This signage was mounted outside the sonography rooms.

Sex determination test through ultrasonography are banned in China to reduce the country’s increasing gender umbalance. A preference for sons still run deep in rural area where tradition is strong, as they believe boys can do heavy labor.

According to The New York Times, there is now gap of 32 million more males than females under the age of 20 in China.

But in fast growing cities like Shanghai, people prefered girls because they do not need to fork some money out when their daughter gets married in the future. They spoiled their little princess to get a rich son-in-law.  As for boys, parents need to spend money on buying a house for him when he set up his family.

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So yes! I’m pregnant…!

…and that’s why I haven’t been around. After trying for months, that 2 lines sent a jolt from my eyeballs to my toes. I was filled with the greatest sense of hapiness, excitement, shock, disbelief… that I took 2 home pregnancy test and 1 at the hospital to convince myself this was really happening.

I did not want to mention it too soon, just to make sure everything’s fine, but now, I can’t hold back any longer. My first 3 months were almost unbearable and it’s been a wild ride! I was so. damn. sick. 247 nausea with a bit of heartburn, fatigue, headache, bloated, irritable… Every moment of the day I feel like throwing up. It’s awful.

But, I’m glad to report my current 2nd trimester has been lovely. My “all day sickness” has become “evening sickness” and I feel my energy’s returning!

So, I’m back… At least for now!

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I attended WordCamp Shanghai on Saturday – a world class conference in an amazing location all for the sake of networking and learning all about WordPress, to meet fellow bloggers and more importantly to meet Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress; top blogging platform choice of this blog and many others. There was a slight drizzle and we were running a little late. Fortunately for us, the event started late as well, as visitors trickled in due to the unexpected rain.

WordCamp was held in an auditorium in Fudan University and most of the organizers were current students or alumni. The organizers were kind enough to provide snacks and drinks during the break. How considerate!!

Before Matt kicked off the event, he gathered all the attendees around for a photo session. He updated the crowd on some of the exciting updates and changes coming soon to WordPress. Matt was quite accommodating during the Q&A session and warmly engaged the crowd during the short break. I was also lucky enough to meet some fellow bloggers during the break interval.

When the event resumed, Wu Hailin took to the stage and gave a few examples of famous blogs and why they had such a huge following. Hailin is also a part time farmer now but judging from the photos of his efforts, it seems he needs to put more effort in it.

Liu Miao also briefly talked about his project, WordKu.com which was built on the foundations of WordPress. It’s interesting to know that he almost sold Wordku.com to a Korean firm.

All in all, Shanghai Wordcamp was rather successful. It’s nice to see more bloggers interested in expressing themselves on the internet.

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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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I disappeared off the web because I’m seeing someone in Shaanxi last week. Yes, he is Chinese, ever stayed in London for 6 months, he don’t speak English and was actually born in Xi’an – a historical place to the southwest of Beijing. The moment I touched down at Xi’an XianYang Airport, I was very excited and looking forward to meet him and discover a bit about Xi’an.

Xi’an city view from the top of the City Wall.

The city was one of the four Great Ancient capitals of China. It used to be called “Chang’an” and has been the capital of some most important Dynasty in Chinese history. There’s a saying: “Rome in the West, Xi’an in the East!”.

Before I meet Mr. Yong, the first thing that all visitors and I would see is the old wall surrounding the city. You can rent a bicycle and cycle on top of the walls around the entire city. The 3,000 year old wall is entirely intact and it’s one of the few that remained in China.

It takes about an  hour cycling on top of the old walls with exciting sceneries including the modern interior city and the sometimes dilapidated outer city with spring blossoms surrounding the walls.

Meeting Mr. Yong and climbing the City Wall are the 2 to-do things that I wanted to complete during my stay in Xi’an. He is the prime example of a great soldier! I admired his unwavering faith and commitment.  He never complained, never quivered and never gave up protecting the country.

OK… His full name is Bing Ma Yong.

The terracotta warriors.

They are indeed magnificent!! No pictures or photos can describe the feeling of seeing them personally. I’m pleasantly surprised time and again with the delicate details. It has been said that going to Xi’an and not seeing the Terracotta Warriors is like going to Egypt and missing the Pyramids!

The Terracotta Warriors.

The warriors were arranged in a actual battle formation. These soldiers are part of the vanguard and do not wear any armor at all.

