儿童屁话故事

此故事可能只有21岁以上的“儿童”才读得懂。哈。

source : linked from Old Beng's site

謝謝你, 就是你

An email from a good friend :

Dear friends,

Just wanna drop a note to say that me and my group of friends (we call ourselves ZPGY aka 猪朋狗友) recently composed/ produced a song 謝謝你, 就是你, inspired by the recent Sichuan earthquake. We hope to spread it to China and even share with the rest of the world.

The ZPGYs comprise of local singers, musicians, and others. Some familiar faces you might spot include Kewei, Chanel, Ruth, Dawn, etc. We all came together as one and piece this whole project with our efforts.

The song mixing and video filming/ editing may not be as professional, but it contains our blood and perspiration.

We’re in the midst of negotiating to have our song included in a compilation album.

Till then, I hope to share this self-filmed MV with you and pls do continue to spread our love to your friends and let it chain on!!!

Auntie tips (15)

Tip 1:
Thaw frozen fish in a shallow bowl of milk to remove the fishy smell.

Tip 2:
If your dish is too spicy, add a teaspoon of sugar to it.

Tip 3:
If you've overcooked your sauce or dishes, stick a couple of fresh whole chillies into the dish until the burnt smell fades. Be sure to place the chillies upright.

From : Simply Her - Jun 2007

Hong Kong Day 4 (13th Jun)

Woke up to a slightly gloomy day... which was unlike the previous 3 days of warm and humid weather. As the bus travelled towards the airport, it started to rain along the way, which was a complete contrast to the weather in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Most probably it was the outer islands that experience those stormy weathers that the news had been reporting all along.

At the airport, we had our very last bowls on Hong Kong wonton noodles. Yes, again. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever get tired of eating them over there. Anyway, our breakfast that morning cost HK$160, with a cup of milk tea costing HK$20 (equivalent to about S$4). I guess food at the airports are all the same, extremely overpriced.

And look at the message on the side of the bowl... :)

After filling our tummies with delicious hot noodles, we spent some time walking around the shops, and getting some Wife Biscuits, tea leaves and pineapple cookies at the last minute.

And the rain was still coming down hard and fast. As we sat at the boarding area, the view to the outside looked as if we were looking through those decorative waterfalls that some shopping malls had. The rain was heavy, and judging from the way it was beating against the windows, the wind was strong as well.

Due to the weather, a number of airlines had to change their boarding gates, including ours. In fact, our flight was delayed for about 50 minutes. And luckily, the rain let up and the weather was a little better when we took off.

Anyway, I remembered Auntie Koh and I used to talk about the guys in Hong Kong, that they are actually quite good-looking. Well, maybe not as good-looking as the actors, but still good-looking in their own way. Before you girls get too excited, not all the guys are good-looking (or else the 6GB memory cards I had would not be enough... haha), however, majority are. From the bellboys to the waiters to those executives in power suits. Even those with single eyelids have their own charm. Ok, maybe I'm sounding shallow... but then again, who isn't when it comes to eye candies? ;p

Another thing we notice is that there don't seem to be any plump people around. Yes, there are no fat people in Hong Kong. (at least from the places we went to for the past 4 days) Everyone, male and female, old and young, all look like they are of the ideal weight. Ok, other than some uncles with the beer bellies, which I don't think are considered as overweight. The food they eat can't be the reason coz we eat almost the same things here. They also have fast food chains, ice-cream parlours, and supper eaters.

Then I found the reason. At least I thought this was the reason - it could be all those walking around and climbing up and down the stairs. Some of their train stations can be as big as a shopping mall, and with exits labelled from A to J, which is 9 exit points, excluding the letter "i". And on top of it, some exits may be further divided, example, exits J1, J2, J3. So, imagine you come out from the train and you are near exit A, but your destination is at exit J... the distance you have to walk.

