chinese fast food

if you have not try chinese fast food before, i would advice that you try it. it is as fast as any western fast food and about the same price as most of the western fast food. this is my 3rd time taking chinese fast food, zhen gong Fu (真功夫) or real kongfu.

i had the stewed pork rib set. it come with a bowl of rice, a plate of green, a bowl of black chicken soup (this is not for those who get annoyed with chicken head, there is no chicken head in the soup but if you had not seen any black chicken before, avoid this soup) and of course the stewed pork rib. the meal was a good portion for me, not too salty and not too oily like most of the chinese food in china. it costs 23rmb and it was served real fast, within 3 minutes of ordering.

almost got conned

as my computer was not able to boot up, i brought it to the IT mall for verification and repair (if needed). i brought it to the 2nd floor and one of the shop helper was so willingly to help me to check what is the problem so i decided why not. i told him that i suspected either the motherboard or the power supply. without powering up the PC, he get his power supply and plug it into the motherboard and the same symptom occurred. he changed back to my power supply and also put some force on the CPU and check the RAM, and other connections and switched on the supply again. hurray, this time, the PC booted up and get into the Windows OS. I told him good, look like the computer has no problem but could be just some connection loose.

he then shutdown the PC, and switched it on again and trying to get into the BIOS setup by hitting the DEL key many times. this time it could not boot up anymore. i was wondering and ask him why, he claimed that the motherboard could be unstable. i went over and take a closer look and found that the RAM was sat properly and told him about it. he took out the RAM and plug it back and also plug a diagnostic card into the PCI slot. after which, he power up the system again and the card shows a C1, and i ask what does it stand for. he was unable to answer and told me the motherboard is unstable. i told him never mind as i suspected something i could do it at home. i also suspected that he is trying to kill the motherboard maybe and let me replace one at his shop. so, he put back everything, i thanked him and left the place.

my wife was with me and we decided we could get another shop to help to check if it is really the motherboard problem. this is like seeking a second opinion when your doctor told you that you need an operation. also, i am quite PC savvy so no one would be able to lie to me.

we went to the third floor, this guy is also very friendly and wanted to help check my PC. i told him the symptom and he opened the case and immediately removed the heatsink and get a new heatsink to install in. i told him i am not going to pay for that if i do not know the problem. he sensed that i was serious and use a used heatsink to try. this time it boot up again.

he said: "well, i told you this is the problem"

i know this is not the problem

i said: "well, let put back the original heatsink, i install the PC on my own, i know it is not the heaksink"

so, he swapped it back very unwilling and the PC boot up without any hesitation.

i said: "could you put it back everything and i help bring it home, if there is any problem, i will come back"

he was annoyed and said: "no, don't bring back here"

anyway, i thanked him and left. i was happy that i did not spend a single cent to have my PC fix other than the petrol use to travel to the IT mall. i am using the same PC that is supposing bad to write this blog entry.

the moral of the story are:
1. always check for loose connection on your PC before sending it for repair
2. always ask for second opinions
3. do not believe what they told you, always ask questions get to the bottom of the problem.

x'mas present

i left my computer power on yesterday night, this morning, i try to switch on but i was getting continuous short beeps. i checked it out from the motherboard website, look like my power supply is gone. i had myself a x'mas present. lucky me.

tomorrow, christmas day, i will need buy a power supply from the IT mall. maybe i could get myself a brand new PC for my x'mas present... hahaha...

eat eat eat eat

last week was a makan week for me, i had been having good meal for 2 days in a row, a total of 4 sumptuous meals with lot of calories and fats. haha... fortunately i rode 80km on saturday to get ride of those unwanted and unhealthy stuff.

thursday lunch at (吴地人家) wu di ren jia which served mainly suzhounese food. it is an engineering birthday celebration lunch for our boss. this is a regularly lunch that we would have whenever it is one of our engineering managers birthday. we had good meal.

on the same night, boss invited his staff and families to (美美) mei mei at rainbow walk for a dinner. the arrangement was good, kids were sat at their own place with pizza, fries and other stuff, while adults enjoy a good quality chinese food.


so, that was it for thursday, 2 chinese meals in a row.

