The Highest Bookstore in Shanghai

If you enjoy exploring bookstore when you are overseas, you can read about the highest bookstore in Shanghai with panoramic view of Shanghai city. 

Click the link here https://travelandenjoylife8.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-tallest-bookstore-in-shanghai.html

Joyful Travel in China Wudangshan

I'm back to Singapore yesterday after spending a month in China as a female solo traveller, to be specific, 25 days at Wudangshan and 5 days in Shanghai. This is my first solo travel to China and I'm glad I made many wonderful friends there while enjoying the beautiful view of vast mountains while learning Taichi. I like the peaceful, quietness and energy at Wudangshan. 

There is no direct flight to Wudangshan from Singapore, so I chose to fly to Shanghai and spend a few days exploring the financial city in China. Shanghai is a safe cosmopolitan city which is very similar to Singapore but things are much more affordable there and people are generally really friendly, soft-spoken and helpful. They are different from the rude and loud personality depicted by the media.

During my stay in Wudangshan, my friends appreciated my help in translating for them.  During this trip, I appreciate the bilingual policy in Singapore. We can use our knowledge to make the world a better place. With both Mandarin and English proficiency, I felt happy to help to explain and ensure clear communication to help prevent conflict and misunderstanding. Let's use our knowledge and language proficiency to make the world a better and harmonious place.  

Click my travel blog here to read more https://travelandenjoylife8.blogspot.com/2025/04/amazing-china-trip-at-wudangshan.html. I’ll be updating my travel there.

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Still in Mountain Area

I’m still in the quiet mountain area with vast space. I do like this peaceful place. It would be great to retire somewhere similar to here. While resting in my room, I listen to this great classic by Jacky Chung.

Even though I like this mountain area, I find that there are more tourists visiting. 

Update on Two Blogs

Finally I spent some time to update both travel and blooming flowers blogs. Last week I started to travel solo to both city and mountainous places for a month. This is the longest period of time I'm away from Singapore since New York two-week solo travel in 2011. After working hard for 20 years, I decided to do what I always wanted to do which is to see flowers during the Spring time and to explore beautiful mountain. In my former job, I could only have 1 week rest in March and even during that period, I also need to prepare for next week work. 

It's the best time to travel when you are in mid-40s when you are quite fit and financially comfortable. I noticed some seniors having difficulty walking up the mountainous area during the travel. After the trip, I'm open to suitable job opportunities. If I can’t find anything suitable then I depend on current passive income and continue to blog which earn some money.

I was wondering if I should create another Youtube channel on travel. After thinking, I decided to just add Travel playlist to current channel on Blooming Flowers and Arts and changing the channel name to Blooming Flowers, Arts and Travel for easy management. So if you like to see flowers, just select and click the Gardens playlist. Also I think it's troublesome for my friends and relatives to toggle between channels and for me to switch between channels to update.

Just Travel and Enjoy Life blog here: https://travelandenjoylife8.blogspot.com

Blooming Flowers and Arts here: https://bloomingflowersnarts.blogspot.com

Heart Sutra and Buddhism: https://heartsutrabuddhism.blogspot.com

Buddha Relic Tooth Temple

I finally visited Buddha Tooth Relic Temple at Chinatown Singapore this Monday. I decided to pray and also to see Buddha's relic. Also I wanted to try the vegetarian food at the temple basement 1. To my shock, there were many people eating during lunch time on weekday.

At level 3 there is a Buddha museum where you can read the history of Buddha and see Buddha's relics and the tooth relic at level 4. Some tourists tried to take photo of the relic despite the sign indicating No photography. Some tried to take photo of people meditating at level 4 and they had to be stopped by the security guard.

I revere the compassionate Buddha and his selfless teaching for 45 years to both humans and heavenly beings on how to end suffering. He also taught us not to accept anything at face value but to question and investigate and relate it to our own experience. May all sentient beings be enlightened and end samsara.  

Namo Buddhaya Amitofo🙏

If you like to read more about Buddha's teaching, you can read another of my blog on Buddhism https://heartsutrabuddhism.blogspot.com/. 

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple 

https://www.buddhatoothrelictemple.org.sg/

Nearest MRT station: Maxwell MRT station

Did you know that there is Orchid garden at level 5? I will blog about it on my Blooming Flowers and Arts blog here https://bloomingflowersnarts.blogspot.com/  .

You can read previous post on the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple first published in 2019 June here. 

                       I like the crispy fried spring roll. Quite palatable.

We like this blueberry bun.

