the eternal nomad

o. m. g.

2007-07-31T20:30:00.000+08:00

12 years after it first came out, it's still as cool as ever - and most importantly, controversial. some pple swear that this is one of the finest anime ever produced (me included) while some believe this is the most overrated anime of all.

thank goodness that this was the first real anime i watched (way back in 2000), which is a fantastic introduction to the world of japanese animation.

i simply can't wait for the september 1st release of this movie!

interrupted dust wiping

2007-07-29T23:36:00.000+08:00

while writing blog posts concerning stuff that happened a looooooong time ago, i got an sms from kok hao saying that he couldn't catch the last 1am bus from stansted airport to cambridge. his flight from frankfurt landed at 11:30pm, but the queue he was in didn't dissipate until way past 1:00am.

the sms reached me at 1:10am.

i thought for a while, then checked the next bus down to stansted from cambridge. it was at 1:35am, and there was a bus every hour or so even through the night.

i made one of the craziest decisions in my life - i quickly threw biscuits and books into my bag, and cycled into the night. the bus station was a 10 mins cycle from my place, and i had to stop by a cashpoint midway as i didn't have enough money in my wallet.

i reached the bus station just in time to catch the bus - i was the last one to board the bus.

the bus arrived in stansted at 2:20am, and then i set of searching for kok hao in the not-very-deserted airport.

and i found him (actually, he saw me first) in a cafe in the airport.

we basically talked the first five hours there, then boarded the first easybus van (yeah, it wasn't a bus) to london. the van reached london in 5 minutes time as i basically passed out when my head hit the headrest of my seat.

we had fun getting lost in london - the map i had was from a travel guide, so it basically sucked at telling us the names of the smaller streets we were on. but never mind, since we had so much free time, we diffused on the streets of london, which gradually filled with londoners.

london, i have to say, is a city with loads of random monuments and statues dedicated for all sorts of random things. take these for instance:

a building with a plaque dedicated to the people who lost their lives during the 9/11 terror attacks (on hindsight it's kinda inappropriate for two of us to grin idiotically in a place where solemn contemplation should be appropriate. whatever). it's built, appropriately, just opposite of the american embassy in london.

... i'd be surprised if they did..

random arches like these in corners of hyde park.

first planned stop of the day (yeah, the previous visits were all unplanned) was to look at the changing of the guard ceremony at buckingham palace.

crowded? that word is an understatement. the place was positively teeming with people.

i was quite far away from the actual procession, and this was what my camera's optical zoom could do. notice the number of hands with digital cameras near the guards (with black bearskins!)

we left buckingham palace more amused by crowd antics than anything, and proceeded to meet some of my other friends at the regent street tube station.. but ended up walking in the wrong direction, forced to take a tube to the meeting place, and appearing 20 mins late and earning sound beration from my friends. oh dear, since when malaysians started to be so punctual?

we walked to chinatown to eat dim sum - not really hong kong style though, the restaurant was aptly titled "the chinese experience". the absence of char siew pau, yu dan and other hong kong dim sum staples were felt amongst our group, but it was compensated by the presence of har gau and siu mai haha. ended up ordering some weird dishes, but i have to say it was rather cheap as we ended up spending only like £5 per person. maybe it was more of our reluctance to order anything expensive than the prices being cheap haha.

kok hao and i then split from the other 5 friends of mine to do a bit more roaming in london.

the next stop was westminster stuff - big ben, westminster abbey, london eye, downing street (oh yes, it's a tourist attraction), etcetc.

this proves that this place is a tourist attraction - there are people who bother snapping pictures of the name of the road..

.. but too bad we couldn't say hie to gordon brown.

met a fellow course-mate from hong kong in london (of all places!), ended up touring with him for a bit. we parted ways after downing street, as they went to meet another friend while the two of us continued to roam the streets of london, randomly.

with so many tourists touching its head and posing for photos with it, i totally empathize with its decision to give annoying tourists swift kicks in their arses.

randomly diffused to st. james park, where we spent a good half an hour lazing in the sun. never really had such an experience while traveling (rest? what rest?), really relaxing haha.

we decided the tube near trafalgar was the nearest, hence we headed for it. photographing in trafalgar square was rendered impossible because of..

the presence of pakistanis celebrating their 60th national day (or so i gather from the small little badges worn by some of the people there). there was a chiobu performing, her song and dance number was shown on the big screen, but.. we had better things to do =)

we took a tube first to king's cross, where rowling's writings left an indelible mark in the creation of a new platform situated between the 9th and 10th one. shan't post the picture, won't embarass kok hao further =P

and no trip's complete without singing the all-familiar kiddy song proclaiming the fall of london bridge. sorry kids, it's not likely to fall in the next 100 years. why exactly this rather unexciting and unspectacular bridge (tower bridge's much more interesting) as the subject of the song still leaves me scratching my head over it.

i was tempted to leave for home, cook dinner and collapse into my bed, but my friends called me up and tempted me with chinatown food for dinner.. and thus the desire to sleep was suppressed for food =) the restaurant we went to served really cheap chinese food - though not very tasty, it wasn't that bad after all.

took the 9pm train back to cambridge, the journey magically lasted for 5 minutes again.

reached cambridge, met another friend catching the same bus back to town (we were on the same train and didn't know it), and trekked back to magdalene.

discovered that somehow there wasn't any hot water, was forced to take a bath cos i didn't bathe for >48 hours - hey, i was planning to bathe after bringing kok hao back to my room in cambridge, but ended up going to the airport myself. it was my first cold water shower in.. 9 years?

drank hot chocolate to prevent internal organs from freezing over, chatted a bit more and collapsed.

the next morning i brought him on a speed tour around cambridge - 1 hour between our leaving of my room and his bus leaving cambridge (not much choice as there's only one flight a day to frankfurt from stansted). managed to see 6 colleges (magd, johns, trinity, kings, queens and downing) and numerous other dna-related sites (eagle pub, ex-cavendish lab) before arriving, just in time, for the bus he was supposed to take.

what a crazy weekend.

wiping the dust off this blog

2007-07-28T00:04:00.000+08:00

have been neglecting this poor blog - not at all because i was extremely busy, it was more of not having the mood to pen down random thoughts and feelings lah. haven't really had the urge of writing stuff down.. until now haha.

i'd be backdating the posts that i'll write to dates closer to when the events happened, so that it'd serve as a better point of reference haha.

googling is fun

2007-06-27T16:30:00.000+08:00

being bored, i tried googling "mrliew", and to my amazement this blog is #1 on it. muahahaha, at least i can boast that i have a website than features #1 on google - some people pay money to get their sites listed ahead of others', but i guess no one bothers with an obscure search string like "mrliew" =)

anyway, on the second page of my googling adventure, i found this:

(link)

haha am amazed that mcafee would bother parsing through personal blogs to check for potential threats (eg spam, scams). but whatever the case, mine's certified to be safe.. don't you feel a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart knowing that this site is safe from any malicious threats? =P

my current addiction

2007-06-27T00:34:00.000+08:00

i know i'm 7 years too late but.. i'm currently playing lots of stepmania, a ddr clone.

stepmania's great because it theoretically could let the user play any song - so long he has the song and the file containing the steps associated with it, the program would play the file fine. i've gotten ~800mb of ddr songs (from 1st mix to 5th mix), so yep i've got tons of songs to choose from haha.

i started playing only last week, when chris borrowed a dance mat from one of our senior. that night, we had a ddr party of abt 6 people - which is quite a lot cos we only had one mat. among the 6 was a pro who played a lot when he was in secondary school, and he was quite willing to teach us noobs certain dance patterns, for instance:

this is a complete turn - right leg on right, then left leg on down, right on left and then left on up (confusing? haha). this song, butterfly, is from ddr 1st mix, and it's one of my faves cos there are about 3 clockwise and anticlockwise turns in the dance steps haha.

since chris has flown back home already, the mat has been passed to me (on a sidenote, my room accumulated stuff over the past week as pple use my room as sort of a storeroom for their more valuable stuff, and the mat is not an exception to the rule). i've been spending ~2hrs/day on stepmania over the last few days, and now i could pass most 3-feet songs and some 4-feet ones - songs are ranked in order of difficulty by the number of feet, 10 is the max. these two hour sessions are super tiring lah - i'd be sweating copiously and my feet would be aching after those dratted 4-feet 170bpm songs.

according to the pro he could do 6-feet songs reasonably well in 2 weeks' time. let's see how far i (can) progress haha. fun fun =)

summer plans!

