Alvin's spiel

Robina's Shanghai loot

2008-06-29T23:59:00.005+08:00

Robina was in Shanghai for a few days of shopping. Sally can be seen here mopping on the carpet by the front door waiting for Robina. Sally spends most of the time like this when Robina is away.
Due to popular demand (actually only from Peck Wai), here's Robina's loot all spread out. She tailored 3 qi pao (cheongsam) in Shanghai. The materials, workmanship and service is much better than in Beijing. plus more dresses, 3 Paul Frank (monkey face) T-shirts, assorted shoes, bags, belts, umbrellas, and 3 dry fit UniGlo T-shirts for me!
3 qi pao, (from left) RMB1500 (about SGD300) in kimono material, RMB600 (embroidered material) and RMB 400 (short qi pao top).
Kimono material qipao in traditional Shanghainese style with high collar and buttons down the side.
Close up of collar. you can see the fine workmanship from the trimming with 3 colours/materials and the buttons.
here's to show the Khotan carpet we bought from Kashgar, Xinjiang. we put it right in front of our bed.

Gotheborg tea in Guangzhou

2008-06-15T22:51:00.007+08:00

My sister, Robina and I were strolling around our relatives' place in Huadu District outside Guangzhou. I was looking for coffee while Robina was trying to get away from feeling bored. My sister was looking to buy some tea and we checked out several tea shops in the neighbourhood. Cantonese people must drink a lot of tea since there were literally one teashop around every corner.we were trying out pu-er tea in a teashop when I spotted a special edition Gotheborg pu-er tea bricks. apart from Chinese porcelain, tea was the major cargo for Gotheborg to bring back to Sweden. the ship returned to Guangzhou to great fanfare in 2006.
there was a Gotheborg tea brick and round tea "biscuits" which was compressed pu-er tea in a round disk shape. One tea biscuit was signed by Captain Peter Kaarling and another signed by the Swedish Consul. the chinese words on the commemorative brown carrier bag says: Gotheborg return to China; Yunnan Pu-er heads to Europe!
the lady manning the shop was very proud of the Gotheborg tea. She told us that her boss from the Yunnan tea company only managed to get those two signed tea biscuits, even the special edition tea bricks were all that were left. we were told that the 3 year old pu-er tea bricks tasted very good and mellow when brewed. we bought several bricks just for fun; one to drink ourselves and to give away to Siva who was on Gotheborg.

home town visit

2008-06-07T21:40:00.005+08:00

Robina and I flew down to Guangzhou last night to join my parents and sister who came over from Singapore to visit our relatives there. we landed amidst a torrential downpour (which reminded us of Singapore instead of dusty Beijing) and the humidity reinforced the similarities. we were told by our relatives that it has been pouring since last week. the sub-tropical flora with lush vegetation was also a refreshing relief from dry and grey Beijing.
Our relatives are still staying in our ancestral home Huadu District (former Hua County), from which my grandparents came from. what used to be farmland and villages during my grandparents' time is now a spanking new township (actually nicer than Beijing or Singapore!) right next to a spanking new Guangzhou International Airport. the surrounding area is part of the Global Factory of China of mostly industrial parks.our relatives: our grandaunt, 3 aunts and cousins. plus two uncles not in picture. our relatives came from my grandfather side of the family. they are my granduncle's (grandfather's younger brother) family. The relationships seems quite complicated when everything is subsumed under "uncles" and "aunties", but the chinese terminology is actually more precise. as relatives go, they are very warm and nice people and kept us very well-fed (stuffed to the gills actually) and showed us around our home town of Huadu.
traditional Southern Chinese architecture
our most illustrious (or infamous) hometown personality Hong Xiuquan (aka God's Chinese Son). He started the Taiping Rebellion which captured half of China including Nanjing and killed an estimated of 20-30 million between 1850-1864

new decorations

2008-05-29T23:14:00.004+08:00

An artist friends wrote a calligraphy piece for me. I gotten it framed up and put it in our living room.
the previous centre piece painting was shifted to above the TV. this one is a copy not original.
some cheap replica paintings are now decorating both ends of our hall way. the frame cost more than the paintings which we bought from Pan Jia Yuan antique market (and home of cheap replica paintings). we like this brightly coloured farmland scene.
Ryan Giggs autograph is now up in the hallway! nice touch to have Tony Adams, former Arsenal defender sprawled helpless on the ground (poetic!).
close up of his signature
some update on the honours roll would be needed like 10 Premiership and 2 Champion League titles! hurray!

