Been a year ...

Wow, amazingly, this blog is still retained by blogspot, thought it would have been deleted being inactive blog site. Been a very happening year, my wife got pregnant and gave brith to a boy in December 05, been a vegetarian (not getting laid) for close to a year already but hope for a speedy and complete recovery for my wife as it was a CS and not a vaginal birth.

Before that, following my previous one year old post, where I made a trip to Bangkok, subsequently in December 04, I made another trip to HK with my wife. HK is comparable to Singapore in terms of culture and lifestyle cause both places are very compact and scarce of land. The hotel room that we stayed was enormously small, way smaller than the Genting's First World Hotel. Can't remember the hotel name, it's been a year already. Went on free and easy, it was an easy place to explore on your own, maps were readily available at airports. HK is a shopping haven, among few things that are worth buying are perfumes and HK branded apparels. My wife bought a Theme cardigan for HKD30 only, 100ml Davidoff parfume for HKD200 and other Esprit shirts. Unfortunately, we went during their cool season where most apparels sold during this time were not suitable to be worn in warm country like Malaysia. Food price was reasonable, their local delicacies were quite expensive but their fast food was surprisingly similar or sometime, even cheaper than Malaysia. I noted that a Yoshinoya set meal there only cost around HKD15, it easily cost around RM10 in Malaysia. The transport cost there was amazingly cheap. Airport transfer by MRT from Mongkok, crossing the sea to Lantau Island cost around HKD20, of course with the need to change to a bus at the Lantau MRT station. Compared to Malaysia, the ERL (direct) cost RM35 from Sentral. However, the mini bus in HK was a lil expensive compared to their MRT, that's weird. Went to various places, the highlights were the Ocean Park HKD200 per person entrance fee and the Po Lin Monastery, with a giant sitting Buddha on top of the mountain. It's advisable to visit the monastery during weekdays as there will be less people, easier to take photo and the bus fare is cheaper too. The dolphin show at the Ocean Park was easily better than the one at Sentosa Island, but the main highlight there was actually the panda, that was the first time in my life I've seen a real life panda, a lazy sleepy animal it was.

My next targeted destination would be either Korea or Melbourne again (went there once in 2002). Feel like visiting to Melbourne again cause it's really one of the world most liveable place, perhaps a surveying trip there for migration consideration. Migration ... still playing in mind though my wife objected fully to it. See how it goes, with a kid now, it's something worth considering, for the child education sake.