Last Yunnan post

though i still have many pictures to show, i think one week of blogging about my China trip is enough :) and so this shall be the last entry. wondered what i should show... eventually selected a spot i had tea at, which had superb view; and a picture of a local in Dali washing up in the morning just outside his shopfront. This was actually a series of 4 pictures- from his spitting; to gargling; face-wiping... and a final one showing end of all 'commotion'; with only harmless-looking stools and water remaining. alas, thought it wasnt too nice to publish someone else's washing-up routine (i wouldn't want anyone to do that to me; but then again, i also don't wash up in the middle of a street :P)It might not seem that high up from the picture, but we were really above almost everything else. Basically there's this pavilion where you can go for a bird's eye view of the old town... but it was overpriced and we decided that we've had enough of exorbitant and not-value-for-money tourist destinations. As such, wandered down from peak into the little streets and stumbled upon this inn! basically they are situated near to the pavilion and thus enjoyed almost equally good view. and tourists need only pay 2 RMB to go in to enjoy the view (with tea provided). So there i was, sitting above almost everything else :) I really really liked this place. imagine doing your readings up here! it was a little chilly, but still comfy enough for me to stay up there for close to an hour hehe. was also fun peering down at rooftops below you and watching human activity down there.

on this morning set off to the city wall with hopes of capturing the sunrise. but it was too cloudy. so instead wandered around on the city wall, looking down at locals preparing for the day's activities/business. this guy caught my eye... and using my ultra-zoom, i managed a pretty close-up from maybe 30 meters or so away up on the wall. tried to be discreet too; cos i was ultimately sneaking a picture of his daily washing-up routine! :P

Yunnan (4) - Of kitties, dogs and chickens

Before heading to Lijiang from Dali, we had a Tibetan-style lunch at Jim's Tibetan Cafe. Across the street was this book/DVD store whose exterior looked like a place I would like. And so i entered. They had a really great selection of books and DVDs... but what really distracted me for the first 10 min or so in the store was a nicely decorated corner for ppl to chill out. There was a curious kitten pawing the chess pieces on the chessboard... highly extremely unresistably cute. By the time i whipped out my camera and tried to capture the endearing scene, the kitten had unfortunately jumped out of my imaginary frame and down onto the floor. :(

There it is, looking really cute and innocent but perhaps really just eyeing my camera quite suspiciously. The curious/playful creature bounded off soon after I took this shot.

There it is once again, on the other side of the chessboard. Waited quite long for it to look up into my camera, but it never really did. Anyway i really loved the entire arrangment of chessboard, flowers and other random objects on this table. The person who did this must be a genius!

There were two dogs on the roof of a certain wing within the monastery grounds. Have never seen dogs wandering on rooftops before and they (perhaps unfoundedly) felt a little 'celestial' to me :P
The chicken seller with his caged-up chickens at the market at Xizhou, near Dali. I think maybe some 10 years back we could still see similarly caged-up chickens in wet markets in Singapore... remb mini outings to wet markets with my aunt/grandparents as a kid when living at my Grandma's place. not sure about today though. hehe i suppose we can definitely see some if we visit poultry farms :P

Yunnan (3) - Food

There was a huge variety of Yunnan (at times Tibetan) cuisine as we moved through the different cities. The best culinary experiences were in Dali and Lijiang. Didn't manage to sample all the local food; but think i still did a good job overall :) Most of the ventures were worthwhile, with only a couple of 'bad eggs' :)

Yak butter tea in Sakura Cafe, Old Town, Lijiang. It actually comes in two flavors- sweet and salty! The salty tea sounded too weird to me and so opted for the sweet version. Tasted interesting but pretty good!
Tibetan bread with honey for breakfast in Lijiang, at a cafe called Lamu's House of Tibet. The bread was soft, chewy but a lil too greasy. However, it went pretty well with the rich, sticky honey. Yummy.
A Naxi sandwich-- a fusion dish i think, with Naxi-style bread and 'western' fillings, including cucumbers, tomatoes, pan-fried breaded chicken and pickles. Huge portion, but quite delicious.
A local snack termed fried Dali Cheese in the restaurant menus. Saw it in many places along the street and thought... it must taste quite good? bought one 'cheese fan' to try; but on the contrary it tasted quite HORRIBLE. expected this to taste sweet and milky; but instead it was dry and sour... bleah.
Lastly, halved pig heads, pig trotters and a packet of pig brain right in the middle. Well, don't think this counts for food - least not in my case. however, i couldn't really categorise it under 'animals' either, since it's really just slaughtered and disfigured parts of the pig. erm... saw this in a local market in Xizhou, some 15 km away from Dali. was rather grossed out actually, but it was interesting nonetheless. The man who was hawking this was really friendly, and quite proud of his pigheads, too.

