Antwerp

Day trip from Brussels to Diamond city. They even sell diamonds at the train station. Feeling a little churched-out at this point, so I decided to visit a quaint little museum called Museum Plantin-Moretus. It chronicles the rise of Antwerp’s biggest and most important printing press and publishing house over a few hundred years. Everything is remarkably well-preserved in this house - The printing press machinery, type-setting equipment, library archives, and books on display. the first ever 5-language bible (16th century) (see pic below) and other liturgical works, world atlases, musical scores, etc. The bonus for me was coming across a 16th century town map of Lancaster!

Blast into the past – I love the smell of old books – maybe that’s why I’m still resisting e-books, reading just doesn’t feel the same when you’re holding a computer in your hand.

Brussels

Say Belgium and the following comes to mind: Jean-Claude Van Damme, beers, moules, frites, waffles with ice-cream and of course chocolates! Frites to belgians is like rice to chinese. Everywhere i go, there's a fries shop! I wonder how Belgians survive on these unhealthy foods!

Beautiful market square in Brussels

The zwanzeur spirit, or local unique humour- quirky comic strip frescos adorn the walls and even the electricity boxes along the street are decorated!

Bruges

Beau is in Brussels for the ASEM and I conveniently tag along to see the country. More accurately, it was my excuse for the whole Europe vacation, and not only do I arrive before him (to visit Paris with Shaheen), I also extend my vacation to visit more pals in London – ha!

Beau had only one free day and we took a train to Bruges, a picturesque UNESCO world heritage site with canals and several well-preserved historical monuments.

After walking through the entire town, we took a welcome respite in the form of a fun boat ride that winded through the canals and under a number of old bridges– it’s the closest we got to a guided tour of the buildings.

Paris

First stop of my Europe vacation and I have to admit I was so excited about this trip – so excited I didn’t sleep much on the red-eye flight because I have been looking forward to having a long break from work. The last time I was on this continent was when I backpacked here in 2006, where I mostly spent my time in Spain, Scandinavia and Poland. I feel really comfortable here, with the weather, the food, etc. and can get by with my pidgin French/ Spanish. Contrary to the steoreotype, Parisians are not rude at all, but in fact very polite and genial.

My first visit to the City of Lights was in the summer of 2000. It was hot and muggy and I was a poor student then. Still, I remember being wowed by the city’s architecture and sensuality. Fast forward 10 years later, Paris is still as beautiful as ever, and even more so in autumn. Perhaps I’m a lot more mellowed out now and I don’t feel the burning desire anymore to check off 20 different attractions each day, but just to enjoy the mood and atmosphere of the city at a more leisurely pace.

Still, Sha and I made good pace exploring Paris and its marvelous monuments (mostly by foot!), the river Seine, and soaking in the café culture. She and I last met in 2006 (in Andalucia), and we had 4 years worth of catching up to do over our long walks, desserts and coffee.

Jiuzhaigou/ Huanglong revisited

One of the few bonuses of work finally surfaced in the form of an expense-paid client summit our company organized in Sichuan – yayyy! Compared to the freezing cold and desolation in winter 2008 (and not to mention 20RMB hostel beds with little or no heating!), this time, we were in a 5 star hotel and after a one-day mind-numbing conference, we were rewarded with two days of sightseeing – we even got a cable-car ride up to the top of Huanglong (as opposed to a 4 hour hike) nope, can’t complain about it.

Crystal Clear waters

Huanglong is very desolate in winter. It’s cold and completely devoid of tourists. The cable-car is off-service and we almost walked into the park unchecked (the ticket officer sprang out from a little hut, no doubt hiding from the cold)
This time the colours were much more vivid because of the lush verdant forests and numerous waterfalls. I also got to see several more sights and walking trails that were sealed of in winter. Of course, the payoff was are a lot more tourists in summer and that means endless queuing and jostling!

Spring/ early summer in Jing

Spring blossoms in Beijing. Peach, cherry blossoms, almond flowers in bloom makes for a pleasant trip to the park. this one is taken @ Yuyuantan. I snuck out during lunch time on a weekday so as to avoid the hordes of people and not to mention those spoilt, screaming kids that plague public places on weekends.

If you wanna show that YOUR multi-coloured plastic flowers are the best, you gotta walk the talk and wear them, esp the pink ones. Even if you're a man. yes.

Sandy Lam concert in Beijing. Thoroughly enjoyed her concert even though i'd never really consider myself a super-fan of hers. Still, i remember several of her hits back in the 90s and had fun singing along.

It's been a weird summer. Usually it's a sauna by May but this time, its been relatively cool with lots of rainfall. in the meantime, Beau was in his element with the internet shopping and stocking up on camping gear and gadgets - foldable chairs (with pockets that keep your beer cold!), bbq pit, taupaulin sheets, cooler box, etc. He then decided a camping trip was in order to test-drive all that gear!

