Sandakan - My Rabbit Year Celebration.

Again,

it has been almost a week since my last post!

Was really busy with my assignments and I'm glad all the reading paid off.

Yesterday had my economics presentation and my lecturer's expectation was really high this time.

After our presentation she said my group was really good and that she's impressed, 

and we have also set a new standard of work for the other groups in the future. Teehee, good luck!

And that means,

I have to start cracking head for my Dissertation which I've been saying I needed to start doing but just couldn't find the time to do so :( sigh.

Anyways,

I'm just going to update what happened during Chinese New Year this year because I have limited time.

This year's Chinese New Year was just back to how it was 3-4 years ago I guess.

Long gone the days, since my house actually have open house, it's getting tiring for my mum.

 So she decided not to held an open house anymore and then our new years was spent overseas, or in Sandakan.

Last year I was at Beijing with my family, how fast time flies :/

This year's was spent back at Sandakan,

 uncle's place, went there for 4 days 3 nights,

and it was raining cats and dogs, floods everywhere!

Just some pictures from the trip that I made into collages,

few of the new decorations in the house... love em!

Uncle's house has more toys now compared to before! 

courtesy from the last trip to Hong Kong Disneyland.

First night's dinner, got to love that herbal chicken :D so tasty.

First day's best breakfast - the famous siew kut and
Second day's fish noodle was not bad too.
Dinner we had pork knuckles, octopus, prawns , abalones , crabs and pork stew , vege (:
I love home cooked dishes!

checked into D'Northstar Hotel and realized that it was a very good place to stay at. 

Just newly opened, about a week before we were there and it was really nice.

The room was big enough and everything inside was of course still new and was modern looking.

I did not take pictures of the room in general though.

The staffs were all friendly, every time they see you coming at the door or before you leave they'll all greet you.

Even those at the front desks,

 and there's once I came back to the hotel with my dad

and it was pouring heavily, we did not have an umbrella with us, 

the bell man saw me and ran after me to escort with an umbrella to the car , very attentive staff!

  

had our tea break before uncle's open house on the 3rd day we're there

@ Brew Cottage, located at Prime Square, just behind the hotel we stayed at.

Awesome food and beverages! at really reasonable price!

When we saw the bill, we all couldn't believe the price,

it was only RM50+ for all , and to top it off , no tax at all! 

 Ordered 2 glasses of Hot Chocolate, 1 Apple latte , 1 Nut Cocoa (MUST TRY!), 1 Ice blended Passionfruit , 1 plate of cocktail sausages with crumbs , 1 bolognese spaghetti and Beef burger set

Everything was good, seriously. Even the owner was being very nice, came talking to us and personally stood by the door to greet us goodbye even when the shop was packed.

I will and must go back there next time!

that night was the open house at uncle's place..

Thus,
ends the update for my trip in Sandakan.
More to come during this weekend!

Till Then!

Chinese New Year 2010.

Well , I spent my Chinese New Year this year with my family at Beijing , China.
It was a very fun yet tiring trip because we kinda went to like I dunno how many places , following tour for the first time ... its very tiring :S We stayed at a 5-stars hotel at XuanWu district.

every morning our day started at 5.45 am in the morning ( thanks to wake up calls ) , woke up and had breakfast by 7.00am holla time to go around visiting places and the day only ends at 10pm or later everyday.

anyways , on our first day our chattered flight was delayed like I dunno zomg times.
end up reaching at 11am instead of 6am.

Boohoo , the view from the plane when we reached.

This place looked all brown and dead.

LOL but yeah it was winter so basically this is what you get .

