Kuching Toilet Etiquette

Spotted on the walls of a public toilet in Kuching.

The Kuching government recognised that Kuching people cannot shit and piss properly. That is why they’ve put up these posters all over the public toilets teaching us how to pangsai and pangjio like a true Kuchingnite.
Unfortunately there aren’t any captions accompanying those pics. Being a good Kuching citizen that I am, I decided to do my part in promoting good Kuching toilet etiquette.

Stand closer to the urinal

Because you’re supposed to piss INTO the urinal. Seriously, don’t overestimate the length of your penis. It is not as long as you think, alright? Who do you think you are? Kenny Sia?

Do not squat over the toilet bowl

Dude, the toilet seat is built like a chair for a reason. Don’t dirty the seat by squating over it. As a rule of thumb, you’re supposed to SIT ON IT in order to SHIT ON IT.

Greet your toilet bowl

It ain’t easy getting shit and piss thrown at you your entire life, man. Being a toilet bowl is literally a shitty job. So at least show some respect to your toilet bowl. Before you use it, give him a good pat on bacl and say hello to him. Trust me, your toilet bowl will appreciate it.

Conduct your business

Sit on your throne and quietly listen to the sweet melody of shit falling into the water.
*toom*
*toooom*
*tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom*

Forget Cafe del Mar. This is chillout music at its best.

Entertain your toilet bowl

Your toilet bowl must be traumatised looking at hundreds of naked hairy ass each day. Be nice now. Spend some time entertaining your toilet bowl. Play with him, tickle him, do anything you can to make him happy dammit.

Praise your toilet bowl

Before you leave, say a few words of encouragement to your toilet bowl. “Good job!”, “World piss!”, “Bye, I’ll shit you tomorrow!”… whatever. It’ll overcome the loneliness experienced by that poor little fella when no one else visits him.

Wash your hands

Remember to wash your hands, boys and girls. You don’t want no brown stains in your fingernails when you eat at KFC. Gives a whole new meaning to Finger Lickin’ Good.

Toilets have feelings too. Remember that next time you use public toilets in Kuching.
This is a community message brought to you courtesy of kennysia.com. 🙂

Continue reading

inoT Toni

One of the best things about keeping a blog is that you get people from all walks of life commenting on your entries.
Comments are usually good. But every once in a while, somebody leaves a comment on your blog so bizarre, you go “What in the blue hell is this guy thinking?”

Case in point. When I wrote about my visit to Malaysian singer Guang Liang’s showcase in April, I did not expect it to become such a popular entry. Let’s face it, the showcase was boring, the photos I took were boring, and I didn’t even crack any stupid lame jokes in that entry.
Yet, even until today, I still get people who seriously think that I am Guang Liang, foolishly leaving me comments like “i likes u very much, especially ur song Tong Hua.”

Yesterday, something even more bizarre happened. Remember how I went to Toni&Guy in KL and wrote a review about it?
Take a look at what I got in my comment box of that entry.

Dear Sir,
I,Siddhartha Chatterjee age 26 year’s an Indian live in India,unqulified but english is good,doing a small business from last three year’s comeing from a very good family.
Sir,I want to do a hair dressing course from your school because I want to be a hairdresser the reason is, now in India max people go to beautiparlaor’s so its mean hairdresser have a great feture in India,so if I be a hairdresser then I can earn a lot more,so for that I want to do a coaurse for hair dressing from your school.So is it possible without qulification to do this couarse?I am really waiting for your reply soon.
Thanking You
Your’s Faithfully
Siddhartha.

Posted by: siddhartha at October 27, 2005 09:23 PM

WHAT. IN. THE. HELL? First I’m a poofter of a Malaysian singer, and now I’m a BLOODY HAIRDRESSING SALON!? What has the world come to!?
I feel bad for Siddhartha, really. I mean the guy is so professional, polite, nice and all that. I just can’t find it in my heart to tell him the truth, man. Seriously, it would be too cruel for me to simply brush him off, clarifying that I’m not actually Toni&Guy but THAT idiot in the photo getting his hair cut.