We drove to Miyun and camped by the Bai river for the weekend. I'm proud to announce we've reached new heights with our camp-dinner standards - korean flavoured bbq pork (marinated at home) and veggie salad washed down with beer! It's no michelin of course, but getting there ;-)

The next morning, we climbed up to a waterfall, did some rock-climbing and then cycling.

Exhausting but fun!

Hong Kong ..and some nostagia

I think one of the few redeeming features of my job is that i get to travel to HKG and then have a little R&R time on the side. This one is taken @ Bonnington market, Wanchai. It's always lively and bustling in the mornings or weekends when I walk past. It never fails to reminds me of the wet market in Chinatown/Holland V in SG.

As a kid, i hated the wet markets because they were well, wet, stuffy, smelly, and dirty. I had to grip my grandma or aunt's hand tightly as i gingerly navigated my way through all the fresh produce that was laid in boxes on the floor. There'd be chicken feathers, animal blood, assorted animal/veg debris littered everywhere. Occasionally, a fish or prawn would try to escape out of the basins and lay gasping, and sputtering before someone threw it back in. The crabs would be trussed up in coloured raffia string and occasionally wave a claw. Turtles were parked in styrofoam boxes, frogs in pails. You can also see people picking live fish out and the hawkers, in their plastic aprons and bright red clogs would proceed to hack them to death on a huge chopping board. I'd be squirming impatiently as Grandma/ Aunt made their way through the little stalls, haggled over the prices or picked out produce. Then, they'd get sick of my whining and make me wait at the pet stall so i get distracted by the goldfish and guppies. That was my favourite section.

I also remember back in those day, every market had a grisly machine where they plonked live, squawking chickens/ducks in and they came out defeathered and dead. Ugh. Childhood memories are made of these eh?

After shopping for what seems like an interminably long time, we'd finally be rewarded with breakfast. pancakes with peanuts (mungchung kweh), soybean milk, and/or fried noodles, roti prata, etc.

If only i had a time machine that would transport me back to those smelly markets instead of the sterile ones we have right now.

Roadtrip to Datong, Shanxi

I've been wanting to go to Datong since my 2006 China backpacking trip. But with the sudden detour to Hangzhou for the interview and all back then, i had to change my plans and head south instead. After Hangzhou, I was suddenly employed and i had to rush back to Singapore to prepare.

Fast forward 3.5years later, I finally made it there. We took a road trip to Datong with Beau and a couple of friends over Qingming.

Visited the Hanging monastery, the Yungang Grottoes, Wooden pagoda of Yingxian, crumbly bits of the Great Wall, as well as some ancient volcanoes. all in all a really pleasant trip to the "countryside" and managed to check off a few more UNESCO World Heritage Sites off my list.

Shanxi's not so idyllic countryside. some of these villages look downright wretched. Dry, arid, rundown..and empty.

View of a villager's house standing on the GW.

Showed my mum photos of the Yungang grottoes and she was really impressed. Someday i would love to take her to see the real thing. This particular statue is 60+m tall, and the mini statue under the Buddha's arm is already 1.8m. Impressive indeed. Now that i've seen Yungang and Longmen, i MUST make a trip to Mogao in Dunhuang to finish the entire series of "Greatest Grottoes in China"

Elaborate carvings in the Yungang grottoes. Some of the colours are still very well-preserved.

Xuankong temple (Hanging monastery) - tramped to death. Disappointing because its been over-developed commercially and concrete reinforcements had to be put in - which kinda destroys the whole point of it all. Thousands of people stampede their way through this delicate wooden structure and have no qualms about sitting on it, touching it, and just eroding this structure. Of course i'm guilty since I've also paid for a ticket to go in. I guess it might not be there in 5 years time. or, chances are, they'd tear it down and rebuild a replica so they can milk even more $ out of this.

PADI'd

Chinese New year 2010

Made a lightning-quick stopover to Singapore, then onward to Thailand for our PADI.

I like this pic of beau

Spent a week getting much needed sunshine, sand, sea and juice shakes on Ko PhiPhi.

Never thought i'd enjoy diving so much. Swallowed alot of sea water at first, then saw myriad schools of fish, turtles (chomping on corals - so cute) , jellyfish (stung), even seahorses. our instructor from phi-phi adventures was fantastic and very experienced with jittery first-timers. My ears aren't very good at equalizing though.

Now that I've gone diving (and experienced this whole new world underwater) and the massive oil-spill has occured, i feel kinda sad, angry and helplessness at the whole situation. Guess it just means lots of marine life poisoned and dead and it'll take ages to recover, if at all.

View from the dive boat (remind me again, wtf am i living in a desert??)