We visited

Tiananmen Square


Aka the Tower building / People Hero Monument/The Grand People's Convention Hall
I remembered when we came here it was packed with human beings. You'll see Mao Zedong's huge face there hanging on the main door because he's the man :P haha nah , cause he made a huge differences in the old and modern China. He's like China's Dr Mahathir. Basically this place represents " We are proud of you moment " to honor Mao Zhe Dong but believe it or not , he himself never been there :) haha! wanna know why? ask me :)

ZhenYangMen Tower

This is the place we were brief about the whole Beijing Fengshui history. Apart from that , we were given talks about fengshui for your personal well being la , and then they upsell their jade fengshui stuffs , everything cost 3ks and above that lion ..to bring fortune one , take it to Genting or any casino you'll be barred from going in , cause that thing will help you win money . The Fengshui master's teacher was the same person that helped Genting and other famous places in KL's to see their fengshui. Apparently , she's really good as she can read faces and tell your characters , very accurate I must say. Kinda scary too . Knowing that she was from the army :X She thought us about the position of structures like KLCC , apparently is KL's most Fengshui-est place. Oh , another thing that I find interesting was when she explained the map of Beijing . How they position their buildings and all that based on Fengshui. Actually all the places that most of us will visit in Beijing , based on the map , is actually in one straight line. Middle of the map. Even the new Olympic Stadium ( Bird Nest ) is positioned in the middle . Really cool. Well , we're top 4 in using Fengshui all around the world. 1st is of course China , 2nd Korea & Japan , 3rd US.

Forbidden City


This place is amazing that it is kinda impossible to finish walking it in a day. It is so huge ( 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms covering 7.8k sq ft.) , you can easily get lost and it has so many stuffs in it. It also has this Chinese Palatial Architecture. Imagine the old times , the emperors didn't go out of this place to go shopping and everything , they have everything inside. All the shops etc. It was the residence of Ming and Qing Emperors and his household , as well as ceremonial and political centre of Chinese Government for over 500 years. Now all you see is the remaining stuffs inside the Palace Museum , with the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Jingshan Park

This place to get the Panoramic view of The Forbidden City. We climbed up , a lot of stairs ... nice parks btw , we went during sunset ... there was hell lot of photographers with their tripod and SLRs waiting there , at the same spot for hours to capture that beautiful moment.

The Greatwall of China


It is the only man-made architecture that can be seen from the moon. It is a series of stone made walls built by China's first emperor , Qin Shi Huang but only a little of that wall remains , majority of the existing walls were built during the Ming Dynasty. The entire Great wall , stretches at 8 , 851.8 km. Its impossible to finish walking this thing , unless you're ready to camp out for 2 years minimum . Oh and I saw a real camel there ! haha out of nowhere next to the road. The view up there was magnificient , alot of elderly climbed up that stairs too . The stairs was kinda steep , and uneven at some point making it harder to climb.

Thirteen Ming Tombs




The largest " Ding Ling " . Well , we visited the one and only opened tomb there , the Ming Dynasty's Emperor Zhu and his two queens. Reason why only his tomb was opened? Cause he was the youngest emperor that passed away or was the youngest one to be the emperor? Im not sure.The coffin was burnt down once , and was rebuilt . Its made of wood , and the emperors was built underground ( really deep inside , was like 5 floors down using stairs ) along with their favourite possessions , boxes of jewelleries in those red boxes around it . There were supposed to be another Ming emperor to be bury there , but then he was denied an imperial burial and was buried somewhere else :P This place was selected by emperor YongLe based on fengshui. The last buried here was the ChongZhen emperor who hanged himself or named Si Ling by the Qing Emperor.Something that I find special here is that , all the tombs has different sizes. The later emperor's tombs will be on a smaller scale than his predecessors. We're not allowed to take pictures . Tour guide was saying its CNY and taking pictures of dead people doesn't really show respect :P

Temple of Heaven




This place was the last place we visited in the morning before coming back to MY. Well I like the name of the temples here. Originally a Taoist temple , it was a sacred place where the emperors used to pray for good harvest. It is renown for its unique architecture style , the entire building only made out of wood , without a single nail!

