Chitty saluting Mr Mah Bow Tan...

Colours Party...

Guard of Honour contingent...

Supporting contingent...

Group shot with the new specialists...

So gay...

I was in bad shape after this photo was taken... GG...

Me sipping my H-Two-O... and the part Ds 2009 of course...

It has been an enjoyable week... Boring week at school... with the final AP rehearsal on thursday... and sushi tei dinner with cheryl on friday night at vivo... and the usual swimming with weiyang on wednesday... yup will keep that brief...

157th anniversary parade in SJI on saturday... biggest UG event of the year... Mr Mah Bow Tan, old boy of SJI, and minister for national development was the guest of honour... the sec 1 cadets under my charge when i was sec 4 finally passed out... that reminds me of how old i am lol... i took POP since no officers wanted to take... and then do some final shaping up for the contingents after that for the parade which went
rather smoothly... only 1 air guy fall out during parade... land got like god knows how many... lol... yay we win... thats good... and after the parade i was GG-ed as expected... was "raped"... shoes and socks gone... pants almost gone too if god knows who never say stop... LOL... other specs also kena... some taupok, some flagpole... haha so fun watching them till i kena myself... feeling emo right now... emoing when I wrote my facebook note for the sec 4s who passed out and reading their replies... watched them grow up over the last 4 years... great change in maturity and great leadership... will miss them a lot... uploading lots of pics on facebook... and my porn videos are on facebook too zzz... yes the rape videos... lucky some parts are not shown lol... macs delivery after the parade since the sec 4s need to wait for their ez-link cards after returning the rifles... yup cabbed home with my 2 reporters and jp... and it was saturday night ops so controlled a while and went to bed... damn tired... gotta do sales report now... arrrgh...

Sunday morning reported to work at Paragon M1 at 11am... met new people again... made new friends again... the samsung promoter is so **** i swear... lol... censored... yup sales increased this week for me... 33 mobile phones sold... not as if i have commission... but well beating your own sales record is an achievement... talked a lot, was more active in approaching customers and promoting sony ericsson phones, and putting down other brands haha... oops... yea knocked off at 9pm and bus-ed home... end of a wonderful week...

Today was just a human factors project meeting in the morning... most of the work done... lectures in the afternoon and OM tutorial... yea studying is getting mundane... now flying and settling the final Real Ops preparation stuff... this saturday is Singapore Real Ops... gonna be at home like the whole day to control... once in a blue moon event... haha... yup thats all for now...

bAby LiOn roared at 9:11 PM.

Ah managed to dig out my Hong Kong Disneyland Guide Map and Times Guide... So cute hor Stitch... muacks...

Also digged out my boarding pass for my return flight... Cathay only scans the barcode instead of tearing the boarding pass, so I can have the whole piece...

M1 showcase of Sony Ericsson...

A typical boring day at school during Avionics lecture...

Me doing avionics presentation... had hell of a presentation... everything i had was circuit diagrams to explain wtf...

Woooo many things have happened since I am back from Hong Kong... Well i shall talk about things that i can remember... Hmm first thing was mugging for 2 common tests: mechanics and aircraft systems... and also to complete all my online holiday work which I have not been doing during the trip... asked ben ho out to study at bukit batok macs and also derrick and eugene to study at ang mo kio library, where we ended up going to lan shop to play Left4Dead instead after 1 or 2 hours of mugging... zzz distraction... Common tests turned out fine... but mechanics a bit tricky and tough, dun think can score too well... aircraft systems is cool... played harcore L4D after tests were over... completed avionics presentation and played L4D... oh my god i actually left my camcorder in the lecture theatre... worth like $800... lucky arthur was in school to chiong and get for me before it gets stolen...

After common tests was a 3-day break... went swimming with jeremy and eugene at jurong east swimming complex... played the slides and wave pool and lazy river like kids... imagine 3 guys sharing a float, one lying on top of each other and 3 guys sitting on a float together... zzz so gay lol... yea we did it... lost my locker key cos the velcro in my shorts came loose and the key came out, had to pay $8 to replace it... and then realised i never bring an extra pair of shorts, so had to dry that same shorts to wear home... freaking suay day... yea also caught Transformers with cheryl during the break... very cool movie, but the starting part was so boring i actually fell asleep... lol... transformers is like power rangers, morphing here and there zzz...

