window shopping

since i was free after work, i went with Jac to go obtain prices for a list of electrical items. What's worse, it was her friend's job but she offered to do it since the former was busy. I thought it was too nice of her, or maybe she thought that the job was rather simple.

the next thing we realised, we were looking at prices for 3 hours! From Northpoint's Harvey Norman we went to AMK Hub's Fairprice Xtra and nearby Courts! Heard odd sounding brands like Aerogaz? Tecno? Most of the time we found the brand, but it was not the type (rice cooker, hair dryer, electric airpot, you name it we have it). Soon we decided to play cheat =x

We saw this special TMD! electric bowl, so i had to take a shot.

i had my dinner at civic's mac, while she was trying hard to prepare the list and forward to her friend.

Celeste, if you're reading - top up your SIM card ok! Otherwise we cannot find you for lunch! :)

what can i do tomorrow? 2 outstanding computer assemblies... plus PC Show.

lab servicing prep and aircon servicing

tuesday was a day of gossips. Cos my lunch with somebody got 'discovered' by her classmates and my colleagues... omg. Melvin and Celine couldn't stop grinning....omg!

i was in my office the whole afternoon fishing out spare parts for my Saturday duty, since the last duty ended up quite nightmarish. Extracted all the faulty stuff like shorted power supplies (thanks to students who happily set them to 115V, one even caused the lab to blackout), hard drives etc. Going to prepare hard drives for deployment tomorrow. Hope weekend duty will be more enjoyable!

while shopping at CWP, i saw Mj. Fated to meet or what? I don't know. I was almost at a loss for words. Was dead tired when i reached home, and went straight for the sofa for a nap. Then met up with eze for a late dinner, and i was busy cleaning my aircon before this post.

i bought a chemical cleaner called Concaire at HomeFix, cost me $49.00 for about 4-5 uses! I thought i should give it a try, since i use my aircon frequently during summer period and the dust just won't come off using a vacuum cleaner (condensation + dust = grime). After spraying the chemical agent onto the fins, i wondered for awhile before realising that the agent leaked straight into the PVC leakage pipe. Scared me cos' i was thinking why the aircon was still so dry after spraying 300ml!

i must say, it really works. Together with the 3M Filtrete, i hope my sinus will improve instead of worsening after sleeping with aircon turned on.

Free sprayer bottle with the 2litre bottle -
Considering 4-5 uses over a year or so, it's cheaper than paying $100-200 for quarterly aircon service.

My Mitsubishi Electric StarMex - i did lots of homework on aircon selection

I went as far as to remove the front panel... as easy as removing a computer's cover

The bare fins and blower beneath

Look at the dirt from the blower!

For peeps who own or uses aircon at home, do note your aircon may look clean, but it's not clean! Besides using additional carbon/electrostatic filters to keep out dust in the fins and blower, consider signing up "service contracts" with major players like Gain City to perform chemical cleaning and outdoor unit servicing. It's quite worth it especially if you want to keep your aircon working at maximum efficiency and energy savings.

A good read and reference for to-be aircon owners will be here.

myself (forever in draft)

i was born in the November 22nd, 1983 at Singapore's KK Hospital. Despite being born into a humble and poor family, i'm fortunate to have responsible parents, whom hail from Johor - towns of Kluang and Pengerang. Thanks to my sister, i have 2 nieces and a nephew to play with. My brother is serving NS currently.

Primary School Years
Primary school life in Bedok South Primary School (now Bedok Green) was very simple - i particularly remembered my Primary 5 and 6 form teacher, Mrs Ng YL for guidance in PSLE. Different from many others, i enjoyed reading science non-fictional books and was subsequently a librarian.

Secondary School Years
In Si Ling Secondary School, i believe that i was a very normal and low-profile student. Towards the 'O' levels, i suffered a decline in results because of lesser time to study, and the abysmal A.Maths result pulled me down - an F9 at the end of Sec 3 for that! CCAs (then ECAs) i participated were the Library and Student Council. In my graduating year, i was promoted to Head Librarian and Head Councillor. As these positions are largely ceremonial in nature, i was more thankful for having great assistants during that time.