Ne Zha Bread

Saw these Ne Zha inspired bread, Wheels of Fire at BreadTalk this week. It is made from lotus and is mala spicy.

 

JAY CHOU 周杰倫 ╳ MAYDAY 五月天 [任性 Willful}

很喜欢这首歌，任性. 因为我也很任性。

Ne Zha 2 Is Awesome!

So I finally watched Ne Zha 2 at my favourite movie theatre at Shaw Lido in Orchard Road. This is a great animation movie. What is amazing is that the movie is about 2 hours 23 minutes long but I felt like time flew by so fast. There was no dull moment at all and I really enjoyed this movie. It's both hilarious and touching and it can make you laugh and cry. The most touching moment is between Ne Zha and his mother. 

It has many messages embedded in this movie. It teaches you not to be fooled by mere appearances and to verify before taking action. I won't reveal more. I highly recommend you to watch. I paid a total of $25.00 as $22 for the Imax movie ticket and $3 for booking fee. This is really an impressive movie. Highly recommended!

这是一部用心的作品！

Ne Zha 2 Screening in Singapore!

Ne Zha 2 will be screening in Singapore theatres on 6th March. 2 more weeks of waiting. I'm looking forward to watching it. Will they be screening in Imax theatre? 

Birthday Month

I'm celebrating my birthday this month and will be spending more than usual as there are many promotions during the birthday month. My cousin treated me to sumptuous 8-meal course at Sufood and my youngest brother and parents brought me cake. Thank you for the treats!

Indomitable Spirit: NeZha Director

I like the indomitable spirit of NeZha director, Yu Yang. He pursued medical degree but didn't become a doctor so as to pursue his animation dream. For three years, he worked hard to achieve his dream without any income. This NeZha movie is kind of a dedication to his mother unconditional love in supporting his dream. It is now the highest grossing animation in the world with a single market. Why? Europe is not screening it.  So their citizens who want to watch it travelled to China to watch. America only started screening NeZha last week. The special effects and story are awesome. Singapore has not screen this movie yet. If I can’t watch it in Singapore, I’ll travel overseas to watch it. 

Just work hard and ignore the naysayers. Some news  media just like to focus on the negative. (That’s why I don’t read news often) Just focus on doing well and the results will follow in due time. 

To the scmp reporter who doesn’t know the reason why the director decided on NeZha story. He stated the reason in this interview.

Ne Zha 我命由我不由天

When I was young, I used to watch Ne Zha, Chinese drama in the 1980s. The drama is based on 16th century, Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods 封神榜 by Xu Zhonglin. I really enjoy the story of the good prevailing and Ne Zha fighting for justice. In battle, he has the spear and wind fire ring with him. The third son of General Li, he had a tumultuous relationship with his father who took his life in his past life.  Even though he was impulsive, he cared for his mother and helped the weak.  He is a protection deity revered in Chinese Taoism and you can find Ne Zha temples around Asia.  

I heard that Ne Zha 2 movie is very popular. I hope to watch this animation movie soon in Singapore. 

May there be justice in this world. No more human trafficking. Protect the children who are the future of planet earth.  

我命由我不由天. My destiny depends on me, not on heaven. I like his spirit on being a master of his fate.

PS. I hope Wikipedia conduct check else there is no credibility if any one can type in inaccurate information just to ride on the wave of this popular movie. Wikipedia will just become irrelevant. I noticed the Ne Zha title wikipedia was edited often.

Hong Kong drama on Ne Zha. Can't find 1980s China drama production now. 

XTRA Furniture Store at Marina Square

Visited XTRA furniture store recently at Marina Square where you can shop for furnitures by well-known designers like Tom Dixon and Herman Miller chairs. They also have affordable accessories decor like cute MAGIS dog decor.

They have unique and fun furniture designs. Maybe I get one cute furniture for my new home.

 

Breakfast at Shake Shack

Had a quiet breakfast at Gardens by the Bay Shake Shack restaurant which is near the flower dome this Monday morning. I brought the arugula egg and cheese burger and breakfast tots hash brown. The arugula egg and cheese burger is suitable for plant based eater.

人日快乐 Happy Birthday

Today is 7th day of Chinese New Year. For Teochews, we will eat 7 different type of vegetables. 

For today lunch, my mum cooked 7 vegetables that she brought from Prime Supermarket which sells pre-packaged 7 vegetables ( Caixin, Chinese leeks) for about $5 a pack. It is convenient to customers.

Happy Birthday everyone! 人日快乐！

  Today lunch. 