friday was a shutdown day so the whole test group went for a annual dinner celebration. we had a lamb feast during lunch. i was told that lamb is very good for health during winter time specially because lamb is "heaty" food or high calories. we went to (藏书) cangshu which is another 5km west of (木渎) mudu. cangshu was a place where most of the lamb restaurant located. i counted like 10 restaurants with the character (羊) lamb on the sign board.


anyway, here were the food from various parts of the lamb. some of dishes tasted good while other were a little to my dislike.


after much food, it was time for beer. the chinese were really good at drinking. each (including the ladies in the group) could drink 5 bottles of (青岛) qingdao beer. back home in singapore, we seldom drink beer during lunch, it would be beer after dinner. here in china, beer can be served anytime. after breakfast, lunch or dinner and of course supper. drinking is a very important activity for social event here, usually one should not ever reject a toast from someone, it quite rude to do that.


before heading to our next destination for a afternoon tea and card games, we took a group picture outside the restaurant for remembrance.


after the test annual dinner during lunch time, i headed back home to pickup my family and we decided we should go for a japanese dinner. in suzhou, we had couple of japanese meal before but usually are the lower cost type (such as ajisen). this time, we went to a more posh restaurant. we had curry rice, terrayaki chicken set, western set kids meal, crispy tofu and chawamushi. every dishes were good other than the curry rice that had a lot of fat in the beef that the restaurant use. i had to separate the fat before i eat the dish. this was the best japanese meal i had in suzhou though it cost a little bit more, partially it is due to the ambience of the restaurant. the total damage was 167rmb (S$35).


by the way, jack neo's chinese new year movie is showing in singapore soon. usually the j-team shot commercial advising movies goers to switch off their phone before the start of the movie. here is the commercial "do not use the phone" that you must watch. very funny lah!!!

i am on china blog list

yesterday, my colleague david told me that my blog is on chinabloglist. i was very surprised, i mean i did not really expect that my blog would be on that list although i did submit it quite sometimes back and there was an error during the submission.

anyway, i am glad and happy. this indicate to me that my blog do have certain content that people are interested to read other than just friend or colleagues who are aware of my blog. i am going to write more and put more pictures on my blog.

thumbs up aik peng

心血来潮 - Dinner

心血来潮 炒米粉给家人吃

i am in a good mood today so i cook for my family. since we came to china, this is my second time that i cook. the first was the nasi-lemak and now the fried bee hoon. i would said it taste 6/10 but my wife loVE the bee hoon.

the ingredients are chinese sausage, ham, egg, lettuce (cai xin would be a better choice) and of course bee hoon (rice noodle)

here a picture

as hubby, sometime we would need to cook one or dish for the family instead of the wife who usually is the homemaker and the cook. if we cook, the wife usually would appreciate the effort.

bai tang garden

it was sunny although the weather in suzhou was cold ranging from 0C to 8C during day time. so i decided to visit the bai tang garden to take a few pictures. as i travel, the sun soon block by the cloud so the pictures taken today were not colorful.

suzhou has many constructions going on. especially in the SIP area where apartment and factories are build to cater for more workers.


while travelling to the garden, i pass by this abandoned bridge. suzhou has many bridges. i quite like this as it looks like very ancient and it stand out from the bare land. the bridge could be more than few hundreds year old. i did not manage to find anything that indicate it age but who knows.

a close up view of the bridge, it looks like it has gone through a few wars. the Chinese are clever, they advertised by painting their number on the bridge.

the garden was very empty and i feel rather sad or 凄凉.

i like this picture. it looked like the sun in the background but it was not. make a give what was that.

finally, before leaving the garden, took a picture of a loving couple strolling toward the exit.

i would be visiting this place again in spring time. i bet it will be more lively with more people and activities.

indian at the X

many are not spending in this economy situation but to me, this is probably the right time to spend. for example, i went to deep blue singapore seafood, my family is the only family and we were very well serve. yesterday, we went to indian at the X, the same happen. we were the only dinner till we left when there is another couple came for dinner. so, do it now, you will be serve very promptly and very politely.

