Choo Choo Train

Day 39 14th Oct 2009 Wednesday

With the attachment coming to an end, the next two days is rest and relax for us in Beijing. to reach there, we guys got to take the long train journey to Tianjin first. Thereafter, we have to take the bullet train to Beijing in half an hour time.

That's Edward and CY trying to climb over the over loaded bus to get to the available seats at the back of the bus. The bus was so heavy that it could hardly go up the ramp for the first few times.

Off we go. Taking the last ride in the Bus that fetch us from the company daily.

So the 23 hrs and 30 mins ride of train ride from Jiamusi to Beijing begins.

That's Edward and Haziq competing against each other for the DJ Max
Some sceneries looking out from the train's window.






Snickers Bar.. my all time favorite!
One long and thin, the other one short and fat. actually, their 'volume' is the same.

Me with my allocated train bed =)

At regular time interval, you will see the 乘务员pushing a cart full of either tidbits/snacks or packets of 便当along the train corridor, selling to passengers like us.

I was practically sleeping during the whole of the train ride. First time after 7-8 years that hui yin slept from 7pm to 8am. quite a big achievement for me. hahas.. for the whole of this trip, hardly get to sleep early cause of the daily admin work. was actually very tired plus not much entertainment in the long train ride. what's more, tml will be touring around Beijing, so i tried to get more rest.养足精神先！

Bye Bye Jiamusi

Day 38 13^th Oct 2009 Tuesday

Slept all the way to 11.30am today. 睡到饱饱！hahas.. actually did not sleep till 11.30am, it was because I was awaken twice by the ringing of my mobile phone. Hahas.. piggy hui yin you might say. Changed and grabbed my brunch at the usual restaurant. Thereafter, the group of us went to “大商城”again.

It is actually a very big provisional market selling all kinds of cheap stuff. Decided to get another duffel bag for checking in. hahas… heard frm mum that my cousin brought back 3 luggages when he returned last week after spending 6 wks in china for attachment. Hope that I would not break his record. Hahas.

Decided to take the photos of the Jiamusi street. Usually their sun start to set at 4pm..by 5pm the sky turns dark.

Thereafter, we stop at the 大润发supermarket to buy our food and drink for the 20 plus hour train ride tomorrow.

Below is the locker that locals have to put their big bags before entering the supermarket. This is to prevent theft. I had a very unpleasant incident with this locker, so never will I use them again. Hahas.. it is actually an automated locker, free of charge. Just place ur bag in one of the lockers available and take a receipt that is generated by the machine. To claim the bag, just scan the bar code on the paper receipt and you can retrieve your bag. But should you lost the paper, good game! Hahas.

This is our last dinner at 三国饭店。 Delicious last meal!

Went to holiland to buy bread for the train ride. See the amount of bread that I bought! Hahas… we also took photo with the staff there. This bread is like our so called bread talk that we see in SG.

Off to the 20+ hours of train ride! =D Beijing here I come. Jiamusi Bye bye! Will miss you (Jiamusi) lots. I really enjoyed myself for the 5 weeks here.

Time To Say Goodbye

Day 37 12^th Oct 2009 Monday

It’s time to say Goodbye

5 weeks of training.. 说短不短，长也不长，就在今天告一段落了。In the morning, we had a quick revision with our instructors and we attempted the mcq test after that. Must say that everyone did well. Hahas

Benny, Edward and I stayed back after work to help 张instructor to with the marking of the logbooks while the rest went back to hotel first. Look at how concentrated our 张instructor was in grading our book.(post the photo of our instructor marking)Little did we know that our instructor brought us to the hangar to play around with the different aircrafts! They even specially open the cockpit of different planes for us to go in and take photos. Very nice of them! 高instructor was teaching us about the various function of the buttons inside the cockpit. Super shiokness.. the three of us took photo with four of the aircrafts there. The weird shape aircraft, called the 蜻蜓(five was manufactured in 1985)was the one and only aircraft left in the world.

