Hong Kong Island @ Central & Mid Levels

I came back from Hong Kong after staying there for a week. It was the first time I really had free and ample time to wander around aimlessly alone to discover the exciting city. I might have visited and transited at Hong Kong for over 10 times since 1985 but I had never roamed the streets alone until recently.

Hong Kong is definitely a very safe and exciting place with crowds of locals and happy tourists shopping every where! My wife was away at the Hong Kong's education university for 3 days and we met up for dinner nightly. We stayed extra 3 days to catch up with my long lost friends of 21 & 16 years respectively! One was my childhood family friend who is now a wealthy tycoon living at the hills of the HKG Jockey Club vicinity and the other old friend was during my tour inside TVB Studios @ Clearwater Bay during my office trip. We didn't see each other for 21 years and he is still so funny like a comedy actor.

My wife and I also found time to make our way to visit a famous island called Cheung Chau which was a wonderful bliss. I will blog about Cheung Chau later on. You must hear about that famous Qing Dynasty's pirate Cheong Po Tsai.

I sat outside alone to admire the prominent landmarks around Central. Next to my left is the famous hotel where the popular singer jumped down to commit suicide at 6.43pm. It made me think about how fragile life is and we should help everyone who is depressed. Only depressions would cause suicides. Please spend time with your loved ones who might show depressions and worries. I quickly left that spot before that 'fateful hour' as the law of universe would see victims repeat their suicide acts at the same spot and time until their "supposedly lifetime duration". It means that if you are supposed to live as a human cycle till 80 years but killed yourself at 50 years old, you might have to kill yourself in the same manner everyday for 30 years until your 80 year's age! The same pain and bloody death would be repeatedly inflicted again & again beyond help. Every religion says humans should never commit suicide. That is the reasons many accident spots and houses became spooky & haunted due to the unseen factors.

Every Sunday, you will see thousands of Filipina maids gathering like happy birds singing & relaxing all over Central's district on their off days. HKG has not enough parks for people like them in the city's meeting point as their forests and green parks are located too far in the suburbs.

This is the famous Hollywood Road where the famous police station is located on the right. Hundreds of movies and TVB dramas have filmed this building.

We both explored around Central and decided to walk our way up to the swanky hills at Mid Level. It was truly an eye opener to see how tall and crammed the living space there. Need I say more?

The condos and apartments are so tall as we soared higher and higher till the Upper Mid Levels. It looks scary to see them building high rises on every inch of land but they are very solid buildings that have survived all the typhoons. They never had "Highland Towers" tragedy here.

It was Hari Raya and I was pleased to see a green mosque located right in between the high rise condominiums at Upper Mid Levels. I opened the small gate and promptly walked inside to admire the facade of the mosque which has nice and serene ambiance.

I saw property advertisements everywhere in Central and my eyes went really big like gold fish eyes!! Their average rentals was over HKG$20,000 until $80,000 per month! Then the selling prices for less than 1,000sq ft would start from HKG$16 million till $60 million for slightly bigger units. Walau Eh! My big eyes popped out of my sockets onto the floor. I need to be a slave for many lives to own a unit there.

As I had plenty of time to loiter around from stations to stations of the whole Hong Kong and Kowloon MTR lines, I started to notice that many people waited and met up with acquaintances at the railings that barricaded the inbound & outbound passengers! I really learnt a valuable lesson here. They could be one coming from opposite end at Chai Wan in HKG island to pass a package or documents to someone at far away Tuen Mun in Kowloon side. They just meet at the railings to pass the goods without alighting from the exit gate and board the same train back to their place of origin. That would save a lot of money and time. Our MRT extended lines are new in KL and I will definitely adopt this cost saving delivery in future.

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Greetings From Hong Kong

I arrived Hong Kong today. You can say it is my WORKation trip again. My wife will be attending a conference at the Education University of Hong Kong where she will speak about the Computational Thinking education in Malaysia.

We are staying at a hotel at the busy Nathan Road where there are many shopping and dining excitement. It has been raining almost everyday and we will be here for a week! I have to carry umbrella like an old lady. 

