1st Experience with Budget Air

To experience new thing is always excited. This is my 1st experience with budget air for my trip to Bali. Get use to take the normal airline, budget airline experience is really different and I did some “blur” things as well.

List of new experience with budget air:

1) In the airport, 1 row has many counters. Each counter is for one destination. Not like SIA or MAS, all the counters in 1 row are for 1 destination. When I reached the airport and found the row, I just Q. Later I found out, the Q was for Penang.
:(

2) Boarding pass is not in a card form. It just a piece of receipt. I didn’t know the piece of paper is boarding pass and ask friends if budget air doesn’t provide boarding pass because save cost. Then how do the boarding gate officer know we are in the correct flight. :(

3) Window in the plane can not open. I remembered some1 mentioned some budget airs only turn on the aircon after all passengers are boarding and the plane’s down is closed. Before that, must open the window, otherwise going to be very hot inside. Is this only a joke? :(

4) I never known Budget Air has toilet in the plane. I was so excited and some kind of: WOW, AirAsian plane has TOLIET. I always thought budget air plane is small. So no space for toilet. Btw, can any1 tell me if all the budget planes have toilet but not only AirAsia?

5) Purposely try to purchase food and drink. Never done that because food always provided in my previous flight experience. Only bought chocolate and perfumes before. Excited to find out how to make payment. Was guessing: a) only accept credit card. b) will give me a purchase receipt and I need to pay the bill when leave the plane. c) they accept cash. Bingo, I am right with c). :)

When sat in a budget air plane and looked at the huge SIA airbus. I feel fortunate my company only allow us to take SIA when go for business trip. Like to look at the cloud. Always hope I can find the Sky City. Believe I watch too much cartoon.

My 1st Impression of Shanghai

Shanghai, is just another big city. Doesn’t impressing me as what Angko Wat has gave me. I am still prefer to go for places like Great Wall, Angko Wat, Egypt, mountain, sea and so on. For me, a city is just a city. Unless I want to dig out the stories in the city.

The OLD Shanghai City view.

明珠塔
Shanghai the rive side.

新天地 is a new hot pub & bar area in Shanghai. Majority people who go are tourist. Local usually don’t go there because too expensive. seriously, if you like clubing place, there is not place like Clarke Quay in Singapore. So big and have so many pub, bar, café & restaurant.

豫园, a typical Chinese garden residential place. 小桥流水人家, nice design and very beautiful.

南京路步行街
EXPO 2010 Shanghai

EXPO 2010 海宝 The City.
人民广场

My room in Shanghai.

Always, must take 到此,一游 photo.

煮茶 and 泡茶

Had appointment with 小黎 in 天福茶馆 on my birth day. She wanted to 煮茶 for me. Never tried 煮茶 before. She kept telling me that the taste for 煮茶 is much better than 泡茶. End up I stayed in the shop for 3.5 hours and drank tea till 11:30pm even thought business hours is till 11pm.

This is Puer Tea - 煮茶.

This is 桂花 Tea - 泡茶.

My Birthday Celebration 一个人

People asked me how I celebrated my birthday. My answer is: Had dinner alone and went to Chinese Tea House for 3 hours tea.

Go to restaurant for dinner is always an issue for me. Reason is no1 in the restaurant believed I went there for dinner alone. It is unusual in Nantong.

Remember the seafood restaurant I went in my birth day, the staffs there kept asking whether I was kidding for going there alone. That night, thanks for the waitress who insisted her colleague and the manger to get me a room on my because she said the main hall was too many people and noisy.

After that night, I became famous in the restaurant. Every1 in the restaurant called me “一个人”. When the 2nd time I went there, the manager told others staffs: 那一个人又耒了”.

Everytime I went there, some waitresses came to the room and chat with me. Reason was they curios why I went to restaurant alone and how come I can speak Mandarin since I come from Singapore. Most of the girls told me: 你好可怜，一个人吃饭.

The 3rd time I went, in my room, the max was with 6 people ( the waitresses, red wine promotion girl and the Chinese wine promotion girl) in the room until the manager chased some of them out. She told them: 你们别一直的问客人问题了。他都不好意思吃了。

Even the 阿姨 who picks the 都说：你很好。我喜欢你。以后耒南通，一定要耒看阿姨。我给你挑大个的海鲜。

南通人，少了都市人的事故与冷莫。多了一份单纯，热情与友善。但是我担心，这一切的美好，在大发展的巨轮下，会在几年之后粉碎消失。

These were what I had for my Bday dinner. Can you believed the bill was only about SGD$20 and with 1 room where had 1 waitress who only served me????

No Facebook & Blogspot

I am not sure how I survived in China for 2 weeks without Facebook and Blogspot. Now I know without them, my life is very boring. Fortunately, I still have MSN.

Nanotong - China 2009

A 2 weeks trip to Nantong and Shanghai for conducting trainings. Total was 5 classes with 65 particiepars. Feel that it was a bit too long and too many classes. Kept talking for 8 hours per day and answering all the questions are not an easy task. Somehow, still need to follow up with my day-to-day work, project and conference call after the training.

This time traveled alone. Not like last year, had my colleague with me and we told nonsense and joke all the time. Anyway, travel alone is not a problem for me and I am quite enjoying it sometime.

Nantong is changing very fast. Last year when I was here, the traffic was quite smooth. Now, the traffic is so heavy. A lot of cars and most of them are luxury European cars.

Surprising me is the property price is up to RMB$20000+ per meter (3.3 feet) which is about SGD$1300 per foot in the town area. Nantong is only a small developing city in China. Just like Choa Chu Kang in Singapore. SGD$1300 is over price.

For Nantong, I can not imagine how it is going to change in another 1 year.