While rummaging through a box of knick-knacks last week, I found this draft scribbled on a small writing pad that I thought I’ve lost a long time ago.

Night landings hold a special kind of magic. They start off quite scary, with nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see. Once in a while, a flash of lightning might illuminate the night sky 0r a portion of the aircraft’s wing for a fraction of a second at a time.

Then as the familiar grinding of the lowering landing gear breaks the monotony of the engine drone, the magic begins. Through a gossamer veil of clouds, I manage to snatch glimpses of the city’s lights spread out like a dazzling, bejeweled carpet on the ground. My pulse quickens at the sight of the familiar shape of the North-South highway, winding like ribbons of light. I’ve still never quite figured out from which direction the aircraft approaches the runway of KLIA.

I’ve witnessed this scene unfold countless times yet each descent somehow still manages to retain a certain uniqueness.

I hear the unmistakable comforting whirr of the landing gear and the shift in the engines’ hum as the pilot begins the landing sequence. Then suddenly the miniscule lights morph into a miniature landscape, getting larger and larger as the plane descends lower and lower. And as the landing gear comes into contact with the runway, the wings extend forward before bending slightly downwards. Then as the plane decelerates, the wing extensions slowly retract. The plane begins its slow taxi into the gate.

Dots of blue mark the path to the gate. The main terminal comes to view. A vestibule with a man at the helm awaits, his joystick at ready. He deftly maneuvers the skybridge towards the aircraft door as the passengers inside the plane scramble to get their hand luggage from the overhead bins.

Selamat pulang ke tanah air. (Welcome back to your homeland.)

These sure give a whole new meaning to the phrase “moving house”!

This reminds me of the time our family went to New Zealand in June 2011. DH decided on a whim to take the kids to a walk at Hooker Valley in Mount Cook National Park. The walk started off innocently enough but increasingly became tougher, especially the last few meters to the second swinging bridge.

But the children and I stubbornly plodded on…step by painful step…up steep rock formations…

The last few meters to the second swinging bridge, Hooker Valley Walk, Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand

…and were eventually rewarded with this view:-

The reward that awaited us at the second swinging bridge, Hooker Valley Walk, Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand.

I know there’s something wonderful waiting for me at the end of this current ordeal. All I have to do is to remain patient, stay strong, and take things slowly — one long, slow, painful step at a time.

“So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief. Verily, with every difficulty there is relief.”

Underage. No licence. No helmets. I don’t even know where to begin… *sigh*

Photo taken in Tanggerang, just outside Jakarta.

Photo from http://chinabites.com/

The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group living primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. As most of the Uyghurs are Sunni Muslims, the food is predominantly halal.

That night, we sampled flat cake with hummus, fried rice with beef jerky, three types of dumplings (fried/steamed/baked), and spicy mutton kebabs.

Our verdict? The flat cake tasted like paratha, only not as oily, and the hummus was not really outstanding. The fried rice was rice stir-fried with soy sauce, a bit of mixed vegetables, and dried beef pieces; it was okay but the rice was a bit on the chewy/hard side. The dumplings were all nice BUT they all used mutton filling cooked in different ways so if you’re not that fond of mutton, consider yourself warned. Oh, and you must order a minimum of 4 dumplings per order.

The spicy mutton kebabs were the most unforgettable of all — the meat was tender and flavourful, they were not too spicy to burn your tongue but just enough to give it a nice kick and mute the mutton’s usual odour, the amount of meat per skewer was generous, and the meat was very tender. At only RMB3 (~USD1) per skewer, the kebabs were a great bargain and such an unexpected treat. Even my colleague who normally does not eat mutton admitted that she enjoyed the kebabs very much.

Pic from http://www.englishbaby.com

Unfortunately, it was a business dinner so I didn’t have the chance to take any pics, thus explaining why I’m using pics off the internet for this post.

There were plenty of other dishes on the menu, including duck, chicken and beef, from practically all conceivable body parts of those animals, offal included. The restaurant is halal but served alcoholic drinks and the clientele was very varied — Caucasian tourists and expats included — and not necessarily only Muslims seeking halal food.

Yeli Xiali Restaurant
Branches in Shanghai:
No. 411, East Tianlin Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai * Tel: 021-64519797
No. 147, Fenglin Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai * Tel: 021-64038882
No. 106, East Nandan Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai * Tel: 021-64686079
2F, No. 762, Tianshan Road, Changning District, Shanghai * Tel: 021-62748367
No. 918, Dongfang Road, Pudong District, Shanghai * Tel: 021-50201057
No. 680, Zhaojiabang Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai * Tel: 021-64668388

For best results, print out the card below and show it to the taxi driver (click the image below for a bigger version for printing). Ask your hotel beforehand which branch is nearest to you. Bon appetit!

Last night, we went to a market that felt like a cross between KL’s Petaling Street and Central Market. My friend only knows its Chinese name but from my Google search this morning, I believe we’ve been to Yuyuan Market a.k.a. Shanghai Old Street.

The whole place felt like Old World China, complete with upturned eaves and carved columns. But there seemed to be a McDonald’s in just about every street corner…and — oh what sacrilege! — even a Starbucks outlet!

The market is an endless array of little shops that sold everything from t-shirts to fridge magnets to Little Red Books to tea sets to qi paos and  just about everything else under the sun.

Some haggling skills is of paramount importance. From their initial offer, I’d counter with a price about half of what I’d pay for, one that’s bound to elicit a laugh and a counter-offer. And the parrying goes back and forth until such point when the vendor would refuse to go any further. I then start to walk away…and if they try to stop me and give me  a final offer, that’s just about the right time to buy. A word of caution: if you don’t intend to buy it, don’t haggle just for the fun of it lest you earn their ire. For pricier items, it helps if you look around a bit to compare prices before sealing the deal.

