Come Away With Me...
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Inside the huge glass sphere of the Shanghai Science and Tech Museum 
 With regards from Solar Sojourner at 12:58 AM
Yang Liwei's spacecraft 
With regards from Solar Sojourner at 12:55 AM
I always knew it: blogger hates me to upload pictures. All my photos of WoW just wouldn't be uploaded onto blogger. Oh bother, see when its fixed... With regards from Solar Sojourner at 5:35 PM
Shaken, was the cup of tomato...ah...pleasure, as lips and tomata bits meet...Speed of sound by Coldplay was playing...looking out of the window, all there could be seen was a sea of stars and stars on the sea - boats, drifting in the South China Sea...... And so began the Window on the World OEP to Shanghai...Enjoying tomato juice, listening to music on demand, it couldn't get better...(except that functions worksheet bugging me to be done). The night took off on a bad note, but now everything was flying smoothly. Woke up to breakfast. Nice sliced potatoes, horrid bland omelette. Landing was smooth, weather was chilly. But it sure was refreshing coming back to a temperate region once more. Plane was parked at a remote stand, though not that remote either. Not complaining, its ok to walk on the tarmac once in a while. Cleared immigration, collected bags, and we were off for breakfast. Finally, after a heated (plastic) meal it was time for some real terra firma food! Congee, buns and dumplings! =p Shanghai Urban Planning Centre was the same as when I last went. Nothing new noticed except the PVG model. Walked around People's Square with my group. Next was the Science and Tech Museum, a gargantuan building that had a huge glass spere. Inside, it was really huge, too big for a museum, more suited to be a convention centre. It was fun, reading those panels on science in Chinese. Lol at least we didn't drift from theatre to theatre to sleep, unlike some others. The theory of relativity theatre was interesting, not just for the content, but more for the holographic effects. Really cool, if only we had such stuff here. The 4D theatre was boring. Already went through the whole works in Orlando. Its all over the place there - Universal Studios has a shrek show, Magic Kingdom has a Mickey Philhamagic show, MGM Studios had a muppets show, and even Epcot had a honey-i-shrunk-the-audience show. All, including this Shanghai lego one, had the usual water spray, soap suds, wind etc. $0.60 Magnum at the Museum...  That rounds up day 1. P.S. more pics coming up....soon. With regards from Solar Sojourner at 12:04 PM
 IB Shanghai Suzhou WoW 2006!!!Anticlockwise from left colum top : The great sphere of Shanghai Science and Technology Museum; 7-minuntes on the Shanghai Maglev; swanky Xintiandi; Jiang Zemin's calligraphy...now did he use Coca-Cola as ink? Hmmm ; Yellow hats at the incineration plant; MALEMAN toilet at Luzhi Water Town; The corridor of Suzhou Nanya hotel 8th floor as we stayed up for our last night...there was food, drink, music, dance...basically, FUN;Unplanned picnic on the bus...on the way to Pudong Airport we just grew hungry and brought out all kinds of tit-bits to share... And finally, one of our "healthy oil-less" meals which we couldnt have enough of -.- More pics soon! With regards from Solar Sojourner at 8:23 PM
MILOOOOOH!!! XD The next part of the trip was the coolest and warmest yet. It was a "holiday in a holiday" - a 5 day 4 night tour of north east USA. It is also on this trip, that I learnt that 1 tour bus is too small for 2 cool guys... Sunday morning 6.45, Auntie SY brought us to Flushing mainstreet for breakfast. Flushing is home to many Asians, and NY's 2nd Chinatown bears a resemblance to KL. And what better way to bridge the differences between NY and KL than to savour delectable Malaysian food. So that's what we did that morning. I had Nasi Lemak and MILO!!! Yeah MILO! XD And it was PIPING HOT MILO. Great way to begin a day. That warm brown liquid, upon contact with lips, recalled a feeling close to...oh nvm. It just tastes heavenly after such a long evasion from my tastebuds. From Flushing, a shuttle bus took us to NY's Manhattan Chinatown. We waited along the street for the bus. Then MD walked by... *MD, also referred to as red-head/DM/MP, is another cool dude...during the course of the tour the 2 cool dudes (quite uneccessarily and unanimously) entered into competition to raise(or lower, whichever you like) the temperatures... The wait wasn't too long, and we were off. The tour comprised of pan-Asiatic globetrotters. There were Singaporeans (us), Malaysians, Thais, Indonesians, Filipinos, Mainland Chinese and Chinese from Macau from Portugal. The tour guide, a Chinese green cardholder, had the talent (and lung capacity) to meticulously explain everything in English(unintelligible), Chinese (well and good) and