No White Xmas, White New Year Also Can ;)

At last, the snow is finally falling in Beijing. From last night, it has been snowing non-stop until this moment.
This morning, when the alarm clock rang, I actually intended to skip the first lesson because the sky was still so dark, so inviting to keep on hiding inside my warm blanket. So I woke my roommate up telling her that I wont be going to school 'coz usually she would wake up after I finished using the bathroom. But then the phone suddenly rang so my roommate picked it up. It turned out our other friend told us that it was snowing outside..... And so, my roommate yelled ' It is snowing outside' - I was so excited, I quickly went up to the window and for the first time, I saw the road and football field in front of the school were all covered with snow...what a view :) So I eventually did not manage to skip school, hahaha - saved by the snow indeed.
During the lesson, my class asked our class teacher to let us take class pics outside - hehe, excuse for not studying ;) And so, we played and take lots of pictures outside, made small snow balls to throw at each other - very exciting and fun :p

So, today is a white happy day.... And the weather forecast says that it might still be snowing for the next two days. I guess, I will be having White New Year then.....
As for new year's resolution - I have none. Never believed in these kind of things. Most of the time, the more you have one, the higher the chances that you are going to blow it. Might as well just go with the flow and make chances for the better as and when I want to :)

Dreaming of White Christmas......

Well, here I am finally in four-season country with the possibility of snow falling during winter. But alas, so far no snow yet over here....sobs...sobs....
What happen to the White Christmas thingy??

Anyway, here in Beijing, the christmas mood is not apparent. It is absolutely normal though. For a country that most of the population do not believe in any religions, christmas was almost unheard of last time. People here don't have the custom of celebrating this festive holiday. But you can still see the christmas decorations here and there in big shopping malls. I guess they are getting more common lately as western influence begins to sip in slowly but surely.

Luckily at my school, we still have some christmas celebrations. All classes have to somehow contribute a performance on Xmas eve. Well, I guess it is better than not having any celebration at all. But I guess it will be fun - you know, all of the classmates together trying to figure out to do what kind of perfomance, do the rehearsal and all that. It would be chaos and fun at the same time...

Back to the topic, I still long for my snow. I wonder when the snow will eventually fall.....
Looks like I won't be having any white christmas over here.....

Anyway, I still wanna wish you all - Merry X'mas!!!
Have a good holiday and dont party too much ;p

Crossroads

There were lots of moment in time when I met crossroads in life. I believe everyone has the same experience. Have you ever wondered if at that moment you chose the other option what would the result be today?
A friend told me once that no matter what you do, dont regret it. Life has to go on anyway, why look back and wonder on something that we can't possible change now. How true...
But I am just human and sometimes, just cant help but to reflect on things of the past. Deep down, I know that these actions are useless. If there is anything to be done to amend the situation, I should take action here and now. Keep thinking and regreting about it wouldnt change anything. As always, it is easier said than done.

Now, there is a decision that I have to make. Should I stay here for another half year or should I go back and start looking for a job. Sometimes, having too many options is not necessarily a good thing. Right now, I have a thousand and one options and my folks are absolutely okay with whatever I decide.
Sigh....sometimes, I really wish to be told what to do...Human is strange indeed - when you have no freedom, you yearn for one; when you have too many, you asked to be told what to do instead.
Actually, I am not very keen of the idea of going back and having to start looking for a job right now. But on the other hand, although I like studying here but I feel that it is kind of waste of time and money. But then, thinking deeper, what I am rushing for anyway. I've got time and money although not much but still enough for another half year here :)
Isn't life to be enjoyed?
Now that I have decided to hold on for another half year here. I am faced with another option: should I change school or change city and school all at once? Well..well..neverending isn't? That's life...
So for those of you who have missed me there (haha... 'GR bener' *in Indo*) I guessed you wont be seeing me that soon yet. Mid next year will be the earliest I think unless of course, there is a an unexpected change in current situation.