So I fired up Microsoft Word and drafted him a reply.

Dear Siddhartha Chatterjee,
I,Kenny Sia age 23 year’s a Chinese live in Kuching. I not Toni&Guy from KL.
Sir, I sorry I cannot teach you hair dressing coaurse from my school because I not hairdresser enaugh to teach you the reason is, I no no qulification.
I is just a normal person with max hair on my body so its mean I have to go to beautiparlaor very often to potong my hair.But never mind cos if you open a salon next time in India, I will ride an elephant to visit you at your beautiparlaor so you cut my hair and you can earn a lot more and have a great feture in India ok.I am really waiting to visit you soon.
Happy Deepavali
I Not Toni,
Kenny Sia.

I’m such an asshole.

Continue reading

Apple iPod Nano Review

Steve Jobs is a marketing genius and a bastard.

I KNOW I don’t need a portable MP3 player. I know I don’t need it because I don’t travel often, I don’t take public transport in Kuching, and I’ve already spent a lot upgrading my car’s stereo.

Apple iPods are pieces of overrated, overpriced audio gadgets. All Apple products are. They bloody cost twice as much as other products in its class and only do half their job. Yet I’m still willing to part with my hard-earned cash to buy it, and I have no idea why. They said when you truly love someone (or something), there’s no need to explain it.

The 4GB iPod nano costs RM1269 in KL, SGD$448 (RM999) in Singapore, RMB2599 (RM1215) in Shanghai and AUD$359 (RM1022) in Australia. I got mine from Perth for AUD$326 (RM929) after GST Refund.
I wanted the white one because I’m pure and innocent like a virgin, but the entire city’s supply went out of stock when I was there. It’s a good thing I got lucky with the salesman at the Perth AppleCentre. (Wait, that sounded kinda wrong…)

The iPod nano is small alright. So small in fact that you can just slide it in your wallet and still leave space for some coins, credit cards and condoms. It’s not as small compared to the iPod Shuffle, but at least it has a colour screen and a click wheel.

A lot of people warned me that the iPod nano scratches easily and that it’s screen might crack under pressure. Having used the iPod for 2 weeks, I can honestly say that that’s not true.
Don’t take my word for it though. These crazy idiots had the guts to put it through their very own ‘stress test’ just to see what it takes to kill an iPod nano.

Things that make grown men cry.

One thing I noticed is that the back of the iPod nano stains really bad. Not sure why, but I hope its not because I’ve been putting Vaseline on my hands too much.

The iPods’ audio quality may be so-so, but their strength lies in the smooth interfacing with their iTunes software. No other software on the market organises your massive database of MP3 files as good as iTunes. You can even set different equaliser presets for each of your files if you want.

The iPod nano comes with extra features similar to what modern mobile phones have.
Personally, I like the photo-viewing feature best. The screen size is too small to do anything useful, but navigating through thousands of photos with the clickwheel is a breeze. Transferring photos is a no brainer – just set the folder you want to sync it with and the iTunes software will take care of the rest. Now you can watch pr0n on the go!

Podcasts – radio of the 21st century. I subscribe to the mrbrown show and Perth’s 92.9

The iPod nano may be expensive but no doubt it is THE trendsetter in portable MP3 industry. All the marketing hype and it lives up to it. Others can try and they can only achieve second best.
It’s like comparing Proton with Porsche. Both perform the same function, but people are still going to spend serious cash to purchase the status, the prestige and the coconuts associated with the latter.

