ROMANCING SHANGHAI

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• One of our pre nuptial agreement (gila diva kan aku ada pre-nup) was that Kanda MUST take me for a vacation once a year, just the two of us, regardless of our (well...his actually ) financial condition (as in kalau senak kite gi dekat2 je, kalau terkucil pun kite gi PD je pun takpe, I am not a demanding wife afterall (statement propa ok)) As long as it got to be just the two of us.Although we became very productive manufacturer in making children or until we both need wheelchair to move, we still have to try our level best to spend time together. Take it or leave it (that time ramai jejaka beratur pegang nombor noks, memang la mak demand). Kanda of course la takut dirinya tidak diterima menjadi menantu Bapak I yang gila best tuh, so mestilah dia setuju. Eventhough he might regret it later, do I care?

• Afterall, its not that hard to take a wife to a vacation rather than I yang sengsara, bersabung nyawa bearing my difficult preganancies and traumatic childbirth kan.. (bunyi macam trying to justify perbuatan dan kemahuan yang sungguh tidak berperi kemanusiaan kah I???)

• Of course I have my reason. I am a hopeless romantic person, I cried without fail reading Judith McNaught, I cried watching Bersamamu and Kuch Kuch Hota Hei, I cried watching Benjamin Button - the part that he sent a post card to his daughter every year (walaupun dalam cinema, hati I tersentuh pilu ok, nangis la). Pernahkah bapak I walaupun dia best, bagi I postcard...haa tak pernah ok.

• But God is fair, he sent me a 'log' to become my husband. If not mestilah dunia termuntah darah melihat aksi-aksi romantis kite orang. I always dream of a bouqet of roses and candle lit dinner on our anniversary but of course married to Kanda it remains a dream. To him the biggest mistake in human civilisation is to represent love with flowers especially roses for they are costly but short live.He said I wouldn't want his love for me to be expensive (adakah dia mengomplen pasal duit hantaran I yang tak seberapa itu??) but only bloom for a short while. Since he thought his reason was very cute, I'd decided that its ok that I dont get roses on my birthday but a family dinner instead with a penyanyi otai pakai skirt dangdut on stage reading aloud his birtday wish to me and even sang me happy birthday (yea I got immuned with this already, for him its the most romantic thingy he ever did to me, little that he knew my internal organs were almost exploded with mirth oohhh dear hubby, tu zaman J Mizan je orang buat macam tu kan Kak Naz?) and instead of a romantic dinner in a cekik darah diner and having some weird French cuisine I could not even pronounce, I prefer to have a steamy french kiss in a foreign land with him (sila muntah) where we can enjoy ourselves as two love birds without me having to carry a diaper bag and him pushing a pram. Where we can love again holding hands like young college couple, no worries, foolish and happy. Lying for hours in bed just talking in the truest meaning of the word without yelling or calling each other names (oh yess we do that often e.g I called him monyet he called me bini monyet) and giggles at each other jokes or clumsiness (there is no room for a clown at home, one mistake means WAR ok) , reminiscing our acheivement in making our marriage work despite of our differences. Yea we might fool ourselves for a while , trying hard not to think of our kids at home.But we or rather I really needed to have that feelings flourish every now and then. The feelings of being needed and loved. Well we are stressed out, with works, kids, political scenario (bleh ke?) etc etc, hence the cold shoulders and means words being exchange every alternate days.

Plus my mental fluctuation syndrome , it got worst. I pity Kanda for having to understand my mood swing, I can be nasty, cursing like no body business once I was getting into the shower, but shortly after that I was ok again, as if the tension had never occured while Kanda was still absorbing my rudeness of slamming the bathroom door. Alih-alih, I went like 'Darling malam ni gi makan kat Muara nak??" with the sweetest and sultriest voice (uwekkk) he ever heard. So, we both needed a break. He needed to be calmed and treated like a lover and me like a lady and we need to be OUT OF REACH.....

• Macam bagusss la intro I tu konon, meloya la plak blogging about luvvve.Actually I just nak cakap je Raya Cina hari tu, I and Kanda went for our delayed vacation to Shanghai. Delayed because it was supposed to be my Anniversary Gift for last year but since last year kite orang mendapat panggilan Illahi to become His guest, that plan was postponed to this year. That means I can get another trip by our actual anniversary (tu I assume sendiri, mungkin akan jadi kenyataan if Kanda berjaya dapat formula cop duit sendiri).
  
  

This time I decided to have the travel theme of smart casual (pelik dan menyampah????terima lah kenyataan yang I will have a theme everytime nak pi vacation to help me arrange my travel outfit and Kanda's. (No, he did not agree of course but what choice does he have)

Sooo what do I think of Shanghai? ohhh I love it. I 've been in love with it since my childhood years where it was apart of my time table to watch Chinese movie every 6 pm. Lonely Hunters and Shanghai Conspiracy were among the series which made me fallen for Shanghai. I always think of Shanghai as a classic and romantic city and I was right about it.

