i have a face that only my parents are comfortable with and probably dear...


sand sand is getting sicker... haizzzz..she should see a doctor tmr, been procrastinating for 1 wk! she enjoys all the meet ups this week and the gatherings hmmmm... wish these days dun end! but stop dreaming sandra lim!!!

toopid k box dun have k student this wk until 2 jan!!! paid $23.50 for an afternoon sing *big wails*


merry xmas, folks!!!! it's been a great xmas so far cuz i am not working! heheheeeeeee sure kena bashed! anyway my pressies have been great so far and companion has been great too! more activities to come in the coming week

Wed - lunch n dinner dates
Thurs - WWW-cum-chalet + manager's treat
Fri - most prob rest at hom (maybe FTB will have some last minute outing again keke)
Sat - Dar's appointment and maybe Mahjong kekekeke
Sun - FTB xmas gathering! kinda late but nvm la.. better alte than nvr.. there goes my month anniversary :(
Mon - New Year's eve... no plans yet... any date???
Tues - New Year Day... get ready to slog for the new year and report to new department the next day
Wed - the beginning of doom day :(

oh well.... 2008... round and even number.. i like!! may it be a better one for me and everyone! it's kinda exciting for me. not tat i am getting married but.... in time to come, the truth shall reveal!!! SANDRA LIM will work hard in the coming 2008!!!
Ganbatte everyone!!


ms tandun!!! where are our bintan pics??? almost 2 mths already! plssssssssss missy mae =) actually alot more are outstanding :P


sand is a gift wrapper today. she wrapped xmas presents for her frenz and on behalf of her fren. so kind of her. but yet she is also very bored at home. she spent her day watching HK drama and clearing some of her cupboards to make space for her audit stuffs which will soon be a history. she hopes it will become history as look forward to adapting to new jargons such as PPA, estate duty, asset accumulation, current ratio, quick ratio etc. she wishes her life to be smoother from now on. as she looked back at 2007, she heaved a sigh of relieve that it is finally reaching an end. she is looking forward to a better, brighter and more fruitful 2008 with less pain, unhappiness and more joy and energy. she felt very happy last night while walking down orchard road and was soaked in the joy of giving. she made a silent wish but she's unsure if it will become true. sand is sorry about what happened last night and she is again unable to explain herself clearly.

sand sand hopes tonight is short!


returned from Hanoi 5 days ago and now im down with flu, sinus, cough... okay... some ppl may be saying im having bird flu bcuz im a parrot!! watever.... im fine! just very bad sinus cuz the air there is really dusty and vietnamese cabbies are very environmentally friendly as they try not to turn on air-con unless requested by customers. so most of the time we didnt request since it's kinda cooling without air con but that means we breathed in alot of CO2. haizzz... and walking on the streets means we were exposed to the dirty emission. oh well... partly im sick is as a result of my partner. haizzzz cant blame him. could be the cold cold Sapa's fault too.

anyway.. below are some short sypnosis of my trips. most of the pics have been uploaded in facebook photo album.
dear with the welcome drink at hotel... Hanpi Elegance 2! woooo... love this hotel lots! staff are super friendly, helpful and nice! and they speak good english! we were impressed!

here's the outlook of our hotel.. 7 storeys only with only 3 rooms on each storey. abit small but just nice for 2 in a room and a few luggages.. nice decor tooooo....

our 1st dinner at Hanoi before boarding overnight train to Sapa. This is at 69 Ma May which is just next to our hotel and apparently it's quite authentic and popular among tourists. Look at the calendar they are using.. omg! Tried the Bun Cha which is a local fried pork fillet.





Start of our Sapa trek after arriving at Lao Cai Railway Station and another 1 hr bus trip up the mountain in Sapa! They grow bamboo there. no wonder my hotel is called Bamboo Sapa but they dunch have pandas there. haha Thank goodness i spent VND 5,000 for that walking stick. that's like 50cents only and it lasted me thru the trek which is my virgin mountain climbing where i was totally unprepared for! almost "killed" me! this is the weather condition during the trek. holy 12 degrees! but felt like 5 degrees! and guess wat i didnt bring enuff clothes for the cold lor! all i had was one jacket luckily Dear brought extra jacket and for once i appreciate his over-bringing habit! haha wind was so strong and tat reminded my winter days in Shanghai 2 years ago! 2 years later i am experiencing the same thing! cool!! but too cold alrdy but the trekking sort of warm me up a little. some H'Mong villages followed us along the trip. well there's a purpose cuz they want tourists to buy tribal souvenirs from them! but some speak really good English which they picked up from tourists. and the kids were so small yet they are already working.
a brief peep at the route down to the terraces and villages. this is just the beginning and when there's a way down, there's a way up! it's always 2-way!