Salivate now, mere mortals. 😉

Continue reading

kennysia.com debuts on Technorati Top 100

After more than 3 weeks of constant travelling (Saratok/KL/Shanghai/Perth), I’m finally back home in Kuching, ready for a life a little more stable and routine.
I still miss Nicole. 🙁

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Since when did Malaysia and Singapore churn out so many holier-art-thou Ephraim Loys?
I do not agree with many of Wendy’s opinion, including her recent diatribe. But I’m the one who sponsored her premium Haloscan comment boxes when she switched to her new template. How ah? Are you all gonna boycott kennysia.com now?

She’s a bad girl. Not by a long shot is she a positive role model for society. Neither are Britney Spears, Jolin Tsai, Paris Hilton or even Angelina Jolie (UN Ambassador/blood swapper/chain smoker/casual sex advocate).
My point is, bad role models exist everywhere. Impressionable young kids should not be left unsupervised reading websites like Xiaxue, SarongPartyGirl, kennysia.com, or any other blogs out there for that matter. The onus is on the parents to inform, educate or shield their kids away from bad stuff from the Internet, not hers.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I wouldn’t even realise if I wasn’t told about it, but I woke up this morning and saw my own stupid face staring back at me on blog search engine Technorati’s Top 100. No shit Sherlock, kennysia.com is the 93rd most linked-to blog in the whole wide world!

Depending on how you look at it, this could either be good news for the Malaysian blogosphere (first Malaysian blog to be in the Technorati Top 100), or Travesty of the Century (that blogger is unfortunately, me). I can feel the burden on my shoulders already. If you hear anyone referring to me as the face of the Malaysian blogosphere, I’m sorry I wasn’t born better looking.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go change into a bigger underwear.

These Boots Are Made For Walking

While in Perth, I discovered some pretty funky new tunes playing on Australian airwaves never heard before on Malaysian radio.

The guy on the right looks strangely like a younger version of Peter Tan.

One of them is The Black Eyed Peas’ crude but catchy little tune called “My Humps”. With creative lyrics like “My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump. My lovely lady lumps. In the back and in the front”, I doubt it’ll ever make it past the Malaysian censors, unfortunately.
It’s a nice song. But I still don’t understand how anyone would actually go through all the trouble writing a bloody song dedicated to their tits and ass.
Another song I THOUGHT will never make it past the Malaysian censors is Jessica Simpson’s “These Boots Are Made For Walking”, a track off the Dukes of Hazzard’s OST.

I don’t know about you, but the first time I heard that song, I thought Jessica Simpson was singing “These BOOBS Are Made For Walking”
Wah, so power! I know her boobs are fake lah, but I sure as hell didn’t know they’re MADE FOR WALKING!


Sorry Jessica Simpson. Your boots are the last thing on my mind.

Continue reading

Foot In Mouth

It was great meeting up with Cynthia, Nadia, and The Great Swifty last evening in an impromptu bloggers meet of sorts.

I thought I was freak walking around with my digicam, until I met “Swifty” Edmund Yeo who walked around with his GODDAMN VIDEO CAMERA.

One of the highlights of the night has gotta be my conversation with Lena, one of Cynthia’s friends who tagged along to Farrell’s cafe in Victoria Park. I don’t know who the heck Lena is and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read kennysia.com or even know much about blogs at all.
What’s strange is that as soon as pulled a seat next to her, she started to quiz, grill and interview me CNN-style.

With Cynthia (who reads my blog) and Lena (who tagged along for the meet).

Lena : What do you hope to achieve in the world today?
Kenny : *giving her the wtf-are-you-nuts look* Err… world peace?

Lena : What do you think of the current Malaysian prime minister?
Kenny : What is this? Some sort of beauty pageant interview?
Lena : No, I heard you’re a blogger so you must have lots of thoughts. That’s why I’m asking you what you think.
Kenny : Well, I reckon Badawi is doing a great job. I certainly like him better than Mahathir for sure. Mahathir’s burnt too many bridges with the Western world for my liking.

