the sweetest PAST. the crumbled PRESENT. the uncertain FUTURE.

Monday, May 21, 2007

[16052007, Wed] Day 6 in 北京 - Playing Tag-Along for Tender Interview

Yeap. It's day 6 in 北京 and I've officially been slacking in the office for the past 2 days. My team leader has taken to givin me a sheepish smile everytime she see me approaching her, askin for work to do. After another of those “请问您有东西给我做吗？”, she finally said that she might give me some measurement to do tmr. Not exactly thrilling, but it sure beats havin nothin to do in the office (although some frens i know would rather be in my predictament than to put up with the shit that they're gettin at work). So I thought, since I've nothin to do for the rest of the day, maybe I can follow YJ and her team leader(YM) to a tender interview in the afternoon. Hmm.. I thickened my already thick skin and asked YM and hey, I'm out of the office for the rest of the day! ahh..

After a 'quick' lunch at 塞百味 (i.e. Subway in 北京), we rested a while in the office then made our way down to the client's place by cab:

Personal protection for the cab driver (pattern, sturdiness and design varies from cab to cab, according to the cab driver's personal preference).

YJ, my fellow attachie, in the cab (in case anyone was wonderin, the disjointed-lookin arm in the right foreground of the picture actually belongs to YM, not YJ)

The meeting was a real eye opener. It's like, we've learnt the theoretical part in sch and now we're watchin the live 'demo'. Although I found myself having to consciously pick out the construction terms and related items that were being batted back and forth between the client and the 3 lowest tenderers (ahem, in Chinese, of course) then translate them into smth I know in my head (not to mention strugglin to stay awake), I got a feel of how an actual tender interview was conducted. Of course, this beats stoning in the office hands down. The client was really demanding and irritating all at once. His tone of voice reeked of 'MCP' and his mannerism and behavior of interruptin the ladies' speech only served to add on to his hatefulness. What to do.. He thinks his money big what.. -_-"

After the lengthy interview, we're finally out of the place!

I'm sure u can see how gleefully delighted we were:

And as usual, the 2 shutterbugs forced their “大姐大” to take a pic with them:

1830hrs: Our tummies started to grumble a little, so the 2 hungry souls and their 大姐大 suggested to head to a nearby 港式茶餐厅 for dinner. While walkin, trigger-happy me snapped away in the central business area of 北京:

I love the look of the buildings with the cloudy backdrop.

The ladies on the escalator.

An interesting lookin device in the underground walkway - smth to remove smoke i think.

We popped into a supermarket along the way to grab some breakfast stuff and inside, the ladies promptly helped themselves to the garlands of sweets:

真有默契... kawaii neh.

Apparently this supermarket caters to mostly expatriates cuz it only carries imported stuff, which are invariably more expensive. So.. we only bought ourselves some milk then headed for dinner. Unfortunately, the 港式茶餐厅 which sells supposedly good food (which i was already salivating at) was closed for renovation! So zhun... -_- The 3 of us then took a cab to a new shopping mall near our place for dinner.

Hua Lian Shopping Mall

Single/double passengers 'Motor-cab'

Stepping inside the shopping centre was akin to entering a typical shopping centre in Singapore. What do I mean? The familiar layout of shops and of course, home grown brand names like:

Breadtalk in 北京

[Sidetracking] Today seem to be filled with constant reminders of Singapore. Beside gd-ole Breaktalk, there're the Esplanade look-alikes:

A flatter durian without its thorns.

Dsnt this remind u of the water feature in front of the Esplanade?

To top off 'the Singapore experience', I had to see a stall sellin monkeys:

Kapo - The Super Monkie

For the uninitiated, I share a certain bond with this monkey, especially a certain monkey by the name of 小涛 of the design below:

A plastic-wrapped 小涛, 'screaming' for me to grab him home.

