At Peace With Oneself

It has been quite some time that I have not been peaceful with myself, to put into simple terms, lately I always act busy. Room for me is mostly for sleeping, I try as much as possible to avoid being at home alone which resulted as not spending enough time to be with myself - peacefully. Somehow always feel uneasy when there is simply nothing to do at my free time.
I wasnt like this before, maybe it is because that now I am renting a room instead of the whole apartment together with friends, so I do feel a little bit restricted in moving around the house freely or even doing nothing in my own room. The landlady often opens up conversation with me, which I dont mind chatting with her actually. It's just that sometimes, I can be in the mood of silent mode, hehehe....just lazy to talk and chit chat.
But today, I make it a point to just rest and relax at home. Actually I am also tired lah :p Anyway, also no mood for shopping and jostling around with people in all the crowded places at this time of the year. Got a good book to accompany me through this holiday though. So I just plan to lazying around, read my books and enjoy the free time at home in this 'breezy' time of the year.

If

I am not a poem person but I came across this one recently and like it very very much. I feel that this piece really captures the essence of what it takes to be living a good and well balanced life. It is amazing that this poem was written over 150 years ago and still relevant even until today. Kudos!

By Rudyard Kipling

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Back to Working and Living in Singapore

Things have been slowly falling into its places lately. I managed to get a decent room in quite a centralised area within a reasonable budget, considering the sky high property price in Singapore nowadays.
I've gotten myself a new job too. Currently, I have been three weeks into this job. It is actually a 6-mth contract to perm job, meaning by end of contract there is a probability to be converted as permanent staff depending on situation at that time. I can tell that the job market is really as good as the news have been saying lately, judging from the interviews that I secured as compared to when I graduated back then. In fact, I've gotten more than one job offer. I even turned down one permanent job, don't know whether it is a good decision, only time can tell. The reason I go with this contract job is because gut feel, yep, gut feeling tells me that this is a better choice. I guess the impression that the then future colleague and boss gave me was quite good that I decided there and then, that these are the people that I can happily work with.
So far, I like the environment of the office, colleagues and boss seem to be as nice as the impression they gave me back then. I am coping with the job quite okay too. So, hopefully it will be smooth sailing ahead.
Other than that, things have been rolling just like before. I still go to Saturday badminton although apparently the faces of the regulars have been changing over this one year period. Of course, most of the things have changed. Well, like they say, the only constant thing in this world is change which I couldn't agree more. So I am just embracing the changes and hopefully go along well it them.

蓝沙

我终于找到了房间。地点正好离城市中心不远， 价钱也不错。那么我今天就开始整理我所有在这里的财产。虽然我离开了新加坡一年但是还有一些东西还在朋友的家里。居然快要搬家了，我就把这些东西搬出来整理整理一下。因为那个新房间不是很大，如果有几个大箱子撑着在里面就很满了。我打算把没用的东西全部丢了。就关一个眼睛把它们统统丢了，不管太多了。
在整理的过程，我竟然发现我的一个包包里有很多蓝色的沙。原来，装在里面的一个小模型的玻璃摆设瓶的内容倒出来了。里面装的是些小模型的贝壳和那蓝色沙。我很清楚谁给我的， 只是这一年没看到它已经把它忘了。一般的情况下，我会拿扫把把全部丢了。但是不知为四什么我自动把那些蓝沙堆起来然后放回瓶子里。无聊！是的， 完整了这个动作以后才发现自己很无聊。那瓶里有一卷绑着带的纸， 就像 message in the bottle 那样。我好奇得把那张卷子挖出来， 心里想里面是不是有写着字。果然是有的，这一年来我现在才发现。 真好笑，收了整年现在才发现。这意味着我没有哪送给我这个礼物的人细心。
可能，把这些蓝沙放回去就代表把美好的记忆收起来吧。人永远会怀念着美好的事情是不是？突然，我也觉得没那么无聊了。

Back to Reality

And so, I am now back in reality after a month or so in 'La La Land' (Read: holidaying). Actually if the period I was studying at Beijing for the past one year is counted, then my time in 'La La Land' has come to about a little bit more than one year. It was not like I didnt study back there but I gotta tell you that my life there was rest and relax compared to this hectic Singapore life; afterall, all I gotta do there was only studying a language fulltime. I didnt imply that Mandarin is easy to be learned though, I am just comparing it in terms of stressful working life versus studying life. Sorry I am such a nag here, it's just that I have to make it clear before people starting to want to kill me by saying it is easy to learn Mandarin coz I do meet a lot of people who are struggling like heck to learn it, hehehe...

Well back to this reality thingy, we all know it is not like you are in a nice resort and having your holiday. We actually need a job to get by which I dont have at the moment and of course, a place to stay which currently, I am still searching for 'the one'. If you have been living in Singapore for these past few years and aware of your surrounding news, you would have noticed that property markets are doing very well currently. So well that all the rent are lots higher right now even for renting a room. What a good timing I am in right now huh?

So what I have been doing since I landed on this island last Mon is constantly staring at the internet ad for THE job and THE room. Of course, need to go out to view those rooms too. Tiring days ahead. Hopefully can find THE ones soon.

The Present......

......for today is a gift, that is why we call it The Present......