Lena : What do you think of beauty pageants?
Kenny : Why are you asking me this?
Lena : Just now you said something about ‘world peace’, so I thought about beauty pageants lor.
Kenny : Err… It’s great opportunity for us to cuci mata (feast the eyes) lor.
Lena : What do you think of this year’s winner?
Kenny : Gloria Ting? Other than her elvish ears I think she looks pretty good. Certainly better than (Miss Universe Malaysia 2004) Andrea Fonseka.

Lena : What do you think of Andrea Fonseka?
Kenny : Gee… I don’t have much nice things to say about Andrea Fonseka. Don’t wanna risk offending people in case some of you guys know her.
Lena : It’s ok. You can just tell us what you think.
Kenny : Look, I’m pretty sure she’s a nice person, smart and all that. But looks-wise, I don’t think she’s ready for it. First and foremost, she looks horrible in a swimsuit. She looks as good as I do in a bikini! This is a BEAUTY pageant and you have to expect to be judged on your body. I think irregardless of how smart you are, you gotta at least look a certain standard before you sign up for it.

My Chocolate Devil cake. Deliciously evil.

Lena : *Unimpressed* It’s sad how society thinks that women have to have an hour glass figure in order to be beautiful. The other contestants in the competition can’t even string a proper sentence in English! By winning Miss Malaysia, Andrea is the ambassador for Malaysia. And you gotta have someone smart for that position.
Kenny : I know, I’m not saying it’s her fault she won the competition. All the contestants that year were pretty bad anyway. But still, brains shouldn’t the only thing you need to have to win the competition. If that’s the case, anyone can just pick the smartest professors off the University, put them in a beauty pageant and expect them to win Miss Universe.
Lena : Hmm ok. You gotta admit that she has a lot of guts going for that beauty pageant.
Lena calmly took a sip from her vodka orange. I was still puzzled why she seemed so passionate during the conversation, so I asked “Why are you asking me all these? Are you related to Andrea Fonseka or something?”
That’s when she put her glass down, looked at me dead in the eyes and said “She’s my sister.”

I just wanna crawl my ass into a box, lock myself up and throw the key far far away.

Perth Food

So I went down to Spectra on Wednesday to pay my old workplace a visit.

Surprised to see that not much has changed since I resigned earlier this year. All the old faces are still there and everyone is still sitting at the same spot as they were 7 months ago. Even my old desk was intact, except maybe for the layer of dust covering it. Gary said they’ve been advertising my old position but haven’t yet found any suitable candidates.

I offered to clean up the mess I left help them out for a few days while I’m here, which is why I haven’t been updating this site as often.
My former manager David said to me, “We’ll take you back right away if you want.”
I felt a squish inside as I replied, “I can’t…”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Considering Kuching has so much cheap and delicious food, I didn’t realize I actually miss Perth food a lot, but I did.

I’m doing this as a tribute to my favourite eateries in Perth. They may not have all the glitz and glamour or be as fancy as the exclusive restaurants around town, but they damn sure are responsible for the extra kilos I’ve piled on.

Introducing…
The $3.50 Chicken Rice

Back when we first arrived in Perth with very little money on us, all the restaurants around town were charging at least $7 for a steamy pile of bullshit.

At the time, the $3.00 chicken rice shop at Karawara was God sent. Nowhere else can we have a taste of home without paying ridiculous Australian prices. 8 years later, they’re still around and their prices have only increased by 50 cents.

Don’t be fooled by the innocent-looking Singaporean couple running the shop. In the morning, they work their asses off serving hungry Curtin students. At night, they put on their best suits and gamble their fortune away in the Burswood Casino VIP room.
Thai Village Garden’s Squid Pepper Rice, Karawara

Just next to the chicken rice shop in Karawara is Thai Village Garden, another student favourite. Their $7.30 squid pepper rice is simply mouth-watering. Best served with their homemade spring roll sauce.
George’s Kebabs at the Curtin Uni Tavern

