i have been reading up on numerous countries as part of my desk research (actually it wasn't part of it, but i do get distracted and click on random sites during my "research").

sure, msia ain't the richest, cleanest (enviromentally and politically haha), safest or most polite place to live in, but hey, it's one of the culturally most diverse place on earth. because of this, we have a diverse mix of food, languages, practices, tons of different public holidays and way of lives. in hk, i realised how mono-culturalism can be detrimental sometimes - most pple in hk only know a smattering of english cos most of the time, the use of that language is not required at all; in uk, there are only two large chunks of public holidays - the easter and xmas holidays, both of which fall out of the school term, so there aren't any occasional respites during the school week.. and two days ago i met with a hong konger who was practically gushing about how pretty ipoh was, how delicious the food was, and how easy it was to communicate with the locals (even in canto).

so well, i guess msia ain't that a place to live in - so, a happy 49th birthday to you!

when the end of the day approaches and my productivity grinds to a halt, i stumble across interesting websites that has totally no link with what i do at work =)

all of these facts are from here.

- In 1945 a computer at Harvard malfunctioned and Grace Hopper, who was working on the computer, investigated, found a moth in one of the circuits and removed it. Ever since, when something goes wrong with a computer, it is said to have a bug in it.

- In the 19th century, craftsmen who made hats were known to be excitable and irrational, as well as to tremble with palsy and mix up their words. Such behavior gave rise to the familiar expression "mad as a hatter". The disorder, called hatter's shakes, was caused by chronic mercury poisoning from the solution used to treat the felt. Attacking the central nervous system, the toxin led to behavioral symptoms.

- In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.

- The word 'news' did not come about because it was the plural of 'new.' It came from the first letters of the words North, East, West and South. This was because information was being gathered from all different directions.

- Dismal first-year sales of famous products:
1. VW Beetle (U.S.)--sold 330 first year.
2. Liquid Paper--sold 1,200 bottles first year
3. Cuisinart--sold 200 first year.
4. Remington typewriter--sold 8 first year.
5. Scrabble--sold 532 first year.
6. Coca-Cola--sold 25 bottles first year. (For total of $50; supplies and advertising ran $70.)

- In M&M candies, the letters stand for Mars and Murrie, the developers of the candy in 1941.

- Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during W.W.I.

lalala going back now..

last weekend (and the few days before it) was rather happening =)

on thursday and friday, i was lucky enough to be treated to two lunches - thursday's was cos the some members of the board of directors wanted to meet its scholars; friday's cos one of the interns at my department was leaving, sort of like a farewell lunch for her.. haha i can now say that i've eaten dim sum in hk, and i think it's not that different from what i can get in ipoh.. apparently when the hk pple eat dim sum, they don't JUST eat dim sum to fill their stomaches. they order dishes of appetizers, noodles and dessert to make up the volume haha.

on saturday, i had lunch with a couple of friends from hong kong, and then went up the peak - the highest mountain in hk - with them. the company was absolutely fabulous, and so was the place we were visiting - we even visited madame tussaud's in hk, haha took quite a number of pics with the "celebs" there but can't upload it now cos i'm typing this on my office comp =D all in all we spent about four hours up there, and it was rather sufficient to enjoy the sights there.

on sunday, i joined two friends of mine in visiting some places on the southern regions of the hong kong island, namely the repulse bay beach and stanley.. i must say that the beaches in hk are really pretty - maybe because of the novelty effect, as i haven't visited a beach for years.. the water is quite clean, and the high standards are maintained thanks to an armada of workers armed with nets, who scoop around for litter. although stanley has a market which has reasonably-priced souvenirs, being rather tight on cash right now, i didn't buy anything there..

two more weekends before i finally leave hk, hope it's as eventful as the one i just had haha =D

for the first time in a looooooooooong time, i actually had to wake up at 630am in order to visit a waste treatment plant in sha tin.. the company actually organised a trip for us interns, so that we could understand the workings of a waste treatment plant better.. well, it may sound quite unimpressive, but having a company car to fetch us from one of the train stations (cos the plant is really ulu-ated) and having an engineer show us around ALL sections the plant is basically far more than i could ever ask for =)

even as we walked out of the car into the site office, we could already smell a distinctive odour that seemingly permeated every nook and corner, even in the air-conditioned office. well, that odour was soon to increase in concentration as we started out by visiting the inlet point - basically, the part where raw sewage entered the processing plant - it's a miracle i wasn't knocked out by the smell of it.. was quite grossed out by witnessing what sha tin residents flush out of their toilets ><

a condensed version of what i learnt this morning:

