泡温泉 Hot Spring

I've not actually visited a hot spring before, so while I was in Xiamen, I decided to check out a popular hotspring.



This place is about 40 minutes drive from Xiamen downtown. Since it was my first time, I didn't know that I couldn't bring my mobile phone with me. Neither did I know that it would take about 2 hours to go around the differnt pools. From 8pm to 10pm, I was uncontactable. After it was over, I called my 亲爱的 immediately, thinking that she could have called me during the 2 hours. She picked up the phone and sounded very upset. She said she called both my China number and my Singapore number, and both were out of reach. She was worried that I could be in trouble, and I should have informed her before I switched off my mobile phone. It took me another hour to explain to her that I didn't do it on purpose and I didn't realize that it would take so long, and I wasn't doing hanky panky stuff behind her back. She calm down after a while, and we talked about the wind and the flowers for another hour. I hope she's not going to plant a GPS tracking device on me the next time we meet.

Hotels

Hotels are my 2nd home, since I spend almost 50% of my working days outside Singapore. Usually I'll be given a junior suite, so it is actually quite a good show off to girls who follow me back to the hotel. Unfortunately, 亲爱的 is my only girlfriend, so she is the only person that I can impress at the moment. Some hotels provide very good amenities in the suites, like for example the Le Meridien hotel in New Delhi, I have a bottle of wine, a fruit basket, and a chocolate cake:



When I took a closer look at the chocolate cake, it has a guest name written on it:



I didn't realize that my name is changed to Govinraj. I wonder how long has the cake been put on the table. Maybe it is just for decoration and not for consumption. Quite a surprise that a 5 star hotel like the Le Meridien can make such a mistake.

The Most Expensive Pocket Mirror

亲爱的 is so vain that she loves to look at herself using her pocket mirror, to make sure that she always stay pretty. She has a very expensive pocket mirror though. How much does a pocket mirror cost? 亲爱的's pocket mirror costs me S$800. Well, she has put on a reflective LCD screen protector on her iPhone, and used that as a mirror to admire herself. 亲爱的 is still using her Sony Ericsson for calls and messages, so her iPhone is really just a mirror. Even though the iPhone can be quite useful, she's not really doing much with it. Last week while I was in Bejing, I decided to jailbreak and hack her iPhone, and put in 4 pages of applications and games for her. I also told 亲爱的 that she should switch from China Mobile to Unicom, so that her iPhone can get access to the internet using 3G technologies.

This is how I jailbreak and hack her iPhone:
1. upgrade the firmware from 3.0 to 3.12
2. Download the windows version of blackra1n from http://blackra1n.com/
3. connect the iPhone to my laptop and run blackra1n.
4. Once the iPhone is rebooted, the phone is jailbroken.
5. Go to Cydia in iPhone.
6. Add source cydia.hackulo.us
7. Install Appsync from the hackulo.us category
8. Restart iPhone.

It is quite easy to locate websites with lots of cracked ipa files. This is what I have installed for her. Some of them are installed from itunes:

Action Bowling Free
Asphalt4
Bejewled 2
Blocks Drop 2 Puzzle
Bloons TD
Blowfish
ColorSplash
Dictionary.com
doodleJump
English Dictionary
F.A.S.T
Flashlight
Flick Fishing
Flight Control
iCED Free Chinese English Dictionary
iChess
iTranslate
Koi Pond
KTdict C-E
LetsGolf
Lunar Calendar
Luxor Lite
Mapbar
MotoChaser
Mx Mayhem
Pac-Man Lite
Papaya Puzzle Bobble
Pocket Devil
Pocket God
QQ
Racing Live Import Edition
Real Racing GTI
Real Tennis 2009 Free
Shanghai Mahjong Free
The Sims 3
SinaNews
Skype
Spikey's Bounce Around
Spot the Difference FREE
Standard Chinese Chess Lite
Touch Hockey
TouchKO
Waterslide Extreme
X2Football
北京交通线路查询
斗地主
欢乐斗地主
迷你地图
3D Brick Breaker Revolution

That will keep her very busy for a while.

No Freedom of Speech

As you may have noticed, I have slowed down my blogging activities. Actually there are still many interesting stuff to blog about my 亲爱的, as she always keep me updated on the events surrounding her, her relatives and friends. Recently she was really upset with me because her friend Sue came to know about this blog and claimed that 亲爱的 was jealous of her and has asked me to blog about her past, causing her to break off with her Singapore boyfriend. Well, 亲爱的 is really innocent because she's not aware of the contents in my blog. Also, Blogspot is not directly accessible in China. 亲爱的 has warned me that I cannot blog about her relatives and friends anymore, else I will get her into trouble again. Now that I have no freedom of speech here, I will have to think of what else to write.

Roses of 50 五十玫瑰

Roses of 50 is a very popular TV serial in China. 亲爱的 is very addicted to the serial for the past 2 weeks because the plot involves a young girl and a married man. Their age difference is 20 years. She felt that it was a touching story and the characters are quite similar to us. Eventually, the girl decided to leave the man, although he has seperated from his wife. 亲爱的 insisted that I watch the serial. There are probably many men in China having girlfriends or mistresses outside, so this story is really to tell them that at the end of the day 是没有好的下场的 (there is no happy ending).



Yesterday, I managed to catch the first episode in tudou. Not a very good start to the story as the girl has tied up the man and didn't allow him to return home to celebrate his wife's birthday. She later tried to commit suicide because she was pregnant, and he wanted her to go for abortion. This morning, I called my 亲爱的, and told her not to learn from the girl. After-all, this is only a story, and in real life we can always talk things over. I certainly hope that this is not going to our future.

买房子4

亲爱的 purchased a studio apartment in 犀浦镇 in July, and the place is ready for collection. The renovation has just been completed, and she has been busy buying furniture for the past few days. I have a glimpsed of the place when I was there 2 weeks ago, but did not manage to take any photos. She has prohibited me to put up photos in my blog. Now that she has almost finished her tasks, she will be going back to 北京 in the next 2 days. I like to stay in the new apartment for a few days before she rents it out. I like to experience the life of a Sichuan person. Meanwhile, it has been a few months that I've not met my 亲爱的 in Beijing, so I am planning a trip there soon. Beijing is really cold this month, but with my　亲爱的　warming up my bed, can I complain?

Dujiangyan 都江堰

亲爱的，her 表姐, and I visited the 都江堰 irrigation system over the weekend. It is about 60 km from Chengdu. This system was built more than 2,200 years ago, when the city was threatened by the frequent floods caused by flooding of the Minjiang River. Since then, the Chengdu Plain has been free of flooding and the people have been living peacefully and affluently. This project is honored as the 'Treasure of Sichuan', which still plays a crucial role in draining off floodwater, irrigating farms and providing water resources for more than 50 cities in the province.

I was so honoured to have 2 美女 to accompany me for this trip. As usual, we took many photographs. This time, I did not bring my Nikon D60 with me, so I have to rely on my Nokia N97. Actually the place is no big deal since it is like any other rivers in China. By the way, 亲爱的's 表姐 looks like the younger version 周海媚, except that she got a bigger face.