Don't be mistaken, though. There are escalators in the train stations. But the escalators only bring commuters up and down to the waiting area for the trains. There are no escalators from the basement area up to the street level. Ok, maybe I cannot say that there are no escalators for all stations. But the main stations that we went to, we had to climb flights of stairs to get in and out of the stations. Imagine the amount of exercise your legs get everyday just for your travelling to and from work.

And don't ever think to compare the distances you had to walk from our North-South line to NEL in either Outram or Dhoby Ghaut stations, these are nothing compared to those in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Day 3 (12th Jun)

Breakfast

Venue : Cafe De Coral
Total Bill : HK$37

Was thinking of trying this place's barbequed pork rice, as I had read rave reviews about it from some bloggers who frequent Hong Kong. However, we didn't know that the place had different times for the different meals. So, we were in time for their breakfast, which means to early for lunch, which starts at 11 a.m.

In the end, we just had to settle on their breakfast sets.

Chicken in glutinous rice

Macaroni and ham

Ocean Park

Entrance fee : HK$208

Bus ride : HK$10.60 (per trip per adult) - a non-stop double-decker bus ride from Admiralty MTR station right to the entrance of Ocean Park

The Aviary

Scarlet Ibis

Eh... think those two should be the same family with the Mandarin Ducks. We were kind of rushing through this confined aviary coz the husband was afraid of getting "bombed" at as all the birds are allowed to fly freely in the area.


As Ocean Park is built on both sides of a mountain, there are two ways (by escalator or cable car) to travel up and down to visit the two main areas of the park, the Headland and the Lowland.

We took the super long escalators, 4 in all, from the Lowland to reach the Headland. Each escalator's length is so long that there is an on-going message playing all the way to warn people of safety, and there is also a member of the staff at the end of each escalator to monitor what is going on along the escalator through a CCTV.

Pacific Pier

This is the place where tourists can see the sea lions and seals swimming and being fed.

This is a real seal. I think it's somehow trained in a way that it's made to stand there for people to take pictures of it. It jumps into the water when the feeder throws fish for it to eat. But after eating, it will climb out of the water and go back to this position. It's very funny.

Sea Jelly Spectacular

Shark Aquarium

Atoll Reef

Cable car ride (down from the Headland to Lowland)

The Hong Kong Jockey Club Giant Panda Habitat

Dinner

Venue : a rather small old-style noodle stall at a corner of Temple Street

Total Bill : forgot to take note, but should be less than HK$50

My first bowl of Hong Kong wonton noodles. Needless to say, it was good. Like what my sister-in-law mentioned, food is the thing in Hong Kong. You can't really eat anything "bad" even if you just walk into any eateries anywhere. No overcooked noodles, or soggy rice, or tasteless foods. At least that was the case for us during this 4-day stay.

Ladies Market & Temple Street

As the husband mentioned, it seemed like there were much more to see and buy when we were at the Ladies Market 5 years ago compared to now. I thought the same too as, surprisingly, we finished the walk through the Ladies Market in less than an hour.

Also, there was not much to shop too. Between the distance of about this stall and maybe two stalls away, they would be selling the same thing. So, in the end, I thought about it carefully, the Ladies Market may seem to be covering quite a long stretch of streets with what seems like a lot of stalls, but in actual fact, the things sold are only about less than 10 types, maybe?

Temple Street seems a little better in regards to the variety of goods. And the best thing was, it is only a two-street walk away from our hotel. In the end, we bought most of our souveniers from here.

Supper

We had supper that night coz our dinner was at 4 plus. So after walking through Temple Street, we came across a really old-looking bakery shop. It was very small, and divided only into two areas, the selling front and the baking area behind. And as with old bakeries went, the products should be good. So, we got the 20 Wife Biscuits, which are the you-must-buy-this-in-Hong-Kong food, and 3 Po Luo buns, which is also a famous HK food.

And the buns were good! For my non-Chinese friends, I'm sorry to say that I don't know how to explain this Po Luo buns to you. Honestly, I'm not even sure if there is any special ingredients in it or not. Haha. But there is this layer of slighty crispy and fragrant biscuit-like thingy on top of the bun which gives it the yum factor, other than the soft and spongy feel of the rest of the bun.

