Things are getting done ;)

Great to be updating the whole day. I had include a lot of links to my photos and updated quite a few photos to my long neglected websites. So slowly i will include more. Come back and check it up.
See ya ;)

My Chinese Wedding

So guess you had seen my china wedding photos ? The way they do it there is very different and is more interactive and fun and what we normally used to.

Just a short description on what went on those few days. Junbiao and Meiyan, thanks for the support !! Hope u guys enjoyed yourselves too :)

The first major difference we notice is the bridal car. The bridal car tends to be black in colour and most likely to be an Audi A4/A6, BMW, Honda Accord 2.4 or Hyundai Sonata. They use fresh flowers as decoration on the bonnet. The bigger the flowers arrangement the better it is. I wonder is it the same in other chinese cities ?

Trishaw is still very much active in her town where u pay 4-10rmb depending on the distance you run.

One interesting event was that we need to 拜天地 on the eve of our actual day . It was quite surprising to me.

The next surprise came was the wedding dinner. The amount of food was .......... so many!!! we had 8 cold dishes, 16 warm dishes, 2 soups, 2 desserts....and also fruits....It was amazing.....As the dinner was held at her house, the servers were her cousins helping out. Each time they send a dish up they were say some 吉祥的话 and u have to give a ang pao before they will place a dish on the table. The better they say it, the ang pao suppose to be bigger. It was kind of entertaining.

And of course after the dinner, we kena tekan, playing games for the crowd to see. U know... trying to ctach suspended apple, getting chopstick out of bottle without using hand, feeding each other 瓜子 without using hands.... and a lot more. Fun but quite pai say initially, but once the ice is break everybody enjoys...

After which we get to set off firecrackers and the next best thing was fireworks. They were beautiful.

Next time i sure come and set off fireworks....

Hope u enjoy reading as i typing....

肉饼真好吃 ：）

Juan recently made some delicious 肉饼. Made with flour and some precook meat with long beans and slowed cook over a woodfired stove... it was absoultely yummy....

Juan .... when u cooking this again... use gas stove can or not ???

Shopping .....?

This trip we went back via express train from the relatively new Shanghai South Station. The train was comfortable and fast. It moves at 160km/hr. The train left on the dot and within 2 hours (Usual 4 hours plus) we reached our initial desitination at Yiwu. This is the wholesaler city of china manufacturing market. There are several big scales "shopping centres" where shops showcase their stuffs for buyers from around the world.





It showcased so many items that there are catergorised according to types of goods. So if you are looking for soft toys they will be tons of shops selling soft toy at that category.

So if u like shopping u can hope on a train here. But be warned, they sell only in bulk .

Birth Permit APPROVED !!!

After we first settled in, the first thing we did was to look for a hospital where our little Ong will first see the world. We ran thru quite a few hospitals and finally we settled on one that is not too far away. We set a date and happily we went to register for pre-natal check.

To our horror, we were asked to produce birth permit (准生证）si mi lay eh ???!!! Wa pianz... give birth also must have permit... f#$#$ need to get permit or not ??!!! As we move to other hospitals we were asked for the same thing. Finally we realised the implication of the matter after a kind nurse explained it to us. Without the permit, there will be no pre-natal checks, and after child birth, birth certificate will not be issued... he would be something like a wanderer without identity. Singapore embassy needs birth certificate to register for citizenship.

So as we moved around asking around how to get it done. We got one recommendation. Go back to Juan's hometown and apply from there. Should be the easiest way . So at the first possible moment we went to her hometown at the same time paid her family a visit. Hitting 2 birds with one stone. Happily we went back and went to their town council.

We went to the Birth Planing department where we were asked a few questions. Are you married ? Is your husband from here ? Well... we did not made thru the second question. Oh since you are married away, you should apply from your husband side. ??!! Husband from Singapore nay.. and singapore dun issue birth permit ??!! Well.. it is out of our jurdistiction. And we were sent away. What now ??

