Canada Day

Tomorrow, July 1st, is Canada Day. Holiday.

National Day for Canada. (Don't ask me how many years it went independent, so memalukan to say, I also don't remember how many years has Malaysia went independent)

Strange that I don't see many houses or cars hang the national flags... Maybe here not "heng" this??

I am so sleepy~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hey, I miss Shanghai!!!!! I love Shanghai!!! It took me 2 years+ to fall in love with Shanghai, will it take me same amount of time to switch to love Canada??? Sometimes I feel so pathetic to be a Malaysian -- pardon me and forgive me but I have to say this out loud - I feel I am a second citizen in everywhere in this world, including my own country! But to be honest, I don't feel so "second" in China at all. In China, we foreigners are treated so equally with the rest of the chinese people, it makes us feel so comfortable in that sense without any "discrimination". They don't have special discount for locals in buying houses regardless your skin color (eh-hemmm..); they don't have certain bank acount or termed deposit for certain kind of people (eh-hemmm-hemmmmmm!!!); they don't have the kind of different attitude in police station in treating different skin color people (eh-hemm-hemmm-hemmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!).

When can I fall in love with my own country without feeling depressed???

p/s: I feel depressed recently because my sister got bullied at "polis" station because of the accident involved with a "ah-hem" race and we chinese race. The polis man immediately have that kind of look on their face that shows "must be the ah-hem race correct, chinese is at wrong". WTF is this???? Still got 天理 in our country or not??? This is totally high-level-discrimination!!!!!! The very truth is, the ah-hem race is at fault because his stupid motorbike hit my sister car because he still goes at red light and there are witnesses and the polis still want to say the guy is right and my sister is wrong! WTF is wrong with our country?

Hmm...

I am so going to watch Sex and the City 2!!!!!!

And, just discovered iGoogle, it is cool! The search page now is empowered with your unique preference style.

Someitmes I wonder, what were we doing when we were without internet and handphone last time?

Fuzzy Wuzzy

I bought a new "gadget" today.

You know how I cannot stand the dust on the table surface? Today while I shop at a supermarket, i saw this thing called "Fuzzy Wuzzy". It is a unique double sided multi purpose mitt, that allows you to clean the dust easily. And then the other good thing is, it is machine washable - again, this is environmental friendly and economical eh?

Mine is the pink one. hehe. Can you see the BEFORE and AFTER effect?

I didn't know it sells so cheap on Amazon. I paid like 5.99 to get this leh... and I am so surprised it only sells 0.99 at amazon. eee....

This baby really sweep away the dust so easily and leave the surface so clean and smooth. I guess the dust are all trapped in the strip like thing on this fuzzy wuzzy thing.

Better than 鸡毛扫？=）

老爸，你也在听吗？

以前就觉得bui bui在很多方面很像我父亲。今天，他在youtube播放了很多他喜欢的老歌--猫王的"only you", "love you tender", "always on my mind", John Lennon's "Imagine", Simon & Gafunker "Sound of Silence"... 听着这些老歌，让我很是想念我的父亲。听着听着，眼眶湿湿的...

bui bui 说他很喜欢这类老歌。连这一点都像我父亲，不爱死他是不行的了...

不知道我的父亲这时候是不是也在天国享受着这一些老歌，还是他已在tea-time with Elvis up there???

My new toy - Vacuum cleaner!

I bought a new toy today -- it is a vacuum cleaner! I feel very happy when I bought it, and it suddenly hits me to realize that... am I 100% silai nowadays? I can feel very happy easily if I bought a useful household items, a nice oven plate, or even a handy rice container can make my day. Geez.... .....

Anyway, I am now charging the toy now. It is a cordless, bagless, stick broom type of vacuum cleaner. It is light, small and can fit into store-room closet perfectly. I didn't know the brand name before this, it is Oreck. But I came back yesterday and google for its review, seems pretty decent. So, I went back to buy it today. The indian seller gave me a free-gift. He wanted to give me a watch, it is very a cheap watch. I have so many nice watches I have no time to wear them, and u expect me to wear those china-made watch meh? So, I boldly asked him if he can give me other same value gift or not, I don't need a watch. At the end, he gave me a hand sanitizer liquid. Hehehe... this is much better. See? I am happy again for this liquid... Geez..... .....

I will try it on tomorrow. Hopefully it meets my expectation. My expectation is not high -- i want it light and no restriction for me to move around, so cordless it is; I want it to be able to convert to crevice tool to pick up dust in between sofa's cusion, this one can do, so should be alright; I want it to be economical and I don't want to keep buying bags to replace bag, so this one is bagless, I am glad. I just need it to work on the floor and some rugs, and keep my house clean. This expectation is minimum right? The dust is driving me crazy. I cannot stand to see dust lying on the surface, it drives me crazy and I will mumble whole day. Jay kept asking, "Have u taken your medicine, Martha?" [if you watched "24 hours", you will catch this line.. martha was president logan's wife, and she was mentally ill, at least that is what Logan believed, haha]. And I will answer him back, "are you my lover Aaron or u are stupid Logan?" [Aaron is Logan's body guard, but he became martha's lover at the end. Haha...]

We met a guy on the lift when coming back just now. He wished me "happy sweeping"... I really look like a silai I guess. SOB!

Our cell phone package - How I get "con" into subscribing to iPhone

We got our cell phone packaged gao tim on Day 2. I didn't do a good home work on this, so, I just go for what everybody says a good phone company - Rogers. It is just like Maxis in Malaysia.

