1st Post in HK!

Ok. I shall try to write more while I am here in HK.

So day 1 began super early morning with my jetstar flight to HK. Can't believe that my bags are over 30kg!!!! Luckily they didn't charge me any overweight fees. Don't know what the hell i brought over also. It's just clothes and shoes. Maybe I am bringing too much clothes? The flight was an uneventful one, except for the roller coster ride while we were landing. No food, no entertainment, no leg space. And it doesn't help that the fellow in front of me recline his seat. And the ladies on board got some free sunsilk shampoo thingy while guys get nothing. unfair! The aircraft flew over HK island, onto kowloon then turned west across the new territories before landing in HKIA. So we got a good view of Hong Kong. Can see the whole Victoria Harbour, Central, Kowloon as well as Tsing Ma bridge etc etc. Too bad i wasn't in the window seat, if not there wld be lots of pictures to take. Since we deplaned by stairs, the bus brought us on a mini tour of the airport while on its way to the gate. Too bad i was carrying a lot of stuff and I wasn't really in the mood for pictures. Which is why for the first part, there are no pics of my journey. Immigration itself was another pain as the queue was super long (i guess a lot of flight landed at the same time. And it doesn't help that a lot of ah tiongs were talking loudly at the queue.

Once out of immigration, it was a bus ride to Tin Shui Wai, where my uncle stayed. Went out for some simple lunch at a nearby restaurant. Their residential estate is almost exactly like SG, many town centres and amenities in every neighbourhood. Didn't take much pics but here are some from my trip 2 yrs ago.

天水围 Housing Estate

My uncle's block. Their block is 38 floor high!

After lunch, it was off to CUHK. My cousin studies at CUHK so she brought me to walk walk around first, finding out the location of all the places that i need to visit on the 31st, so that I won't get lost with all my bags. And if you think the hills and stairs in NUS are horrible, it's gonna get much worse here. The whole campus is built on a slope and almost of the road are inclined, so the shuttle bus are a huge life saver. We took a bus all the way up to New Asia College, then took a slow walk down till Chung Chi College at the bottom.

After the sch tour, we went off to Sha Tin for dinner. There are like 4-5 shopping centres in Sha Tin, all linked together and there was just lots and lots and lots of shops. But they are mostly ATAS stuff lah... UNIQLO is cheaper here than in SG. G2000 having this crazy sale where the whole shop was filled with ppl. In fact, the whole mall was filled with ppl. It is super super crowded.....

Think I won't post too much pics. They are all on facebook anway.

@CUHK main campus

The hall which I am going to move into

Snoopy World at Sha Tin. Boring for adults but makes a good location for camwhoring.

Ok, heading over to shenzhen for my flight to shanghai later. Think i wun be able to blog here as blogger is banned there. Shall see if there are any alternative ways to get onto blogspot.

finally the moment is here. Getting on the flight to hong kong soon. A whole 4 mths plus of advanture awaits me i guess. A little sad to leave SG but am happy that i get to have one whole sem of fun!
More updates when i get back frm shanghai!

Time is passing by quickly and it is just 3 more days to departure! Been putting things in and taking things out of my bags. There seems to be so many things to bring but there is always a weight limit there. Not sure why my bags are so heavy also. Maybe my clothes are larger and thus heavier? Or am I just bringing too much things or bringing too many extra things? If I pay more overweight fees, i might as well take SQ, which totally accept my 26kg when i came back from BKK (it even accepted khong wong's 31 kg bag!)

My accommodation in CUHK has been confirmed. Will be staying in Lee Shu Pui Hall. According to wikipedia, the hall is alreadly 15 years old so I hope the facilities will still be good. However, we had to stay in another hall for our orientation week, then move to our permanent hall only after orientation. Now happily looking forward to shanghai!

Had nothing to do so I finally watched Love of Siam which was on my comp for quite some time. Though it was a long 3 hours, it didn't felt long at all. I had long wanted to watch this on the big screen while it was showing but the timings for the movie were always unsuitable for me. I gonna rate this as one of the best movie that I have seen. If you look deep into the movie, you do realise it is not just about love between 2 guys. It about love in general. Love in the family, love between friends. Looking at the bangkok scene, as well as the thai music, reminds me of FS09 again. I really want to relieve the whole experience again. If I go again with another batch, the feeling will be different. Hope the "FS Alumni Trip" will pull through.

