Random shots

Lanterns















I think it says Guan Chen Jie














Little doggie wandering around.














Little girl at Teppanyaki restaurant














Not so Venice of the east.
















Castle hotel, where I;m staying

Top 5 most used words in China

Here are the top 5 words which I most frequently use..

1. Fa paio!
2. pein yih ie tien.
3. yoh puh ming pai.
4. nie hau.
5. xie xie

Oh, last nite, while i was running on a threadmill, acouple was suddenly barged in.. i didnt pay too much notice to them, and continued running.. then suddenly, 3 other girls came in. I thoguht it was weird as they weren't dressed appropriately for the gym. never mind that.

then suddenly, there was music and i thought it wasn't too bad, something to kill the silence.. and to my amusement, they started to dance., KNNCBB, I was practically bitting my tongue trying not to laugh.. try imagning spice girls.. the leader, lets call her fatty spice came equipped with her boots and was overly energetic with her moves. She would lead the pack by running and jumping around like a shaolin master while the rest would follow her lead. I think they looked rather stiff, maybe becos there's an unwanted presence... I take it that they are reheasing for some dance competition or a school play..

ok.. gtg now..

Monday blues

Not only the us humans suffer from Monday blues but the network here seem to be suffering from it too. This can’t be good given that I have a very short deadline and a long list of developments to complete. Now, without the network means access no to the internet, access to the files and folders and most important of all, access to the servers.. Everyone else seems to be working on their spreadsheets with some complicated chart, I very well should try to look busy too, and I figured blogging would be the best way.. haha.

This morning, my colleague John had to attend to something urgent in Shanghai, which means that I was left all alone to make my way to the office. I thought that it cant be that bad since I memorized the name of the road, Hesan road. However, the pronunciation can be a bit tricky, and I had to pronounce it a few times before the cab driver could understand.

Cabbie: Nie yau che nah li?( where do you want to go?)
Me: Sian che Her San lu ( Go to Hesan road first)

After 5 km’s into the ride

Cabbie: something something Her San lu something something ( at this point, i had no idea what he just mentioned)
Me: Nie che sian Her San lu, 360 hau ma. Nie tong PAANAASOONICC chai na lie ma? ( first go to He San road, number 360. Do you know where Panasonic is?)

Cabbie: shir puh shir, ching chong something something?
Me: err, yoh khan twei. ( I think so)

Another 5 minutes into the ride.

Cabbie: something something…. Han San lu?
At this point I started to get really worried, and the surroundings look a bit different.

Me: Yoh khan puh twei, sheh pu sheh Her San lu? ( I don’t think this is right, is this He San road)?
cabbie: ohh.. Her San Lu, jai chein mien ( It’s infront)

finally after another 10 minutes we reached out destination.

Cabbie: something something … I think he was trying to tell me that’s Panasonic in mandarin and he had fetched people there before.

Me: yea yea whatever..

Field trip to the city

The day started at about 3 pm for me, and went to this place where the locals and tourists go, called Guan Qian Jie. I got there at about 3.30pm and the place was packed with people.. I was all geared up, and had my camera with me and as soon as I got there, I whipped out my camera, and started to snap.. only to find the message on the display 'No CF Card'.. so you can imagine my frustration, had to lug my bag around the whole day and it was so freaking heavy..

It has lots of eatery places and departmental stores.. for some reason the chinese people are obsessed with mobile phones.. you can practically find huge stores which sells mobile phones everywhere,..with a wide variety of choices such as Konka, Nextel and MEC...

The dept store MATRO which caters to the higher end where u can find Hugo Boss, Chanel and Gucci... of course, at other stores there are Humo Boss, and those chinese brands where they try to pass off as branded goods.

It's no surprise that SARS was able to spread so easily here cos people keep spitting everywhere. Walking around the city is like walking in a minefield, where u really have watch where u step. And what is worst is people do that in restaurants while surrounding people are eating.. so gross..

Alritey, gonna go watch some DVDs which I bought last nite.. Only 5rmb per disc and it was a good copy.. even for boxsets.. bought 3 boxsets for about 130rmb, which equivalents to rm60.. talk abou value for money.. hehe

I'm Staying!!

Yay.. I was down to miscommunication about leaving my cosy room... It was actually the Japanese team which had to move and not us... Which means that I get to be online hence more updates.

Had steamboat last nite which was really oily and salty.. Too bad i didn't have my camera with me, or i would have taken some pics. particularly of a dish which was really salty which looked like red toufu, and it tasted like stale cheese.

Will be going to work today for a while to finish up some work, and perhaps go for a foot massage tonight. There's a shop just next to the hotel and i'm sure that its perfectly legal.

Day 4

Crapp.. its getting colder everyday...
the forecast for tomorrow's weather is high of 0 degrees.. KNN..

okay.. wanna go to the gym now..

My cina number

Yay!! i have got myself a Cina number.. 13912794213.. err, not sure waht the country code is for china though..














anyway, i had a very satisfying meal for dinner... meet, mr ciplak KFC.. kesians.. the chinese generally fake everything here from footwear to electrical appliance and now food too? goosh.. however as bad as it may have sound, the food wasnt too bad.. and i only paid rm20 for a full meal plus drinks, and that was a lot of food.

some bad news.. i will be moving out from this lovely hotel room this weekend.. which means that no more internet connection, no breakfast and the worst part of all, NO HEATER.. bloody hell , how do they expect us to stay in a room without heater when its -3 degrees outside?
tell you, freeze my balls man..


Thanks to Hsiu-Pin for sending me my first sms here... first sms which is not spam or some welcome message.. :D


*edit*
i just want to add, contrary to popular belief, everyone whom i speak to will surely say that Suzhou has lots of babes.. however, since i have been here for a good 3 days seeing hundreds of female factory workers *ahem* i havent seen not one babe...

My room

Day 1 at work

My colleague Tai has fallen sick. Work sucks maximum. Requirement was pretty simple, but it brings crap to a whole new different level.. i really no idea what the hell the previous programmer coded..

http://static.flickr.com/39/81500909_df8617187e.jpg?v=0
IE is being such a bitch.. cant seem to upload the photo thru blogger.. guess u guys will just have to click on the link This is my room.. quite comfy and i guess this is where i am gonna spend the next few months of my life... it comes with free broadband access.. the name is a bit dodgy though, meet Castle hotel

The weather was much colder today and according to the locals, it will only get colder.. sighs..

Miles apart

Hellooo...I know its been a long time since my last post, sincere apologies..(not that anyone reads this pathetic blog anyway)

I have arrived safely to Suzhou, and the weather is freaking cold. I thought that Europe was bad, but this has way exceeded my expectations. Luckily I did some serious shopping during my short stint at Singapore. As for work, I dont know what to expect, but I suppose if I expect for the worst, then it can't be that bad.

The plane ride here could have been better, if not for the passenger behind me spilling water all over my back, and my TV console wasnt working, hence I had to change seats.

This is my second trip to Suzhou since last year and I dont really remember much of it. Maybe its because during my previous trip, we visited mostly the tourisy places and now I'm mainly in the city..

Oh.. you know what's embarrasing? I tried to order my first KFC meal in mandarin but Miss cashier couldnt contain her laughter and replied back in english.. damn malufying ok..

till then, I will let the others do the ordering.... ok.. gonna go zzz..