2007-06-25T19:26:00.000+08:00

plans is actually a not very appropriate word in this case - i'm actually quite clueless about what i'd be doing over summer. basically, i'm part of a team that'd be ~~washing test tubes~~ pottering around in a constructive manner in a lab over summer. what we're going to do exactly is still quite undecided - there are about 10 of us in the team, and we'd be meeting up only next monday to decide what to do in these 12 wks..

it's a good thing that the team size is large - we were told that we could take 1-2 weeks off to travel or go back home, so yep i'd probably be using that to pop back home as long as possible. as for exactly when this is, i have totally no idea haha. great summer plans, i have =)

spot the fake

2007-06-19T00:29:00.000+08:00

i got a link purporting to be from "hsbc uk", which directed me to this site that prompted me to "reconfirm" my password with them. i have to admit they made the site look very similar to that from the authentic hsbc - try to spot which one is fake. i blanked out the URL, which actually gives it away haha.

hard to tell, really, but the top one's the fake one. any pros can spot other telltale signs besides the URL?

the day janet died

2007-06-14T15:23:00.000+08:00

all of cambridge bereaved the temporary passing of janet - nope, it's not a "she", it's a computer network (used to be a known as the contraction of the UK Joint Academic NETwork) (link).

the problem started around 11-ish, when access to the internet started to be horribly slow, which i originally attributed to my firewall. but after doing a bit of snooping around, i was told everyone in camb had the same problems. by then i could only access certain websites - blogspot was totally cut off for instance.

by 2pm everything went belly-up - zero internet access to anywhere except websites hosted on the cambridge network. i was surprised how dependent i am on the internet - since i'm cooping myself up in my room most of the time, i do a lot of random surfing (and wow-ing now). on hindsight, it's not a bad thing, as i finally "had a life" yesterday after a few days of closing myself up haha.

the internet connection wasn't fully restored until this morning - long live janet!

my current life

2007-06-13T00:31:00.000+08:00

yep, azeroth's my new home currently =)

it's overrrrrr

2007-06-09T01:21:00.000+08:00

the last paper - biochem paper 3 - was a really tough one, and everyone came out cursing and swearing..

we were supposed to plot three graphs - which was really unprecendented! it was tough to even find 2 "plot xx against yy" questions in the same year for the past few years, and now 3 in a year?

grrrrrr.

but on the other hand i dun care liao lah. i'll know my results in.. 12 days time? meanwhile i shall be a happy ignorant person and increase my spectacle lens thickness by playing more computer games =)

kaboom

2007-06-04T19:40:00.000+08:00

bombed my cdb paper 2 haih. section a was relatively ok, could have been much harder, but i guess the examiners spared our lives this year.

for section b, i really should have opened my eyes larger and look at the question - one of the questions asked for the "model organisms" chosen to study developmental processes, but i failed to notice the word "development". after happily writing 3.5 sides of foolscap paper on all the model organisms used in labs, i only realised my grave mistake when i was writing the conclusion of the essay - i swear, my heart sank to the pits of my stomach when i noticed the exact wording of the question..

and i didn't have time to reword the essay. HAIZZZZZZZ

anyway 2 papers left, am looking forward to the end of tripos already, and the mindless days of fun ahead =)

what wonky weather..

2007-05-29T17:32:00.000+08:00

3 days ago: sunny, max of abt 30 degs

2 days ago: started raining, 10-20 degs

yesterday: rained, single digit temperature throughout entire day

today: stopped raining around noon, sun came out and temp became about 15 degs. but when i was in the library it suddenly HAILED. whatthehell.

anw 2 papers tmr - chem b paper 2 and biochem paper 1 - am not really looking forward to it haih.

early blog-birthday

2007-05-26T00:16:00.000+08:00

haha since the birthday of this blog falls right smack on the first day of my tripos exams, i shall celebrate it a few days in advance haha.

so happy 2nd birthday to my blog! haha.

can't believe this blog made it so far - thought my blogging impulse would die out in a year.. haha but i've been blogging less and less lately (as evidenced by the post count - 181 posts last year, as compared to 98 this year), as most of my time now is evenly divided between anime-ing and studying =) the latter has been steadily increasing in proportion in relation to the former, thankfully.

am more stressed pre-exams this year than last year - last year it was more of a question of how high among the ranks of other fellow natscis i could climb to; this year, i'm more than happy to get a first - whatever the rank.

good thing that the freaking out phenomenon is rather widespread amongst the 2nd year natsci community - i'd be really worried if i was the only one!

7 more days..

2007-05-21T16:40:00.000+08:00

so much to study, yet so little time left.. and i can't concentrate! bahhhhhhhh ><

三字经

2007-05-13T18:14:00.000+08:00

what does yeast biology and singapore have in common? their love for abbreviating long long words into three-lettered "catchphrases" is almost criminal.

excerpts from my notes:

"silencer contains ARS sequences, which binds ORC. the ORC then recruits the SIR and RAP proteins to the regions of silent cassettes..."

not forgetting the art of killing biology undergrads:

swamping them with protein names. essential for exams? i have NO idea.

bah.

how malaysian are u?

2007-05-11T22:58:00.000+08:00

picked it up while facebook-strolling. haha answers below questions. i could only do less than 10 haha.

QUESTIONS

1. How much is satu kupang?
2. Where's the favourite spot to take wedding pictures in Taiping?
3. In what dialect is Apo Nak Di Kato?
4. Name at least five variations of roti canai.
5. What is the staple food of native Sarawakians.
6. Name a popular Malay ointment made from "sea-cucumber"
7. Name the sauce made from fish or shrimp that the Kelantanese love.
8. What does pi mai pi mai tang tu mean?
9. Which fruit is Ipoh famous for?
10. What is the English name for putu mayam?
11. "Lah" is to Peninsular Malaysians as"..." is to Sabahans.
12. What does ABC stand for?
13. How long is a sari?
14. What does the Cantonese phrase" ngam ngam " means ?
15. Name Penang's famous beach.
16. How do you order coffee mixed with tea at a kopi-tiam?.
17. What's on Malaysian TV at 8pm?
18. On one side of our RM1 coin is the bunga raya, what's on the other?.
19. Now what's on our 10 sen coin?
20. What was the name of the KL Commonwealth Games 1998 mascot?
21. When you fill in a form, if you're not Malay, Chinese or Indian, you are...?
22. Who is Malaysia's favourite Kampung Boy?
23. How did the word "gostan" come about?
24. Lobo's "Whispers in the Wind" is the English version of which famous Malay song?
25. When did Malaysia last win the Thomas Cup?
26. What is the name of our national flag?
27. If you want 4D numbers, who do you consult?
28. What's the name of the Malaysian-made 175cc motorbike?
29. Name our national bird.
30. If the father is a baba, and the mother is a nyonya, then what is the son?

ANSWERS

1. Northern slang for 10 sen
2. Lake Gardens
3. Negri Sembilan, meaning "What's there to say?"
4. Roti bom, roti pisang, roti planta, roti telur, roti sardin, roti tisu, roti bawang
5. Sago
6. Minyak gamat made from sea cucumber, for wounds
7. Budu
8. Northern dialect that means coming and going but ending up at the same spot
9. Pomelo
10. String hoppers
11. Bah
12. Air batu campur OR All Asia Broadcast Centre
13. Six yards
14. Just in time or just fit or just right.
15. Batu Ferringhi
16. Kopi cham
17. The news
18. Keris
19. Congkak
20. Wira
21. "Other" or Lain-lain
22. Lat
23. A corruption of "go astern"
24. P. Ramlee's Getaran Jiwa
25. 1992
26. Jalur Gemilang
27. "Datuk"
28. Jaguh
29. There's none - lah
30. Baba

chem mocks

2007-05-03T00:00:00.000+08:00

50/100. haih.

the bigger problem is that i'm not as worried as i should be..

a crazy term ahead

2007-04-24T17:30:00.000+08:00

a lecture + one horribly hard test + dos meeting + lion dance = enough indication that easter term is not going to be one fun ride.

haihhhhhh i want longer holidays...

chem mocks

2007-04-23T22:40:00.000+08:00

cramming 48 lectures worth of stuff in 5 days ISN'T FUN. the pace is invariably slow at the start, and lost time has to be made up with speedy mugging at the end.

the test's about 15 hours from now, and yet i have about 1/5 of the lectures un-mugged. shld i sleep? haha.

i envy those who can sleep well before exams - something that could get rather elusive from me sometimes. haih.

sainsbury mathematics

2007-04-17T02:03:00.000+08:00

when things go on offer, buying two items is cheaper per item than the price of one.

when things go on reduced, either bcos of damaged packaging or expiring food, the price of one pack is usually half that of the original price. the closer it is to the closing time, expiring food might go 1/4, or even 1/8th of the original price.

when stuff on reduced has an associated offer, this is where the math gets a bit funny.

guess how much these cost?

6 pounds? nope.

2.99? nope.

it's £0.00. FREE. really.

if it wasn't on reduced, the cost of one would be £5.99; two would be £5.99 + £5.99 - £5.98 = £6 (as stated on the pack).

when it's on reduced, the cost of one would be £2.99; two would be 2 x £2.99 - £5.98..

this is the first and only time i managed to get something for free from a supermarket haha. it pays for one to check the reduced section regularly! =)

countries i have visited

2007-04-11T15:20:00.000+08:00

an interesting program indeed =)

create your own visited countries map

visited 5% of the world only, no doubt helped by the fact that i've "visited" china! been to guangzhou and hong kong only haha.

effects of studying

2007-04-06T18:32:00.000+08:00

courtesy of voonie, van-gogh-on-msn wannabe =)

ouch

2007-04-06T15:03:00.000+08:00

i had two wonderful presents after playing basketball yesterday.

note: gory images follow. if you are of age 18 and under, please try not to scroll down. haha =)

right foot.

left foot.

yep, i'm really lame for the time being.

the city of lights #3

2007-04-02T22:05:00.000+08:00

friday 23rd march

had another company visit, this time round to inria (link), which is heavily involved in information technology and engineering.

we were shown one of their up-and-coming development - a smart car that (theoretically) could navigate automatically from point to point, avoiding any stationary and moving obstacles along the way. apparently there are many unsolved and teething problems with the car, not just in its navigation, but also in its wireless communication with other similar cars - apparently networking still has many problems associated with it.

it was kinda cool to see that this car (called cycab) was still work in progress, and that the programming could be done in the car itself. the program is written in c++ (or c, i'm not sure which).

after a fantastic lunch in inria (they were very generous to visitors - a three course meal + drink! yum), we then went to the palace of versailles, which was rather near inria. i've already been inside, so i followed the frugal group who decided to just look at the gardens.

the trip didn't turn out to be that nice due to the lousy weather - it started drizzling when we were in the gardens, and it poured later. and it was rather cold too, which was kinda weird for a day in march.