at some mini hill top where i tot the end of the trek is almost here but i was wrong.....

does these remind you of some geography textbooks images when human geography covered the irrigation terraced fields for planting rice and crops?? haaaa and i witnessed with my bare eyes! they are beautiful and amazing! plentiful there and this is indeed a geography field trip! haha this is somewhat at the bottom of valley already and that's where nightmare began cuz when's a downhill, there's an uphill *fainted* parrot's grand canyon description came to my mind and how mae would have reacted to this mountain climbing and what happened in Korea. memories flooded but i was more worried for myself cuz the following show my path up... not man-made paths u know...


Here, the worst is almost over but my tears were almost near my eyelids and my legs wobbly! and the tour guide must add on to the misery by putting me on the suspension bridge! so tiring and scary! what an achievement, SANDRA LIM!

this is how village kids lead their lifes - carefree, innocent, simple and back to basic! Dar took ALOT of kids pics and videos. He simply love kids too much but there's indeed stark difference to how kids behave and grow up in developed and developing countries. I feel for those in the latter countries, the social and personal development they are deprived of. Yet I also feel that urban kids are sometimes too spoilt that they do not seem to know the art of appreciation. I guess globalization is the cause and there's no way we can halt it but to be a good educator in the society.

spotted some chicks there! like this pic... they look so cute!
Behind Dar is a playground for the village kids. Can Dar dun look so dao kia..... haizzz
At a bridge after Tavan village that concluded our first day trek! Phweeeeee!!!

It was so cold that we had to rent a heater for USD7 and it doesnt help much but at least it does help a little during a crisis on that night. I was glad nothing bad happened in the end. Chanting helped :) The water heater was omg!! the ever historic one! it worked like this - every time the tap is on, a flame will be burning until it burnt out and water is supposed to be heated from the burning flame BUT it didnt work!! for entire night we had no hot water and we bathed in ice cold water in the cold night at least 10 degrees!!! OMG!!! freezed the hell out of me!! glad it was only 1 night!!

Come 2nd day in Sapa, we continued trekking to another village, Ba Cha and the villagers continue to follow us and hounding for purchase. Oh well.. this time round I am smarter cuz the 1st day i paid SGD10 for 2 items - a pencil case and a bangle! i didnt bargain cuz they helped us along the way while trekking so felt bad not paying them yet on hindsight i could have asked for 5 bucks. Nevermind... i would rather see it as a kind deed for the villagers.
See how they wash vegetables, in the drain!! and their legs with mini waterfall. Villagers there made some strings used for clothing as a living and the strings are called Indigo simply because they will dye them indigo colour and sew it onto clothes which are the black cloth u see up there.

I am standing on a dried terrace which has harvested. And probably you may not be able to see the lavender i was touching.


This is the watermill that villagers set up. From past readings they use to be able to generate some form of movement for generators but doesnt seem to be the same usage anymore. There's a bigger one below but not captured in this video.

Behind me is another one but made of wooden sticks. They really move! but much slower, even slower than the one in video above. Well, something not seen in little red dot and will not likely to be seen anymore.
We thus continue our way to the Silver Waterfall! Weather was so much better on the 2nd day and getting near the waterfall is even cooler and NOT freezing cold! very scenic place where we stayed for close to 30min. Tour group was easier to manage as we had only 3 ppl + our tour guide. Rest of the tour were too tired after the 1st day. hahaha.. that's what the tour guide told us though.

This is the nephew of our tour guide. Rosy cheeks and so cutezy!! so hard to get him look at the camera. he's quite camera-shy. hehe.. good boy!

We visited the Sapa Market and guess what we saw!! YUCKS!!! i hate all these and they are meant for medication!! Do the guys need these? They are grosss!!!!

This plant will stop all babies-generation! and must be taken after love-making. well these are according to my tour guide who has never tried before.