smog

2008-05-27T13:00:00.000+08:00

Tuesday morning photo of the road junction near my building. part smog and part dust storm.
dust storm lasted until Thursday even though there was relatively strong winds.

Canadian charity ball

2008-05-24T23:34:00.004+08:00

Robina and I attended the Canadian Ball this evening. it was a black tie event so I have to appear in my penguin suit.
there was a silent auction of Olympic posters and other paraphernalia with proceeds going to the Sichuan earthquake fund and other charities.
We place bids for the Nagano and Berlin Winter Olympics which we thought were quite nice, but we were quickly outbidded
there was a serious bidding war for some popular posters and some guests were quite serious about winning their bid
In the end, we went home with a signed Ryan Giggs poster. I'm a Giggs fan and this season Man U had done the double by winning both the league and Champions League. too bad that Giggs will probably fade out and retire soon.
First Nations native americans performed during the dinner. they were here for the Canadian pavilion at Tiananmen promoting the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. I thot it was interesting that the native american groups were promoting their culture and music in China and Asia since Native Americans shared a common cultural and genetic heritage with us Asians.

Sally on the sofa

2008-05-23T18:32:00.003+08:00

Sally was watching American Idol final together with Robina. She settled herself comfortably resting her head on a cushion.

Heart-rending stories from the rubble

2008-05-19T23:04:00.002+08:00

Earlier I thought that no TV image could beat the sight of Premier Wen Jiabao comforting a young girl whose parents were killed in the 12 May earthquake. As the girl was weeping, Wen was telling her to live on with determination since she had survived. Robina was crying her eyes out...

This evening on Chinese CCTV, I saw the news clip on the rescue of a young man, Chen Jian, who was trapped under a collapsed building in Wenchuan for 73 hours before rescuers got to him. Pinned down under 3 concrete slabs, Chen was conscious and kept talking to the rescue team and journalists. His words were not focus on his own misery or suffering, but were words of determination. After 6 hours of digging, Chen was freed but as he was carried away for treatment, Chen went into cardiac arrest and even CPR by rescuers failed to revive him. It was such a tragedy that a young man had died moments after being pulled out from tons of concrete and surviving a massive earthquake. Chen had a young pregnant wife waiting for him in his home town.

earthquake mourning

2008-05-19T19:26:00.004+08:00

China grounded to a halt at 1428hrs today. state flags are at half-mast while air raid sirens and car horns were sounded. we held a 3 minute silence to mourn the victims of the massive earthquake in Sichuan (now upgraded to Richter 8).

as China goes into 3 days of official mourning, it seems that the no public entertainment ruling was taken very seriously. our cable channels including HBO, Discovery and NGC, were gone leaving only news channels like BBC, CNN and CNA and local news channels. but Star World was still on so we can watch Friends and American Idol while Discovery was considered entertainment. Even Chinese youtube sites like Youku and Tudou were blanked out except clips on the Sichuan quake. apparently people were told to postpone their weddings. I thought no entertainment meant no public celebrations etc...
Robina grumbled that only in a Communist country that you can pull a blanket ban like this. While everyone should demonstrate respect and mourning for such a tragedy, I am baffled at how not watching documentaries would help the quake victims. Like I told Robina, some AO (or the Chinese equivalent) probably thought that it was a good idea.
Robina was at BreadTalk today and she saw that BreadTalk was donating proceeds from a special earthquake bread series costs RMB10 (about S$2). She bought a frowning panda bun (Note: 3 pandas were reported missing from the Wolong Panda Research Centre and 5 staff were killed)