Competent jerk or lovable fool

Read an article today about competent jerk or lovable fool. It was referring to the types of people that you work with in the office. The survey surprisingly found out that managers would actually prefer lovable fool over competent jerk. The argument was that people actually concern more with who they work with – the personality of the person; after all we human are social being. Of course this is just a result of a survey.
Still, for me this is actually very interesting, because in the rat race environment like this, I together with the general hypothesis of this survey assume that the competent jerk would be preferred. Of course, the short article continues to discuss the implication and some of the pros and cons of this attitude.

I just want to share a penny of my thought :)
In this society, I think competent jerks are acceptable and might be common sights; it is just that we don’t really realize it. How many times have you ever swear at someone at heart because of his/ her bad attitude towards either you or anybody else’s but because of that person is good at what he/ she is doing, you just kind of silently accept those bad behaviors. Take Hollywood artists for an example; how many of them are reported as having ‘antiques’ behavior, snobbish, arrogant and hard to work with. But still you see them in all the box office movies…. It shows that the people that they work with bear with them because they are famous, audience loves to see them although in their personal life, they are just ass***** Hey, as long as they generate $$ who actually cares whether they are saints or devils – This is the reality of life.

I guess I was fortunate enough not to see much of these competent jerks in my previous working places. Or I maybe I was just competent enough to deal with them, hahaha…. Anyway, the ideal is of course to work with lovable competent people. The worst is of course to meet with incompetent jerk that is boss’ pet. I think this type is the hardest to deal with. What say you?

However, I believe that everything happens for a reason. So maybe they are there to make you stronger, to build your characters. Got to see the bright side of life, right? Dealing with difficult people should hopefully, bring the best of our attitude and not the reverse. Hopefully my work journey in the future be filled with lovable competent people and less of the unpleasant ones :p

Today...

Today, there were only 5 people in my class. ...
There are actually 12 of us IF everyone turns up for school. Most of the time, there are only maximum of 8 at one time, hahaha....Welcome to my class ;)
Actually, five in a class was not so bad. Hey, it felt like a private tuition class. More attention can be given to smaller amount of students rite? So I am actually quite okay with it. It is just that sometimes, it feels so very quiet. There is not enough studying atmosphere, it feels so mundane and boring. Well, all of the more dilligently showing up for school ones are quiet type, just like me - we dont like to talk. Only if the 'arrow' of the teacher has fallen on us then we start to open our mouth :D
Having some 'clowns' in the class is actually very good. It will definitely make the class feel more lively. Especially at winter times like this, a boost in the morning is very important. Most of those in class looks like as if they are still in the midst of their dreams in the morning.
As for myself, I guess I am a morning person. A cup of coffee in the morning is enough to perk me up for the day... Thanks goodness for whoever that invented this drink :p

Talking about coffee, the coffee drink here are all somewhat not nice. They are all too bland, not enough coffee in the mix - btw, I was talking about the mixture one as it is what I drink here daily. Even the same Nescafe brand tastes different.....I miss good cuppa coffee.

I should really studying for my HSK now but I feel so lazy and sleepy. Maybe because winter makes people feels like wanna sleep always...hahaha, excuse...excuse....

An Eye Opener

We went to Hard Rock Café yesterday. It all started because one of our friends suggested a gal-nite out. At first she said to go clubbing but later somehow she suggested to go to Hard Rock Café instead because not all of our group of friends are very eager to go clubbing. And so we planned to have dinner there and afterwards she said that we still could do a little bit of dance, since there will be live band and it has a small dance floor.
The dinner was alright. The brownie with vanilla ice cream dessert is worth to mention though (yummy…). A bit expensive though by China food price standard but still in line with other places Hard Rock price standard I guess. The band started at 9.30 and so we enjoyed the songs. And then, we saw two pretty young sexy-dressed gals walked in and sat in the bar. I felt that they didn’t look right. By the way, the place is full of mostly westerners. Maybe we were the only Asian there…
Back to story, the westerners then started to ‘socialize’ with these gals and my feeling suddenly got an assurance that these two gals were not there to enjoy the music or have a drink but to work instead. As the nite went later and the room is getting dimmer, more gals were suddenly inside the restaurant and slowly made up half of the people inside. Well, it is really an eye-opener to see how these gals soliciting for business and how their customers fondly reply. I’ve got to admit I have never been in this real-time situation before. Yes, I have seen it in TV on how these gals offering their services but the background is always on the street not indoor eating places. I was quite surprised because I really did not expect that this can happen inside a restaurant and is not some shabby looking diners, it is Hard Rock Café for goodness…
I only can say that it is indeed an interesting experience… There is always lesson to be learned from every experience, right?