After overnight train from Sapa back to Hanoi, we headed to Halong Bay immediately. That's a beautiful island situated outside Hanoi and it's 3.5hours drive away! That duration can get me to Malacca from Johor i tink. Anyway this is meant to be a relaxing 2D1N cruise and cave-visiting cum kayak trip. glad it turned out well! i enjoyed the breeze though can b a little chilly at night. the greatest part of this cruise is that we met ppl from different countries - a german couple, american couple, malaysian families and a singaporean couple who happened to be liping's fren in BSS too! the world is round afterall.



i think this landform looks monster-ous! don't you think so....

this is the Surprise Cave in Halong Bay and all the land forms inside the cave are a result of nature's erosion and what's left after water subsided and all sand and mud have deposited over years. i am amazed!
this is how Halong Bay usually look like in postcards.



i like the sunshine on sand in this pic =)






2nd day at Halong Bay was spent kayaking, sun bathing and lunching. indeed relaxing!



The floating villages and surrounding landscape.

People we met during the trip!



On our way back to Hanoi hotel, our mini bus entered into a small lane which is normally ok for 2 cars in opposite directions. However, it so happened another lorry insisted in approaching us in the opposite direction and that took a police to resolved! Traffic is not in order in Hanoi but seldom will there be a need for police to lend his hand. This is just how close we are to the lorry! about 10cm away only?? exciting 5minutes and people sitting in the coffee shop along the lane were in for a good show! the entire lane behind our bus were chalked up with motorists and cars. It takes alot of guts to drive in Hanoi. The entire bus of passengers applauded the driver subsequently!



Having checked into hotel we met up with Dar's vietnamese fren who happened to have returned to hometown after exams and she was our guide for 2 evenings. Felt so glad that she's around as she can help with bargaining and translating and also filling us with information and history of Hanoi.

We had dinner at this restaurant selling Pho (a.k.a. rice noodle) in well-done beef. Soup is super tasty. According to Tia, the taste of northern vietnamese food is less strong as compared to southern part of Vietnam and that explains my dislike for Vietnamese food in Spore as they are mostly in southern vietnam style. I really miss this food! The soup is tasty and probably lots MSG in it. But i still like it.







Crossing road in Hanoi is not easy for urban kids who are too used to orderly crossing in Singapore. It takes skills and hand-in-hand efforts to get one another across the road. This is just one of the trips i have made and not exactly the busiest but u can see how close we were to the moving traffic.







We watched the traditional Water Puppet show and thanks Tia for the treat. Was kinda lost in the midst due to language barrier but luckily Tia had filled us bit about Hoan Kiem Lake's history and that is depicted in the puppet show too so understanding was made slightly easier. But this traditional art is still very impressive.



On our 2nd last day, we were supposed to visit Perfume Pagoda with a tour agency we booked before departing for Hanoi. However, 2 sotongs boarded the wrong mini bus that was heading to the same destination too! Actually, dun think we are that sotong. The hotel staff sort of insisted that the tour guide who came to pick us was waiting for us so we assumed it correctly and got on the bus only to find out 45min later that we were in the wrong bus! The more maddening thing is that the tour guide told us he will arrange taxi to fetch us back to hotel BUT he didnt pay upfront to the driver! Gosh! The cabby demanded money from us and inflated the price by 10,000 dong! alritez that's probably SGD1 more only but intention to cheat is evident!!! Dame a**hole that tour guide! By the time we got back to hotel, the correct tour group had left without us and we abandoned Perfume Pagoda totally. So we planned our own itinerary and we were much happier that day as Perfume Pagoda is probably just another trekking trip and Hanoi is worth exploring too!

So we started with queueing for Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum to pay respect to the embalmed body of then Prime Minister Ho Chi Minh. Perfect embalment and it's worth the q which is only 10min long but they closed early at 11am during cold weather and 10am during summer weather. First time we felt law and order in Hanoi - we are required to queue in pairs and walk orderly on red carpet. No pics as security was very tight but we managed to get the security control ticket to take pictures outside the Mausoleum. Due to language barrier, we spent 30min trying to figure out what the guard was talking about and it took us 3 tries to get him show us what exactly does he want us to produce. It is indeed chicken-duck-talk (translate to chinese please). See how nasty i was when i finally got the ticket....

... and finally the picture outside Mausoleum!

We decided to visit HCM's palace since we had so much time to spare and not a wasted trip cuz it just felt good exploring around in foreign land. That's VND 10,000 only and we joined whichever group that has a translating guide haha.. i tink we need to pay for a guide to bring us around but we cheapopo so hang around with groups we dunno. hehehe

孔雀开屏 I think it's supposed to be good luck to be able to see a peacock like this! Maybe that's true =)

At the lake that accompanied HCM during his days.

