Monday, October 27, 2008

Guilin Pt 3

Day 3: So we embarked on the 4 hours ferry ride along the Li river. A lot of pple say that if you haven to the Li River, means that you haven been to Guilin. The scenery along the route was nice…but it could be nicer, if it hasn’t been that foggy or polluted. Its hard for me to explain the experience, you have to be there to feel it. But I strongly dun recommend a 4 hours ride coz it gets a bit boring after some time, coz the most scenic places are only concentrated at the mid stream. So the boring us got down to play cards on the deck..as usual…


the pier....there are so many ferries and so many pple....

the couple in the foreground of the pic made a big big nuisance by quarreling loudly with the tour guide...and someone sitting behind us even shouted "ma4 de2 hao3!!!!"...china pple really love to quarrel

the ferry buying supplies of fishes and prawns from the small boat..


this pic appears on the back of the 20 RMB note...
the tour guide told us..." 想象想象..越想就会象..不想什么都不象"....and "70% depends on imgination..30% depends on...fate (i say one)"..haha...so can u see an old man face on the mountain? can u see a mother and her child?

the 9 horses mountain...can u spot the 9 horses???if u can u r really a talent..

the hill tt looks like a brush...

the hill tt looks like guanyin statue...

playing cards on the deck....and i lost all games..cui-ed=(

After we disembark, rushed off for our short sightseeing in Yang Shuo City before we set off for the airport. The tour guide for our sightseeing is so nice. She knows tt we are going to catch our flight at 9pm and she took the initiative and help us arrange for transport back to the airport and help us bargain..All these done without us even requesting her to help us do. So nice of her. And the best part is, we wanted to give her some tips and she refuse to collect and passed to the driver of our transport instead…First time someone refuse tips in china siaz…really respect her to the max…So…tts concludes the Guilin trip…Must say adventurous trip for me, esp coz I did not do ANY research before going there, and the encounter with the nasty cab drivers and the nice bellboy n tour guide just make this trip more happening…..
Looking forward to my next china trip…..

Guilin Trip Pt 2

Day 2: Woke up very early as we were supposed to go on the Li Jiang river tour from the pier at guilin city area. So we chartered the 2 cabs that brought us to the hotel that day....but turned out that there are some miscommunication with the 2 cab drivers who fetched us from our hotel. Felt so cheated and most importantly, spoil our plan for the whole day!!!...now we have to push back the Li Jiang tour to the last day which is going to be super risky coz we will be rushing like mad to catch our flight…

nice sunrise =)

Back to the 2 drivers, apparently what she told us is a completely different story from what was agreed on the phone. So the rest of them were arguing with her and I cant really be bothered abt all her arguments and sat there to plan for our next journey, until one point when she started accusing our parents for not teaching us tt “zhuo4 ren2 yao4 you3 liang2 xing1”…and that got me so damn pissed off, that I stood up and scolded her…and that shut her up. For me, u can scold me but never ever bring my parents into the picture, else you will really get it from me…and this cab driver got it from me!!!!

this is the cab driver who got it from me!!!!.....she got the fierce look..but i am fiercer =p

So these 2 cab drivers really let us see one side of the China pple, very smart in making business and also very good at quarrelling with people. So all of you going to China, make sure you are smarter than them to outwit them.

Although this incident sort of spoil our plan and mood, we managed to find some stuff to do, like visiting the ”Du Xiu Feng” which has very nice view of the city and also a surprise visit to a local Pri sch, where we saw the sch kids queuing for "Mai Ya Tang"..some candies lah if u dunno chinese....and then we went into the school to look around...hahaa...the sch teacher even asked me if i am from Korea!!!...first time someone say i am from korea...wonder why i look like "a malaysian, AT, Hongkie and now korean" but not a singaporean..haha

climbing up these steep steps can be tiring....
but the view from this "Du Xiu Feng (Peak)" make the climb worth it.

the cave where the imperial scholars study for their exams and write poems in the past...how i wish i have a cave to study for my exams too..without any distractions. =p

this shop sells horse meat!!!!OMG...they really eat anything in china siaz

this "Zha Jiang Mian" cost 3RMB, which is abt 60cents...the dumplings coz 3RMB for 10..goodness its so cheap..but not really nice.

