I caught the flu bug. I was sick for 3 days and I absolutely hate it when I have a cough. 2 years ago, I cough and it last for a month. I never knew there will be so much mucus clocked up in a person’s throat untill I started sneezing non stop like a mad cow this morning and I can form a pyramid with those used tissues. On the first day, I got sore throat, follow by running nose and raspy throat. I have been doing a lot of unproductive stuff since yesterday such as sitting in front of my laptop and starring at the screen.

The doctor gave me a bottle of cough syrup and some pills for flu. If I had known they will be giving me this cough syrup, I would have purchased it myself at the grocery store. The syrup is actually formulated from Chinese herbal ingredients and plants extracts together with honey and sugar. It was said to provide temporary relief of coughs, sore throat and loss of voice.

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The World largest Barbie store is located on the busy and popular HuaiHai Road, designed by New York-based Slade Architecture and Ogilvy & Mather’s BIG division. Whimsical lattice pattern of Barbie iconography that was printed on the facade is not striking in the day. At night, however, it transforms into Barbie heaven as the pink lighting makes it stand out. The Architects has developed a puffy underlayer of vacuum-formed clear polycarbonate behind the facade, allowing visitors to have a glimpse of the street and natural sunlight that will spill deep into the interior. I really LOVE architectures and interiors that use a lot of natural sunlight.

There are 800 of current and vintage Barbie dolls lining up in clear tubes at the center spiral stairwell connecting levels 3, 4 and 5. Shoppers young and old, immediately spot this spectacular  display and it really sets the tone and theme for the entire store.

Dichroic-glass mobile of Barbie-icon cutouts – purses, hearts and petal-shaped sliced out of tinted clear acrylic over the stairwell.

Top magnets that attach display items to a steel-paneled “shoe-wall”.

Ceilings are tastefully decorated to lighten up the mood of visitors and shoppers.

Real life Barbie and Ken!? They were very popular and the ladies seem to prefer taking photos with the suave looking Ken rather than Barbie. Everywhere they went, a crowd would follow closely behind.

Some of the staff near the Design Center wearing a pink outfit, Barbie signature color which looks like a cross between a rain coat and a lab coat.

The Design Center where die hard Barbie lovers can use their creative juices to create new designs. Looks like a computer lab… Barbie style!! All these children must be really enjoying themselves.

The world’s most famous blonde is 50 years old! But the American icon could never be just another middle-aged woman.

The dolls on the left are wearing the vintage zebra black & white swimsuit. When Barbie made her first appearance back in 1959 (yes… she is 50 years old now), she was wearing the same kind of swimsuit. It wasn’t until 1962 that Barbie changed to the Red Helenca swimsuit (shown on the right).

The 3rd doll in the Byron Lars’ Chapeaux collection.

The dolls do not come cheap at all. Be prepared to spend a few hundred yuan at least. The African American Barbie doll above was designed by Bryon Lars, a fashion designer and prodigy.

The Barbie cafe in mosaic flooring…

Shoppers explore the newly opened Shanghai Barbie flagship store. This is all good news of course, because it means the Barbie store are probably going to do well with her first dedicated store in Shanghai, the most modern and fashionable city.

On the first floor, near the entrance is the Image Shop. The photos taken can be compiled into a photo album or a customized unique table calendar.

Popularity: unranked [?]

When I came back just now, I saw these sausages moonbathing outside my bedroom’s window (at their kitchen’s window).

Popularity: unranked [?]

It’s here, WordCamp China is happening on March 28th April 4th, 2009 at Fudan University (School of Journalism) in Shanghai, and follow by WordCamp Hong Kong on April 5th, 2009. Registration is open for attendees as well as speaker submissions on topics relating to all things WordPress. If you ever wanted to find a room full of people that are pasionate about WordPress, find tips on publishing and beyond your expectations, or meet Matt Mullenweg the founding developer of WordPress, event like this are a great place to start learning about blogging and coding. Sign on up and plan for a weekend in one of the most happening cities in China, not to mention a 2010 Shanghai World Expo venue.

