From Hong Kong To Sapporo (Day 2)

Another big day for myself as I've to wake up rather early to catch an early flight to Japan. I have been looking forward to this. Wanted to step to the land of the rising sun so badly that I barely slept throughout the night. Mom even asked me if I got into a fight with myself last night as my dark circle were really clear that morning.

We took a cab to Kowloon station to catch the Airport Express train to the airport. Kowloon station was extremely quiet in the mornings, unlike the afternoons where it can be jammed packed with people. We checked in at the train station itself and hopped onto the train a few minutes later. We arrived at the airport around 8am, enough time for us to head over to the Business Class lounge to grab some breakfast.

Now Cathay Pacific's lounge offers light meals for their passengers prior to their flight. The lounge is fully equipped with a little canteen as well as cubicles filled with comfy sofa's as well as working tables for those workaholics. There's even a place for a shower for those long distance travellers who happened to stop by.

What I grabbed is some fresh fruits from the fridge, some sandwiches (which tastes really really good that I ate at least 4 of it). A bottle of water and some orange juice to top it off.

I also managed to grab a very traditional chinese breakfast, Soya Bean milk served with Sticky Rice with Peanut in Chinese steamed bun. It tastes awesome if you combined both together in your mouth.

Flight CX580 to Sapporo at 9:40am departs right on time. It took us about 4 hours to reach Sapporo.

Once we board our flight, we were summoned by the air crew to sit in the first class as the first class was totally empty. We were so lucky as there's only 5 people on the Business Class on the flight. So I took the opportunity to fully utilize its First Class facilities and services, ordering champagne and watch movies like watching DVD at home, fast forward or rewind as many times as I want.

Lunch was served starting with very cold sashimi (yucks! but the prawn tastes extremely nice) with hot bread of your choice, a very nice line up of main course (I chose the braised chicken as the fish doesn't sound too nice) and fresh fruits for desserts. I had to skip the Ice Cream as I worried that my cough will get worse (such a waste!)

We arrived into Sapporo's New Chitose International Airport (新千歳空港) at 3:30pm local time. The sky was gloomy as predicted on the weather forecast there's light showers for the rest of the day. What caught my eyes were the All Nippon Airways (ANA) plane which were decorated with Pokemon as a part of their business partnership with the famous cartoon show in Japan.

Clearing the immigration was quick and easy. Even the customs have no point checking us after letting them know that we have just arrive for our very first day and our bags were fairly empty. Navigating through the New Chitose airport was not an easy task as we need to find the train station which was located at the basement. We got lost at the first attempt until we found the directory. Silly us...

Once we reach the train station, now we need to get to our hotel and we don't really know which stop we must take for us to reach our hotel. Atsubetsu-Ku, Sapporo... hmm... no choice. We have to ask the locals with our limited Japanese language mixed with English. "Ah! Shin-Sapporo!" as the friendly ticket counter officer informs us.

As we looked up to the huge board on top, travelling to Shin-Sapporo from New Chitose Airport will costs us 850Yen per person. Rather expensive... but the distance is rather far so it was worth the money.

This is the ticket for the train ride. One way ticket, travel on the same day, no return, 850Yen. **Gulp!** However, taking the JR Hokkaido (JR北海道) line will be my first experience and I do find it much easier to travel in Sapporo than Tokyo (which you will soon find out in my posts on Tokyo). Throughout the entire train ride, all I could see is the gloomy sky, with gloomy scenery of Sapporo... as the season moves from Winter to Spring. Once we reached Shin-Sapporo station, I found out that the hotel that we are staying; Sheraton Sapporo Hotel, 5-5-25 Atsubetsuchuo 2J0, Atsubetsu-Ku, Sapporo; was actually next to the train station.

The hotel lobby was not much of an eye catch, but the cafe, which was on the left of the lobby is! They managed to put up a very authentic European Church in a hotel!!! Surprise, surprise! I shall reveal more of this place on the coming few blogs later.