alright, back to the food. we order roti, cheese naan to go with masala mushroom and a bowl of chicken biryan. my wife ordered a glass of ginger tea as well. after the food served, we find that maybe is not enough as the portion is relative small. so we ordered butter naan and garlic chicken curry. now, we ordered too much and we have to take away whatever left over.

the food were good especially the masala mushroom and the cheese naan. the garlic chicken curry is not really to our taste as the garlic and chicken chunk are too big a piece. we prefer smaller pieces of chicken chunk so that it can wrap in the naan.

our damage for the dinner was 226rmb (S$47), another money well spent. i would recommend anyone to this place to try the indian food in suzhou. it is located at the south-east of guan qian jie (walking street).

good dinner

it's been sometimes that we had such a good dinner. it's good to us does not meet it will be good to you because of the flavor. i mean, this dinner is very singaporean.

we went to deep blue singapore seafood located at modern plaza. we had been thinking about going there for dinner for quite sometimes but either could not find the time or never come to our mind when we want to have dinner. it's also part of a celebration for my son birthday.

alright, the place is very clean and well decorated. it was empty tonight. i mean literally empty. we are the only family in the dinning area that could accommodate 20 other families. i was chatting with the manager and he claims that it was partly due to the cold weather as well as the financial crisis that is facing everyone around the world. throughout the whole dinner from 6pm to 7:30pm, there is another lady came for dinner.

we had chilli crab (1/2kg), bbq chicken middle wing, chicken soup, asparagus with mushroom, crispy cruzzle, mee goreng, deep fried bun (to go with chili crab source), otta. the chili crab which is the main dish was good not perfect. it still missing something... i prefer chili crab from jumbo. jumbo chilli crab had never disappoint me before. the next good one was the chicken soup, it is very delicious, one of the best soup i had so far. crispy cruzzle tasted as good as those i had in singapore, crispy outside and soft inside. in actual fact, every dish was good except the otta. taste funny and expensive.


overall damage was 338rmb (S$70) but very well spent. i would definitely go back to deep blue singapore seafood.

short trip to nanjing

my son was not schooling on the 10th and 11th Nov, so we decided that we should make a trip to somewhere. initially, we wanted to head to beijing and as usual, i was slow in making the decision, so by 5th, i decided yes, beijing would be the right place to visit. thus, we started to purchase train tickets and was not able to. there were no vacancies available for the train that has the sleeping seat. what a let down.

the next day, after discussing with my wife, we decide to head to nanjing that is about 300km away from suzhou. nanjing was the capital during the 3 kingdoms and during the initial years of republic of china.

i sourced the hotel from ctrip and get joan help to book the hotel and D-train ticket the next day. we managed to get everything very smoothly.

like i explained in my other blog, i would be travelling on sunday as i would like to go riding on saturday.

day 1 - Suzhou, Nanjing, 1912, Presidential Palace, Fu Zi Miao and Xin Jie Kou
anyway, on sunday, we were at the train station by 8am for a 8:25am train. this is my first trip on the train in china so i do not know what to expect. the good thing was that i can speak, read and listen to mandarin. at the entrance of the train station, we were checked for ticket and our bags went through a x-ray machine. we looked at the sign-board indicating where to go for the queue for d406 that would take us to the nanjing, passing wuxi, changzhuo and zhenjiang.


the queue for d406 was long but since we have our seat number assigned so we are not in a hurry to queue. we get ourself a seat in the other lane for a later train... actually when the gate opened, we noticed many were like us, waiting at a nice seat instead of standing.

the speed of the train were 171km/h and at one point at the last stretch to nanjing, i saw the reading was 206km/h. if you noticed outside the train window, you could notice the train was moving very fast.this is nanjing train station. if i remember correctly from what the guide told me, it was opened in year 2004, thus, it is pretty new but crowded.

we proceeded to guo xin hotel (国信大酒店) from the train station. after our lunch, the first place we visited is the 1912. it is a place that has many pubs and restaurants. the place actually does not look chinese other than the chinese characters used on the signboards.

after visit to 1912, we headed to the 总统府 (Presidential Palace) housed the office of the republic of china from 1912 to 1949.

