I came from a generation where you have pen pals (not cyber friends); keeping in touch means writing letters (on papers) to each other (not Twitting, Face-booking nor blogging) especially those who did not live nearby; and love letters were delivered by postmen.

I was going through a box of letters yesterday after the girls have gone to bed. They were from penpals, friends, and of course from boy friends pledging their undying love (but ironically, all got hitched before I did). Then there’s the many letters from me to Daddy and the few notes Daddy (who never professed his undying love, and who’s not someone who likes to ‘write’ his thoughts) sent to me (together with the grocery supplies from Malaysia) when we were apart for 1 year in different continents.

Paper turned yellow, ink smudges, the various hand writings of thoughts and events on paper. That was the generation I came from.

I was romancing this thought.

One day, the girls will go through my things, and they will find this box of letters (just like in Cape No. 7) and they will understand what I was like in the younger days; who were the friends I had, and whom I’d loved before.

And I wonder, for those who came from a generation where SMS, MSN, emails, twitters, facebook, blogs were the mediums to stay in touch, how will the kids find out of their past, of the loss love? They go through the parents’ portable hard disks? Thumb drives?

How unromantic..

I have to clarify that my company is not rich, and normally we travel with a tight budget, but this round, we had 4 Americans travelling together (all first time to India), and so for their sake, a better hotel was chosen.

This is the continuation of the trip.

♥The Roads, Buildings and Traffic♥
Roads in Bangalore are dusty, narrow and bumpy. Drivers are constantly pressing on their honks, and 2 lane roads turned into 6 lanes because no body stick to their lanes, and all cars just squeezed into whatever space there’s available on the road, causing traffic congestion every where.

Just a few km away from the hotel, we saw little shacks at the road side, made from 4 sheets of planks and a zinc roof. Children were playing topless, while their mothers cooked from a stove outside of the house. These houses were built just next to the main roads. A skidded car could have knocked down the make shift stove or even the house. (Compared to this rv camping seems like a luxury.)

At traffic lights or a busy junctions, there’ll be beggers trying to get money from the people in the cars, and sometimes, we saw vendors trying to sell things like phone chargers, stationary from car to car.

On the street : Buildings in Bangalore; I understand in Bangalore, only the rider on the motorbike needs to wear helmet, but the pillion riders are not required; a shop providing kiddy rides which can be rented for parties.

There are lots of street vendors selling all kinds of things from coconut, roasted nuts, drinks, yogurt, cucumber slices and even rice.

We saw some signs with witty phrases for users of the road.

Motor rickshaw waiting for customers and one of a main shopping street, Brigade Road, in Bangalore.

♥My Little Adventures♥
The first day to work, I was in the car with a colleague who is also in India for the 1st time. 10 mins into the journey, the driver turned the car into a tiny lane, and stopped in front of a shaby looking building (as the car was arranged by the office, we didn’t think the driver had any bad intentions). We asked each other, “Is this the office?” The driver got down and with a big grin, told us apologatically, “Sorry sir, sorry mum, the wheels punctured. Give me 5 mins.” And then off he went like an expert and got the tyre changed in 5 minutes, as though this is his daily routine.

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On Wednesday and my first visit to the yoga class, I went through the gym and took the lift there to get to the pool side where the lesson was conducted. A hotel employee was with me in the crammed lift. I realised it took forever for the lift to climb 1 floor so I asked him what happened. He took a look at the penal and exclaimed, “Oh shit! Lift stuck!”. Oh great! My first time using this lift and I got stuck!

He immediately rang the emergency alarm, talked into the intercom. “Lift stuck. Guest with me.” To kill time, he made small talks, “Sometimes this happened.” “Very hot right? No aircon here.” (oh yes! it was like a sauna). A moment later, we heard some people outside telling us to wait and probably working on the problem. 5 minutes later, the door of the lift opened, and we were back at the gym.

The over-zealous staff pressed the 1st floor button before I could get out, and the door was closed again; and guess what? It went dead again! The same routine happened, the guy pressed the emergency alarm to ask for help, then people shuffling outside, and 5 minutes later, the lift moved and the door opened with us on the gym level again. This time, I immediately dashed out and used the stairs before the staff did anything.

