Back!

BACK!!

from the land of xiao long paos, rice cakes, mao zhe dong, very real fake branded goods & loud (rude) people....

SHANGHAI!! & a short 2 days in HK!!

These pictures, if you were wondering, are not from photostock! They were taken on my plane ride to Hong Kong :) it was such a gorgeous sight, so good advice everyone should heed: TAKE MORNING FLIGHTS!! THE VIEW IS MUCH TOO INCREDIBLE FOR U TO MISS OUT ON!!

My shanghai trip was in one word: AWESOME! and ermm... EXPENSIVE. We bought so much stuff, we had to buy an extra luggage(a fake mont blanc luggage) and it was filled to the brim! My best buy was a MULBERRY LEATHER BAG i got from the Science and Technological Musuem MTR basement in Shanghai!! It looks exactly like the pictures below except my bag is slightly lighter in colour.

>>> MULBERRY BEATS LV, GUCCI, MIU MIU, BURBERRY, CHANEL & all the BLAH BLAH BRANDS HANDS DOWN

I shan't blog about the trip in this entry though cause i've yet to upload all my pictures :S

We basically stayed in my aunt's apartment at "kang qiao ban dao" at Pudong. It was a three-leveled villa that was well-furnished and super pretty, with good security and a beautiful, serene lake just beside the house. The pictures above shows the mail box (don't ask me why i took a picture of the mail box, i have no idea either, i must have been pretty bored or was probably trying to act creative) as well as the neighbouring bungalows in the estate (on some days we'll walk around the neighbourhood so as to get to the big mall that is 20mins walk from my aunt's place).

My cute, lil' tomboy-ish cousin!! If i'm not wrong, the building behind is the clubhouse of the whole estate.

My colleague said that in Shanghai, millionaires are just a stone throw away but i don't think it's true just yet, judging from what i've seen and heard from locals. There's still plenty of poor people around there and the pay there for a sales assistant is only 1500rmb (meaning about 300SGD) per mth! Which Singaporean (in the right state of mind) would be willing to work for that measely sum???? My aunt's part-time maid is so poor, they can't afford fish and only save it for special occasions like new year. Sometimes, they can't even afford meat and she became a vegetarian because they had no money to buy meat.

WE SHOULD COUNT OUR BLESSINGS...

There's sooo many people in Shanghai alone, it's almost unbearable, 18million people!! Every weekday, u'd see tons and tons of people walking along the streets every single damn place. and i wonder...do these people ever need to work??!! what the heck are they doing strolling about on a 3pm afternoon on a week day? Even the trains are jam packed at these times! They'll literally shove you in until you feel suffocated. i daren't dare to imagine what it would be like taking the train during peak hours.......let's just say i wouldn't be surprised if someone actually died because he was being shoved and suffocated from the crowd. Competition is fierce too with the huge population, according to Siyi ( my cousin's 18 year old tutor), even people who come from good universities aren't guranteed a job.

I'm glad i'm from Singapore. Really.

at least of i don't hafta worry of dying in the public transportation

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FESTIVAL OF PRAISE (3rd AUG 2008)

Wendy, Me & Myrna at Kallang Indoor Stadium!

Just came back from FOP at the indoor stadium. this year the PARACHUTE BAND & Reuben Morgan came to lead praise & worship. i was kinda apprehensive about going for this year's FOP cause Delirious was not performing this time round, and they're the only Christian band that i actually like. but they were good nonetheless, Parachute had good vocals but the only thing that bugged me was that they left all the songs i knew to the very end!!!

And i thought the sermon was awesome too, i hardly ever, EVER praise a sermon (other than those preached by the ex-gay preacher, i can't remember his name at the moment) but i really thought today's preaching was good. Mark Conner was hilarious and what he said impacted me. All day, we expect people to do things for us, we go to church and hope for blessings upon us, we want the pastor to preach a good word for us, we want people to do things for us but we should stop this selfish behaviour and start adopting a SERVING attitude. We should be ready to serve the Lord and make sacrifices for him. When we die, we'll be asked 2 questions:

1) Do you know God?

2) What have you done with your life in respect to your relationship with God?

I don't want to die in a months time and say that "life was fun, i got a lot of stuff, i've been cool". I want a purpose, i want to serve God in things that i am best at doing but what??

I pray for a purpose, a goal, a dream.

Something to follow to the very end.