Please visit WordCamp China 2009 for the most up to date details. First 100 registered attendees will get a free WordCamp t-shirt.

For upcoming WordCamp around the world, please click here.

Popularity: unranked [?]

To take the GMAT test in Shanghai, you have to go to the Pearson Professional Center which recently moved to the new location at Asia Mansion. When you register for the test, directions to the test center is actually given to you. It’s about 10 minutes walking distance from the People’s Square Metro Station, behind Raffles City in the corner of Hankou road and Zhejiang road. The center is on the 10th floor and there is a banner when you exit the lift. You wouldn’t miss it. [How to go]

On the actual test day, there are some people waiting at the entrance of the test center, an elderly man and an woman probably in their 50s. I was thinking “Wow, these 2 are going to take the GMAT… They probably plan to take the Executive MBA usually meant for top management types”…

As it turned out, they were just the parents of one of the candidates. OMG… it’s like parents sending their kid to school for exams and I almost thought they are going to sit in together with their daughter!

Dad: Is everything alright?
Mom: Remember to relax… don’t be nervous
Dad: Call us when you have finished, we’ll pick you up.

I feel like in an elementary school. Oh common baby… you are taking the GMAT for MBA for god’s sake. But then again, the candidate looked really young. My guess is that she is probably in her mid 20s, with just one or two years of work experience. Doubt she can contribute much to her MBA class.

The test center was very strict and please take note that personal items including rings and bracelets have to be removed and placed in the lockers as well. I felt it was a little overboard? Phones, wallets, watches etc… I can probably understand but rings and bracelets too?? They probably worried that people will engrave some information on the rings and cheat in the test

Our palms were scanned before we are allowed into the test area. The whole experience was pretty nerve-racking. I was pretty confident of my abilities in the Quantitative Section where math problems are tested. It was the Verbal Section that was giving me headaches, especially the Sentence Correction part. I spent a lot of time on some of the tough questions and ended up with little time left for the last few questions. Had no choice but to guess intelligently. By the time I finished the last question in the test, I was feeling pretty down. This is my first take and I felt that I would probably score only 640 at best. Imagine my surprise when I found out that my unofficial score is 690. Now all that is left is to wait for the official score with my Essay ratings.

As for the preparation, I spend about one month studying for the GMAT. I practiced on the GMATPrep mock test that can be downloaded freely from the website www.mba.com. I tried the mock test without any preparation at all, just to get a hang of the GMAT format. The first 2 times, I only managed to score 600 and I realized that my Verbal Section was pretty weak. I spend about 2 weeks to brush up on the grammar stuff and other parts of the Verbal Section. Took the mock test again and scored 640. I figured that if I spend the remaining 2 weeks studying hard, I could stand a chance of scoring 680. In the final week of study, I read somewhere that many questions can be found in GMAT forums in the web. Solutions to the questions are discussed as well. 2 GMAT forums that I found very useful are www.gmatclub.com and www.beatthegmat.com. Eric Bahn’s GMAT flashcards are pretty helpful as well. You can find them in www.beatthegmat.com. I only knew about the flashcards one day before the actual test date. Darn! Wished I had discovered them earlier.

Popularity: unranked [?]

A lot of people are talking about how the financial crisis is affecting China. But today, which also happens to be Valentine’s Day, a trip to Ikea would have you think otherwise. The place is jam packed. The food section is doing very well. In fact, so well that the cashiers can’t seem to stop collecting money. Inside, it gets worst. Too many people pushing empty trolleys… if you are only buying some bulbs and body lotion, use the bag, not the trolleys!! And if you are going to use the trolley, please try not to stop in the middle of the aisle to make a phone call!

Out on the streets, there are so many “movable stalls” side by side selling roses and teddy bears. In fact, these stalls are just bicycles loaded with flowers and banquet of cute tiny bears. Not sure how much they cost but they are probably not cheap. When you ask them how much the roses cost, they will asked you back how many of them do you want!