Yunnan (2) - the people

Yunnan is home to several ethnic minority groups, two of which I had personal encounters with. Around half the population in Dali are from the Bai ethnic group and Lijiang is home to the Naxi ppl. I usually don't take pictures of ppl, just cos it's usually hard to get ppl to agree to pose for pictures. However, this time round, i managed a couple of portrait-style pics of the locals :) I strongly believe that human subjects add a lot to photographs.

These old ladies are from the Bai minority group. The first day in Dali we decided to visit a market across Erhai lake. and so we made our way to the pier... after some haggling we finally managed to get the ferry fare down to 80 RMB from 130 RMB. Unfortunately, 1/2 an hour later, we found ourselves on an island in the middle of the lake; and were informed that it would actually take 4 hrs to get to our intended destination. Not only were we conned to visit this island, we were also made to pay compulsory island admission fees of about 3 RMB, which in turn entitled us to these old lady tour guides. i did feel rather cheated, but decided to make the best of situation and tried interacting with them... and also tried sweet-talking them into letting me take their pics. hehe, so here they are!

Having been deprived of the market experience the day before, we made our way to another one closer to Dali the following day. This jolly dumpling mold vendor was actively marketing his dumpling molds by giving live demonstrations and an ongoing commentary; repeatedly producing fake, entirely dough-filled dumplings :P However, I was taken in and bought one :) and when i took my mold to examine yesterday evening; i realised that it even had a 'fu2' 'embossed' on the mold!

Some old ladies at the same marketplace. I was very intrigued by the "basket backpacks" that majority of the population carried. Not the most aesthetically pleasing, but certainly very convenient!

Just as Lonely Planet predicted, Doctor Ho spotted us outside his clinic (in Baisha Village) and extended a very warm welcome to us. He's apparently world-renowned; and this fact was repeatedly impressed upon us during our 15-min-or-so stay in his clinic. :P Got some free healthy herbal tea, while incessantly given various write-ups (from BBC, USA Today etc) on Doctor Ho by the man himself. I forgive his slightly excessive egoism, taking into account all the good he has done for the poor :) BTW, he encourages medicine students to visit him for learning pointers.

Last but not least, Naxi ppl dancing in the Sifangjie square in Old Town, Lijiang.

Yunnan (1)

I covered four cities in Yunnan Province on this trip. Flew into Kunming via Silkair; trained overnight to Dali and bused to Lijiang and subsequently Zhongdian (aka Shangri-La). Bus rides in China are amazingly 'informal', as the driver picks up ppl on the way, as long as there are seats in the bus! and so it appears that anyone can try flagging down a bus on the road and check if it's heading towards his/her destination; pay a discounted fare and will then be on his/her way! drivers are generally quite skilful at navigating windy mountain roads... though i had my fair share of worries initially :P my heart jumped during the couple of times when drivers honked furiously, only to realize that it wasn't really at cars in the opposite direction, but at innocent lambs/ pigs/ dogs loitering in the middle of the roads :P Weather-wise, it was generally good, esp in Dali and Lijiang. Zhongdian was a little too chilly for me, coming right from hot, tropical Singapore. it certainly didn't help that i didn't stay at very expensive hotels... and so quite a few didn't have any heater at all... but all of them had electric blankets under the sheets, and the best solution was of course to hide under covers once one was done showering. harsh reality of dealing with the cold in less developed places was impressed upon me-- you just have to bear with it; wear more clothing; or generate heat with lighted charcoal/a fire...

anyway, some scenes from the diff places i visited. will blog separately about the people, food, animals and other random things that caught my fancy :)

View of the Tibetan Monastery in Zhongdian from the spot where we alighted from the bus. It's also the only proper 'tourist destination' i visited in Zhongdian, cos as night fell it just got unbearably cold for me. and thus ended up hiding in bed, skipping dinner and watching TV.