Beach @ Phiphi

Making up for more lost time...

Guess i'll just speak with pictures instead of words.

New Year's 2010 was spent in Dongbei again, it seems we do like to torture ourselves. Beau convinced me the rime trees in Jilin would be worth the cold. Well, as "tropical peoples", -35deg C was definitely a novel experience. Snce i didn't bring a down jacket (silly me), i wore about 5 layers on top (1 cotton long-sleeve, 2 fleeces, 1 pullover and 1 ski jacket), and 3 layers of pants - 1 pair of leggings, 1 fleece pants, knee-high socks, ankle-length socks, and padded ski trousers. oh, and undies of course. but that amount of fabric was immaterial compared to the layers outside. and a hat, and the hoodies from the pullover and the ski-jacket. and i was STILL COLD.

For the record, the above amount of clothing keeps you warm for about an hour or so.. then the condensation from your breath cools so quickly that icicles form on your eyebrows, eyelashes and hair. Snot just runs down your nose non-stop.. brrrrr... yip. not a pleasant experience.

Skiing also takes more than the usual effort if you're so cold your limbs are frozen and you have so many layers of clothing on you can't move, or see very much.

But don't let this post discourage you from experiencing it for yourself! ;-)

Making up for lost time

Didn't get a chance to post pix when i was behind the friggin GFW so here are some of the highlights from 2009, or posterity's sake.

i've been thinking about switching blogs but i'm kinda attached to this one since i started my travelling in 2006 and have had 130+ posts to date. Nyeah. i'll be loyal.

Longmen Grottoes, south of Luoyang city, Henan province. Awe-inspiring collection of statues carved 1500 years ago.

There you go.. i took the plunge.

Sunset in Uluwatu, Bali

Just went for a late-night swim. The pool is empty and quiet since its "technically closed" @ 10pm.


The water is crystal clear after 2 days of heavy downpour. Never seen so much rain in the month of June. This morning's thunderstorm was so heavy it sounded like i was standing at the edge of a waterfall and hearing its roar.



I realise that i haven't enjoyed this sort of peacefulness for a long time. I'm thoroughly sick of the crowds, the congestion, pollution, and noise in a so-called "developed city". And i'm questioning how much longer i can stay there without compromising certain things that are important in my life. i miss spending time with my family, friends, and the healthier lifestyle i can have here, running, swimming, etc.

Yet i know that if i live here i'll be stir-crazy sooner or later and crave escape too. not sure exactly what i want, or where i can find it. Ugh. guess people are never satisfied with what they have.

I feel increasingly like a tourist each time i'm back. gawking at the new malls that have sprouted up, old places that have disappeared, my favourite haunts that are now sadly, very disappointing and not worth going to anymore. some things are still amazing though, like the incredible 50m pool right in front of my bedroom ;-)





should i stay or should i go? Or more appropriately, should i come back or should i stay there?

Looking back at 2009

Time of the year for making a recap list again. 2009 certainly zipped by.

Let’s see, I spent the first quarter of the year being unemployed… spending time in Singapore and in Beijing job-hunting, reading and generally relaxing. I say “generally” because there is this certain anxiety when you don't have an income, worry about when you're going to find a job, and feel guilty about any form of spending!

The main story of the year was that I got hitched twice, in 2 locations (to the same guy)! Beau is officially The Husband, but that sounds really “square” to call him that. Anyway for the benefit of continuity, I’m just going to stick with the afore-mentioned term. Getting hitched, and all the planning that came along with it is a whole story in itself. The miracle was surely, the fact we both survived the planning, the massive travel logistics for visiting relatives, and the handling of family relations relatively unscathed.

Trips: Numerous trips to Qingdao and Singapore (because of the weddings), enjoyed a short spring in Beijing with a couple of outings around the city, spent the may holiday in Luoyang, Henan to see the giant Buddha. Saw my first Beijing opera. A camping trip in July.

The rest of the time I spent working my a$$ off, and made several business trips down to Shangers and Hangzhou. The down side of it was that I was hardly in Beijing to establish a regular workout routine, but the bonus was that I managed to meet my old friends quite frequently.

Oooh.. and another highlight of the year was I made it 365 days without losing my wallet. Dare I say, it seems the annual curse has been broken for now.

Ended the year in Dongbei again. It’s the second year running I spent new year’s in freezing temperature. This time, I’ve outdone my self in Jilin, in -35deg C temp – I didn’t ever think I could survive this sort of weather. All the way there to see some bloody rime trees! Ok admittedly, it was all very nice but I’m definitely looking forward to a tropical holiday now.

Pictures to follow… soon as I get VPN or back home – whichever happens sooner.

(Test)

using a proxy to access blogger since its outside of the great firewall.
this seems to work..except i can't post pictures.
UGH