01st Aug 2009: Grandmother's 100th Birthday

16th May 2009: Josephine attending class

A day to learn and play class in Pat School. Despite the youngest, she is very serious of what she is learning. It a short two hours and was rewarded a bottle of milk at the end of the lesson.

17th Apr 2009: HP Edgeline Team Dinner

Moments capturing a team dinner organise by Elvis at Honjin Japanese Restaurant. It been a great team I think its definitely worth giving ourselves a treat. Pictures are not tac sharp as I was venturing into no flash high aperture setting.

Atendees: Hong Hong, Nick, Elvis, Amanda, Fang Diang, Eng Leong, Tseng Lee, Mun Khuen (both big and small), Brandon, Kian Soon, Me.
MIA: Tammy, Sook Mun, Waikong,

05th Feb 2009: Shaoxing/Zhou Enlai Hometown 绍兴/周恩来祖居

The last place of our trip in shaoxing ends at Zhou Enlai Hometown. He is one of the great leader of China and there are may exibits and his achievements, which is very inspiring.

5th Feb 2009: Shaoxing/Luxun Road, Antique street 绍兴/鲁迅中路, 绍兴古玩广场

Shaoxing is famous for it smelly fried beancurd. I feel that those beancurd sold at the mobile stalls taste better than the shops and its cheaper. In general, food are not very nice here but it always good to give a try. Just a caution, if you ever want to try the 梅干烧肉, avoid the fatty portion since it is not very kind to your stomach. I had stomach problem and had fatty meat smell blurp for 4 days, which is disgusting.

04th Feb 2009: Shaoxing/Old Street 绍兴/仓桥直街

This is one of the old streets and I love it very much. I like the atmosphere walking through it with all the available lights. We went to a restuarant 屋里菜 and the food was really good. Thank god we only ordered 2 dishes enough to keep us both bloated for the whole night.

04th Feb 2009: Shaoxing/Lu Xun's home town 绍兴/鲁迅故里

The hometown of the famous chinese novelist in the 18th century. Frankly, I do not know him and his history until I visited his home town.

04th Feb 2009: Shaoxing/Shaoxing Wine Muesum 绍兴/绍兴黄酒馆

The shaoxing wine is well known as a cooking wine than a drinking wine in Singapore. They belongs to the yellow wine group, rich in aroma and not very strong. The yellow wine is originated from Shaoxing it is widely enjoyed by people all over China. The muesum showcase wine produced from Shaoxing such as Pagoda brand. It a good place to understand more about the development of the wine. Nowadays, there are many bewweries all over China that produce yellow wine.

04th Feb 2009: Shaoxing/Keyan 绍兴/柯岩鲁镇

It was a 45 minutes from the main city. Along the journey was hectres of polluted industrial estates. The surrounding turns slightly cleaner when we reach to the zone of Keyan. 3 places to visit here: The keyan rock, town of Luxun and the lake. The keyan rock was carved out by ancient army and the rocks were primarily use for making weapons. The town of Luxun was build base on his novels. As for the lake, they were originally use for brewing the Shaoxing wine.
This place is really quiet, crowd free but entrance is rather expensive. My guess is that summer would be a better season to visit this place.

03rd Feb 2009: Shaoxing/Arrive in Shaoxing 绍兴/鑫洲一家精品商务酒店

Shaoxing is a smaller city, less developed than Hangzhou but a lot cleaner than KL (Sorry guys). We got a free upgrade to suite after realizing that there weren't any internet access as stated in the booking. Its a good deal after all.

03rd Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Yunxi Bamboo Garden 杭州/云栖竹径

Its our last day in Hangzhou and the last few places we visited are the Longjing tea garden and the Bamboo garden. If you are into drinking chinese tea, Longjing would not be unfamiliar. Unfortunately, the good grade can be rather expensive (more than 1250000RMB/g) and I have learnt that most of the time, they are given away as gift by rich people or corrupted officials.

The all natural Bamboo garden is another nice place to visit and in fact the best place I like in Hangzhou. The quietness from the surrounding can really bring peace to your mind and soul. It is however far from the city so reaching there can be a challenge. The garden also has long history and many Emperor have visited the place.