Finally It's Alive...

Thanks goodnesss..... I finally can access my own blog.......

Below is the entry during the days I cant access my web:

What is the purpose of having a blog when you can’t access it. This is simply infuriating. All the writing inspiration is blocked by technology cocked up (haha...as if I have so many inspirations).
It was fine in the beginning; I just can’t understand why suddenly these few weeks I can’t access it. I can’t even view those that I have written so far. Is it being blocked by the school administrator? Or is it just drop dead?
But I asked my friends, they seem to be able to read those that I have published. But I couldn’t go the the weblog and read my own blog. And now, I can’t even get into the blog to add my story….
Poor me……
Hopefully I can’t just copy and paste this story by the time I can access the blog. Dunno when the time will come…
I guess I just keep waiting then…..
Or should I create a new account and try whether I can go in with different log in account. But then I would have lost the weblog with my unique name as the address…
Hikssss…this is not fair……

Feel The Warmth

I kind of hate the way morning sun shining directly into the room when I first got into this room. But now, I just feel so blessed to have this warm room.
Outside, the weather has slowly but steadily turned colder day by day. Today is no different. This morning, the temperature read at 11 degree. At the beginning of the class, I still felt quite okay. However, when it was getting later into noon time, I felt colder. I guessed because it was time for lunch. Empty stomach does not help to keep you warm.
When I got back to this room, oh... I just love my room. Warm sun shining through the window, falls right beside my desk. Sitting here, typing this blog, accompanied by the warmth of the sun, it all feels so good :)

Trip to Huangshan

I remembered that I have not updated my trip during the golden week holiday here in Beijing, China. It lasted from the 1st to 8th of Oct this year. I had have actually planned long before I reached Beijing to travel during this period because this was the only holiday period during the semester. However, until the last few weeks, it seemed that nobody was planning to go anywhere. It is understandable though 'coz during this period everywhere will be so packed, it feels like being in the sardine can. Just imagine the whole China (the most populated country on earth) is having holiday at the same time. I thought maybe because of this that the students here was planning just stay put in Beijing.
Alas, I heard that a group of students were planning to go to Huangshan. I immediately asked one of my better friend whether she wanted to join. I thought to myself if she went along at least I had one better companion as I did not know the others well at that time.

And so I was on this tour to Huangshan. We went for a total of 7 days, the real trip was actually 5 days as we spent two days in the train trip. The train ride was basically not so bad - I used not so bad here :p We were on the bedded train compartment so we all had beds to sleep on. One train compartment consists of about 10 sections. One section consists of 6 beds, 3 in a row. So if you are on the top bed - good luck on climbing up and down :p You can only sit with your back straight on the lowest bed as the gap between that bed and the upper one is the tallest among all. I was luckly enough to be in the section of my own school friends. Although we did not really know each other initially, after 17 hours of train ride together, we were soon click well with each other. Back to the comment of 'not so bad'. So it was actually went on quite okay in the train except for the toilet. Well, what can I say, people here in China are apparently lack of personal hygiene concept I guess. The toilet was quite fine at the beginning of the train ride. But after some time, you could see that all sorts of 'stuff' stuck there in the toilet hole. Actually, couldn't really blame the people who used it also because the toilet hole was kind of stuck as well, meaning when you stepped on the thing to make the toilet hole opened up and suppose to discard all the stuff you just deposited there, the thing was actually stucked. Yes, there was no water to flush if you were wondering. Very low tech, traditional toilet here that I was talking about, sigh...
Actually, toilet is the main discomfort of this whole journey. I guess it is just the bad habit that people here could not really eliminate at this moment. I was not talking about that train toilet only, even in places where there is flush which works perfectly fine, people here often just dont flush after they finish doing their thing. No doubt, it is a lot better and cleaner in bigger cities but as you get more and more to suburb areas and villages, you need mental preparation as all sorts of 'treasure' can be seen in the toilet =D