Also started work at Sony Ericsson... was posted to West Mall M1 shop last weekend... they gave me 2 phones to play with for me to familiarise with the Sony Ericsson interface and features as if i dunno... gave me a C510 and a C902... fucking cool phones... C902 has touch screen camera lol and face detection and auto rotation and all those crap which my W890i doesnt have... so now i got 3 phones which i change every few days: W890i, C510, C902... lol... cool huh... well my job is a sony ericsson promoter based in different M1 shops... regarding the pay, well i wont disclose here how much... ask me if u want to know... no commission though, but still need to get high sales for the sake of reputation lol, and also for some top sales award thingy in the company... made friends with the nokia, samsung, LG and HTC promoters lol... we are from rival companies, but we dont behave like rivals... its like these 5 companies have merged to become friends hahaha... had supper after work together on sunday, 5 rivals together so cartoon... and yea its a weekend job... Now gotta send in my sales report to boss...

School officially started on monday... gymmed alone in the morning cos the rest had meeting... yea then chiong to lectures... today is tuesday and its another sucky day... i freaking overslept... and of all times... the new CSW lecturer had to have a surprise test or some sort... oh my god i was so late la... reached class test already started... she should like tell us there is a test and tell us to come at 8 sharp la... what the hell... lucky can finish writing the dumb letter on time... boring day at school... first time roger chua yell at us during lecture for talking loudly haha... i also shocked... stupid eugene go and anyhow spread that i **** *** ***** ****... now everybody know... haha during aircraft systems today damn funny... eugene and i watching zhuo wei flirt with ******** on msn hahaha... teasing all the way... lots of scandals around nowadays... yea thats all i wanna say for now... nights...

bAby LiOn roared at 9:34 PM.

Maxim Palace@Grand Century Place...

Streets of Mong Kok...

Ladies' Market...

Steamed milk...

Steamed egg...

From left: Grandpa, me, grandaunt, grandma, HK aunt...

Check in counters for CX economy passengers...

HKIA's departure hall is very nice i must say...

The Wright Flyer, world's first aircraft flown by the Wright brothers, on display...

After passing immigration...

The airport underground train linking the immigration area to gates 33-80...

Cathay Pacific flight CX715... Boeing 777-300 registered B-HNE, my ride for the night...

Yea gate 65...

Wonderful legroom as compared to the A340-300 i took into HK...

The uber long wing...

Hong Kong-Singapore...

Descending on the PASPU1B arrival, runway 20R into Singapore...

Had breakfast at home in the morning... some char siew bau crap... then around noon we went out, yes for dim sum AGAIN! Took the MTR to Mong Kok, walked to the post office where I mailed the photos i developed back to the village... wrote the address, sealed it up... my grandaunt spilled glue all over the envelope, and she still say never mind... zzz wth... bought the stamp and mailed... walked to Grand Century Place, where the hotel i lived in was located... and we had dim sum at Maxim Palace... waited for my HK aunt to arrive from work, she took half day leave to see us off and buy us lunch... yea didnt order much once again, cos the old folks dun eat much... seems like we eat much more in china than hong kong... after that i told my aunt of my craving for nice curry fish balls before i leave... then she brought me to a shop where they sell awesome curry fish balls, more spicy than anywhere in HK, so nice man... the curry here is sweeter than that in singapore, though it sounds disgusting like sweet japanese curry, but its somehow unique... then after that we went for dessert at yee shun dessert shop... its quite famous here by the way their steamed milk... i had steamed milk, some of them had steamed egg... its awesome la, HK delicacy... not easy to make ok... the milk must stir dunno how many thousand times to make sure its damn dilute, then steam for certain number of minutes... cannot too long and cannot too short... to give that half liquid half solid kind of texture... yea its nice... after that we cabbed home for some rest... cab here is damn expensive lor... its like S$18 for the journey equivalent from my house in bukit batok to my school in dover... yea that kind of distance costs S$18 in HK... sucks...

Did my last minute packing and last minute chatting on MSN... then off we went to the airport... HKD230 or S$46 for the trip lol... its equivalent to my home to changi airport, which only costs S$19... and here S$46... cut throat sia... yup dumped our baggage at the check in counter cos already did online check in... collected our boarding passes... and took some farewell photos at the departure hall... then suddenly had craving for wanton noodles before leaving hong kong... so went down to the arrival hall's cafe de coral and had a nice bowl of wanton noodles... its almost time to walk to the gate with the massive amount of pastries we were carrying in our hands lol, those cant check in... its called "wife's biscuits"... this time i am travelling back with my grandparents, so only 2 old folks, unlike 3 when i came here... they cant travel alone cos they are blur when it comes to travelling... cant read signs and stuff... so i gotta act like a tour guide for them... went through immigration after bidding farewell to my grandaunt and aunt... wah i swear HK immigration wasnt as troublesome few years back... its like so troublesome now... my laptop must take out from the soft case, like the x-ray cant see through the soft case??? now still need to scan boarding pass before entering the restricted area before the immigration... so troublesome... finally we passed through immigration... with all our carry-ons checked...

