Home Sweet home?? An End or a Beginning??

Dear ppl..
It has been a while since I last posted the blog.. (Thanx to the China "GFW")

Finally the project in China Hefei has completed...
Surprise, surprise... I was bit "reluctant" to leave this place... (I shall post some pix in the upcoming blogs..."to show some highlights")
Then, I realised that I had the kind of same feeling when I was a student back in Bristol, UK....

Remember ppl used to tell me, it takes a while for you to get use to a new environment, and once you are acquainted & familiarised with a place, you will felt "reluctant" to leave.... I think it is happening again!!

So, after checking in my luggages, etc... I was waiting in the departure hall.
I sent the following sms to my fellow friends who I newly met during my stay in Hefei...

"Dear Fren..:)
Leaving Hefei is not the end for me but a beginning of a* new journey for me...:)
I am very glad to have met u all and went through the ups and downs together as time passed by... At least I have known u...
Stay alive lively and keep in touch, we'll see each other again...
Thank you and Goodbye!"

Come to think about it now... I should have written...
"*a beginning of ANOTHER new journey...." which is true!!

I believe "the End is the Beginning is the End"....
Life is always an ongoing process... it doesn't stop... it just keep moving!!!
And we as human, we must be able to adapt ourselves to this process and go with the flow!!

China Hefei - My Breakfast.....:)

To some of you who wonders as a "busy" yet organised people like I am, how do I "handle" my breakfast every morning..... hehe.. I am afraid I don't prepare my own breakfast....
I always eat something called 鸡蛋饼... but as for us Malaysians, this looks more like Popiah.... but a popiah which contains You Tiao & sausage.......

The following is how it looks like and how it is being made.....

Step 1:
Heat up the oil and sprinkled some chopped spring onions...

Step 2: Break the egg (sometimes I asked for size up... double!!)

Step 3: Cover the fried egg with Popiah skin....(something like the crepes!)
Step 4:
Add some chilly, her very own secret recipe to taste (taste bit salty, spicy & sweet)Step 5:
Spread everything on top of the Popiah skins evenly.
Step 6:
Add in the yau char kuai, (aka You Tiao in Mandarin). Normally I will also ask for special (which is an addition of sausage)

Step7:
Having readied everything in the center, the next step is to wrap it up and readied to be packed into plastic bag for me to take away...

I like it simply because it's quick, average healthy and delicious!!

By the way, I asked this lady to give me an opportunity to wrap it myself and apparently she agreed, so probably in one of this weekends... I will post some pix showing me in action!!

The cost is RMB 2 (normal) and RMB 2.50 (special) sometimes I asked for 2 eggs instead.. so, is a total of RMB 3.. hehe..

N.B. too bad this lady is running the business without license.. always kena saman by their local Majlis Bandaraya.... claiming her food is not approved, blablabla....... (you know their reasons...)
I thank god that she is still around for helping me to start my day!!

China Hefei - "Smelly" Beancurd...

To those of you who does not know how "smelly" beancurd , a.k.a "Chou Tou Foo" look like, you can see them below....... They are beautiful, aren't they?

If you can remember describing the smell of ammonia -- "pungent" released from one of the Chemistry Laboratory session when we were carrying out in college, you will never miss this!!

In fact, I used to pass by quite a number of stores selling them along the street, but I was afraid to try because of the unhygenic atmosphere, hence I never get to try them....until few days ago........... the canteen workers cooked them for everybody........

Yes, everybody in the firm came to the canteen will never miss to "pick" them....

And to my surprise, most of the people loved it and gave me the "wow" reply. According to some of them, this home-made is very clean and is authentic....

They were presented in 2 "versions"- 1. appetizer - cold 2. deep fried.

I can take only 1 of the appetizer type but 4 to 5 pieces of the deep fried versions...
They taste good!!

Having tried this, I can sort of understand why most of the time people don't mind the smell in most of the toilets they visited.........haha..:) (am i starting to accept them too???)........

China Hefei - Pigeons in the cage...

As I was on the way to main road side where the company bus will pick me up, I happened to see few pigeons being caged up for sales!!As I remembered seeing the chicken being caged up for sales in pasar is more of a common scene, this is really something interesting to be seen.... Have anyone of you seen this before??

Poor pigeons, I wonder were they being fed up with the same kind of food that fed chickens...

China Hefei - "New Diapers"??

As you can see, I was equally surprised to see this new feature in the diapers....
I gave a thought that this might be some new design for toddlers... give it a shot!

So, after coming back from where I was working, I happened to stop by in a grocery shop near my place, this 1 year old toddler of the owner happened to smiling, and teasing with me.....

Then, as soon as he was trying to be playful yet started to cry because of stranger (in this case, happened to be me!), he was lifted by the mother and I was seeing something that I have been seeing in the earlier day......

So, do you have any idea what's that for???