See, this is a 6~7 star hotel, and the ‘sometime this happened’ just annoyed me!

~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~

On one of the evening, a colleague brought me shopping. She’s hired a small car, and in the car was her friend and her friend’s daugther, the driver, and the 2 of us. The aircon in the car wasn’t working very well, and the taffic was really bad on that day. The winding and bumpy road, and the driver’s constantly stepping on the break didn’t help. After about 30mins we were still on the road in the hot car, the smell from our sweating bodies started to fill the car up, and I felt sick. When we arrived at the shopping street, I felt everything was spinning, and I had to tell my colleague I wasn’t well. It was after I threw up in the toilet and a hot chicken soup later, that I felt better. India’s traffic is just not for me.

♥Security♥
After last year’s bombing of 2 top hotels in Mumbai, the security in hotels, office buildings and shopping malls have tightened. All cars before driving into hotels or office premises will have to be scanned by security. They checked your booth, and under the car to see if there’s any hidden explosive. And to enter a building, you will need to submit your bags for checking or x-rayed.

In this shopping mall next to the office, the guards were checking bags at the main entrance, but I saw some people entered from the side entrance without going through a check. o.O” I wonder what’s the point if it’s not consistant.

This guard was very unhappy I took a shot of her searching through my bag. What the heck, I’m a tourist and I just acted blur.

♥Sight Seeing and Shopping♥
I have a full day on Saturday as my flight was night time, so I went exploring with 2 English ladies I met from yoga class.

We did a little sight seeing. More of the driving through the tourist spots like the town hall.

And a stop at Lalbagh Garden, where we were conned INR350 each for a guided tour.

The driver also brought us to 2 silk shops where we were able to buy silk and cotton Kurtas and pasmina shawls at a very good price.

We also made a trip to the supposedly shopping street Brigade Road, and it was a dissapointment, so dusty and dirty and the shops there were not interesting.

What I love best is the various curry pastes, bryani rice mix, premix roti flour, soup packs that I bought back home. They all had terrible packaging but I’d tried 2 of them and they were exceptionally good (MSG free and very tasty).

I have to say, besides its horrible traffic and dusty roads, I rather like India, the food, the people, the shopping. I was careful not to drink anything with ice, bottle water was always opened in my presence, and even with teeth brushing, I used mineral water, so I have no stomach problem.

I think since I have a multi entry visa for a year, I probably may go for a trip there on my own.

My very first trip to India took place from 31st March to 4th April, to the city of Bangalore. It was for a short work trip. I have heard a lot about India from Daddy’s work trips, so I had some expectation set.

Upon arriving at the airport late on Monday night, the office driver (seems this is the most popular mode of transport in Bangalore, where offices hired cars with driver to ferry staff around) greeted me with my name card held up. I was addressed as “Mum” or “Madam” from then on.

♥The Hotel – Leela Palace♥

I was put up in The Leela Palace. Upon identifying me at the reception, the staff walked me up to the room, and briefed me the facilities available in the hotel. This is the first time I have my check in done in the room in a hotel; after signing a form, and giving the staff my credit card details, she gave me a tour of the room showing me where things are. The room is big, luxurious and comfortable, the kind fit for a royalty (and I think the kind of hotel ‘Princess’ Zara would love).

I managed to further explore the facilities the following day. All corridors have high ceilings; there is a huge and beautiful garden, a nice pool (never tried it), and a luxurious spa.

Everywhere is decorated with fresh flowers. I love the way they put fresh flower petals and/or floating candles in dishes every where in the hotel.

The service there is impeccable. I had the concierge helped me carry my bags to the room (if I didn’t want to go straight back to the room when I got back); buffet breakfast came with service (fruit juice, freshly made Dosai, prathas or eggs sent to your table); Ice tea and light juice is served in the gym.

What’s more? It has a daily Yoga session held at the pool side from 6am to 7:15am. The instructor is a small bony man who flexes his body effortlessly. I dragged myself out of bed every morning to attend. A great feat for someone who normally wakes up after 7:30am daily. It sure charged me up for the rest of the day.

