THLIN's VirtualTourist Home Page

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I had a great day in Hong Kong... Enjoy the sunshine and sea wind. What a great summer solstice .

The last word of my Chinese name is Hsiang (Xiang) meaning flying; therefore, I usually and proudly tell my friends that I am doomed to fly!!! I now work for a Taiwanese manufacturing company in ShenZhen, China. My work really gives me a chance of travelling more and more. I have to fly from my home Taipei and station in China. Also, there are many lovely cities in GuanDong Province, from Pearl of the East - Hong Kong to GuangZhou the city of the white goat. Haikou, China's Hawaii is just one and half hour away on airplane.
My current destination is HaiKou, departing within three months; GuangZhou, I can leave when I know how to take a local bus; Hong Kong, well, to be honest, I will go more often than the past of my life.
My life now is working first, travel;ing second; however, follow my Sunday travel and embrace South China.

Previous collection...

Thanks to my company, who just dispatched 1 iMac to each of our room as daily equipment. Now I have an iPod classic 20G, iPod Nano, iPhone, MacBook 13', and iMac 24' in my room. A real APPLE fan now.

Lucky April, I got a chance to visit Xiamen and Yogyakarta. Since I can foresee my fate in May, June and July, I decided to maximise my enjoyment before life becomes torturous, loading with endless job duties. Now I am back to Shenzhen and leading a abstemious life. For, I want to splurge after my busy busy summer is over.

I am really amazed by how comfortable to be in Xiamen. We share the same language, food, and even the accent when it comes to Mandarin.

Family dinner @ Fomorsa Hotel, Taipei...

I am now starting to prepare my dinner since I find it is TOO unhealthy to eat street food in the remote place in China. Any good receipt are more than welcome to share...

The holidays always ended up faster than you expected to. I had come back to Shenzhen and worked for two days already. I still cannot forget how wonderful my trip was. The photo was taken at the island in the
middle of West Lake in Hangzhou. I was really glad I made it there.

I have been longing to go to Shanghai for a while. Thanks to CNY holidays and my beloved boss who decided to give us three days off. Now I am on my way to the Paris in the East - Shanghai. This photo was taken in my room, displaying all my luggage and how much I wear!!! Bon Voyage~~

Having a great meal in Hong Kong is the happiest thing in my life now. I went to Sweet Dynasty last Sunday. I have delicious Roasted Duck Rice and Tofu Soup. It was the best meal of the week.

Chinese New Year is around the corner. This is the most important festival in Chinese culture, and I am going to celebrate alone in Shanghai. Well, I had a great trip in Hong Kong and was glad to see the splendid decoration at Habour City... This actually reminded me of Beijing Purple Forbidden Garden.

Finally I made a trip to Guangzhou, provincial capital of Guangdong. I love this place a lot despite the fact that people here not really speak Mandarin. Please visit my Guangzhou page for more detail.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I did some shopping in Hong Kong for myself. It was a very happy shopping trip. I bought the most expensive single item that I have ever bought, MacBook 13. Now I am happily using my new trophy to update this paragraph. Oh, I also bought a Starbucks China Mug, which is now in my office. Next trip will be 2009 Jan 1st to Guangzhou. Looking forward to it now!!!

Dim Sum Dollies - the History of Singapore is the second show that I watched in Esplanade. I really enjoy the story and the roles. Selena Tan (first from the left) is one of my favourite performers in the world. I became to know her from her movie I, Not Stupid. She was Terry Khoo's mother. Funnily, Wendy happens to be Terry's teacher in the real life. What a small world.
The show introduces Singapore in a various way, from her story, culture, government to Singapore Airlines. Sometimes we wrongly considered Singaporeans in quite a few aspects; well, this show can certainly give you a new opinion about this city-state and her people. I like this place so much, hopefully one day I can be part of them.

In the tear end, when people have more money on hand; for the Westerners the Christmas; for the Chinese, Chinese Lunar New Year. I have travlled very often in year 2008. Below is the summary for my travel, but all data shown excludes Hong Kong, where I go there just to buy daily kits.

Feb: Singapore & Bali
May: Singapore
Aug: Taroko Gorge, Taiwan
Sep: Singapore
Oct: Singapore
Nov: Singapore, Macau, Zhuhai

--------2009--------

Jan: Guangzhou
Jan: Shanghai
Feb: Taipei, Singapore
April: Xiamen, Singapore, Yogyakarta

My next few trips will be in January and February 2009.
I am going to Shanghai in January; and Singapore in February.

Archive

Fanatics to Starbucks... Now I start to collect Starbucks City Mugs. So far I have 4 mugs, Shanghai, Macau, Hong Kong, Shenzhen. I took my Macau Mug to my office for daily usage; meanwhile, I am using Shanghai mug in my room. Now I am planning to get a Guangzhou, Dongguang Mug as soon as I have a chance to go visit.