And I so love this song now! and I love the lyrics! Nothing beats singing to your true love from the bottom of your heart.

gun lae gun - OST Love of Siam



Song: You & Me / Gun Lae Gun
Album: OST Love of Siam
Singer: Q Flure
Lyrics & translation from ethaimusic

If I said that this song is made for you, would you believe it?
It's probably not melodious, not affectionate, not beautiful like other songs.
I want you to know that if there's no love, you can't write a love song.
But for you, my dear, do you know? I wrote it easily.

You've probably heard hundreds and thousands of love songs.
They might be meaningful, but they are meant for anyone.
But if you listen to this song, song that's written simply for you.
For you to understand the meaning of it, our hearts will be together as one.

Let it be a song on our pathways that consist only voices of you and me.
Together as long as possible.
As the meaning is told in a poetry that as long as there's love naturally there's hope.
Means whenever your love shines through the heart, I have a goal.

There are so many truth in love,
and in the past I used the time for the sake of finding the meaning.
But soon, I'd just know it, whenever you are near me,
That if life's a rhythm, you are as good as the words that is melodious and touching to the heart.

Let it be a song on our pathways that consist only voices of you and me.
Together as long as possible.
As the meaning is told in a poetry that as long as there's love naturally there's hope.
Means whenever your love shines through the heart, I have a goal.

There's a pathway for us to walk side by side and there are voices of you and me.

How to pack my life into a suitcase.

It's 5 more days to departure and the pre-departure blues has officially set in. Usually, I will be damm excited about an upcoming overseas trip and i can't wait for it to arrive. However, this time round, the emotion is a mixed one. Part of me wants to go explore the world out there while another part of me dreads the thought of leaving home for 4 months plus. Been spending a lot of time at home and with my family for the past few days as I am not gonna be able to see them for quite some time while I am away. Despite all these negative emotions, I am still reading up on HK and China and the more I read, the more excited I get. So I should just make good use of the last few days in SG before I depart. I guess I wont' really miss things back home as I will be back in a short 4 months. Also, HK is very similar to SG lifestyle so I guess I can adapt strongly there. The sucky part is that I'm gonna have to share a room with someone else and there goes my privacy and alone time. For those who know me well, I had always preferred to spend a certain amount of time alone.

Packing is another chore on its own. How to pack your life into a suitcase and keep it under 25kg seems to be a challenging task for me. I set aside the clothes that I am intending to bring over and I wondered, "Am i over-packing? Do I need so many pieces of shirts?" I always hate to underpack as that would mean scampering around an unfamiliar place for things that you need. However, I really got to make wise choices on what I put into my suitcase so as to keep my bags under the weight limit (hurray to budget carriers). Worse come to worse, I can always buy the things that I need in HK. Whatever you can find in SG, you can almost definitely find it in HK! Right now, all the stuff that I need are in one corner of my room i swear it is gonna be over 25kg. So, it is time to sieve out things that I don't need (or presume that I do not need).

The rest of the stuff are more or less settled. Visa, money. Just that I still do not know which accommodation i am going to get on campus and whether i would be able to do the modules that I want. Well, all these can wait till i get there and get it sorted on the spot. Right now, I should just concentrate on planning my mini holiday in shanghai before semester starts at the end of the month. Well, the excitement is definitely there and I guess it will only kick in full force when I step into the departure hall. Well, that is me. I just have to suck it up, put aside all the negative feelings, take a step forward and everything will be fine. Hopefully, this will be an experience that I will never forget (it is something i have looked forward to since i came into uni). Till then, it will be several attempts to pack my life into my suitcase.

Finally good news have arrived in my inbox. I will be getting the NASA exchange award after all. Heard from my friends that they have received mine while there was still no news for me sent me into panic and sian-ness for the past week. Just when I thought all was gone, the good news came. Yeah to forking out less $$ from my own pocket.

Since I am totally sick of going to town ( I detest going to town after FS09. Don't know why too...), me tee and by went to explore other parts of Singapore. 2 week ago, we headed down to the 'far' east, geylang and old airport road. Yesterday, we headed to the east again, visiting kampong lorong buangkok (the last kampong in sg) and sengkang new town.

