Will we ever get there?

White christmas at Rockefeller centre.

Batu Pahat, Malaysia- 26 Sept 09 - 27 Sept 09

Weihai, Shandong 6 Jul 09- 18 Jul 09

I had been on a 2 weeks work trip to Wei Hai a few months back. It was the longest work trip so far and it was quite an experience moving around on my own.

Weihai is located in the province of Shandong and sits right next to the sea. There were no direct flights from Singapore so we (a colleague and I went together but came back at different times) took an international flight to Beijing before transferring to a domestic flight to Yantai and then having the company driver drive us to Weihai from Yantai. There were straight flights to the Weihai airport from Beijing but we had chosen to fly to Yantai instead because it rains frequently in Weihai, affecting the punctuality of the flights. And because it was closer to the sea, the winds were more unpredictable for landing. It took us almost half a day to reach. We left Singapore on a 1am flight and reached Yantai only at about 11am. The journey from Yantai to Weihai took us another 45min.

In a cab towards city.

The hotel room is like a self sufficient studio apartment. There was a mini kitchen, washing machine and a dining table. Cozy enough for my 2 weeks stay. The hotel was sweet to have given us fruit plates twice a day.

The weather was pretty chilly, considering that it was Summer in July. On good days, it was really sunny and breezy (about 28 oC) but on bad days, it was really cold (about 18 oC with wind). Day broke at 5am. The people of Weihai were early risers and early sleepers. When the sun rose at 5am, traffic was already moving and the streets were noisy. By 9.30pm, most people were in bed. Weihai is a tourist place for Koreans (Korea is just 2 hours away) and Russians. Majority of the food places in Weihai were Korean. So throughout my 2 weeks there, I've had more Korean food than I've ever had at home. There was a particular japanese shop that served really good ramen though. And I'd went back for their cold ramen for consecutive 3 days.

A summer bug the length of my baby finger; View from my room at 8am; Pedestrian crossing.

Clockwise: The packet says "Barbequed dog meat"; Appetizers from a Korean food place; Bugs are Koreans' favourite snack; The ginseng chicken soup served with rice that had the entire chicken in it and only cost SGD$8.

The beach is 10 to 15 min walk from my hotel and was said to be really beautiful, so I had to take a look for myself. So far, the best beach that I'd been to was the Santa Monica beach in LA. Since it was situated along the coast, it was natural that Weihai has one of the widest variety of seafood. I'd not eaten any seafood during this trip though, wonder why.

Colours for summer; Shops along the road to the beach

So after a 15 min stroll from the hotel, I came to the beach and was not fascinated at all. The beach in LA , or even La Jolla, was much better. The chilly weather made up for it.

On the weekend that I was there, I spent my 2 days walking along the coastline for hours, walking up the pagoda across the hotel, shopping at the supermarket and swimming in the indoor pool in the hotel (which was crowded all the time and I've never been exposed to so many naked people showering together in my life.) Shopping for clothes in China was horrid. I'd took a cab to the shopping district and went straight back to the hotel in just 10 min.

The ground was kids' drawing paper; Clad in slippers to explore the Weihai

Yogurt was my staple drink in Weihai; coastline view; road to the other beach over the hill that took me 1hour to reach

My guide up the pagoda; Peak of the hill that overlooks entire Weihai. Pretty awesome.

Details on the ceiling of the pagoda; Random drawings on a piece of wall by a toothless old man

Cite coffee-My hang out on boring days; Making my way up the pagoda; Point of destination sighted from the main road; shopping district called Big World

On the day I left Weihai, it had fogged up pretty bad. I'd only boarded the domestic airport in Yantai at 9.30pm. (Sat beside a china man who had cleared the mucus in his nose with his hands and wiped on his clothes. Disgusting. ) The flight was originally scheduled to take off at 8.30pm. Even so, it was still held for 30min when I was on the plane and finally took off only at 10pm. By the time I'd reached Beijing International Airport, the gate for my international flight had closed. I'd missed the last flight home for the night and had to take the earliest flight back the next morning. So for 8 hours, I'd sat at the 24hours Mac with 2 cups of drinks, a luggage, a laptop, my ipod and my DS lite that saved me through the night. The next morning, I had breakfast at Starbucks for a cup of warm blueberry muffin and hot caramel macchiato after checking in. Muffin and coffee never felt that comforting. Slept through my flight home after that.

Shanghai 11 June - 19 June 2009

This was our 2nd trip to Shanghai together and it felt different from the 1st. It was the period when the H1N1 was on the rise, so the health authority in Shanghai were pretty stringent on the health checks on the arriving passengers into China. We were told to stay on board till the health officers, clad in full clean suit and thermometers, came on to check each individual passenger and gave the nod for all of us to leave. Took us almost an additional hour to clear and be out of the customs.

Then the sneezes came and came and came and came. The moment I got to the chinese restaurant, my cheeks were flushing. It got worst at night. I was swaying from side to side, my head weighed a ton, I was flushing red and heating up. And so, for the rest of the 7 out of 9 days we were there, I was down with flu and had missed the appetite for all the good food I was supposed to be there for. Didn't miss out on the mutton sticks though. They rock all the time!

Tanjung Pinang

It was the first time I had stepped foot amongst local Indonesians so I was pretty excited with what I was going to see. When we reached the island, we breezed through custom and went straight for our pick up while a lady took care of the necessary documentations. It was amazing! I love privileges when it came to queues.

The houses on the island were either individual homes standing on its own or low-rise buildings with gaps separating them. There were tiny pathways in between the houses that eventually led to the sea. During the rides to our various destinations, we saw the cleanest and largest homes (think double level bungalows) on the island as well as the tiniest and dirtiest ones (think zinc roofs, dark unlit rooms and faded wood). Life at home is too good.

We had rode for almost an hour, probably more, to a kellong for lunch. Along the way, we rode through reddish dead soil that were mined. It was kind of sad to know that that vast piece of land would take years to be useful all over again. It would have looked beautiful having greens from the trees and blues from the clouds.

We had seafood for lunch and home made local Otak Otak that were surprisingly delicious. I'm still thinking about it. =P""

I can never imagine myself living in kellong conditions, with the faded old wood cracking under my feet and having spiders with their webs across pillars to pillars as housemates. The spiders were the size of my Ipod Nano; its web the size of a stretched opened egg Roti Prata. It was horrifying, spine chilling and not for the faint hearted. I wonder if spiders existed on the kellongs out at sea though.

I love watching sun sets, especially the ones where the sun rays could be clearly seen. The sky was like a colouring book that kept changing colours till it eventually became dark.

We had to take the chance to snap jumping shots of course. Below is one of my favourites.