New Blog

Hi everyone, I have a new blog on flowers only. Since I'm quite free now, I'm also learning and creating videos on flowers and post on YouTube. So far the videos I posted are quite short and mostly photos but at least I started to create and share. I will start to take more videos and post on flowers. 

The new blog is here 

Tossing Yusheng With My Friend

Had a sumptuous lunch with my friend at Putien yesterday as I like their fried beehoon, vermicelli which I find it comparable to homecooked beehoon. Also I find the price quite reasonable compared to other Chinese restaurant and there is no additional service charge. We had 2 person set lunch and we got to eat yusheng. We paid about $148 for the set lunch for 2 person and additional cost for drink tea.

The staff was flexible as he allowed us to change two dishes from noodle to fried bee Hoon and sea cucumber dish to scallop broccolis. 

 

Brave Whistleblower: Edward Snowden

I have to say you can learn a lot from Edward Snowden as he gave many insightful views. Depending on who you ask, some like the USA government staff call him a traitor but he contributed to the rest of humanity and the world by revealing the truth about USA government illegal activities like wire tapping and worldwide surveillance back in 2013. American journalists like him. He risked his life and is now living as a naturalized citizen in Russia. Hopefully he can be pardoned and be back to his country. In earlier post, I already shared the greatest enemy of USA is within the USA government. How could they allow people to vote without documentation and allow massive illegal immigrants to enter the country? Really mind-boggling right? Like him or dismiss him, he has the guts to do what is right.  I hope the higher power, Universe, God can protect him and his family. 

Some wisdoms by Edward Snowden in his interview on The Joe Rogan Experience. People are now trusting podcast then mainstream media and the government (I don’t agree with everything Joe Rogan said). Just look at the incompetent Californian governor gavin and what he has done to the once beautiful California.

Like him or hate him, he will go down in history as a Hero to humanity for exposing USA government global surveillance. It’s okay to spy on your enemies but to spy on your allies and your own citizens?

"Patriotism is not about a loyalty to government. Patriotism in fact is not about loyalty to anything. Patriotism is a constant effort to do good for the people of your country"

"Loyalty is good when it's in the service of something good." 

"You can’t awaken someone who is pretending to be asleep”

 "The scandal isn't that they're breaking the law. The scandal is that they don't have to break the law"

"I didn't come forward to be safe. If I wanted to be safe, I'd still be sitting in Hawaii making a hell of a lot of money to spy on all of you."

"But at the end of the day, you have to recognize if you’re trying to eliminate all risks from your life, what you’re actually doing is eliminating all possibility from your life. "

"I was waiting for a hero but there are no hero’s, only heroic decisions”

“I always wondered why, when things went wrong, someone didn’t do something. Then I realised, that someone was me”! 

"When we become fearful, we become vulnerable to anyone who promises to make things better." 

""When you don't tell your story, other people will tell it" 

 

"no warrant is needed to spy on you because it’s not your data, it’s the companies data”

One needs to remember, absolute power corrupts. The 34th USA President, Dwight David Eisenhower warned against the military undue influence in his farewell speech, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.".

Awesome AI Deepseek

I just tried the latest AI Deepseek created by China. It's an awesome AI! I just gave one line instruction to create worksheet on a topic and it is able to create a systematic worksheet for different levels of thinking and answers without much prompting immediately. It’s seems to be able to anticipate and provide solution without many promptings as compared to ChatGPT. Some people also shared that it is able to give accurate profile of a well-known person compared to ChatGPT. 

There are some criticisms by some western media regarding responses by Deepseek relating to politics and privacy. Are you sure western companies like ChatGPT and microsoft don’t collect users’ data’s? Hey in United States of America you already have different opinions on politics as evident by news media like CNN and NYT for the democrats and the other news media for the Republicans. This AI is not going to give “politically correct” answers because there is none. You have to think for yourself based on your own experiences and preferences. Period. Sometimes you have to ask yourself if those tech billionaires are overpaying themselves. America tried to stop China progress in AI by restricting their access to advanced chips but China managed to overcome the challenge. Thank you China for the leap in AI performance especially saving energy with the energy efficient AI mechanism.

It’s good to have healthy competition so that consumers can benefit. I do hope there is restriction on dangerous knowledge as recently an American used ChatGPT to help him plan activity that endangered others. There must also be system to track who use AI with the intention to hurt others. Let’s use technology with responsibility and with good intention to help people. Just like you use fork for eating and not to hurt others. 

This person gave a good explanation on why Deepseek stunned US stock market.