The view from the hotel room of Shin-Sapporo area to end this posting for the blog, as I will reveal the city of Sapporo on the next posting. Have a lovely day everyone.

From Penang To Hong Kong (Day 1)

Waking up early in the morning is not an ordeal anybody wants to do on their first day of trip. I barely had any sleep (I slept at 2am) the night before my flight day, plus the little cold (flu-ish and coughing) that I have been plugging myself with lots of vitamin C and cough mixture, it's not a pretty sight looking at myself in the mirror in the morning. So I have to drag myself out of bed, into the bathroom to brush my teeth, scared myself for looking like 'Kiam Chai' (preserved vegetable) and accidentally turned on the cold water in the shower, which wakes me up for good!

Flight CX692, Hong Kong bound leaves Penang International Airport at 8.20am, 10 minutes late. The flight overall is rather smooth.

I opened up the inflight magazine to see what movies are available and I saw they are showing Ip Man. My happiness didn't last long as the movie only is showing on flights heading out of Hong Kong. So I watched the movie Marley & Me on my flight to Hong Kong (not much selection of movies for inbound flights).

I was presented with the menu to indicate what's being served for breakfast. Food sucks or perhaps the morning appetite ruins whatever is being served?

The fruit platter though is extremely pleasant and sweet.

I happened to meet my secondary school classmate, Christmen Cheung Shih Shen on the plane. He was heading to San Francisco to meet up with his wife who also happens to be my schoolmate and also ex-colleague. His first long haul flight to the United States and I gave him a few hints about Hong Kong airport when we arrived. Mom helped us to take a picture together before we parted. Our flight landed into Hong Kong at 11.45am and by the time I reach home, it's almost 1.30pm. Dad hauled me and my mom out to go and have lunch.

Vietnamese food, within walking distance from home. Pho Hoa Noodle Soup restaurant is located at 23-2 Prat Avenue in Tsim Sha Tsui. I ordered Vermicelli with Pork Chop marinated in Lemon Grass. Tastes awesome! Dad also ordered Prawn Cakes to share. The food is alright, I give this place a rating of 8 out of 10. The restaurant were quite pack with office employees when we reached there and by the time we are halfway through our meal, the crowd left, I guess lunch hours are over eh? So after lunch, we took a stroll a bit while I managed to get a few magazines for myself. Once we reach home, I had a shower and then collapsed into bed to have some shut eye for a few hours. By the time I wake up, its already 6pm!

Off we go again, headed off to Festival Walk over in Kowloon Tong to have our dinner. A few pictures taken along the way on the streets of Kowloon as I ride on my dad's car.

I managed to take a picture of myself looking pretty silly there. After a quick dinner, we hauled our asses back to Tsim Sha Tsui again just to get my very new toy!

My Sony Vaio VGN SR35G. Purchased from Tsim Sha Tsui's Fortress after searching through a few outlets and a few phone calls made by myself, this baby is rather hard to find. This will be my work station for the next 9 days while I am in Japan to post my updates here if possible. I will try to work as hard as possible to bring in updates of my whereabouts and what have I being up to on this blog.

To end this posting, Hong Kong wishes to say goodnight to my fellow readers.

Mending Up

Hello my fellow readers... I am extremely sorry for posting my blogs rather late lately. There has been lots for me to catch up upon once I got back to Penang. There's work, my dear, my home, my friends, issues here and there. After settling down, time for me to catch up with my blog again. There's just so much to write, I wonder if it's OK to even missed out what's going with life back in the tiny island of Penang? Malaysian politics has nothing for me to write about, the world has Swine Flu to go worry about while life at work hasn't been turning too great lately and as for my dear, she has been very extremely anxious in looking for a brand new job... of course with a little of my help here and there. Hehe!

Enough rambling about what's going on with me as I am stranded back on this tiny island once again, time for me to get back to the main core subject which will be my travels to the land of the rising sun. Alrighty!!! There's plenty for me to catch up and to start things off and I presume that everyone has been anticipating on the upcoming blogs that I am about to reveal for the next couple of week or so. To make it clear to everyone about the places that I have been, here's the travel itinerary that I've wrote down so that everyone is kind of clear the destinations of the places that I have been.