The flight this morning was pleasant but the plane was 100% full. We enjoyed the above fabulous meal on board the Dragon Air. I ate salmon with rice with delicious fruit salad & sausages plus a yummy cup of strawberry Hagen Dazz ice cream!!

The plane touched down at Hong Kong International Airport after flying for 4 hours. It was raining and I had a bigger shock to see water leaked into the plane itself! The crew had to open up umbrellas for the passengers to wriggle out of the plane. 

*Posted From My Smart phone!

In Memory Of My Silent Reader

On 7th November, I received a surprise email from a silent reader CK from Singapore. The minute I read the first paragraph of his writing, something unseen jumped out of my phone through his email. My hair stood up very fiercely like Christmas trees on my head and I had the most terrible goosebumps ever. My skin all sprouted tiny lumps like a fresh chicken just being plucked all the feathers. Gosh! The mangled spirit just stood beside me and actually grabbed my leg while I was seated on the comfy chair alone in the office's conference room. I read on the email's message and CK was pouring out his grievances over the death of his childhood friend who was just killed in a car accident. In the wee hours, his friend navigated his own speeding Estima which hit the roadside and flipped over. The impact threw his friend out of the car and landed on the road for other cars to run over him to death. He was just 30 years old and this gory accident mangled his whole body. The victim's body had been cremated after the funeral but his badly mangled soul really came to find me. I had no choice but invited this poor wandering spirit to follow me home. I am not lunatic but I can swear that this is all true. The reasons CK got in touch was because he dreamt of his departed friend appearing in his vivid dream where he knew clearly his friend had passed away. He remembered I had a similar encounter when my dead friend came to inform me that he had passed away and had to sadly move on already.......(BLOG) I have been exchanging over 60 emails with CK ever since, from doing prayers and making merits for his departed friend besides talking all the paranormal stuffs and grandmother stories.

Now this recent incident of CK's friend reminded me of another case that happened exactly 4 years ago, in November too. One silent reader from Penang wrote to tell me that her very young son Adrian Lee had just died suddenly after complaining of a severe headache. Adrian's brother took him to see the doctor and was advised to be admitted for further observation. Adrian passed away at the hospital in less than 24 hours. I could imagine the terrible shock, painful loss, sadness and anguish a mother had to face on seeing her youngest child dying before her. She told me that my blog brought so much memories for her as it was like a daily ritual when her young son and her would check to see my blog updates in the morning while having breakfasts. They both enjoyed reading whatever nonsense or paranormal stuffs that I shared. Now that he had gone, the heart broken mother found it so hard to read my blog alone and decided to write to share her griefs with me. My tears flowed down unashamedly like Niagara Falls at my office table as I could feel her deepest sorrow. My office colleagues pretended not to notice me wiping tissues but they were stealing side glances. 

I thought over the matter very carefully on how to reply this very sad mother. I was going away for my vacation the next day and planned to do some prayers or merit making for her son Adrian after my trip. Nothing was certain but I was about to reply her email...... Suddenly, my computer's screen got jammed and the whole desktop vision turned haywire and twisted like kaleidoscope image in colours! I was damn shocked to experience this the first time and heard a soft voice calling my head. It was the boy Adrian himself and he tried to communicate. Again, all my hair from my head, my pubic areas till my toes all stood up like lighted Christmas Trees! I tried so hard to press my keyboard and banged my mouse but nothing happened. I kept mumbling to the boy not to scare me by sitting on my pc's monitor. His frequency actually caused all the distortions on the screen and when he slowly moved, the screen's image also moved. Whooooa!! That was so scary till my balls fell down and any old man could have died of heart attack on my table.

