又自作多情了

Should i be disappointed wif myself or u as a friend? Maybe to start from the beginning, i was never a friend enough for u to share your 喜怒哀乐. 是我又自作多情了.

Disastrous Beijing Trip

A family trip to Beijing to fulfill mum's wish of visiting The Great Wall turns into my worst ever package tour experience.

5 days tour package booked through Apple Holiday
Flew by HongKong Airlines which has transit flights in HongKong before landing Beijing.
Apple Holiday's local partner for the tour is 北京友协国际旅行社有限公司.

Our transit flight from HongKong to Beijing was delayed.
Bad start, bad sign In fact out of the 4 flights, 3 were delayed. How punctual can HongKong Airline be?
This whole flying experience with them was so bad i had to send a complaint letter to them upon reaching home.
Other than flight delayed, the service from the crews were lousy and i'm talking about basis services like serving drinks and food.
It was worse than budget airlines frankly.

Let me introduce my tour guide from 北京友协国际旅行社有限公司, Ms Sophia.
Only 1 word to describe her: unprofessional.
Firstly, her commend of English is weak.
Very often, we have to help her translate whenever she wants to convey message to a family from Philippine within our tour group. At times, we even had to help Sophia translate the introduction about those tourist attraction sights to them.
On a daily basis, she will "remind" us we have to spend at those shops that she brought us to as they are the sponsors for this China tourism until i got flared up and got into an argument with her.
But during attraction visits, she kept her mouth shut tightly with very limited description of whatever we are seeing. Very often, she just kept walking infront of us holding her umbrella.
No phototaking stops unless we own-self took the initiative to go take photo then catch up with the rest of the group. She doesn't even turn around and checked if everyone is following closely behind her loh.
i strongly believed her role at the co. is sales not tour guide. Throughout the 3 full days, we visited 8 commercial shops.
Jade, 景泰蓝 cloisonne wares, silk, 北京同仁堂, pearl, foot massage medical products, jewellery & Chinese tea. I was super duper turned off by the time she brought us to the 4 shops. Anyway, because our flight was delayed, the only thing we could do upon reaching Beijing on the first day was to have Peking duck.
It wasn't the most famous 全聚德 restaurant but rather we were brought to 龙潭烤鸭店.
i can only say the roast duck stall at my house hawker produced much crispy and tastier duck.
i have no comparison with other Peking duck restaurant in Beijing as this was the only duck i had throughout my 5 days visit.
So sorry to say the 道地 Peking duck failed to impress me In between the very packed schedule of bringing us to the commercial shops, we managed to visit the following attractions:

The Great Wall of China
Basically we just climbing many many steps of stairs.
The steepness of the stairs remind me of Angkor Wat.
人是多到 it's impossible to take any photos without 路人甲乙丙丁.
Now that we have been to 长城 we are now 好汉 liao!
Ming Tombs
where 13 out of 16 emperors of the Ming Dynasty were buried.
To put it in simpler terms, it's a cemetery for the Ming Dynasty emperors.
i'm baffled why people take interest with visiting cemetery.
But it seems like a must visit in China. i'm reminded of the Xi An trip where i visited the Qing Dynasty cemetery. The museum within displayed some articles excavated from the tombs like crowns, ornaments, and utensils.
Beijing National Theatre
We were only brought there, viewed it from far and snapped a 到此一游photo.
i have no idea how it look inside and what's this place for.
Tiananmen Square
i learnt that within the Square, there is a Monument to the People's Heroes has been erected, the Great Hall of the People and the Revolutionary History Museum (now National Museum of China) were erected on the western and eastern sides of the square. Also can be found there, is a Mausoleum and a National Grand Theatre.
i learnt the above through wikipedia because sales person Ms. Sophia shared nothing much as we walked through the Square.