I am sure that a lot of people heard this part of a quote before. Well, someone tell this to me recently - not in the exact wordings but the juice is there. He thinks that I think and worry too much of the uncertainties. I guess I do to a certain extent. Although I dont consider myself as a hardcore thinker, certain things just need extra considerations, dont u agree?
I feel that over the last one-year period, I have done quite a lot of improvement in this area. I used to worry more about things that are actually superficial, of no real importance. I guess environment done the greatest impact on me.
One year of rest and relax {of course, studying involved as well ;)} in Beijing and I have to say this experience has opened my eyes to a lot of things that are actually there all along but I just somehow missed them. I am sure that all those things are there all these times, it is just that my uptight mind just didnt or maybe even refused to see them.
Take for an example, how often you wake up in the morning and appreciate the weather here in Singapore? "Where got time, must rush for work liao, late oleady."
I am sure this is the normal reaction, hahaha. No offense, I used to be in that position as well. What we do most of the time is instead of appreciating, I think cursing would be more often :p
Just say that I was lucky enough to lived in Beijing for one year and experience its 春夏秋冬, its four seasons. Where a day with a fine weather there felt like a blessing. Where when flowers started to bloom everywhere even on the sides of main roads, I felt that this is actually a beautiful world. When a friend there got sick and all of us took turn to take care of him/her. I felt that friendships are the greatest possession that we have.
Of course just like there are ugly singaporeans, ugly beijingers are lots more (bigger population, remember?) and maybe uglier. Even these make me realise that no matter where you are, all types of people exist. I just need to learn how to cope and adapt in order to live happily.
I wont say that this is an enlightenment but maybe just one more candle lit in the dark room. I wont also say that now I have no worries, hey there are always there big and small, maybe it was 1001 worries before, now it has become 999, hahaha.
Anyway, I will try hard to make it stays at 999 or even less so that I can enjoy the present even more :)

Missing in Actions.....Updates from Tibet Trip 'till Today

Whoa, I just realised that my last blog entry was on 3rd of June. It has been 2 months plus since then.
Well, let me explain why I was swallowed by the earth and couldn't update my blog :D

I was actually still in Beijing until 11th of July. But the school internet connection had somehow blocked the access into blogspot since my last update. So again, I was left out of my own blog. Sigh.... I had lost counts on how many times this incidents had happened for all the while I was in Beijing.

Then my dear brother came to visit me in Beijing - well, actually his main purpose was to visit Tibet. That's why he dropped by in Beijing because we planned to go together. He arrived in the morning and we departed for Lhasa, Tibet on the same day at night. The journey in the train took 48 hours and we stayed there for about 8 days.
In short, the trip was nice BUT I often had terible headaches because of the altitude sickness thing. I was pretty fine in Lhasa, but once we went to the lakes and mountains of higher altitudes, I could directly feel the pain in my head coming. This made the whole trip less enjoyable. And there were lots and lots of time spent on the bus going to these lakes and monasteries. Well, Tibet is a BIG province that is why from Lhasa to these tourism spots can take up to 8-hour bus ride. Anyway, this should be once in a lifetime trip. I dont think I would go there the second time - remembering all the headaches that I had. Although, I have to say that the landscape there is really beautiful - the sky is so blue, the water are so clean and pure. Like I said, once in a lifetime.... so a little bit of adversaries along the trip was still tolerable.
(Ps: If you wanna take a look at how beautiful Tibet is, just click on 'My Photos' link)

Afterwards, my bro and I took the plane back to Beijing on the 21st. What could I say, the domestic flights were delayed so bad that we arrived at Beijing 1am in the morning where we supposed to be arriving by latest 10pm. What a rotten luck. But hey, we took our time and had coffee in a comfortable sofa-seated cafe while waiting. Heck with all the delays ;P
We stayed for 4 more days in Beijing before eventually heading home.

Now that I tried to remember what I had been doing in Jakarta, I could recall anything exciting actually. Just the normal stuff after almost one year that I didnt go home. You know, gathering with family members, meeting with my friends there, visiting relatives houses, playing a bit with my nieces and nephews that have grown so much since the last time I saw them - I guess this is a subtle indication that I am old, is when you see children grown faster than you can blink, hahahaha..... That's life....
And of course, eat all the Indonesian food that I had been missing so much while I was in Beijing. Indonesian cuisine is the best! :D

So now that I am back at Spore. The next step is of course looking for a job - which I have not started yet so far. I just arrived on Sunday and yesterday, I managed to meet up with some of my friends here. It felt just like I have never left this tiny island. They are still such a bunch of funny, fun-loving people that I kept on laughing at their jokes during dinner.
I just want to say that it feels good to be back here and seeing all of you again :)

A Person Worthy For Our Admiration

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
'Helen Keller'

I've come across the name of Helen Keller during my Chinese writing composition class. I was instantly awed by her when I read one of her writing and heard the story of her life. I really think that she was one of the greatest person in our history. How many of us, able people, have actually contributed to the world as much as she did. Moreover, all those that she had done was during the era of which women role were literally unheard of.
Her life story is one of the very classic example on how one can overcome one's shortcomings and thrive for the most in life. In her case, she had thrived even more than what a normal person could have done.
真是个了不起和让人佩服的人物！
With this I leave you with her other quote that I like very much

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
'Helen Keller'

My Personality.....according to this test

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have low extroversion. You are quiet and reserved in most social situations. A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you. You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people. Conscientiousness: You have high conscientiousness. Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life. Most things in your life are organized and planned well. But you borderline on being a total perfectionist. Agreeableness: You have medium agreeableness. You're generally a friendly and trusting person. But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism. You get along well with others, as long as they play fair. Neuroticism: You have medium neuroticism. You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic. Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy. Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. You are generally broad minded when it come to new things. But if something crosses a moral line, there's no way you'll approve of it. You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

The Five Factor Personality Test

I think this test is pretty accurate for me. Dont know what's your opinion on this one hehehe....