an evening on the Great Wall

2008-05-17T20:15:00.006+08:00

we spent a very pleasant evening on the Badaling Great Wall. our friends invited us for a gathering at the German restaurant on the wall itself. the restaurant is not open all the time and only accepts bookings for private functions.
Robina like the main branch of the restaurant Der Landgraf at Fangzhuang, south Beijing. It serves excellent German food and beer.
although it was not a full service restaurant due to lack of a full kitchen, we had an excellent spread of cheese, sausages and BBQ and of course, great Bittburger beer.
before getting onto the wall, we had to take a trolley car up the slopes. it was nice to be on the Great Wall in the evening when most tourists are clearing out. At night it was breezy, a little chilly at times and the moon added a poetic touch
we had a lot of fun both on the way up and later on the way down after the dinnerthe party was very nice with many friends catching up on the latest happenings and each others' families. amongst the boys, a mysterious brown bottle of Hungarian cognac and potent Mongolian Chinggis vodka kept the chill at bay.
even our journey from Beijing was full of unintended excitement when our coach was involved in a 3 party "minor" accident. A No. 919 bus was overtaking our coach but a Shandong truck cut into the bus' path and the bus driver had to swerve into our coach's path. Nothing serious happened and there was no serious damage or injury. There was just a superficial scrap on our coach and the bus' side mirror was damaged. but the truck was clearly driving dangerously and the 919 Bus managed to chase the truck down and we stopped by the side of the highway and there was much excitement amongst the coachload of foreigners.
another 919 showed up to offloaded passengers and we carried on our journey while the bus and fugitive truck waited for the cops to arrive. you can see that most of us are quite jaded after living in Beijing for a while, that we don bat an eyelid at such an incident.

Jeremey's early birthday celebrations in Beijing

2008-05-17T17:37:00.004+08:00

Jeremey was in Beijing this week so Sherry, Malcolm and Robina gave him an early birthday celebration at Beijing Hooters!
As it was raining, Jeremey caught a ride with his boss and was 30 mins early, where he promptly "upset" the hooter gals by playing his PSP while they dance and sing. So he was blamed for all the subsequent bad service at Hooters...

Anyway, this was Robina's second visit to Beijing Hooters (and first time for dinner) and her impression...
Beijing Hooters:
Rude and Poor Service, VERY LOUD Music, A Hooter gal that either don't smile or have a "strange" smile, funny dancing, repertoire of kiddy songs (this was according to Sherry since Robina could not understand some of the songs), and for some reason... excellent chocolate mouse cake!!

Overall, a strange experience. As usual, the best entertainment is still provided by Jeremey by being himself!

blood donation crowds in Beijing

2008-05-14T20:46:00.006+08:00

I was passing by Wangfujing (Beijing's busy shopping mall district) during lunch time and spotted a large crowd in front of the mobile blood donation bus. it seems that the Beijing people was rallying to donate blood for the earthquake victims in Sichuan. I counted at least 50 people lining up and filling up the forms. this was just before 2pm and there was still many people waiting.
I was very impressed by this scene as usually the bus would be more or less empty, and more so because blood donation in China has a bad rep due to poor peasants in rural areas selling their blood and getting infected with HIV in return. even "blood donation" here is termed "giving blood without compensation" (无偿献血) as opposed to getting paid for your blood.

Update: due to overwhelming response Beijing Blood Bank is now asking donors to register and wait for call up when there is need for more blood.

Chengdu earthquake felt in Beijing

2008-05-12T15:12:00.005+08:00

Robina called me frantically that the building was swaying. she grabbed Sally and ran out. Sally is still panting from the excitement. all the people from our apartment building came downstairs. nearby office buildings were evacuated. bemused office workers and construction workers were all out on the street. even kids in the nearby shopping mall skating ring were all out!
all these felt like the 3.3 scale earthquake we went through in Taipei on 31 Mar 2002! our Taipei survival training helped.

Update: more good news. China Earthquake Bureau (from sina.com) cautions that there might be 2-6 Richter scale after shocks experiences in Beijing area from 2200-0000hrs this evening. the tremors this afternoon around 1430hrs were just Richter 2. good luck!