we saw the kids queuing up for the candies (u can order different animals!!!)...this is something u cant find in spore anymore i guess..

i talked to these kids outside the sch..and one of them even gave me a candy...so nice of him..

the so called bridge tt u used to cross the river...just tt there is chance tt u will fall into the river...so i prefer to spend 1RMB to take the raft....and actually wenjie fell down while trying to walk around the river with david

At night, we visited the Shui3 Jie1, which is something like Clarke quay, just tt it is a canal built by Qin Shi Huang long long ago, and that there are no pubs but BBQ shops along it. So we had lots and lots of BBQ stuff there and its really really very nice. If got chance, I will visit this place again. We were then joined by the Bellboy of the hotel, Cheng2 Shi2(honest in English). He is a very nice person actually, been helping us a lot these few days and he knocked off work early to join us to makan and drink some beer. Really nice and easier to talk to him especially coz he is only 25 years old, so about the same age…he told us a lot abt himself, like where is his hometown, why he has to come here to work, blah blah blah… So we finally saw the better side of the china, there are still pple who are friendly and honest(hopefully) to us.

the BBQ shop....we were lucky enough to find this original BBQ stall

grp photo with the bellboy(Cheng2 Shi2)

Guilin Trip Pt 1

Been slacking since my last paper so here i am posting something abt guilin... As said perviously, its a pretty rush day for me tt day when i depart for guilin as i had to return back to hall by 3pm and then rush off to the airport with the rest of them and reach the airport by 4+....luckily we made it on time and everything was smooth (i am pretty worried coz of my passport..haha..always seems to have lots of problem..luckily its smooth this time round)...

Reached Guilin airport and to our surprise, the hotel tt we booked is like 65km away from the airport and 45km from the city...and coz of the time we arrived, there is no more bus to the hotel. Had to take the cab which cost 320RMB (about 60+ Sing)..and along the way to the airport, both cab drivers stopped at the side of the road and advise us to go n stay in Guilin city instead and forgo our 5 star hotel(merryland Resort)...Spent like almost 20 mins trying to decide whether we shld go ahead with what the cab drivers suggested. To be honest, i dunno why we are so easily manipulated by what the cab drivers said...maybe singaporeans trust pple too much already....

Glad that we stuck to the original plan and checked in to our 5 star hotel....actually we were also being mis informed about this hotel, coz we thought it is located in the city, but actually its so far away. And tt gave us tonnes of headaches for the arrangement of the transportation...which result in us being Kings and Queens for the next few days. Chartering the hotel vehicle for ourselves...and on top of that, we even ordered room service almost everyday...this is an ultra luxurious trip for me..but luckily, these services after converting back to Sing dollars is still considered cheap. Alright, enough of the grandmother story....now into the main part of the tour....

Merryland Resort Hotel (5 Star)....ultimate luxury siaz...=)

Day 1: We took a raft and travelled along the river and visited several nice scenic places. And actually we kena chopped once again like a radish head(Cai Tou) coz we paid 200RMB for the raft, which in the locals eyes as astronomical price!!!!...Ok..so Singaporeans really so gullible siaz...but the scenery and the experience made up for this cai tou experience....


soaking our legs in the coooooooling water...

After that we went on to visit the reed flute cave…actually I have visited numerous caves before, Vietnam, laos and now Guilin…and I find tt this is the most spectacular one I have seen so far..



the super nice lighting in the cave...

Then after much much persuasion by a local, we decided to go for the raft in the lake again, this time we bargain for so long to reduce it to 5RMB…guess we simply got all our priorities wrong siaz…we din even bargain for the 200RMB raft ride and yet we are bargaining for a 5RMB one..what’s wrong with us??hahaha..What surprised me next is tt, we have to row the raft ourselves!!!.. totally stunned and no wonder the price. But it turned out to be a great experience...


rowing the raft can be scary siaz...esp u have pple like david trying to rock the raft

Monday, October 20, 2008

Mid terms.....

Mid term exams are just round the corner..in fact 3 more days away..and guess what, i have not started on them yet coz i am busy rushing assignments which are due this week as well...Time is really running out..FAST...

