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Monday, 10 December 2007

Day 1 of Hokkaido Trip ~ Sapporo
(October 3~11, 2007)
Yeah!! Finally came to the day of departure!!! We took the early flight at about 9 so needs to wake up real early in the morning to get to the airport. We took the direct flight to Sapporo and we reached there at 4pm, we took the JR train to Sapporo. The first thing of course is to check in to our hotel ~ Toyoko Inn. To be very honest, I'm very worried before I reached because all the reservation I did on-line does not require us to pay any deposit! This makes me a bit worried that whether our reservation is confirmed or not. When we checked in and noted the rooms are reserved, I'm reliefed...keke...(I really worried about this for a few days before our trip ga!)
This is our hotel room in Toyoko Inn! Though small but clean and cheap!
After we have settled down, it is about 5 plus. Since we were to meet David at the hotel at around 8:30, we still have time so we decided to shop around in the nearby malls. At first we have thought of waiting for Dave to have our Ramen dinner, but when we are walking around, we have decided to have our first round of Ramen. So we went to 扎幌拉面共和国. We got very excited there with so many Ramen shops to choose and the deco there. At last, we picked the one with queue. The noodle is nice ah! I like it!
This is the entrance of 扎幌拉面共和国. Yum yum, noodles are waiting for us!! Yeah!!
Look at SDB Ivy!!! Her small heads really fit the prop there!

Yum Yum Yum Yum...扎幌拉面係唔同D
We are very satisfied after having the Ramen and we continue our shopping in Stella Place...wow!! All the brand that I like! But quite expensive though, so just go 'look see look see' only lor...haha. By 8:30pm, we went back to hotel to meet SDB Ling. Wah, he looks terribily tired since he has not been sleeping for the entire 9 hours flight from Vancouver to Japan!!
Yo, SDB Ling, we have come to rescue! He has been waiting for us in the lobby while we were shopping...hahahaha..poor SDB Ling!
Once again, we set out for our 2nd round of dinner! We went to another Ramen shop 味之时计台and have another type of Ramen. This time is butter and corn! Great, it taste good!
Please note this is our 2nd round of Ramen dinner on our first day in Hokkaido!

Sunday, 09 December 2007

Finally it's not Business Trip - Preparation for Hokkaido Trip
It has been a really long time I have not updated my blog. Reason being very simple, because it is a really busy quarter where I got 4 back-to-back audits. Finally all audits have ended and it is time for me to start update my blog.
This year, I decided not to go back to Vancouver for my block leave. Since Ivy is back, we decided to go somewhere else for holiday in October. We have considered several places before but finally decided to go Hokkaido. Reason for picking Hokkaido is because 1) none of us have been there before; 2) Japan is the 'middle joint' between HK and Vancouver so SDB Ling can also join. We have also invited Ginny to join, thus the no. of ppl and place are all set.
Once these are all fixed, we bought a tour book and I am glad that I have bought the right book. I spent one night reading the book and then already have a rough idea of which cities we were to visit. Was quite excited when reading the book, already imagining where we could go for our trip.
Look, I carry the book to all places we visit! Haha
Actually I quite enjoy planning for the trip, however, the booking of air ticket and hotel is a real challenge for me because I was extremely busy those days. Since we are visiting different cities within Hokkaido, we need to ensure the availability of hotels for all cities and also needs to fit to our schedule. I still remember those days I was working quite late (after 10 pm or even later!) and still need to check the availability of hotels when I'm back home. I need to call travel agents and also make on-line reservation during office hours. But once the air ticket and hotels are all fixed, I am relief.
This is the hotel that we stayed in Sapporo and Hakodate - Toyoko Inn. Strongly recommend to all those who is considering to go Hokkaido to stay in this hotel. It is cheap and clean and very close to JR stations.
The next step is to decide the detail of where to visit in each cities. I even came up with a spreadsheet which details the places we should visit each day and the train that we are supposed to catch. I have also checked which is the optimal way to use the JR Hokkaido pass! Haha, I'm a genius...wakakakakakaka (Bak Chi, everyone knows how to use it ga lar!!!)
This is the schedule of all JR trains that I got it from the hotel. This is really useful to me for our trips!!!
Transportation in Japan is quite expensive. But good that the JR Hokkaido Pass and Otaru Pass save us a lot of money! Yeah~~~