Polytechnic Years
I went on to study Business Informatics (DBI) at NYP in 2000. Due to a disciplined start, i obtained extremely good results and clinched the top 5% spot in the cohort. Good moments were spent with my course-mates, and further inspirations from some lecturers and final year project supervisor. Misses Food Junction's laksa, which i ate every morning from Year 1 to 3, as i waited for his lessons to start.

My classmates

YEP in Cambodia - NYP's first overseas CIP

Army Life
I was posted to Signals Institute as an Information Systems Signaller. With the goodwill support from his peers and interest in computers, i was awarded the Best Trainee of the batch. As by nature i attempt to do everything well; this caused some conflicts during my stay in 3rd Signal Battalion. The situation was made worse by the culture of 'offs' - i was merely trying to solve problems and not really after that. Apart from some unpleasant background 'noises', i learnt to handle such situations since. By a stroke of luck, i was given a chance to serve Commander 3rd Division from November 2004 to December 2005. As the Commander's runner, i was exposed to the administrative duties at an army division level. As the Commander was the Chairman of NDP 2005 Executive Committee, i also had the chance to be part of the backstage; attending media briefs while following the Commander for exercise visits and some key division activities. In that brief period, i learnt many intangible lessons, which was crucial in dealing with human relations.

BMT POP

Signal Institute Dinner

The amount of dirty politics - NS has their fair share
(note: someone else did this, don't know who)

NDP 2005 - Rui-en

Current movements
Since my ORD, i have been part-timing at his alma mater, as a Technical Support Officer. I'm also reading Bachelor of Computing at NUS School of Computing, and expects to graduate by end of 2008.

FOC in 2006

His interests
Interests wise, I enjoy hardware computing - i'm well known to remember every nook and cranny of Sim Lim Square and Funan! As well as prices of common computer components at my fingertips.

I'm also an enthusiast of Singapore Buses, particularly in SMRT Buses' Mercedes Benz fleet - the MB0405 12m buses (TIB 425R - 561E, 572Z - 634D, 725A - 832Z) and MB0405G Habit/Volgren buses (TIB 1025E - 1247G). In the area of commuter safety, i lobbied for SMRT to lock up the red coloured caps near the door control panel of the articulated bus, which when locked will prevent the bus from moving unless the service doors are fully closed. Being a Friend of SMRT, i'm also extended my interest in the train operations as well, such as providing feedback for the new STARiS system SMRT Trains is introducing to their rolling stock in 2008.

Volgren EvoBus MB0405G

Travelling is getting an increasing focus and budget, as i like to understand the culture of people outside Singapore. Through my blog, i regained interest in writing, and hope to use it to inform friends of my life happenings in the near future.

May 2006 - Nanjing

Jan 2007 - Penang

March 2007 - Hong Kong

of recent, i've picked up a new past-time - recreational kayaking. My current skill standard is at 1-star. Hope to progress to 2-star in 2008.


Career expectations
A balance between technical and business domain competency will be what i'll strive for in personal career. I won't mind starting low, because of the belief of working from the ground up.


Last update: 27 Jan 2008

vulnerability

it has been a usual weekend as i spent sunday out with YX to get the computer parts. Uncle was sick, however I didn't voice out my concern and left in a hurry. Next, he practically went on a shopping spree and took some money from his own pocket as the cost overshot! We also stopped at Bukit Timah, and met his mum, grandmother and uncle. I actually greeted the grandmother for the first time in many years, and his uncle still remembers me. It was somewhat comforting, yet it came too late.....

As related events unfold, i'm inevitably reminded that a particular day is coming soon... and i feel vulnerable again. i suddenly got very angry while discussing with Alvin over what i saw on Sunday... why? Why did i get so worked up? I cannot help but feel i still blame myself for causing a drastic change a year ago.

time to stop writing for now. cos i simply cannot go on further. My friends... help me.