Will be disappearing for the next 2 weeks to officially concentrate on studying...will post more on the Guilin trip after all my mid terms...shall minimise touching this computer also..coz it is proving to be the major distraction...

Wish me luck...

and wish all those in spore luck in ur finals...

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Ping Shan Heritage Trail

Am going to do a short post on this field trip which i went today for one of my module, which i ambitiously (dunno if there is this word) signed up for because i have a flight to catch at 640pm later and this trip end at 2pm...so luckily everything falls into place nicely..luckily i din worry too much abt it and so managed to enjoy the field trip....And as usual, the sociable me tried to mix around with the local students on this field trip and mangaged to find myself a group for my upcoming project..in fact, i managed to find 8 pple to form group with me. tts how gd i am k...hahaa..just kidding..But seriously this is the first time i interacted with the locals so much, maybe coz i am always stuck in my sporean clique. So this time i chose to go on this field trip alone seems to be a gd decision.

Just some pictures on the trail...need to write a reflection report on it which is worth 50%!!!!...Will continue more when i return from Guilin (the China real Guilin...not spore mini version)..haha...going to catch the flight now...





Sunday, October 12, 2008

its reading week..or rather...recess week

Yup...this week is the recees week. Actually nothing to be so excited about for the recess week because i seems to be having recess week every week since i reach here..haha..but this week i will be going on the Ping Shan Heritage trail which is at Yuen Long and its super far from school and on tuesday flying off to Guilin. Finally can take out my camera to do some snapping. Hahah...coz i realised that i have been keeping my camera in the freezer for the past 2 weeks and not snapping any pictures. Am thinking of going to Beijing or other parts of china in the upcoming weeks but that would meant tt i must be more disclipine in my studies esp when mid term exams is only 2 weeks away..starting to feel stressed?not really..surprisingly..

Am supposed to attend a make up lesson yesterday..but to my horror..i woke up at 12pm.and completely missed the lesson. Oh well, guess it had become the norm for me to miss lessons here. Think i should not draw the curtains when i sleep siaz, coz once i draw the curtains, it just seems like it is night time at any time of the day. Will need the sun to wake me up..haha..After that i went to play vball and table tennis at the flora ho sports centre..and since the weather is so good, i decided to go for a swim..and tt was followed by a 20 mins jog....sports intensive day for me. Guess that is something i wun be able to do back in singapore, coz i will be too busy to do all these.

At night, went out for SUPPER at midnight. First time we decided to venture beyond bonham road, which only has 24hrs macs, for supper. So we took a cab which goes to xi huan, which is actually at the westwood area for some dessert and also dim sum. I heard tt its a culture for the locals to have dim sum around 1am to 3am and so we decided to experience that ourselves. To be honest, the dim sum place is rather messy, as in the way you order the food. No one is takng the order and every customers seems to be rushing to the counter and just grab what they want. So in the end, we decided to just follow suit. Maybe thats the typical culture ba. The food is not really fantastic but its nice to eat something warm at night and especially when i had dinner at 5pm...I just love late night suppers..haha..though i know its unhealthy..



feeling hungry for dim sum now...again =)

Friday, October 10, 2008

random

Realised that i haven been writing for some days. Regarding my previous post, felt much better the next day after the run and the long long hrs of sleep. Been rather busy these few days doing derivatives assignment which is graded and also a project which is 15%. So rush until like 4am in the morning for 3 days until i got so shag out the next day..haha...actually i think i get tired quite easily here than back in singapore, been falling asleep during lessons quite often and not waking up for lessons at all. Till now i had pon 2 lectures and missed 2 tutorial sessions(but went for a make up one). Guess it got to do with the late nights here. Will try to sleep early (like b4 3am) for once today.

Tuesday was a public holiday over here..Cheung Yang Festival, and according to what the locals told me, its a day to go hiking and drink chrysanthemum tea. And they say its to avoid the evil spirits tt are in one's home on tt day. Thats y pple dun stay at home on tt day. Its also a day to pay respect to the ancestors, something like qing ming. Well, for me, i din go hiking coz its quite hot in the day, but i went to play table tennis n vball n had a project meeting...so i sort of maintain their tradition of not staying in hall..haha..sound crappy i know...