I've made some adjustments to the blog posts that I have posted earlier, so that everyone can get a clear view of the things that I have done and places that I have been going according to the travel itinerary above. The changes I've made... I'll start by pushing to the front the Hong Kong post that I've posted earlier to the top of this blog post and you should realize that the posts that I made on Sapporo earlier are no longer there. It'll be replaced with a long, picturistic post that I hope to complete soon. Hope everyone will check back everyday as I will try my best to recall the 10 travelling days being in Japan.

Missing Days

Hello to my fellow readers. I am so sorry for lack of postings when I travelled, internet is something that I lack of most of the time here. I didn't manage to post up blogs for my trip in Japan so far, I know much to everyone's dismay as my fellow readers continue to check if there's any updates everyday. However, I will make up for the missing updates as soon as I get back to the tiny island of Penang. Hope that everyone will be patient while I get the pictures, location and names correct once I get things going. I am doing extremely fine in Japan as the people, culture as well as the food has been very good. The high life of travelling are coming to an end soon as I am headed back to work. Hell awaits those who has been to heaven and back. Sigh...

The Announcement

This is the post that I have owed my fellow readers, a promise made to reveal the so called "Announcement" for the upcoming weeks events. Well, I am no where near of getting married yet because me and my dear are still half way there financially. I am not resigning my job either as the market out there are extremely bad.

So what is this so called big annoucement is all about? I am going to the land of the sun or commonly known as Japan.

I've been wanting to go to that place ever since I've missed out the opportunity back in 2007 and now the window of opportunity reopens... there's no way in hell I am going to miss this one out. I will not reveal much of the trip as most of the days has yet being planned out. The destination is Sapporo and also Tokyo. The duration will be 10 days long (much to my dears agony for me to be away for this long), so during the next couple of days I may or maybe not able to blog. Now that will be the surprise. Do check back couple of days to see if there's a miracle that happens while I am in Japan.

Being Appreciated By Filling Up Our Mouths

Today is one of those days where being an employee of a functioning team really pays off for working hard. The team have been pushing really really hard to work our arse off just to meet the deadline (we had our fair share of close encounters where the end date being pushed forward, which really riled me up sometimes), I think it's fair that the management did something to reward the team. As the team starts to grumble a lot for the cutting off the end dates, the best the management can handle us is by... stuffing out our mouths with some light refreshments. No matter how hard you work, you will still need to feed yourselves right?

The appreciation session was held at the canteen today evening at 4pm. Email has been sent by Angelyn to inform everyone in the team to be punctual. With my trusty camera, I was the first to arrive to the scene to snap pictures of what's in store for us to savour.

As usual, fried bee hoon, fruits, cakes, sandwiches, deep fried chicken and prawns, and of course to top it off, a barrel of coffee and tea.

As the crowd arrives, the food simply disappears in a blink of the eye. A few picture moments with the hungry lots while they are in the queue.

My plate of goodies.

Hey! Who took this picture of me???

Don't think we all didn't notice you have been stealing those Tuna Sandwiches... Soo Bing!?

Some group pictures taken while they are settled down.

And a picturistic moment with our main sponsors, Lutfi and CM Tan.

Although I am thankful to my management for stuffing us with refreshments, however, being pushed around by you guys since the beginning of the year to overwork us is not something that we all have pretty much adorn. Just to let them know that we are no pushovers and we are breaking up into pieces slowly... day by day. What we need right now is to finish our project off with flying colours and to go on a deserving break, so help us to ease our burden as we strive towards the end.

And this is how Angelyn agrees to my statement. Haih!

The Sins Of My Mouth

What would you do if you crave for a not so expensive lunch and quick meal? You will think of Mcdonalds of course! I've had Mcdonalds for lunch during my visit to Singapore with my dear. People will certainly asks me "Why on earth would you go to Singapore and have Mcdonalds?" Well, different places has it's different method of serving it's fast food, am I right?