Update 2: Chinese official media is now discrediting earlier reports of after shocks predicted for Beijing area tonight. casualty figures for Sichuan epicentre not good. reports coming out that some schools near the disaster area had collapsed.

kaya in Tashkorgan and other adventures

2008-05-04T00:50:00.006+08:00

our first day (1 May) was a disaster. our flight to Kashgar was almost landing when it had to turn back bcos of dust storm. can't blame the pilot or airlines since I could see the dust plumes from the plane. it was like a scene from The Mummy!

we kena turn back to Urumqi to fly back the next morning. the usual mayhem followed, including a long wait to retrive our luggage, plus lousy transport by the airline (China Southern). it was almost 2am when we reached the lousy hotel provided by the airline.

when we landed in Kasghar and left on our coach, we saw a highway advertisement board being twisted like aluminium foil just outside the airport. it shows how strong the winds were on Thurs night!

as we started our journey proper, Xinjiang landscape was spectacular! we drove from Kashgar to Lake Karagul, then to Tashkorgan. we went from Uighur farmland to open desert up valley gorges, pass glaciers and onto the Pamir highlands at 3600m.

we stayed at Crown Inn at Tashkorgan, the best hotel in the Tajik town. the hotel is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and it seemed more like the Swiss Alps than the Pamir plateau. surprisingly it was runned by a Singaporean couple. they were very nice and efficient (as usual). the hotel was clean and beautifully furnished. we even got kaya for breakfast! quite surreal actually: kaya at Tashkorgan!

this morning we visited a Tajik family. our tour group was feted with naan, yoghurt and various pastries. Robina bought a hand embriodered Tajik hat from the family. their 19-year old daughter, Kemartigol, was very sweet and liked Robina a lot. she kept talking to Robina and hugging her. She seemed very reluctant to let Robina go when we were supposed to leave. Robina was nearly adopted!

now we'r back in Kashgar and the city is blanketed in a dust cloud. we heard that all flights in and out from Kashgar were cancelled. apparently, the dust were brought up to high altitudes by the strong winds on Thurs and was now falling back to ground level. hopefully our pm flight on Sunday would be alright. anyway we will hit the Sunday bazaar in the morning and load up on local specialties!

P.S. posting from free internte in Kashgar Hotel

Olympic Megastructure

2008-04-28T23:20:00.000+08:00

Last week, I was very lucky to get inside the "Bird Nest" National Stadium and the "Water Cube" National Aquatics Center, the two iconic Olympic megastructures for a sneak peak. view from the wide VIP gallery...
this will probably be the closest I could get the the Olympic venues since we would be very busy running around during the BOG itself.
the Bird Nest was very impressive since this was the first time I was actually inside. we could only view the construction project from afar on past visits for the last three years. Looking at the spectator stands I could tell that the unobstructed view would be excellent for soccer matches.
the Bird Nest stadium dwarf our own National Stadium. it is so huge that our vehicles could drive right into the stadium through a internal concourse to the basement carpark in the bowels of the megastructure.
this sign board showed how many levels there are!
we went next door to the Water Cube. again this was the first time I got inside the cube. the gloomy skies and poor lighting, plus my dinky point n shoot did not do justice to this magnificent building.
there is water moat surrounding the cube.
Ian Thorpe this way! hopefully our Singapore swim team can do well!
Inside the bubble! many visitors were gleefully pressing the ETFE polymer bubbles near the entrance. they should install some electric current to zap pesky buggers...
natural lighting coming from above inside the swimming pools. very impressive. the building will be even more beautiful when it is lighted up at night! even now many coach loads of Chinese "tourists" would stop outside the nearby highway to take pictures.

trip to Shanxi Datong

2008-03-20T23:09:00.011+08:00

Robina and I went a trip with Chinese Culture Club to visit Datong, Shanxi province. Two main sites we saw were the Hanging Temple and the Yungang Grottoes. Both were impressive cultural and historical sites built by the Northern Wei dynasty (AD460). This dynasty was founded by the nomadic Xianbei barbarians, not the usual Han Chinese.