Monday, 27 August 2007

Botswana Trip - An unforgettable trip!!!
(Jul 7 - 22, 2007)
This should be the last trip I need to update as of today since the coming two months I should be staying in HK. Looking back at my blog, seems that I have already been travelled half of the world already! Hoho
I think most people have not heard of Botswana before. Botswana is one of the richest countries in Africa and is north of South Africa.
The first things that impressed me about Africa is ~~~~~~~~~ Sunrise of Africa! Although the flight is really horrible b/c it has been 'shaking' for almost 3-4 hours constantly, when it starts desending it's around 6 am in the morning. The woman sitting in the middle seat asked me to open the lid, so I opened and I saw the amazing sunrise over the ocean! Unforgettable. Too bad I have not taken any picture b/c my camera is on the compartment. And then comes the Sunset of Africa. On our way back from the Game reserve, I watched the entire Sunset "process" (haha, too much audit) on the highway. However, most of the pictures are 'sung, yuk, mong' because the car is moving mah. This is already the better one.
Amazing Sunset of Africa!
The time we went there is Winter time. The weather is ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EXTREMELY NICE. My first impression of sending me to Africa is a bit worry because I thought is another ah leh leh place again. But to my surprise, everything is clean and the weather is not hot at all! During winter time, noon is about 18 - 20 degrees while in the morning / evening, it can drop to 2 - 10 degree!! Also, I love the blue sky which I could not find in HK. The air is so fresh that it is very funny for both me and Chee Seng always trying to avoid going back into the building but to breathe the fresh air outside of the building. Weather so cool and air so fresh. The weather is just like September of Vancouver. I LOVE it!
Look at the clear blue sky of Botswana!
Gaborone is the city where we stayed. The hotel we stayed is very good and clean. Office is also clean as well. To be frank, the city looks very much like the States. Everything there reminds me of the States / Vancouver. The road, road sign, malls, everything!
If it's not the "Pride of Africa" sign at the back, I am sure I could trick you by telling you this is Lansdown mall! (one of the mall in Vancouver).
好多驼鸟蛋呀!!
It is a long weekend in Africa during the week we went audit there, however we gotta work on Sat and Tues as usual. We decided to take Sun and Mon off and Sun we went to Khama Rhino Sanctuary which is 3 hours ride from Gaborone. In Africa, they called the 5 most prestigious and dangerous animal as "Big 5": Lion, Leopard, African Elephant, Buffalo and Rhino. In the Game reserve that I visitied, it only got Buffalo and Rhino (2 Black and about 32 White Rhino). We only manage to see 1 white rhino during the 2 hour ride.

By the way, all the animals actually "look" at the camera! Sometimes I think they are looking at us as 'Big 5' as well...keke...Lu: "Hello, I'm also from one of the Big 5 - KPMG"...wakakakakaka
I really have an artistic mind! See my masterpiece with a 傻瓜机.
Going back! (The jet from Botswana to Johannesburg). If I do not have an audit right after this audit, for sure I will stay back and go Cape town, Table Mountain etc. My colleague has stayed back alone and went to Cape town and said it's "awesome"! He could really see the "line" separating the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Oceam wor. (I wanna see!)
Korea Trip - Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!!!!!
(Jun 17 - 29, 2007)
This is the second time I went to Seoul (both times are for the same audit). Actually people are nice and auditee are very patience and nice, however the translation really makes the audit very difficult. I am very very lucky to get an extremely good translator who can perform instant translation and she understands what I need and also the jargon with had in business. However, even that, I lost my patience in the second week because I always need to repeat myself while I think same for the other side as well. So I almost 'vomit blood' while doing the audit and also I got very pissed by one incident which I don't want to mention here. I am so angry that I called up to my HK colleague to complaint!! (which I never did before, since normally won't have time to call back and complaint). But apart from that, the trip is a pleasant one.
The audit team for this Korean audit (SCFB auditors + GIA + translators)
During weekend, my Korean counterpart is very kind enough to offer to bring us to a beach, but I am very bad. I refuse to go and said I rather go shopping but to join them for dinner at the Nam Shan Tower. I let the counterpart brought the Male auditors to the beach while me and Eileen went to 东大门 for shopping. I know the Korean auditors are very disappointed, but then I really not wanna waste my Sat because I need to work on Sunday mah. My plan is that I could still accompany them for dinner, so shouldn't be a problem. However, what I have not considered is that ~~~~~~~~ turns out the beach is not a great trip and they head back early and they seaparate apart and call off the dinner for that night!!!! OMG, I feel so bad at that time because they are very kind people and offer us around and I seem trying to be difficult...sigh sigh sigh.....Anyway, that day is a very successful shopping day for me and Eileen because we bought a lot of things and of good bargain since they are on sales.
At the end, only Chee Seng, Eileen and myself went up to Nam Shan Tower (南山). We first went to a Korean Heritage Village which has absolutely NOTHING to see.  Then we asked around how to get to the cable car which could take us up the moutain. We was told about the direction (since no one could speak English well mah) and then we are ended up in a jogging route. End up we walked for almost 20 mins (or more? keke) to get to the cable car. I guess Chee Seng already half dead by then (keke, no exercise for him mah). At night we went to Nam Shan Tower and had dinner there. To my surprise, the view there is very very nice!! Food up there is not bad as well. Worth going :)