And for the husband, he had char siew (roasted pork) rice (HK$22). This was actually the second pack of char siew rice he had for supper two nights in a row. It was also by chance that we stepped into this roasted meat stall to get the char siew rice the previous night, and since then, the husband had been raving about the roasted pork and we went by again to get it for the last night at Hong Kong. The husband said that if not for the custom restriction, he would have bought back a whole string of the roast pork. Haha.

Hong Kong Day 2 (11th Jun)

Breakfast

Venue : Lin Heung Tea House
Total Bill : HK$98



We saw this place being recommended in the Hong Kong handbook we bought and thought to give it a try, since it is stated to be one of the few remaining authentic dim sum restaurant. Anyway, we managed to find the place after about a 20 minutes or so uphill walk.

It is really an old place, which judging from the crowd, really popular as well. There are no waitresses to sit you. Instead, we had to walk around the place, keeping a constant lookout for anyone who might just stand up and leave, which we would then sit down. There is no luxury of choosing our seats, or look for any privacy to eat by yourself or for just the two of us. We had to share table with strangers, who apparently do not care who just sat down with them, but continue to enjoy their food.

Aunties with dim sum in their push carts came round the tables, shouting out what they had with them. Maybe because it was too crowded, we had to wait for quite some time in between one dish to the next, until the husband had to just go up to the push carts to check out what they had once they came out of the kitchen, as what everyone were doing. If not, by the time the push cart came to our table, there would not be anything much that we want to try.

Though it was noisy and packed, and the wait for food was long, it was still an experience to be able to sit in a traditional dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong and yum cha (drink tea).

Upper Lascar Road

This street is packed with shops and street stalls selling all sorts of antiques, curios, figurines, etc. Not that we are into antiques and stuff, it just so happened that it is within walking distance from the tea house, and also recommended on the handbook. A lot to see, but nothing really caught our attention.

Man Mo Temple

Just a short distance away is Man Mo Temple, which is a tribute to the God of Literature (Man) and the God of War (Mo).

The Peak

This is one of the most popular tourist attraction in Hong Kong. The only way up to The Peak is by the Peak Tram. The tram is just celebrating its 100 years since operation. It is about a 45 degrees angle as the tram travels to the Peak. We were literally pinned to our seats.

And there are also people living along the sides of the slope. There are 4 tiny tram stops along the steep climb. Can you imagine how hard the passenger had to move from the seat to the door while the tram stops at about a 45 degrees angle for him/her to alight?

Well, as expected with most of the main tourist attractions, there is a long queue to get the tickets for the tram. But there is a shorter way as well, which is to pay more, get something like a package, without having to wait in the long queue for the tram ride. The package cost us HK$170 each, with access to Madam Tussauds, the Sky Terrace, and a two-way tram ride.

Madam Tussauds

Yes, one of the highlights of the day, and a place I had been looking forward to. Can you guess who is who? :)

From the famous in the sports world...


... to the political arena...

... to the stars of the West...

... and of course, our very own stars of the East...

... and also, my favourite!!!!!

Sigh! What can I say? The person who made him, artist or whatever they are called, had captured his expression exactly right. Looks real good, right??

But honestly, after a while of looking at these wax figures and taking photos with some of them, my imagination was getting a bit wild. Like maybe one of them would start to shift his/her feet, or start to blink, or just turned around while I was posing with them to tell me "This is a damn bloody tiring job."

Dinner

Venue : Eating Plus

Total Bill : HK$224.40 (including 10% service charge)

There was the fried ramen with vegetables, fried egg noodles with prawns, and a Coke and lemonade.

Sky Terrace

This is the uppermost level of the Peak gallery. However, it is not the highest point. There are other buildings even higher than where we were standing, but all are private apartments, not commercial buildings.