Officially awarded the best kebabs in Perth for many years running and more. They are so popular that every lunchtime, the lines would all the way to the outside of the Tav. You don’t get kebabs as fat and tasty as theirs back in Malaysia.
Utopia Bubble Tea, Northbridge

They started with one shop hidden away in Northbridge but rapidly expanded to 5 stores all over Perth. $3.50 for a bubble tea may be expensive but it’s worth it. Other bubble tea outlets that offer cheaper alternatives come and go, but Utopia is still growing strong. Try their Summerlove Milk Tea with Jelly – you don’t get them anywhere else.
Kimchee House, Northbridge

I used to go to this place so often, the lady boss still recognized me though I haven’t been back for 7 months. I reckon Seoul is overrated and Arirang is only good for their BBQ. For the best Korean food in Perth, it’s gotta be Kimchee House in Chinatown, Northbridge.

I like their $6.80 Korean pancake and $9.60 seafood tofu stew.
The Moon Café, Northbridge

Perth is dead after 9pm and there aren’t a lot of cafes around that opens till late night. I used to like Fast Eddy’s, until their food takes 20 minutes to arrive. I used to think Oriel’s in Subiaco was good, until one of their waiters got permanent PMS. Then I discovered the Moon.

The best thing about Moon Café isn’t the food, but the relaxing environment it offers to people who just wanna sit back and chill out with friends. Get in there Monday/Tuesday for $9.95 pizza /pasta with wine, or Thursday night for their live jazz band.
Chilli Mussels at Conca’s

If you ever wonder why the Italians in Perth are so rich, take a look at Conca’s.
Everything in there is old: The furniture is old, the computers are old, heck – even the people serving the food are old! Yet, these grandmothers have the audacity to charge $23 for a small bowl of chilli mussels that used to cost $17 a few years back.

By any means, every single item on their menu is WAY overpriced for a run-down shop like theirs, but for some reason people kept coming back for more. It could only mean that their food isn’t just good – it’s DAMN good.

Man, I got so hungry writing this entry. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m gonna eat a koala bear now.

The Yellow Cows of Xiang Yang Market

Shanghai’s Xiang Yang Fashion Market is an interesting place of attraction worth anyone’s time.

It is a flea market very much like KL’s Petaling Street. What makes it stands out is that Xiang Yang Market is located on Huai Hai Road, an Orchard Road-like high end fashion street housing some of the most famous international brands including Rolex, Davidoff and Louis Vuitton.

Huai Hai Road – the old French Concession. In the 19th century, France took up this piece of land and build unique French architecture of their own. Today it’s nicknamed Oriental Paris and is a shopping street for rich bastards with serious cash to burn.

Over at Xiang Yang Market, pushy street vendors show total disregard of international copyright laws by shamelessly selling fake copies of their neighbours’ line of luxury goods.

I managed to find some quality stuff here at pretty good bargains. Brand names or not, you gotta admit the workmanship is top-notch and the attention to detail put into these products are impeccable. This set of decorative chopsticks could cost up to RM80 outside, and I snagged them for only RMB30 (RM14).

It’s great as gifts! Ummm… just pretend it’s really expensive if you happen to receive this set of chopsticks from me. 😉

The process of bargaining is pretty much standard.
(1) You spot the item you fancy, and you ask the vendor for the price.
(2) The vendor quote you a price, usually a figure ridiculously expensive for a counterfeit product.
(3) You mentally divide the price he gave you by 6, and suggest that price to him.
(4) He’ll then proceed to give you this face like you insulted his grandmother’s cooking. Smile as you admire his distorted facial expression.
(5) The vendor will give you 20% off his original price. This is your cue to reject him and tell him the final price you’re willing to pay.
(6) Once again he’ll kao peh kao bu and give you a lesson on cost price, selling price and the mechanics of retail. At this point, you walk away telling him you no longer want the product.
(7) Quietly count to ten and chances are, he’ll chase you down giving you the product you want at the price you suggested at (5).

