2014 Sep. Anshan I have no idea what got misinterpreted in my hotel's address. Amusingly, China is the fourth largest country in the world, by some counts, after Russia, Antartica and Canada. The Chinese really try to incorporate English into their daily lives. Roads, public transport, hospitals, government buildings and hotels are also in English.... Continue Reading →
Sep 2014. Anshan This was one of those days when I took a random train to a random town. Just to see what life throws at you when you don't make any plans. I know that for some people that's the entire philosophy in life. But I am Singaporean. I can work with that idea... Continue Reading →
Sep 2014. Anshan Almost every time when I was staying in a hotel for any holidays, there will be at least one wedding taking place. I have actually never been to a wedding in China and therefore I was always curious about the local wedding customs. In Dongshan Hotel in Anshan, they had set-up a... Continue Reading →
Sep 2014. Anshan When I travel alone, I stay cheap, I eat cheap and I do sightseeing cheap. So much so that some Chinese people might be surprised to see a foreigner doing so cheap. But I really didn't care. In fact I loved it. I just wanted to step out of my corporate work... Continue Reading →
Sep 2014. Anshan Maybe some foreigners wanted to travel cheap in China and then later complained about hotels in the international media and the government decided to restrict foreigners to the better hotels or if it is a security policy. I have no idea. But you cannot walk up to any hotel and book a... Continue Reading →
Aug 2014. Benxi I am an early riser regardless of whether I am on weekend trips or long holidays. I was working on my laptop when I heard fire crackers outside my hotel. That only meant three things in China: a major festival, a wedding or a new shop opening. It wasn't a major festival... Continue Reading →
Jul 2014. Shenyang I was in the Shangri-La Hotel to recce a restaurant for an important office dinner I was trying to organise at that time. This is the view from the executive floor and you can see Shenyang's downtown in the far horizon. Though I have said couple of times that Shenyang is a... Continue Reading →
Jul 2014. Shenyang This is the Kempinski Hotel in Shenyang, a five-star German luxury hotel. Sometimes some of our company's key events are held here. One day we had an important department event here which ended with a buffet dinner. The next day, many of our colleagues called in sick and it became clear that... Continue Reading →
Dalian. Mar 2014 One of the weekends, I took a high speed rail from Shenyang to Dalian, a two hours' ride. I booked a hotel via Ctrip without knowing that it was on a hill top. That's the flip side of doing something unplanned, you get surprises. But I was happy to deal with these... Continue Reading →
Cebu. Jul 2013 Other than the annual home trips to Singapore, the only other international place we visited during the five years in Shanghai was Cebu, Philippines. There was no direct flight to Cebu and we had to transit in Manila. The holiday plan was simple. Stay in a typical beach resort for a week... Continue Reading →