If you live on The Peak, it's like you are living in the middle of Orchard Road. Besides needing to have the monies to flatten the land for your house, you still need to have a road pave out just for you to travel up and down. Also, like the husband mentioned, maybe even need to pay for the maintenance of the road since you are the only one using it. Most likely it's where most of all the movie stars are staying.

See that tiny red circle I made? It was where we were on the first night, watching "A Symphony of Lights" performance.

Hong Kong holiday

Hong Kong was actually not a destination in mind for us. The husband wanted to go to Genting (again) but I thought it would be better to spend the money to go somewhere else, rather than to go back to the same place we had gone to just about 3 months ago.

So with recommendations from a colleague, we decided to head to Hong Kong, since the last trip there with Christina was a little too short, and we didn't really planned properly. So this time, I did some research on the web, and had a rough outline where to go for the different days.

Anyway, I didn't want to have a long entry about our trip there, in case you people get bored, so I think I'll just split it up to entries for different days.

Oh, and just in case anybody is interested, we paid about $1,468 for two, which includes air tickets, taxes and accommodation. But we also paid an extra of $30 each coz of the school holiday peak period.

At the end of the 4 days, spent a total of about HK$4,000 for all the food, souveniers, tickets to places of attractions, etc. Exchange rate is about 5.6.

Greetings from Hong Kong!

Hello to my dear friends and fellow blog mates... greetings from the Pearl of the Orient. Just hope that my dear sisters and the 3 boys at work don't miss me too much. Haha. Everything's fine so far... and we had a taste of the unpredictable weather earlier in the evening.

Ok, got to get back to planning our day tomorrow. Rain, and no rain plans. Sorry, can't update much on this teeny Ee-PC. Photos will have to wait til I get back.

Oh... and a advanced HAPPY BIRTHDAY to SAMMIE!!! :)

To the cinema : Kung Fu Panda

Managed to find some time to watch "Kung Fu Panda" before we fly off to Hong Kong tomorrow. Didn't really thought of watching it till we saw the making and trailer of it on TV, and with Yongqi's strong recommendation, we decided to go for it. (and also movie tickets are the cheapest on Mondays)

Anyway, nothing much needs to be said about this movie coz the plot is so very predictable. But overall, an entertaining and delightful show, with some values to learn from as well. It also made me want to pinch that fat panda tummy.
Oh, and we went for xiao long bao at Ding Tai Feng after that. 20 xiao long baos shared among the husband, Qing and myself. Heh.

Piao Ji Fish Soup

Would you wait 40 minutes for a bowl of $5 fish soup?

I had been wanting to try this fish soup ever since I read about it here. Though the comments were a mix of good and bad, nonetheless, I still look forward to giving it a try when my father-in-law suggested we head down to Amoy Street Food Centre for it last weekend.

I was really surprised to see the long queue when we got there. Hello... it was a Sunday, and the place is Amoy Street. Where did all these people come from? There were at least 13-14 people in the queue in front of my father-in-law and husband as they waited in line.

Finally, we got our fish soup after 40 minutes... and we finished it within 20 minutes.

The soup tasted a little different from the other fish soups I had eaten. There was a slight taste of ginger in there... just enough to tingle your tastebuds but not overpowering. There was also a lot of fried shallots which I like, and little bits of pork lard. It did not use chye sim as with most of the fish soups, but tang oh, one of the Teochews' favourite vegetable (at least according to my mum). And as for the fish, it was very fresh and cooked just right. The slices were also quite big and thick.

But the question at the end of the day was, was it worth the wait and the $5, for ordinary batang fish? I personally think it was way over-rated. For $5, I could get much more slices of fish from my favourite fish soup stall without having to wait 40 minutes, and even though the slices may not be as big and thick, but to me, taste just as good.

Anyway, this is the next one on my to-try list.

Source : Dilbert

Once again...

Was taking the lift with a mother (about late 30's) and her two little boys. The younger one was "exercising" with the bars along the sides of the lift when he accidentally gave a light kick on my leg.

The mother glared at him and said,"Stop it! You see, you kicked auntie already."

不认老也不行了!