Boarding was at gate 65, which is like at the far north end of the airport... cant they give me like gate 1-4 or gate 16-19 zzz... those are like so near... i always get the far end gates when i come to HK... we had to take the underground train from the immigration area to the gate 60+ area... ride took about 2mins... thats how far it is lol... yup flight was delayed about 15mins... so boarding was quite late... expected boarding to have started when we arrived but it havent... the flight was fucking full... 300 people or more... the aircraft back would be a Boeing 777-300 registered B-HNE... no seats were empty, maybe 1 or 2... thats cos they cancelled CX691 which was an earlier flight and moved all passengers to CX715, this flight... Flight supposed to depart at 8pm, but boarding only started at like 7.55pm... yup departed a bit late... took off runway 07R, on the SANDI2A departure procedure, followed by the V6 transition to EPDOS and the L642 airway south over the south china sea... yea i know all these cos i sort of "mug" such things...

This time the cabin and sky was dark cos its a nice flight... made the ambience right for watching movies... and so i tuned the inflight entertainment to watch The International... some detective and action movie la... premiere on Cathay Pacific... i have to say the screen resolution on their 777 aircraft is much better than that on their Airbus regional fleet... watching the movie was so clear... soon dinner was served... had some steamed chicken with rice and god knows what gravy... cathay pacific food sucks all the time, this time i didnt have high expectations of them... so didnt get myself too disappointed... fruits as dessert again, not haagen dazs... yea finished the food and continued with my movie... movie was around 2h30min... finished, listen to some music and the captain soon make an announcement to announce that we are about to descend... we descended through the PASPU1B arrival from VEPLI and landed runway 20R... touchdown was a bit rough, captain must have flared too much... docked at gate D34 at changi... alighted and went to the duty free shop to buy a bottle of perfume for myself... and then came the tedious part: buying alcohol cos many people asked me to buy for them... my auntie already helped me buy 2 bottles of vodka when she came back 5 days before... cos i not enough passports to buy... 1 passport can only carry 1 litre of hard liquor, 1 litre of wine and 1 litre/3cans of beer... now i got 3 passports only... so now i just have to buy 2 bottles of bailey's irish cream, one for me and one for andrew... and one absolute vodka mandarin for my auntie and 6 cans of carlsberg beer... gonna try the bailey's irish cream since andrew say its nice... 17% alcohol... used to drink bailey's honey beer and it was not bad, good impression of bailey's... yea passing through immigration was a breeze cos we used automated clearance... collected our baggage and out we went to the arrival hall where my dad was there to fetch us and our tons of stuff home... really lots of stuff we brought back haha... wonderful trip overall!

This brings and end to the trip report for my HK/China trip 2009... Thank you guys for reading and bearing with the long posts... hope you have enjoyed my trip report! Take care!

bAby LiOn roared at 2:47 AM.

Day 13

Welcome to Victoria Harbour!

View of Central from the Avenue of Stars at Tsim Sha Tsui... yea this is the day view... i have the night view pics from one of my older posts...

Familiar scene? Its always in the HK movies and dramas...

Had dim sum at some posh restaurant in Yau Ma Tei late morning... not a wide spread this time cos the 4 old folks i went with dont eat much, so didnt order much... grandparents and 2 grandaunts... yea they dun eat much... so just had the usual dim sum... i heard from the HK people that the standard stuff to order FIRST in any dim sum meal is siew mai, har gow, char siew bau, chicken claws and steamed pork ribs... yea these usually should be ordered first... yup had some porridge and all those stuff... wonderful... when hong kong people say lets go yum cha, and its understood its dim sum... its usually late morning... i think they should just call it brunch haha... after eating i left the old folks to do their own stuff while Leong Zai... yea i love my new name! Yea and so leong zai went on his own one day tour of Kowloon City... and part of Hong Kong Island... Hong Kong's made up of 4 parts: Kowloon, Hong Kong, Lantau and the New Territories by the way...