Cantonese (which I unfortunately do not comprehend). Initially he also spoke in Thai for the benefit of the Thais, but stopped after a few sentences. Saks and the city We whizzed through Manhattan (passed Saks' sexy window displays - "SAKSY"), stopping midway at Rockafellar Centre for 15mins (getdownsnapsnapsnapgetbackon - you get the idea...), and arrived at the UN HQ, followed by Hudson River for our Circle Line Cruise. The semi-circle cruise took us round the southern tip of Manhattan and back. We passed many landmarks, like World Financial Centre, Ellis Island, Lady Liberty, NY Ferry Terminal (the most beautiful shed on the waterfront), passed under the BMW bridges (Brooklyn, Manhattan and W-something) and saw architecturally renowned pieces of NY's skyline, like the Empire State Building, the Woolsworth building, Chrysler building etc etc etc. Chill I alternated between the breezy upper deck, warm lower deck, and chilly bow. Of course, MD was at the cool bow for most of the journey, sitting on the railings for no apparant reason (possibility: posing). Maybe he was chilling in his short-sleeved wear (windbreaker tied around his waist for same reason as stated above). If he was chilling, he would have achieved his motive, for I later learnt from my father that he was shivering throughout his time there. Which was, almost the whole journey. The other guy whipped out his Timberland windbreaker and alternated between decks. Cooler than chilling on the bow in short-sleeves. We docked around 1pm, (lunch was on the ferry) and next headed for the Intrepid Air Sea Space musuem. Its like, that Oriental Greenboat "aircraft carrier". Only this is the real thing. A decommisioned US Navy aircraft carrier with tanks, planes and exhibits in the hull, and various aircrafts on the deck. But the main focus of my visit was the Concorde, the most sleek airliner ever created. I've seen it thrice (twice it was flying, once it was parked as it was grounded after the Paris crash), but I've never been so close to this beauty before. It's really the epitome of luxurious hops across the Atlantic. If only it lived long enough to see me across the Atlantic in style. Concrete Canyons   Back to the bus, on to the Empire State Building. We were supposed to come earlier but the NYC Marathon was on and the weather was not the best. After waiting in lines which snaked through this art deco masterpiece, we finally arrived at the lifts, taking us all the way to the observation deck. Just as we arrived, the evening sun cast the last rays of the day, giving a faint glow to Upper Manhattan. Mesmerizing! With lower Manhattan in the same direction as the sun, all we saw was the darkened rear view of the buildings. Nevertheless, I managed to identify the Flatiron building, Macy*s, Times Square, Metlife building, The Plaza Hotel...Chrysler building, the other art deco masterpiece of the city. Since I arrived, I've been revelling in all the architectural splendour of this city. Wandering through canyons and canyons of glass and concrete, one cannot help but marvel at such scale and attention to detail. Well at least I can't help it... Meeting our tour guide at street level, we then made our way to Wall Street. The buildings are so close, Wall Street must have been a no-brainer. But actually no, the city wall(or at that time, town wall) was here, thus the name. Looked and looked but never did I find that bronzed bull. Found out it was in the next street, between Wall Street and our final stop: Ground Zero. On the outside it's pretty much just a pit in the ground (construction for Freedom Tower has yet to begin) but it carries much meaning. Among others, it symbolises the thousands of lives lost, the brutality of 911, and war against terrorism... Freedom Tower, like a pheonix rise from the ashes, will dominate the skyline, being symbolically 1776 ft tall. Till it does, this place is a symbolic pit of reflection and contemplation and strength and so on and so forth. Just as the sky turned a deep blue hue, we bade farewell to the Big Apple (for now at least) and crossed over to New Jersey. Now, behind us was the dazzling skyline of NYC, ahead lay rows of lights of industrial New Jersey. Passing EWR, I saw SQ's majestic 345. Ahh if only I took this here... My sleep was cut short as the bus pulled into a commercial complex, where we had dinner at this Chinese-run buffet restaurant. Mad rush to maximise the cost of the dinner by consuming more. So ended up not having everything. Then onto the road and before I could fall asleep, we arrived at the Hiton Cherry Hill, not far from Philadelphia... With regards from Solar Sojourner at 6:02 PM
