Long Long Weekend holiday!

Put National Day and Mid Autumn Festival together and you get a whole string of activities lined up in Hong Kong! It was truly a long weekend for most of us.

October 1st is China National Day and this year, being the 60th year of the founding of PRC, celebrations are much bigger than usual. Hong Kong, being part of China, of course had lots of celebrations lined up.

The night of october first was spent squeezing with loads of people at Tsim Sha Tsui to catch the fireworks. The fireworks lasted 23 minutes and it is definitely one of the grandest since 2007, when HK celebrated 10 yrs of return to China. We were lucky that we managed to get a spot where we weren't pressed human to human and yet able to get a decent view of the harbour. Well, some parts were blocked by the TST clock tower but it was ok. The most exciting fireworks of the day was the "中国六十" display! The whole display ended with a sky full of fireworks.

camping out at TST bus terminus waiting for fireworks to start

full of people!

The fireworks went "boomz" (Ris Low, 2009)

Next up was Mid Autumn Festival on Oct 3rd. The national day celebration continued and there was this 万人大游巡 held at TST. It was a litle disappointing as there wasn't much display to talk of. Just lots of people walking down the street like Big Walk. There were some bands playing and some uniform groups marching and that's all. The highlight of the parade were the celebrities whom zoomed past us so quickly that we were unable to get a good view, let alone get a good picture. At least I got to see 華仔，Ah Sa, Joey, Gigi and 谢安琪!

華仔 holding the flag. 让世界知道我们都是中国人！

容祖儿Ｊｏｅｙ！

谢安琪. Couldn't see her face.....


Ah Sa! She's waving at me!!!!!

Gigi Leung! Her car went past too fast!

In the evening, Mid Autumn festival celebration started and a group of us, exchange students, headed over to Victoria Park to join in the crowd. Lots of lanterns and display at the park, and not to mention the huge crowd at the grass lawn. It looks like a mass demonstration, like how Bangkok was shut down, people sitting on mats, eating, drinking, chatting.

We had mooncakes, cut using my CUHK card (cause we had no knife), and of course lanterns and candles. We made a mistake of not bring lanterns so we were kind of ripped off by the stalls selling lantern at the park. And we had fun lighting our lanterns, playing with candles. Didn't walk around as the park was too crowded so we ended up playing games while seated. I taught them the R.O.C.K Rock game! haha! The celebration didn't end after we left the park as we lighted our lanterns at CUHK and walked back from the train station to our hostel. It was definitely a cheap thrill.

Lots of decorations!

Lots of people on the grass lawn!

Group picture 1!

Group Pic 2, with our lanterns!

Outside our hostel!

Next day, on October 4, I headed out ot Tai Hang to catch the Tai Hang Fire Dragon dance, which is held every year for 3 night during the mid autumn festival. The "dragon" is made of straw and stuffed with lots of incense. It was too crowded and i was too short to get a good view of the dance. So i could only depend on my not so trusty camera to take a look at what's going on. For the first time in my life, i felt so short.....

The signboard telling you that you are in the right place.

This is my view.. lots of heads and a little bit of action....

lighting up the dragon. They stuck joss sticks onto the whole dragon!

The dragon tail.. I couldn't squeeze thru the crowd to get to the dragon head.

While they were parading on the other street, this is what i could see. It's too hard to squeeze through the narrow walkway to the other street, so i had to settle for this view.

Ok, so it's the end of the holiday. Back to school! I should skip more lessons :)!!

Studying in HK

It is now week 3 of school and the workload is getting heavier and heavier by the week. Deadlines for assignments looms ahead and there's gonna be some tests here and there. I guess it's time for me to settle down, not think of playing everyday and start to do my readings. Well, it's Student Exchange Program. Students means you are still studying and studying means you got to mug a bit. The ideas of S/U keeps lingering behind my head but still, I need to study.

This semester seems to be have the heaviest workload since i started university life. I am currently doing 6 modules, 4 geography, 1 elective and 1 cantonese module. I used to tell myself I will never do 6 mods in one semester and yet I am doing it on what is supposed to be the slackest semester for me (exchange don't need to study hard right?)

