Wednesday, got up early for morning flight.

Got to T3 and checked in myself. Much tighter rules now... I've got so many things to worry. Did I bring my contact lens, I DID remember bringing my contact lens SOLUTION and whether the flimsy luggage will break off or something.

Bade byebye to Papa & Mr Z and went in myself but really very zo bo.

While waiting at the boarding area, I saw Mr Leong walked in..... We chatted for a while and board the plane...

Fortunately, or unfortunately, or I think we sat differently. He sat at the centre area while I get window seat with nobody seating beside me! YAY!

I noticed some flaky stuff, frost on the window.... 


I'd always love window seat and here's the reason why...
I love seeing all the blue hues in the skies!

5 hours later we landed in SH Pudong and we took the 2-hour long distant coach from Pudong to SZ from the long distance bus.

It was cold!! I was told the temperature is around 0-5 deg, very cold even with thick layers of clothes...

Waiting for our coach to SZ.
I'm dressed like many of the uncles behind :(

Beautiful sunset during the journey...

We are sitting at the first seat so this was taken behind the driver's seat.

By the time we reached SZ, it was already 630pm. 

V came to pick us up together with her bosses, Mr Zhang & Mr Wong. Mr Wong & Mr Leong are very very old friends for many many years. Mr Zhang is Operations director or something, V is PA to both Mr Zhang & Mr Wong and sometimes Mr Leong... She's really well-trained sia.

We had Muslim 回疆 food for dinner. 
Their tradition writings on the table cloth...

Many "shiny food", meaning they're super oily. 




From what I know that's what they do to keep themselves warm during winter. 
Lotsa oil + wine/alcohol...

Their mutton stick - their specialty.

Similar like Indian food's naan (bread)

This is extremely oily... 
I kinda think they dipped the whole thing in oil before serving us this dish.

Claypot mutton! ALOT OF MUTTON!

Later on, Mr Zhang drove us back to our apartment and once Mr Leong & I got back to the apartment, the whole house was DAMN COLD!!!!!!!!! Cos nobody live in it for the past few months and it was according to room temperature! And the room temperature was 0-5 deg!! GOODNESS!!! 

My room was super cold and it takes time for the air con to work... I had a horrible time trying to bath cos it was just soooo cold even after turning on the warm shower. 

The floor also damn cold to step on. My room was also cold even though I wore thick layers. The bed was cold to lie down and there wasn't any electric blanket so my back was chilly... 

AHHHH!! I rolled myself in 2 layers of blanket but still cold =(

I REALLY had a lot of difficulty sleeping....

-

Thursday, had toasted bread for breakfast and went to work on my own.

I am already fat and I am even fatter dressed in winter clothings...


The purpose of this lone winter trip was to conduct interviews to hire somebody to help me with researching. But there were lots of HR matters I'm not familiar so I gotta have Mayun beside me in order to make several decisions.

Had lunch with Mayun. Here's our lunch!

Once again, you see a lot of oil.... *shrugs*

After work, I wanted to shop for a few things such as a toilet seat warmer!


I saw this furry thing at Shan's apartment in Kobe before and your butt doesn't go on direct contact with the cold toilet seat and in Japan. In some public toilets, the toilet seat by default is already warm cos it's electric one. 

So I was hoping the furry thing or at least some kind of towel material toilet seat cover thingy was available... but nope, I walked around Carrefour after work but don't have. Grrr.....

By the time I reached back to the apartment, Mr Leong was already back and da bao some kuay teow for me which taste really good!!!

-

Friday, also has toasted bread and went to work as per normal.

To be honest, I'm quite worried about the company's situation of being tense & directionless. 

Anyway, I was supposed to meet 5 interviewers but only 3 turned up. 

The 10am guy was a bit blur blur one, seemed rather inconfident but very very honest & down-to-earth looking. He has good written English but not really an English-fan. Unfortunately, one of the job requirement is to frequent English websites.

The 11am girl has a promising resume but unfortunately she didn't turn up. 12pm was lunch and the 1am girl arrived, sounds pretty promising but her background is a bit dubious. 

While I was doing interview with her halfway, the 2pm girl arrived. The 2pm girl was the only person who did and answered in English throughout the whole interview which was commendable. I like her initiatives. It shows that she was enthu with this job position. 

The 3pm girl didn't turn up...

I spent the rest of the time discussing things with Mayun and was shocked to hear a few depressing news... 

After 1.5yrs, the company is actually 在亏损 feeding these ppl without making a single sale. No customers ever. And I didn't know that! K never mentioned any of those to me before. 

I mean, he was supposed to be the Sales & Development side while I was only doing Head Of Content of the entire website. My objective & scope was to make sure the website is working & updated regularly and has relevant content to be posted. So I never really questioned about his methods of making sales/money/profit so I was quite disheartened to know that the company wasn't making any. Then how did it sustain 1.5 years of operation?

After work, it was supposed to be staff dinner but Mayun couldn't make it. So I took cab with the girls back to the SZ apartment first since the restaurant was just across the street of the apartment. 

This restaurant nearby the apartment is called 川福楼. It's a huge restaurant!!! Quite nicely decorated. 

One thing I didn't like is that ppl are allowed to smoke indoors... aish!

Some pics while waiting for orders...


Mr Leong thought this waitress look cute & sweet and took pics with her

This is rabbit thigh! TU TUI!!! LOL~
It taste like chicken, except it was rather tough.

Some other dishes...



Another Sichuan delicacy, spicy fishhead.. 
I can barely eat a few mouths... too spicy liao!!!

Gone after 60 seconds! 
Mostly eaten by Lili & Mr Leong. I can't take the spiciness...