Beijing's Birdnest( Olympic Stadium)

the indoor


It was designed for use throughout the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. This $423 million stadium is the world's largest steel structure. Well alot of visitors didn't went in the stadium but we did.It was designed like a bird nest. Basically whats left inside is like shops selling souveniors from the 2008 Olympics. Well I never thought I'll be here cause in 2007 I was in the Macau's Olympic souvenior shops and now I'm in the actual stadium itself. There was this man- made ski place there and alot of people went for it but it was only opened for a short period of time. The last few days was the period I was there. Situated nearby is the National Aquatic Centre. Very unique building , its a cuboid building. With unique glass design.Pretty. Security was really tight everywhere around the places I visited. My bags was security checked like 10 times or more from the airport till my last day. As I was walking alone , I saw a lady was dragged to the police car while shouting and screaming begging not to be drag in. The cops was shouting at her rudely and everyone nearby was staring. There was like 5-6 cops holding her, surround her before taking her in . She just has that innocent looking face and nobody knows what she did wrong.

Oh well moving on.

Beijing Nanshan Ski Village


We visited the ski village about 2 hours bus ride from the capital of Beijing. Skiing here is cheap , about 70 RMB. Our bus almost broke down on our way here but thank god we made it :) again , its packed with human . Had a great time here taking funny photos with the family. Didn't ski cause we were dead tired by then , sunset view was awesome!

Summer Palace( Yi He Yuan )



This place has a vast garden where the Qing emperors used to live during the summer to escape the heat. There was a lot of boat there but you will only get to go on in during Apr - Oct. We visited the Dehe Garden cause it was winter , and apparently , this place is really a place to escape heat. Not like we have experience heat while I was there but , we went there at the wrong time :X Coincidentally it was -9 celcius that day and it was super windy! all of us end up tearing or something without noticing , pictures taken as if we were crying with our hairs flying HAHA! the wind was so strong ... compared to the other days I was there. Very beautiful sceneary along the lake , it was a frozen lake. Humans walking around on frozen lake. All along was this chinese art decorated the pillars of the walkway. 800 different images. Sometimes I really do wonder how these chinese people managed to do it.

Beijing Hutong


Well , its funny when I thought of this. Our tour guide told us that we were going to experience the old lifestyle of the Beijing people here. On a " you lan che" - which I thought is a cable car :S So we went there and I was like , Where's the cable car? haha and all I saw was trishaws all along the way :D gah I was like : My chinese ? omg. okay enough about that but well , Hutongs is actually the old style houses of the people here. It doesn't have colours on it's roof because colours = status to them. Basically , this place here is all greyish and old. At some point , it was smelly , so it comes in a package ! but it was fun sitting on a trishaw for about 15 minutes and seeing this places. I gave that trishaw man 10 RMB tip cause I know I'm heavy :S haha

Wangfujing Shopping and Food Street


This places resembles the Taiwan Food streets in a way. It is the busiest road in Beijing.One whole stretch of shopping malls all along the way , didn't do much shopping there only in a SUPER UBER crowded shop and after we left , we headed to the food street. Found alot of specialty dishes there and of course the exotic foods , tried out alot of food stuffs there , even takeaway them for suppers :) OH , their sugar coated strawberry was to die for in Beijing. I ate that like almost everyday , even the cherry's doesn't taste as good. But in here , the strawberry was super huge , each was the size of 2 of my fingers and it only costs 6RMB and a stick is like 10 strawberries! People here are generally friendly , they kept wishing you a good holiday and such.

got to love that .

The Place Shopping Mall



The most high tech shopping mall I've ever been to. Seriously. The outer ceiling of this shopping mall , I meant part of it is made of electronics. It changes accordingly , and it was really beautiful. This place houses alot of brands for shoppers , but of course the attraction is the ceiling. Really unique concept , its like you're in a different world when you're there. Kinda like a high class shopping mall.

Temple's " Miao Hui "


We canceled our trip to Tianjin and one of the new itinerary was to visit this. Its a once in a year event only during CNY organised by the Temples. Its like our Chinese Market here , but this one is 10 times better. Local products was sold here , foods ... household appliances ... flowers etc. Awesome is that , it was held at a park , imagine something like Bukit Padang , 5 times the size of the entire place. Really huge park and the stretch is like from one end to I dunno which end. All along is sardin packed of humans , and it has 3 sides. We bought a few food stuffs and those cute headbands for little kids , my sis got the cowboy hat and its only like RMB10! Cheap stuffs.