I slowly picked up my balls and guts to compose myself. I spoke to the boy's spirit gently and told him that I would be replying his mother. He should not stop me as I had every good intentions to arrange prayers and merit making for him later. I told him that I was flying to Chengdu the next day and then hike up the beautiful Mount Emei in Sichuan Province of China. I told him that it was already winter and snowing beautifully in Sichuan. I invited him to follow me to visit Chengdu if he wished to. "Now please let me have my PC screen back to normal so that I could reply your mummy", I snorted back. The spirit let go and my computer was back to normal. I replied the mother that I was going overseas and offered my deepest condolence before asking for the boy's particulars and photo. She replied me quickly and attached his photo and details from the Obituary Ad placed in the newspaper. I was so sad to see his very handsome face and what a fate that he had to die so young. My heart was very touched that he was my silent reader for so long and we had never met up.

What happened next??.... 

This boy Adrian's spirit, really followed me up to the plane and flew to Chengdu with me & my wife. He was sitting inside my backpack all the way. My wife saw this little spirit but had no idea that I had invited him along. We stayed at a very huge suite room of the 5 star Rhombus Fantasia hotel which had a separate bedroom, living and walk in closet areas. I would not be able to afford this luxury hotel if not because of their Winter's low season that sent the prices knocking off 70% discounts. The young boy's spirit was happy and comfortable with so much privacy for him to hide himself esp the walk in closets. 

We boarded a bus to another town away from Chengdu to climb up the hill to see the famous Giant Buddha of Leshan which I have blogged HERE

In the above photo, there was a beautiful butterfly that followed me all the way up. I was swinging both hands to play with the butterfly which was at my eye level over the green plants. The boy's soul was happily sitting on it like a taxi so that he need not have to walk up in the winter cold.

I made merits for him by donating to sponsor the new temple's roof tiles. In the photo, I was writing his name on the roof tiles, besides donating cash to the donation boxes. I had to pray and mumble out the merits being dedicated to the soul of the boy. It is always very important that the family should always conduct proper prayers and lots of merit making for the deceased before the 49th day. This is the Law of the Universe and not mere superstitions.

Later, he followed us by bus to catch another bus at the Emei's terminal which was covered by heavy snow falls. There was so much snow everywhere covering the streets and vehicles around the Emei town. The boy's spirit was so excited and very happy to see snow for the first time.

The view atop was simply fabulous and very breathtaking. The heavens opened the clear skies for us to see the panoramic view of the mountain range in Tibet. You can read up from the post of Mount Emei and see the beautiful mountains above the clouds. We relaxed up there for many hours!

Back to the hotel in Chengdu, I wrote an email to inform the mother that her son's spirit had followed me overseas and I actually visited Chengdu and Mount Emei for our pilgrimage trip. I informed her of the merit making and shared all the photos. The mother was too surprised as she found it too hard to believe that her family members had also dreamt of the boy going to a foreign country in Winter. He was very happy and smiling to show he was boarding at the bus terminal with snow everywhere. They saw the dream of the mountains exactly like my above photo and thought that boy had probably gone to heavens. The dates of our trip matched precisely with the date of their dreams. They had no idea what the dreams was trying to tell them earlier.

My friend in KL who kept me in the loop of their email updates with HH The Dalai Lama and his Tibetan Rinpoches, had informed me that he was going to attend a big praying session in India. It was a very huge prayer session presided by HH The Dalai Lama where thousands of monks and devotees would gather in prayers together. The timing was just so perfect and I gave my friend Adrian's photo and particulars for them to bless and pray to deliver his soul to heavens. The parents were so touched and grateful to hear the good blessings and closure for their son. They made a trip to KL together with other family members and gave me a big dinner at Supertanker Restaurant. We met up for the first time and it was a touching & memorable evening.

His Holiness The Dalai Lama

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City Wall @ Xi'an - China

It was our second trip to this ancient capital of China which has the most interesting historical sites and mountains. The last trip in 2012, we barely had enough time to visit this famous City Wall of Xian which is the most complete city wall that has survived all the fierce battles in China.

So we made sure we allocated one full day to visit the whole city wall and enjoy the panoramic view! We truly enjoyed riding bicycles around the whole city wall.

Come let's tour the walls now....

1. I was told many times that my past lives were in China &

once fought in many battles alongside the Chinese Emperor's army.