 What's a New York Minute?Upon arrival at New York JFK, we were whisked to our accomodations to experience New York. And what better way to experience the life of a New Yorker than to live with one! But no, unfortunately we weren't staying at one of those uppity up-scale high-end penthouses in the heart of Manhattan. In fact we weren't even staying in Manhattan. We were staying in the borough of Queens, at Flushing. We were staying at my mother's friend's house. Homely accomodations, I must say. We had a light seafood pasta lunch prepared by Auntie SY's brother, Uncle X. Made ourselves comfortable, unpacked, visited the nearby Target store. Then we were off to meet my cousins for dinner at Chinatown.   NYC's Chinatown is huge. The population of Chinese here is pretty big, so its natural that this city has a few Chinatowns, the one at Manhattan being the largest congregation of Chinese. Its so Chinese, like a section of Beijing transplanted here. The signs are mainly in Chinese, and so are the commodities and foodstuffs sold. They've got ready-to-go Chinese take-away, roast ducks and char siew hanging at the window, tantalizing the tastebuds of passers-by... And they even have durians sold here! In the cold though, it doesn't smell as strong as it does in the tropics. Hmm you know some time ago there was this DHL ad about this driver knowing his way around Beijing, passing through a street just before it was transformed into a pedestrian street? Picture that street. Well ok so its not as crowded. But it's pretty noisy. The lingua franca in this area is Cantonese, but one can sometimes hear Mandarin, Hokkien and English spoken too.So we arrived at the Vietnamese restaurant just in time and met my 3 cousins currently staying in New York. Two of them are studying design and fashion, while the oldest one is working for fashion firms. Slurping the last strands of our beef noodles, we left soon after as we were all suffering from jet lag.  This night I slept at the pull-out bed in the living room, and surprisingly rose at 6.30am even with jet lag. After our fill of a big American breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage and toast, we were off sightseeing. First stop was Union Square. So happened that on one Saturday every month, a "Farmer's Market" would be held here, and our visit happened to coincide with this event. It was a gathering of stalls selling organic produce from their upstate farms. It was a hive of activity, with stallholders hawking ham, greens, chillies, flowers, meats (bison and buffalo meat), syrup, fruits etc. In short it was like a smorgasbord of farm produce.     Lunch was boxed food from this organic store. Its a simple concept. Theres this large supermarket with a cooked-food section, one just takes a plastic lunch box, fills it up and weighs it, paying py the pound. To partake in this wholesome, healthy fare, we "lunched" at the 2nd floor or the store, overlooking Union Square. Great view of fall trees! By now, the market was emptier, and once again the square was filled with people enjoying that bit of green space. Helped that the weather wasn't cold, just comfortable; some people were even in shorts and shirts.Post-lunch had a schedule just as packed as the pre-lunch schedule. We hopped onto the subway, onward a few stops to Canal Street, one of Manhattan Chinatown's major streets. Wanted to get a pair of cheap Levis, but I sensed that it wasn't genuine and gave up the idea of getting Levis here completely. Not that I need one anyway. Tired, we then took a break at McDonald's Canal Street outlet. It's located at Chinatown, thus the sign is in Mandarin...unique huh...  Wow they sure charge alot more here for the fast food. The burgers cost the same figures here and Singapore, only difference is that you pay the amount in USD here. Later on, I learnt that pricing varies with location. The city-dwelling New Yorkers are more well to do and can afford to pay such prices. True enough, during a stop later in the tour in the middle of nowhere among mountains and forests, our Big Macs and soda cost much less. All of us were so lethargic, we just stoned at Macs, sipping sodas, licking lollies...when finally someone suggested we moved on to ward of this lethargy. Macy*s was our last stop today. Supposed to be the largest store in the world, though personally I had doubts. Harrods looked bigger. But then what I could see of Macy*s was only the storefront, not how far back the store stretched. We ventured in. The large cosmetics hall was full of people. Having no interest in purchasing or utilising any form of cosmetics at the moment, we went to the upper floors. This was when I encountered the cool wooden escalators of yesterday. Or rather, yester-century. Following this brief encounter of Macy*s (all we really did we go in, go up one level, then exit), we moved on to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. Finally, our first day of sightseeing in New York came to an end. What a relief to my untrained legs.   
