What came to me.. is the glow of future

On the last day of my vacation to Hangzhou and Shanghai, it snowed! I have seen snow before but that was post snow. This time I saw it snowing but...... I was in the airport, already checked in! The flakes were so tiny and they melted once they were few metres from the ground. I tried snapping a few pictures and to no avail, I caught nothing big. It cheered the kiddy side of me a little while waiting for our flight. I am so triggered to go again to somewhere when it is snowing. That's the reason why in the early morning of the day, it was super cold. Weeliem and I were freezing when we walked a few blocks down the road from our hotel. We made a turn and got back into hotel because of the coldness.

Can you see it snowing from the above pic? No? Me too.

There is a little change of status to me recently. I am engaged. Nothing change. I mean, my life is still the same. The difference is the tiny thing on my finger. In the first place, I was a bit confused on which finger shall an engagement finger goes to. I heard various belief and ideas. My married friend said she wears her wedding band on the ring finger of her right hand and engagement ring on the middle finger of left hand. I searched from the internet, the westerners said wear engagement on left hand contrary to Chinese rule, left for the women, right for the men. They said wear engagement ring on the ring finger of right hand. When you got married, slip on the wedding band at the outer side of your engagement ring. I am confused. After trying to put the ring on my right hand ring finger, I realised that it is not convenient in everyday life because I keep banging the bling-bling when I open the door, put something on table, grab things and do all sort of things. So now I have it on my left hand middle finger because it looks pretty there! or sometimes on my right hand ring finger. So which one are you going to put on?

Since everybody is freeing up, I begin to get busy. I have so much things to do. Setting up new environment, evaluating the tool, conducting trainings, setting up exercises.... Hey! and it is Xwei and Leo wedding tomorrow! I am going to be at the receptionist table (proud). It means I have to arrive really early because I am supposed to pick the flowers from florist and make it on time for the vow session. So here it goes, I will be at somebody's wedding again and don't get me wrong, I am still excited over these stuff. Not bored yet.

PHOTOLOG #30: 20100124

Sticky and exhausted

Another day in Hangzhou

We started early the next day in Hangzhou by walking to West Lake again to take some scenic photos. It was not as cold as the day before.

After short discussion, we agreed to meet with another 3 friends who were going to take another cab at Pao Chu Pagoda but their cab dropped them at another entrance which was not the correct one. We were officialy separated into 2 groups and visited the places that we had planned. We could not afford to walk to meet with each other because the 2 places are far apart. We will meet up again at another place in an hour. Climbing up the stairs to this pagoda is really a hard job for me as there is so many stair cases in China and later on there are more stairs to climb!!!

Pao chu pagoda was built from bricks/stone and has no door. There were many old people hiking up the stairs and do some simple stretching or tai chi here and along the way walking through the jungle, we could see some groups playing badminton, rock climbing (the ancient way, just climb up without any help, touches the top of the hill and come back down) and yelling on top of their voice (to exercise lung I supposed).

I forgot what's this. It was some rocks where they said there should be water flowing, but I didn't see any water flow. It must have dried up.

This was the place we were going to meet the rest. Yue Fei mausoleum. I just learnt from the Song city show the day before that Yue Fei was a hero in during Song dynasty.

There were 4 statues there, they said those were the prime minister of somewhere and his wife and 2 guards that betrayed Yue Fei causing his death. They 4 were chained up, stripped and kneeled down. People used to spit on them to show disgust, so now the management of this place put up a board asking people not to spit there.

Lunch time, we went to try this local famous restaurant called Lou Wai Lo. We had "dong po rou", beggar's chicken and etc. The food was yummy but super expensive. That beggar chicken if not mistaken cost somewhere around RM80.

We took ferry ride (sort of) to a small man-made island in West Lake and spent about 3 hours there. We were allowed to spend unlimited time on the small island and later we chose to leave the island through lei feng pagoda ferry terminal.

Once we got down from the ferry, there was a park nearby. We saw these plants, I think is cabbage plant which is not edible. :P

We were supposed to go "lei feng" pagoda but the time passed too fast. It was getting darker and by the time we reach there (by walking) the sun is already down. So we just took some photos from far at the same time admiring the sunset from bridge nearby and discard the intention to visit "lei feng" pagoda. This bridge is along "Sudi", another famous road around West Lake.

I think this is called Hefang jie where there were a lot stalls to buy stuff. Expensive, blood sucker, for tourist - explain all.

West Lake, Six Harmonies Pagoda, Tiger Spring and Song City in Hangzhou

We were back to Hangzhou on the third day and going to spend the rest of our vacation days in Hangzhou. We stayed nearby West Lake (Xi hu) about 10 minutes walk from hotel to the lake. The first thing we did once we refreshed after check-in hotel was to walk to the lake. The weather was pretty good that morning. West Lake is about 5.68 square km and 1.5m average depth, a beautiful lake compared to Xi Zi, the most beautiful woman in ancient China as described by poet Su Dongpo from Song dynasty.

In picture below, I stood on the map of Hangzhou with the details on each bridge and exit/entrace to this city.If I was a general in ancient China, this map is very useful in war :)

Then we walked about 30 minutes to Tiger Spring (Hupao spring). This place is famous for its spring water also known as third best spring in China. It produces excellent natural mineral water and is also the burial place of monk Jigong.

Then we walked again. This time we went to Six Harmonies Pagoda. To enter the pagoda, we had to pay 2 times of entrance fee. One to get into the area, another one to enter the pagoda. The pagoda is made of wood and brick, plus the staircase is very narrow. I had hard time climbing the staircase due to my knee problem. The guard spat in the pagoda. Basically everyone in China spits. Yucks.

We quickly grabbed a cab and rushed to Song city before it gets dark. Song City is an imitation city build on a land similar to ancient China days.

There was a girl on the stage performing in the super cold weather. Salute.

The streets with shops and stalls.

Puppet show. Song city is like a theme park. The guys all went into haunted house and came back laughing. I don't know what happened in there.

Road side performance, just like in movies.

The Buddha statue. There is a shallow tunnel below the statue. People can go in there and experience some swirlings wall making one dizzy.

We purchased the ticket to watch the prestigious Song city show. We got the RMB220 seat which is equivalent to RM110.

It has five different performances. First is Song dynasty performances in the castle.

Then we watched Yue Fei's legend. Everything was in 3D. We got real horses in the battle in front of us and arrows archered from top and also cannons.

Hangzhou is famous for its Long Jing tea. The next show was on the tea dance and some Korea. Indian cultural dances too.

West Lake.

Last but not least we watched the green and white snake legend show. I didnt take any photos on this performance because I took a video. They made it rain in the arena on the part where they showed white snake flooded the fountain. Anyway, the show was nice and worth the price. Maybe for only once. :) I learnt some Chinese history from this trip seriously, like who is Yue Fei, the white and green snake, West Lake, who is Su Dongpo and some others.

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.