♥The Food♥

If you love Indian food, you have to love food in Bangalore. When our Indian food tastes very much like curry powder mixed with water, the Indian food in Bangalore is so refine. The bread or roti, dhal, savoury yogurt, curry, vege patties, cottage cheese (paneer), they are all so delicious. It’s so easy to be a vegetarian there because of the variety of vegetarian dishes. However they are all quite fattening because of the ghee used in cooking.

Breakfast was included in the hotel, and the food there was good, especially the coriander chutney. I had it with anything and everything.

Lunch was catered and we had it in the office. Love the bryani and yogurt.

I never knew Indians could make soup so delicious. Dhal with mint, chicken soup, tomato soup, yums!

A meal like that in Leela, costs me INR1220 (~RM100).

Non-Indian restaurants normally served multi cuisine dishes. I had Indian food in Japan, so I must have Japanese in India too right? Not really very nice. Ravioli and toasted brie was yummy.

The best meal was at Sahib Sindh Sultan Restaurant at Forum mall (supposedly a fine dining restaurant), where the chef offered to pose for the camera. Lunch for 3, came up to INR2073 (~RM180)

After a meal, you’ll be brought a finger bowl with a piece of lime to clean your hands; and then you are offered some of spices (beetle nut, fennel seeds, cloves, cardamom) to help with digestion, some of these spices are sprayed with a layer of silver or wrapped in silver and some sprayed with chocolate or sugar. I tried the Paan (beetle nut wrapped with leave) as well, and boy, it was horrible. It’s like eating grass with cheap lotion. I had to spit it out!

Now, aren’t all these photos nice? I was chauffered daily to work, hotel->office, office->hotel. If you blind folded me on the journey, this would be all that I see.

There are more photos to come which will show you what it’s like on the street.

Continue from here, here and here, this is the last piece, I’m keeping the best for last.

Now it was a coincidence that Daddy was in Japan too the 1st week I was there. He arrived 2 days later than me, and he was staying in Shinjuku (新宿). Here was a conversation that took place before he left for Japan :
I asked him “Should I check out and move to Shinjuku to stay with you?”
He replied, “Of course not. What would people think? We are there to work you know?”
Hello, we’re married right? Even if we’re working, we should be sleeping together at night, no?
That’s Daddy, so full of his principals, no abuse of work trips, no taking advantage of the company, etc etc. Anyway, I side track.

So we didn’t meet until the weekend. On Friday (27/2) I moved to Shinjuku after work, and met Daddy at, Hotel Century Southern Tower, the hotel he stayed in, which has beautiful view of Tokyo from the room and more luxurious than mine.

On Saturday, I was really keen to go to Hakone (箱根), a 2 hr train ride away, to look at Mt Fuji from afar. Daddy didn’t want a taxing trip, he was more keen to do some exploring of Tokyo; so Tokyo it was.

We headed to Ueno (上野), a nice place to check out local produce. There were lots to see, and things were cheaper than Shinjuku; but when I wanted to buy some seaweed and green tea, Daddy thought it was better to buy from reputable source. He said the things from the street vendor didn’t look like it was good quality.

Ueno – Ameyoko Shopping street

At a Fish Market – fresh clams and fish; live crabs and prawns for sale; recommended cooking style provided for reference. How thoughtful.

For lunch, we had the best Udon in a restaurant stumbled by chance, I was attracted by the sign which said, 手打ち (Japanese : Handmade). I normally prefer Soba over Udon, but this was good. I had mine cold topped with Vege tempura.

After Ueno, we went to Asakusa (浅草), walked around Nakamise (仲见世), a shopping street (mainly souvenirs) leading to Sensoji Temple (浅草寺).

A monk at the entrance of the Asakusa subway; Nakamise shopping street; an orange tree on Nakamise

Around Sensoji

Our main purpose for coming to Asakusa was to check out Kappabashi Dogugai Street, which is lined with stores selling table and kitchen wear, for we love to shop for such things. We probably spent more than an hour there, hopping from one shop to another, eventually buying a few plates. With the strong Yen, most things turned to be quite expensive.

That night, we had dinner at Soba Daian restaurant, again attracted by the 手打ち (Handmade) sign at the entrance. We shared a portion of sashimi, soba, salt grilled fish collar, tofu sashimi, and dessert; all were absolutely delicious.

It felt rather strange that we’re eating and shopping without the girls, and the hotel room was so quiet without their chatters. However, it was a lovely Saturday.