The first warrior in the 3rd row was restored from broken pieces. It is said that it takes an archaeologist 1 year to piece together a single warrior. The warrior in the 2nd row looks rather “well fed”.

The grumpy old balding guy in the photo was the farmer that discovered the terracotta warriors back in 1974. To get his autograph, you need to fork out RMB150 for a book about the terracotta warriors.

It’s best enjoyed with some initial knowledge of the Terracotta Warriors’ history.

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I was recently introduced to this eatery house that serves AUTHENTIC Taiwanese food. The place was particularly famous for their Mi³-Tai²-Mu⁴, a sort of rice noodle. While I can understand why restaurants serving foreign cuisines change and adapt to suit the local taste buds, I appreciate and prefer restaurants that stick to the original favours and taste.

One of the restaurant’s signature dishes: Stirred-fried Mi-Tai-Mu. Yummy… A MUST try!! (RMB 16)

They have many ways to cook and serve Mi-Tai-Mu. This is the dry Mi-Tai-Mu and they do have Mi-Tai-Mu soup.  A simple but authentic dish. (RMB8)

The famous Taiwanese Lu-Rou-Fan – Stewed Meat Rice – (RMB 6). Don’t be fooled by this photo. The serving is quite small though. The braised tiny pork pieces spreading over the steam rice, and are sprinkled with braised meat souce which often accompanied with radishes and pickles. The tasty braised pork rice will keep you wanting seconds!

It’s fun coming here and listen to the Taiwanese owner blah-ing out Chinese terms in their Taiwanese accent.

Instead of “Lu-Rou-Fan“, they say “Lu-Lou-Huang“. Instead of “Yiu-Dou-Fu“, they say “Yiu-Do-Hu“.

“Yiu-Do-Hu“, (RMB 8): one of my favourite dishes.  A bowl of rice….  Some hot steaming braised tofu and I’m good… They are cooked in a braised souce made with special Chinese herbal ingredients. With a strong herbal scent, this tofu have a special taste that is like none other.

Another signature dish: Oriental stuffed chicken roll (RMB 16). Basically, it is minced chicken meat and some water chestnuts wrapped in bean curd skin and fried together – just the thing to get the stomach rumbling.

Try the Taiwanese Sausage as well (RMB 18). I could smell the sausage across the room before the waitress even delivered the plate to our table. The slices of garlic adds just a touch of spiciness to the dish.

The restaurant is very small and are only about 5 tables. It looks like Taiwanese style “xiao chi” and tea house. Couple of Taiwanese linger over some snacks at simple square dark wood tables as Taiwan channel news play on the wall mounted plasma tv. When we got there at 1pm, it was crowded and there were no empty seats.

The owner cum chef is a Taiwanese grandma.  Many Taiwanese dine there to fulfill their craving for authentic home-made dishes.

The eatery is named after its signature dish, Mi-Tai-Mu. The rice noodle is hand made and the ingredients are imported from Taiwan according to the chef. For dessert, you can try their Ice Mi-Tai-Mu, which rather unique. Unfortunately, we were not able to try this dessert as the restaurant have finished selling their last bowl.

Aside from these dishes we ordered above, the menu has O-ah-jian (Oyster Omelet), fried drumstick rice, fried calamari ball, braised egg, braised pork knuckles, variety of soups and more…

ALL food are served without MSG!!

Address: No.158 Zi-Teng Lu, Minhang.

Delivery: 34315456
Opening hours: 10:00am – 12:00am

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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.

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

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A while back ago, I wrote the Nokia E71 that was very popular. It seems Nokia intends to follow up on this success with a new E-series phone.

Anyway, I was looking for cool themes to use in my E71 when I came across the application Multiscanner. With this application, I have found another useful function for the Nokia E71 camera. The Multiscanner lets you takes photos of business cards and saves the information as a contact in your address book. It will automatically recognize those info and will save each part of the data in the correct spot.

Been using this application for some times and no more flipping through the box of namecards to search for a contact…. this application really compliments the E71′s function as a business phone. Some editing is required as the interpretation of the infomation on the namecards is not perfect. It does seem to work better with typical namecard layouts. The camera flash kinda gets in the way when the name cards have a glossy surface.  However, it is still a interesting and cool function.

Try it here!

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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.

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