2. This beautiful City Wall's fort was built during the reign 

of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Emperor of the Ming Dynasty 

(Year : 1368-1644)

3. The map covers 13.7 kilometers (8.5 miles) in length 

with a deep moat surrounding it.  

4. The City Gates stand with grandeur and look very majestic 

as a prominent landmark in Xi'an especially when lighted up

at night fall.

5. This solid looking ancient steps of the city wall , 

is ranked as one of the largest ancient military defensive 

systems in the world.

 6. It is very wide and spacious all around. You need to pay

a fee to get inside to enjoy the panoramic skyline of Xi'an city.

 7. There is a booth to rent bicycles and a shop that sells

many types of interesting souvenirs. You can buy from them

at fixed & very reasonable prices.

  

 8. Look at the cute letter box!

9. There are almost a thousand bicycles for grabs!

In Summer the whole place is very hot with big crowds.

That's why we chose winter when the crowd is smallest

and the wind is cold.

10. That's my wife with wrapped face. She cycled very fast

as she has 2 expensive bikes at home and has joined

the inter state cycling in Malaysia!

11. Some outer walls are higher and this side is the inner wall.

 12. This is another City Gate.

  

13. Many bridal couple would come here for photo shoots.

14. All tourists stopped to look at their photography

session with a nice spectacular backdrop.

15. There are several buildings inside the City Wall.

 16. I loved these very old Chinese houses that stood outside the walls. 

17. This is one of the many viewing posts for

looking out at intruders.

18. We stopped a few times to 'Wefie' for remembrance.

  

19. More benches to relax and browse their smartphones.

 20. I spotted this magnificent looking Tibetan Buddhist Temple.

21. The same temple looks huge and lengthy in area size.

22. This is another side of the City Gate.

23. My wife who is a Tai Chi gold medallist, stopped

and did a warm up exercise in this ancient site.

24. It is almost 2 hours and they are still shooting

the wedding photos in the grey weather.

25. These are real solid ancient walls where the soldiers hid to

peek at the enemies.

26. I could see the entire Railway Station Of Xi'an where

we boarded the 24 hour train ride to Dunhuang.

27. It was a victory for me to race across the huge City Wall on a bicycle.

I have prayed in a temple that I will visit Xi'an again.

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Otaru City Of Canals - Hokkaido

I would vote Otaru as the most interesting place to visit in Hokkaido. It is a small harbour city which you could make a day trip from Sapporo by train. We only covered Sapporo, Otaru, Muroran & Chitose towns during our trip.

We walked out of our Sapporo hotel to visit a small Buddhist Shrine

which is located on the next block. Here is the nice entrance

to the shrine.

This is the Amitabha Buddha's Shrine which was closed on that day.

Our hotel is just next block to this Hosui Susukino Train

Station in Sapporo. It is very easy to reach everywhere once

you are inside the train station. We connected our way to the main

Sapporo Station and hopped to the line that took us to Otaru.

OTARU CANAL CITY - HOKKAIDO

It takes slightly over 1 hour by a normal train which passed 

through many picturesque snow scenery and mountains along 

the way. Here at the Otaru Station, there is a Tourist Information

Booth where there was a friendly lady who spoke Japanese,

English, Mandarin and Cantonese!! She advised us to take the

public bus to the end of the bus route and get off.

 My postcard pose at the lovely old buildings with European

architectures during Hokkaido's colonization during the 1800s.

They have many lovely old warehouses and herring mansions that line

along the famous Otaru Canal.

 We had to stop by the world famous Hokkaido Ice Cream parlour.

They have the purest lavender and melon flavours. Too many to choose.

  

Here is my yummy 6 flavoured ice cream! Sluurrpss!!

There are many fresh seafood restaurants along

the many streets in Otaru.

It was my first time seeing Snow Crab alive!

  

The prices scared me!

We took a ropeway (cable car) up to Mount Tengu.

Mount Tengu is a very popular ski resort in Hokkaido.

This is the panoramic view of Otaru Town with its harbours
and the Shakotan Peninsula across the seas.

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