This is the dragonfly aircraft.

China’s Public Bus

As our group bus had already left without us, the police staff kindly gave us a ride in their police van to the main street to take the public transport.

Cool right? Hahas… once we alighted at the main street, a bus just arrived at the bus stop. We were shocked when our instructor asked us to hop into their public bus as we wanted to cab back to our hotel initially. Anyway, I was very keen on that as I wanted to their out their various public transport right from the first week le. Hahas. Each ride cost 1 RMB per person and our instructor kindly paid for all of us. We took a half hour journey to 新玛特shopping mall and accompanied our instructor to go to one of the local home to collect his stuff. Again, another brand new experience. Learnt to appreciate my comfy HDB block after entering their china HDB block. On the way home, I decided to purchase a street side popcorn but my instructor paid for it instead. He is a very amiable person and very treat students like us very well =)

Coincident

Found out from Shu Yuan that ah ma is returning on the same day as me. Hope she is doing fine for her attachment in China.

Whee.. had to start packing my luggage le wor! Hahas… got a 10.15am train to catch on this coming Wednesday, journey itself will be ard 20+ hrs and will be stopping at Tianjin first, after which, we’ll catch another train from Tianjin to reach Beijing in 30mins-1hr time. Off, I pack! =D

Good Sleep

Day 36 11^th Oct 2009 Sunday

Finally I get to sleep until 11am! Woke up with a heavy head cause yesterday was rushing to type out notes till the early morning. As 12pm was our lunch, I woke up to brush my teeth, only to find out that there was no hot water! Haiz..when will the hot water tank be fully maintained? Weather here is no doubt getting colder.. sometimes it can get to be as cold as minus 2 deg. Guess my chubby brother would love this kind of weather. =P right, bro?

Then it was shopping around the same area again. Didn’t manage to see any special stuff and I’ve also decided to start saving for my Beijing trip.

Took photos with the supermarket we guys hang around for the past 5 weeks to purchase our daily necessities.

And not forgetting to try out the street side smelly toufu aka 臭豆腐。Still, I prefer Taiwan臭豆腐！hehe.

Walked around the supermarket and we happen to walk into the place where their local people live in. decided to took some snaps as memory =)

And not forgetting to snap down the shopping mall that we often hang out in! =D

Dinner time we went back alley to have our meal. The very same restaurant we tried out during our first week here. Then after, we went to 面中王to have our second round. Hahas.. again another sinful meal, but I guess we enjoyed ourselves =D

Spot the Difference

Can you guys spot it? =D

Last Weekend

Day35 10^th Oct 2009 Sat

It’s really shop till you drop

This weekend shall be the last weekend we will spend in Jiamusi. Besides the farewell dinner on tomorrow night, it is all free and easy for us. As usual, in weekend, most of us sleep till 10 am or even 12 am and then we went to the usual restaurant to take our lunch. Soon after, we walk to the shopping mall and did some last minute shopping. Cause on Wednesday morning, all of us will be catching the 10.15am train to Beijing. The journey itself will be 23 to 24 hours. Hope I’ll be able to get sufficient rest so that when we reach Beijing, I’ll still have the energy to join in the tour group to visit around Beijing =S hahas.

KFC

The initial plan for today’s dinner is at a Japanese restaurant, but when we reach there at 7pm, the restaurant is already closed sia! Quite disappointed. The only available restaurant for us is fastfood restaurant. We split into two group as some of us wanna eat KFC, some Macdutch. Decided to join the group for KFC. Tried out their 新出炉red bean egg tarts. Yummy! Each of the red beans embedded inside the egg tarts are covered with some jelly like substance. Very chewy, taste just like the bubble tea pearls.

What is the Temperature now?