It's not that hard to get to lorong buangkok. A short bus trip and a short walk took us there. It is not the typical kampong that one had always imagined it to be, with atap houses, zinc roof, plantation in the backyard, all the villagers spending the afternoon chatting outside their house etc etc. When we went, there was nobody in the kampong, or rather, I think everyone was in their house, just like HDBs. There were lots of nice cars parked beside the house. The houses don't looked that old.

We walked a bit into the kampong but unfortunately were chased out by a dog. I guess the dog was there to keep all the curious visitors out of the village and not to disturb the villagers.

Finished off the day with dinner at chomp chomp food centre. Satay Bee Hoon, satay, char kuey, bbq chix wing sugar cane juice. a typical fare at a singapore hawker centre. Need to satisfy my craving, especially those food that I wld not be able to get in HK. no more dim sum as i am gonna stomach down loads of siu mai and ha gaw in HK. but then, i guess it is always possible to hunt down a plate of nasi lemak, roti prata or satay somewhere in HK. We are now thinking of which famous hawker we should head to next. Balestier?? Typical singaporeans we are, willing to travel so far for good food. And why are all the freaking nice hawker centres in the east? The east side has lots of good food while all the brains are in the west?

I went for my first ever concert this year in 2009 and now there is another first. Went to mediacorp for the first time and watched a tv show recording for the first time. It's 我要唱下去, a.k.a. 百万大歌星.

we were unlucky (or lucky) to have gotten the first row seats. me and bk were in the audience seats in front of the stage while jon, lionel and by were so lucky to be seated in those seats behind the mini stage, which means they will be seen more often on tv. we then had to act as enthusiastic audience who will cheer and scream, wave hands while singing etc etc.... me and bk were sitting in the chen wei lian fan club area, so it seems like we are his fans. the other 3 of them become joi chua's fan.

it took like almost 2 hrs to record a 1 hr show, with lots of pauses in between. they even have to test the key of the music before each of them sang. well, at least i got to see what's going on behind the scene. and i want to watch 百万大歌星 recording in taiwan!!


and now it is exactly 2 weeks to departure. everything is more or less settled. visa done. air tickets bought. modules approved by sch. just waiting for my accommodation to come and to see if i can get the modules i want in cuhk. looking forward to 4 months plus of fun and travelling! gotta watch the budget though....

and there is a special moment today (or rather yesterday)
At 12.34pm, 56 sec on 7th august 2009, it is actually 12:34:56 7/8/09!

FS09 Part 1 - Song Khla

It has been some time since I blogged and I told myself it's time to blog about Field Studies, before all the good and wonderful memories fade away.... 42 days of maddness and fun is now 12.6GB of photos and videos on my hard disk.

Day 1-2 (17-18/5/09)

This is the day where it all began. After one whole week of thai lessons, we were all set to put our thai into use. Gathered at golden mile to board the bus all the way to Hat Yai. 18 hours journey. seems torturous but we realised there are much more worse trips that we had to do in thailand itself.

Us at golden mile before we start the long journey...

The bus that brought us to Thailand.

Reached Hat Yai and we transferred to their local bus for the short hop to Song Khla.

Checked into Viva Hotel, our home for the next 4 nights. Hotel was not the posh type, but still ok to stay in.

our room in a messy state.

We went down to Thaksin University where we met up with our Thai Buddies. I was paired up with this girl called Yu. They are english majors in Thaksin Uni and they are all very eager to practice their english with us. of course, we are also eager to speak to them in our 'chui' thai.

me and my thai buddy, Yu

After some ice-breaking games, we rushed back to the hotel to wash up and then it was off to a welcome dinner at a very nice resort. All of us were dressed up for the occasion (the only time in the whole trip where everyone wore so nice. the rest of the days were chui clothes)

Day 3-5 (19-21/5/09)

The next 3 days were spent in Song Khla, with thai lessons in the morning, some fields trip in the afternoon and then night market at night. Our thai buddies brought us around most of the time. Visited lots of night market where food is nice (aroy) and cheap! Ate freaking damm a lot in thailand cause food is so cheap.