A Mailing List

The good old thing about e-mailing list is that it keeps you informed of the activities of the group that you belong to. It is convenient, fast and it reaches to everyone that belongs to the list.
Well, this is the main point of this story - It reaches to all members of the mailing list.

Let me tell you about an extensively abused mailing list that I belong to :p
Dont get me wrong, although it is being abused almost daily, I just love to be inside this mailing list. It is not that I like my mailbox being abused, you will see why by the end of this story.

It all started as a mailing list for our group's badminton activity on every Saturday. When we started the members were only a handful but as the group grows, it seemed that there were too many people of whom the organiser needed to inform of the location and timing of our badminton session. And thus, this mailing list exists. It started as a proper mailing list - meaning only the organiser used it to inform us of the badminton session, the movement of the fund that we paid for the court usage etc etc. Sometimes, once in a blue moon, a member or two would email to this group about some useful information or some jokes to share.

Then... somehow it all started. I guess maybe because of an influx of a bunch of newer members. They are, in my opinion, a bunch of happy and fun-loving people who love to make funny and interesting comments to the emails that are sent to this mailing list. Somehow, this sparks the interest of the older members who have been quiet and behaving all this while. And so, what we get is all hell breaks lose. An email of anything can get comments of tens of times by a few 'prime suspects' and resulted in over flooding of your email inbox.

Thanks goodness someone created gmail. I had switched to this email quite early, before all these junking of mailbox trend started...hahaha, lucky me. So all those comments that fall into the same subject header is still seen as one email. If you are on other email such as hotmail or yahoo, well, good luck to you. In an-hour of lunch break, you can get 10s of mails in your mailbox. If you are absent from checking your email in a week, I guess you can get hundreds of mails in your mailbox from this mailing list alone ;p

Well, I have never felt annoyed by this junking of mails yet, so far....... It is because the comments made are somehow funny and interesting. So reading them is like some sort of an entertainment to me. I sometimes laugh at all these funny and 'out of the world' sentences that these few 'prime suspects' wrote on these emails. You would see they do have vivid imagination and creative minds to create ever more interesting comments one after another. I have to warn you though that sometimes they write in jargon that we 'earth people' dont understand. This is actually one thing to laugh at too. And lately, one of these prime suspects showed through the mailing list email who had sent the most emails to the group in the previous month. Thus, nowadays these prime suspects are racing to be the top spammers every month instead. So the volume of junk emails have been increasing steadily ever since.

Well, those of you who never experienced this, I guess would not understand what the heck I have been saying all along. Those of you who belongs to the same mailing list, I believe you know it very well. And those of you who are interested to join the group sometimes in the future....Welcome and dont forget for your own good, please switch to gmail before hand :D :D

九寨沟 和 乐山大佛 -四川 (Jiuzhaigou and Leshan Dafo, Sichuan)

The highlight of my travel this time was of course none other than 九寨沟.
It took a 24-hour train ride from Beijing to a small city called 绵阳 (Mianyang). We stayed one night there to rest a bit before continuing a 10-hour bus ride up to Jiuzhaigou itself. Then we stayed one night at the foot of the park itself before spending the whole of next day inside. Even then, we did not manage to see all the main spots inside the park. It is so BIG inside that I think to fully explore it you need at least two whole days especially if you love to take pictures.
The water is so pure and clear that you can see the all the things on the bottom of it. It feels like you want to take a dip inside but of course it is prohibited. And those caught doing so would be severely fine. Well, this measure is needed to prevent the lakes become like Ciliwung (you know what I mean :p)
A bit of crash course knowledge:
It is named Jiuzhaigou because in olden days there were nine (jiu) ethnic minorities living in this park. But then I guess the goverment felt that this place is too beautiful to be missed out as a tourism spot. So they moved the original habitant here to somewhere elses and conserve the whole park as a tourist destination. There are still small number of original habitants living inside the park but we did not see them. It was so BIG, remember?
I felt that China government did a pretty good job in conserving the original natural state of Jiuzhaigou. Only the park buses can go inside and all are environmental friendly ones or so they claimed. It is well organised as in there are neat walking paths around all the tourist spots (lakes and waterfalls). There are proper clean toilets all around - the most important thing :) and it is easy to get around from one spot to another as there are park buses available in all the bus stops.

Another highlight was the 乐山大佛 (Leshan Da Fo).
It was built in Tang Dynasty era for over 90 years. It is one of the UNESCO world heritage site. The 70m high, 20s m wide seated Buddha statue was carved inside the mountain. It is very grand indeed. The statue is situated on the mountain facing the meeting point of three rivers that are flowing into the sea. It was said that in olden days, this meeting point were often flooded such that the fishermen boats often had accidents here. After the statue was erected, there were no accidents anymore. Thats why the people there feel that the Buddha statue has somehow protected them from harm and it is very sacred to them.
Since it is located inside the mountain and facing the sea, the only way down is by one-way-down steep steps and come up by the opposite ladder. This is because the steps are very small and narrow that at some point only one people can pass through. The ladder is U-shaped around the statue. From below the feet of the Buddha statue, I couldnt take the whole picture of the statue as it is too big for my camera. The one I put here was taken from the steps when I was going down. As you can see it also not a complete whole statue but this is the best that I could take with my camera :)
There is other way if you dont feel like climbing up and down the steep ladders which is by boat. But you can't come down from the boat, you can only see from afar. That's why when the school asked us whether we wanted to climb the mountain or take the boat, we all chose to climb. This was in spite of, we were all so tired from also climbing 清城山 (Qingchengshan) mountain the previous day. But hey, since we are still young might as well climb it now, right?

