Holiday is over

Temperature: 19 c

Weather: Storm

Yes, the golden week holiday has ended last night. Everything is back to normal.

Today’s article is about what I did on the last day of the week-long holiday.

I didn’t have grand plan for the holiday. Part of it was because I wanted to preserve some funds since I just received my first month salary and I needed the money to buy some winter clothing. The other part of it was because I am not fond of traveling. Staying at home watching my DVDs and reading books are much better and economical.

Ok, back to the last day of the week-long holiday. We woke up relatively early that morning (about 8.30 am). We had an appointment with a Malaysian friend named Denning (what a name for a lawyer!) who is also a Malaysian lawyer currently working in Shanghai and my ex-classmate in UM: we were going to IKEA!

We were meeting up at IKEA at 11 am. Since taking cab is prohibited (not by China law but Engtee’s law), we had to leave the house very early to walk almost 1km to take the subway. Taking subway during holiday was not too bad so I did not protest.

After less than an hour, we were in IKEA already! Denning smsed me telling he would be late because he needed to finish a very exciting episode of 24. So Engtee and I explored IKEA without Denning.

We attacked the IKEA hotdogs first because we were dead hungry and it was so cheap! RMB5 for a hotdog set: 1 hotdog and 1 soft drink (refillable). The hotdog was not bad.

The design of IKEA Shanghai is similar to Malaysia’s albeit smaller. We took the elevator up to the second floor (in China, there is no ground floor, it starts with first floor) to begin our IKEA journey from “living room” department. We actually have no plan of buying anything. We just wanted to look-see look-see. Denning joined us when we were in the “sofas” area.

Denning was a lonely man that day because his wife (who is also a lawyer and my ex-classmate in UM) flew to Beijing and will not be back till this coming Thursday.

We roamed IKEA section by section until we reached the cafeteria. It was lunch time then. I ordered spaghetti, Denning and Engtee had Swedish meatballs (which were excellent!). Denning bought a good quality “chairman” chair for his wife because his wife complains of back pain. What a nice guy. If Engtee complains about back pain, I think I would buy her “tiger balm” or “yoko yoko” only. Oops!

After the IKEA trip, we went to Denning’s place. There we spent some time chatting and looking at his fish (he rears Discus). But the main idea of going to his place was to “sweep” some DVDs. He he.

Around 6pm, Bom called for dinner. I was not surprised at all, whenever it is time for food, you will see Bom popping up out of nowhere.

We went to 吴江路 (which is a food street) to have dinner. Another Malaysian named Ivy (a Penangite who works in KPMG Shanghai) was there too.

We went home around 9.30 pm, took a quick bath, watched 1 hour Japanese drama and fell asleep.

p/s:-

Typhoon Krosa (which was downplayed by the media compared to Typhoon Wipha) hit Shanghai today. And it hit hard. Last night when it was on its way to Shanghai, we could feel the strength of the wind. This morning, my barbeque sticks umbrella was pushed to its ultimate limit: it transformed into barbeque sticks many times before I reached office. The wind was so fast that I felt the rain hitting my face like little rocks. In the office, the rain and wind were attacking my windows like it wanted to break it badly. Ooh, I finally got to taste the force of nature. But I dare not challenge it. We must respect the nature.

It is worthwhile to mention that Shanghai was not flooded at all despite this typhoon. If this typhoon hits KL, G knows what will happen.

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