A very short trip to Macau, standing in front of Ruins of St. Paul's, one of the most important landmarks in Macau.

The photo was taken from my window. It's sad that I see nothing much but ugly scene from my window. Inside my roon, it's a little kingdom situating in the middle of dirty industrial area. I have no complaint about this room, but as for the scene outside, I have NO comment.

Yes, I am on home leave now... This "HOME" represents two islands, one is Taiwan and the other is Singapore. Somehow, the picture was taken in Hong Kong Int'l Airport. I saw an old friend who reminds me of my school life. I have only showed up at HKIA after mid-night for flying to Johannesburg. This was the very first time I showed up here in order to catch my flight to Taipei. Yes, I do miss the Rainbow Nation a lot.

It started as a random talk with my colleague. We were looking for a restaurant in Shenzhen. Somehow, we found it was much more easier to find a decent American restaurant in Hong Kong, so we decided to go to Hong Kong once we left our office. We managed to leave our office at 15:30PM and we reached boundry before 17:30PM. Our destination is Dan Ryan's at Habour City, a genuine American Style restaurant. WHAT A GREAT EXPERIENCE!!!

Congrats to my coklleagues Suuny and her hobby. My first-ever RED-BOMB ever since I've started working.

I took my thrid leave during the "Golden Week" period. I spent two half days in Taiwan with my family and friends; the rest four days, I went to Singapore instead. It's not really a good time to visit since it rains so often that more than 70% of time during my stay were raining. Well, luckily, I am not a tourist to seek sunshine in the lovely tropical island. =)

I was told that there are three stages for all expats during their exotic life: Exciting, Depressing, and Adapting. I think currently I have come to my depressing period, I miss my Taipei badly even though I hang out with a lot of Taipeians every day. I post this picture as my display photo just want to remind me that Taipei is not far away from where I am now...

Yes, I took two days and two nights trip back to my second home Singapore and had wonderful holiday. The main charactor in this picture in NOT me but little photo in the back. I was sitting on a chair which was widely used in early years in Singapore for street barbers. They also provided ear-digging service; thus I took this shot... Haha

Yes, this section is reserved for my beloved Mom, Dad, and my sister, who are always be my support no matter what. Thank you and love you forever even we are far apart...

Allen and Senic are my best friends. I now work in China, they both remain in Taiwan currently. This June they flew over to Hong Kong, they wanted to have a holiday after working for three quarters of a year (Allen); take a break before starting to work (Senic). Thanks to these to persons, who always allow me to complain about my life and work whenever I want and give me guide when I am lost. The one in the left is HY, he is also a very close friend of mine. I want to thank three of them for coming over to visit me, even if I can only met them for a few hours.
Four of us are from National Taiwan University International Business Department. HS works in a website company, Allen is in MR industry, I work as a factory worker in China, and Senic work as a sales. I am gald that all of us have found our next step of life.

What do you think of when it comes to Singapore? MM LKY? Merlion? Hainanese Chicken Rice? If you ever ask me this question, I would tell you my second home. I love my own city - Taipei; however, Singapore is my second home town already. Not only because of city itself, but also the people I met here indeed. I happen to b LUCKY enough that I meet my love here, from relationship, food, language, weather to convenince.

Now I am living in China; the longer I stay in this place, the more different I feel between mainlanders and Taiwanese.

There are few things I am often asked during my travel:
1. Taiwan, oh, do you live in Bangkok? (For a Non-Asia based foreigner)
2. Do you worry that China attacks you? (Know more or less about issye over Taiwan strait)
3. Do you speak English? (Coz most Taiwanese don't speak English)
4. Do you regard yourself a Taiwanese or Chinese? (Very tricky one, don't get me started, coz I can never end up.)
5. Can you go to China? (Quite often...asked) And now I live and work in China...

If you want to ask me more about Taiwan, it is always welcome. But my answer is my own opinion and cannot represent all of my fellas.

As I said in the former paragraph, I now move to Shenzhen working for the largest factory in the world Foxconn. I wanted to be a businessman when I was a kid; somehow, I chose another road for my career. I define myself as a blue-colar factory worker.
Although I work in China, but I feel that I am living in a special group, in the day, I work with Chinese and Taiwanese, but once office hour is over, I return to my little Taiwanese community in ShenZhen. I take it as normal, since I know a lot of "expat" working overseas tend to tighten up relationship with each other.
On Sundays, I like to spend my time in Hong Kong, a place where I can get some civilisation. In my company, everyone seems to have one weird habit that can compensate his hard-working during the week days and Saturday.
Like my roommates' boss, his like to go to Macau to splurg on casino; while some of my colleagues like to Sing in "KTV" and enjoy their time there. Mine is to go to Hong Kong, even though I am really tired.