We visited the Rogers at Downtown inside the Pacific Center, the system was down for more than 2 hours, so by the time after our dinner, it was still not able to sign us in. The salesman suggested us to go to another nearby branch, I think it was on robson street or somewhere there. So, we went. At the Pacific Center, both Jay and I have made up our mind to just subscribed to the minimum package, they have this thing called "couple plan". Then when we reached the robson st. branch, this lady, her 口才 is damn good, she ignited my passion for the iPhone with their promotional plan! I think the store got ghost also, coz it blinded my mind, I signed up for the iPhone package, which tight me up for the next 3 years. 3 years leh~~~~~ after I came out of the store, only I realized 3 years is a hell long time - after 3 years, I can be citizen already if I want to! So, it is a damn long time! But the lady is very good, she is very helpful, very passionate about her job. And she stayed up til 10pm that night just to sign us up (their working hour is supposing til 7pm only). we really appreciate for her help, even though she successfully "con" me into another iPhone customer.

But.... iPhone is really a great phone!! Lots of application is very user friendly in daily life. I love it, although the "3 years" thing is very haunting... anyway, what is done, is done.

We both signed up for 3 years deal, both got a new phone (free if u signed up for 3 years). Jay didn't get an iPhone, in fact, he didn't care about phone, he is fine as long as people can find him on phone or make phone calls. He got the LG again (yes, again... he is such a LG man), and the phone has the push-email function, so whenever he received an email, his phone will beep.

So, this is our cell phone package hunting (or, hunted) experience. Phone package here in Canada is so inhumanely high. In china, my phone bill per month seldom exceed 150 yuan (that is like 24 CDN dollar). But over here, my phone bill each month, minimum is 70 cdn dollar!!! (before blardy tax some more ok). I really miss shanghai....

Would I stay here for the next 3 years???

p/s: It has been a while I get pushed by pedestrian here. In Shanghai, I get pushed everytime I am walking on the street. I kinda miss the pushiness over there... Help~~~~~~

Big Ticket Item - Car

As soon as we arrived, we realized we needed a car. We are not those energetic students anymore, can figure out where to take bus. Unlike in Shanghai where subway can practically brings u to anywhere u wanted to go, and for places where subway cannot reach, you can always take a cab. It's totally totally different here. So, we need a car. (I really miss the subway-life in Shanghai... so convenient... I think I am a very subway-girl... :s)

My good fren Hosea is very kind to lend us his car while he goes to work. So, we take his car to shop around car dealer shop. Our aim is to get a used car. If we were to sell it off again in a year's time, it won't depreciate that much. We have test-drove toyota matrix, honda civic, and toyota corolla. Matrix is quite spacious inside, but the engine is very loud, yes we know this version engine is quite loud, but it is very uncomfortably loud, so we passed that one. The corolla is in orangy red color, Jay doesn't like it, and I also think the resell value could be affected given this strange color, even though its mileage is very low, so we gave it a passed as well.. so, at the end, we bought the Honda Civic, it's blue color - Jay's favorite color, and it's very comfortable. Both of us test-drove it (the car dealer very scared of me, coz i so used to Malaysia road system, i drove very to the right side... could have hit the right lane car one... til today I still have this issue... dim suen??), we both love it, the only disadvantage it has is its mileage is very high, well, nothing is perfect in this world. We feel it has some connection to us, like we knew him very long time like that. So, this is yuen fen, we bought it. I bargain for it, wanted to bargain for 500 off, at the end only get 350 off... ok lah, better than nothing. The car salesman is a Korean guy, can see he very happy to make this deal. While we sigining the paper, the toyota guy kept calling my handphone... yew... so hungry meh these salesmen? So, we paid the money in cash (what to do? new immigrant, no cheque book yet, no credit card yet), gao dim the insurance in 15 minutes (damn expensive the insurance here!! and I already got 40+% off because I hold canadian driver license for more than 10 years, luckily I got it renewed on last trip), and drove the new baby back the same day. We are quite efficient in buying car. Haha...

Do you like it?:) So, this is our first big ticket item - Honda Civid used car - got it on Day 3.

p/s: by the way, car dealer here is very strange, they can sell new car (say authorised car dealer for toyota), and at the same time carries different brand of used car. Very chap-ba-lang.

In Vancouver

Hey folks, haven't been blogging for a while, I hope I can resume doing so next week. Time flies, we have been in Vancouver for 3 weeks+ already! Wow... I can still remember the night before our flight, I was having difficulties in sleeping because my mind was still twirling around the luggages - "will it be too heavy?" "did I bring everything?" "where did I put the lock? shit!" "would we create a scene with 4 big luggages?" "excess luggage charge?"

But it turns out everything is fine. MU didn't even check the luggage weight. However, we did have some small issue in Vancouver Airport. Apparently we have to know EXACTLY how much money (different currencies) we bring into Canada and declare it. As you know, we are quite a heavy travellers, we have unfinished euro, australian dollars, US dollars, canadian dollars, renminbi, ringgit, HK dollar, Macau dollar, Japanese yen, Indo notes, etc etc, we really do not know EXACTLY how much money each currency we have! So, we gave an estimates to the officer. The officer jotted down our words, and then he said, "OK folks, I am going to search your luggage, if I found more $ than what u declared, they will be confisticated, understood?". WAHHHH.... I immediately stopped him, "actually, those are only estimates. If you want the real number, let me count in front of u. we don't want to lie to u, but we really do not know how much we have." So, as we searching for keys to unlock the luggage, officer said, "OK, wait here.". He went into a room, and when he came out, he just said, "I believe the number you told me this time. But next time, please know how much currency you bring into Canada. Today is the only warning you going to get, understood?". What a relief... phew... actually, they just want you to declare how much money u bring into canada, they are not going to tax u, they just need to know, so to avoid terrorist bringing big sum of money into the country.

Will blog more next week =)