Earth Laughs in Flowers

mmm... after that we left the place in search for food.. so we ended up at 7-11! The 2 guys working there were very nice and funny, kept joking with us, think they were jus plain bored. I gotten myself a pizza but shared it with Vicky (she is a vegetarian who was just soo hungry that she ignored the fact there was meat) and gave my roomie the crust as she is a vegetarian too (a strict one that only wants to eat the crust). Then we wandered for a long time... searching for somewhere nice... it was during this wandering that i missed a step on some cobbled floor and injured my foot! Had some scratches on my shin too. NO i am not drunk, didn't even drink that much.., i was jus plain clumsy.. as usual!

Some of us decided to come back early as got tired of wandering, so 5 persons took the cab back. It was no joke squeezing at the back with 3 other UK-ians as they are not very petite by nature and my roomie joked about me having to suffer. When we got back to the hostel, Matt, Daisy and me were a little hungry so off we went in search of another 7-11 but we found someting better!! Aftter getting some instructions from Adrian (nuqin's hk fren) we walked down some weird lane where there are supposedly food n drinks.. that's is where we stumbled upon some ktv place! Its soo local I guess, and we were the youngest there.. but it was soooooo fun! The fried rice there was the best I ever tasted in HK so far and the staff were v friendly. So we sang, eat and drink... living up the life of exchange students!

Finally, the rain subsided and we make our way to the beach but as usually, good things don't last! It started pouring again.. n there was some annoucement in muffied cantonese/mandarin/ english that sounded so serious, which we later found out what it meant. Simply "please get out of the water as its unsafe to swim in the storm". As soon as its more suitable to walk, we made our way back to the jetty area where there are many eateries suitable for us to grab a bite and take shelter as we wait for the next next ferry. We found a place known as the Bookworm cafe. It is such a warm, cosy place that I can just sit there all day and watch the world go by. The food is great but drinks are so so only. The place was so comfy that we decided to forgo the 430 ferry and wait for the next one.

Anyway, in Hk there are Mid-Autumn festival is a BIG thing. Its so BIG that there will be no classes tomorrow. I love the lanterns here but its so expensive! My favourite is the butterfly one (think only Sheena and eddy knows what am I talking about).

ohh.. one more thing! Sheena intro me to Maxim's almond fingers and they tasted soo good.. will buy back some for u guys back in sg!

Sssh... I know the dvd is pirated so0o... sshhh!!! Anyway, after the many hours of shopping, Thomas brought us to this place that sells fantastic crabs!!!! They were being cooked in a Sichuan way, thus its spicy and salty and the same time.. the tot of it is making me drool... later we went to the KTV next door and my gosh... my jaw dropped! The receptionist, lady operating the elevator and standing at the door welcoming us are all in blue gowns. I really mean gowns! They even have a blue chiffon-looking shawl. Later when we took the lift to the 2nd floor, 2 rows of gals in gold gowns welcomed us with wide smiles and 1 of the gal followed us to our room. Initally, Sheena thought that they are call girls but later we realised that they are actually waitress cum DJ, so they will ensure that our drinks are topped up and dedicate the songs we want to sing. It was pretty wow exprience, which was heightened! we were actually come in face of a RMB 200 a nite call gal. Felt sad for her as I think no gal will want to sell herself, moreover for someting so little, wonder what drove her to that.

After that exhilarating exprience, the driver drove us to Uncle Louise's house, where the 5 of us packed into a room, taking silly pictures of our buys.

Sunday (11/09/2005)

Woke up to Eddy's alarm! He was rather smart to leave the room while his alarm was blasting away as it forces at least 1 of us to get up to off it and that sacrificial lamb is.... Janice! I just laid on my mattress and smiled at her, while both of us where cursing away! However, the wonderful breakfast made up for the early disturbance! Soon we were out of the house and on the way to Shi Jie Zi Chuan (Window of the world) , where wonders of the world are downsized. We were bluffed! Uncle Louise told us that it will take about 10mins to walk from his place to the train station but it took more than 30mins! By the time we got to the station, we were all tired and perspiring. Window of the World is big! The place covered an enormous area, and while Uncle Louise predicted that we will take 5 hours to finished it, we left the place within 2 hrs.

That is a picture of us with Buckingham Palace, but opps.. we covered the entire palace! Actually, its not allowed to step into or climb on the buildings but we decided to heck it as its not nice taking pictures while standing a few metres from the buildings!

After that, we headed back to Uncle Louise's house. Rubee, Janice and me waited at the station for more than an hr, while Sheena and Eddy went back to collect our stuff. I almost fell asleep while waitin and 3 Station guards came to ask us what were we doing. By the time the 3rd guard came, I was sooo paiseh!

