Nothing Beats The Combination Of Sun & Sea.

I know I've been neglecting my blog like forever. *guilt-stricken* So I think I should start getting it running actively by finishing my post on Qingdao Trip. :) I guess I'll stuff 2-days-activities in one post since there weren't a lot of pictures taken on the last day! :S

The third day in Qingdao, I woke up really early to pack and move to another hostel, because Qingdao is like a hot piece of cake everybody wants and most of the hostel were full when I called to book. So I had to settled for 2 different hostels. 

I still haven't recover from the previous day activities, so you'll have to excuse my swollen eyebags. LOL.

This is the entrance of my new hostel! :) It's located on the German street in Qingdao. Qingdao was under the German territory last time so there were a lot of German-influenced culture and buildings there.

I am not very impressed with the new hostel though, especially in terms of hygiene. :( The bathroom especially, was in the basement with really bad lighting and the showerhead doesn't really have much water coming out of it!!!! Not happy about that. :(

Changed into my bikini and easier outfit because I'm heading to the beach later! :) Decided to braid my hair since I'm feeling rather bored of my hair down all the time. :D

You know I've been checking out all those hair-do tutorials and got really excited to try out a few of it, but when it comes I'm just really lazy to do it.

Maybe I'll try them out really soon and make a post about the outcome! :)

Really excited to find a small restaurant full of music instruments and a white piano! :) The owner was generous enough to let us played on it. :) And in return, we had lunch there, eating spicy clams AGAIN. XD

Me with the famous Qingdao beer. Hahaha! Ended up taking only a sip and wasted the whole glass. T_T

I know. I eat all the time. LOL. There's this really nice cafe called Tommy Boy in Qingdao that has the best doughnut ever! :)

Got my hair into a braid again after the tea session and walked to the beach! :)

I like how the camera doesn't focus on me! :)

When I saw this I was like, ARE THOSE DOTS HUMANS?!?!!!!!

And my fear was proven right when there were like THOUSANDS of people at the beach. LOL. And it doesn't help when there are a lot of sea weed on the beach as well as in the sea. OMG.

So dirty I was having a second thought before going for a swim. :(

Anyway, I decided not to waste my bikini. Hahaha! I bought it specially for a nice beach time. My very first pair of bikini because I can't imagine wearing any in Malaysia. Culture difference. LOL.

I was expecting a better beach time but anyway, I'll have to make do with this one, seaweed and all. :/

I'll still vote for Malaysian beaches! :)

 

I got a good swim afterwards. The water was ice-cold!!! It took me a while to get used to the water temperature. It was actually quite nice if you don't think about the seaweed sticking to your body and the amount of people around you. Hahaha!

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The last day in Qingdao, we just walk around the city area to visit those famous tourist spots that we missed a few days ago.

Some pictures on the French street!

Found this beautiful blue-and-white castle and was really hyped about it! :D Hahahaa!

We got lost and ended up in a convenience store asking for directions. Hahaha! I spent the time taking selfie while my friend bought the map and talked animatedly to the store owner.

The 3-wheel car!!!! Nvr see this kinda car before! Hahahaha! I kept worrying that it might topple over!

I posted the spicy clams pictures on my wechat for 3 days straight and my friends also beh-tahan and they asked me WHY DO YOU KEEP EATING THE SAME THING??!!! 

Hahahahaha, uhm, I don't know. I'm a pretty weird person, when I like something I tends to keep eating the same thing. XDDD

So to sooth their "outrage" I decided to try out the fried tongue-fish there! :) And it was so good!!!

This is the landmark of Qingdao! Though my friend and I prefer to call it the red dung. Oops.

The shape really looks like shit to me! Hahahahhaa!

Last place we went was the Lovers' Harbour there that had a lot of pubs but none of them had any live performances. :(

So boring. We wanted to watch music performances there in the first place, and went through a lot of pain asking around but nobody knows anything about it. :'(

Anyway, the sea breeze at night made up for everything! :)

That was all about my Qingdao trip! :) I'll definitely go back again for more seafood! Hahahahha!

Till then, XOXO! :)

Video Covers by My Twins and I :)

Tell you guys a secret I've been trying to hide for a long time. *serious face*

Actually, I have a twin sister who look exactly like me. As in....... EXACTLY like me. Lol.

I think it's now time to introduce her to you all. Her name is Xixi No.2. 

Okay, that's a lame name. Hahahahaa! Fine. Enough craps. 

The true story is my baby girl, Sera, had requested me to do a violin and piano cover of the song Heartbeat by 2pm. I was happy with the request because I had been staying at home everyday with nothing else to do but eat, sleep, practise and cook. LOL. So this turned into an exciting and challenging project.