不是我不明白 这样并不算太坏

懂得爱说来无奈 来自对你亏待

美可以掩埋 没对他坦白 你还在

会进来吗

你在送我回家我还在猜测

那都是真的吗 再见面前

一直想象还有某种关联

但客气是拒绝

新的朋友 不在终点

你的世界 我在对岸

不是我不明白 这样并不算太坏

能再次关怀

时间洗刷所有的不愉快

后来的爱 我们尝试去款待

懂得爱说来无奈 来自对你亏待

美可以掩埋 没对他坦白 你还在

没说分手 终于是能开玩笑的朋友

不是不难过 多少年了

我想过能和你一起老的

却都有别人了

新的朋友 不在终点

我的世界 你在对岸

不是我不明白 这样并不算太坏

能再次关怀

时间洗刷所有的不愉快

后来的爱 我们尝试去款待

懂得爱说来无奈 来自对你亏待

美可以掩埋 没对他坦白 你还在

不是我不明白 说被爱并不应该

我们的关怀 像爱但又说不上爱

没有后来 我们才学会爱

但现在说来感慨 不是那个未来

我们说好的 不会更改的你会在

computers day II, kuanfu's wedding

few days ago, my brother and i did some modification on my 2nd hand motherboard. Today was the day to plug it in. Initially the rig was dead due to my itchy hands, but i realised i forgot to plug in a critical power cable (duh). Fired the rig up, overclocked the Pentium M to 2.24GHz and the memory timings to 2.5-3-3-7, all stable. I also bought a beautiful Zalman chipset heatsink for my rig, however it wasn't suitable, so it ended up inside my bro's rig together with the spanking new X800GT.

Today is Kuanfu's big day with his wife. He invited me, Zhangwei and his class of DBI0107 mates like Steve, etc (the rest i don't know whom) to his dinner at Bt Merah. Quite an interesting night as i saw people from all walks of life turning up, even my campmate from Jurong Camp! As KF put it, "we have chinese people, hokkien people and even cantonese people coming for this dinner"... guess he's really over the moon. Congratulations my friend, have fun back in Xiamen if you're returning home.

results out

Worked damn hard for CS1105 (quite la =x), C+ in return. My analysis is possibly that our planning process didn't get approved by our Prof, the end result of course didn't mix well. Shall fix this problem in next semester's modules.

CS1231 is as expected, so cannot complain. It's satisfactory for Discrete Maths.

SSB2216 (HRM) is my best module this semester. Put much sweat in this module... as my Mdm said i ding-donged between myself and her just to perfect a report. Once again, i became a victim of moderation!

Finally MA1505 takeaway please. Luckily i didn't keep my MA1505 lecture notes.

Cap increased by 0.15... further away from the volcano pit.

I'm studying computing, yet CS modules are like -.-".

I hate Maths once again.

travel planning and goong

i like this song - HowL's Parrot. To the point i can hum some phrases even though i don't understand.



thursday was an extremely slack day, slacking to the point where i had to catch a taxi to NYP, because i would be nicknamed Mr Late if i'm late again. But i couldn't help it, the taxi arrived 10 minutes after my shift. Argh.

started friday with some amount of anger. First my STMobile bill listed some content i didn't subscribe to (and i have my sms logs in Outlook). Second someone owed me a sum of money, but went into MIA mode for a good 2 weeks. Please my friend if you're reading my blog now, only God knows what is happening to you. I'm not God and definitely not a worm in your stomach. Even if you can't pay up, TELL me and we will explore a solution. why is it so difficult to do that? i'm feeling so embarrassed to find your brother when shit happens, and strain friendships. can you put yourself in our shoes?!

luckily kay was here to cool me down, although i kept ranting expletives non stop at him (typical reaction when things screw up in army). We went Simlim today, tried the seafood soup at my fav korean stall. he bought 2x1GB RAM for his brother's MacBook plus 1GB for Dave. nice feeling seeing someone spend yet again... haha.

finally we decided where to go for our year end escape from Sinkapore. After me getting a rude shock that a HK+Beijing trip is at least $2,500, we explored other places such as Tokyo, Seoul. however F&E ticketing mandates a minimum of 4 pax to enjoy lowest pricing (~$650 before taxes and surcharges). Hit a snag here. We also considered Taiwan, however since SAF should be giving us free lodging and R&R during our overseas reservist training, it was striked off.