We thought it will mark the occasion as we planned to celebrate the year of the ox in China, thus I pun menerima sebuah komen yang sentap oleh seseorang

Seseorang : Kenapa pi China".

I : Sebab Raya Cina

Seseorang : Ohhhh, pasai apa hari ponggal ari tu tak pi India

I : Tunggu la Deepavali sok

Where am I getting ?? Allright. Shanghai have sooo many things to love and an equal share of reasons to hate. So once love and hate collided, we had a wonderful and joyous trip.

Love list

- fashion, fashion and clothes, clothes and more clothes

- shoes and a lot of shoes

- maglev train from airport to central Shanghai move 420km per hour

- a fantastic nite life

-'A' class river cruise along Huang Pu river (just like a love boat)

- fruits everywhere (shop la I mean)

- efficient and well developed subway (we managed to go everywhere via subway, with a big help from our huge city map and my mandarin tags

- U can shop until u are only moved by your motivation although your legs are swollen and failed you

Hate Lists

Language barrier

(to those who support the notion that bangsa-bangsa yang hebat di dunia tak perlu berbahasa Inggeris untuk maju' I say to them 'porracitt' , it was a misery with capital M ok).Luckily I got clever by making some Mandarin tags with the help of Mandarin Dictionary Online and Wikitravel. I made tags of the places of interest in Mandarin and just show it to the cab driver or any passer by, to ask for direction. The list includes toilets la of course.So we survived

Cold breeze.

A slightly cold breeze ala-ala manja is romantic, but Shanghai winter wind is mean, it bites. My leg blistered all over due to the cold as I hate to wear long john bottom underneath. But the bright side of it, I now can confidently apply to be a spokeperson to Olay Total Effect as I can speak based on experience. Gunakanlah Olay Total Effect puan-puan terutama yang dok kat negara bersalji (bleh ke?)

HALAL FOOD

Quite hard to find one unlike Beijing, maybe because we were on our free and easy trip plus the language barrier. Nevertheless we were lucky to have one very near to our hotel, Restaurant Afandi but again language was a huge problem

Day one we manage to have szechuan chicken (I bagi nama sendiri wakakaka, vege dish (seriously the name beats me and I swear I never came across it here, but tasty) and a gigantic bowl of soup I can make a steam face treatment while eating (although we only ordered for two, I assume the Shanghainese ni makan sup, tido sup , berry sup kot) after almost 15 minutes of ordering, its a hard work I tell you.

Day two, we had fish (as big as my son when he was delivered) and broccoli. This time it took almost half an hour to ask for rice. The poor waitresses came in and brought us another set of chopstick instead, and again this time another set of plate, and sugar and another set of fork and spoon. Until at last she got it right. And all of them laughing away and so do we except they were laughing of their siliness while ours was an unsincere laugh of a God Father before he shot some one.

Day three, Kanda was exhausted and starving. Since we were feeding ourselves with mandarin oranges, chickedees and biscuit only after a whole day of strolling and jalan-jalan. When he is starving he become impossible especially since he had enough of Restoran Afandi and wanted to dine at another Muslim Restaurant we accidently discovered in Nanjing Street. But I insisted to have another Afandi's. So I need to do the ordering since I yang gedik nak makan kat situ and since I know a little bit of Cantonese (tak relevan sangat tapi kena layan la takut merajuk, buruk , dah la passport I dia pegang, buat dia tinggal aku kat situ).

So he demanded to have prawn and squid. I did great ordering the prawn since there was a display but squid???? Damn. So I flippied through the picture menu over and over hoping there would be a vivid picture of squid or it look alike while Kanda was nowhere of looking like a very gentleman clientele like he did two days ago, i noticed even that waitress was uneasy. The girl pointed at a picture, showing her thumbs up. I asked what it was and she was quite for a while and say "mmbeeek bekk'' .Long silence.

I innocently looked at Kanda with my head slighty tilted to the right, prying for sympathy ..."But yang, u want squid, how am I supposed to make squid sound?" He looked at me, I was waiting and ready for a canon ball but instead he .....BURST OUT LAUGHING macam orang gila....So I joined in and so was the girl but still timidly and patiently waited for our order. That nite we settled for prawns and mixed soup as I was not going another round of order nasi 30 kali baru dapat nasi betul.And that nite also we enjoyed our honeymoon as the honeymooners should he he he.

To sum up, I enjoyed myself, talking, laughing walking with him everywhere, oh yess and we REALLY walked, it became a walkaton. I think we could have reached Ipoh had we had that amount of walking in Shah Alam. I enjoyed loving him once again and I think he did too.