the fountains are still not on cos the peak season is april to october i think. and note the bleak sky - sigh.

we took a train back to paris, but didn't really do much after that. we went to the national opera to check out whether there were cheap tickets for any musicals / dances, and found out that a kabuki show was on that night.. but it was completely sold out.

we then split up into two groups for dinner, i went with my group to maison blanche again cos the set meals were cheap. this time round i had a three-course meal and shared swiss cheese fondue with 4 others, which was filling and delicious. after dinner we walked around the area, and for the first time i actually bought a souvenir - it was a mass-produced poster of a painting of the arc du triomphe, but what the heck. so long it's cheap =)

some pple came over our room to chill - think there were 8, but i fell asleep halfway during the conversation and woke up again when they were leaving. think i was quite tired from the horlan excursion the previous night hahaha.

saturday 24th march

today was the last day we had in paris, so we decided to make full use of it. first stop was les invalides (link). it's actually a complex of museums and monuments, and that was where napoleon's tomb and a war museum is located. its original purpose was to provide care and comfort to those injured in war, that's why there's a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans.

token picture of the front of les invalides - nothing special actually. haha.

first stop was the church of saint louis des invalides.

the flags is the interesting feature of this church. there was a tradition of keeping the flags of the defeated, and flags obtained prior to 1795 was kept in the vaults of notre dame. this tradition was kept alive by decorating this church the same way..

there were a couple of chinese flags there - china of the 19th century didn't come up on the victorious side most of the time, i guess.

we then went over to napoleon's tomb.

this is THE tomb of napoleon. it looks massive cos there are 5 layers of coffins protecting the remains of what was one of the best military leaders.

there was also an exhibition of napoleon's possessions - his decorations, swords and guns were all there. some of his generals had their own tombs in the wings of the building, can't really remember their names though.

we then crossed over to the musee de l'armee - a museum that chronicles both world wars. it was rather interesting to see the war from the point of view of the french - in both wars, the french suffered large losses (as compared to, say, the uk). defending france wasn't as easy as defending uk as her neighbour did not need to cross the english channel to mount an offensive.

special guns to defend their trenches (in wwi), allowing soldiers to aim and shoot properly without the fear of getting their heads blasted off by enemy gunfire. the extensive network of trenches prevented the troops from advancing without suffering heavy losses, prolonging the war from the weeks it was thought to be ended within into years.

trench art - the body of the plane is made from a bullet. life as a soldier in the trenches can be quite sian, cos they actually rarely saw action.

i learned quite a lot abt world war ii too. i knew the french surrendered to the germans after being conquered, but what i didn't learn from my history textbooks was the french resistance. the vichy government actually printed propagandistic posters urging the local populace to not resist the germans, but across the english channel, the bbc was instrumental in radioing the french all around the world to rally around charles de gaulle in resisting the germans. interesting.

we spent so much time in the museum that caused us to be very late in returning back to ecp. we quickly got our bags and rushed to gare du nord, where we were supposed to take the returning train. good thing we were still in time for it, else our heads would have rolled.

upon reaching london, some of our tongues craved authentic malaysian food, so off we went to a malaysian restaurant in chinatown.

my assam laksa (6 quid). not very spicy and sour though. the teh ais (2 quid) was quite nice though. haha.

vk, chris and i shared this plate of 鱿鱼蕹菜 (6.50 quid). this was reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaally nice =)

it was one magnificent dinner, but it was kinda pricey - abt 10x the price of those dishes in ipoh. haha but too bad, the living standards here is that high.

took the 11pm bus back to cambridge, reached abt 2 hours later.

home sweet home. haha.

(overall spent abt 100 pounds for the 7 days in paris. cheap cos we had free accoms haha.)

the city of lights #2

2007-03-30T22:43:00.000+08:00

tuesday 20th march

freaky weather today. woke up feeling very cold, partly cos we had to wake up early cos the company we're visiting - snecma - is located quite out of town. it started to snow (yes, snow) even as when we walked to the bus waiting for us..

the unexpected weather caused jams to form, even on the large expressway.. not sure why though, maybe drivers are more cautious when the roads are more slippery. anyway it was a blessing in disguise, as we had more time to sleep in the bus to make up for our waking up early.

the company we visited that morning, snecma, (link), is a subsidiary of the safran group (both names are shortened acronyms of cheem french names, so i shan't bother mentioning what exactly they are). one of their business interests involve the production of rocket engines for the ariane series of rockets. before even entering the reception area, we had to surrender our passports for security reasons - those that forgot their passports had to sit in the lounge as they weren't allowed entry.. that was how serious they are with security. not surprisingly, photography was expressly forbidden (actually that happened to most of our other company visits), so that's why the following paragraphs would all be in text haha.

the visit started off with a briefing of what snecma's business activities are, not just in the rocket business but also in the aerospace industry; how they build rocket engines and test them; and the different engines built by snecma in the past 40+ years. one of their major next big things is the vinci engine, a new engine which is more efficient and powerful than its predecessor in order to power the flight of the heavier ariane 5 rocket. rockets get heavier simply because the payload - the stuff that needs to be sent up into space, usually satellites or supplies for the ISS - has a trend of getting heavier over the years.

we were then brought to a small museum of theirs showcasing the past and present rocket engines, starting from their primitive engines to the current vulcain engine. i can't comment on the engineering of the rockets not because i'm not allowed to, it's because i simply couldn't comprehend most of it. however i was very impressed with how rocket engines have developed over the years - the increase in complexity from the earliest to the most current rocket engines seems to me to be exponential.

after the museum visit, we were brought to their test facility, and shown how they test their engines before sending it off to another company so that it could be assembled into a rocket. all engines undergo 2 rounds of testing before it is certified to be fit for use. they were quite open about the successes and failures of the engines - we were shown movies of a successful test sequence and another that didn't go so well.. the guy who was bringing us around for the entire morning even explained to us why the explosion occured (something about a spark in the oxygen tank, not sure though haha).

we left snecma with a full stomach after a fantastic lunch at their cafeteria, and our next destination was eads, another aeronautical company. while snecma is involved in building rocket engines, eads was involved in something much bigger - assembling all the rocket parts from different contractors and assembling it into a full rocket. the rocket's so massive that it is initally assembled into three separate parts in paris, and then these three one-thirds are all shipped to the french guiana, where the assembly is completed and the rocket launched from there (rockets aren't launched from france as it's way too far from the equator. cheem physics dictate that it's much easier to shoot rockets up from the equator if the payload needs to be geostationary). however, the guide we had for eads was nowhere near as good as snecma's, not just linguistically, but also content-wise. nonetheless, the trip to eads was quite an eye-opener.

that night, we met up with our hosts back in ecp, and then we were brought to a restaurant called maison blanche in paris. i had a swiss cheese fondue and shared a plate of frog legs with rachel, and it turned out to be really filling. the melted cheese really went well with bread, but the frog legs didn't turn out as nice as we thought - frog legs from back home tasted nicer, imho. it was fun talking to our hosts, especially when we talked about the different education systems in their countries. the austrian girl told us that uni education was free in austria, and you basically could go into any course in any uni that catches your fancy. there are selection tests only for the more competitive courses. my host, guy, told us that there are french- and english-educated students in lebanon. interesting indeed.

we went back and chilled some more at their student-run bar, which offers a gigantic pitcher full of beer for only 4 euros. among about 10 of us, we managed to finish 4 pitchers. the beer was not that nice - there was hardly any aftertaste - but it was cold, and its sheer volume made up for any shortcomings =)

wednesday 21st march

the next day started with a breakfast in a meeting room in ecp - we had a chat with the deputy director of ecp, who told us what direction of the school is going, and would be going to in the next few years. they're very supportive of students going overseas to expose themselves to another culture, and also very open to bringing foreign students into the ecole centrales in france. they were so successful to the extent of being invited to open a branch of ecole centrale in beijing, and in fact many chinese students vie for a place in the rather selective school!

after the chat, we were brought around ecp to have a look at their labs and sample projects of the postgrads there.. was overall rather ok, but i much preferred company visits with cheem engineering =)

we ate at the school canteen, which costed only EUR 2.75 for a full three-course meal. cheap! after that, we decided to make a trip to town. good thing the rain stopped then, that's why we managed to cover quite a section of the city just by walking.

our first stop was notre dame - in fact, we passed by notre dame a couple of times more later, as seen by

this (taken in the afternoon)

and this (taken at night)

notre dame seemed more commercialized than ever - the last time i visited it was 1.5 years ago, but i don't remember the presence of many stalls WITHIN the cathedral selling souvenirs. yes, earning money's important, but don't let it destroy what the place is supposed to be used for - a place for worship and quiet contemplation. german cathedrals seem to do a much better job than their french counterparts in this aspect.

we then walked out of the cathedral, debated whether or not to climb to the top of it, and split up into two groups which would be meeting up again at the louvre in the evening. the group i followed decided to walk from notre dame to the louvre, taking in the french scenery on the way.

the back part of notre dame.

roadside stalls selling comic books and other assorted books.

the magnificent river seine.

while stopping for a moment to buy crepes, it hailed on us! cameras were whipped out to record the moment.

after the hail stopped, rain fell on us. crazy weather indeed.

we reached the louvre an hour too early, so we decided to take a random bus for a random number of stops. our stomachs then prompted us to get off at a place which had lots of restaurants, and eventually we had our dinner at a fast-food restaurant (to save money haha). we met up with the others back at the louvre, went down into the museum to get our tickets, and then parted so that we could see what we wanted to see, making the best out of the three hours we had there.

as you can see, the painting culture in paris is alive and well =)

our hosts actually came down to paris to say hie to us, and then bring us to an irish bar to chill out. we left the louvre around 10pm..

