah... so far, I have yet received $2 one cos it reflects not so well la especially the giver is quite well-to-do.
A simple summary of my happenings:
Eve of Eve
~KBox 7-10pm with my cutey sis.. haha
Got the itch to go sing..
Eve
~Steamboat lunch at Dennis' place
~Steamboat + BBQ at my 3rd aunt's place (brought Dennis for the 1st time)
BBQ-ing abalone is so tasty!
Feeling so welcome by YaoYao (my cousin's 1year-old doggie)... oh my I want a doggie!!
Day 1
~Morning house-visiting (1st aunt's and 2nd aunt's places)
Had lunch at 2nd aunt's place. First time of using disposable plates there cos water supply cut off for the residential area. Realised that all the Rats (me and my 2 cousins, all of the same age) have permed hair... wad a trend.. hohoho...
~Evening + dinner at my ah gu's (mum's bro) place
Had nasi lemak. Almost full attendance (all except 2 family members) for the first time... the most number of hongbaos collected at one stop.. hohoho... big big family cos my grandparents (no longer around) had 11 children. It's very hard to get everyone (of all generations) to gather together and we made it!
~Night activities (4th aunt's "casino" opens)
Haha~ my mum's generation played world pool and casino-style blackjack. Younger generation play big 2 and mahjong (no money involved)
Day 2
~Watched CJ7 with Dennis and his family
Went to his aunt's place for homevisting.
Day 3
~To my cousin's Brenda's place (housewarming)
Brought Dennis to see my maternal side relatives for the first time.
~Went to my xiao gu's (mummy's younger bro) place
To see the parrot.. and waited for it to say "Cashew nut" (its fav)
Day 4
~Annual visit to Huang Lao Shi's (Sec 2 class form teacher) place
Got cute baby (3 months old) to interact with.
Mini class lunch at Jack's place.. had their CNY meals.. the steak is very yummy.. medium rare...approximately $18 for the meal.
~Visited Dennis' buddies' place
Haha~ pretty interesting la, 1st time visiting his friends' houses during CNY. New experience.
Day 7 (Ren ri)
~Dinner with my cousins (+Dennis)
First time that we gather like that. Had a sumptous and wonderful dinner at Raffles City's Shokudo Japanese Food Bazaar Restuarant at the basement. Super good lei... the style like Marche except that it has Japanese zest in it. My virgin bar visit loh... 1st time in a bar. Went to Long Bar to chill out. Had apple-flavoured alcoholic drink.. not very nice... should have ordered the Singapore Sling (a signature drink representive of Singapore too) which all the angmoh tourists were having.. haha~ I think my cousin's Vodka sour is much nicer!!
Day 8 (V-day)
~Bday celebration of Dennis' grandma
Unique way of celebrating V-day..
Feeling: Very happy but physically exhausted.
P.S.: Hope to upload some pics in this post... need to wait for my sis to load the pics...
[*-Bubu leaves a print of thoughts 'n' feelings-*] | 12:03 PM
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
~*~ China trip 26th Dec 2007 to 2nd Jan 2008 ~*~
Here are the long awaited China Trip pictures.
Our journey: Singapore-->Xiamen-->Wu Yi Shan-->Xiamen-->Quan Zhou-->Zhang Zhou-->Chao Zhou-->Shan Tou-->Xiamen-->Singapore
Xiamen here we come!!! Dennis came to send my family off (so sweet!). The mountain pics were taken at Wu Yi Shan when we conquer Tian You Feng. I remember swearing that I will never climb hills and mountains again when I was in Australia last May, but in the end, I went climbing again. My legs shook and ached a lot for many days after the climbs, causing difficulty in walking for the rest of the trip. Tian You Feng is a must-visit attraction, it has one of the most beautiful views in Wu Yi Shan. There were tons of visitor majority Chinese from Chinan. Interestingly, there were a large group of uni students at the top doing surveys for visitors, and I helped them by filling up 2 separate questionares.
After the climb, we really regretted not taking the jiao zhi (sedan)... they are red and carried by 2 men. We went to visit the Da Hong Pao tea trees. They are very very expensive tea tress in China and there are only 3 of them, that's why so precious la. These are what they called the first generation Da Hong Pao Tea Trees. Those commercially sold are the second generations of it and are much cheaper and pretty nice to drink. It's the local product of Wu Yi Shan. Speaking of Wu Yi Shan's local products, there is also the Hong Gu (red mushrooms). These mushrooms are claimed to be very beneficial for the body and are pretty much like tonic as locals cook them with pork ribs and make tonic soups.
Below Tian You Feng is the Jiu Qu Xi, a river very suitable for rafts to travel downstream naturally. The rafts are made of bamboos. My sister gained experience being the boatman.. haha~
Other than the Tian You Feng, we went to visit Yi Xian Tian. It is a landmark made of two huge rocks with a gap in between. When you look through this gap, you get to see the sky and this gap forms the word "yi" (number one in chinese). The path to walk was very tough as the steps are very steep and the space is very confined (bags tend to be scratched due to abrasion with the rock surfaces). Luckily, the route to visit this landmark has options. We chose the less strenuous route for "lan ren" (lazy people). On the way back, we look "tu di gong" and "tu di po" (male and female earth gods). So interesting, cos seldom we get to see the female version of earth god. 
Gu Lang Yu is an island near Xiamen. It is known to be place full of different cultures and a place to groom piantists. There is a museum for pianos, full of antique and valuable pianos. Gu Lang Yu used to have 16 embassies in the past but currently the old buildings are used for other purposes and are very unique in their outlook. Haha, I saw an interesting signboard introducing a hostel's cafe's menu... snacks was written as snakes... wow.
For the following collage, I'm not sure which part of China I'm at... haha~ we visited an old bomb shelter with canons on top. At another place, we went to see a rock which stands firmly on a cliff despite being blown by strong winds. Actually, I don't really see what's so fantastic about this rock that everyone was rushing towards it to take photo with it. There were a lot of sight-seeing of temples for our schedule. What makes the one I feature in my collage special was that... it was full of offerings (can see many roasted pigs, bunches of flowers, delicacies) and super crowded with people. Heard that the gods there grants to devotees' wishes and the devotees in turn, will come back to the temple to give offerings to thank the gods. Wow, can see that there were many successfully cases ah. The food was still very fresh!
We were back at Xiamen. On our way back, we saw this cute vehicle with only 3 wheels. There was a temple built below a rock. Night shopping at Xiamen. Oh, we also went to the university of monks, where monk trainees go there to learn how to be monk.
Okie, this marks the end of my narration of my China Trip. I find Xiamen much more developed than Guangzhou, and also much safer there too. This trip is special as I get to see the hometown of my grandpa and I realised that if my grandpa did not take the risk to come to Nanyang, I would be still in the hometown enduring hardships.
[*-Bubu leaves a print of thoughts 'n' feelings-*] | 4:47 PM
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