However, there was a problem. I didn't have anyone to play the piano accompaniment part for me. :'( I tried to ask some of my pianist friends to help but none of them were in Malaysia. And I thought this cover was not going to work out. :( If only I could play the piano and violin myself, at the same time. :(

*smack head* HEY, RIGHT! If only I could play the piano and violin myself, at the same time!!! :D

I had saw a lot of videos on Youtube where ppl clone themselves in video and I thought that was pretty amazing. And now I think I can use that technique in my video to solve my no-piano-accompaniment problem. :) So I started to search online on how to clone myself in the video and then downloaded the required software to get it done.

This whole thing is like solving a difficult math problem. LOL. You'll have to do it step-by-step. After I get the general idea of how to work with the software I started to work on the music. There was a sheet music I found online but it doesn't really match the real recording so in the end I had to listen to the original video again and again and improvise myself on the piano. Haha. Just like ear training class.

Recording is the hardest part. I need to record the violin part and piano part separately, so I need to make sure the rhythm is exactly on time. It doesn't help when the bass of the piano part is full of semiquavers lol. I have to keep counting semiquavers like crazy when I am playing the whole time. Going insane already. 

I spent like 3 days recording and finally got the not-so-bad version. At least now the rhythm is pretty much in place. Hahahaha. I'm really happy to get a lot of positive comments on FB! Thank you so much guys! :)

Here's the Heartbeat cover. :)

My friend, Osman, commented on my previous video saying that I could try making a Hari Raya Song Cover next time. And I was like, heyyyy that's a good idea! :D 

So I came up with this Hari Raya Song Medley that included 3 Hari Raya songs. Aidilfitri, Balik Kampung and Selamat Hari Raya. :)

I don't feel like letting my clone to play piano this time, so I decided to let her play percussion instead. LOL. Well, if you don't have drums/percussion stuff at home, you can always improvise. :)

Watch, you will know what I use. Hahahahaha! :)

Selamat Hari Raya to all my dearest Muslim friends! :) Have fun! :))))

Qingdao The Rainy + Sunny City (Day 2)

Oops, sorry for the hiatus! :D

Although I've just been staying at home everyday in Malaysia, I am just too lazy to sort out the pictures. LOL. Especially when they are like some from the phone and some from this camera and that. OMG. Totally contributes to more headaches. T____T

Anyway I'm going to blog about Day 2 now, you'll have to keep reading because I've a lot of stories to tell! :) This is the day I hung out with some friends I get to know from the international hostel! :) You see, there are a lot of friends of my age staying there as well and they are all up for touring around Qingdao so I just joined them, better than following those tour-groups that you have to pay and rush around the city. :D

The weather was bad again that morning. It was raining a little at first and the rain got really heavy afterwards! We took a bus to our first destination: 劈材院. It is a place famous of all the local snacks and bbq things! The funny thing was, the guy in charge of the hostel warned us beforehand that WE SHOULDN'T BUY/EAT THE FOOD THERE because first, they tasted HORRIBLE and they're much more expensive than the other places. :D A place they cheat the tourists hahahahahaa! So anybody who goes there, bear in mind. :) Just take pictures ok? :D

Oh yeah, something that I found really interesting in the bus. :) There was a kid who threw up milk in the bus. Like a lot of milk and the liquid that he threw up sort of flowed and contaminated others passengers' bags and stuff too since some of them put the bags on the groud. It stinked so bad and the kid's mom was like apologizing and really upset. She kept mopping up the threw-up milk (yes, there's actually a mop in the bus!) and trying to clean her child's face. 

The thing that really surprises me was, nobody in the bus complained. Nobody even make any annoyed faces or scrunched up their noses. NO. There were some people who came to the mother with some tissues so she could clean up the kid's face and the people whose bags were dirtied by the milk, they just smiled and said it's okay. Some people stood up and started to help her mopping the floor. :) It was amazing! 

Now now, I will have to explain why I have to feel amazed, because throughout the years I stayed in Shanghai. MOST OF THE TIME, I mean, MOST OF THE TIME, the people there would definitely started grumbling if you dirty his/her bags and get annoyed and everything. They would scrunch up their noses at the smell and make those angry/annoyed faces at you. Of course there are still a lot of kind and nice people in Shanghai, but somehow a lot of people that I met there are just way cooler and not-as-friendly. :( It is a really sad thing, so I'm really amazed and happy to find that the people in Qingdao are all so friendly and helpful and kind!