.. but before we left the louvre, couldn't resist taking night shots of the louvre.

after chilling at the bar (i remember trying to explain why we could speak so many languages, and why our english could be rather "succint" at times to one of our hosts), we took a train back to antony. chris, vk and i decided to take a look at the nearby kebab shop cos we were hungry, and thus split from the main group who were walking back. the kebab shop didn't have much to offer because it was quite late already, so we left the shop empty-handed and empty-stomached.

to make up for it, we decided to take a different route back to ecp, and proceeded to horlan ourselves for quite some time.. took us about 40 minutes of walking to cover what was supposed to be done in 15. it was quite fun, as we were arguing and cursing chris all of the way for being the genius in losing our way. reached our room rather late, so didn't do much after bathing.. that's why i had a bad hair day the morning after.

thursday 22nd march

we visited another school - ecole des mines (link) - and it was rather similar to the trip we had around ecp. we were shown the current projects of the postgrads there (which i felt was rather dry), but it was more than made up for with the trip to their museum of stones. the museum was even when geology was in its infancy, and because it existed so early it was able to procure hundred thousands of stones from all around the world. the person who showed us around, who is the husband of the curator and a professor emeritus of the ecole, was really enthusiastic in explaining stuff to us. he explained how the stones are grouped together, how stones of the same type may have different colours, and how these beautiful crystals are formed in the first place. wonderful tour indeed.

we then split up for lunch, i ended up eating at a kebab shop (which was suprisingly filling) and then going to the musee d'orsay alone as the other 4 in my lunch group were more inclined to walk around in the city.

musee d'orsay has a extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, and i found out that i quite like these paintings. some examples include:

monet's (impressionism) and

van gogh's (post-impressionism)

can't rmb who drew this, but i quite liked pointilism too. it's considered to be post-impressionistic.

i met up with some of our group in the orsay museum, and then we had to leave by 4:30pm for the eiffel tower as we had an "eiffel underground tour" arranged for us.

while walking to the eiffel tower..

of course we saw the imposing eiffel tower..

.. but we also saw this - the ps3 was to be launched midnight of the next day! (ie in ~7 hours' time)

we were first brought underground of the tower to a small museum displaying how, when and why the tower was built, how it escaped its original fate of being demolished after 20 years of it being built, how it helped in the war effort by being the best place to transmit messages to and fro etc.

found this outside the underground passage.. yes, the label tells you what sound will be produced when you press it.

we were then brought up to the first floor by lift (cutting the long queue too haha) and then brought into this small area which showed how the lift mechanism worked. interesting.

we could see the foot of the tower from up there, and the long queue that we managed to escape as we were on a tour =)

we then walked up to the second floor, and despite the cold (cos of the wind, as we were very high up already), all our cameras were out taking photos.

we started taking photos when it was bright..

.. until the sun set. and that's why paris is called the city of lights.

went to pigalle for dinner, ate fried chickens and fries in an indian restaurant with two big flat screen tvs showing bollywood movies. laughed ourselves silly at the antics of the actors and actresses in the movie =)

main reason why we were in the red-light district. notice the long queue in front of moulin rouge, for reasons unknown =P

after that, chris, jh and i decided to check out the ps3 launch, so we made our way to the launch..

.. but it was a massive flop. hardly anyone was there!

we then decided to head back to ecp, but to do so we had to take the rer c line and change at a station for rer b back to antony. when we reached the rer c station near the eiffel tower (and the ps3 launch), we discovered it was closed, but there was a bus bringing us to invalides, which was still on the rer c line. upon reaching invalides we caught the train to st michel notre dame, where we were supposed to take the rer b back to antony.

but we discovered that there weren't anymore trains upon reaching the station.

and we found out that we were locked IN the station itself.

we tried to lift one of the metal doors open, and in the process managed to create enough noise to alert one of the personnel about our presence. with a key, he freed us, and we were plunged into the heart of paris at 1am.

walking around, jh noticed that there were night buses, and by chance one of them goes back to antony. we were saved!

but the story doesn't end there. we managed to overshoot our stop by 3 stops, and when we got down from the bus we had to ask a policeman (why was he there at that kind of time, i have no idea) for directions back to antony. after walking for about 20 minutes, we reached familiar ground, and another 20 minutes brought us back to ecp..

and that was why we only had like 5 hours of sleep that night.

(continued in #3)

the city of lights #1

2007-03-26T14:11:00.000+08:00

saturday 17th march

since it was impossible to call up eurostar's office the next morning after the incident happened - chris was put on hold for ~50 mins on the phone - it was decided that some of us should first go down to london and have a look at the situation. the bus ride to london was already eventful - we managed to squeeze up the 10am bus even though we held open dated tickets (which is lower in priority than tickets with set time and date) as the bus driver miscalculated the number of passengers he had.. which caused this poor chap to be unable to board the bus on the second stop of the bus cos the bus was full already. oops.

anyway we reached london around noon, and walked from the bus stop at embankment to the waterloo train station..

the london eye. what's special is a red carriage among the normal-coloured ones (which is not very obvious actually) cos of the "red nose day" - raising funds for children in need.

the chaotic situation in the waterloo train station. looks like we weren't the only ones not being able to contact them in the morning.

we decided thn to take next morning's train, having been assured that there's a high chance that there would be seats for us. so that left us with one day to tour london, and a messy situation in which we had to call up the hostel and cancel our bookings (we originally wanted an extra day to tour paris) and hope that they don't charge us for a night's stay, cos we have to cancel 24 hrs in advance..

being hot-blooded guys, we went to.. the imperial war museum =) in fact, we were there for almost 3 hours!

the front view of the museum.

the german v2 rocket. so ahead of its time that it was considered non-interceptible by the allies, as it could reach speeds of 5000km/h mid-air.

i liked the displays about the trench warfare (of wwi). i knew trench warfare was a protracted one, but now only i know why it's so hard to make progress across those lines - the aggressor always loses. there was an exhibit showing how the germans fortify a shelled tree, and then use it as an observation post.. really creative man.

we then went to gordon's cousin's place to stay over for the night. that area really reminds me of those new towns in singapore - the residential buildings look very new, and there's always this gigantic shopping complex right smack in the area.

this area was rebult from a disused quay. have to say it looks real impressive now.

we then had a bak kut teh dinner, watched a movie, talked cock, and then turned in for the night.

sunday 18th march

we met up with the other 6 supposed to travel together on saturday, discovered that we DO have seats in the morning train, and thus finally set off for paris. the train ride was highly uneventful - it's not possible to see the channel before going into the tunnel, so for like 20 minutes you see nothing but the reflection of your own face in the mirror.. and then the view of a french countryside swims into your view. nothing that exciting, really.

we reached gare du nord around 2pm, sashayed around for lunch, then took a rer b train to antony to meet our hosts. yes, hosts. cos this trip is actually an exchange with ecole centrale paris (link). they tried to speak french to us at the start, but quickly gave up (thankfully, cos my french was very lousy, and for some others, it was nonexistent =P). i find the composition of the people in the trip rather interesting - on our side, there was only 1 brit amongst the 12 of us; on theirs, there was only 1 french. on their side, there were a couple of chinese students, a danish, a hungarian, a german and an austrian.. and my host is a lebanese. interesting mix eh - dunno why this exchange is so popular with the international students =)

they then brought us to their uni, then to our rooms, then chatted to us while walking in a park nearby. the park was beautiful, but my pictures doesn't do justice to it, so i shan't bother posting it up haha.

that night they treated us to a all-you-can-eat chinese dinner. the restaurant (restaurant asiatique) was very near the school, and the food they serve was fantastic! haven't had fried wantons, sweet and sour pork, spring rolls and lychees for AGES. and the choc icecream was fantastic too! not too sweet, with a tinge of bitter taste to it. yum.

after the dinner we tried to chill at the bar but saw people with very little clothing there, so we gave up and chilled in a common room in one of the blocks. didn't do much besides talking cock, then went back to our rooms to chill some more before sleeping.

monday 19th march

had our first company visit - schlumberger (link). they provide oilfield surveying services to other oil prospecting companies, and ensures their lead over their competitors by continually coming up with new, superb technology (thanks to the immense amount of $ they channel into r&d).

during the trip around the company, we saw how they shock-test, heat-test, pressure-test and whatever-test their precision equipment; how they adapt to local situations by producing equipment that are more adapted to the situation; and also was bombarded with tons of engineering concepts and principles (flow rates, flow rates and flow rates). the only thing i can remember vividly is their cement-making process - instead of varying the amount of water to make soft/hard cement, they add in particles of different sizes to achieve the same aim. apparently, the more fine-granuled solid particles you add into the cement mix (not changing the amount of water), the SMOOTHER it gets! how counter-intuitive lah. oh, and i remember that most of the programmers in the company write code in the C family of languages (C, C++, C#).

in the afternoon, after a filling (and free) lunch in the company, we then made a trip to montmartre.

the view from the base of the hill, showing the basilica proudly perching on top..

.. and the view from halfway of the hill. notice a couple of dodgy dudes trying to market "free" friendship bracers and demanding a donation after attaching them. some things just doesn't change after 1.5 years.

sucky weather that day.. but try to find the eiffel tower in the photo =)

something you can't really find in london - a square filled with painters marketing their trade.

this place never ceases to impress me - it's always a focal point for japanese tourists. they probably have more japanese shoppers in there than those of other nationalities.

the arc du triomphe, beautiful as usual. there was some function that day, hence the roundabout was sealed entirely from cars. that's why there are no cars in the foreground/background =)

we then split up for dinner - some went to bastille for it, while my small group went to chatelet. chris and i ended up eating in a shop opened by cambodian chinese serving french food, while others ate crepes. what i learnt in paris is that if you want free/upgraded crepes, try to be a indian girl.

went back, talked cock with my interesting roomies - shawn, vk and chris - then turned in for the night.