'House' in Baisha Village, around 10 km north of Lijiang. The clear blue sky and orange-brown of the doors made it picture-perfect. This is also where I met the legendary Doctor Ho (more on that later)

View from the Black Dragon Pool Park (or Heilongtan Gongyuan) If the sky were clearer, the snowy peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yulong Xueshan) would have been more visible. A very peaceful and scenic place :)

Flowering cherry trees against the Cang1 Shan1 range in the background. Cos it's winter; really didn't expect the entire street to be lined with flowering cherry trees. made wandering around quite pleasant!
Elephant on a platform rock formation in Stone Forest (or Shilin), about 1.5 hr's drive away from Kunming. Unfortunately it was quite rainy, which made navigating the slippery labyrinth of stone formations slightly more challenging. also didn't leave me with many decent pictures :(

I'm back!

took many interesting pictures on this unexpectedly smooth and pleasant trip so don't really know what to post for time being. decided to use this one, since this year's technically the year of the pig; and also cos trip was surprisingly animal-ful... what with dogs, kitties, pigs, lambs, goats and yaks! and i've come to conclusion that more obscure destinations can be quite charming too :)

i thought i could escape from the bad weather in Singapore, only to land in even worse weather! it was cool but sunny in Kunming yesterday when i first arrived, but it's extremely cold and rainy today... terrible weather for travelling. am now sitting in a cold unheated 'bar' with slow internet... and blogger interface is interestingly in Japanese! haha oh well. but shouldn't be complaining, since it's free :) there seems to be more street food hawkers here than on the east coast, with ppl baking sweet potatoes, frying omelettes and bbqing skewers of meat at seemingly random spots on the streets! felt very tempted to take pictures; but cos i wasn't buying felt a little bad to exploit them as photo ops. have taken my meals mostly in restaurants, but have to admit that the food here is somewhat too oily and foreign for my liking :P everything has gone fine though, cept for cold unheated hotel rooms and phenomenon of 'unpowerful' flushes in toilets; which has indirectly led me to cut down on number of times i go to the loo each day... the cold is still tolerable though, but will get increasingly worse as i move inland... pray hard that the next two hotels i booked have heated rooms/bathrooms!

flying off to Kunming tmr morning for a week long holiday. also planning to go to cities like Dali and Lijiang on the same trip... shall hope hard for a smooth enjoyable journey. barely half-packed now and am attempting to squeeze all my barang barang into pretty small duffel bag and backpack to remain mobile. let's hope that i wun freeze when i get there... though it's only about 5C in Kunming; it's been a while since i've been in that kinda weather! so a 20C drop in temperature might take a while for me to get used to and comfortable in :) it'll also probably get colder as i get to Lijiang. in any case; will try to blog once or twice when travelling... if not, I wish everyone who faithfully reads my ramblings a very Happy 2007! :)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate Christmas! have to admit that it really is just another public holiday for me... I am perhaps the most unhappening person; cos just spent Christmas eve sorting out some pictures on laptop while watching Love Actually on Channel 5. Though this is my 3rd time watching it, some of these stories touch me again and again... too bad no nice atmosphere to watch show. also visited IKEA earlier in the afternoon to look for wardrobe and bedsheets... it's crazy cos though weather was rainy it was crowded all the same. and mum commented that it resembled a 'marketplace'... with children running around and ppl sitting on display two-seater sofas at the entrance! look forward to a Christmas lunch at Jacqui's place tmr afternoon :) goodness; hardly accomplished anything and my long weekend is going to be over :(

It's my first time celebrating Christmas in office and was pleasantly surprised that colleagues were pretty 'on' about giving gifts etc. Also had an intra-unit gift exchange and received a cute little bracelet from fellow colleague. yay! Christmas has never really been a very big day for me; since my family never celebrated it and I am really not big on buying gifts for ppl; nor receiving them, for that matter. However, felt an urge to reciprocate colleagues' kindness and thus went last min shopping earlier this evening. shops were totally CROWDED with ppl and didnt feel like getting anything in the end. doesn't help that I am a rather fussy shopper and can spend hours walking around without finding anything that really catches my fancy. oh well. boss is flying off tmr morning to US to spend Christmas with fiance.... then rest of us gathering at colleague's new place to meet up with old boss, who flew back for winter break. time flies! have worked for 5 months without really realizing.