the final decision is HK+Macau, tentatively 10 days. Will be celebrating Xmas and XH's birthday over there. Kay is working to get the cheapest airline (SQ, CX, MU or 3K) and i'm working on the itinerary, which is more on food this round. My #1 wish is to visit the area where [Goong] Shin Chae-Kyung and Lee Shin met in Macau, Coloane Island!!! Hope to get the latter out before i start my new semester in August.

my brother recommended me this site, ieat.ishoot.ipost. The pasta looks yummy... where are u Jac!?

anyway, found some goong mvs of my interest:

In chinese 陶喆 - 爱我还是他


In english Natalie - Love you so

computers day

woke up rather late, didn't go NYP today (wednesday). Very odd not to go... probably i'm used to going everyday. It's no wonder some call it my 2nd home -.-

i went through my cupboards that stored my spare CPU, RAM, hard disks and the likes. If anyone is interested in these, let me know!

- Hitachi TravelStar 5K series, 60GB 2.5' SATA (Aug 2006), no warranty
- Hitachi TravelStar, 20GB 2.5' IDE (Nov 2001), no warranty
- Maxtor Fireball D740X-6L, 40GB 3.5' IDE, no warranty (2 units)
- Maxtor DiamondMax+ 45, 15GB 3.5' IDE, no warranty

- AMD Athlon64 3000+, MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, 256MBx2 Twinmos DDR-400 RAM

- Kingston ValueRAM, PC133 128MB (3 sticks)
- Elpida, DDR2-667 512MB SODIMM (for Centrino Duo laptops)
- Kingston ValueRAM, DDR2-667 512MB SODIMM (for Centrino Duo laptops)

perhaps due to the dust, i had a very bad flu today. kept wiping my nose as i ate at cwp. Took my medicine and recovered at around 10PM just now, in time for my motherboard project!

what's the motherboard project about? While i was in the army, i acquired a hobby of repairing certain computer parts such as motherboards, video cards, power supplies and even routers that have bulging capacitors. These capacitors are made in Taiwan, which i de-soldered and replaced with higher quality Japanese brands, depending on the availability of dimension, capacitance and voltage.

i have done 25 of such repairs, about 80% managed to regain their stability! However i've stopped these repairs as it made better sense (in terms of time, effort and dollars) to buy new and better performing parts.

i have purchased a second hand Asus P4GD1 for my Pentium-M processor. Considering its rarity (Socket 478+PCI Express combo), i decided to replace those crap before anything happens. With my bro's help, we replaced 17 capacitors in 2 hours... a long time.

Yes that's my dining chair. Talk about improvising... hehe.

Asus P4GD1 - took me a year and a bidding war to get this

See the yellow and black cylinders on the left? Those are capacitors

I'm going to work on the row of 6 capacitors near the processor socket

New capacitors (in green), made by Sanyo

The crap caps that were removed

I have a bowl of them. Spoke volumes of how much i done since 2005

i have a video card to do too, but both of us got sick of the whole process by then.

the golden question - will the motherboard work? No idea, I'll get to know when i swap it into my brother's comp this weekend. Help me pray ok.

Here's a website on the history of crap capacitors for the engineering inclined. I learnt my stuff from here... while my brother assisted me in the soldering process since he is engineering trained.

shopping and jogging

went to NYP to do the usual CD burning and met Celeste to help her friend install the .NET compiler, then met Jac to think of gifts to buy for her 30 yo and 40 yo colleagues. See someone spend is of course fun... hehe. Any suggestion on where to get Liverpool stuff anyone?

after i got home, i planned to have my dinner. however, i decided to have a short jog since i haven't been exercising my body since the HK half marathon. the route i selected was rather short (i thought) and tough since it meanders through Marsiling Hill. after my dupper (dinner+supper), i pieced the maps and checked the distance through Streetdirectory. it measured 5.2km! not that much what?!


i'm really worried for my IPPT, because the window is 6 months away.

should i go for 8 times IPT (exempted RT if i fail) or 24 times RT (if i fail)? will i fail!? any advice bros?

cao ge 曹格 - bei pan 背叛

i found this song especially endearing to me...