(continued in #2)

stranded?

2007-03-17T00:19:00.000+08:00

a group of us (9 in total) decided to give eurostar a try on our trip to paris, but we were shocked to learn that our train was cancelled..

statement from eurostar a couple of hours ago:

---
URGENT - EUROSTAR STATEMENT 16H30 FRIDAY 16 MARCH 2007

We were informed by Network Rail that a serious line-side fire in a yard near Wandsworth Road station has meant the fire authorities have instructed them to close all the railway lines in this area. This means that NO Eurostar services can operate in or out of Waterloo International.

Because of the risk of gas cylinders exploding, the fire authorities have stated that it will be 24 hours before they can intervene. There is no alternative route and therefore, Eurostar regrets that it has no alternative but to suspend its entire operation until Saturday 17 March at 17h00 (UK) and 18h00 (CET).

Eurostar passengers who are unable to travel can exchange (within 2 months) or have their tickets refunded by contacting their point of sale. If you have booked through the Contact Centre or via our website www.eurostar.com, please allow a few days for congestion of calls while we provide information around this incident unless urgent.

For Eurostar packages, please advise your hotel and contact us as above to rearrange or refund your package.

For onward travel booked through Eurostar or Rail Europe the above policy applies.

Eurostar apologises for the inconvenience caused. Travellers should continue to check for the latest news on www.eurostar.com or contact 08705 186 186.
---

now i understand how those pple stranded at airports when their flights are cancelled feel.. i was informed about it at 8-ish pm, and from then on, i had been calling other pple and writing emails to everyone to inform them about this event.

frustrating indeed, but it's certainly made the trip much interesting even before it started..

blur me

2007-03-12T21:24:00.000+08:00

dunno why damn blur today. haih.

it happened when i went to sainsbury to buy stuff - something which i do nearly everyday. similar routine as always - check out reduced stuff, buy some veg, get two bags of crisps cos it's on buy one get one free offer, then get milk, and pay for it. stuffed milk into my bag, placed other groceries into a plastic bag, pay for it using my debit card, get the receipt, and then leave the place.

i cycled back home, walked back to my room, and opened the door..

.. and only then, i noticed my bag of groceries was missing.

my mind went into a whirl - did i leave it at the bike shed? nope. did i cycle with it back to my college? maybe not. did i leave it at sains? oh crap, i think i did.

so had to cycle back to sains, and told them that i paid for my groceries but i forgot to get it. surprisingly, they kept my groceries in a corner; and even more surprisingly, they went about the entire thing nonchalantly, as if these things happen everyday.

(as a sidenote: i actually witnessed someone stealing a crate of stella artois, and he was chased down by two of the security people yesterday. never expected supermarkets to be such interesting places.)

oh well, good thing i kept my receipt.

interesting approach to failure

2007-02-28T19:43:00.000+08:00

had a biochemistry practical just this afternoon. long story cut short, one of the steps in doing a western blot was to add blocking buffer into a small dish and put it on a shaker for 1 hour, so that it will block non-specific binding to the nitrocellulose filter.. and my lab partner and i didn't notice it when we added normal buffer instead of blocking buffer until 1 hour was up.

when i eventually made the discovery, we immediately told the lab demonstrator. instead of reprimanding us or demanding us to repeat the step, we were told to proceed normally and see what comes out of it.

i was rather taken aback - i was already feeling guilty as hell for making such a stupid mistake, but now i'm being told that it's not just ok, "it would be interesting, wouldn't it?". we all learnt, theoretically, why the blocking buffer is required, but i haven't really seen what would happen if it wasn't added.. so yep in a sense it is interesting haha.

fast forward another 1.5 hours, instead of seeing a smear of black colour over the entire blot, we saw faint blobs corresponding to the lanes with proteins in it (in non-biologist speak: it's weird lah cos it doesn't correspond with theory). even the demonstrator admitted it was weird, and said maybe the blocking buffer wasn't that important after all. haha.

anyway, today was one of the more enjoyable biochem practs i had, cos we were forced to think through lots of stuff that the demonstrator threw at us instead of blindly following a "recipe" and getting the expected finished products. failure isn't that bad after all! =P

迟到

2007-02-27T23:50:00.000+08:00

today was a 迟到 day.

woke up late (actually my alarm rang at 8:30am, but i lazed until 8:50am haha).

reached the lecture hall 10 minutes late.

didn't expect my chemistry lab report (due for marking in the chemistry practical later) to be that complicated, so turned up 30 minutes late for chemistry practical.

nonetheless, still managed to finish the experiment by 3:45pm. but unluckily for me i could only get my lab report marked at 5:30pm! had to wait so long, sian. thank goodness i got a good mark for my lab report, which i don't think i fully deserve haha.

rushed back home to do work, and only finished it 2.5 hours past the deadline. popped it into my supervisor's pigeon hole, noticed that he hasn't cleared it, so technically i wasn't late lor cos he wouldn't know when i handed my work up =)

was late in reaching lion dance practice by 1 hour because of the work. but oh well, not many people came anyway.

argh, this must be bcos of sixth-week (not fifth-week) blues that seem to hit me every term..

last performance.. for the time being =)

2007-02-19T23:28:00.000+08:00

another performance, another dinner =P

we're somewhat making it a habit to not start off on the right foot - we felt that our first performance wasn't as ideal as what we hoped (maybe we set our bar too high? =), so we did a second performance in the restaurant, and everyone liked it! we then had our well-deserved dinner, which was fantastic! if not for lion dance, i would really have not been able to feel the cny atmosphere in camb (as well as stuffing myself with good food, of course).

that's the fourth consecutive performance i had in four days, time for me to straighten my back for a week haha.

ps as usual, kudos to shawn for the great pics!

cny eve performance

2007-02-18T16:27:00.000+08:00

yesterday was the first time we actually performed for a hotel, so needless to say we were hoping that it would proceed smoothly according to plan.. the first hiccup to our plans was the transport arrangement - originally slated to arrive at 1:30pm, they eventually turned up at.. 4:45pm. ><

eating lunch while waiting for the elusive transport. lunch was kindly provided by a *cough* nice member of the troupe =) the sandwiches disappeared quickly, to the nice member's relief, as he recalled that the cucumbers used weren't the freshest available =P

after reaching the hotel (the journey took abt 1.5 hrs), we quickly discovered how constricted the performance area was. sam was quick in changing our performance plans, even to the extent of scrapping one of the scheduled performances (out of 4) as we were unable to get a table.. i was getting bad vibes from some of the hotel employees there, as i was worried that they might have had expected a very high standard of performance from us.

i was kinda nervous for my first performance, but we did pretty well and we were heartily congratulated by the staff there.. from then on we were treated pretty well - after we performed our three performances, we were treated to a fireworks show and great food (peking duck, sweet & sour prawns and dumplings). each of us received a red packet from the hotel management too, whee =)

the 11 of us after all three performances - a job well done by everyone =)

by the time we reached back home, it was already about 1am. after lugging back our lion dance equipment back to our store, everyone departed feeling tired but happy!

to those reading till this far, a happy chinese new year to u!

ps: credits goes to shawn for the fantastic pics =)

lunch..

2007-02-16T22:23:00.000+08:00

.. for 11 pple =)

hope they find it edible tmr =D

busy busy

2007-02-14T22:09:00.000+08:00

mainly cos of the tons of performances coming up - four performances in four consecutive days!

thurs: performance at two playschemes
fri: performance at aru (anglia ruskin uni)
sat: performance at a hotel
sun: performance at a restaurant in camb

and in all of them i'm gonna be the lion back, which is a tiring job indeed.. hopefully i don't burn out before sat or sun haha.

feb snow!

2007-02-08T16:28:00.000+08:00

today was the first time i experienced thick snow in camb during term time.. it's interesting how heavy snow during term time is quite different from heavy snow over christmas =)

vacation: snow = too cold outside = spend more time in bed and under thick thick duvet
term time: 9am chemistry lecture = die die must wake up and brave the cold to go for lectures (see how studious i am =)

vacation: walk in the snow? siao.
term time: have to CYCLE against the wind to go for lectures. irritating when the small snowflakes uncannily find a way to go past my specs and into my eyes. had to squint while cycling, grr.

vacation: view outside window = an undisturbed blanket of white snow

term time: view outside window = paths warming themselves up to reveal their presence; mysterious footprints appearing all over the place.

vacation: snowmen take christmas break to seek cooler pastures.
term time: snowmen appear after heavy snow, grinning away as broadly as their organic dentures would allow. (i found 4 snowmen just by walking from the entrance of the college to my room. reports from other colleges indicate that this phenomenon of emerging snowmen is no way confined to magdalene only)

vacation: snowball fight? with who? zzz sleep more important.
term time: fought with neighbour and a friend of hers haha.

vacation: msn nicks of msian/sporean friends would, more often than not, be "HOME!!" or "CHAR KOAY TEOW!!" or "CHAR SIU PAO!!" etc (haha ok i made the last two up. but you get the idea lah)
term time: everyone shamelessly uses the same four-letter f-s-word in their nicks: "SNOW!!". variants include "下雪" and "snowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww".

vacation: blog about snow? lazy lah *switches on computer game*
term time: blogs about snow in between supervisions out of boredom, sacrifices revision time to take pictures and write about frozen water.

lion dance performance in cny ball

2007-02-05T06:15:00.000+08:00

performed in the chinese new year ball yesterday in the guildhall - there were like 200 people there, and i daresay we arrested the attention of most of the people in the hall =P

if you had the patience (and bandwidth) to watch till the end, i was the lion back =) this 6-min performance sucked up at least 10+ worth of practice time, but the rapturous applause we received made it all worthwhile =) go culdt!

we live in singapura

2007-01-27T07:35:00.000+08:00

darn funny =)

bleach

2007-01-26T12:30:00.000+08:00

it simply rawks (the anime, not clorox).

how else could i finish watching 63 eps in 4 days? =) good thing i reached the filler arc, else i don't think i'd be stopping my marathons haha.

if only studying was as interesting as this..

gale force winds

2007-01-20T00:15:00.000+08:00

haha just received this storm warning from the malaysian society's email.. this warning was issued by the malaysian student dept in london and the public service dept of msia (aka jpa)

"Assalamualaikum dan Salam Sejahtera.