Something strange about these sticks. They grew out from the trees and then from concrete!

One-pillar pagoda which i wasnt very impressed with cuz i was expecting the pillar to be some amazing support, maybe at the ends of the pagoda such that it can still stand. Dar rolled his eyeballs when i told him... hahaha... it looks just like another structure mah.. but respect respect! it's historic.

Next stop was the Temple of Literature where Confuscius was worshipped together with other scholars. This temple recorded much praises from the scholars for the then King and turtle is named as one of the holy animals together with unicorn, dragon and phoenix. That explains why the carvings are on turtle's body. I would find Hanoi as pretty much a Chinese-culture state of Vietnam as there's much resemblance to Chinese and its dialect. For instance, the prounciation of Vietnamese sounds like cantonese and they believe in dragons and confuscius teachings very much the same way as the Chinese do. I see many Chinese names of buildings along the streets too. Vietnam is very near to China though.
We rode a cyclo there which is equivalent to a trishaw in Singapore and it cost about SGD3 for a very short trip. Hanoi isnt' very big i would say. Smaller than Singapore i tink, if we exclude the outskirts. It's a must try cuz it's different.

We then visit a restaurant called KOTO just opposite Temple of Literature and was highly recommended by the Singaporean couple we met at Halong Bay. It's a meaning restaurant - KOTO meant Know One, Teach One. It's an organization that serves to educate selected young people who are interested in the F&B industry. All revenue of the restaurant goes to their training fund where they will attend 18 mths of lessons in Engligh language, culinary, etiquettes and other relevant skills. Staff in KOTO are mostly practisicing students in KOTO and they have very good learning attitude. The restaurant has 4 storeys and each storey has its own interior style and decoration and customers are free to choose which storey to dine in. Cool place! http://www.koto.com.au/

Tia joined us for lunch and she brought us to Prison Museum which is the war time prison including the period in Vietnam War.
We wanted to visit the Flag Tower but it closed at 430pm and we reached there at 410pm. Hence we only took the outlook of it.

Thereafter we took motorbike to West Lake and that was cool!!! Never ride on a bike before and felt kinda unstable but i still managed to take pic of Tia and Dar in action. Hahaha...

See how the locals played badminton at the predestrian pavement and the courts are set up by the government!!
West Lake is the largest lake in Hanoi. According to Tia, the entiree Hanoi orignally had only 1 big lake and Hoan Kiem Lake and West Lake was supposedly part of the 1 big lake but due to urban development, they have been divided into several areas of Hanoi and the land was built out of the lake. But West Lake looks peaceful and a hot dating place for many couples. People spent time fishing on a weekday evening and life seems so slow there. In fact, i felt that time pass slowly yet not feeling boring in Hanoi - a total different feeling from Singapore's pace. There's no need to rush for things and everyone takes things at own stride. I felt good in Hanoi as no one is rushing me for deadlines and i do not have to peep at the clock regularly.

Salted lemon juice by the West Lake is super good for thirst-quenching but it tortured the hell out of Dar cuz he couldnt stand the saltishness. Shall not post his reaction pic hahaha
Sunset at West Lake.

First bite of local food from road side stall. BBQ bread with sugar and butter! Good taste but clumsy Sand and Step dropped it while trying to take picture!! I shall try it at one of the BBQs up and coming. maybe HnF one... hehehe

More or less the day and the trip was approaching its end and Tia's mother treated us to Xoi Yen which is glutinours rice in Hanoi and they taste great!!!! With mushroom and chicken! like it alot but serving was too big for me!

Pic with Tia! Lovely girl who had been a great tour guide!

The trip has almost ended at this point and im glad all things turned out rosy. Love the experience and people i've met along the way. They enrich my life and cultural exchanges from different parts of the globe. They made me realise i am not the only earthling. I have many fellows and i am not alone. It's a trip well-explored and full of experiences and a new starting point for me and Dar. How i wish the trip can be extended and how i wish the happy days can last without worries.... those dreams will live on!

31 Oct 83
sandinas@hotmail.com

blabbers

DarLinks

Angel
Dar
Darren Yang
Eng Teck
Eunice
Greg
Hans
Hari
Joyce
Kang Wei
Li Ping
Limin
Mei Xuan
Miao
Parrot
Sebastian
Shirley
Silent Boi
YY
TKS
Wanxin
Weiming
Wei Ting
Yanru
Zheng Zhong