Having stayed here for 5 weeks already, I realized I have this habit of checking the current and the next day weather. Have to know the weather in order to dress correctly so I won’t be shivering when I’m out in the street. Happened to see Singapore weather while checking Jiamusi weather. I’m starting to miss my Sunny homeland! There’s not a need to check the temperature in SG every now and then. And after experimenting with the cold weather here, I’ve grown to appreciate SG sunny and its small temperature range.

Water Is Precious

Day 34 9^th Oct Fri

No Water At all

Thinking that no hot water is already very bad here already, woke up wanna brush my teeth with the cold water. But then, there was only a few drip of cold water coming out from the tap when I opened it. Yup, knew there was no water this time! No choice, boil water to brush teeth and wash face.

Snap Snap！

Last official day in the company! We went around the hangar, climbed onto the aircraft wings to take photos. Very rare chance that we’ll get this chance to do so in Singapore.

It’s a lucky day for me too! When I went back to get my notebook which I had left in the hangar after lunch, we saw this group of aero engineers crowding around this favorite aircraft of mine. Still remember which one? Hehe… it’s the diamond aircraft! Edward managed to seek permission from them to climb into this aircraft after lots of hesitation. It a super rare opportunity! Took photo with this cool aircraft. you can actually smell the ‘newness’ of this aircraft when you climb in. =D all thanks to this notebook of mine that we managed to chance upon this rare opportunity unintentionally. =D

Yummy!

Dinner is on our deputy principal and director! Went to this more high class restaurant for dinner. Each table is served with 10 over dishes and it is all very sumptuous!

After the meal, Benny, the leader of this group dished out this super hot chicken, called 变态鸡翅 for the deputy principal and director as well as the tour agents. So called plan to sabo them as this chicken is really really spicy. The expressions written on their face is really classic. Hahas.. then after one of the agent explained to us the meaning of 变态鸡翅。 The people here gave this spicy chicken this name is because that usually when people eat this, their expression will be that ‘oh my goodness, it’s spicy!’ but after swallowing the first bite, they will laugh over the ‘hot’ feeling. The cycle continues as people continue to eat this spicy chicken. So it is like people donno whether to laugh or cry over the superb spicy wings and that’s how the wings got its name,变态鸡翅。

Appreciation Day

Day 33 8^th Oct Thurs

Photo Taking with Instructor 高伟

The whole group of us had planned a small gift of appreciation for our two instructors towards the last day of our attachment. However, only one of our instructors is around so we took the photo with him first. He is a very approachable instructor and is always very willing to answer our question no matter how silly our questions may be at times. He is also a very loving father who will bring his family to his workplace at times.

Last Day Of the Great China sales

Today marks the end of one week great china sales in view of the china’s 60^th birthday.

Being a typical Singaporean, I went with some of the people in our group to do some last minute shopping, hoping to buy the stuff that I wanted to at a discount price. their discounted price is really a lot sia! It can reach to half of the original price even though that item is new. You see, how grand is this 60^th anniversary for China! =D hahas.

面中王

Decided to try out the back alley restaurant instead of going to the same restaurant that the company assigned for us.

We went to try out this restaurant called “noodle king” (direct translation from the Chinese shop name) after recommendation from those who have went there.

I guess it lived up to its restaurant name. at the price of 4 yuan, which is Singapore 80 cents, you will receive a big serving of noodles! Ordered their brinjal minced meat noodle as the mushroom minced meat noodle that I wanted to order originally was unavailable due to shortage of mushroom. Lol! Other than that small disappointment, I find it cheap and filling to eat there!

Meeting

Our school deputy principal and director had kindly travelled all the way from SG to Jiamusi to visit the whole group. The group had a hearty talk with them and they took down several feedbacks that we had with regard to this attachment since it is coming to an end soon. Really appreciate that they took the effort to travel all the way down here just to visit us =) Thank You! =D

No Hot Water

After meeting with the deputy director and principle, it was nearing 12am already. Rushed all the way back to my hotel room wanting to use the hot water to bathe but only to be informed that there was no more hot water till tomorrow night! This was the second time that the hotel’s hot water system having problem. No choice, so every room boiled their hotel to help provide hot water for those who want to bathe. It is simply too cold now in Jiamusi to bathe using only cold water. It may drop to as low as 3 deg at night. Oh ya, am starting to wear my thermal wear whenever we go out le. Hahas.