My favourite buy of the night? A customised stamp bearing my name in English and Chinese characters — Mimi on top, 美美 at the bottom. It was fascinating watching them do the entire thing in less than 5 minutes…and it’s mind-boggling how they can carve minute mirror images of those intricate Chinese characters.

The most amusing part of the trip so far? Everyone keeps mistaking me for a local and talking to me in Mandarin :)

Okay, gotta run! Work beckons for now!

Dubai Airport Arrivals Hall

It was one of my most hectic business trips so far. To give you an idea of how tiring it was, we flew from KL 10.30pm on Saturday, arrived Muscat 1am (5am KL time), transit for 4 hours, connecting flight to Dubai at 5am (9am KL time), arrived Dubai 5.50am, collected visa, did iris scan, collected luggage, off to hotel for shower/change/breakfast, then off to Dubai World Trade Centre where I stayed until 7pm (11am KL time). And I only had about 4 hours sleep in the plane within that 24-hour period. Which ended up in me getting sick later on. Which is an entirely different story altogether.

Anyway, we were in Dubai for 2 nights, then flew to Muscat for a one-night visit, then flew back to KL. Madness, I tell you. Sheer madness!

Dubai World Trade Centre

Since I already knew how hectic the schedule would be, I deliberately left my beloved Nikon D90 at home and had to rely on my HTC Desire smartphone’s camera instead. So please forgive me if the images for this post are not up to the usual standards. There wasn’t much to shoot anyway, with all the rushing and running around.

My fave images from the trip? The food, of course, savoured over a leisurely afternoon in Muscat with long-time friends, one of whom was the beautiful creature whose wedding I wrote about in my post ‘An Omani Wedding’ not too long ago. She just gave birth to a baby girl last July. Talk about time flying!

Pomegranate from Jabal Akhdar (Green Mountain) of Oman, eaten by the bowlful:

Fresh peaches and figs:

Arabic coffee and loqmiyat drenched in date syrup (loqmiyat literally meaning ‘many mouthfuls’)

‘Til we meet again, Dubai and Muscat!

I’ve got tonnes of unfinished blog posts but given the dizzying schedule of my recent travels, I’ve been sleeping every chance I could get thereby leaving the drafts…well, drafts. Unfinished work at the office? I don’t even want to talk about it! *groan*

So for now, I seek solace in my desktop screensaver. And long for the day when I can be in serene Interlaken once again…

We’re at the halfway mark this week, people. The weekend’s not too far away… Hang in there with me!

Counting the days ’til the weekend,
Mimi

One nice thing about traveling to United Arab Emirates and Oman — they use the standard UK 3-pin plug that we use in Malaysia, thereby rendering a plug adaptor redundant.

For someone like me who can’t live without my electronic gadgets, that’s one less thing to worry about packing in my bag!

Just a quick post to let y’all know I’m still alive :P

I’ve just always assumed Stonehenge to be HUGE and towering and imposing and awe-inspiring. Just like all classic desktop wallpapers and photos that we see of it everywhere…but it turned out to be waaaay smaller than I’ve always imagined it to be. I never thought of googling up some background information before going; somehow I just assumed.  In reality, it was disappointingly only about twice the height of an average man’s height. Just take a look at this pic of Stonehenge with two members of the staff standing right next to it.

Visitors are not even allowed get close to the rocks — they are roped off from the general public, a good 10 metres or so away. Only people who sign up for those expensive exclusive sunrise or sunset tours — ranging from £79 to £92 per person (adult price) — get to go inside the inner circle and see the rocks up close.

This pic should give you an idea of how far away we were from the famous circle of boulders:-

The black ‘line’ behind the baby stroller is the rope that cordons off the stone formation.

Take a closer look at the first photo that I posted at the beginning of this blog post and try to look for the people standing behind Stonehenge:-

The reason why these people look so tiny is because of their distance from the rocks and not so much from the actual height of the rocks.

We arrived in Stonehenge quite late — some 15 minutes before the 8pm closing time — but they allowed us to enter anyway even if it meant forgoing the complimentary audio guide. After all, we rationalized, it would be such a waste to drive all the way and not see the rocks as close as possible…and take proper pics of them, as well. The downside was that we had very little time to spend there — and get the most out of the £7.50 ticket fee! — but the plus side was that there were very few people around, allowing us to take pics without any unwanted stranger wandering into the frame.

Stonehenge is located in a grassy plain in Wiltshire near Salisbury, just a short drive away from Bath, hence it’s quite common for tour operators to offer both locations in the same tour.

It’s easily accessible by car — some 1 1/2 hours from London — and can also be reached by train (to Salisbury) then by bus. Mind you, train fares in the UK can be very expensive so if you plan to go by train, it’s best to book your tickets way in advance.

Stonehenge is in a vast, grassy plain surrounded by a perimeter of wire fence. So if you don’t feel like paying for the entrance ticket, you can gawk at the rocks from a distance through the chain link fence.

Stonehenge Visitor’s Info

Ticket Prices:
Members Free
Adult £7.50
Child £4.50
Concession £6.80
Family Ticket £19.50

Directions
Address:  Off A344 Road, Amesbury, Wiltshire – SP4 7DE
Bus Access: The Stonehenge Tour Bus is the public bus departing from Salisbury rail and bus stations. See www.thestonehengetour.info.
Road Access: 2 miles W of Amesbury on junction of A303 and A344/A360
Train Access: Salisbury 9 1/2 miles

Click here for more detailed information about opening times throughout the year.

If your trip to the UK allows you some time to visit other English Heritage properties, it would be definitely worth your while to invest £46 for an annual English Heritage membership, which would give you free access to all of their properties – castles, Roman sites, monuments and ruins — all over the UK.