Quality neckties at only RMB20 (RM10) each!
This one says Burberry on the back, but the look and feel of it is as good if not better than the RM80 Emilio Valentino ones I’ve been wearing.

Xiang Yang Market is notorious for this group of people who call themselves Huang Niu (Yellow Cow). These people usually have A-class counterfeit goods stashed away in a hidden showroom nearby – goods that look so authentic, the vendors would get into trouble if they were to put them out for sale in the open. It’s the Huang Niu‘s job to pull potential customers into these secret showrooms.
Trusting these Huang Nius is a great risk to cash-loaded tourists because SOMETIMES these people might take you to a back alley, lock you up and extort money out from you. The local police seems to recognise this problem and signboards like these can be seen everywhere in Xiang Yang Market.

Hunan NAIGHBOURHOOD tell you don’t FELLOW them liaw you still go and FELLOW them!

I went to one of their showrooms because my balls were feeling pretty huge that day. And sure enough, they have fake branded goods that look SO MUCH like the real thing not even Mr Louis Vuitton himself can tell the difference.

As a matter of fact I’m pretty sure Mr Huang himself is actually selling authentic Louis Vuitton handbags.
Why would I know?

‘COS HIS NAMECARD SAYS HE’S FROM LOUIS VUITTON THAT’S WHY.
If that’s not real you tell me what’s real.

I reckon we should all welcome to there for BISINESS!
Believe it or not, Huang Nius are not just unique to Xiang Yang Market. I was approached by no less than 8 of them whilst walking along Nan Jing Lu, all of them trying to sell me goods of a different kind – Shanghai girls.
These are the kind of people whom you should never trust when you’re out travelling. They’ll promise you Heaven and Earth, but if you follow them they’ll take you to an empty warehouse, beat you up and take all your money from you. Kinda like how suicide bombers were promised 80 virgins in Heaven if they bombed up Bali, but when they blew themselves up they ended up going to Hell watching Hitler, Uday & Qusay Hussein in bikinis.

I was taking photos on the Bund during my last night in Shanghai when I was approached by a middle-aged man offering me fair-skinned Shanghai University students working as prostitutes. I’m not interested. I knew the dangers if I were to trust him. Besides, I’m a good boy. 🙂
Instinctively, I turned the dial on my digital camera and recorded the following interesting piece of conversation.
Watch Kenny Sia being approached by a pimp. (Alternate link for IE users) (WMV format, 5MB, 2mins. In Mandarin with English subtitles.)
Excerpt:
Huang Niu: Come have a look! You can have her for 4 hours at 250 yuan only!
Kenny Sia: HA! Are you kidding me? She should be paying ME for sleeping with her.
Damn I wish I’d said that.

Continue reading

Shanghai 2005

Pearl of the Orient. Paris of the East. The Whore of Asia.

Whatever you call her, it’s undeniable that there’s no other Chinese city that is as unique, romantic and exciting as Shanghai. She’s a victim of the Opium War, a refuge for Jews in World War 2. Communist China was born here. Countless blockbuster movies were made and Jay Chou even wrote a song about her.

Shanghai today is a fast-moving city growing at an extraordinary speed. The city skyline is characterised by futuristic highrise buildings on one side, and breathtakingly beautiful French buildings on the other.
Geographically, the city is divided by the Huangpu River into new Shanghai Pudong and old Shanghai Puxi. The large expat community here usually mispronounced them as Pudding and Pussy.

How a 1.5 hour journey became a 7 minutes – the Maglev Train, faster and cheaper than KLIA Express.

I stayed at the Renaissance Hotel in the internet cafe-deprived Pudong area. At RMB1,400 (RM680) a night, your ass gotta be made of gold to be able to afford staying at this place. Luckily my accomodation was paid for. 😉

The Renaissance hotel chain prides themselves in spicing their interior tastefully with beautiful antique decor, and their Shanghai branch is no different. Check out my Buddhist script (‘fu’) inspired quilt cover.