That's why I have to do a shoutout to the people out there, I got a comment on my fb pic last week, a friend of mine was saying that people from mainland China are like barbarians, uncivilised people. Only those from the big cities like Shanghai, Bei Jing and Hong Kong are much more civilised, so it's very dangerous to go anywhere other than the big cities blablabla. I think I have to stand up for these people. There are a lot of people from mainland China that are actually much more civilised than a lot of the city people. 

Define civilisation. It's not that you're rich, you drive BMW or Mercedes cars and eat all those up-class food then you're a civilised person. It's something from within your soul. A person with a good and kind heart, always willing to help those in need, even if they're poor or if they don't have a decent job, I called those people the real civilised people.

Well, gee, I've written so much, but you know sometimes I just get really mad when people judge someone according to their social status and some people acting all high-up and upper class like that just because they have more money. It was just plain stupid and disgusting. 

Okay I have to stop ranting. I get carried off sometimes when I think about things LOL. I can be really serious sometimes if I want to. Hahahaha.

So after the bus ride, we arrived at the place under the protection of the super mini-sized umbrella. Which explains my wet fuzzy hair in this picture. LOL.

Some food there! :) Well we only took pictures and didn't eat anything! :)

BBQ STARFISH!!!!!

The moment I laid my eyes on them I was like OMG ARE YOU KIDDING ME YOU GUYS EAT STARTFISH HERE?!??!?!?!?!?

I mean I'm a beach girl too but I've never see anyone eat starfish in Malaysia. LOL!!!

Some more the starfish are all like really big and lively like that. THEY BBQ IT. O.O I didn't try it because it looks really scary and I don't think it's going to be tasty in any way. Can't imagine it and don't want to. LOL.

Sea urchins!!! Hirai says these are really expensive in Japan. LOL. Like a hundred bucks for one, but in Qingdao you can get one at RMB 15 to 20! So cheap!  I didn't eat these too because I'm not really into weird-looking seafood. Hahahaha.

And btw I just realised that weird-looking pinkish colour thing at the upper left of the picture. Wth is that?!!??!

Destination 2: The Catholic Church

As you can see in the picture that place was under construction. So we just went there, sat on the staircases and rested. The rain had stopped and it was kinda misty. :)

Tourist pics is a must! Haha!

We had lunch at a very interesting restaurant. :) Very local feel and the taste was so good! :) The guys had beers and we ordered spicy clams again hahahaha!

Say hi to the cute Meng Meng! :) She's from Tian Jing. :)

They are my friends from the hostel! All super friendly and fun! :) The guy on the very left just came back from Africa. He works there. And we were like, why are you still so fair?!?!?!?! HAHAHAHAHA!

Destination No.3: 八大观

Ba Da Guan is a beautiful tourism spot. :) We ended up renting the 2-person bicycles and biked along the place! So fun because we were racing each other and screaming and yelling all the time when 2 of them were getting ahead of us. Hahahaha! Just like a bunch of kids! :D

We got to the seaside and took some pictures there! The sea there was dark green and brown in colour, but it's beautiful in its own way. :) By that time the sun already comes up and shining! :) It was still a bit hazy though.

There are a lot of green seaweed on the beach!! It looks so super dirty and disgusting omg! Hahahahaa! I can't imagine these are the thing that we eat in the restaurants sometimes! Especially in those Korean cuisine??? No, wait, Japanese cuisine?? I don't remember! When I stepped on it it's all wet and squishy I was like EWWWWW NOOOOO. Hahahahhaa!

The fake-happy picture with the seaweed hahahaha!

You see there are so many seaweed on the beach!!!! At first I thought grasses were growing there lol! And the sand is reddish in colour and super coarse. It hurts when you walk barefoot on it.

Saw some wedding couples taking their wedding shots there! :)

I love the rocks there! :))))

This pic is taken by me hehehe. Cool right? :D

Destination No.4: Zhong Shan Park

Yes! They have a Zhong Shan Park in Qingdao too! :D It's really interesting, because a lot of road names and place names are the same as Shanghai! Hahahaha! They also have Nan Jing West Road etc. So at first I got confused. Hahahaha!

I get excited when I get to the park! :D I don't know it is just like the best photoshoot place. LOL.

Me fooling around.

Gorgeous lotus. :)

I'm in love with the lotus lake. :) Such vibrant and beautiful colour! :D

The sun was setting and it showered everything in its orangey light. :) I started dancing around hahahaa!

Gorgeous reflection of the sunset!

I have this really bad habit of plucking tree leaves during photoshoot! LOL! Coz I dunno what else I can do! Sorry trees! XD

Carrying the huge backpack hahahaha!

That's all for Day 2! :) Will update about Day 3 soon! :DDDD