Okay, back to the topic of this trip - Eat. I had different types of Korean food everyday. Since I'm the only one in the Operation site in Jamsil, they brought me to try different Korean food since they know I like Korean food a lot. Let's show some of the pictures:
Nen Myeon (Korean is called Nen Mien...keke, don't know how to spell and pronouce, but sounds very much like chinese 冷麵 lor)
Bu Do Gi Ge (部队锅)..wakakak, I forget how to spell ah. It is sausage with instant noodels lor. Heard that this is a dish inspired by the American soldiers who put in their sausange / ham into the traditional Korean kimchi, etc to create this dish.
My favourite Tofu House 豆腐锅. There is a small fish together with the set and is very good as well! Yum yum!!! BTW, I figure how to eat the rice. I saw the Korean people will first empty the rice bowl and pour in water there and eat the remaining rice just like congee. For me, I rather eat the 饭焦 lu...
Beef shabu shabu. There is another dish with raw beef and you would do the shabu shabu to cook it. After that you wrap the beef together with the rice using the cabbage and eat it.  I really have difficulty eating this dish because my mouth is not big enought to eat the whole 'cabbage ball'! And also everytime I try to wrap the cabbage, beef and rice, everything falls out...I am too clumbsy lar...
Spare ribs. These are the dishes we ordered in the Nam Shan Tower. Mine is the beef barbeque and taste very good :) And look at Chee Seng's spare ribs! SOOOO huge!
Seafood spaghetti with creamy source. This is REALLY good. On Sunday lunch I went out lunch with ABB, he brough me to this Italian restaurant nearby (called Il Mare) and we order this. Very very nice.  :)

Sunday, 26 August 2007

India trip - Delhi + Mumbai - a country with heritage
(May 27 - Jun 9, 2007)
As this is a branch audit, I had been assigned to travel to 2 places - first to Delhi, then back to Mumbai. Actually at first I heard of India and branch audit, I was extremely afraid that I will be send to some weird weird places. Luckily at last I was sent to New Delhi :)
From previous experience, now I learned to 'be prepared' when goes to countries like this for branch audit, I have brought 10 cup noodles with me (!) and I'm really glad that I have prepared all these. Because when we are at branch, there is hardly any restaurant around. So we need to order Indian food and for me, I just had my cup noodles for lunch everyday. Apart from lunch, dinner is not a problem at all since we could go different reastuarants for food. I now figured out that I should had indian food rather than Chinese in India because 1) it is indianized chinese which is much more oily than our normal food, 2) it is more tasty to had indian food. And I know what to order, that is 'tandoorie chicken' and 'naan'. Taste very good!
During weekend, Amrish accompanied us to Agra to visit Taj Mahal because there is a riot going on nearby. We started our journey at 6:30 am in the morning, took about 3 and 1/2 hours drive to reach there. Taj Mahal is really nice and pretty. But just a bit smaller than expected..keke. However, we are not able to go down to the underground where the actual buried is.
But then there is a very very big problem that day....that is ~~~~~~~~~~~ EXTREMELY HOT. It is 46 degree that day!!! Very hot! Because we went there during May, which is the hottest month during the year. When we reached Taj Mahal, it is already about 11:00 am. When I get out of the car, I can't even BREATHE. I put on my 130 degree sunblock, Cap and Umbrella. Still it is too hot. We moved around in Taj for about 1 hour and left at about 1:00pm. We then dropped by to Red Fort in Agra. I was told that we need to walk uphill for about 1 hour in order to reach the top. I then make a decision of NOT going because I know I could only walk for 5 min and will faint right away. haha. At night we went to the light and sound show in the Red Fort in New Delhi, then ends our Sat in Delhi.
Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders in the world.
Red Fort in New Delhi for the light and sound show
We flew back to Mumbai on Sunday. We stayed in the Taj Hotel which is a nice hotel. The City of Mumbai is very different from New Delhi. New Delhi is the capital of India, where all the parliments, government buildings are there. It is a very well planned city and clean as well. It gives me a very good impression. Mumbai on the other hand is not as structured and clean like New Delhi. Mumbai is the financial centre of India, with a lot of people on the street and a lot of activities. Mumbai is a city with heritage where you could find a lot of old colonial buildings. However, I noted the problem in Mumbai is that most buildings / facilities lack maintenance, thus most buildings look old and dirty. On the last day after the debrief, we are managed to walk around the city so I could take a snapshot of the city.

Taj Hotel (However, we are staying in the tower next door)
Gate of India (just outside of our Hotel)
Hey, can you imagine! This old cash register is still working! We are saying that they may even have daily control in performing reconciliation using this cash register!