starting point: residents' crap
-> enters inlet to processing plant
-> bubbled with compressed air to prevent worms from growing on stagnant crap (serious)
-> filtered to get rid of large solids like paper, cigarette butts etc
-> primary sedimentation tank
-> aeration tank (to encourage microbial breakdown of crap)
-> digestion tank (the methane produced is stored, and then used in power generation.. according to the mechanic, the entire plant normally runs on crap power only, but it has backup diesel engines in case anything goes wrong)
-> final sedimentation tanks
-> back into river

sediment route:
any sediment coming out from the sedimentation tanks / filtered crap
-> sludge thickening house (where it is dried and compressed)
-> landfill (we actually saw the brownish-black dried sediment spewing out from a factory chute, and there were guys shoveling in into bags)

was rather educational, though when the engineer started rattling engineering terms, we looked rather blank - he didn't know only one of us is an engineer haha.

according to him, the plant used to smell worse, until residents nearby (a river away) couldn't take it and complained.. as a result, the smellier portions were covered. also, there are plans to purify the water even further and use it for non-potable use, eg flush toilets, water plants etc. not many countries use recycled water for potable use - up to now, i think only spore, namibia and us west coast were successful in overcoming the "yuck" factor haha.

although the trip was rather interesting, i for one was quite glad when we were able to breathe odourless air after leaving the plant =D

ate at crystal jade just now.. and yes, it's THE crystal jade that can be found in spore oso cos the full name is 翡翠拉面小笼包 (i'm saying this cos there's a "crystal jade" in ipoh oso, but it's fake haha).

ate 云吞拉面, and my friends ordered 小笼包 and a 火腿-something something (couldn't catch its name) to be shared amongst all 6 of us.

only have three words to describe:

heavenly. hk$55. ouch.

thanks to my really nice friends at work, we met up for lunch yesterday (saturday), and then proceeded to explore the central area of hk, which included taking the ferry twice.. sigh can't post pics now, but will do so when i get back (which is like ages away).. really walked until our legs were stiff haha.

actually i didn't feel like walking today, instead preferring to slack in bed with a book or watch tv until the cathode ray tubes burn out (or my eyeballs, whichever comes first).. but i didn't realise i ran out of food for lunch, so despite protests from the legs, the stomach won the argument =)

din feel like visiting any touristy places, so decided to walk down this really long stretch of road called king's road without any end in mind.. and i ended up at victoria park (which is one of the biggest parks in hk, i think), a distance of abt 2.5 mtr stops away from my starting point.. it was quite a nice place, but as it was a sunday, it was literally flooded by filipino mai.. *cough* domestic care workers *cough*. didn't think much about it, UNTIL it started to drizzle.. suddenly, there was a flood of people rushing towards the direction of covered pavements.. i dun mind them seeking shelter, but at least have the decency to not choke up entire pavements laaaa.. squeezing past a flood of women blaring tagalog all around me wasn't part of the "attractions" of hong kong i was expecting..

since i was in tung lo wan (known also as causeway bay), i decided to seek out the central library - which i knew was in this district cos i've visited it last time when i was in hk (for the interview) - to pass time.. after getting lost for 15 mins, i finally discovered that it was just opposite victoria park. bah.

then after entering the library, i immediately searched for a computer terminal (where else can i find free internet connection?), but i didn't expect so many people to have similar ideas.. every floor has a cluster of computers, but i was shocked to find the computers occupied, floor after floor.. i'm now writing this post on the 9th floor of the building, and only after waiting for an hour for someone to leave their seat - aah, i finally understood that having an internet connection is a luxury haha.. i was quite surprised to see some of these terminals occupied by the domestic care workers (one of them is sitting right beside me) - they're not as IT-blind as i thought they were!

well, think i should leave my terminal - been using it for an hour already.. bet my seat would be filled just after i leave it haha =)

i discovered that:

.. my productivity at work has steadily declined over the week - my burning enthusiasm on my first day has dwindled considerably haha. desk research, which was sustained throughout the 7.5 hour work period on my first day, has become more like 3 hours of research and 4 hrs of miscellaneous *cough* work *cough* today =D aiya, actually, work hours aren't all work mah..

.. i miss not having internet back in my room - no internet connection on wkends! T_T

.. hk$20 is "cheap", hk$30 is "reasonable", hk$40 is "expensive" for a lunch.

.. my canto sucks, but at least sufficiently understandable to convey information about who i am / where i come from / what i work as haha.

.. i broke all my previous email records today - sent about 15 emails haha.. this was facilitated by the banning of msn at my workplace =D

.. not many pple actually care whether i work or not, but i still do live in fear of not being able to achieve what my boss wants me to.