sun yat-sen (孙中山) was sworn in as the president of republic of china at this presidential palace during 1912 after the last dynasty of china fall to kuomingtang (国民党). it was occupied by 2nd kuomingtang leader chiang kai-shek in 1927 but as the china warlord era and wwii, the palace was occupied by other till 1945 when chiang kai-shek government moved back from chongqing. in 1949, near the end of the chinese civil war, the communist forces capture nanjing and chiang kai-shek government fled to taiwan, and mao zedong declared the people's republic of china with capital in beijing.

in the afternoon we headed to fu zi miao walking street. it is similar to that of guan qian jie in suzhou. we did some shopping and by 6pm, we are ready to head back to hotel. we were by the road side waiting for taxi. we had try to board 5 taxi but non wanted to take us to our hotel because it is a changing shift time. so we walked further to a main road and managed to board a taxi back to our hotel.

xin jie kuo (新街口), our last stop for the day was a highend shopping area with lv, prada, guess, tods and many more. one of the mall had a last day promotion and they employed guards to control the crowd. every entrance and exit of escalators, there is a helper to ensure no one blocked the way. every well organised.

day 2 - Purple Mountain, Yangtze Bridge and Hunan Jie
after a hot and good breadfast, we together with the guide head to the purple mountain (紫金山) where the first and second leaders of kuomingtang were buried. the geomacy of this place is very good and it benefit their decendants.

the weather was very sunny and clear similar to that of yesterday. first we visited the Zhong Shan Mountain (中山陵) where Dr Sun Yat-Sen was buried.


can you see the characters? 天下为公 is what sun yat-sen was trying to tell that the "world belong to all"

we saw many groups of the students from one primary. they are so lively and playful. dashing up the steps, chatting among themselves, enjoying their lunch... woh, i love these kids.

the kids are here to learn history about china, who was the so called "president" of china, when was the place built? etc.

next we took an internal bus service to ling gu scenic area. this place is where the Koumingtang rebellion dead were buried.

the external of "no pillar building"

the internal of it. there is no pillar and it exhibits wax statues of various history.

this is ling gu temple. we did not climbed up as the stairs are steep.

after this stop, we proceed to yangtze bridge. the bridge was on the other side of the nanjing. we were on the east and we need to travel to the west. the guide did not know how to get there by public buses so we took a taxi to nearby the bridge and took a public bus on to the bridge since taxis are not allow to stop on the bridge.

this is a dual decks bridge. the lower deck is the rail deck and upper is for vehicles and people. the bridge was built from 1960 and completed by 1968 with a span of 1577m and a width of 19.5m. this was totally designed and contructed by the chinese with chinese self-developed material.

another view of the bridge.

after the bridge, we headed back to our hotel and parted our guide who provided the service for the last two days at a daily rate of 150rmb. we will be all alone by ourselves that we have chosen to be.

after resting for a while in the room, we took a subway to hunan jie for dinner.

those chips on my palm are used to enter/exit of the subway station. this is for single trip. the subway was not crowded. we travelled for 4 stations that cost us 2rmb each.

there is a street of restaurants with many different types of food from various parts of china as well as international food such as thai, korean, japanese, etc. we wanted to try thai food as it looks good from the menu but we had to wait for 30mins so we decided to go somewhere else.

korean food is our next choice and we had. actually, this is the right choice, the korean food was very good indeed.

we had quite a few dishes, korean noodle, bbq port, bbq chicken, korean chicken soup, korean fried rice and fruit salad and a bottle of beer to go with. the food was good and we really love it.

Day 3 - nanjing massacre (南京大屠杀), home sweet home
today for us would be an easy day, we planned to visit nanjing massacre.

from wikipedia
The Nanking Massacre, commonly known as the Rape of Nanking, was an infamous war crime committed by the Japanese military in Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on December 13, 1937. The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the violence lasted well into the next six weeks, until early February 1938. Japanese officials lied about civilian death figures and still refuse to reveal them properly today. During the occupation of Nanking, the Japanese army committed numerous atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians. The executions began under the pretext of eliminating Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians, and a large number of innocent men were intentionally misidentified as enemy combatants and executed as the massacre gathered momentum. A large number of women and children were also killed, as rape and murder became more widespread. A total of 300,000 victims during this massacre.


we took a 4:25pm train home to suzhou. overall, this short trip enable us to understand some of the china history about the republic of china. I had heard about sun yat-sens and chiang kai-shek but i do not know actually that they are the founders of republic of china.