Okay then, leave you all to enjoy the pics now :)

My Birthday

I felt that this year I had the most wonderful and surprising birthday. Thanks gals for 'conspiring' in arranging this one :)

When it turned 9th I was still in the train, on the trip to Jiuzhaigou. I knew that initially my bunch of friends planned to wake me up at 12 to celebrate my birthday. But fortunately they didnt do that because by 10 at night, the light in the train had all been switched off and people had gone to sleep. If they went on with the plan, the whole train section, who were filled with the students of our school, would be disturbed and how would I face all of them in the morning, right?
In the morning, they did give me a small piece of cake and sing birthday song to me. I made them promise to give me a big cake by the time we reached Beijing, hahaha.... (ngak tau malu) but they did agree because it was sort of our tradition here. And so I didnt give any more thought of it. For me, birthday is just an official increased in the number of age. We do age daily :p
We alighted from the train in the afternoon and stayed for one night on a small town hotel on the way up to Jiuzhaigou. At night, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant together. By together, I meant all of our tour group members which consisted of 130s students, teachers and guides. Who would have thought - at least not me - that my friends already planned to celebrate on that occassion. At first I was not a bit suspicious when two of my group of friends were late for dinner because the others were covering by saying that they had shower first before coming to dinner. But after half of the dishes had come out, there were still no sign of them. By then, I was thinking what happened with the two of them - was there something wrong or what. So coincidentally that time the teachers were no where to be seen, I thought maybe there were something bad going on that the teachers were accompanying them to hospital or something. This suspicion was because one of the missing gal had a bit of embarrassing 'medical' problem of which I wont mention here, hehehe.... As the time passed by, I began to wonder if they did plan to surprise me because I saw one of the missing gal passed by the main door and another of my friend went to the door hurriedly.
Afterwards I saw the big cake they brought in and sang birthday song to me. And so, almost all the people there followed to sing the song or just plainly being forced to celebrate my birthday, hahaha.
It was a nice celebration though - I never had this kind of surprise before.

So once again, thanks gals! You are all such a bunch of sweet friends :)

山海关 and 北戴河 Trip

Yes, I am back in one piece :p

Well, it wasnt that bad actually. Compared to my last Oct trip, this time was much much more better. Maybe it was only a short journey so I was not that tired. Although we went there with no hotel booking, no tour guide and no tickets back, surprisingly all went on quite smoothly. And no, I didnt get the 'chance' to sleep under the stars coz we did have place to stay, hehehe.
Below is my travel journal for that 3 day 2 nite trip:

Day One - 2 May 2007
Our train ticket was at 01.44 in the wee morning of 2nd May. Well, we wanted to buy the better timing ones but all had sold out. We were left with two extreme choices, the cheapest one which was at this timing or the most expensive one at more convenient time. The ticket seller suggested us to take the cheap ones because it was only a few hours journey - just sleep on the train and once we reach there in the morning, can go straight to travel around so there isnt any waste of time. So we took the cheap ones and tortured ourselves by sleeping on the 硬座 (hard seat) for about 4 hours plus. We reached there at about 6.30 in the morning then went straight to the ticket counter to buy tickets back. It was not that we didnt want to buy the tickets back from Beijing but they didnt sell these tickets. So the only way is like this - reach the place, go to the ticket counter at the train station, jostling with people to buy the tickets back. Troublesome huh....well, this is the thing you've gotta do if you DIY instead of joining a travel agency. To my surprise, all the tickets back to Beijing until 6th of May, left with no seat (无座) ones. Luckily, there is a friend in our group of 11 who had gone to this place before who was saying that it is 'Normal' - just buy the tickets first and once you get on the train just find any empty seat and sit down or you can go to the train canteen, pay Rmb25 for the food and sit there for the whole journey. So we bought the no seat train tickets. While I was "queueing" (you should see the local people when they queue), some of our friends went out to source for a guide and transportation. So by the time I got the train tickets, they had gotten the guide with minivan to take us around.
That friend of ours who had been here last semester found the same guide that they used the last time they were here. Hence, we used the same one to play safe coz he said that the guide was ok. There were initially two of them, the middle aged one is the boss and the young chap is the driver. They were wearing suits when we first met them. Actually, they kinda look like a mafia gangster with black suits, hahahaha..... But they turned out just fine.
First, they drove us around to find a hotel. We went to a total of two hotels, the first one was too expensive so we settled with the second one. The location was good as it is in the heart of the town. As for the room itself - still can get by, not a 5-star hotel room but with Rmb180 a nite budget, this was the most that we can get. FYI, it was not cheap by local standard but this is Labour Day holiday so they have all the reason to jack up the price.
After that, the driver cum guide asked us which places we want to visit. He suggested a place called 长寿山 which is part of 五佛山森村公园. He said that there was five Buddhas statues carved on the mountain itself. On the way there, we stopped by a minimart to grab some food and water coz the guide said the water inside is expensive - you know tourist place stuff price. It was about 9 plus in the morning, the guide said that we might be out by 3 or so. By then, I realise that this place must be huge that he estimated we spent 6 hours inside. Because by the look from the entrance, although the mountain is tall, it didnt look that big :p The entrance tickets that we bought is the all rounded ones which mean we already paid for all the facilities inside which include the cable cars. We planned to go up by cable cars and come down by the 长城 staircases. Little did we know, that eventually we didnt manage to come back through the same path in the end, we were kind lost inside, hahaha
We took the open ended cable car up - you know, the one with only seat and foot rest for your legs. For those who are afraid of height, it is kinda scary because you are actually hung around above the mountain forests. It was a few minutes journey and once we reached the top we continued walking and climbing up to dunno where. We just followed the crowd, hahaha. There are some spots with beautiful views along the way though. There is one part that I especially like which is the whole side of the mountain is covered with purple, bluish little flowers (I think is is lavender, but not very sure). It is so beautiful :p
Then we went up some more and find another place with cable cars again. So we just took them without knowing where it would lead us to - we were kinda happily lost inside, remember? ") This time is the closed cable cars, the one in the box. Guess how long does this cable car journey take? It is the longest cable car trip I have ever been in my whole life. It takes about 30 minutes for goodness sake. It is like once it reaches the top of one line, there is one more line going down and then, the line keeps on going up and down again until we really reach the bottom of the mountain. The view is of course magnificent. I think we transcended quite a few rocky mountains in that 30-min ride. By the time we reached the bottom, we were wondering how we could get back to the same spot again. I wouldnt want to take the same cable car up again. To tell you the truth, although it is an enclosed cable car but it was quite scary. Especially when you were in the middle of the line and strong wind was blowing. You can feel the car was kinda swinging around. And if you look down, you couldnt actually tell where the ground was, as it was covered with thick forest...scary enough rite.
Luckily, there were car rides at the foot of the mountain, they were part of the park rides. So we queued to wait for our turn to get on the car. It was the open air ride, those 10-seated car with no doors for the tourists to enjoy the view. There were 11 of us but we squeezed on one cars anyway. The driver, believe me, he thinks he was driving a racing car. It is not your normal straight highway road that I was talking about here, mind you. It is a mountain road with a lot of twists and turns, although I've got to admit this man-made road is very smooth. It made me think of Initial D film. Maybe the driver is trying to break his own record here, hahaha.
And so we arrived at another part of the park where from far below, we can actually see a Buddha face carved into the mountain. The rest of the gang climbed up while me, Fonny and her sis waited below. I was a bit dizzy from the strong wind and burning sun so decided to rest for a while. After 1 and half hour, the gang finally came down. They still didnt see the five big Buddha statues from there, dont really know which part of the park they are at and it was already 4 plus. Since, we were all very tired from no good quality sleep in the train and no real meal since morning, we decided to get out of the park. We queued again for the car coz they were so many people and no cars in sight. Well, the road up is not actually short, it was about 10 mins. This time we all did not fit into the same car because they were few people already filling up the first 10-seated car so we split into two groups and planned to meet at the exit. We were at a different gate from the initial one we went in. I was not surprised, it is a big park! Luckily, the other group was at the same gate too. And so we called our guide and asked him to pick us up here instead. Day one is already too long, lets end it here, the rest is not important anyway :)

Day Two - 3 May 2007
We woke up at 6 plus in the morning in order to meet the guide at 7 at the lobby. He took us to breakfast at one of the most famous dumpling in town. One jin (which is 0.5kg by normal standard) is Rmb15 and he said that there are 30 dumplings in one jin. In my mind, I thought that the dumpling must be small cute ones, since half kg there are 30 of them. Although the price is quite expensive for dumpling, we decided to try them anyway. So we ordered 3 jin for 11 of us. Well well well, it turned out that their 'One jin' is 1.35 kg, and the dumplings are those standard size that we normally have in Beijing. Actually the dumpling looks more like 'xiao long bao' but they call them 'jiao zi'. Hence, we had six big plates full of jiao zi in front of us, hahaha... In the end we 'dapao' almost one jin of it. We gave half to the driver and an assistant (the boss wasnt around anymore) and kept half for snack later on.
This day we went to 九门口 and 老龙头.
九门口 is also part of greatwall but this one is kinda special because its like a bridge over a river. And the part on the water has nine canal doors that's where the name comes from. So over here, again we climbed the staircases. However, this time round, it was not that high and tiring. After climbing the greatwall, we went to the bird park beside this place. The entrance ticket has included this part anyway. Then inside the bird park, there is underground section of the greatwall that we had climbed earlier. If I got it correctly, this is the only greatwall in the whole China that has the underground section. It was interesting. It is the living quarter for the olden days army, it has everything inside. Storeroom for food, prisoners cells, meeting rooms, bedrooms, toilets, wells, kitchens.....interesting.
老龙头 is the part of greatwall that extend until the sea. It is also called 天下第一关 which roughly translates to the first gate of the world - world here refers to China of course ;) It is basically another section of greatwall. It is special because it extends into the sea. However, it has been renovated and maintained very well so that we dont see any of the ruins on the sea anymore. From above we can view the sea unblocked.
At night, we had seafood for dinner. Actually we had seafood for lunch as well. It is so hard to get fresh and cheap seafood in Beijing because of its location. So while we were near the sea, might as well satisfy our want of seafood, right?