First stop: Tsim Sha Tsui... I had my adidas shopping spree... haha... went into the adidas shop... bought a pair of training shorts and a adidas jacket/pullover... paid and left... both black... bought another adidas t-shirt a week ago at Adidas@Citygate outlets before the trip into china... yea left the shop, went under the underpass... walked at Sogo for a while... hmm wonder where singapore's Sogo has gone to now... found nothing interesting in Sogo, so i thought i should go to the Avenue of Stars again, 2nd time this trip, yea i mentioned there are handprints of all the famous HK stars on the floortiles along the path... those visiting HK should go take a look... This time I managed to get a day time view of Central on Hong Kong island opposite... i was on the Kowloon side... the water channel in between is Victoria Harbour... took those few shots shown above... was wearing my skinnies the 1st time that day, invited stares... i think HK people dun wear skinnies, cos i almost never see anyone wearing... like 1 or 2 only the whole trip... maybe they not used to it...

Second stop: Jordan... took a train to Jordan... looked around at Yue Hwa and Wing On departmental stores... these are like the CK Tangs and OG in singapore... big and lots of stuff... was hunting for long sleeve t-shirts cos i felt the need to get some cos i dun have... well i have, but i sort of decommissioned them... want new ones... didnt find any... cos its like "summer" here, weather so hot, and these shops follow the trend and thought no one would need long sleeve shirts at this time, so all sell short sleeve =.=... yup i gave up...

Third stop: Causeway Bay... Went on a train ride to Causeway Bay... and poof! now i am on hong kong island, train went through the tunnel under the sea from kowloon... cool hor lol... went around Sogo... causeway bay's sogo is so much bigger... and much more levels... all the branded stuff u can imagine are all here... went to check out the adidas section... bought a black adidas polo tee... yea all adidas stuff i bought during the spree are all black haha... ok that ends my spree... gave up on the long sleeve shirt hunt, bought one in china anyway... so no urgency... just wanted more thats all...

Took a train back to Lam Tin... decided to check out the shopping centre opposite my "home"... walked around, found nothing interesting then went home... immediately showered and off we all went for dinner... its my last night in HK, and this was to be our farewell dinner... took the MTR one stop to Kwun Tong... dined at HiPot@APM Millenium City shopping mall... real modern, like vivo city... the concept of the steamboat at HiPot is very interesting... you pay HKD10 for unlimited dessert and drinks... dessert like black sesame, drinks like sour plum and pear juice... yup and other than that, ur food u have to pay per plate... beef is cheap like HKD8, which is S$1.60 for 6 slices... thats cheap... then u dump into this pot to cook, where half is chicken soup, and the other half is "ma-la" soup... super spicy sia... well i know this is not interesting yet... but have u seen fish balls where the inside is cheese? have you seen vermicelli rolled up and tied into a ball shape? have u seen a long tube of fish paste where you squeeze a bit into the pot and cook to make it into one long long piece of fish meat that u eat like noodles? And many more creative concepts they incorporate into their food that i found interesting, but cant remember... finished eating... was so full after spamming beef like siao... cos the rest cant finish the beef... took the MTR back home, was so tired that i went to bed after watching TV for a while and did my online check in for my flight back to Singapore, was in time to choose some really nice seats...

bAby LiOn roared at 2:09 AM.

Day 12

Interior of the public bus in HK...

Exhibits in Hong Kong international airport regarding the development from the old Kai Tak airport to the current one...

Japan Airlines Boeing 747-400 JA8075

Airport entrance...

Cathay Pacific Catering Services... here's where we stood at for hours to spot airplanes =)

Aeroflot Boeing 767-300 VP-BWX

Philippine Airlines Boeing 747-400 RP-C7473

Jetstar Asia A320 9V-JSA bound for Singapore...

China Eastern A321 B-6345...

Cathay Pacific car lol... cute hor...

Betsy VR-HDA... Cathay Pacific's first aircraft standing proudly in the carpark of Cathay City...

The bus stop which we took bus from to enter the aircraft maintenance area...

Cathay Pacific B747-400...

Cathay Pacific special livery Boeing 777-300ER B-KPF in the hangar for maintenance...

A GFS helicopter (Government Flying Service)...

Another Cathay B747 parked in front of runway 07R...

Thai Airways Airbus A340-600 HS-TNE... long hor? Flying pencil...

Air Canada B777-300ER C-FRAM...

United Airlines Boeing 747-400...