The cantonese module was a last minute decision. I knew a little cantonese before I came over to HK and I realise that little cantonese is not enough. On the streets, in the school canteen, on the bus, at my hostel, everyone converse in cantonese. At times, I feel so lost in a world of cantonese words. Especially if you are chinese, most Hong Kong-ers will assume you speak cantonese, so they will speak to you in canto. If I can understand, I will reply them in canto. That spells trouble as they will continue blabbering on in canto and I will just have to ask them to repeat in mandarin. During my hall orientation (Hall-O), the local students were speaking in cantonese most of the time during the activities and I really appreciate the few locals who translate what they said into english for us exchange students. Part of me wanted to join in the fun for all 4 days but part of me don't want to feel awkard and lost in front of them. Sometimes at canteen, I really can't understand what the canteen auntie is telling me. If I am lucky, that auntie can speak putonghua. If not, I gonna have to guess what she means, and that may lead to a disastrous meal that is served to you. So, I was thinking, since I am in Hong Kong, wouldn't it be a pity if I don't learn cantonese?

At least the choice was right. I enjoyed the class (even though i only attended one lesson and it is freaking early at 9.30am). The teacher (Leung sin sang) is so damm funny and he totally loves to talk cock (chui shui). The 3 hours just passes by very quickly and I would say I feel more comfortable speaking in cantonese after just one lesson. Now, I will try to speak cantonese to my roomie! Practice makes perfect so I gotta speak more.
My geography modules are interesting and insightful in their own way. Transport and Logistic is my favourite so far. There are really a lot of things that I have learnt after just 3 lectures and things are getting interesting as I start to see the link among the different theories. NUS doens't offer transport and I am really happy i got to do it here. Third World Development gave me a very good insight into globalisation and the impacts of western colonisation on many colonies! Understanding Ecotourism brought me on a field trip to Lion Nature Education Centre in Sai Kung and being on a field trip feels like FS09 all over again. The taking down of notes in our notebooks, taking photographs. The only thing that is missing is the jumpshots! Population & Migration is something new to me and I have only been through 2 lecture (one was cancelled due to the typhoon) so I can't comment much. And another elective Magic, Myth & Supernatural offers explanation to the existance of myths, urban legends, superstition, rituals etc etc... The lecture are always fun to attend!


Lion Nature Education Centre at Sai Kung. Basically a park where many different species of plants are grown for people to visit and learn. Like a big eco-garden.

The beautiful greenery in HK. Hiking's up next!
Lecturer giving an outdoor lesson and everyone busy taking notes. Looks like Field Studies right?

Our attempt at a self shot group photo! Grasses is our project topic!

Today marks my first month anniversary of living overseas. Time seems to fly by and it has already been one month since I left sunny Singapore (in HK, it is as sunny as well...). It takes some time to get used to living by oneself overseas but I still don't miss home. It was must the company that I have over here in HK.

Living overseas means having to learn many things from scratch. I still remember on my first day in the hostel, I don't really know how to operate the washing machine. Being a noob, I also didn't know how much washing powder to put (at home, it was just one spoon of powder into the machine). Then, I also learnt that I have to put my clothes in the dryer for at least 25 minutes for the clothes to dry. I have also learnt to compare prices when buying things, need to budget a bit. On top of all these things, still got my school work to handle (well, I am not going to study real hard....)

Travelling is part and parcel of SEP and I have travelled to quite a few places. Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Macau. Well, not a lot actually as HK is relatively well connected to many palces. And there are still many parts of HK which I have not explored. Hmm, I did have this crazy idea of getting off at every MTR station and checking out what's in the surrounding of the station. I guess that will cost lots of $$..... Perhaps taking long bus rides to the more remote parts of HK will be a better idea?

Well, 3 more months to go and I have lots of places I want to go! Next stop, Taipei!!!!

@CUHK

It has been 4 days in CUHK and it's the end of orientation tomorrow. Will be moving out of our orientation dorms and into our permanent dorms, where we will meet our roomie for the next 4 months. Orientation here for exchange students isn't like the orientation camps that nus has. No screaming and cheering and stupid games. Just campus tours, administrative issues, talks, course registration etc etc. Well, the schedule still allows us to hit town for the night before coming back to school, in time to catch the shuttle bus uphill to ur dorms.