2nd Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Grandma's Kitchen 杭州/外婆家

[N30 16.494 E120 08.984] This restaurant is recommended by netizens for its taste and and price. Browsing the menu and there were more than 80 different dishes. Knowing that the serving is going to be huge, we took the courage and ordered 5 dishes.

02nd Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Lingyin Temple 杭州/灵隐寺

People from all over China come to this place to pray. Those who do not come here to take a look at the place Jigong attain his enlightement. You have to get to tickets along the way. One for the stone caves and the other for the temples to pray. The caves where there since 951 AD, roughly 5 danasty. It is so sickening to see many of the buddha carvings being disfigured or destroyed during the communist era. What a fool the communist have been, they have destroy their own treasures and bring themselves to stone age.

1st Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Qinghefang Old Street 杭州/清河坊老街

There are many old streets in China This is one of them and classified as class AAAA national heritage. Some of the shops like medical halls have existed for centuries. Towards the end of the street, we turned in to a lane food lane and decided to settle down for dinner. This one of the places where you can see small food stalls selling local delicacies. Only one comment on the food: Cheap and good.

1st Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Westlake/Late Afternoon 杭州/西湖

West lake is such a big lake and if you were to visit all the places around it, you need at least 2 days. We were both dead tired by the time sun has set and we decided to make a trip back to our hotel to refresh ourselves. The hotel look so nice by the night and I can't help myself taking a few more shots.

01st Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Yuefei Temple 杭州/岳王庙

A mausoleum build to commemorate Yuefei. There are many interesting facts of how he rises and died. Its a small place and we completed the tour in 2 hours.

01st Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Lunch 杭州/西湖

After a long day walk and already three in the afternoon, we really have to stop by for a lunch. 知味观is the only restaurant nearby and recomended online. Food is great but a little pricey. Since its just the two of us, we did not manage to finish the huge servings even we were very hungry at that time.

01st Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Leifeng Pagoda 杭州/雷锋塔,净慈寺

The Leifeng Pagoda that was seen was a rebuilt of the original in 1977 A.D. It is known to have stored the hair of the Buddha. Eventually, we decided to skip this place after knowing that it was reconstructed. Instead, we went to a temple near by to pray pray.

1st Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Westlake 杭州/西湖

A must place to vist in Hangzhou is the famous west lake. The manmade lake has very rich history and many interesting story related buildings. The lake is clean, calm, shallow and a boat trip is definitely a must to see more. Local authories has made very good effort in protecting the beautiful landscape for example restricting the building height etc. I have to mention that the environment is as clean as you can see in Singapore.

01st Feb 2009: Hangzhou/Beginning of trip 杭州

This is my first trip to Zhejiang province and I am really excited about it. We did not bring Josephine along as the weather may be to harsh for her. The Shanghai North train station is where we took our train to Hangzhou. Frankly, the station look 10 times nicer than the airport in Pudong. Unfortuantely my 5D mirror dropped out just when I reached the hotel room. I believe its due to the extreme weather transition that cause the mirror to detach from the mirror seat. Fortunate enough, I manage to get it fixed in a couple of minutes and continue to use throughout the journey.Not to mention, my thrust in Canon equipment has dropped drastically.

22nd Jan 2009: Shanghai / Josephine Playing at Residence Playground

Its the first sunny warm day since we first reach Shanghai. We decided to bring her to the residence playgroud to play and enjoy the sun. Josephine keeps falling down with her thick clothings on. Despite that, she never fail to attempt snatching stuffs from other kids. We had to her playtime short just to make sure she does not catch a cold.

23rd November 2008: Playtime at Gymboree

Most if the time, the home is always not a safe place to play around with. After some searching, I found this play gym for kids at Tanglin. This place has fully cushioned floor so that the kids can bump around. For parents, you could sit by the side watching them play. Its an hour session of moving about and after that Josephine is totally exhausted. Good exercise for her.

11th December 2008: Josephine's 1 Year Old Birthday

It is the day that we all have been waiting for; Josephine's 1 year milestone in her life. From inches to what she is today, it takes a lot of time and effort. Nevertheless, watching her grow up is a joy and I believe all parents would agree. To celebrate, we brought her to an international buffet, where she can feast. Actually, she is dying to try out all but there are still many prohibited food at her age. Josephine, we are all very proud of you and Happy 1 year old.