.. it's frustrating for me to not be able to check my tagboard and getting the "this site has been filtered" all the time. tagboard very productivity-denting mehh.. ><

.. when walking on the sidewalks, occasionally it feels as though it's drizzling - it's due to the high [air con] concentration in hk, nearly every apartment unit here has one.. my theory is that [air con] = k[rooms], with k approx 1 =)

.. the cheapest loaf of bread here is hk$8, but taking the mtr for 1 stop costs only hk$3.80. transport's really affordable here.

.. i start to enjoy watching channel newsasia.

.. the local english news has angmors as presenters, and it even has english SUBTITLES.

.. the dinner (for hk camb freshers) i was planning to crash cost hk$460 >< i orignally thought it was free (!), and oso cos i knew some of the pple there... but the price tag's has successfully repelled me.

.. i'm writing this post so that i can burn my time.. i can leave in 3 mins time mwahaha. (actually the company doesn't really enforce the working hours, but being a law-abiding intern, i actually listen to my conscience =)

i feel really lucky for being able to befriend quite a number of people in my workplace, mainly cos they're of about the same age as i am.. they do tolerate my broken canto well too, thankfully, so with some effort and an occasional phrase of mandarin adn english, i'm still able to voice myself haha.

anyway, yesterday i went to play bowling with them, and we passed a krispy kreme doughnut shop - those familiar with uk stuff will instantly recognise this as the "doughnut shop in harrods". (btw, the bowling game was exorbitantly expensive, two sets costed HK$58 in total, which is equivalent to ~ RM28 / S$13. ouch. back in ipoh, two such sets cost RM 5)

today, when walking to the food court, i passed crystal jade, which was entirely full - one had to take a queue number to enter the shop. also, i saw a delifrance shop near the crystal jade outlet too..

when we reached the food court, guess what, the first stall that we encountered was breadtalk. erps.

if people started speaking in english, i'd probably think i'm in spore haha =)

although i'm typing this during office hours (my conscience has been well suppressed =P), there is still enough decency in me to avoid surfing other blogs and checking out other stuff like soccernet.. but darn, my fingers itch badly when i consciously prevent myself from adding the suffix ".blogspot.com" haha =)

found out that the company's firewall prevents one from accessing webmessenger, and haiz my tagboard is blocked >< oh well, i can't be bothered to change tagboards again (ironically, tag-board.com is not barred.. why oh why is cbox under the ban list?) so i'll reply to tags whenever i get an internet connection outside of office, which is rather hard.. tried *cough* borrowing wireless connections from nearby access points, but too bad most of them are secured, and i was unable to connect to the only unsecured one cos the signal is too weak. haiz.

altho i lead a rather sedentary lifestyle in the office, i still am tired when i get back to my room. maybe 7.5 hrs of staring at the comp has taken its tolls?

it's 45 mins past the end of the stipulated working period, but i still do see people typing furiously on their PCs; people yakking enthusiastically down the phone; and my boss who looks really tired but pia-ing on..

haha if it wasn't clear to you what's going on, it's referring to the end of my first working day in hong kong.. think i've learnt quite a lot of financial terms today - not bad for someone with no econs background at all! also, i never expected meeting people i knew on the job, but there was a fellow scholar working in the same dept as i am. talk abt coincidences. he introduced me to another scholar who, barring unforseen circumstances, will be my junior next year. really coincidence x 2 haha.

i hate the prices in hong kong man.. 1 loaf of bread for 8 HKD? (= RM 4) food prices here are seriously insane - my lunch today was 65 HKD. and to think i budgeted 70 HKD per day. i forsee a dramatic weight loss haha

anw company policy doesn't allow the use of msn, and i dun have internet connection back "home", sigh.. think i'll be suffering through this one chatless month haha.

dunno whether that policy covers blogging too, but for now, ignorance is bliss =) aiyah, work over liao mar right, i deserve a break for my efforts haha =D

.. i'd probably be in chek lap kok airport, wondering where to get an octopus card, a prepaid sim card and a bus to my apartment while toddling around with three bags.. hopefully i get these things done with minimum hassle haha =)

is it just me who can only sign in on his fourth or fifth try, and whose joy is short-lived cos it disconnects a few moments later for no reason?

irritating..

.. before i re-enter the working world.

never realised that more than half of my holidays is over already.. but i still have ~8 weeks of hols remaining! man, if not for my job, i think i'll be bored dead by the end of my hols haha =)

when you read two newspapers everyday, there's bound to be some news that catches your eye immediately..

think the excerpt comes from "genesis".. not sure haha.

no wonder missionaries were rather efficient in converting the local populace - language couldn't be used by those who don't understand english as an excuse to not read the bible haha =)