On Sunday, after checking out and a quick breakfast, Daddy took the train to the airport for his flight home, and I took the train to Takao-san-guchi to meet up with my colleagues. We wanted to visit Mount Takao or Takaosan (高尾山), a mountain which was awarded a maximum 3 stars by Michelin Voyager Pratique Japon. There were 4 of us, my 2 other non-Japanese colleagues (who were from a different site), and our Japanese colleague cum guide.

This greeted me as I got out of the station. A beautiful village at the foot of Takaosan.

Instead of hiking, we took the cable car up, but explored the top of the mountain on foot. The view and the air is so different from downtown Tokyo. There are different hiking trails leading to different places. We first went to Yakuoin Temple, built more than a thousand year ago, and then to the peak of the mountain. We saw small little shops and restaurants scattered around. On a clear day, it seems you can view Fujiyama from Takaosan, but we didn’t manage to see it. Here are the photos :

The mountains around, can’t tell which is Fujiyama; Hachioji can be seen from the top; the cable car that took us up Takaosan

Around Takaosan

Around Yokuoin Temple : A beautiful bell hung from the roof; cleansing area at the temple; donor’s names on bamboo; Tengu or 天狗, Japanese mytological figures

Shop and stalls in Takaosan; steam bun for sale; a boot washing area with brushes provided for hikers at the Takaosan-guchi station.

By the time we’re back at the Takaosan-guchi station, it was close to 3pm. Our Japanese host mentioned that she’d made reservations at a restaurant, and we had to wait 20mins for the bus to send us there. I was really hungry and wondered why we couldn’t just go to any restaurants near the station. The bus ride took another 10minutes, through winding roads and small alleys, and when we arrived at Ukai Toriyama, I knew why Michiko took the trouble, she wanted us to experience the ultimate Japanese dining.

The restaurant is in a big traditional Japanese garden, with little streams and ponds scattered around thatched-roofed country-style cottages.

The beautiful Japanese garden that houses the restaurant

A cottage for private dining; tradional lantern; a place for tea; Japanese water feature

Michiko booked one of these cottages for lunch. Served by a waitress wearing kimono, our full course lunch took us almost 3hours to finish.

Seasonal vege appetiser; local raddish stew; clear soup with pigeon meat ball

Fresh water fish sashimi (the sea water fish is still nicer); grilled seasonal fish; Dumpling in red bean soup

The rice comes with grated sticky yam, I didn’t really like the sticky slimy feel

Waiter helping to grill our meat. I have grilled chicken tigh, I’d never tasted chicken so delicious before; my colleagues have beef

All that food for 9,000Yen per course per person. Luckily my colleague was paying.

By the time we’re done, it was already dark outside, and the place still looked gorgeous.

That was how my beautiful weekend ended. Good company, good sight-seeing, good food.

I was in Hachioji (~45mins train from Shinjuku, Tokyo), Japan for 2 weeks from 22nd February to 7th March. We have a major deployment there which has caused some chaos in the operations, so I was there to help with my area.

Around Shinjuku (which I visited after I touched down on 22nd Feb before heading to Hachioji)

Japan was supposed to be entering Spring when I arrived, but it was still very cold (0 to 10 degrees Celsius); and they had their first snow fall on Friday 27th and again on 3rd March. Although it was a light snow fall, I’m glad I got to experience it.

I stayed in Hotel Gran Spa, a hotel basically meant for Hot Spring or onsen (温泉) user (the corporate hotels were fully booked due to high school exams where rural students flocked Hachioji to sit for the exams). Not much English was spoken in the hotel. Simple thing like ‘pillow’, ‘receipt’, were not understood. It took me a 40minutes struggle with the reception to get my room and to confirm the nights I was staying when I checked in. However, I do like the hotel because :
1) the use of onsen is free;
2) the place is very clean (all shoes are stored in lockers before entering the ‘lobby’, the rollers on my suitcase were cleaned before they helped me carry into my room);
3) it’s ~7 minutes walk to the office, and surrounded by restaurants;
4) security is very good, nobody go passed the reception without registering;
5) the people at the reception knew me (I was probably the only non-Japanese staying), I was given my room key without having to tell them my room number everyday
Every night, I used the onsen before going to bed, and I slept like a baby.