I stepped up to the counter and ordered myself a large set of McSpicy Chicken that comes with a cup of drink and a pack of fries. I bet that everyone of you would have heard of Spicy Chicken Mcdeluxe, served in Malaysia's Mcdonalds aye? McSpicy Chicken and Spicy Chicken McDeluxe is not much of a difference on the inside; Lettuce, bread, mayonaise and of course, fried chicken.

The thing I wish to highlight is this. It may sounds the same... but for the burger, it tastes different and it looks different! The bread is served using the normal McChicken burger bread, sesame top. There are definitely more lettuce in it and more mayonaise too. The main ingredient, the chicken meat, properly marinated with chilli powder and put to fry, it's perfect! It's spicy and tender on the inside, crispy crust on the outside. Unlike the Malaysian version of Spicy Chicken McDeluxe, this one cuts the cake. You thought that the one's they serve in Malaysia Mcdonalds is spicy, wait till you try the one that they serve in Singapore. It's up to standard I will say and the price is right too!

One small burger for Mcdonalds... One giant bite for myself!

As for my dear, she had Filet O Fish, which looks pretty much the same. I don't know what she will have to review but definitely having Mcdonalds in Singapore is worth the money, for its taste and for its value. Now for those who thinks that eating fast food that's already available in Malaysia is a waste of money, serves you right for judging things too early before tasting it in other countries. You don't really know what you've missed out upon.

Marvelous Cream

As mentioned earlier that I've spent my weekends down South and I did manage to travel to Sin City. The roads to Singapore was clear on Saturday morning, so little traffic travelling Singapore bound. However, when we reach the Singapore checkpoint, the traffic slowed down instantly... because Singapore customs are extremely thorough with their search. Very Kiasu, Kiasi... they even quote this at the customs, "Your Security Is Our Concern". Yeah right! However, everyone does feel safer being in Singapore.

Other than visiting the normal places such as Orchard Road for shopping, me and my dear made our way to City Hall where we walked underground that connects the City Hall MRT station to Suntec City and Marina Square. As we strolled towards Marina Square, my eyes glued upon something... something evil... something wicked... something sweet! **drool**

ICE CREAM STALL!!! Not any ordinary Ice Cream stall... it's Marvelous Cream Ice Cream Stall!!!

Marvelous Cream originates from Japan and it's an established corporation credited from Mary Japan, which designates ocean candy sale as the main force in 2005 December, 2006 May. In September 2006, Marvelous Cream opens its first store in Osaka and currently they have 28 stores opened all over in Japan. Marvelous Cream's ice cream must be made from the freshest and the best milk cream and they've selected Hokkaido's Akkeshi Gun Hamanaka Cho milk, one of the typical production area for its domestic highest quality milk.

As you walk into the stall, you will see parfaits that's beautifully lined up for customer to choose from, a counter full of ice cream as well as the garnishing and of course, the working table where they will mix and toss the ice cream.

So much choices to spoilt for but I can only have one! So I've decided to go for the Strawberry Banana Bland which comprises of Strawberry Ice Cream, Caramel and slices of Banana! After settling the payment, I'm being told by the friendly personnel that he's the one preparing the ice cream for me and I answered with a single nod... just like a school kid waiting for the ice cream. However, it doesn't stop me from snapping pictures of how the ice cream is being prepared.

First of all you will have the strawberry ice cream rolled flat onto the ice cold preparation board. Then slices of banana's being put onto the top.

Then off it goes... tossing and turning the ice cream like stir frying a wok-full of vegetables.

At the end, it lay the mix flat again and topped off with cream and caramel sauce, the ice cream is ready to be served.

With an additional SGD$1, you can change from a normal paper cup to a yummy waffle basket, which I did!

Ta dah! This is the final result of Marvelous Cream's Strawberry Banana Bland ice cream.