Just like any orientation, you meet a lot of people. Some will become good friends, some will be acquaintance while there will be some others whom you will forget. Saying, "Hi! I am Shan Jun. What's your name?" and a handshake, followed by "Where are you from?" is like the typical and SOP when you meet someone. One can't possibly remember 101 names in one day so those that I tend to remember are the ones that I had a more meaningful conversation with. Another thing I have to admit, all ang mohs looks the same to me. I really could not differentiate David from Paul and Mary from Alice. I could only remember my fellow sgporeans exchange mates names well, as well as the random people in the Singaporean clique.

Talking about clique, just like any other orientation, cliques are bound to form. Since we exchange students are all new in a foreign country, we tend to stick to our own clique. There are the ang moh clique (some cliques are like all americans or all germans), the PRC cliques, the korean cliques, the japanese cliques and of course the Singaporean Clique. Of course, there may be one or 2 people of another nationality joining a particular clique. Of course, yours truly is sticking in the familiar Singaporean clique, where i can just ratter off in singlish freely. Well, I do try to speak in standard english where there are non-sgporeans around. I don't mix only with singaporeans only ok?

Speaking is another interesting thing here. To some who are not as proficient as us in english, we have to speak slower. To some, we have to speak in standard english with a certain slang so that they could understand us. It's tiring at times but that's how it goes here.

Socializing is another thing that we have to constantly do. If you are stuck in a lift with students from other nation, or the person seated next to you in the LT happens to be an american, even in the toilet while you are brushing your teeth or filling up your bottle in the pantry, you are bound to meet someone whom you may or may not know. Apart from the "Hi I am blah blah blah" thing, the situation makes it such that you have to bring the conversation to another level and that is socializing. You think of topics to talk about, chat about your home country, chat about things that you know about the other party's country. One can gain a lot of insights through these conversations.

For example during the Welcome Dinner, we were seated with a few Swiss and americans and it is probably their first time having a chinese banquet dinner. We, as chinese, would definitely need to tell them more about chinese food, how we eat, the dos and don'ts on the table etc etc.... I am of course proud to introduce the chinese culture to them and they were as equally amazed and at times amused at the things chinese do. For example, the swiss guys were so amazed when they saw the chicken head served on the plate along with the chicken meat. They were also curious on how to use chopsticks the correct way. (Talking about chopsticks, all the westerners on my table were trying their best to use the chopsticks even though the westerners were provided with fork and knife. When in China, do what the Chinese do!) I am equally happy to share what I know with them and I did enjoy hearing stories from them about food back in their home country. That's what SEP is all about! Mix around and get to learn more!

Well, tomorrow we shall all be separated and I shall be moving into a hall, where the majority are locals. Another round of socializing shall begin all over again and I may need to use terms like " lei hou ma?", "lei sek jor fan mai?" etc etc.... Well, I did come to Hong Kong to learn more about this place and improve my cantonese. So I shall not be one of those anti-social people who will hide in their room the whole day.

Adam Schall Residence (our orientation hostel)

My room for 4 days.

the small bed.

walking around in Central (taken at IFC mall)

Group picture (6 sporeans, 1 malaysian and 1 japanese)

we each got our little mailbox.

Welcome Dinner for IASP students

Cam-whoring

Group picture before the dinner!

After like close to 8 hours of travelling, I am finally back from Shanghai in Hong Kong once again. Lugging a 15kg backpack and crossing the border at shenzhen is really a bit crazy.

Once on campus, it was going around school settling all the admin stuff. Getting our matric card, getting information on course registration, checking into orientation hostel, setting up bank account, setting up internet, getting lost around school, conquering the slopes and stairs in CUHK. Phew! Most of these stuffs are settled. Next up will be course registration which I hope it won't be a pain in the ass. I think I won't ever complain about NUS anymore. The hill in NUS is nothing compared to here.

Still trying to get around with my broken cantonese. Did manage to ask for some stuff in cantonese as the other party could not speak english or mandarin. Even had to help some ang moh translate into canto at supermarket. Speaking a bit of canto is ok, but when the other party start to reply in bullet-train speed cantonese, I will just switch to mandarin.

Ok. Time to hit the town. What's exchange without enjoying ourselves?

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?