Along the way, we stopped by a typical Shanxi village on the yellow earth loess plateau. This terrain looked desolate and bleak in our eyes especially since we are used to tropical Southeast Asian rainforests. I had learn about loess plateau in my secondary school geography classes. the loess was formed after the glaciers retreated after the last Ice Age. rocks were pulverised underneath the glaciers to form a powdery yellow dust that blew down from Siberia and collected in mile thick layers all over North China. Now we can see this terrain all along Shanxi and Shaanxi province, as seen in Zhang Yimou's movie "Red Sorghum"
We visited the house of this jolly old uncle. he's 76 years old. His house is dug into the cave side. It's cool and roomy inside with several rooms. but it must be freezing in winter even though it had a heat platform bed, "kang".
outside the cave house was a tell-tale sign of civilisation: a satellite dish. the uncle told us, his daughter works in the city and bought him a TV (plus the satellite dish I think!)
next we were at the Hanging Temple, near Hengshang. it was 1500 years old, propped up on the cliff face by seemingly flimsy wooden poles. an amazing feat of engineering by the Xianbei.
from a distance the temple complex looked unreal, like matchstick models. when you climb up and into the narrow alcoves and stairways, we could really appreciate the hardships that the monks and taoist priests had to endure. even in the early spring weather, the lashing winds was still very cold and definitely not a place to spend a winter especially if you have a fear of heights!
we stopped to visit a Ming dynasty fort called Victory Fort or "Desheng Bao". the fort was used to house the garrison that guarded this section of the Great Wall. The ancient wall was on the ridgeline overlooking the fort. there is now a village inside. most of the people we saw were the old and the young; the adults must be working in urban areas.
We visited the village school with 60 students and 3 teachers. conditions was very basic. some students from other villages stay in the school itself. the grade one kids were cheerful and curious. as usual there must be one mischevious boy around.
the highlight of our trip was at Yungang Grottoes, which befit its listing as an UNESCO World Heritage site. many of the statues, carvings and painted reliefs were breath-takingly beautiful. this huge outdoor statue of Buddha reminded me of the destroyed Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan.
Some of the painted carvings still look brilliant despite being more than 1000 years old and the grimy smog from the nearby coal mines. Check out my photos at flickr.

Apart from leaving behind these two magnificent monuments, and some tombs in Northeast China, the Xianbei people no longer exists. Right from Emperor Xiaowen of North Wei, who started the Yungang grottoes, he insisted on a sinification policy. All Xianbei must change their surnames to Han Chinese surnames. They must speak and dress like Han Chinese. A handful of barbarians from the North could not hope to govern the Han massses. Before long the Xianbei was absorbed into the sea of Han Chinese. Maybe their genes and some physical features still live amongst Shanxi people.

bumping into a star

2008-03-08T16:47:00.006+08:00

We were heading to Ritz Carlton to meet friends for lunch, when I thot I spotted a familiar face in the lobby. It was the famous Taiwanese singer, song-writer and producer, Lee Zhong-sheng (李宗盛). He is best known for his compositions for and duets with his wife, singer Sandy Lum (now divorced). 李宗盛 was very pleasant and nice when we asked to take pics with him. He even recommended the Italian restaurant upstairs.
Beijing is too big for celebrity spotting, compared to celebrity-dense Hong Kong and Taipei. We had better luck in Taipei and had spotted the aboriginal rock duet 动力火车 and entertainment show compere Xu Nailin (许乃麟). During our last trip to Hong Kong we spotted our very own Li Nanxing, at the next table at Yong Kei, the famous roast goose joint.