Now you see it, now you don't! The experience at Marvelous Cream is a good one and I can't wait to return for it's ice cream as well as its environment. Now located only at 1 Raffles Link #B1-04 Citylink Mall, Singapore. I'm giving this place a rating of 8 out of 10. Since I am sweet-tooth myself, this is a very good and memorable experience in terms of getting a basket full of ice cream which is being hand made to perfection. Haha!

Away For The Weekends

Hey there fellow readers, I will be away for the weekends to go and spend some quality time with my dear down South. We've planned to head over to Sin city to do some shopping as well as to catch up with some books/magazines that we have missed out so far.

I'll try to blog something out when I get back next week. I'll be back to announce something big that's happening for the upcoming week. Stay tuned!

Not So Fast But It's Furious

It has been like ages ago since I went to the cinema to catch a movie. The last time I watched a movie at the cinema was with my dear in TGV Cinema and if my memory serves me well, we watched Bedtime Stories starring Adam Sandler. After a tiring day going to Qing Ming, my family decided to watch something that really kicks ass. Off we go to Gurney Plaza's GSC to catch...

Name: The Fast & Furious 4

Language: English

Date of release: 3rd April 2009 (USA)

Director: Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster

The story heads back the streets of Los Angeles where it all began, two men rejoin two women to blast muscle, tuner and exotic cars across L.A. and floor through the Mexican desert. When a crime brings them back to L.A., fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto reignites his feud with agent Brian O'Connor. But as they are forced to confront a shared enemy, Dom and Brian must give in to an uncertain new trust if they hope to outmaneuver him. And from convoy heists to precision tunnel crawls across international lines, two men will find the best way to get revenge: push the limits of what's possible behind the wheel.

What I can say about this movie is that it really picks up the missing pieces between Fast & Furious 2 and 3. The missing link whereby at the end of FF3 in which Dom appears and mentions Han was a brother of his were revealed here on FF4. The movie really catches up to expectation, lots of familiar faces if you still remember them from the past FF movies, although I heard a lot of negative comments by my friends where it lacks of races and fast cars zipping through the big screen. I have to concur with what they say. Comparing to the predecessors where you will see how a tuned car can really speed, this one does not. The reason why this sequel gets the "sitting on the fence" critics is because this movie tries to fill up the gap, the missing pieces here and there as well as trying to tie up a story plot into it.

It may sound confusing from my perspective but every penny that's being put to go to the cinema to watch this movie is a must for every hardcore car fan. For those who are not, you will still enjoy the sequel of this movie, just like reading a Harry Potter book; it's a movie you will definitely wanted to go for if you already watched the previous 3 FF movies. The reason why I say it's not so fast but it's furious is because it's indeed not so fast (where are all the tuned fast cars?) but it's furious (lots of action, keeps you awake throughout the movie). Even my mom who used to sleep at the movies managed to kept her eye lids wide open because of its blistering non stop action. Overall, this movie still packs the oomph, beautiful women, fast cars (lack of races though), the action and of course, the original stars of FF! Oh! For those who doesn't even know what the Fast and Furious sequels are all about, don't bother watching. You will not have a clue what this movie is all about if you don't watch it from the beginning of the FF series.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Qing Ming

Waking up early in the morning to go for Qing Ming (chinese All Souls Day) is a very tedious thing to achieve; especially you know that you will prefer to be in the your warm and comfy bed having sweet dreams; only to be kicked out of bed by your parents in the end. My grandfather used to tell me that every year, Qing Ming falls on 5th of April without fail. Qing Ming is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice (or the 15th day from the Spring Equinox). Families will head out early to the graveyard of our ancestors, to clear the overgrown weeds that engulf their grave and of course, to feast on the food that one family can bring to the graveyards for prayers.