Ah well. But I didn't. I just took pics. To cut the long story short, the 3 of us had a very VERY salty teppanyaki dinner at Food Republic (yes.. they even have a Food Republic food court, in addition to Esprit, Mango, Ajisen, etc.), then headed home for the usual internet then bedtime.

End of Day 6.

josh, signing off.

11:58;
- vagabond -

[15052007, Tue] Day 5 in 北京 - Food Blog

I spent my 2nd day at work setting up this blog, while dear YJ was stressing over the work that her team leader gave her. Since there's obviously nth much to blog abt work, let's talk abt the food instead.

Ok on our way home from work, we saw a somewhat unusal sight, even on the streets of 北京:

A horse teethered to a cart holding watermelons。

A guy was sellin watermelons from the cart drawn by the horse. Interesting.

A tad bit lazy to walk far, we settled for the 饺子 restaurant just downstairs of our block. While browsing through the colourful and pictures-aplenty menu, we were amused by a curious sight:

Photoshopped fishes in the menu.

Yeap, we were amused by the photoshopped pics of the fishes, but we din order any. We decided to order some 饺子 and this 肥羊金针菇汤(some hotpot thing) since the cold breeze made us long for something warm. The 2 blur blocks innocently thought that the prices stated in the menu were for 2 饺子, so we decided on 4 different types of fillings, 2 饺子 per filling. But when we ordered, it turned out that the 饺子 came in half-dozens, minimum order of one dozen for each filling. And it took us a while to realise that. And so, we laughed ourselves silly at our own suaku-ness, then settled for the 猪肉韭菜饺子.

One dozen 猪肉韭菜饺子 - only 5.60rmb for 12!!

(In response to adorable adel's kind [blog] advert [plus musings] abt the 2 of us in 北京, but substituting the 小笼包 for 饺子...) The 猪肉韭菜饺子 was succulent and tasty, very 香，best enjoyed (like we did) with chilli mixed with vinegar. ahh.. shiok (although the chilli not spicy enough)!

Then came the hotpot:

肥羊金针菇汤

Close-up of the 肥羊金针菇汤 - looks healthy with all the golden mushroom and vege on top huh? Don't be fooled.

The 肥羊 is really 肥. I had a busy time tryin to enjoy my soup, while distinguishing between the edible meat and shld-not-be-eaten fats. To emphasize my point, nothing wld do better than a picture right? Ok.. The following picture is pretty disgusting and not for those who cnt stomach it:

The amount of fats left on my plate after finishing the soup.

Despite the fats, the restaurant's 2 first time diners were happily satiated...

...although guilty after havin such a fattening meal. And so we made ourselves trudge up all 21 storeys, complete with weights in the form of laptops and 6 bottles of bacardi breezers (yeap, we decided to stock up on our booze..). YJ was even in heels and refused to give up the bacardi (power indeed).

Finally, breathing hard but not perspiring, we reached our apartment safe and sound, havin survived the eerie stairway, which was reminiscent of the seemingly haunted staircase from the movie set of 我跟僵尸有个约会, complete with blood red numbers numbering each floor. It didn't help that the lights were triggered by sound (so we were practically stamping up every step and talkin loudly to keep the lights on) and the numbering replaced storey 13 and 14 with 12A and 12B instead.

Back at the apartment, we stowed our booze in our small fridge:

Can you spot the booze?

Spent the rest of the night happily chatting with frens over msn, followed by posting of our first day in 北京. Oh, and my sis and bro were teaching my mum how to use msn. Haha. Never too old to learn, I say! =p

End of Day 5.

josh, signing off.

Musings...

Somehow there're more things to say when u're far away from ur frens and family? Ppl seem more interested to know wat's goin on and certain single-way chats suddenly evolved to become two-way conversations. Interesting indeed. I find myself wanting to share with my frens and family abt my experience of the culture and ppl here, thus the detailed blog posts. Ah well. 2 more months to go. Plenty to experience and share.

10:30;
- vagabond -