雨
不停落下来
花
怎么都不开

尽管我细心灌溉
你说不爱就不爱
我一个人
欣赏悲哀

爱
只剩下无奈
我
一直不愿再去猜

钢琴上黑键之间
永远都夹着空白
缺了一块
就不精采

紧紧相依的心如何 Say goodbye
你比我清楚还要我说明白
爱太深会让人疯狂的勇敢

我用背叛自己
完成你的期盼

把手放开不问一句 Say Goodbye
当作最后一次对你的溺爱
冷冷清清淡淡今后都不管
只要你能愉快

心
有一句感慨
我
还能够跟谁对白

在你关上门之前
替我再回头看看
那些片段
还在不在

紧紧相依的心如何 Say goodbye
你比我清楚还要我说明白
爱太深会让人疯狂的勇敢

我用背叛自己
完成你的期盼

把手放开不问一句 Say Goodbye
当作最后一次对你的溺爱
冷冷清清淡淡今后都不管
只要你能愉快

紧紧相依的心如何 Say goodbye
你比我清楚还要我说明白
爱太深会让人疯狂的勇敢

我用背叛自己
完成你的期盼

把手放开不问一句 Say Goodbye
当作最后一次的溺爱
冷冷清清淡淡今后都不管
只要你能愉快

More info on Cao Ge's album here

whole day running chores

So tired... and hot.

reached the school compound at 7.30am, quickly opened up the lab and did the necessary stuff. Luckily the instructor workstation didn't bark or snap after i swapped the hard disk. happily went for breakfast at NYP's south canteen, then slowly 'yao' back to my room.

the next stop was this place called Tan Boon Liat Building, near Tiong Bahru Market. Took Sv 851 from Yishun, napped comfortably throughout. Finally sent in Jac's iriver for repair, however the man said the mainboard has some problems and may need to be repaired at Hong Kong for 4 weeks! omg... really sorry girl.


after this, i went to Chinatown's hawker centre (the one beside OG) to shop for toiletries. Snapped up my usual shampoo, soap, facial washes, hair gel at quite a good price. Much better than Watsons/Guardian or even Sheng Siong (savings of at least $6-10 in total - worth the trip down). Since my gay buddy is working nearby, called him out for lunch and he gladly obliged.. but sorry to have made him sweat. We then went to SA Tours and ASA to check the pricing for our year-end trip. The moment SA Tours heard of open-jaw ticketing... no go. ASA was better, offering SQ open-jaw (entry via Beijing, exit via HK) at $690 excluding fuel and airport surcharges of $162. Still rather expensive imo.

next stop - Simlim Tower to get some capacitors for my motherboard soldering project on coming wed. i also wanted to go Simlim Sq to check out DDR2 RAM pricing, and after a short walk around 4-6th levels, bought 2GB for my laptop, at $55/GB. Also snapped up 4GB desktop RAM for $50/GB, since the price has never been so low historically. That's the fatal damage incurred today.

Getting ready for Vista's requirement when i don't plan to install on my workhorse. oops

Moses' casing order got screwed up again. Ordered twice, but the Fuwell salesman didn't log down the order. WTF? This time i got a namecard for contact tracing... gonna kick some asses if the casing do not come tomorrow.

For some reason it's really warm today. Sweat was dripping down my forehead when i ate supper downstairs just now.

And... exam results coming out this weekend. I have a bad omen.... feeling uneasy for MA1505. sigh.

a relaxing night at my mum's hometown

after working extended hours, i raced to get a cab home because the last boat to Johor (via Changi Jetty) was at 1600hrs. Darn, it is always difficult to get a cab when i needed it the most.

had a bath and took another cab to Changi. The driver was superb but a race demon. We got to Changi from Marsiling in only 20 minutes! We boarded the boat without waiting because 2 passengers dropped out (i overheard the pair were prostitutes) and refused exit from Singapore.