Day Three - 4 May 2007
The itinerary for the day was to 北戴河. It is about an hour journey by bus from 山海关. So we took off at 7 plus and reached there by around 8. There was nothing much here except for the sea. The place we went to is 鸽子窝公园, the dove nest park. It is by the sea as well. So after we saw and feed the dove. We went to the seaside and just played around a bit. Both the wind and the sun were very strong that day. When we finished it was about 10.30 which meant that we actually still got quite a bit of time before our train at 13.50. So on the bus, the driver asked us whether we wanted to go to 孟姜女庙 which is one of the place that we originally wanted to visit. Since we all wanted to, hence we quickly headed back to 山海关. This temple was dedicated to 孟姜女 - there is a big legend behind her story. For short: she was looking for her husband who was forced to be labour for building the greatwall. Husband had actually died and buried inside the wall. When she found out, she cried for 3 days and nights 'till heaven was touched by her and hence, the section of the greatwall that her husband was in collapsed. So that she could claim her husband body for burial. So this place was actually her residence and they build a temple and small museum inside dedicated to her. By the time we finished it was about time to go to the train station and so we went straight there.
Having known that we did not have seat inside the train, we actually had prepared ourselves for the worst. But it turned out that we found the train canteen and just pay the Rmb25 to sit there. The good thing was there was no one around at that section of the train except us. So it felt kinda exclusive :p Luckily, this train was faster that the one we came with. The train was a bit late though, it started at 15.16. We reached Beijing safe and sound at about 19.00.

And so this journey has ended.

One of Many Trips Ahead

The holiday has now officially begun :)

Today, we all went to Julongguan Greatwall again! At first, I thought our school would take us to the different section of Greatwall this semester. But it turned out to be the same one. However, I still went anyway because firstly it was free (haha..cheapskate) and secondly, although it was the same one but there are actually two routes that we can climb up over there. Last time we had gone up by the right side. So today, we went to the other direction. It was more climb-friendly (is there such word?). What I meant is that it was easier to climb than the other side. FYI, Julongguan Greatwall is known for its steepness compared to other Greatwall sections. The left side, although there is one part which looks like an endless staircases, somehow has more flat paths so overall it is more relaxing than the other path. The most important thing is of course, we all had a great time and took lots of pictures, hehe....

Tomorrow, we have planned to go to another section of Greatwall. You must be saying - again?? Well, this is kind of special. Because it is located out of Beijing, more exactly it needs about 4 hours train ride to reach there. It is the part that is by the sea - 山海关长城. So we will be staying in that area for 3 days 2 nites. Hopefully, we do stick to the plan. Because during this golden week period, the train tickets are selling like crazy. And the 'great' part is that, we can only buy 4 days before the departure date. So now we have the train tickets to go there but no tickets to get back here yet. All the tour agents here say that the only way is once we reach there, we go straight to the ticket counter and buy our tickets back. Thinking about it, it is actually a gamble. But hey, looks like this is the only way. Furthermore, we do not book any hotel so far. I have a feeling that this is going to be a real 'adventure'. One of my friend who is also going on this trip was saying that her teacher said that it is easy to find accomodation once we reach there even in a holiday period like this. So we just try our luck then......hopefully, everything is going smooth for us. If we do not have any place to stay, maybe we just rent a tent and camp by the sea then, hahaha. Not bad right, where else can we enjoy to sleep under the stars :D :D

Ok then, wish us all the best.
Will update the blog once I am back here safely and soundly :)

Spring Time Flowers

Went to 北京玉渊潭公园 two weeks ago, took some pics of flowers - thought of sharing these with all of you. The park is really near to my school, went there a few weeks earlier with a bit of dissapointment because the sakura was not fully bloomed yet. That's why I am realy satisfied with this last trip, the whole park is full of all kind of flowers. Beautiful scenaries indeed - Enjoy!

:)

A Lazy Day

The weather here lately has been very pleasant. Now we dont need to wear any more thick clothes around. What a load of the body ;p

Some of the students here have even started to wear sandals. I know wearing sandals is not a strange thing to do in ASEAN countries, in fact it is perfectly normal there. But you should try to wear it over here and see the reactions of the native here. They really feel that it is very important to keep your feet warm no matter what. So for them, spring isnt exactly the time to start wearing sandals just yet.
However, one thing do annoy me in spring time. The pollen and the dust - when the wind blows, my goodness, they really are annoying. The pollen by the way, can fly just fine even without wind blowing. They are everywhere and easily get stuck on your hair too. Well, there is nothing that we can do with it. It is nature in action, spring is the time for them to spread their stuff. Unless you cut down the trees, hahaha. I think I read in newspaper that the city is doing something to curb these pollen too, by injecting stuff into the trees so that they do not fly their pollen around or something....cant remember exactly.

And back to the progress of my 复习...it is zero :D :D

Because..... hehe 又是借口, a friend from Sg is here for holiday. So I had been busy accompanying her around for mostly - shopping. She is a friend of Fonny actually but we often went shopping together back in Sg. So now that she is here, of course the best is to go around with the shopping 'kakis'. Anyway, there are only me and Fonny that she knows over here lah...... Singlish in action.
So, from Tuesday onwards I have gone to almost all of the shopping centres in Beijing that I have so far known of. And on the process of accompanying her shopping, I of course bought 'some' stuff too, hehehe. You know this shopping thingy.... When you dont see the stuff you wont think of it. When you shop around, see things you like then your eyes turn green and itch to buy them :p
Yeah, I am guilty as charged.... and so are most of the women out there and some of the guys too I am sure. Well, we do contribute to the economy in a way right?
Today - no shopping, resting at dorm instead. 'Coz they went to Greatwall today. I dont join them coz mosty lazy and I missed the registration to go there too, so 不得不。。。。。。

I am supposed to use today to finish up my homeworks and start revising some of the lessons but today I am super duper lazy and no mood to do any of that....why oh why.... Maybe too tired from all the shopping trips - after shopping effect?? hahaha
Anyway, tomorrow maybe some more shopping to do and meet up with her again before she left for Sg on Mon. So I must really buck up and start doing my homeworks then........