We went to this place for lunch where its famous for its beef balls. Its really good!!!! Brought some back to HK where we will cook them soon...

Later we went Luo Wu shopping and sadly, its not as good as DongMen. Perhaps cos most of the vendors refused to give us good price and they were soooo fierce! We even witnessed a gang fight, after which we left the place in a haste and made our way back to HK.

Monday (12/09/2005)

Both classes went well but I was so sleepy that I find myself nodding off and I was so glad when the IS class ended. The 5 of us made our way to Wellcom Supermarket, where we decided to cook on tuesday! Got all the stuff we need and made our way back to our hostel. It was fun preparing the food. Made meat dumplings and meat balls, after which, Sheena was hungry so Rubee fried the rest of the meat with eggs and after which we had toast! I bought a pack of 6 bread and the toast finished most of it. It tasted really good with jam. A picture of our dirty dirty hands!

Tuesday (13/09/2005)

Woke up late thus didnt get a chance to do my laundry!!! Had lunch in sch with the rest then we made our way to Festival Walk where we found out that Kiehl's body lotion is ohh soo good! Think I will go get it when I am done with the one I have. After getting the durians and ketchup, Rubee, Eddy and me went back to start cooking while Janice and Sheena attended class. Our food really tasted pretty good!! yum yum.. homecooked food for the 1st time in Hk.. Oh how much I love it. Sheena's roomie, Timmy came to join us too...

After that, I had to go to my Residence Mistress room for a little gathering with other exchange students. Met some really nice people among which my fav is Alsa but sadly she will be here only for 2 wks! After that, Martin and his french fren (cannot remember her name) invited me to join some other exchange students for a movie session... when along as I thought it will be a great chance to meet more people. The movie was dumb though. I am one of those that stayed till the end and my gosh... its a total waste of time!!!

Now I am back in my room bloggin away... feelin slpy so going to bed. My roomie has left for Philippines, so hae the room all to myself for 6 nitez! yuppies!!!!! but think will miss her too.. always nice to tok to her. Oh yah, heard someone trying to open my door so felt puzzled as Daisy should be at Philippines already, then there was a knock, I went to open and it was this guy who gotten the wrong room! His face was in total shocked then embarassment, I couldn't help but laugh... ohh i am so evil!

Okies thats a quick recap of what helping, not very interesting or funny.. but whatever..... my bed is calling me! Just hope that my clothes will not shrink anymore from the dryer tomorrow!

A tourist approached us to help him take a photo and after a small chat we found out that he is an American who is visiting his friend in HK. While I think that it will be nice to travel alone, as I can go anywhere I want, do anything I want, but guess that it will get a little boring too as there is no one to share interesting sights with, no one to help me take photos. However, I am not eliminating the fact that someday I might just decide to travel alone, just for the exprience.

After Stanley, we took 973 to Tsimshatsui East and its another long ride.. more than an hr!!! Gotten a slight headache when we got off as the road wasn't exactly flat n smooth... so miss Sg roads! Oh, as the bus passed by Pokfulam Rd, I saw the University of HK, its exactly what someone told me before... "must climb mountain". The place is very hilly and its seems to be difficult to get around, suddenly Kowloon Tong seems so accessible. Think one will never be satisfied until one sees how bad other situations are. So glad I never choose CityU.

Told my mum about my future, tentative travel plans and she kept reminding me to spend less and study more, but I am not a compulsive shopper, haven't been buying alot and planning to keep my money to travel. Moreover, the school seems so slack that I suddenly feel that Sg students are studying too hard. Rigan agreed with me because when he was at UPenn, he felt the same way too! So the Ministry of Education in Sg, pls do something about it... cos felt that studying has erroded most of my youth! When people go on exchange, isn't it the time to travel and explore the host country and it neighbours? One do not always get the opportunity to do that.

Decided to cut down on my spending, as I have to pay my hostel bill soon and I really do want to be more liquid when I travel.

Okies.. my bags are packed and I am ready to go to bed as need to get up early. Shen Zhen here I come!

After that,

However, the climb was worth it cause of the wonderful view! Wanted to upload a picture showing all 4 of us (Rubee, Janice, Eddy and me) but its all in Eddy's camera as he brought a tripod for the day!!! We better start exchanging pictures soon.

Tai O

I don't know if anyone can remember that many years ago there was a TVB drama serial that featured this place. It starred Chen Song Ling and her family makes shrimp paste. Anyway, that is not important, what is important is that the place has a old rustic charm is that unique. However, its too far from the city. For many who do not know, Tai O is actually an old fishing village where many native products can be found. ohh.. there are big dogs everywhere too... I mean BIG!!