Sila ambil perhatian akan keselamatan diri saudara/saudari kerana angin ribut yang kini sedang melanda United Kingdom. Sehingga petang ini, tiga kematian orang awam telah dilaporkan iaitu satu di Manchester, satu di Birmingham dan satu di Reading. Oleh hal yang demikian, sila pastikan keselamatan saudara/saudari. Cuba elakkan dari menggunakan jalan/tempat yang mempunyai pokok besar.

Terima kasih."

i'll attempt to translate this into english:

please keep an eye out for your own safety, as the UK is currently experiencing storm winds. till this evening, there were three deaths reported - one in manchester, one in birmingham and one in reading - so please take note of your own safety. please avoid using roads/places that has big trees (lined along it).

i quite like the last sentence. hahaha.

pics fr skiing

2007-01-15T09:54:00.000+08:00

ucpa les glaciers, the place we stayed in. building was old, but facilities was fantastic. we hung out most often at the playstation room, which had 2 ps2s for us to play =)

the green dining room. we had buffet meals everyday - probably the reason why we're all smiling in contentment =)

the gang + me, with our ski instructor, jean-michel. cool dude with "yahoo!" as his favourite english exclamation haha.

place we skiied the most - le tour. we were lucky cos there actually was snow here - read from the news that many ski resorts face the lack of snow over this abnormally warm winter.

me and my skiing gear =) the coldest weather we met was about -2 deg C, so i couldn't really tell what was the coldest temp i could stand in my skiing gear.

skiing's actually a sport that isn't very tiring, as it's just controlled falling - the three modes of transport up slopes are, from the slowest:

a button lift. you had to put a rod in between your thighs, and when the lifts pull you over rather steep inclines, there would be a sharp pull at the groin area, which is especially uncomfortable to half of the button lift users.

a chair lift - you would be sitting in one with your skis / snowboard on.

a cable car - there were special slots for our skis just outside the sliding doors.

pic of my favourite ski piste (piste = trail) called caisets (vertical height 365m, length of 1578m). it's a red trail (ski pistes are colour-coded - the easiest pistes are green, then blue, red and black). the piste brings one down from the restaurant / cable car station to le tour, and it's my fave cos at the end, there is a steep slope followed by a long near horizontal track, so i could attain wind-whistles-beside-ear speeds while having enough time to decelerate properly.

this is what happens when you attain wind-whistles-beside-ear speeds without decelerating properly - you fall! =) this is one of my worst falls, the foreground being the ski that fell off my foot, and in the background - notice a black speck on the right - it's me.

pic i took when i was on one of the chair lifts - think i attempted this slope before. this wasn't the steepest i've done - the steepest i encountered were in brevent, and it's a miracle i didn't piss in my pants when i attempted the 60-70 degree incline. scary.

love skiing, love the snow, love the place i stayed in.. what more can i ask for, besides for this trip to be free? =)

ps shawn, chris and sn, thanks for the pics i shamelessly kopped from you =P

back from skiing

2007-01-14T11:41:00.000+08:00

it was really really good.. but tiring. i never remembered a week where i diligently slept around 11pm (helped tremendously by exhaustion) and woke up at 7.30am everyday (bun wakes up at 7am everyday without an alarm clock, and shuffles in the room with creaky floorboards just loud enough to wake me after a while =)

we stayed in a rather old building that belonged to a non-profit organisation called ucpa (the website's in french though haha), and that's probably why the cost of this skiing trip is relatively low. non-profit doesn't mean we don't get great service - on the contrary. not only we get to borrow skis from the centre, we had buffet meals EVERYDAY. breakfast and dinner were buffet-style; lunches on weekends were buffets, while on weekdays we get to pack our own lunch - making our own baguettes and kopping tons of small snacks from the bar counter.

the instructor in charge of our group was cool too =) he worked at the centre for the past 10+ years already, and his current looks were markedly more mature than that which was placed on a noticeboard along with other staff pictures. i have to say that his english was very much better than other instructors i met later during the week - the majority of the skiers there were french-speaking, hence most instructors didn't get to use english much. when chris and i progressed far enough to join a more advanced group, the instructors we met blasted us more with rapid-fire french than english.. which made us learn through imitation of the instructor's actions. haih.

what's skiing without falling down? =) i had a few spectacular falls, one of which was somersaulting (after not managing to decelerate properly) and then tumbling down an incline of about 50m. good thing i was well padded - clothing and my natural adipose layer - thus my injuries were limited to a few bruises. i sprained my left thumb on a separate injury, while i have no idea when my right thumb was sprained. oh well, since i can still type and write, i can say that the injuries are no big deal lah =)

will post pics when i get them from my friends' cameras, lazy to upload mine also haha.

hungary/slovakia trip #3

2007-01-04T15:30:00.000+08:00

day 5: eger (9/12)

after a quick, unplanned trip to the police museum in budapest, we took a train to eger, a town in east hungary reputed for its wine and women (seriously, those were the descriptions used by most travel guides and pamphlets we had).

train which we traveled in.

traveling took quite some time, and after we reached eger we had the additional task of finding accommodation cos we weren't able to find any online.

it wasn't easy to find accommodation, as we were VERY cost conscious - we skipped a few pretty decent accommodation simply because of its price.. after an hour or two of searching, we finally settled on a rather imaginatively named motel called the "tourist motel". the rooms were cheap, with the only downside that we had to share toilets.. it didn't matter in the end as we were the only occupants of our particular floor haha.

the room in the motel - my bed was at the corner of the room, from which i took this photo. the room isn't big, but it's comfortable nonetheless.

after exploring town with whatever sunlight hours we still had, and finally deciding to skip soaking in a bath as we forgot to bring our swimming trunks (it's really expensive to buy a pair there), we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner.

the highlight of the day has got to be the dinner - we went to the restaurant of a 3 star hotel, which happens to house quite a number of stuff made out of sugar..

.. like this grandfather clock, which we were told stopped functioning only a couple of weeks before we came. it's all made of sugar, except for the clock parts.

.. and this painting, which is certified by the guinness world record committee to be the largest in the world. the painter's a guy from eger, explains why the painting is found in the town i guess.

i had trout with white wine (called kiralyleanyka, fantastic stuff), and ate it the way the waiter recommended it - sip the wine while munching on the trout. the trout was really fresh, and the waiter went into a discourse about how the fish were caught from this bluish waterfall north of eger.. etcetc. he was really friendly, and part of the reason why the dinner was so enjoyable =) one of the things he told us was that the winter this year was abnormally warm, "which is not what God intended it to be", in his words.

the hotel where we ate (pic was taken next morning).

went back to the motel with a full stomach, talked crap and slept amidst SHE's vocals =)

day 6: eger (10/12)

we spent our morning exploring the castle of eger - most parts were cordoned off, but nonetheless it provided us ample opportunities to take aerial photos of the town =)

the town of eger, the tallest structures around usually belonged to churches.

after visiting the basilica in eger, we walked to szepasszonyvolgy - the valley of beautiful women. maybe it was too early, or we were unlucky, but we didn't really meet women of outstanding beauty. what we managed to get from there was a rather full lunch and great wine.

in eger there are quite a number of wine cellars, in which great wine are served cheaply in these cellars all day.

this was the cellar we went to. i'm proud to say that i tasted 4 types of wine listed on the shopfront - rose (pronounced roh-ze, a type of red wine), leanyka (meaning white wine), bikaver (a type of red wine called bull's blood), and muskotaly (pronounced mus-ko-ta-ii, a white wine).

the shopowner pouring wine into our cups using something like giant pipettes - probably to aerate those wines? not all wines were poured this way though.

the lady who owns this shop, elizabeth, spoke perfect english cos she migrated from south africa. we naturally fell into conversation with her, as she was one of the rare people in hungary who could communicate with us without any problems. she could guess that we were either from malaysia or singapore - according to her, we're the only bunch of chinese pple who will speak english amongst ourselves (btw, that was the only language common to the 4 of us). she's been in business for 6 years already, and according to her the winter months are the quieter months. we spent quite a lot of time in her shop, ordering glass after glass of wine and eating cheese with it. a glass of wine cost only about 100-200 forints (30-60 pence)!

we even bought this from her shop, costed us 600 forints only. it's fantastic!

we walked, as straight as we could, out of the shop and back to catch the train to our next destination - kosice, the second biggest city in slovakia. as eger was a small town, we had to change trains twice to get to kosice. our longest wait was in miskolc, the second biggest city in hungary, so we took a tram through the city to burn some time.

when we crossed the border, border guards came up and stamped our passports - this is cos both countries hasn't joined the EU yet. hungary's probably joining it this year, if everything goes well.

after reaching kosice, it was about 10pm already. we found our hostel (it was a hotel, actually, but i think it's lucky to get its 2 stars) with some difficulty, and didn't do anything much besides talking that night.