With regards from Solar Sojourner at 8:29 PM
FRA - JFK:  The plane gently climbed. Below, I could distinguish roads and buildings, when suddenly there was a burst of fireworks, far far below. We must be over Malaysia by now, I thought. As I had 2 seats to myself, I made myself comfortable by putting my bag, amenity kits, pillows and blankets on the next chair. Supper arrived somewhat later than my expectations, so I could not sleep as yet, and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory instead. Johnny Depp’s quite good; I never thought he could portray Willy Wonka with such gaiety and exuberance. My choice for the meal was chicken in white wine sauce with accompanying salad in vinegrette sauce. Cannot find the menu as of publish time, but here is a photo of it anyway. After the meal, I drifted into sleep, but woke up 2 hours later. We were about to land in Frankfurt. Below is all that I managed to take of Frankfurt’s financial district, bright light of red, yellow, blue, green and orange. Such a colourful sight even though it was about 5am. Then we landed.   At Terminal 2 were planes from Qantas, MAS, BA, AF, KLM. But we were headed to Terminal 1, the older, lousier terminal, used mainly by Lufthansa. With 2 hours on our hands, we went hunting for the transit area. Poor signage initially left us heading in the wrong direction, but eventually we managed to find the transit area, a small, miserable gathering of shops. Fraport was really an eye-opener. I never knew an airport could be so grey, so gloomy, so unwelcoming, and so dreary.   Did some planes spotting on the way:      As you can see, this terminal is also filled with planes from and to North America. Maybe that’s the reason why SQ has to use this terminal and let it’s passengers endure the crumbling hallways. Sigh, one day, hopefully, I’ll be able to use the United Red Carpet lounge when I transit here.  I do not know why, but as with some airports, the aerobridge had an advertisement for a bank. Pudong and Heathrow’s aerobridges seem to be sponsored by HSBC, Dubai’s by their local bank.The gate was now filled with passengers, a small number originating from Singapore. Like the flight from Singapore, passengers consisted mainly of Germans. There were just a few Singaporeans.   At this point, I realised that this portion of Terminal 1 newer gates. At least they put us SQ passengers up in a lounge more worthy of the airline.  I love the way the winglet of SQ is of similar colour to the tail of Lufthansa in this picture We boarded the aircraft, and after a brief taxi to the runway, we were off.    The galley proudly presents, your breakfast...  Herbed potato cubes, bacon, omelette rolled with spinach, yoghurt, muffin, a bread roll and fruits were my choice. SQ always delivers scrumptious meals on its flights even when it isn’t catered by SATS. As we flew near the tip of Greenland, those were what I supposed to be icebergs. I hope I was right. Meal 2 was pork and carrots and some German starchy strips of dunnowad. The pork was good, but not the dunnowad.  Watched Bewitched and War of the Worlds. And listened to music. Then I realised they were showing America's Sweethearts, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones!! I was more than happy to watch it, although we landed an hour into the movie and I had to stop.  Flew past Newark while descending. However due to busy air and ground traffic, we flew quite far out into the Atlantic, off the coast of Long Island, before finally landing at JFK.     The gates were empty except for a South African 340. In fact there wasn’t much traffic I perceived. Quiet morning at JFK T4, later as I found as we proceeded to the arrival hall. Took this picture, then the next moment I was greeted by a sign implying that photography was prohibited, so I could not photograph our beautiful SQ 744, which was parked at the gate nearest to the arrival hall. The arrival hall was the most efficient I’ve ever seen, in terms of getting arriving passengers into the various immigration counters. The arrival hall was also the most brightly lit and fuss-free I’ve encountered. On all my travels to at least a dozen airports, this was the only arrival hall that had a view of the tarmac. An impressive hall closely replicated in Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal (the one in the movie had more concrete, less glass), it allowed me to witness an SQ 747 MegaArk freighter land in the distance. After each of us had our fingerprints scanned and had our iris photographed, we cleared customs. The details of the baggage claim hall were elaborate, and together with the slightly dimmed lighting, created a warm atmosphere. Then we went to the passenger pick-up point, where our driver was awaiting us. I couldn’t resist this shot of the gorgeous arrival building. 
With regards from Solar Sojourner at 6:00 PM
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