THE Control Tower

Day 32 7^th Oct 2009 Wed

Control Tower

This is truly my very first time (and hopefully more in the future =X) to enter a control tower. It is a very simple control tower with a desktop, weather report screen, VHF and HF machines.

We took photos with the control staff members who have been working there for years and are very experienced. It was cool seeing how they work, how they communicate with pilots who are preparing to take off or touchdown. I so love to see the planes landing! They look so graceful when they are landing. What’s more, I get to see all these from a control tower. It is simply magnificent! =D

Of course, not forgetting to take a ‘few’ of snaps up in the control tower!

The Great China Sales

As China is celebrating its 60^th birthday for a week, many shopping malls are having discounts. For the past few days, my group will always ask our bus uncle to drop us at the shopping mall area after work and shop till dinner time. I guess this will last till tomorrow as tomorrow marks the end of one week of national day celebration.

China Breakfast

Day 31 6^th Oct 2009 Tuesday

Short changed

Woke up to join the few of them for breakfast. Simple breakfast actually with just ‘you tiao’and milk. I actually love this kind of breakfast but then for each of us having a budget of 10RMB, I think the hotel are earning a lot for breakfast. Many of them just tolerated because we’re left with one more week to go in this hotel. I think majority are not used to their morning breakfast here and the chef here also don’t really understand what Singaporeans usually take for breakfast.

China people in Jiamusi-Porridge with salty side dishes

Singaporean-Bread/milk/prata/mee

Hahas… I’m starting to miss SG food.

Arigato =)

Day 30 5^th Oct 2009 Mon

Thank You

Benny’s Class aka his class held a mini celebration for the leaders of this group today. It was very nice of his class and really an encouragement for us especially for what has happened. Hopefully, Benny will be able to pick himself up and be a better leader.

Got sabo-ed to use my mouth and pick up the candle from the cake. Well, there’s a deeper intention behind for doing this if you understand. Hahas.. but they gave me face, didn’t sabo-ed me. Next was Benny, luckily he is strong enough to resist their push.

Ah well, can’t escape from their plot in the end.

MacTuch?

Day 29 4^th Oct 2009 Sun

Work on A Sabbath

Went back to company after three days of fun and rest. Continued to learn a lot about Flight Management Control System as it is a very big topic in aero electronics. Afternoon was more on like AEF, where we learn about the electromagnetic system and how it helped produce electricity in the aircraft.

MACTUCH’S

That’s the fast food name.. it’s logo look almost like Macdonald. If we are not aware, we might take it as macdonald by looking at it’s logo from afar.

The whole group of us decided to go to this fast food restaurant to have our dinner instead of eating at the same restaurant that the agent arranged for us.

The food there is really yummy and it didn’t sell exactly what I initially thought is some fake macdonald alike meal. They even sell rice there besides the burgers! I ordered a set of shrimp burger meal

price of the set meals there are rather expensive. For the set that I ordered, it cost RMB 48 dollars. Oh ya, a soft toy will be given with each set meal ordered.

almost everyone who ordered the set meal gave Dawn as she is a real hard core soft toy lover. Just see the number of soft toys we gave here!

there’s actually more than what you are actually seeing in this photo. Hahas. The restaurant is really crowded, and for most of the people dining there you can actually see them holding on to one soft toy at least. Think the soft toy may be the factor attracting so many people going to this restaurant to dine.