hungary/slovakia trip #2

2006-12-23T13:35:00.000+08:00

day 3: budapest (7/12)

we went to the opera house first thing in the morning to buy tickets for "madama butterfly". the tickets were really quite cheap - 400 forints (just over 1 pound) per ticket. but it meant we got rather crappy views of the stage, but oh well, cost trumps everything else =)

we then headed for the magnificent st stephen's basilica. this basilica was named in honour of their first king, and apparently it houses his mummified fist..

we detected something was amiss that day, as most of the people at the basilica were wearing black.. but we still decided to go in and have a look.

it was the state funeral of ferenc puskas, recognised to be one of the best footballers ever, and definitely hungary's best. he was laid to rest in the st stephen's basilica, according to wikipedia.

outside of the basilica, a tv crew approached us to interview us - not surprising since we were the only bunch with black hair that actually entered the basilica - and asked us whether we knew who puskas was. out of the 9 of us, only jack did, so up he went on national airwaves =)

we split up again at the main subway station - deak ferenc ter - and the four of us visited the underground museum.

dunno why i'm fascinated by it, but it's interesting to see how "deep" the underground trains really are. actually, hungary had the first subway line running in continental europe (uk beat them to it by about 50 years).

we then went to the largest synagogue in budapest (or hungary, for that matter).

quite nice from the outside, but we didn't go into the synagogue proper as we had to pay an entrance fee.

we then met up with the other bunch for lunch at the christmas market at vaci utca. had a rather expensive lunch, but it was well worth it as we had tons of grilled meat. yum.

we split up again after that - we went to the hungarian national museum for a look.

looks rather nice from the outside, but too bad most of the exhibits are all in hungarian. we sped through the exhibits on hungarian history.. can't remember a thing about what i saw that day haha.

it's only 3:15pm, and the sun had sunk so low already. we had only about 8 hours of sunlight (or even less, if we decide to sleep in) to do our exploring everyday, but in a sense that's good cos we can have ample rest in between =)

we then crossed the bridge to visit the cave church.

it's called that way because the church is built into the cave.. which is a refreshing relief from the magnificent built up churches you can see everywhere in europe. on the extreme right, you can see the liberation monument - it's cos the church is just at the foot of gellert hill.

the main hall for worship, with an electric organ player in the foreground.

my traveling companions - hk, jh and chris - apparently loved climbing high places, so up we went climbing gellert hill. contrast this to the day before, where we took a bus up half of the hill.

view up half of the hill.. the cross of the cave church is actually perched on a rock not far away.

more aerial pics from the top of gellert hill =)

chilled with the gang for like half an hour there. quite fun actually, but it would be much better if the weather was warmer haha.

on our way down, we saw a gigantic slide that presumably provided a shortcut for the younger members of public. our childhood instincts then seized us - we actually went up and down the slide at least three times each, but it was fun! =P

we were supposed to meet the others at a bath at the foot of gellert hill, but we weren't able to meet them.. so we went off in search of food.

after eating in a cafe and buying some groceries, we trooped back to our hostel.. and played 24. it's supposed to be played by 2 people only - the deck of cards is first split evenly, the cards being placed face down. each player then reveals two cards from his hand, and attempts to make 24 out of the four values revealed, using +, -, x, / and (). cards with a picture are all considered to be 10. the winner then scoops up all four cards, and wins the entire game by reducing his opponents cards to 0.

to accommodate 4 players, we tailored with the rules - instead of four cards, there were eight; instead of 24, we were supposed to make 48. when one person ran out of cards, it became 36 with 6 cards. it was quite interesting to see how each of us arrived at our 48s and 36s - we each had our own ways to get there =)

after the other group came back, we swapped stories, and then headed to bed.

day 4: day trip to esztergom and visegrad (8/12)

we bidded goodbye to the other five traveling with us, and the four of us will be traveling together for another 8 days. we had an extra day in budapest, but as we'd already seen most of it, we headed north to esztergom by train, which took about an hour.

esztergom reminds me of ipoh - small, quiet, half-dead =)

we happened to pass by their market - pasar malam style, where a road is cordoned off for vendors to sell their stuff, but in the morning - so we decided to walk through it.

looks quite fresh haha.

town hall of esztergom, nothing much really. the main attraction here is the basilica, which we did visit later.

we ate lunch, then headed to the hill where the basilica is perched on.

en route..

view of esztergom from halfway up the hill.

crazy traveling mates, i have.

them in a less dangerous pose - from top to bottom, hk, jh and chris. the basilica is in the top left corner of the pic.

after reaching the basilica, we split and wandered in its gigantic compound.

interior of the basilica. it was really big - not surprising actually cos it is the largest basilica in hungary.

the basilica overlooks river danube, and on the other side, it's slovakia already.

they seem to have a penchant for high places..

we then went down the hill and went to the bus station, then took a bus to visegrad. traveling from place to place is actually quite cheap, to our relief. in hungary, buses charge according to the number of kilometres you travel, unlike in malaysia where bus fares drop if you travel much further.

after reaching visegrad, which is a super ulu-ated town, we then asked for directions to fellevar - a castle perched on top of a considerably higher peak.

this was the kind of path we were following. ulu? yeah.

the castle had, actually, nothing to shout about. it was just fun to trek up and down the hill leading up the castle.

view from the top of castle. it would have been much nicer if it wasn't that foggy.

yep, that was the castle we were at, viewed from a bus stop at the bottom of the hill.

we traveled back to budapest to catch "madama butterfly", tickets of which were bought the day before. the trip back was rather eventful, cos the bus broke down and smoke billowed from the engine. we were herded into another bus, which took ages to reach budapest cos of the jam near the city. thank goodness i slept most of the way, else i'd be darn bored.

a view of the hungarian national opera! we couldn't take pics during the performance cos it was banned.. it wasn't that enjoyable cos a) the view was crappy, but that's what you get with 400 forints, and b) we were clueless about the play. it was in italian with hungarian subtitles, neither which we understood. if not for the program booklet that hk bought, we would have left the opera scratching our heads.

had a late night snack in burger king before leaving for the hostel.. and more 24.

hungary/slovakia trip #1

2006-12-19T14:31:00.000+08:00

day 1: budapest (5/12)

actually this trip was planned only like 2 weeks before the actual thing.. but in a sense it was fun cos we didn't really have definite plans about where we're going, and it was flexible enough for us to modify the schedule as we saw fit..

we first flew to this an airport in balaton - a place 150km away from our destination, budapest.

our trip was eventful right at the start.. there were four of us who were supposed to go to the airport to catch this flight, and two of them managed to wake up late. one managed to catch a taxi to the next bus stop, and then boarded the bus after it; one had to take a taxi all the way to the airport, which cost him 40 pounds. ouch.

then on the flight, we met this senior flight attendant who made really weird announcements. before the safety announcement: "please keep quiet, or else the airplane won't fly", and after the plane landed and was taxiing to the airport building: "please sit down, this is not a school bus" (cos we're only supposed to stand up after the plane stops completely). classic.

yes, this is what the entire airport looks like. we're guessing it's built on an ex-military airstip.

there was only a couple of flights to and from the airport.. originally we wanted to see the balaton lake, but we junked the idea when we knew that there was only one minibus ferrying us to budapest from the airport per day.. and the transport doesn't come cheap, abt 10 euros. ouch.

the bus brought us to the deli train station, and after some time we figured out that we had to take a metro to our hostel.. after buying our ticket and sitting in the train for 10 seconds, suddenly all lights were switched off and it stopped moving. we didn't really know what was happening, until the crowd gave a collective groan after an announcement in hungarian. it wasn't until later that we knew that an accident happened somewhere down the line, and as a precaution all trains on that line were shut off. worse, we couldn't get a ticket refund! grr.

it was this time where we met another bunch of camb-ers who emerged from a 9 hour train ride from ljubljana (in slovenia), which we orignally planned to meet at the hostel itself. we split up again as some of us took a tram and some took a taxi.

after meeting up in the hostel, we went to a rather posh restaurant to makan.

so posh that even our water is served this way. thankfully it was free.

after makan, we went to walk around budapest. thankfully it wasn't that cold, else i'd have ran back to the room and stoned.

the keleti train station. there are three train stations in budapest - deli, keleti and nyugati, each handling trains traveling in diff directions.

a view of river danube at night. river danube cuts budapest into buda and pest, which were originally two distinct cities that grew too large and merged into one. on the left is the parliament building (in pest); the middle one is the buda castle (in buda); and a random hotel on the extreme right.

parliament at night. police presence was rather high that day, dunno whether it's a daily occurrence or something special happened that day.

after walking for close to two hours, we headed back to our hostel.

day 2: budapest (6/12)

explored buda first by taking a bus up castle hill. while exploring the pharmacy museum, hk and i lost contact with the main group. after searching for a while, we gave up and thus continued exploring on our own.

those look like bullet holes to me..

far view of the matthias church. the church has a long and colourful history before it, but i shan't bother with it here =)

interior view of the church. i somehow prefer gothic churches like this to opulent baroque ones - it's supposed to be a place of worship after all, instead of an ego-boost to the king that ordered its building.. simple is beautiful =)

the crown of st stephen. we didn't realise its importance until we visited esztergom, where tombs with important people inside had this crown engraved on its side. also, coins and the national coat of arms bear the same symbol. apparently, a king is only considered legitimate if he's crowned with this. wah.
the fisherman's bastion, was supposed to serve a protective function to the church but it never served its function.

view from the fisherman's bastion. foreground is buda while background is pest. pretty eh =)

ruins of mary magdalene church, the patron saint of my college =) only the tower stands now, the rest was destroyed during world war ii.

the buda castle houses the national gallery. we browsed thru two floors of it before giving up and proceeding on from the church.