Around the hotel, on the way to the office

At work, I was in a room with my Japanese counterparts, about 20 of them. They spoke Japanese among themselves, and only when I was needed, they would switch to English. My Japanese colleagues have been working more than 15hours a day, some going home only 2 nights the week before (don’t ask me where they sleep, I dare not ask myself).

Every day I arrived at 9am and left the office later than 9pm, and still I felt bad, because I was the first to leave. Since everybody was busy, I sometimes had to eat alone, struggling with Japanese menus, luckily I can read Kanji (which is Chinese) and roughly knew what I was ordering.

Japanese is my favourite cuisine, and they make really good bread as well. The glorious food kind of made up for the long hours. Let the photos do the talking :

Most of the time, I have Onigiri (Japanese : rice balls) for breakfast. Seen here : Onigiri breakfast set; MOS English tea and chicken teriyaki burger; cold udon and hot soba. Breakfast were around : 350Yen to 600Yen

Lunches were normally set meals, noodles, pasta, or sometimes just bento (Japanese : Lunch box). Priced around 500Yen to 1000Yen.

Cold soba with vege tempura; Fish in soy set; Prawn pasta

Ate at my favourite lunch restaurant twice : Fish in soy set; Tempura and udon set. The size of the tempura was like our noodle bowl, for the remaining of my trip, I didn’t order another tempura dish after this lunch.

Prawn and seaweed ramen; Bentos (how come they don’t look as nice as the bentos our blogger mummies make?)

For dinners, I tried to eat in a variety of restaurants, sometimes with colleagues, sometimes alone. The price is normally above 1000Yen. People seemed to eat out a lot because there are restaurants every where.

Some of the many restaurants around Hachioji

Love the dangling shells of this one

And the lanterns on this

My new favourite : Japanese pizza and My all time favourite : BBQ on skewers

White bait salad; White bait pizzas

Shabu-Shabu : Soup was clear konbu soup and soy soup. My friend had the beef and pork, while I had the bamboo chicken. The soy soup made everything taste so delicious!

Grilled fish collar; Oh-so-fresh sashimi; Green tea ice cream with fried Mochi

Green tea tofu (dessert); Nagoya prawn rice balls; Cheese with Don’t know what (but it was tasty); Baby squid which looked like cockroaches

By the second week, after seeing me taking photos of my food before eating, my colleague asked me, “At home when you have dinner, do you take photo before eating?” o.O”

In a restaurant that served dishes from Okinawa, I pointed to the ‘specials’ (in Japanese) and asked the waitress what it was. She couldn’t explain, and a customer next to me tried to help. “Sea grapes!” I didn’t know what it was, but I just ordered. Turned out it was quite delicious, although the serving was puny.

“Sea Grapes” & Okinawa tempura

Now, what was the weirdest food that I’d eaten?
.
.
.
I had a date with my colleague from India, and because he’s been eating lunch and dinner at the same Indian restaurant for 2 whole weeks, I thought I’d do him a favour by bringing him to a Japanese restaurant. When we met up, he told me it was getting late, and we had better gone to the Indian restaurant which was nearer to the office instead of walking further (where the restaurant I wanted to bring him was located). So..

I obliged. I thought it was really weird eating Indian food in Japan.

Naan bread and some spinach curry.

The food was ok, but I just don’t understand how my colleague could eat lunch and dinner at the same restaurant for 2 weeks. o.O”

Now, you may ask, did I miss my girls since I was gone for so long and was it difficult for me? I did miss them. However, work trip is the only time I have to be alone, i.e. had the whole bed to myself, ate and shit in peace (nobody barged in when I’m doing my business), took my time to shower, can concentrate on my shopping (no need to have eyes darting around to make sure the girls do not walk away from me) etc, etc. So, consider this my me-time, and as long as it’s not too frequent, I rather enjoyed work trips.

寒冷的夜里,
听着阿岳的凌晨，
在八王子的街道上逛着，
雪花飘落在撑着的伞, 微湿的外套，
为什么有一股说不出的伤感? 润湿了眼眶?

I don’t write posts in Chinese, however, I was feeling this in Chinese and it didn’t sound right when I tried to translate into English.