Okay, back to trip. Actually there isnt much to say. The main places that impressed me were only three: Westlake, Huangshan and Shanghai.
Westlake is where the Legend of White Snake story(百蛇传) took place. A popular Chinese folklore love story between a snake demon and a scholar. I guess most of us watched or read this story before. The lake is beautiful; however, when we were there, the weather was a bit hazy so the view was not very clear. The tour guide briefly retold the story and showed us from the ship the pagoda that confined the white snake in the end and of course, the well known bridge where the white snake and the scholar met. Overall, the lake is vast, there are a few smaller islands inside the lake and the water is serene. It really gives the feeling of tranquility.

Huangshan is the most extra ordinary mountainous area in China. China has lots and lots of mountain but Huangshan is the most magnificent of them all. Of course, there are higher ones but they are still pale in comparison (there is even a Chinese saying for this but don't ask me, can't remember already, haha). I can perfectly understand this saying by looking at the Huangshan map: so many peaks and valleys. I think it can take one week to explore all of that.
Unfortunately, it was drizzling when we reached the foot of the mountain. It was quite cold so we all chose to went up the first part of the journey by using cable car instead. It was equivalent to 'only' 7.5km walk of endless staircases up to our first stop. By cable car it takes around 10 minutes, by foot it takes around 3 hour for an average normal walking speed unless you can 'fly'. Since we all chose to use cable car, we proceed to join the cable car queue (I mentioned that it was peak period right). We queued for almost 1 hour I think, it was just too many people. After we reached there, we continued to walk up under the drizlling rain, see the view and all those various funny looking pine trees. They have all sorts of names and stories behind those strange looking trees - to attract tourist, what else.
The next day, we woke up at 4 in the morning to rush for the sunrise. The journey took about an hour - more staircases to climb, sigh... The surrounding was in total darkness, so a few of us hold torchlight to light up our steps. This is a new exciting experience for me - walk up the mountain in total darkness ;)
I must say that the sunrise was ordinary, it was just that it set against the backdrop of those mountains that made it rather special. Maybe in my memory, I've seen better sunrise in Gunung Bromo, Indonesia :) After that, we still climbed up and down the various peaks and valleys in Huangshan for about 3 hours. The view is indeed very beautiful. Finally, on the last part of the journey, we chose to walk down instead of riding the cable car as the weather was quite good. We walked for about 2 hour. Luckily, we did not choose to climb up these staircases on our way up, or else I might take half day to reach there in the first place. Mind you, there is no point of return, so if you choose to walk, you have to walk all the way coz there is no cable car in the middle. And so, all our overworked feet were so sore for the next two three days as the result of this strenuous exercise =D But it was quite fun, since you can enjoy the trees and little forest along the way.

Last spot was Shanghai. Well, the city is beautiful, combination of ancient and modern architectures. Sailing along the Bund at night, we enjoyed those lighted up old and new styled buildings. Of course, we shopped at Nanjing Street - equivalent of Orchard Road of Singapore. The buildings are interesting because some of them still are in Old Chinese style. But the prices of the stuff there is tourist price aka not cheap. There are bargain market not far from there but we did not manage to go there since time was limited.