Another cute waitress come by and he wants a photo with her.... 
Like old se pek pek like that! =X

Some parting shots before we left the pretty place... 

Notice how they'd clutch to me almost naturally... 
I was damn awkward they so near to me! Errr.....

Had fun chatting & eating! But Sichuan food is really too spicy, cannot take it. I usually am the one who ate most but cos I couldn't take the spicy food, so I think Mr Leong & Lili ate most tonight?

After dinner, the girls left while Mr Leong got another meeting to go, I am free to do my stuff so I went to get some DVD, I bought Up, Ratatouille, Tropic Thunder then went home and nuah first...

I actually bathed and fallen asleep while online halfway until I heard Mr Leong returned late at night. He's one happening old fellow. 

I placed my laptop properly and off the light and continued to sleep.

-

Saturday, had some light breakfast and net surfing before Mr Leong jio V & I to this super big mall to see see look look...

Auchen is something like Carrefour or Giants in Suzhou (not sure if other parts of China also have it?)

We had brunch at this foodcourt inside. Very funny kind of purchasing. You pay for a card 50rmb and then you can spend all your want and after you're done eating, you return this card to the counter and they'll give you back the remaining money. A good way so that stall owners don't pocket or overcharge what they should.

I bought some milk, Yakult, cornflakes and met up with Mr Leong at this Papa Roti place opened by a Malaysian so it was extremely warm to see/hear someone speaking English! We met this family, the father is Malaysian with his wife and 2 young kids... Apparently the wife is P*C and the kids were speaking the Chinese accent... but the father's Chinese can tell is Malaysian-accent one so Mr Leong chatted with him. So he has business here and settled down here.... blablabla...

We got home and nuah until V came to pick us up with Mr Zhang to have dinner at Mr Wong's. Heard from Mr Leong that Mr Wong will cook dinner for us... 

Turned out Mr Wong lives alone and 3 of them shopped together and prepared the food to welcome Mr Leong & I. Both Mr Zhang & V really 24/7 PA to Mr Wong leh....

Mr Wong's house look like a mini palace in the Forbidden City. Lighting inside his house isn't very good so the pics I'd taken all damn cui....

I ate a lot, drank a lot... I'd no idea how many glasses of red wine I had. Mr Leong is a hiong beer/wine/alcohol drinker and every meal, he'll surely drink it... and would offer me. Grrr... I also drank concentrated Whiskey. Usually ppl mix it with green tea or coke but he offer me concentrated one. Wahaha... I was still ok. I'm not the type who's face would turn red drinking these... so ppl can't really tell I've had drinks.

We got together till 10am and got back home. Weeee... I even webcamed with my sisters. Super sober! I didn't know I can drink leh... but I really went to toilet a lot of times...

-

Sunday, will be visiting Lisa's church today and still got up early but it was a terrible weather, heavy rain. Rainy weather made it even colder!!! Brrrr....

It's a really old & traditional church! I think it could even be 100 years old! Wooden benches with those furry seat cushion to warm one's butt in this cold weather. I didn't know there were so many Christians in Suzhou. There are probably more but the turn out at the church was overwhelming, some even had to stand at the aisle...

I do not know a single song... but just following the simple tunes and lyrics. The choir, the pianist, the pastor, the reverend all wore tradition costume like as if it was during the olden days.

After the service ended, I went exploring this ancient place and saw this portrait...
No, that's not the real Last Supper, some guy re-drew it...

The rain still didn't stop but it was lunch time and we went across the street to have lunch. 
It was VERY VERY COLD!! It was raining!!!



Really extremely nice food value for money! 
However, due to orangey lighting in the restaurant I didn't take very good photos of the soup... 


In the middle of lunch, Lisa suddenly got an urgent call and left hurriedly saying she will be back later and asked me to wait for her so I waited but it was abit awkward with new customers coming in and looking at me having a meal alone. 

After about 20min, she was back and I said let's foot the bill but she already did so I thanked her and we went back o the church as there will be a wedding later on in the hall. I am curious!!! I'd never seen a church wedding in a REAL CHURCH before!!

But along the way, the scenery of those bare trees and rain... Haha!

It was a touching wedding....
But all this time I didn't get to see how the newly weds look like... Haha!! 

I enjoyed my day a lot! Very fun exposure all thanks to Lisa. Took cab and went home for a nap cos I woke up so early on a Sunday!

I was awaken by some clanking plates. Turned out Mr Leong was preparing dinner. Chok! Haha... he always refers porridge to chok, he's true blue Cantonese!

Damn nice food... he cooked so I did the dishes.... 

Whenever I was hungry, I will shop for those cucumber & cherry tomatoes at Carrefour. It's relatively quite cheap there and I could just munch it raw like that :)

-

Monday, had breakfast with Mr Leong before he left for Shanghai.

While on my way out, it snowed!!! But it's not those big kind of snow where it accumulates on the ground. It's like small ice which melts on the ground... Felt very happy seeing ice flakes falling on my head! Haha...

It was also cold in the office cos the office is usually in 'room temperature'.
View outside our office...

Can you see a layer of white stuff on the ground beside those grass?
It's on the pathway, can you see little footprints?

Spent some time with Mayun discussing about the salary of this new girl that I decided to hire and then asked her down to sign some stuff and she'll start work on Wed. 

I had cup noodles for lunch in the office while admiring the snow outside the window. I tried taking pics of it but it's not very visible so no pics to post.

It rained after the snow and after work, it was SUPER COLD!!!! The rain made it even colder so I quickly went home as soon as I can...

冬天真的不适合呆在外面太久。
一个人在在家里真的很无聊，也很寂寞。
还好有 laptop 陪我，就这样一整晚看《家门的荣光》。
凌晨一点多才入眠。。。