We had vegetarian lunch at this place that was supposedly be the best eating place in Tai O. Even though the place looks rundown but I must admit the food is good! I am not a big fan of vegetarian food but I enjoyed it very much. Our table was mainly Chinese, the 4 of us from Sg, 4 from Mainland China, 2 from Holland and 2 of the student helpers. The Singaporeans are busy eating and eating... non-stop, such that when the rest of them stopped, our chopsticks are still busy moving. We were joking about being Merlions during the boat ride later as I ate soo much! However, as Janice had motion-sickness pills, we had no-worries!

After lunch, we headed for the village where there was a camera crew waiting for us. They are making a documentary about the area and decided to tag along with us. The reason for the documentary is because the government wants to develop the area into modern tourist attraction like Sentosa but the villagers are not happy about it, so Pearl station hopes to film the place and interview some of us on our views on it. Rubee and Janice were being interviewed! There are still many houses that are built on stilts. However, their walls are metal instead of wood or bricks as a few years back there was a fire that burnt down the entire area.

We made our way to Yeung Hau Temple where I recognised it to be one of the favourite location for drama serial!! According to the handout, the temple honors Hau Wong a loyal court official in the late Sung Dynasty.

After the temple, we started climbing this rather tall hill to see a stone Obelisk that used to mark the water boundary between HongKong and Mainland China. It was erected in !902. The view was great just that there were many grumbles during the climb as there was nothing there exactly the Obelisk and it wasn't an easy climb as the plants where overgrowing thus covering the steps and the weather was just scorching! Anyway this is the stone:

Anyway, one of the exchange student (who is very pretty by the way) has a prosthetic leg but she seems to enjoy the climb very much as I overheard her conversation with this other guy. He asked her if she did the climb and she had this wide smile when she said she did and enjoyed it very much. At that moment I felt guilty for whinning about the climb as it was so much harder for her to do it yet she did it with much enthusiasm and is able to derive joy from it.

After descending from the hill, we headed for a museums in the village where there were many old stuff were displayed. The local used them in the past and many were actually used in fishing. There was a very friendly lady in the museum and after talking to her, I found out that she has been living in the village for the past 50 years after moving there when she was a baby. There were 2 books on sale and they were actually written by her. The record the life and traditions of the people of Tai O since the 1960s and have many interesting pictures. I kind of regret not getting a book as I think that it will be an interesting and enriching read. Moreover, it will help fund the musuem. What is amazing about this woman is that she only has Secondary 3 education yet is able to write not 1 but 2 books about Tai O. She is a housewife, mother of 2 boys and a volunteer. She puts her heart and soul in doing something- the protection and promotion of Tai O's beauty and enviroment. I do not know if I will ever find something that I am so passionate about and if I do, will I do as much as her.

There was a boat trip that brought us to the open sea where the show us some sights of Tai O that we will not be able to see on foot. The best thing about this were the dolphins we saw!!! There were quite a number of dolphins and some were pink! I know that Sentosa has pink dolphins too but its so different seeing them in the open sea, where they are free! There was a particular dolphin that was quite a show-off! It was doing some stunts for us. After seeing the dolphins, the boat took us to the rivers in Tai O, however, I must admit that I fell asleep during this part... think it was because I was so tired, nice breeze and the slow rocking motion of the boat.

Finally, the trip came to an end when its time to take a ferry back. The ferry took us to Tung Chung where we have to take the MTR back. It was a long ride and we had to change twice. Rubee and me were famished by the time we got to Kowloon Tong!!! Had MacDonald and durians.

When I got back, I was very sleepy yet I managed to finish 'The Alchemist". Another quote from the book that I find interesting is "Everything that happens once will never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time" I wonder if this is true but I was too tired to think into it.

What a tiring day.. I slept for 12 hrs.

Sunday (04/09/2005)

Actually I wanted to stay-in today but was persuaded by Rubee to go to Causeway Bay with them. I went shopping again and bought more things! I had no choice but to use my credit card has I didn't have enought cash. Now hope my parents will not flip when they see the bill. But I am planning not to spend too much from now on as I have yet to pay my hostel fees and going to ShenZhen this coming weekend.. so going to scrimp this week!

Oh yah.. I did something charitable today! There were selling mooncakes to raise funds for the education of under-privilege kids and I bought on so that I can take picture with Wu Fung. He signed on my box for me too! okies.. I know that he is no Andy Lau or Edison Chen but I have been watching his shows since young so its nice meeting him in person.