We stayed for a few more days before making our way back to shanghai and Juan starting to call all of her friends whom had gave birth in Shanghai before to ask them for clues. And finally we landed one important lead. There is this Non Shanghainese Birth Planning Department in Shanghai and we should make enquiries there. We found that before we can proceed further, we must apply for tempory resident permit for Juan, and to do that we must produce documents that justify her pressence in Shanghai. Once you get that approval, there is this big registration centre where your application is approved and an "ID card" will be issued to you. With that ID Card, we made our way to the Birth Planning Department.

There we got our Birth Permit approved after filling in several forms and answering several questions. We were then issued with a permit and a Pre-natal health check book. The book had to be initialised with an initial medical checkup at an authorised hospital. Purpose is that, armed with the book you can now go to any hospital of our choice for prenatal checks and with the permit, we are authorised legally to give birth and a birth certificate will be issued for the birth.

It had been a time consuming process trying to go thru all this legal web try to get all the documents in place. It feels like playing dungeon and dragon real life, getting all the clues to get the items and finally achieving the mission objective.

Glad all this is over. Now we look forward to a healthy pregnancy and child birth.

p.s. at the Shanghai Birth Control Department, we had a surprised after we went thru the main gate. There is this MIG21(if i am correct) on display. Maybe they are encouraging pple to join the air force ?? hehe...

谢谢你们!!

Ok... i know is a little bit late (like a few months ago) but i would still like to express my thanks for being there at my wedding, to share my happiness and joy, and especially to those who had put aside their precious time to help me out. THANK YOU.

Heros shall not be unsung ...

Murphy, thanks for the videos, they are very good, though the final version came too late and most did not get to see, i will find a way to make it be viewable here. So guys if u know how give me a buzz.

Tiffany, Kou, Andy, Keith, Qiaoling and Murphy again thanks for roaming around with me in the sun and coordinating with the rest at night for the events to flow smoothly.

Alice, Michelle, Liling, Ann, my 4 beautiful receptionist for making my guests feeling comfortable and at home and of course the sacred mission of guarding my ang pao box haha ;-) Thanks

Tiffany and Cindy thanks for setting the mood, without the lovely voice of yours the atmosphere will certainly not be as hot as it would :)

A big thank you to all of you for the resourcefulness, the creativeness and all the fun that you helped to generate. It is really appreciated from the deepest end of my heart.

To all those who were there with me, I hoped that you had enjoy the dinner, had lots of fun, and bring back a wonderful memory. Thanks

The 3 Fiery Stoves in China

In summer, 3 cities in China were dubbed the 3 fiery stoves (3大火炉）. They are 1. Wuhan, 2. Nanjing and 3. Chong Qing. Not sure how true is it, but the tales goes that this 3 cities feel the hottest in summer as if you are in a stove. So, the idea is plan to visit this 3 cities in other seasons except summer.

Just a little trivia

还是自己做的菜好吃 ：）

Just had our first home cook meal recently.... As with all things they must be some hiccups. We were in the supermarket all there... getting all the stuffs that we would need. When we finally got back, we happily set out to cook our meal ...even though it was quite late in the evening. When we finally set up the table , getting ready for our meal, we realised we did not get any chopsticks. Ha ha.. anyway we had a fun day shopping, a good time cooking and an amusing time eating. Bon Appetite !!

新的家。。

好不容易终於找到房子了！！！真是千心万苦。。。只是有一点贵。。还有许多芝麻绿豆的小问题。。。相信在过一段时间就能搞定：）

One thing i discover is that the dust is very powerful in PVG, just 3 days the whole place will be covered in dust and ur feet will be black from walking on it. No wonder they need to wear slippers at home... or .... get a maid to do constant cleaning........

The view from the unit is not bad... u get to see the 江。。the city and the estate landscaping..



The photos were taken early in the morning... so it is a little fog up...

haha... the layout seemed a bit funny ... but never mind la... can see can liao... so if u staying at intercon can walk over pay me a visit ..

see ya ;)