Finally I asked the owner and she gave me the answer.... which I am going to share with you. However, before that I must tell you that Chinese People nowadays are getting very environmentally friendly with their lifestyle, because they are aware of the global issues...
e.g. I am paid for the plastic carry bags in Supermarket.

Anyway, back to the diaper thingy, as far as the environmental-friendly mindset is concerned, the design of this diaper which there is an opening right in the ass is for "producing" poo & nothing else!

Simple to "process" & easy to "clean" isn't it... no Pampers, no Huggies... interesting...:)

China Hefei - Andy Lau Wonderful World Concert Tour

Guess what, today Andy Lau is in Hefei for his second stop World Concert Tour.

Oh well, as I realised this only like a week ago, so the cheap tickets were quickly sold out.

However, the venue is Olympic Stadium which is outside the residential area where I live.

So, tonight the traffic is extremely heavy..... Apparently I was told this Hefei stop is his second stop after Guangzhou.....

In fact, I can even hear his singing as well as the screaming of the fans from the ongoing concert when I leave my window open... cool isn't it? hehe..... (but I cannot leave it open for too long as it is very cold outside....)

And the greatest news is that, I was told that he is getting married to our very Malaysian girl after this "Wonderful World" concert in April..... interesting!!

China Hefei - Working Overtime.... not advisable!!

I thought about working late today as to clear up some of the paper works which have to be cleared. This is not the first time and I knew that it is sometimes quite difficult for me to get a taxi when the dark night arrives..... Previously I was quite lucky to have taxi approached but not this time.......

It's only 8:15pm after I walked out from the company's main gate entrance and the street is extremely quiet, probably this is due to the wet condition and sky is still drizzling!!

Holding umbrella, I stood by the road side.. wishing for not only taxi, but even a public bus to appear in front of me. Somehow, it's juz not there.... lol.. I learnt this lesson well and not to stay up for work later than 8pm unless got pre-arranged transport.......

In the end, after approximately 25 minutes..... a taxi finally appeared and once I got into it.. I thank him for coming!!

China Hefei - Traditional Village Cuisine土菜

Yesterday was an important day in the project that I was overseeing here in Hefei... as the whole plant's electricity was shut down, so that the new electricity cubicle can be connected to the existing system.....

As for me, electricity shut down means canteen got nobody is working and that also means that my lunch supply is "cut" and hence, I went to a local restaurant (meaning those small restaurant you see by the road side!!) to have my meal.

Putting the hygienic of the environment aside, I think their food is authentic..... As you can see, we ordered 4 dishes.

This Chicken-in-the-wok is a village style cooking in which the chicken itself is a free-range chicken, hence the meat is tender. On top of that, it was covered with bread-style pancake. Hence, besides eating the mild & spicy delicious chicken, the bread is also being eaten together with the pancake dipped in the warm gravy.......

There is a steam fish head with salted black bean paste & chilly.... Likewise, this is a village style cooking and the most important is that this fish contains not much "small bones" like any other fishes served across the mainland China.

Then, here comes the "sweet & sour chicken" which is something like the Cantonese style "sweet & sour pork". But the Chinese calling for this dish is actually "sugar vinegar chicken", and I bet they cooked with Tomato paste too. Look at those red colour........

As for vegetables, we had the lotus which is stir-fried rather than boil in soup as I always have it at home. The salty taste is being spiced up with a little bit of vinegar. Wow, trust me.. it's appetizing...

China Hefei - Indian food....

Yesterday evening we had a leckeres indisches Essen (delicious Indian Food) in Hilton Hotel Hefei.
The Hilton Hotel of Hefei looks majestic. (Google Hilton Hefei and you will see how spectacular it is).












Anyway, the name of the restaurant is called "Happy Panda".














As you can see, Martin is having lotsa fun being a Huai Ren :)














....whereas meine huai Jeje is busy contacting another colleague to meet up for coffee.

We had a good full course Indian food. However, as mentioned earlier this is Hilton, i.e. 5 stars Hotel and our total course is approximately MYR100 per person. It was very satifying though, and of course, lotsa fun too!





Martin, ich habe viele von dir gelernt, besonderliche "von dem hinten"!! hahaha...
Und zu meine Huai Jeje, nice to see you this time and bleiben wir im Kontakt!

China Hefei - Weather.....

Spending the first so called "Spring Weather" here in Hefei is something worth notice.

As soon as I arrived Hefei on the 7th of February, the weather was comfortable. By that I mean, it's not freezing cold.

Today, the temperature dropped to 3 degrees in addition to rain. As you can notice, the next couple of days will be even negative...... brr...

Some people told me that this cold stream could be the final round, finger crossed~~ (as in during Spring, the weather changes with the period of fluctuation between the "cold stream" and "warm stream")

In comparison to the day I had in Bristol, UK this time around. The temperature is "beautiful", even though drizzling..........
This is indeed an interesting weather to be adapted to..........