Rubee bought a mooncake too from Alan Tam!!!! Although he looks kind of different in person though. He is very nice and chatted with us for a while but mainly in Cantonese. Took a picture with him too

I have put on sooooooo much weight in HK tat I feel like a Bo Luo Bao!!! Time to go running soon....

Think should stop blogging so late at nite... so sleepy that I am rattling nonsense..

Anyway I think I am a boring blogger..... heee...

We took the tram and its very cheap! Only Hk$2 regardless of distance and the tram stations are located in the middle of road.

My family informed me that PWC sent me an offer letter... YEAH!!!! Solved a future problem... don't have to go job-hunting! Although life as an auditor do have many negative points such as long working hours but its really a good chance to learn. Nevermind, just slog it out when I am still young. Anyway, I have a choice between assurance and tax... n my choice is audit of cos!!! Quite like audit work... n what made them think I am good at tax.. wahaha. Since I enjoyed my stint at PWC, I do look forward to working there in the future.

Thursday:
Was planning to slack my afternoon away but guess that doing laundry wasn't a very easy task, especially when I am not familiar with the machines! I did not realised that the dryer will take sooo long to dry the clothes thus I did not prepare enough coins.. hence explaining my damp clothes. Couldn't leave my clothes on the clothes line for long too as I did not have any clothes pegs so was so afraid that my clothes will just fly away. If it really do fly away... guess its almost impossible to find it as my laudry room is located on the roof.. that is 18 floors high and at the fringe of the hostel... who knows where will it float to. Had a little disaster... I was taking a chance that my new towel will don't give off those little furry stuff when being washed.. n apparently it does! Now I have gotten lint on all my clothes.. arrgh... hopefully no one looks closely!

Got to know another exchange student, and he is very talkative.. loan him my pail as he needs to blench his clothes because they are now all pink as he didnt realise he has a red shirt that runs.. just hope he remembers to return me my pail!

Went for Cantonese corner and enjoyed myself though I did not manage to socialise much with the other foreign students as they seem to know each other very well so hard to penetrate at times. Sheena invited a girl from her Cantonese class to join us for dinner and a trip to Tai Zi. Her name is Ziwei and is from Malaysia. She is nice but tooo quiet!!!! Oh no.. forgot to take her contact no!!! Hope to see her around. Anway Hua Liao Jie is a rather good place to shop but we went tooo late.. the shops there close rather early. Sheena and me each bought a pair of shoe. Its actually the same pair just that in different color... HK$55 only!

Oh yah, my room mate came!!!

Sadly, I have not managed to finish "The Alchemis"t as I do not have the time to sit down to read but came across something very interesting in the book. The main character known as 'the boy' asked the alchemist why should he always follow what his heart tells him and the alchemist reply was "Because you will never be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you are thinking about life and about the world."

The alchemist added "you will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you'll never have to fear an unanticipated blow."

After reading that I thought about myself and how often do I heed what my heart tells me. I totally agree with the part where one will never be able to silence our heart and use logic to make decisions. Many will think that I am a logical person who makes decisions based on my mind and not heart... well its time for me to tell u.. ITS NOT TRUE!!! I have to admit that I am very realistic but that does not mean that I do not hear the little messages and warning signs that my heart is trying to tell me because I know that those messages indicates what I hope and yearn for so if I do not pay attention to those messages and think through carefully, I will live to regret. Moreover, I totally believe in intuition, so I do follow my gut feel and its mostly right!!!

Friday:

Finally settled my courses, in fact I have more choices than expected so now only waiting for SMU to approve my courses... quick!!! I want to settle my final schedule!

There was an welcome session for all non-local exchange students and I got to know more people. There was a girl who was at NUS for exchange last term and she is very helpful. Rather nice to talk to, so I promise to add her to my msn. I sat between a girl from Shanghai and another from UK. Both were very nice to talk to, and we agreed to have little gathering like BBQ in the future.

From left: Janice, Amanda, me and Sophia

Anyway, Sophia's bro is planning to go Singapore to work as a head chef.

There is a little neighbourhood behind our school and the things there are so much cheaper. Think will just go there to get the things that we need. My cantonese sux but I was actually able to help some Mainland students with their purchase as they do not understand the shopkeeper at all.. feel soo proud of myself!!! Hopefully I can hold a proper conversation in Cantones before I leave... errr... hopefully only!!!

Headed down to Shatin for dinner with Edison and Sheena. We ate at this place where the seats are actually swings! If you are wondering...Shatin is also where the Registry of Marriage of HK is located! Think after this trip, the 3 of us will be very good friends... just like jie meis! okies think if Eddy reads this, he will scream!

Got a very sweet HK girl to take a picture for us.