In the afternoon, we were sent backto Shanghai train station and this concluded my whole trip this time. We were all very tired at the end of this trip. Well, the cities are all far apart and so the time spent in the bus and train was very long. However, I still feel quite glad to join this trip. If there is a chance, on next other trips, I will take airplane instead of train so that wont feel so tired at the end of the journey :)

Retail Therapy Works

I personally never realized till lately that shopping is really some kind of therapy. I was feeling a bit out during the last few days - dont really know the reason why. It was just a strange mixture of anxiety I guess. Sometimes I woke up suddenly at nite - although I fell asleep again almost instantly. Maybe it was just some adjusting period, maybe I didnt rest well, or maybe I was thinking too much of a certain thing, well I can go on without an end here. Anyway, the point is, I was cured after a good shopping trip yesterday.
My first shopping trip in Beijing was in a place called Yong An Li. Let me warn you, if you are not used to bargain, do not shop in this place. You have to bargain very very very hard over here or else you will be cheated by the sellers. Most of the foreigners - having came from the countries with bigger currency value - feel that the things are already cheap here. That is why when the sellers cut the price a bit, they feel that they are already really good at bargaining. In reality, they are all have been cheated by the sellers in some way or another. The market price over here is generally 20 to 30% of the asking price although it may differ from shop to shop. Amazing right. In my whole life, this was the first shopping experience that left me more depressed instead of happy. Have you ever being scold by the sellers saying that we bargain too much but in the end, the deal was actually struck not far from our asking price? What a bargaining experience!
Well, after that experience, I was quite reluctant to go to this kind of shopping places in Beijing anymore - thinking that they all should be almost the same. Until one day, my friend said that there is a place which is far better. So last weekend, I decided to try again as I needed a few winter clothing to prepare for the weather which has slowly getting colder. Guess what - this place is far more reasonable. Although there is still bargaining skill involved, the asking price is okay and I feel that the sellers are more polite as well. At least I didnt see that sulken face or hear their scolding if we did not want to buy their stuff after taking a look at the things. Although some of the stuff asking price is doubled the should be price, the process of bargaining didnt feel painful as the sellers maintain their good manners.
Eventually I really bought a lot of things there. I and my friends stayed until the place is closed :p Although we left with sore feet and empty wallet but at least my heart is content and I did sleep well last night :)

What a Performance

Last Friday on the last few minutes towards the end of my class, a teacher suddenly popped up at the door. He asked our class whether any of us wanted to watch a performance on Sunday afternoon. When we asked what kind of performance it might had been, he actually did not know what it was exactly, he mentioned it was some kind of performance to welcome new students in Beijing.
Well, I thought that since I still had not have anything planned out for that day, I just went along then.
In the afternoon, we already gathered at the dorm lobby, ready to be transported to the so called 'performance'. It turned out that the teachers gave us a striking yellow T-shirt with our school name written on the back for all of us to wear. All student had to wear it or else could not join the ride. So all the gals who sighed that we had to wear that ugly shirts, had no choice but to put it on :p
After half an hour ride, finaly we arrived at a theather - I was kinda surprised. Because I had this thought that we were all going for outdoor performances where we had to stand under the sun. So it was kind of pleasant that we were going to be inside an air-con place - what a relief.
I was treated to another surprise, we were all distributed an entrance ticket each and the ticket could be use to claim for a mooncake (A kind of Chinese cake especially made to celebrate mid-autumn festival). What a good deal this thing turned out to be - we could enjoy a free performance and we still got a free mooncake =D When I saw the ticket, it had Kung Fu pictures printed on it. I thought to myself, it looked like we are going to see a Kungfu Martial Arts performance - not bad after all.
The performance was basically amazing. It essentially tells a story of a child who later becomes a Buddhist monk. There is no dialog in the show, hence it is told through the expression, the ballet dance, the acrobat and of course, through the martial arts performed by the actors. It is not the usual acrobatic or whatever martial art performances that I have ever seen before. I think the director is simply brilliant in combining the western style of theateritical performance with Chinese acrobatic and Martial arts.
I am amazed by the speed the props change, it is like in a blink of an eye - I know it is kind of exagerating. But it is true that the stage setting changes so fast without even pulling down the drapes - or is it only me that never saw any theater performances :p The theather is only darken to total blackness and when the light is up again, the stage is totally different. Of course, there is still the expected chinese acrobatic acts and martial arts like laying on bed of nails and so on. However, the way the story is told through the ballet-liked dances is no doubt a fresh injection in this kind of show. I really have to give two thumbs up for their skills and efforts. It is simply a performance that I wont forget.