中秋节 =)

Day 28 3^rd Oct 2009 Sat

Moon cake Festival

Another off day for us! Today is really sleep till song! My oversleeping habit is getting worse! I’m actually bringing it out with me in this foreign land. Probably after staying here for almost a month, I’ve made this hotel like my own home. But not as comfy as my own SG home and there were actually times when I dreamt of my bedroom in SG.Anw, things are not that bad as I got to skype with my family members.

My room mate and I were being waken up by loud banging on the door by Terrence. We thought that something had happened sia! But they had actually ‘ta bao’ our breakfast to our door step. So yup, forgave them for waking us up (though I have to admit that we had overslept for an hour!). Morning was moon cake with egg!

I’m so in love with the moon cake. It is something that we can’t get in SG or it is rarely sell in SG bah. The mooncake’s filling was made up of berries, raisins, 莲蓉, 芝麻。

however, majority of my group actually don’t like it as they find it too sweet for them. Oh man, I certainly have sweet teeth. Hahas.

Where Can I Buy Kite?

As the four girls wanted to fly kite today at the lake side, the whole group agreed to go to the nearby market to buy kites. The whole group of us cab down to the market. I guess we really cab a lot here since the price here is very very cheap compared to SG. Usually it will take us less than sing dollar 1.50 to travel in this town. The market is actually a wholesale market so the prices of the goods they are selling are rather cheap. In the end, we shop for our own things instead of buying kite until one of them reminded us of our main objective here. The area was rather big but only one out of the two level market sells kites. What’s more, they only have two big kites left. In the end, we decided to call of the kite flying activity =( hopefully we’ll be able to buy kite and fly it at the lake side before we leave next week.

China’s Seoul Garden

As the local view moon cake festival as a very important event, we were informed that today’s dinner would be buffet style. The food taste great and the lady boss is very friendly, will try to go there again. They offer a great variety of meats and we were supposed to barbeque it with the spices offer to us. It was 20 RMB per person and there is actually a time limit which was 2 hours. However, the lady boss allowed us to stay longer than that, which is very kind of her =D

I shan’t say more, will let the photos do the talking here. Hehe.

Moon cakes

Thought of a year ago when chris, jon and I met up to celebrate moon cake festival in yishun park last year and jon was scammed by the vendor of the very high price lanterns and spoilt lighter. Miss eating moon cake in my small little cosy SG home with my family.

But, on the whole, it is still an unforgettable one celebrating in china and observing how the china people celebrate this festival. Saw the round moon at night, hope you guys saw it too =)

Our teachers were very kind enough to buy one moon cake for each of us. Took the strawberry flavor as my room mate doesn’t like strawberries. See the word “草莓” on the mooncake? Hahas.

Having see the hotel staff members still working instead of spending time with their loved ones, we decided to cab down to the supermarket and buy mooncakes for each of them. Goodness! We came at the right time! As today is their moon cake festival, the supermarket is trying to sell of all their moon cake at a very cheap price and also with the ‘buy one get one free’ promotion. Really saved a lot of money for us! Hahas. Bought this box of mooncake without egg yolk and we received one box of mooncake with yolk for free! Hahas.. plus the box of mooncake we bought is already at a discounted price! hahas… just look at their nice packaging! Hahas.

Last but not least…

中秋节快乐！

Poor Doggie =(

Day 27 2^nd Oct 2009 Fri

Wet Market

Woke up at 6am today as a few of us have arranged to meet up with our employer at 7am to go to the local wet market to look at some local products. The china’s wet market format is about the same as Cambodia’s, just that there are fewer houseflies buzzing around the China’s stalls that sell raw meats as the weather in the morning is simply too cold. We aroused the curious eyes of the local stall owners and some china wet market shoppers as we travelled in Big group with our employer. Some even start to join in our group when our employer stops by to introduce to us the local products. Okie, so what are some of their local products as you might start wondering now. Hahas.. basically they are Jew’s Ears aka黑木耳, honey, ginseng and鹿茸. Actually he was showing to some of us these local products and we are suppose to share it with the whole group and collate the number of people who want to buy back these products to SG, then he’ll kindly help us purchase at one go.