Wednesday...my lesson ended quite early and so i decided to visit the space museum and the art museum at tsim sha tsui...mainly coz the admission is free on all wednesday..hahaha...this is money saving strategy siaz...i find the space museum quite crappy, nothing really very impressive. So i decided to watch the shows at the omni theatre. Watch "The Alps" and i find it super nice...the scenery in switzerland is ultra beautiful..totally blown me away...this is the place i so wanna go!!!...now i know why max/des likes tt place so much, coz its such an amazing place...if only i have the $$ and time..haha..then i watch the other show..which cause me to sleep almost throughout the show...complete waste of money really, its so cartoon, so low class production, so cui tt the name of the show is not worth mentioning...Yup then after which i rush back to school for the project meeting where the project is due today..only managed to finish it at 11pm and so tt means tt my dinner will be some microwave food from 7-11 again. This is super unhealthy i know, but no choice, there are no eating places near my school or hall.

Today.....woke up late for lesson as usual but rush for the 2nd half of the lecture...dun really know why i bother to rush for this lesson coz usually i dun get anything out of this lecture, coz i simply dun understand wat the prof is taking about. Maybe its just to not make myself feel guilty..haha...Also attended a talk on the current credit crisis. Think the speaker provide us with a rather clear picture of the current situation which he describe as the worst crisis in the century.

After which i rush down for the vball training for my hall. Actually, not really training coz the guys are not having the competition this semester. But basically i am helping to train the girls for their competition tmr. I got slightly frustrated at some point when they started to discuss abt the positions in court, where to stand and was like even discussing whether like this can receive the ball or not. I was frustrated coz they r simply wasting time!!! You got to try playing a few times before you know what is the problem right? and then address it after tt. Its no point talking so much abt theories behind things..so pointless..only time wasting. And i got quite sian when i see pple strolling to collect the ball, or moving from court to court. totally lack of tt kind of enthusiam a sportsman shld have.....haha..maybe i am having too much expectation and maybe i am doing too much comparison to my own training session 6 years back. Just some observations lah...no bad feelings towards anyone at all..hahaa...wooh..not bad...finally found back my passion for vball after losing it for almost a year.

Paid the money for gulin next tues already and kinda excited siaz...cant wait to get out of hk and travel into china. Next tues will be a rush day for me siaz, having field trip for one of my module in the day to yuen long till 1pm and then since its so far from school,i will need to take 2 hrs at least to reach here...and i have to be at the airport by 430pm..so what i do siaz, should i just go str8?...dunno how but i guess everything will resolve eventually, no point worrying. Just look forward to the trip.

Oh ya...received a phone call from spore on tues...its a company asking me to go for assessment test at their office next monday...but when i said tt i am overseas in hk, she said.." i am sorry tt u r currently overseas, we will have to put ur application for future reference"...so sad lor...hao bu rong yi get the first n only positive reply from all the 5 others i had applied...so was feeling quite sian at tt time. did ask myself if i had made the right choice coming here or not. But i tot tt its not time to think abt this..coz since i am already here, no pt thinking it. Just got to depend everything on luck...

Yup...so tts my past 4-5 days in hk....nothing very special or interesting..haha...will try to find some fun stuff to do these coming weeks..

Sunday, October 5, 2008

3am run...

Decided to go on a run just now although its already 3am. First time i actually ran here in HK. To be honest, i don't really like running a lot and those occasions where i go for a run are times when i get too down, too frustrated, too helpless......

The route that i ran seems to trace my life all these years. Very smooth and relaxing initially and after i reach the school and made a U-turn back, it was up slope all the way. The path was tough, painful and sometimes lonely but i know i can make it through and reach my destination if i persevere on. I had to believe in myself that i can. I had fell down so many times along the way and managed to pick myself up and move on. I believe i can do it too this time. Nothing will stand in my way, not even the impending storm nor the strong gusty wind blowing right in my face can stop me.

" Life can be unfair at times,
when you must maintain faith
and never let go.

It is especially during the difficult times
that you must live your life
to its fullest potential.
Those are the times to triumph
over circumstances
with hope and courage

Life isn't always easy,
But if you keep going and persevere,
To the very best of your ability,
You will gain strength to manage the new challenges ahead"

This had guided me through the toughest time of my life and i hope it can, once again.....

behind every grey cloud, there will always be a blue sky
tomorrow will be a better day =)

move on....

"Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years.
If something is wrong, fix it if you can.
But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything."

maybe i shld just stop worrying and move on.....

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Fireworks =)

Its China's national day today and so its a public holiday..nice..but actually to me holiday or no holiday seems the same to me, coz i am like having holiday everyday..haha...next tues will be another public holiday here..even more shiok coz it falls on my long sch day. Wanted to wake up at 7am to go and watch the flag raising ceremony at Wan Chai, but of coz the lazy me, couldnt wake up on time but instead slept all the way till 1pm+...super pig lor...Then, i met david to go for dim sum lunch, which isnt very expensive, then we went to a travel agency to settle the trip to guilin during my recess week...yeah..i am going into china!!!...its not really very cheap actually but i shall just take this opportunity to go into china...and also reserve the air tickets back HOME to singapore...=)))))

Alright...since the heading says "fireworks" i shall post more pics on the fireworks against the hk city skyline at victoria harbour...and it lasted for 25 mins !!!!...the longest fireworks i had ever seen and its really very nice. and due to the limitations of my samsung camera for night shots..haha..i took a video n took screenshots from it...still not bad lah..haha =)

the star ferry
the olympics ring....and this fireworks is actually to celebrate the success of beijing hosting of the 2008 olympics...




1 month overseas

Woooh...time flies man, 1 month just fly past just liddat. This is the longest tt i have been overseas, broke my record of being overseas for 1 month last june in vietnam. To be honest, i dun really miss home as much as i tot i will, but actually i usually dun when i am overseas. But there are still times when i tot things are just much more convenient back home, where all the things i need or i want, i can get them easily. There are times when i tot there are not many pple here whom i can talk to when i am feeling down....so no matter what...HOME is still the BEST =))... Perhaps being away on an exchange does makes me appreciate what i have back home. Alright shall not get too emo here..hahahaa

I was watching the Singapore F1 on sunday...so happy to see the beautiful skyline of singapore being beamed to the whole world. That is something to be proud of really. And some of my hall pple in the pantry watching the race also commented that singapore is really a beautiful place just made me feel even more proud of the place i belong to. Was in the global lounge yesterday afternoon and the exchange coordinator here recognised me as a student from singapore n from ntu...kinda shocked me, coz i dun remember myself talking to her before. But nvm, thats good, coz at least i am recognised as a singaporean rather than from china. So signed up on behalf of the rest of the singaporeans for the study abroad fair next month, where us singaporeans in hku will be setting up a booth to showcase our country and our universities. Really a super good chance to tell everyone here that singapore is not china, singapore is not part of malaysia and we are not ah tiongs!!! I gotta start gathering pple and start preparing for the materials already.


got from the net...http://www.itv-f1.com/photo.aspx?IM_ID=50400&PG_ID=22 hope wun breach any copyrights..hahaha

And on studies...i have really been slacking 90% of the time!!!!...first time i felt so slack in my life. Haha...usually i will be busy doing this doing that, involving myself in this activity that activity. But this sem here, totally nuah diao. I gotta psyche myself to start studying siaz else cant even get the passing grade. One thing good is...i receive my motivator to study on monday!!! hahaa...the strawberry pocky!!!!...haha..back in singapore i always eat this when i was studying and i need this..in order to reward myself or motivate myself to study. Hope it does really help!!!

I am also trying to exercise more here else i scared i will grow too fat when i go back home. But then actually quite unlikely lah, coz there are so many slopes and stairs which will surely burn all the fats...so pple who are thinking of sliming down can consider coming to hk =p....Played vball, tennis and table tennis so far. Tried to join the hku vball team but i dun think i can make it..haha..coz my skills seems to have cui diao esp after not playing for months..but my tennis skills is getting better....its not like playing golf anymore..hahaa...and table tennis...played with david a few times this week and ytd night was the ultimate where we played until 230am in my hall common room using a makeshift table tennis table..hahaha...yeah..i just love sports man...

Alright...this roughly summarise my tots these few days....going out now to enjoy the china national day holiday...