Today (Tuesday 27th March) Marks the 500day mark before Beijing Olympics 2008 !
Even before the actual event, there have already been stores set up OFFICIAL stalls for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Due to the widespread of fake goods in China (including olympic soveniers) the govt has seen fit to authorise specialty stores to sell Olympic soveniers, I believe that most other stores would therefore be fakes if not obtained from such autorised stores.

Been attending services here, thanks to boss again, at this place called Tong Ren Yi Yuan (Tong Ren Hospital), thats where we tell the cabbie to drop us off at, then we just walk thru some alleys to reach this place.Hah ! No cencorship can cencor the word of God, as you can see, this is the crowd/ cluster f*ck at any ONE of the three service :)

This being the 4th week in china, meaning Ill be left with 3 more weeks, and thanks to the saturday flight back home, 2 weekendsin Beijing, I decided to "slack" no more ! Went to the Temple of Heaven or Tian Tang as it is called in chinese. Was quite a nice place for photog, Interesting facts on the place - It was used to sacrifice animals which were supposed to be pure (like when Moses only offered pure animals as sacrifices to God). This was a place, where even the emperor himself, the most powerful of all men at that time humbled himself to ShangDi (God) [WHICH again shows that the people actually believed in 1 supreme being], anyway, the book is called Fate of our Fathers (of Faith?) can't really remember, its local (meaning singapore). And oh .. I remembered one more thing - Why we were (me and jie and mum i think) so reluctant to walk tian tang last time .... IT IS ONE BIG PLACE !!! Loads of open and long path ways to walk.. er, thanks to boss for sharing his book with me, I understood the history behind the structure, which made the trip ever more fun for me.

THIS IS NOT Tian Tang, its just a random street shot I took whilst on the cab on the way to Temple of Heaven. Danged Temple made me spend 50RMB on entrance.....

The structure at the foreground is the place where they prayed for good harvest. And the first place you visit the moment you go to Tian Tang. Obviously, tour groups like this will be present, especially on a Sunday.

One of the "street performers" on the way to the various Tian Tang locations. There are many performances like this, magic shows, juggling, music etc. To keep the people occupied whilst making their way to the main attractions.

Being the Singaporean that I am, I stayed and listened to one of the tour guides FOR FREEE ! :P h3h3 had the nerve to snap a picture too:P This is the layout of Tian Tang.

Gaming transcends all ages h3h3 !

For me, not only that, I knew nothing of the place, to me it was just another "flower garden" or historic relic (when I was in like pri/ lower sec). And I also had not much interest in photog that at the time, making the answer to the "whats in it for me " question -nothing- ! :P To bad my digital PNS camera decided "hey, this is Kens big outs, let me run out of juice ...." and so there were quite a few nice ones lost to digital but captured on film nonetheless :D

Been spending quite alot of time in the company's photo studio, as they are planning to revamp their product catalog, so new and nicer pictures are gonna be used, which means rephotoing most of their products. Got my hopes up at the prospect of PERHAPS being able to see an EOS-1D in action :P The lack of light in the studio requires longer exposure time on my camera, therefore capturing the magnificant movements of the photographer.

But I was instead greeted with the EOS 400D. The constraptionyou see attached to the Hot Shoe is a sync device which sync's the shutter release and the flash from the studio lights, which are obviously more superior to the built in flash. But the lens mounted was the 28-135mm 900SGD mofo.... I so wanna kope this lens for my EOS-1 at home :D

Anime MADNESS !!!! The stuff in China is just SOOOOO freaking cheap (with respect to anime stuff that is), One of the goodies which I recovered from my first trip to the store. Din even noe it was in there till I finally opened the package :P a blessing in diguise (the disguise being the chinese words which described the contents, but which I failed to completely decipher >.<)

Ichigo 100% !!! Finally got my hands on this splendid piece of work ! and for the price of 16SGD after discount, it ain't that bad at all :P This set comes in 5 books, each book contains 4 series (unlike the ones at Kino which goes by one book per series, which makes it necessary to purchase all 19 books in order to complete the set. At 5SGD per book, from Kino that is, that is just CRAZY) - zz But with this purchase comes in the purchase of what I call, and augmented good but necessity nonetheless - CHINESE Dictionary..... lucky I brought one over :P For the love of Ichigo 100%, I shalt brush up on my chinese by reading this book. Must becareful liao, I risk blowing my wad on anime paraphernalia .... NOT paraphilia (as I discovered whilst searching for the correct spelling to the latter :P eeks. go find out the meaning for this yourself :P)

It translates - This way to Staff Haven (or if you wanna be a pessimistic bit*h about it, this way to staff canteen.. :P) Nonetheless, my 100+ jiao zhis (dumplings have been mostly consumed from here :P I dare say atleast 70+ dumplings or so Ive eaten in the last 3 times they served that delicacy. And with Qin Ming jie coming (the one where chinese go shao mu [clean ancestors coffins and pay respects], I think Ill be eating more :P Its a chinese tradition to eat dumplings during Qin Min.