Robina's early birthday

2008-02-06T22:30:00.000+08:00

Robina's girlfriends celebrated her birthday earlier since some of them are returning home for Chinese New Year. They had lunch at Assagi, an Italian restaurant. She was very happy with her loot!

cold weather sports

2008-02-02T20:44:00.000+08:00

A few of us had been playing basketball in the winter cold for the past couple of weeks. this saturday the weather in Beijing was exceptional fine despite the winter cold. There was a clear blue sky and the sun was out even though it was 3C. Only when the wind picked up that we felt really cold. It was hard to imagine that the rest of China in the South and Central was suffering from the freak snow storm.
It was very different playing basketball in winter. the good thing was that you don't sweat unlike Singapore. the downside was stiff fingers and trying hard to warm up stiff muscles.
As typical Singaporeans, we had to refuel after the game with prata, curry and satay at a Singapore/Malaysian restaurant out in the suburbs.
Just outside the restaurant was a frozen fish pond. A Chinese was patiently ice-fishing there.

Robina and her steak escapade

2008-01-15T20:48:00.000+08:00

I exaggerate of course, but it probably seems to Robina that she devoured 7 pieces of steak today. She had lunch with her frens at a French Bistro, one of those that serve quite value-for-money set lunches for RMB65. She ordered a fillet steak (medium rare) while Joyce ordered medium. It came but it was relatively well-done (while Joyce's steak was quite bloody). Joyce sent hers back but she just took Robina's not-so-bloddy steak. What pissed her off was that the waiter had earlier assured her that her steak was medium-rare. Robina asked for her steak to be replaced since it was too well-done. But another waitress asked if she could bring the steak back to fix it in the kitchen. In the end, the restaurant replaced the steak. But it was well-done, the staff had to quickly run out and told Robina that this steak was not hers but ordered by her frens. this was after Robina had cut up the steak. It was still well-done...

Later on, when they decided to order the drinks in their set, they were told that the warm water that they had earlier was actually mineral water, part of the set's drinks! It was only after kicking up a fuss that they were allowed to order the usual drinks.

This evening we were at an official dinner, and guess what, we were served steak for one of the courses. and of course, a piece of sea cucumber flew off Robina's plate and landed on her blouse.

back in Singapore

2007-12-31T17:01:00.000+08:00

we've been back in SG since 27th. very pleasant change from smoggy Beijing. it's a joy to be able to open your windows and enjoy the breeze. In the morning, I could bask in the sun while having coffee in you neighbourhood kopi tiam.

perhaps the gorging on local food had gotten to me. seems like my system has adjusted to Beijing's heavy food. curry and chilli seems to go right thru me.

update: apparently 1 Jan was a blue sky day for BJ

two towers

2007-12-24T20:57:00.000+08:00

nope, its not Minas Morgul and Othanc, although Beijing does resemble Mordor these few days being wrapped in a noxious cloud of fog/smog (optimists called this a fog, pessimists...). but the previously twin leaning towers of CCTV Building has been united into a twisted Siamese twin prezzel.
when work mysterious stopped for about one month in the middle of this year, Robina and I were wondering if the engineers had to stop to do some last minute calculations. Imagine, if the towers missed the joining by a few inches! It might be quite difficult to hoist a giant hammer up to knock the towers back...

Ethan's Birthday!

2007-12-22T21:20:00.001+08:00

this was Ethan's birthday bash! Sherry got a balloon guy and magician to entertain the kids with balloon animals and the adults with "magic" card tricks.
with all the presents and attentions, the birthday boy was a tad camera shy!
the girls!

Sally misdemeanour

2007-12-22T00:58:00.000+08:00

Sally made the big mistake of ransacking Robina's closet and dragging out her Kipling bag and her handphone. When we returned home to the crime scene, Robina screamed and Sally jumped onto our stool in fright. She received a round of scolding and a whack on the rump from Robina.
Sally moping after her scolding

Hui Yuh in town

2007-12-19T11:42:00.001+08:00

Hui Yuh and her hubby, Kelvin as in town for a whirlwind 4-day visit. they fulfilled most of their plans for visiting various must-see tourist sights like the Great Wall, Forbidden Palace and Summer Palace. plus they managed quite a lot of loot from shopping. We brought them to try out Xinjiang, Guizhou food and Peking duck! We told Hui Yuh that they must come again, next time with baby Keagan to cover those sights that they missed this time round and for more shopping.