Now I have seen bizzare cases where people will bring at least a few carts of roasted pig's to the graveyards (I don't mean 2 or 3, what I saw was almost a dozen roasted pig). You will see a huge family gathering, laughing away and eating merrily while their maids will do all the gravesweeping. These families will then burn fire-crackers, made a mess out of the graveyard with the left over food that they cannot chew and leave. Out of this, stray dogs, ants or birds will happily feasts upon it. You will only see this kind of scenario on the exact day of Qing Ming. Qing Ming is normally celebrated in between 10 days before the exact day or 10 days after the exact day.

What's in store for me this year is lots of weed and of course, soft muddy grounds as I climbed the hills of Kubang Semang. The poor ground conditions were due to the rainfall that has been taking place every evening for the past week. It's ideal to start the climb as early as possible, just before the sun starts to shine. As far I as I can count, my family has 5 graves to sweep on that day and we did start as early as possible. It was a tiring ordeal. By the time when we're done, it's almost 10a.m. The sun is searing hot and I know I am starting to feel de-hydrated. The day is not yet over as we made our way to Bukit Berapit Crematorium for another visit to the deceased closer to heart, my beloved grandparents.

As I sat quietly in the crematorium; gazing over the urns of my grandparents, I recalled every single moment of their passing which brought a tear to my eyes. I do miss them... it has been almost 7 years ever since they've moved on. I don't know what others see in Qing Ming festivities; but to me, it gives me the opportunity to think of the years that has passed ever since my first Ching Ming visit up till now. As we made our way home from a tiring day sweeping graves, mom said this to Cindy "At least his father will not be too worried. In the future when we are no longer around, at least they still know how to go and grave sweeping with their children." Me and my little brother sits quietly and wonder if our children will be happy to follow us to gravesweep in the future or perhaps the tradition ends with us when we leave this world?

** This posting has no pictures posted as I don't think a picturistic moment taken at the graveyards will be an entertaining thing to see. **

Saturday Night Out

Another weekend came and gone just like that. What can I really say about the weekends other than "It's another boring weekend!" Dang it! What am I suppose to do anyway other than the daily routine of cleaning up my own room, watch some TV, catch up with some sleep or perhaps indulge myself for hours building Gundams. If not, my entire weekend will go to bust as there's nothing for me to even write about. I led a boring, unattractive life... I need help to transform my weekends from sucking dull to interestingly attractive one.

Mom came back from Hong Kong on Saturday night along with my little brother and Cindy. They went for a shopping spree there and guess what? Cindy bought half a dozen pair of shoes and sandals for herself!!! The power of a woman shopping in Hong Kong! The buying power is really huge! **sweat** So after fetching them from the airport in the evening (Cathay Pacific flies from Hong Kong to Penang once a day only), time to go look for dinner. As it was pouring out there, we need to find somewhere that no one gets wet that easily. We resolved to having Chinese food for dinner at the Crystal Jade Restaurant, Crystal Point, Bayan Baru.

As mom and the rest are selecting dishes for dinner, I've managed to do a few picture snapping of naughty little Marcus (my nephew). He loves to make faces when being asked to do so. My very naughty little nephew indeed. Hehe!

What we had for dinner... ahem! Let me introduce you to the claypot Tofu with mixed vegetable.

Steamed fish in claypot seasoned with soya sauce (recommended by sister, I can't really taste the significance between a normal steam fish and this one).

Stir fried Bak Choy with garlic.

My personal favourite, sweet and sour pork!

Mom suggested that we order dessert after dinner and so we did! First off, chinese style pancake.

Red bean soup with dumpling.

Peanut soup with dumpling.

While mom ordered Suet Kap with a dash of ginseng roots.

Overall this place serves rather good chinese food compared to Goh Teo Kee around Sungai Nibong area. Other than Domino's Pizza, Sri Wan Thai Restaurant, Chef & Brew; this cuts the cake if you are looking for something nice to dine with family around Bayan Baru area. I'm giving this place a rating of 7.5 out of 10. Some dishes are pricey but for the money you pay for the air-conditioned restaurant environment, you can't complain. Good services and the food serves up without long wait or delays.