Our boat from Changi Jetty. If you're unaware, Changi Jetty serves both P. Ubin and Johor immigration

The wind was strong... but i love standing outside

Reclamation work at P. Tekong causing choppy waves. No wonder Malaysia complain!

we took a longer time on the sea, because Singapore (reclamation again) installed their metallic 'fences', causing the boat to make a longer detour to Tanjong Pengelih jetty. By the way, this mode of entry is getting slightly more popular for tourists from Singapore. Why? You might have heard of it; it is to have seafood and watch fireflies, blah blah.

my mum is really indecisive. Didn't know where to go first, so i told the driver to straight to my aunt's place instead of my grandmother's. But my aunt was at the latter waiting for her... ooops.

sat down and cooled down for a while, before going for seafood at 四湾.

My eldest aunt's house at 二湾. It sits on the plot of land given to her, by my grandfather.
Nearby are 2 more plots of lands (and houses) belonging to my 2 uncles

My cousin trying to rid his cupboard of termites.

This is the 'Crystal Jade' restaurant, not the local Crystal Jade of course. It's recommended by #U!

If you have no ringgit, fret not. We accept VISA and MC!

Giant lobsters

My eldest aunt, mum and cousin's wife enjoying the dinner

My 3rd aunt at the foreground

had another early night, because there wasn't anything to do except to play Simtower on my laptop.

visited the house where my aunts and uncles grew up during their days. And my youngest uncle who is a medium (Ji Gong), wanted to 'see' me at his temple. Of course, during the ritual lah. He mentioned i have to concentrate on my studies, and forget about love and relationship now. Recalled the time i came alone last year..... i'm in a much better and recovered state of mind now.

Kampong Jawa (头湾)

Leaving on a bumboat to Singapore

This boat is special, because there were 2 rattan chairs. Better than the normal ones

Home sweet home

today is also the day to treat my family for last week's Mother's Day! Went to Soup Restaurant for dinner.

My sis and nephew (and nieces hidden)... mischievous kids

Younger niece. Looks like the table was too tall for her

time to retire early today. it has been a loooong day, and it will be an 'exciting' one tomorrow.

Links: Another nice post on Pengerang

work

firstly i need to touch on my work, 'cause it gave me lots of sweat. Let's examine what happened on sat morning:

- Cleaner called and scolded me for not calling her. Er yes, scolded me. The tone was not right. The problem was, i was at Koufu having my breakfast while waiting for them to come (and give me a call since they didn't appear at 0830-0845hrs).

- One of the lab gave me trouble for the next 4 hrs. Initially i thought, reclone 2 workstations that my colleague noted would be end of story. Then I just clean 77 mice. By the time i finished, it was 1030hrs.

Who knows, 2 more workstations hung when i turned everything on for network testing. I swapped the P4-2.4GHz to the instructor table, only to find out it also gave me a nightmare by corrupting the hard disk. In total, 6 stations went down and it was impossible to leave them to be fixed next week (the complaints got really hot and a matter of time before this issue is BLOWN up). LL, worked on the whole lot of them until 1300hrs.

- Have to go back tomorrow morning, to sort out the instructor workstation. I hope replacing the hard disk or the workstation will solve the corruption.

david's treat to waraku

it was a super duper late afternoon yet again, and i couldn't wake up in time to go down to Chinatown to repair Jac's iriver. No choice lor, i promise i'll do it on Monday!!!

had my lunch at cwp, then went to NYP to be briefed on the handover of the internal inventory management system. My colleague and school mate of about a year plus is graduating from NUS and thus is looking for a better job soon.

bought a second hand Asus P4GD1, which i have been looking for over a year. Why so precious, because it uses the Intel 915P chipset that supports my Pentium M mobile chip + PCI express graphics. don't understand? it's ok :D

tonight at waraku was free thanks to David. He is going to be posted to Australia for a short stint there, along with a promotion and some incentives, good for him! i fully exploited his $40 limit by calling the BBQ set ($19.80), hotate miso soup ($9.80) and salmon teriyaki ($6.80)... hehee.