Dennis and me...

China Airlines Boeing 737-800W B-18615

KLM Cargo Boeing 747-400F PH-CKD...

Hong Kong Airlines B737-800W...

Hong Kong International Airport!

View of runway 25L...

Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-300 B-HNP...

Korean Air Airbus A330-300...

Cathay Pacific Airbus A330-300 B-HLP landing runway 25R...

Eva Air Boeing 747-400 B-18405...

Dragonair Airbus A330-300 B-HWF... love the background...

Air New Zealand Boeing 777-200 ZK-OKB...

Garuda Indonesia Boeing 737-800W PK-GEH...

Air China Boeing 777-200 B-2061...

Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-300ER B-KPB...

Dragonair A330-300 taxying to runway 25R for departure...

Cathay Pacific Cargo Boeing 747-400F B-HUL...

Dragonair Airbus A321 B-HTG...

Cathay Pacific Airbus A330-300 B-HLH...

And finally, Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300ER 9V-SWE bound for Singapore as SQ861!

What a wonderful view of the hills from the airport's Skydeck!

Today would be the first day of my life that I went hardcore aircraft spotting under the hot sun! Came back sunburnt haha... woke up early morning, washed up, ate a bit and headed to the bus stop opposite outside Lam Tin MTR station to catch bus E22 to Cathay City... its where Cathay Pacific houses its flight operations HQ... getting better at getting around Hong Kong... haha... now exploring the bus system... met up with dennis and another spotter... they have a DSLR camera while I am only using my noob camera lol... felt so inferior but never mind... And so I took out my airband scanner which I bought in Apliu Street earlier... and tuned Hong Kong South Tower frequency 118.400... listened out for aircraft taking off... then took photos under the bridge opposite the Cathay Pacific Catering Centre... And so we went up and down the bridge to take photos under the hot sun... then suddenly winds direction change, and the departure runway switched from runway 07R to runway 25L... so we stopped spotting and caught a bus to HAECO, which is where the aircraft maintenance hangars are located... There we would be able to catch the departing aircraft...

Stood at the beach and continued spotting till it was time for lunch... then we took a bus out to Tung Chung MTR station and lunched at Cafe De Coral in one of the shopping centres... they had this promotion where betwee 2pm to 5pm a bowl of roast duck kway teow plus a cup of ice milk tea costs only HKD22... thats only like S$4.40... considered very cheap in HK already... finished our lunch then took a bus back, now into the airport complex... We went up the Skydeck... thats where i would say singapore changi airport loses out to Hong Kong... singapore doesnt cater to aviation enthusiasts who like to go to the rooftop of the airport to look at planes and take photos... whereas HK does, with their Skydeck above Terminal 2... its 8 storeys high... and its the rooftop of HKIA where we can see ALL ground movement and ALL departing and arriving traffic closeup... and take photos of them... cool right... And so we hang around at Skydeck till SQ861 departed... heard rumours of an Air France special livery coming in, but well the rumours turned out to be wrong... so we left... and went down to the exhibition downstairs... its like an aviation museum, tells about how aviation in hong kong has developed, from Cathay Pacific and from the old airport to the opening of the new airport now... and lots of stuff and interactive games... got PS3 also, didnt play cos i was rushing home to take my grandma out for dinner...

Took bus E22 back home from the bus terminal downstairs... bid farewell to dennis, wont be meeting him till i go Hong Kong again, which would be quite soon I think... haha... yup went home for a shower and took my grandma out for dinner at kwun tong, one of the cafe there... wanted to go to the baleno there to exchange my skinnies for a smaller pair cos it turned out that the waist area is tooooo loose... 29 inches is too loose for me... i only wear 28 or 27 usually... yea i'm thin what to do... turned out that the baleno at kwun tong is having a closing down sale, so they dun sell skinnies... and so we took the MTR to Mong Kok and went to the baleno where i bought the skinnies and exchange for a "tighter" pair... now it fits my waist and i'm happy... shopped around at ladies' market where my grandma bought a mickey mouse handbag... see? i told u she has fashion sense... which old lady carries mickey mouse handbag man... it seriously looks very trendy... sort of suits her young appearance lol... helped her bargain cos she doesnt know how to, or rather she's too nice to bargain... got a reasonable price, and yea bought it... and then took the MTR home... watched more HK drama, surfed the net, checked my mail and went to bed... yes this post is long i know, thanks to the tons of photos...

bAby LiOn roared at 12:25 AM.