Not forgetting the serious part of the trip, our thai oral exam. I was so damm unlucky to get the most difficult topic and once me and elaine finished the assigned topic, our teachers told us to continue speaking, so we just talked about everything under the sun in thai.

Our classroom...

Fooling around in between lessons....

class photo...

at the night market

at another night market (with more food!)

the canteen in school. we had to order our food in thai!

around thaksin university...

our main mode of transport - the tuk tuk....

us inside the tuk tuk. the tuk tuk was so short that most of us had to keep our heads down while inside.

Of course, we did some sight-seeing in Song Khla.

View of the whole city from a hill

temple on top of the hill. forgot the name....


us fooling around...



song khla museum.

with our thai buddies at KFC... we still can't get away from all the fastfood.....

beside Songkhla Lake.

Not forgetting the beautiful beaches in thailand!

Like every other long overseas trip, laundry is our top concern so we had to wash our own clothes (laundry services are expensive...) So this is how we wash clothes, using the sink!

That's all for Song Khla... Next Stop: Krabi!

This is ridiculous!

It costs cheaper to fly from Singapore to Shanghai then from Hong Kong to Shanghai. Now i guess i am gonna settle for the 20 hrs train ride to and fro all alone.... :(

I realised it has been a long time since i blogged. People probably knew more about what's happening to me through facebook. Seriously, the number of emails i receive from facebook on a daily basis is crazy....

And so I finally went to my virgin concert! 答案是The Answer Is.....孙燕姿2009世界巡回演唱会!! The concert didn't fall short of my expectations and the 5 of us were singing, jumping and going crazy at our seats! Who goes to a concert and sits down? I think we did piss those behind us. haha.. I am having a concert withdrawal syndrome and yanzi's song are on my playlist. I am trying hard to recall the order of the songs she sang yest night!

Went back to crash geog soc FIC as well as I am really damm bored at home. I really feel so damm old there ( I was the oldest guy in camp at one point). But seeing my freshies becoming organisers of the camp and bringing in a new batch of freshies, it really brought back lots of memories from previous years camp. Though i didn't spend a lot of them with them, I still managed to have some fun (last yr i didn't manage to play a lot... ) and got to know some other juniors. Today when we were looking for Lai Wa and we saw her car, i suddenly remembered her driving a few of us to engin canteen to collect food for GC and i realise, wow, it has been a year plus already....

Looks like it will be outings outings and more outings and then i am off to HK!

It has been 4 days since I came back from Thailand and i am still missing every moment of it. It really feels weird to have meals alone, sleep alone and wake up to nobody around you...

The FS09 gathering we had yesterday really brought me back into the Field Studies mood. It is really like FS all over again, the same group of people going from places to places, having meals together, cracking jokes and making lame comments, making lots of noise wherever we go, taking pictures, jumpshots, unglam pics... This whole field studies is something which i will never forget for the rest of my life and it is definitely the highlight of my student life! I will strongly encourage all geog majors (or even non geog major) to go for it if you have the chance!

And something to mention. I almost got a shock of my life when i collected my SEP acceptance package. The letter states that the dateline for the submission of documents for my application is 1st July!!! and i collected my stuff only on the 29th! so i had to rush around cck to get my hair cut (to take a decent looking photograph that is going to be on my student pass), rush to the bank to get a bank draft for payment, rush home to get more documents and finally rush to the post office to get my mail sent over to HK by express courier. costs me $18 (heart pain...) Haiz.. This is what i get for extending my stay in bangkok (which i blew another 10k baht)...

And i am so sad that they took George O'Malley out of Grey's Anatomy.... This season ended with a cliff hanger, both george and izzie in resuscitation. Apparently, T.R. Knight contract is not renewed so i guess o'malley is dead. izzie should survive since she is still a regular on the next season.. I kind of like his character on the show... He is this guy who isn't really the smartest and brightest and yet still tries his best at everything.. for season 5, he was given very little screen time and i guess his departure is evident... and now i got to wait till 24 sep for the new season and I hope i will be able to watch it somehow in HK..

off to KL tmr.. will definitely blog about Field studies as there are really so many good memories that i want to remember and share. Will need to do so before everything fades away...