Some yummy pictures to follow:

The smaller hotplate is yakitori, bigger brother is the 5 type sashimi, below is my hotate miso soup

The BBQ set kay and me called. Consists of 3 prawns, 2-3 crab legs and 1 body, 3 meat balls or something like that

Simon and the man of the night

meanwhile kay brought up about IPPT... sigh. Window is closing on 21 nov 2007, how?! go for 8 sessions of IPT and can fail IPPT or fail IPPT then go for 24 sessions of RT!? headache.

after the big bang, we went over to millenia walk hoping to sit down and chill (simon wanted to treat dave to some alcohol). No space, then over to Harry's Bar at esplanade. I last drank in nov 06, but after i told myself to try to stop myself from sinking into depression then, i never touched beer again.. till now.

Anyway.. sat down and ordered 1/2 pints of Heineken and Erdinger and admired around, since it was my *first* time in a bar. Initially i found the place dark and noisy, but perhaps due to the booze i felt better. Even saw a guy fingering his girl's lingerie... omg.

got to work tomorrow!

hong kong march 2007 - day 5

The day was spent on preparation to fly back home. I woke up later, went down for a meal and went to the area around Ladies Street to roam around. Bought my hair gel (it was cheap) and went back to Hotel.

Used the in-town check in service at Kowloon MTR, hopped onto Airport Express, and Home sweet home!

Check-in at Kowloon MTR! Singapore what are you doing!?

Departing from HK, home sweet home~

hong kong march 2007 - day 4

Today is a day at Lantau Island (大屿山). Got up early for congee nearby, then took the MTR towards Lai King (荔景) and transferred to the Tung Chung Line. The MTR went under the Tsing Ma Bridge (青马大桥) towards Tsing Yi (青衣), Sunny Bay (欣澳) and finally Tung Cheng (东涌). Some trains on this line are special as the doors are “plug-out” type, no noise when doors are closing. The LED destination board is also standard throughout the MTR system. The ride from Prince Edward to Tung Chung costs us HKD 18 each though.

Tung Chung Line, one of the newest in HK

Had to top up my Octopus card because i used up HKD 100 by now

After a brief walk around CityGate Outlets, home to many branded wholesale shops, we took the cable car to Giant Buddha (天坛大佛) via Ngong Ping 360 (昂坪360缆车). We opted for the single way trip without any added frills, at HKD 58. As it was a weekday, both the crowd and ride was comfortable. NP360 offered a fantastic view of the HKIA and hills on Lantau Island before arriving at NP Village. Took a 20 minute walk up the Giant Buddha, enjoyed the breathtaking views. We also went into the observation halls inside, and saw a memorial of Anita Mui (梅艳芳). Went down, did a short prayer and had deluxe vegetarian lunch at Po Lin Monastery (宝莲禅寺) for HKD 100. Took another walk to the Wisdom Path, where contents of Heart Sutra were inscribed on wooden pillars. By then, my legs were aching because of fatigue from running 21km yesterday.

What i learned from Shanghai - AVOID the frills, get the basic.

NP360 cable car

So excited!

HKIA

Higher and higher..

I want to get out quickly...!

Giant Buddha

After running 21km, the last thing to do is to CLIMB stairs.

My colleague is fast. FAST!

This picture is nice hor?

Lantau Island is popular for trekking. 70km of track!

After breathing in fresh air, we took Bus 21 to Tai-O (大澳). Tai-O is a rural fishing village, known for its stilt houses. The salted fish and shrimp pastes are also popular, which we bought some. Coincidently, an actress was at Tai-O filming a scene. We took a small ferry out to the coast, hoping to see some pink dolphins but there were none. As it was around 4 PM, we took Bus 11 back to Tung Chung, shopped at CityGate and had a sneak preview of Disneyland Resort (香港迪士尼乐园).

Tai-O, the venice of the east

Anyone knows them?

The uncle whom was part of the acting scene later

Shark!

HKD 20 to see non-existent pink dolphins.

Love to bring my girlfriend here in future

Dinner was back in TST, and after walking through Temple Street I met XH to catch up over McCafe until midnight.