Thinking of Holiday

Time really flies...

Now it is already mid April. and by May, we all gonna have loonggg holiday :D :D

First, it will begun by China Labour Day holiday for a whole week. Later on, our school is going to have an organised tour for about a week as well. This means that we are going to have a two full weeks of holiday ahead, yippie!!
As in previous years, our school tours have three different destinations. They are Sichuan (the one that I choose), Shanghai and Xian. I already went to Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing that stretch of places last October that is why I choose to go to Sichuan this time around. Besides, the testimonials from family and friends who had been to that place have been unanimously two thumbs up. FYI, Sichuan is famous for the China National Park Jiuzhaigou - you might have heard of it. And it is the place where lots of pandas are found too :p
Furthermore, what more could be better than going for a holiday with a bunch of friends. And one thing about going with our school is that the arrangements of accomodations, transportations and meals are much more better than if you are going by yourself with domestic tours here. Believe me on that, 全部都很周到。Haha, sounds like I am promoting huh?? Maybe I am all biased from the experience with the domestic tour that I joined last Oct. It wasnt very bad, it was just not as nice that I wanted it to be.

Anyway, before all the fun begins. There is mid semester exam coming up pretty soon. So, I have to start opening my text books already - this does not mean that I never opened my text books ok, just you know, usually only do the basic necessary things to get through daily lessons. Never really put extra effort to learn it very well. So this week onwards I should get started. At least I intend to now, dunno what temptations that I might encounter on the way, haha... (懒惰的借口）.

Okie then, that is the update for now. 我一定要努力学习！

Flu Bug

My goodness.......

After soooo long, I can finally log into my own blog. I dun exactly know what caused me to cannot gain access to my own blog. I started to suspect that it is blocked my school internet administrator. Maybe he slacked that's why I can log in today, hahaha...

Anyway, I have been down because of flu lately. It seems that a lot of us are getting it. Since it is contagious, we are taking turn in catching the bug, getting it one after another.
So I was down last Thursday. I was literally sleeping through that day. That morning, I was already started to prepare myself to go to school when I suddenly felt so nausea and the earth is moving (of course, it was just my head playing tricks on me). So I went straight back to bed before I collapsed. Waking up only to have things to fill up my stomach before taking medicine and going back to sleep again.
Thank goodness, by nite time, I felt a lot better. At least, my headache was already gone. Gosh, I really hate headaches. Especially when you try to sleep it away and it didnt work - what a torture.
However, I am doing quite okay now. Although my nose is still blocked. At least no fever and headaches no more.

Maybe it is just because of changing of season. You know, the weather hasnt been cooperating. Hopefully I get well soon so that can quicky go out to enjoy the spring :)

Trip to Snow Village - 雪乡

I just came back from a wonderful trip to Harbin（哈尔滨）last week.

Well, actually the Harbin city itself is not that impressive. Of course, we all went to the Ice Carving thingy and all. Maybe I have seen one too many in TV. Don’t get me wrong – they are good and beautiful and I bet it takes whole lots of effort to build things from ice like that. Somehow it just does not feel very fantastic to me.
However, one thing left a good impression on me. It is the trip to the Snow Village (雪乡). From Harbin City, we took a four-hour train ride to a smaller town named Mudanjiang （牧丹江）. Then from there, we took another five-hour bus ride to this village. The tour guide said that this village is covered with snow for about six to eight months every year. That’s why the name came up – Snow Village.
There is something about the cold and hot wind currents from Siberia or something – well, you’ve got to pardon me for my limited Chinese understanding :p So these wind currents meet at this village which caused the snow to fall for an average of once in every three to four days during these period of time.

The road there started with a smooth highway ride. Then we turned out of the highway to a smaller street then to something like sand and rock covered track. There, it felt more like inside a turbulent ship rather than being inside a bus. Well, the driver of the bus seemed very eager to reach our destination or maybe he just couldn’t make it to be F1 driver that he vented this speed thirst by riding a 30+ seater bus, hahaha
The guide went on to say that the one hour before we reached the destination we would be able to see deep snow covering the street and the sideways. In the village, the snow can reach about half meter depth. Well, it all sounded like fun to me since I had never seen snow that deep in my life.
After some time, I finally fell asleep amidst the ‘smooth’ ride inside the bus. When I woke up, the sky was already very dark though it was only even 6 pm. There was totally no street lamp whatsoever on the sides. I looked from the window and from the part of track that was lighted by left bus headlight, I could already see the deep snow on the sides on the road.

We reached there at about 7 pm. The village is indeed very small. The guide said that our group of around 100 was actually the biggest they ever had and we did occupy almost all of the better rooms that they have in the village. By better, I mean those with decent sanitary rooms indoor and inside every guest rooms. I guess this secluded village will normally be visited by a small group of ski enthusiasts only. Every roof of this village is covered with a thick white snow, like those you normally see on kids’ birthday cake decorations, so cute….