I have seen people selling these kind of teddy bears before last year at Valentine’s day. Did not see any one carrying one of these huge teddy bears though. The stall owners will probably stow them away in some corner after today, dust them clean next year and sell them again.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The last time I boarded AirAsia XL promo from Hangzhou to Kuala Lumpur was January last year when we visited my parents-in-law in Malaysia.

With 5 flights a week, AirAsia is the first airline in the Southeast Asia region to provide a non-stop service flight to Hangzhou. They now fly to Australia, Uk, India and very soon to Japan. I was on a 737 (economy class) and it must have been the tightest seat pitch I have ever experienced!

This time, the new aircraft was equipped with in-flight entertainment systems in all seats. This include touch-screen system with lots of entertainment content as well as cool applications, including games, interactive moving map, shopping and in-seat chatting system.

Chatting is free, but you need a small fee to access other entertainment services.

An USB port is also available at each seat for games controllers, or power charging your personal electronic devices. It is said that AirAsia will be the first airline in Asia to deploy OnAir mobile communications services. This will enable passengers to use their mobile phones and BlackBerry-type devices to send and receive SMS messages, emails, and to make and receive mobile phone calls in flight.

The flight back last week was an 5 hour evening flight. I only manage to get an hour nap

I actually don’t prefer AirAsia for long haul.

AirAsia always portrayed itself as having a better, friendlier and prettier cabin crew than other 5 star airlines. But that’s not what I see from Kuala Lumpur to Hangzhou flight. They are inattentive and despite the call light being on for 20 mins, no crew came to attend to you.

The last time I traveled a midnight flight with AirAsia X, there are times when they off the lights for passengers to sleep. All of a suddent, I was awaken by the noisy cabin crews from the back of the curtain beside the emergency exit. They chit-chat and giggled so LOUD that someone had to come up and ask them to lower their voice.

This time, the same flight, same cabin crew… chit chat, chit chat…CHIT CHAT…. so LOUD.  And the other thing is, there’s only 1 Chinese-speaking crew on board. I can heard some crews say “Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese!“, walk away and ignore the Chinese passengers, leaving them with lots of question marks. There was one incident that really surprised me. When the passengers were boarding the air craft and looking for their seats, an air steward was blocking the path of a little chinese girl. She politely said “Excuse me” but the air steward gave her a glance and ignored her. Again she politely asked him to let her through but there was no response. It wasn’t until I stared at him that he let her pass. Does this award winning Airline train their crew this way?

Thank God that I never witness any behaviour like the one below despite the service at AirAsia X.

The coolest cabin crew from one of the airline in China.

Popularity: unranked [?]

You can now browse my blog on your mobile device. It should automatically be detected and you should see a nice and clean mobilized version of this blog. I have used Nokia E71, iphone and itouch and it looks fine. If your view is wonky on your device, please get your browser details here and leave a comment along with your phone brand and model.

You can download the plugin here.

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I love having potluck and BBQ with my family and relatives when I’m back. We had a mini family gathering during Chinese New Year, and I ate untill I was about to burst! My mouth was still watering while croping this photo!

We spend the whole week visiting relatives, eating lots of cookies and cakes, lots of Chinese foods, giving hong baos, parties, chit-chat with family and watching movies.

Chicken, vege and fruit salads.

Marinated lambs…

Calamari…

Grilled mushrooms…

We were chit chatting and the food end up like this:

…and busy trimming these overcooked chicken wings…

There’s no beef because he says so:

Popularity: unranked [?]

Millions have crowded into the center of Washington to witness the 1st African-American become the 44th president of the States, where are you?

This photo makes it hard to imagine that this man could be the President of the United States in less than an hour. But hey, what’s wrong with something out of the ordinary… a world leader with 6-pack abs!

Popularity: unranked [?]