Waliew. With blankets like these, I sure as hell am not gonna have another nightmare EVER.

Nan Jing Dong Lu. The Orchard Rd/Jalan Bukit Bintang of Shanghai.

Shanghai girls in general are fair-skinned, petite and slender. They are all above average in the looks department and from what I can gather from those young couples canoodling publicly in parks and shopping streets, they tend to be a lot more open-minded and sexually-liberated than most.

Ummm… they were in my line of fire when I took that photo. 😉

That makes Shanghai a certified chio bu heaven. Pity their sense-of-fashion though. I swear I’ve seen more camel toes one day in Shanghai than I have my entire life.

Xin Tian Di. The Boat Quay/Jalan Sultan Ismail of Shanghai.

Still, some Shanghai girls are eager to please, or shall I say, easy to impress. At the expat-frequented pub area of Xin Tian Di, a lot of them young ones would be necking and dirty-dancing with business execs at least 2.5 times their age. Odd, I always thought age and language would form a barrier. Obviously not.

In my humble opinion, I still think Singaporean girls rank number one in the looks department, with Shanghai and South Korean girls coming in a close second. Not trying to butt-polish of course, but whatever lah. Vietnamese girls are also pretty good looking. Too bad they have the face of an angel but the voice of a crow.
I’m just ignorantly generalising of course.

Is that woman wearing her… pyjamas?!

Another thing that irks me about Shanghai is the way people drive. If you think Malaysian drivers were bad, well YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET. Shanghai drivers are BLOODY LUNATICS I tell you. This is probably the only city in the world where traffic lights are useless. To them, green means GO, orange means GO, red means honk 3 times then GO.

Nice to see Shanghai police doing their jobs.

Seriously, Shanghai drivers like to honk so much its like their hands are like permanently attached to the car honk. Every little thing they also honk.
Got cars in front, they honk. Got cars on the side, they honk. At night with absolutely no cars around, they also honk! Forget “Shang Hai Tang”, the sound of cars honking is the official soundtrack to Shanghai.
Click here to watch how Shanghainese drive. (Quicktime MOV format, 7.9MB)

That said, the abundance of excellent pubs and nightspots will keep anyone coming back for more. Imagine sipping Barcardi on the balcony with the amazing riverview of Pudong serving as the backdrop.

It’s heaven. No wonder celebrities who come to Shanghai feel at home mingling around everyday people in the pubs here. Nevermind the fact that a single glass of coke costs a crazy RMB80 (RM38) here.

Bar Rouge on the Bund. The preferred hangout place of celebrities like Faye Wong, Zhang Ziyi and *cough* Kenny Sia.

The best thing I experienced in Shanghai is probably the foot massages.

Shanghainese Foot Reflexology. Best thing to have happened to my feet since Osim iSqueez.

Take it from me. The foot massages are fucking good alright? These are authentic true blue traditional Chinese foot massages, NOT the seedy types where they start by massaging your feet and end up slowly moving their hands up to massage your bird.
From RMB70 a pop, I reckon anyone who’s planning to visit Shanghai should NEVER leave without having their foot massaged.

I don’t know her name but she introduced herself as Number 76, and she gets full marks for daring to put her hands on my forest legs.

Shanghai hasn’t been promoted most positively in movies, but I daresay it’s one of the most amazing cities on Earth.
Attitudes are changing and with the exception of rude and money-minded shop owners, most Shanghainese are friendly, courteous and willing to help. The triads, prostitution and drugs rampant in the 1930s are mostly gone.

Yummylicious Shanghainese Xiao Long Bao

What’s left is a city more romantic than Paris, more cosmopolitan than Hong Kong, and a city that blends East and West so perfectly it’s made it to my most favourite cities in the world alongside Perth and Singapore. I don’t mind living in Shanghai if I had the chance.

Yalah, I just want my foot massages lah.

Continue reading

Navigation