Tic Toc Tic Toc
I haven’t scheduled for my yearly medical check up yet.

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How come work has not reduced?

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Jelly will be going home for a month and I’ll be alone with the kids. (Pray that I’ll survive)

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Zaria’s birthday next month and I don’t know what to do. (Without a maid, what can I do?)

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Zara’s birthday IS NEXT WEEK and I’d done nothing YET. (Die)

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Should I or should I not change Zara to another school?

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Nothing progressed since 3 months ago. My 8 photobooks (due end of the year) is only 1% done!

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So many blog sites I’ve not visited yet. (Sorry, really no time)

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Ok… I need a break. I’ll see you folks around.

Meanwhile, I wish I was as calm and cool as this girl.

I went to Shanghai for almost a week 2 weeks ago. Approval was pretty last minute, and the Chinese Embassy was closed for a whole week prior to my departure. I only got my passport at 9pm on Monday, 6th October night itself, and my flight was 3hrs later. Imagine my stress level prior to my flight.

The purpose of the trip was to conduct training to our clones new Shanghai colleagues. After months of being overworked, the management has finally decided to hire more people to ease our workload.

I arrived early morning on Tuesday. This time staying in Pudong (蒲东) instead of Puxi (蒲西) where we stayed last year. By the time I got into Raddison Hotel Pudong Century Park it was 9am. With less than 4hrs sleep in total the night before, I slept in for the rest of the morning.

The room was very nice and comfortable. I like the big glass panel seperating the toilet and the bedroom, making the place look very spacious.

The hotel is next to a commercial square with lots of restaurants and a Carrefour within walking distant. The only complain I have is there’s no MRT station nearby.

My first lunch, I just grabbed a fried noodle (blech!) nearby and then headed to the office, located in Pudong, in an isolated techology park. For the 3.5 days of training, I spoke mainly in Mandarin (I thank my parents for sending me to Chinese school, making me so ‘useful’ in my adult life), I wonder if I confused anybody since my Chinese isn’t that great. 😛

On my first day, I opted to be alone because I was still feeling tired from lack of sleep. Had dinner in a restaurant near the hotel. It’s difficult to order for one, I had a portion of smoke duck and pot stickers, and didn’t manage to finish them.

I spent the rest of the evening wondering around. Found a few road side DVD peddlers, so I did some DVD shopping (RMB5 for a movie, how about that?), and then also spotted a traditional massage place next to the hotel operating till 1am. I booked myself for a 1hr Duina (推拿) massage that night itself. I slept like a baby after the massage.

The next 3 nights, I have my colleagues accompanying me in the evenings, bringing me out for dinners. I had no time to shop in the malls, but thank goodness for all the DVDs peddlers which are opened till 11pm, I managed to buy quite a lot of DVDs. I also managed to go for another round of massage.

Here are pictures of my dinners.

2nd evening – with a colleague, at 鹭鹭酒家 (Lulu Jiu Jia) he ordered some of the more famous Shanghainese dishes. Chicken in wine; tofu with crab roe (蟹粉豆腐); some soya mock meat (四喜烤夫); steamed “many treasure fish” (多宝鱼), a type of sole which is only available in Shanghai.

3rd evening – Group dinner at Lang Yi Fang Restaurant (廊亦舫酒樓). Armed with a RM50/head budget, this was what we got.

5 types of cold dishes – I love the fried fish with sauce (熏鱼), they come in a stack.

7 types of warm dishes – Gosh, I thought there was no end to the food they dished out. The fried prawns and the cucumber and corn soup were really good.

The restaurant even has a very good view of The Bund (外滩).. For RM50 per head, I think it’s so reasonable.

4th evening, dinner was at Qiao Jiang Nan (悄江南). It took us almost 1hr 15mins to travel from MRT station (near office) to the hotel (to drop off some books I ordered) then to the restaurant at The Bund, all due to Friday rush hour.

This was by far the best meal. The fresh vege with sesame dip was so good, I tried to make it at home last week, and Daddy loved it too. Then there’s the famous spicy chicken (口水鸡) and the most delicious chicken pot stickers I’d ever eaten.

These few dishes were not too bad too. Prawn and corn fried with salted egg yolk; cold noodle; stir fried shredded duck with mushroom.