In the morning, we were brought to the skiing ground. All of us were very eager to try out this new thing, since most of us had never skied before in our life. Well, I tell you it was a struggle to play this thing. We even found it troublesome to get our butt to a higher ground so that we could actually slide down. The thing is we had to catch a handle of a rotating machine so that we can be dragged up. This is the beginner one.
If you are already good, you can actually try a higher ground. To get to the higher ground you have to position yourself into something like a wooden plank for you to lean your back on and it will push you up.

I tried a beginner one. After struggling for sometime, I was finally able to catch the handle; it was because I kept sliding backwards before I even reached the handle, hahaha
So when I managed to catch it, I just grabbed to it thinking maybe when I reached about 2/3 of the way then I released and slide from there. It was hard to keep on grabbing the thing because of I was only using one hand, the other hand was occupied with holding the ski sticks. Well guess what, it was even harder to keep steady when you released the handle halfway. So I felt when I released the handle and one of my shoe was actually out of the ski slide (don’t know what this thing actually called). And from where I stand, I felt that I was actually too high above (didn’t feel that when I was looking from below) and there was actually no one around because the other had not reached where I was standing yet. I thought to myself – oh no, how am I supposed to get down like this. Finally after a few minutes, I saw a man coming up my way. So I just asked for his help to put in my left shoe back into the ski slide. He asked me whether I was first timer; I guess he could see it from my clueless look. I answered I was, he continued saying that this was too high for first timer. As if I didn’t know by now – I was grumbling inside my heart. He was thinking how to get me down actually but still couldn’t find any way. Well, I know that the only way to get down is to slide down myself. So I told him its okay and thanked him for his help and so I gathered up all my courage and started to position my ski to down direction. Just when I was still wobbly, it already started to slide down. I was doing okay initially but halfway I lost my balance and actually slid down on my butt and I had let go one of my ski stick on the way, hahaha….
It was exciting, hilarious and worrying all at the same time. I stopped by falling on the right side and one of the ski trainers below helped me up on my feet. When I started to worry on how I get my ski stick back, I saw the man who helped me before was picking it up as I looked up. He slid down delivered it to me.
Thank goodness…..

After this experience, I still tried for two more times before the time was up. Those two times, I started to slide from half way where I was the first time – hey, I learnt from my lesson :p They weren’t successful either. The sliding process was still quite okay although I still couldn’t balance myself well. The hard part was to stop. I always fell every time I tried to stop J I also fell backwards when I tried to go up by grabbing on the handle. Well, I guess I fell on all directions then :D It didn’t hurt though because the snow was soft and thick.
When the time for ski was up we still managed to snow fight each other. The snow was soft, thick and clean and it was just perfect to throw it or bury somebody inside, hahaha The meanest strategy is to put snow inside your enemy’s jacket, usually on the back of the neck so that it went down and directly touch the skin. You can really feel the coldness stinging your skin and the best part is it is difficult to get it out because you have to take off everything to get it out, hahaha…. Well, I got that one too so I know J

Well, it was very fun - one of the experiences I won’t forget. If there is another chance, I would love and try to play ski again although I know I would still keep on falling :D

Goodbye My Friends...

Time flies when you are having a good time.....

It has been five months since I first stepped into this place. And yesterday, some of the better friends that I have made during this period of time already had to go back to their own country. It was a sad day - knowing that only time can tell when should I see them, if ever, again.

Like the chinese saying goes “天下没有不散的筵席“ - whenever there is gathering, there is always time for parting. But, technology nowadays has surely made it a lot more easier for people to keep in touch. There are emails, msn and of course, the posibility to visit them some time in the future.

I really treasure all the memory in this short period of time that we are together.
So friends ... do take care of yourself, wish you all doing great in this journey of life and may our path cross again in the future.

有缘千里来相会 - 即然我们相识过，证明我们是有缘的。
后回有期。。。

Study Break

I just realised that I have not updated my blog for quite sometime. Dunno wat exactly I was busying about lately, hahaha. Anyway, I should be studying for my finals now but as usual, so bored. So thinking of writing something, anything here first as a break.

I am pretty happy these few days coz my HSK (汉语水平考试）got good result. A few moment after I know my result, I suddenly realised one thing. It seems that those things that I did in a relaxing, no pressure condition, most likely can get good results - obvious example is this HSK thingy. FYI, I joined this test not because that I urgently need it for work or as an entry requirement for further study. I joined just for the purpose to know where my mandarin standard is or as Fonny says is bcoz of 'iseng' (just for fun) :D

Thinking back, actually a lot of things that I do on 'iseng' basis actually materialised. Like going for a walk-in job interview - I got one of the job by that means and it was the most lasting job that I had ever been. It was quite unexpected coz although the job was still quite related to my study but the industry was totally not what I ever thought of.
On the contrary, those that I prepared whole-heartedly for, just couldnt land that job.
Sometimes it really feels like a joke...

But of coz, those iseng things that I did, I also put some efforts in it. Well I wouldnt want to waste RMB250 into the drain to test my mandarin standard without putting any fight ;p or maybe the no pressure condition has enabled me to absorb more. Anyway, I am glad for the timebeing. I think I wouldnt want to join the high level HSK anymore. This intermediate one is enough, I dun need if for anything anyway - yet. So why waste the registration fee on that, hehehe....cheapskate in action :)

Ok then, gotta back to my books now....