The Red Theatre


We went to this theatre for a international kung fu show. Chun Li Kungfu , production of China's top movie producer. Tickets was hard to come by , lucky us our tour guide managed to get em ticket for us because it was like a last minute thing. Its like if you don't book it now , you won't get to watch it for the next few weeks cause it was all booked. The monks here are really amazing people. They can really work with their heads and other body muscles. Spinning with their head and all sort of cool stuffs. The kids are like 5 years old and the elder people was like 60 years? and looking real healthy with 100% professionalism in them. What I like about this is cause , its an international thing so they have translations to everything. Even the narrator narrates in English , and their brochures have like 15 different languages. The main crowd is tourists from all over the world.

*and another Theatre

fast movement , blur images.

watched the famous thing in China , what else .. the acrobatic shows. Young kids performing everywhere , really nice performances. I enjoyed them. At some point it reminded me a little bit of Royal London Circus stunts in there. You know , especially the bike in the cage thing.

*Teahouse



Tea talks , tea testings , demonstrations , and of course product buying. I kinda recalled the name was Tea Specialist ( in chinese ) . The art of drinking tea is nice only if you actually understands it. In Beijing , they love to drink Jasmine Tea.

*Silk factory

Another silk talking place. A place to listen to how silk was made , and of course they sell their products.

*Jade factory



Teehee didn't listen to the talk for them Jades. Was so into the jades and only caught the first 10 minutes of the talk and then move around on our own ( my family & I ) , bought Jades for gifts but didn't get any for myself , how unawesome is the timing. The jade factory we visited is part of the Government's and Jacky Chan's.

*Pearl factory




Pearl is my thing! Didn't get anything from Jade then bought a lot from pearl factory as gifts for relatives. Here they gave talks and etcs. The usuals. Did you know that , an original pearl takes up minimum 6 years to grow before you can use it for any jewelleries?

*Foot and Health Massage parlour

Went here on the last day of my stay. Some chinese doctors was explaining about traditional medicines and massage for the foot and all. We had the foot massage and before that soaked our feets on the stinky basin full of chinese herbs. The man who massaged my feet looked like a pervert cause he kept smiling at me and talked to me but I have nothing to talk to him. Talked to a professor who attend to my family , apparently he has tv show talking about chinese herbs and all. Apparently he is mixed. Indonesian mixed so he can speak bm and he was like , Kamu sangat Cantek , and I was like ? haha He checked my impulses and said I am all healthy except for something , he thought me various massage methods and tried to sell me those chinese pills that I have to take for 3 months :S But yeah I declined . I hate medicine to the core , what more chinese medicines? My mum bought some pills that costs 3ks? crazy and those chinese herbs thingy to soak our feet. My whole luggage stinks cause of that.

*4 Fashion Markets

Its all about bargain bargain and bargain here. Met like hell lot of cheaters haha! bargained alot also for stuffs and they actually said they've never seen anyone like me , bargained like hell :D
I'm good. I saved up few hundreds of ringgits okay , and I got my gift from my dad. My nikon DSLR at a very good price. I have yet the time to use it , been busy but I shall start using it soon.

*Hell lots of restaurants everywhere
(for once I'm not going to blog about food here. I tried like 80+ cuisines when I was there. I doubt I can explain all of it but most of the restaurant's services was kinda bad. Food was rather good , but its very oily. )

Well I dunno if I left any places.

* = I dunno the names of :P , can't remember.

Well that was basically the things that I did there. Too lazy to elaborate further. Rather talk then blog about it. I've been typing for 3 hours plus believe that haha! and its way easier that writing that synthesis essay!

anyways , more pictures here.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=148961&id=655683123#!/album.php?aid=148976&id=655683123
http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=148966&id=655683123
http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=148961&id=655683123

Twist of luck?

My pork porridge ...

Ma Kiok and Red Bean Paste thingy , he gave me alot! this are leftovers =P