All these with drinks and beer for 3, came out to RMB300 (RM150). I think dining in Shanghai, is still cheaper than dining in KL.

If you think all my meals are this yummy, check out the lunch that they dish out in the canteen. Every thing is cold, and quite horrid tasting not to mention you have to queue around 10 minutes before you get your food.

Some sights :

The Bund (外滩) viewed from the Pudong side.

Shanghai Telecom Building (东方明珠)

Love their road signs, so informative, telling you exactly what’s ahead, the name of the roads that are intersacting with the road you are on etc.

On the last day, before my flight, I managed to go to Puxi, and shopped for some Shanghainese cakes in Nanjing Road (南京路). If you are ever in Shanghai, you have to try the ShenDaCheng (沈大成) cakes. They are really yummy.

To get to the airport, I took the Maglev. RMB40, and it only took 6min to get to the airport (instead of the 30~45min taxi ride). The fasted it went was 430Km/hr!

(All photos taken in Point & Shoot, such vast difference in quality)

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~3 months just zoomed by so quickly.

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How much time has this @#$^&*#^@ testing has taken.
Since returning from Houston, I’d been working late almost daily, exchausted at the end of the day, and dread waking up to face another day of testing.

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Still hasn’t bought Jelly’s ticket to return home yet.

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When can we go for our first family holiday this year?

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When am I going to bake the pie that I promised the girls with the pastry that has been sitting in the freezer since 2000BC?

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What? Already middle of August, 3 and a half more months and 2008 is over.

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Die. I still have 8 photobooks and 8 posters to create before my voucher expires.

Dooooooooooooooooooooot…..

Knowing I like reading, Kitty Cat got me to do this bookworm tag.

Do you remember how you developed a love for reading?
I can’t remember.
Maybe when I was 7years old. We had story telling competitions in school, and you have to pick a book, read it, and then recite the story to the whole class (and hopefully be selected to represent the class).

What are some books you read as a child?
I can’t remember either but they were all Chinese books.
One set of books I remembered the most was my parents’ gift from Taiwan, compositions written by local children. I can’t recall the name of the books, but some of the composition, I could still vaguely recall.

What is your favourite genre?
Non-fiction novels written by Chinese authors about life in China.

Do you have a favourite novel?
The Good Women of China – By Xinran (I would love to read the Chinese version, but I don’t think I’ll be able to find it)

Where do you usually read?
In bed or in the toilet.

When do you usually read?
If I’m not too tired, after the girls are asleep, or when trying to get them to sleep.
Most of the time when I’m in the toilet.

Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?
Usually no.

Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?
I’ll feel more for the characters/events since I know they are real.

Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library?
I buy them most. Most of them are picked up from book sales, but I’ll hunt a title down if I know a favourite author has released a new book. (Library? Who borrow books from the library in Malaysia?)

Do you keep most of the books you buy? If not, what do you do with them?
Yes, I keep most of the books I buy. (Daddy is complaining I need a bigger book shelf)
Only very rarely, do I give away my books.

If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them? Were they some of the same ones you read as a child?
Both girls love reading.
Zara’s current favourite is the Ginn Reader Series, while Zaria is books with Maisy. I never read (or being read to) such books when I was young.

When I was a child, I read only Chinese books, and at this point in time, the girls are not being read in Chinese yet. Hopefully, they will when they start going to school.

What are you reading now?
严歌岺~小姨多鹤
(Chanced upon it when I was in Beijing; not knowing she’s the bilingual author Ge-ling Yan whose The Uninvited is still sitting on my shelf.)

Do you keep a TBR (to be read) list?
My whole shelf is filled with books and I’ll read all of them one day soon, or after I’d retired.

What’s next?
I’ll probably check out Yan Ge-ling’s The Uninvited.

What books would you like to reread?
None identified now, there are so many good books to read (and I’m lucky I’m bi-lingual, so there are more variety), I probably won’t re-read any.

Who are your favourite authors?
Ha Jin, Xin Ran, Yu-Hua (余华), Khaled Hosseini.

Now, I’d like to know more about the reading habits of:

ehon
Lian
Grace
Giddy Tiger
WMD

Reading habits are infectious, see how the girls spent a lot of their time when they are in the bedroom.