The Garden Festival at Suntec was somewhat disappointing, but the orchids at the 4th level still managed to save the show a little. but alas, most of my attempted close-ups turned out rather blur. perhaps my hands are really too shaky. in any case; i'll need to practise taking pictures a lot more frequently if i want to improve! the last time i laid my hands on this camera was in mid Oct, when i wanted to take some pics for a certain competition... anyway; thought the yellow ones above still turned out somewhat decent, albeit not as clear as they should have been!

Colbar
was brought to a "refurbished" eating house tucked away in the heart of Wessex Estate yesterday... and i immediately fell in love with the very 'rustic' feel of the whole place! i mean though it's reconstructed and a little artificial, but still think it's cool. apparently they serve good cheap food too, though i didn't have a chance to sample any of the items on its menu. it has also been featured on the Uniquely Singapore website. unfortunately it's rather inaccessible and thus inconvenient to go on any whim and fancy. but will definitely keep this place in mind, esp when i finally learn how to drive here :P

for the very first time i got a sore throat from talking too much. and so i was really surprised when i woke up on Tues morning with a very painful throat... the result of my first SERS exhibition counter duty at Ghim Moh on Monday... perhaps i was so tensed up during my first exhibition duty that i forgot to drink enough water :P anyway i think it's quite fun to do frontline stuff like this... and interacting with the public makes you discover that there are like 1001 scenarios that you would never think up while sitting in the office trying to write policy papers... yeah. and it trains you to think on your feet! however, besides being inexperienced, i am additionally disadvantaged in the sense that i don't look very credible (nor wise enough haha)... more than once ppl either ask me "are you a student" or "are you part-timing"... one old lady even said something like... you're too young lah.. when i bought this flat you weren't even born how you know what policies existed then?? when we tried to tell her about a certain current policy... i mean she's not wrong.. some ppl have been living in their existing flats for 30 over years...

Mini makeover

i'll finally be getting my own room! and because we just got someone to give the walls in our rooms a fresh coat of paint; i can finally buy bedsheets i like when i move into the room maybe a month later. although the rooms are very chapalang now cos everyone wants his/her own color... but whatever lah. i can't stop rest of family from painting their room walls a color they want but i dun fancy very much... and then i can visit the new IKEA at Tampines and go furniture shopping for my own room! yay! dunno what prompted my parents to embark on a tiny house makeover... but i'm not complaining. house is currently very junky. everyone's junk is everywhere. many of my college books and coats are still tucked away in my suitcases cos there's no storage space in the wardrobes etc... hope to get a bookshelf and a new wardrobe... but i suppose furniture-buying will always burn big holes in the pocket... so i will have to spread this out and live within my means. but having your own room's a good start :)

Muslims and Alcohol

I get to interact a little more with our admin assistants (there are 3 of them, of which 2 are Malay) whenever officers are roped in to help with logistical/labor-intensive stuff from time to time. and so yest while sitting at the big work table with a few other officers and our 2 very chirpy malay colleagues, we somehow managed to talk about alcohol... and for the first time i discovered that muslims are not allowed to ingest alcohol! i'm so chi dun! i suppose if i were more observant, i would have noticed... but alas this has never crossed my mind. once again felt ashamed of my ignorance. i tried to recall instances of muslims drinking alcoholic drinks, but i couldn't really remb any... found it hard to believe cos alcohol's such a 'social' drink... and so if Muslims dun drink, or try not to... how does it affect say their social dealings with clients? so they cannot 'drown their sorrows'? so i asked with a look of disbelief, (very ironically, coming from a non-alcoholic like me) so... during festive seasons there's no alcohol? to which my colleague replied, no, they just drink soft drinks... she also added that they cannot even have rum in the cake! so she cannot eat tiramisu! etc etc. maybe this is a super bad reason to be relieved, but i'm quite thankful i have no religion-imposed diet restrictions... else i cannot eat tiramisu.. cannot eat my Dublin mudslide ice-cream... okok, but that's all besides the point.

dots are in!