Forbidden City aka Imperial Palace
once the home of emperors of China.
It's just like a scene out of period drama. Think 环珠格格 or 金枝慾孽.
The crowd here was so scary for a moment i thought it's a public holiday.
Challenging venue to play hide and seek. The only memorable part about this place?
Oh! u have to jostle with the jam-packed crowd just to see how the interior of each 宫 looks like.
i was breathless and exhausted after the first bulldoze experience.
Summer Palace aka Imperial Garden
This 290 hectares plot of land served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi.
Very flashy lifestyle, no wonder she got China into deep debts under her control. this old man was writing calligraphy on the pathway using a mop looking brush
We also experienced Trishaw ride touring 胡同 and local old 四合院 local old 四合院 are traditional courtyard residences.
This 四合院 that we visited actually still has a family living there in a fusion style.
The decor and architecture are traditional yet the house is also well equip with modern appliances like hood & hob, oven, TV & aircon. The trishaw also brought us to this stretch of pubs along the riverside.
Very much like what we have here at Boat Quay.
In case u're wondering, no i did not have the chance to sit down and have a drink here.
天坛 Temple of Heaven
used for worshiping the heavens & prayer for good harvest during the Ming & Qing Dynasty.
Before reaching the main temples, u will first passed through a park and we noticed lotsa elderly idling their time there with all sorts of activities; tai chi, chess game, knitting, beading & gambling. another round of bulldozing to see what's the interior like at the main Temple my sis trying to 离开地球表面
After all the 老 koko attractions, finally a modern one!
Olympic Park where Bird Nest - National Stadium and the Water Cube - National Aquatics Center are.
Again, we only view it from the outside. No chance to see how it looks like inside. Kite sellers flying their kites high up to attract some monies from tourists Besides kite sellers, there are all kinds of street vendors there.
The most despicable among them must be those dressed in Disney characters mascots.
They took the initiative by dragging you to take photo with them and then demand to be paid.
All these without pre-informing. So many tourists were caught by surprised.
Watched an Acrobatic Show
Shopped at 雅秀 which looks like Platinum Mall in Bangkok & 王府井 street which is their equivalent of our Orchard.
Didn't bought any clothes.
Only 1 tripod for myself and some random stuffs as gifts for friends when i found something suitable.
Daily buffet breakfast at the hotel was so boring and predictable that i ended up having cup noodles with egg by the 3rd morning.
Every other meals are 10 courses meal.
Very wow~ until u see for yourself what are the dishes.
Chinese tea is a must
sweet & sour pork is a must
deep fried fish until very dry is a must
bland tasteless soup without any ingredient is another must
plus they can have solely fried onion 1 dish, solely fried cabbage 1 dish, solely fried capsicum 1 dish. *roll eyes* until the last dinner we had Coke & Sprite then we were all super excited and happy.
For someone like me who don't really fancy gassy drinks, i was happy to have that there and then!
That shows how deprived we were! And we tried their 糖葫芦 fruits version which was quite nice.
Sweet and sour so it's a nice combination. Unlike the traditional ones which is overly sweet. 1 last interesting thing to share, the hotel we stayed in changed the carpet in the lift daily.
This is the proof
To summarize, my flights were delayed, my guide was lousy, we had very limited time to shop and the food we had were nothing fantastic.
The only great thing of this trip was the weather.
Nice chill weather of about 18 to slight over 20 degrees but with sunshine!
Good for lomo!

Worst travel trip so far

This Beijing trip is bad.
Flight delay, flight delay, flight delay again!
Service from flight attendants sucks
Tour guide sucks
Hotel sucks
Even the Peking duck I had there sucks!
Never been so disappointed from a trip.
This experience hit and over exceed my threshold.
i will blog in details again.
Going to send complain letter now.

Resumed

090911 marked the end of my life as 50year old.
A senior relative is back.
Crossing my fingers the internal organs function normally without hiccups again
该流出的请别留下
谢谢

Whale Wars

Ever since i chanced upon the program "Whale Wars" on Animal Planet, i am infuriated by the action of these evil Japanese.
And i'm especially disgusted that the Japanese can claim that their whaling is legally accepted for research purpose. *roll eye*
That is so their usual practice.
If they can change their history textbook to "educate" the younger generation that they were the victim for WWII instead of accepting the full responsibility and face up to it.
It's nothing new that they can lie through their so-called gentle, mild manner trying to deceive the whole world.
Killing dolphins, Killing whales.
Japan totally deserve to experience more tsunami

Got Loathe again

Before we confirmed adopting to.to over, the previous owner brought him over to our house afew times just to see if he can accept us.
Before i confirmed with the home boarding, i brought to.to over to see if he will be comfortable there. Even if it's just for 5 days.

i'm not trying to be difficult.
It's not a matter of i trust who, don't trust who.
As the one who found the lost dog and took on the responsibility to ensure she is properly taken care of, i just want to ensure the dog ends up with a good home.
Is it too much to ask for that we would like to know more about the adopter?
Is it too much to ask for to bring the dog over to see how the whole family interact with it?
Is it too much to ask for just to see how the new home will be like?
i will do the same even if it's my own friend. Coz i may know my friend very well, but i don't know their family well.

i am just following recommendations from the dogs re-homing experts.
i just want to be responsible.
i just want to be assured.
i don't understand why i got loathe in the end.

busy like a bee

i have been VERY busy recently.
Colleague who just began to bond left which means i have to cover more work.
Made an important decision which left me very busy with planning.
Found a lost dog, couldn't bare to leave her on the street. Took up the responsibility of ensuring she is in good health & condition. What a sweet darling she is!
in a short span of time, i have the following trips confirmed:
Sep - Beijing
Nov - Hongkong (i gave up tracking how many times i have been there)
Mar 2012 - Cambodia
So pardon me if i have not been in touch & no updates in this space.