I was horrified when we pass by one stall that sells raw dog meats with its different parts. I’ll never ever think of eating it after seeing that scene, especially the dog head though I’m not really a fan of dog. It is just so cruel! Probably I’ve never seen raw dog meat but yes, don’t ever think of trying to ask me to eat dog meat anymore. My stand is very clear after seeing that scene. Poor doggie.

What A Day =)

Day 26 1^st Oct 2009 Thursday

Classic.. Unforgettable..

Knowing that today is a public holiday in China, which also mean no work for us so most of us stayed up late yesterday night. Actually we heard of having dumplings as breakfast today but everyone is so tired that actually none of us are up at even 8am. 8 am is the time we are suppose to go down for breakfast everyday. Actually among our group, I was one of those who slept early as I want to wake up for the breakfast. But then as the three alarm rang consecutively, I snooze all three. Hahas.. rang at 7am but when I manage to look at the time again, it was eight already. This was then I decided to go back sleep as it was too late to go down for the dumpling breakfast. Just as my head hit the pillow, the hotel phone in our room rang, this time waking up my room mate too. so I picked up the call.. I thought it was one of our group member giving morning call sia. It was actually from the reception, calling everyone’s room to inform us of the dumplings and to come down asap as they are afraid it might get cold and becomes very hard to be edible. This call really woke me up and I went round knocking to inform them. So we just simply brushed our teeth, wearing our ‘pyjamas’ suit and went down to have our breakfast. Little did we know that the hotel staff all lined up at the restaurant welcoming us. Was feeling rather bad as we were all late and all were dressed up sloppily. Supposed to be a very special day for them as it is their country national day, but they are very willing to share this joyous occasion with us. The next thing shocked all of us again. On the table, are eight plates of dumplings, each plate has about 20 dumplings, all having the same fillings inside. We don’t know to laugh or cry. Laugh is because the whole table is so filled with dumplings, cry is we have to finish them all. Later we were told the eight dishes of dumplings is something to do with their national day. The table only has dumplings and dumpling and nothing else, not even any drinks on the table. We wanna take a picture of it but none of us brought down camera as everyone was rushing to come down after receiving the call.

Now my stomach is so filled with dumplings! Hahas.

Happy Birthday China!

China turns 60 today! was watching the parade live on TV and I really like their parade march past! Their manpower as you know is really a lot but their drills are all very smart and neat! I’m sure they must have spent a lot of effort to practice it. Their contingent is really a lot! An hour before I leave my hotel for lunch, they were still marching and I believe there were many other contingents coming up behind. So you can imagine how many contingents they actually have! By the way, their parade march past starts in the morning.

Did I mention that today actually marks the first day of the one week holiday in china? Yes, one week off for the local people due to china’s birthday. Shiok right? Hahas… so for today and tomorrow we were given ‘off’ days but it will all be make-up by the company by going back to work on Sundays.

Spent the whole day in the shopping malls and many of us are resisting the temptation on splurging. Shopped from 1pm to 5pm straight! Hahas.

After dinner we decided to take a stroll at the lakeside again. When we reached the parade square, we heard loud music and saw big human circle doing simple exercises. Very cute though and we decided to join in the fun. Light exercises after dinner! Hahas..

Then we walked further down and see how people set up the fireworks. Rare opportunity that we can get so near to the fireworks. However, after one of our group member kana the sparks from the firework that drop down from the sky, all of us shunned for safety. Can’t afford to have more casualties after what has happened. Wanted to buy 孔明灯de, but then the place was so crowded so majority of the group decided against it. Took some photos of the 孔明灯in the sky. The small orange spots are the lanterns floating in the sky.

And not forgetting to take some group photos taken at the lake side! Hahas!

Unforgettable day! =D