新加坡-小偷

那天和一位中国朋友聊天 以下是我们的对话

中国朋友：新加坡的行法怎样？
我：蛮严的
中国朋友：我看报纸说小偷要砍手指的
我: (我笑了笑) 要是真的可能也好, 不是的, 没那会儿事
中国朋友：那你说严?
我: 打个比方, 强奸鞭行, 贩毒死刑, 枪械打抢死刑, 不过小偷最多罚款坐牢
中国朋友：原来是这样的

so, i am actually very surprised that there are such report that is so inaccurate. i never heard of a pick-pocket will have his finger chopped off when caught in singapore . probably, next time when a rapist is caught, his "bro" will be chopped... like china eunuch. haha

which is from the west

out of the 3 gadgets above, which one come from the west? why?












i recently i got a token for my company vpn, when i got it i was thinking, it is a waste. why do i say so? it is a waste because the lcd is permanently turn on. a waste of energy. the west has to start thinking about saving energy even for such a small gadget. by turning of the lcd a change of battery could be 5 years instead of 2. less toxic waste generated as well. with the previous cruel oil of US$140 / barrel, we all have to see how can we save energy when it is necessary.

grand opening promotion - fairy's jewels

my wife and sister-in-law setup an web known as fairy's jewels to sell cultivated fresh water pearl. i am helping them to promote a little here. so if any of you are interested to get pearl necklace, earring, give it a try. the price is very competitive.

they are having a promotion right now because of the grand opening, so take this opportunity to get one for yourself or your significant other (SO in short)

colleague's wedding

yet another wedding that i attended this year. i had blog about it months back. anyway, there is a slight difference in the wedding... the couples' origin are from part of china that is near to north korea. so, this wedding has a little korea tradition on top of the chinese tradition. their family members actually put on korea costume that is very nice and elegance.

here are the newly wed couple and their parents.

part of the korea tradition is to sing and dance.

got a video to show

a friend (thanks buddy) sent me a video taken on his mobile phone... guys, be careful, someone is always watching your back... haha

after watching it, i told my friend how can they have such an event without me... i need to be there... i need to join in the fun with them... by the way, i recognised some of you especially the one in white moving across the stage... you are still that crazy... i love the music as well, not like here in china or maybe i did not go the right places... haha.. wait for me next year, i will be back...

by the way, where are the gals... 2 years back, the organizing committee proposed to combine with the f (not female ok, it is finance) department, it is not done yet... committee, please make sure next year is different ok...

ok, here is the video, enjoy and have fun...

Dream Hollywood

last nite went to dream hollywood pub at bar street (十全街) with wifey, colleagues and their families. 8 of us squeeze into a minivan for 7... a bit crowded but we manage.. bar street as usual at these hours (9:30pm) of time always jam. we alighted and walk for 15mins before reaching dream hollywood. on the way, we felt hungry and bought crepes to fill our stomach. we finally reached our destination and the band was playing... it was pretty crowded comparing to last week when my wifey and I came to this place. anyway, we were fortunate to have a couch sit for 8 of us... order a bottle of whisky with cola for 480rmb for the night... knn super cheap comparing back home. i mean in singapore, a group of 8 persons went to pub will spend probably 5x this much...

as it was halloween, quite a few dressed up including the band members... the night were good with all of us dacning. my wifey danced the most... david was crazy as well, went up the speaker to dance follow by his wifey and my wifey... u guy/gals are great... by the way, do not break the speaker ok... the violin as usual was fantastic.

whatever it is, we had a great night and we headed home 1am in the morning.

Test Department BBQ

My family went to the Test Department BBQ. Many of the test guys attended the BBQ. Weather was nice although it was not so good in the morning.

Keith enjoying his sausage.


Layer of Bean Curb
Tang Ayi, a great organizer for this BBQ
Chunguang enjoying his food
My wife helping in the BBQ

Playground