The polka dot 'craze' is ongoing and I've also gradually built up over the past few months a tiny collection of tops with various designs of polka dots... from tiny dots to big bolder ones... i've also been drawn into this retro fever! and amusingly, this morning 3 other colleagues came decked in tops with dots in various colors/sizes... but i think i should stop acquiring dots-themed pieces of clothing soon... else i might run the risk of ending up with a wardrobe of retro-ish clothing i might not wear again when these go out of fashion... but then again, i'm no fashionista.. and regardless of whether dots are 'in' or 'out'... they can be very cute and timeless when worn tastefully :)

on the other hand, there seems to be a few decent films opening this week! Am also happy that film fests seem to be quite plentiful here... though many of them are at the distant and overspilling-with-ppl Vivocity. Here are a few things i might want to watch: Flags of our Fathers; 3 needles (which opened today) and Sunflower. But alas! Dec will be a busy busy month for me... hope i get to watch at least one of these this weekend :)

work 'cubicles' at work are just high enough to block an average person's view... and while it ensures your privacy it's sometimes not very conducive for talking to your colleagues... esp when you're like me and sitting at your table and do not really like raising your voice very much. plus i like to see the person i'm actually talking to if possible. SO... i've developed a rather ungraceful habit of climbing onto my table... haha. esp when i want to talk to the colleague who sits 'behind' me... and i've gotten so used to climbing onto my table and popping my head over the ledge that i almost never bother to walk to the end of the row and then to her row of workstations.... i guess it's a little difficult for ppl to picture this if you're never seen our workstation configuration :P and i've been doing this so frequently that i've gotten 'negative feedback' from the colleague who sits diagonally behind.. that it's scary for her to sometimes see this head pop out of nowhere.... haha. but hey.. sometimes when you're 'up there' you get a bird's eye view of what's going on in the vicinity... of course i have to be subtle and ensure that my head isn't blatantly obvious from afar when ppl walk around :)

today after i stepped into my classroom a fellow classmate offered me some sweets... but they were not ordinary sweets! If you've watched Grave of the Fireflies, you might be able to understand my surprise and excitement... remember the little sister had this can of fruit sweets she kept with her throughout? which she kept shaking to see if there was any left? So this classmate of mine actually handed me a 'duplicate' of that! apparently his colleague went to Tokyo's Ueno market and bought that, among other things, for 1000 yen. :)

i also attended my first Malay wedding earlier this afternoon. a Malay colleague whom i don't even know personally invited me to her wedding ceremony and since i was free, i just showed up. I was told that her wedding was actually a more 'posh' Malay wedding, because the decorations and tables were more lavishly done up... i didn't really stay for long, but somehow i can't help but feel a little ashamed that despite having lived in a so-called multiracial multicultural society for a good part of my life, i had little understanding of Malay marriage customs... and among the guests invited, 90% of them were Malay... with little or no intermingling among the Malay and Chinese/Indian guests... i mean i suppose we do 'co-exist' peacefully, but somehow most of us have yet to really step out of our comfort zones to better understand the other races?

going on house visits also gives me the opportunity to work with 'collectors of land revenue' from our operational unit, who are often older male officers in their 50s (i think) so in a sense it's also like a totally different 'crowd'; these officers have been at this for so long that they are really proficient in explaining things in dialect and malay to residents! and so thanks to them i am sometimes saved from situations whereby my limited capabilities in hokkien fail me :P also, though i don't know them very well personally and may never get the chance to given our very infrequent contact; it is not difficult to tell that they are good decent folks. today i finished early and so could go home... then it was raining.. and dark.. and i wasn't too sure where i can take a taxi from... then Mr XX (though it was drizzling) somewhat insisted on walking me to the road where i could hail a taxi home... the only thing that prevented him from doing that was perhaps this elevated platform from which i had to jump down from... which if he followed suit he would have been unable to get back to the void deck where all the others were.... yeah anyway, was quite touched by this little fatherly act of kindness... :)

i like the occasional ''frontline" aspect of my job. which puts me in contact with our customers, ie. HDB flat owners... i've come to realize that most of the SERS flat owners we deal with are really not very well off... thus work unwittingly gives me a rare opportunity to interact with the less privileged members of society. i'm still too new to be able to answer ppl's queries effectively or very accurately, but i'm trying to get better. sometimes officers have to bear the brunt of these ppl's complaints/gripes; and it can be rather demoralising to have ppl blame you for policies that you had no part in drawing up; but nonetheless it's just interesting in my opinion to listen to such feedback. well... i suppose i'm still new and the novelty of such frontline duties has yet to wear off... but i hope that i wun become jaded with time, but instead become more familiar with policies i need to know well, so as to be as helpful as possible to members of public in need of info they really ought to be aware of. feel that policies have gotten so complicated and I have the responsibility to make things as understandable as possible to everyone; and esp the illiterate and elderly. alas, i don't even hav everything at my fingertips yet. so need to first work on that!