In Nay Pyi Taw, there is an elephant enclosure at the foot of Uppatasanti Pagoda where it houses white elephants. Their skin are soft reddish-brown and pink when wet. In Myanmar, White elephants are a symbol of power and fortune and at the enclosure itself, there are 6 of them.
The next time if you visit Nay Pyi Taw, remember to take a look at the White Elephants.
In Nay Pyi Taw, the government has designated an area as the hotel zone where all the hotels are being located. However, most of these hotels are resorts and most of the hotels are actually still under construction.
In my opinion, the government had not really developed its tourism sector and there are much left to be developed and enhanced. There are currently 2 shopping malls in Nay Pyi Taw, both located within walking distance from my hotel. However, the size of the shopping malls are approximately half of Eastpoint Mall.
So far, I understand that there is 1 cinema in Nay Pyi Taw which is showing local movies and 2 overseas movies, Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland. The tickets are priced at USD$3, USD$5 and USD$8, depending on your seats.
For your information, all visitors into the malls are subjected to security checks, which is a similar arrangements in Manila.
There are 2 ways to travel from Yangon to Myanmar’s new capital, Nay Pyi Taw. You can either travel by car, which is approximately a 4 hours ride or travel by air via its domestic airline Myanma Airways which will take approximately 1 hour.
For me, I took the domestic airline at departed at 6am (local time). It was definitely an experience. It was a propeller plane and in my opinion, not very well maintained. Its also the first time when I can actually see the cockpit of the plane. The experience was like that of traveling via budget airline. The plane did not descend gradually, it was more like an experience on a roller coaster, it just went straight down.
Over at Nay Pyi Taw, we arrived at Nay Pyi Taw International Airport which was not fully operational. There were aero bridges and baggage belts, but they were not in use.
Based on what I understand, the airport should open within the next 6 months.
Its not a day in Yangon since I arrived around late afternoon in Yangon on Monday. It was a hot day in Yangon and we checked into Hotel Yangon which was about 15 minutes drive away from Yangon International Airport. Before the trip, I knew that I will be having problem with roaming since there isn’t any telco partner for my service provider but I thought probably they will have a decent internet connection. But I guess, I was wrong. There was wifi connection, but it was just not sufficient to support video calls.
Traffic in Yangon was crazy, but probably not as bad in Ho Chin Minh City in Viet Nam. What caught the attention of me was a lorry that was carrying a large number of people.
Like many other countries, there are street stalls too.
If you are traveling to Myanmar, do take note that they do not accept USD in CB series. You will also have to make sure that the notes are clean as each and every note will be scrutinize by the staff.
As a parent, we will want to spend as much time we our children, especially on their special day. I remembered that I did not take any leave to accompany Ezanne last year, can’t remember if I did the year before but this year, I made it a point that I have to do it.
It was the first time she celebrated her birthday in school with her friends. Unfortunately, Ethan was feeling unwell that day and was unable to celebrate with her. Nevertheless, she had a good time in school and she like it very much because all the attention was on her.
After school, we brought Evan and her to Explorer Kids for an afternoon of workout. It was a weekday and there was just us when we arrived. Ezanne was not quite confident initially with the obstacles, but slowly and gradually, she built up her confidence and after 2 hours, she decided that she wants to continue playing and refuses to return home.
Ezanne is growing up and I’m glad to see her building her confidence. She is still as cool as ever and now I’ve got a new name for her, Ice Princess.
Evan has started to learn walking and we are at this paranoid stage. We are happy that he is learning how to walk but we are also unhappy that he is learning how to walk at such a young age, I mean at about 14 months. It is a Chinese belief that the later you walk, the easier life you will experience when you grows up in the future and this is why we are hoping that he will only start walking on his own probably a few months later.
Recently, he is not only learning how to walk but climbing up the sofa too. The more new things he learn, the happier we are but it also means that it will come with a new set of problems, but definitely, happy problems.
It was a bright and sunny day and it was another great day for outdoor activity. I brought Ethan and Ezanne to Punggol for a Kite Day event and it was an opportunity for them to fly kites again. After the first kite flying outing, both of them were actually looking forward to the next one.
This time, Ezanne brought along a frisbee which was really enthusiastic to play with. It was probably playing the wrong thing at the wrong time, but since the field was big enough, we thought we will just play it.
It was not a windy day. The wind come and go and it was really hot, probably not the best day to fly kites. Yet the children enjoyed themselves so much that they did not complain they were tired at all and wanted to stay on. It was definitely another good chance for us to bond with the children and I hope to have more outings with the children.
Over the past 2 days, we see the passing of 2 of the greatest singers, Whitney Houston and Feng Fei Fei. Its not a norm for me to dedicate a blog post to anyone but I thought, I will want to mention 鳳飛飛 since she gave us a number of classic tunes. One of my favourite is Applause (掌聲響起). The lyrics are meaningful and reflects our thoughts when we all go on stage to perform or do our first presentation. The applause or the encouragement that we got were memorable and how many of us work hard to become a good performer or good presenter. I quote one of my favourite part of the song, 孤獨站在這舞台.聽到掌聲響起來.我的心中有無限感慨
Its easier to get Ethan and Ezanne on the weighing machine because they are older and will get quite excited standing on it. As for Evan, its usually quite challenging. This morning, I decided to give it a try and ask Ethan, Ezanne and Evan to stand on the weighing machine, one by one, to take their weight. We took and the result is out. As of 12 February 2012, Ethan is 19kg, Ezanne is 11kg and Evan is 9kg.
Ezanne eat alot, but she seldom puts on weight. In fact, she eats more than Ethan but somehow, probably she’s got mummy’s gene, she is also petite. Technically, Evan is 22 months younger than Ezanne but he is just 2kg lighter than her. Anyway, weight isn’t really that important. What is most important is they will grow up healthy and happy.
In 2011, I attended the Istana Chinese New Year Garden Party. That was actually my first visit to the Istana and an opportunity to get close to the Ministers and Member of Parliament and have a word or even take pictures with them. Then, that was a day event and I was already impressed with the architecture and surroundings of Istana.
This year, I got the opportunity to attend the Chinese New Year event again but its special because the event was at night. When night falls, the Istana was a completely different place. The lightings were beautiful and the surrounding was as peaceful as it is in the day.