view from the castle. the bridge you can see here is the chain bridge, the first bridge that connected buda and pest together. was built in the 19th century, but kena destroyed by the nazis during the war. it has been rebuilt, that's why it doesn't look that old.

we went down castle hill in search of the museum of medical history. it took us ages to find it cos it was really ulu.. but it was really worth it. kudos goes to the museum guide, although she only knew hungarian and german, she enthusiastically pointed out the stuff worth noting in the museum to us, even though most of the time we nodded back blankly at her. one of the museum exhibit was rather interesting - as this museum is the place where semmelweis was born and buried (don't worry, i don't know who he is too, but he's quite an important person in med), it showcased his red gown he wore when he graduated from cambridge.

we then went up gellert hill, as we saw the citadel prominently marked on the map.. but it turned out to be a disappointment as the citadel was converted to be an art museum, which you had to pay to get in. being scrooges we opted to see the scenery around the area =D

a view of the citadel. the statue on the right is the liberty statue, erected in remembrance of the soviet liberation of budapest (when it was built, public sentiment to the soviets were rather favourable.. but it changed after a few years)

more aerial photos haha.

we then headed back to the hostel we stayed in to leave a note for the other guys, in case they were looking for us. after that, we headed to the heroes' square.

this picture was taken about 5:45pm, but it's totally dark by then already. as for the history behind it, i leave it to wikipedia to explain it =)

we walked around the area, and saw this gigantic outdoor skating rink. we wanted to skate, but too bad we didn't understand the price list pasted on the entrance.. and the people there didn't know english. oh well.

after walking past the agricultural museum (the building lighted yellow in the previous pic) and a nearby bath, which is fed by hot springs, we went back to town to have our dinner - burger king. in our defense, we ate there cos it was cheap lor. where else can one get a full dinner at only 3 pounds?

feeling adventurous, we went up castle hill again, too see the night view of budapest. more aerial pics coming up =P

bottom part got cut out by my bag, which i used as a tripod stand. oops.

cool leh =) the bridge in the pic is the chain bridge.

we were lucky enough to see the funicular in operation - it brings pple up an inclined slope of 60 degrees at an affordable price. if my memory doesn't fail me, this funicular was operational since the 19th century.

feeling quite tired after walking so much in a day, we took the bus back to the hostel.. and were quite surprised to find that we came back earlier than the other group. hk and i then played 24 (a card game) while waiting for the rest to come back; when they did, we swapped stories on our days. went to sleep at about 1:30am.

backkkkkkkk

2006-12-17T02:59:00.000+08:00

.. from hungary and slovakia. awesome trip man, so many things happened during it haha.

really tired now. sleep first, blog later =)

start of hols

2006-12-05T00:07:00.000+08:00

haven't been up to much during the hols, basically pigging in bed until late morning, have brunch, game/watch movies till evening, then after dinner continue procrastinating. really fulfilling life, i have.

anw will be flying to budapest in 9 hrs' time, whee =) trip will take 11 days, so am not sure when this blog will alive again haha. but when it does, there will be tons of pics hopefully..

haven't started packing, so off i go packing my bags! =)

siannnnnnn

2006-11-24T00:33:00.000+08:00

haih no motivation to work at all, and it's not like i work a lot in the first place. lectures are getting rather cheem, and besides supervision work i can't be bothered to put in extra research into my notes.

think i'm having eighth week blues ><

ok enough ranting, back to chionging inuyasha episodes..

airbags

2006-11-17T20:02:00.000+08:00

the most well-known compound in airbags (but not necessarily used widely nowadays) is sodium azide, which reacts in the following reaction:

2 NaN_3(s) --> 2 Na_(s) + 3 N_2(g)

the nitrogen gas is what makes the airbag expand.. but is that the entire story?

apparently not. according to my chemistry supervisor, he said that pple who had their faces cushioned by these airbags often have sodium metal burns on their faces - so why do manufacturers still use sodium azide?

actually, the sodium is a safety measure in itself - think about it, what prevents your head from bouncing off the airbag and crushing the back of your head on the headrest? the sodium metal produced by the reaction actually burn small holes in the airbag, so when your face hits the airbag, the air escapes and thus deflates the bag.. it's better to have sodium burns on your face than splattering your own brain juice over your headrest, isn't it? =)

phishing

2006-11-03T16:27:00.000+08:00

phishing (fish´ing) (n.) The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

i'm sure most of you had received false emails claiming that you've won a lottery, or maybe someone needs your help in moving some money out of nigeria, but what i got today was.. shocking.

i'm not at all concerned about the contents of the letter, i'm just wondering how they knew my address. sinister eh..

for those who can't see the fine print, apparently i won 0.8 mil euros in a spanish lottery (i have to say that they're getting more and more creative).. and in order to send me my winnings, they need my bank acct number, sort code and other details.

haiz. ><

how pple find my site

2006-11-02T16:07:00.000+08:00

thanks to statcounter, i could see how the past 100 visits to my page were made (cos i'm naturally curious abt who would ever read my blog haha). some type in the name of my blog directly, and some google it.. recently i found a couple of interesting searches that led to my blog:

num perc search term

3 37.50% mrliew
1 12.50% enemy of singapore
1 12.50% lyrics to sha la la its so nice to be happy
1 12.50% singapore playhouse london
1 12.50% happy shalala lyrics it's so nice to be happy
1 12.50% happy shalala it's so nice to be happy shalala lyrics

#2 in google returns 3 searches, and mine was the second one. (btw, the person who did this search was from the states haha)

#3, #5 and #6 all refer to alexia's song, "happy", which i blogged about a week ago. never knew this song caught so many pple's attention =)

anw, none of these searches beat one that i saw a couple of months earlier.. something like "xxx amsterdam" - try it, u might find my blog nestled amongst other more *cough* interesting *cough* stuff.. u'll be redirected to my december 2005 page hahahaa =D

i'd like to clarify again that my blog is suitable for home reading, doesn't corrupt anyone's mind, and it's purely about how i spend (or rather, waste) my time in the uk for now =) happy reading!

a*

2006-10-25T00:58:00.000+08:00

my cdb (cell and developmental biology) supervisor's trying to get us to find scientific papers on our own, but for this week, he suggested papers for us to read, and one of them was:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/103/25/9512

and a brief look through the citation reveals that two of the authors are from a*'s imre. wow. and after reading the abstract, i must say that this work is rather impressive. the lecturer had just discussed this topic today, and i must say that this paper did address one of the big question marks in nuclear transport.

cool.

anw back to my essay writing, am tempted to sleep now and wake up early to write my essay..

ir spectra

2006-10-23T23:17:00.000+08:00

if u're wondering what we do to our synthesised crystals, we subject it to IR spectroscopy to deduce the functional groups in the molecules.. last week, i got a really chio IR.. once i hand up my work, i dun get to see this for a year, so i'll just post it for the fun of it haha =)

what makes a good spectra? one that doesn't have stray peaks, and also the peaks (that jut downwards) are really deep.. and i think this spectra fulfills both criteria hahahaa.

off to write an essay.. dun think i can sleep before 2am haha.

efficiency

2006-10-19T16:41:00.000+08:00

after making numerous odd requests to the various offices in my college, i have arrived at the conclusion that:

- the college office (which handles college bills and other odd requests) is frightneningly efficient. 6 minutes after sending in a request to change my university cards (cos they are !@#$ badly faded), i got a reply saying that my request would be forwarded to the current person-in-charge of any card-related matters.

- the domestic office (takes care of any room-related stuff) is rather efficient too. when i moved in, i sent in a request for an oven (cos the kitchen in my side is absolutely barren) in the morning, and the clerk of works came down to check it out personally a few hours later. wow. but on the downside, i was informed that the oven will only come.. in dec -_____-". but anw for now the prob is solved, cos my neighbour brought her personal microwave oven, and doesn't mind me using it =D

- the conference office (takes care of booking of common rooms, conferences and.. weddings) seems to be operating on a different level.. i needed to book a common room to accomodate the 27-strong visitor contingent that came for the nat sci dinner, and i had to continually email them to ask them about the progress. thankfully, it was sorted out the day before the cookout was organised. pretty efficient at times, but at times i had to paiseh-ly send an email asking whether the previous one got lost or not. haha.

on a general level, the efficiency of my college puts large corporations to shame - hsbc for one. haha this is my personal favourite grouse - who can bear the wait of 3 weeks for a student account to be set up!? if i had 5k pounds, i'd have opened an account in other banks (cos one of them needs 5k to open a student account; another needs me to maintain 2k in my account, else they'd levy a 5 pound charge per month). sigh, if i was only richer..

totally random post, i know =)

songs from my time =)

2006-10-18T21:06:00.000+08:00

randomly discovered a few songs that i've listened and enjoyed before, but just didn't know the names of the songs.. but after randomly ~~downloading~~ sampling a few songs from dc somewhere, i discovered that some songs were those i've always wanted to listened to!

first of all is lene marlin's "sitting down here". think i heard it when i was in sec sch when it was the theme song of some advert..

and the other cheesy song is "happy" by alexia.. it goes like this: "happy, sha la la, it's so nice to be happy.." and repeated countless times, but to me it's nice nonetheless, heh =)

since we're on the topic of songs, sidetracking abit - utada hikaru's "ultra blue" album is worth a listen to. yes, i don't know what she's singing about, but to heck with lyrics, i like the tune and her singing! this album is much much better than her previous "exodus"! if the title of her previous album hinted at her departing from her usual style, i'm glad to hear that she's back singing what she's best at =D

1/4 thru michealmas

2006-10-18T18:59:00.000+08:00

sch terms' started for 2 wks already, can't believe how tired i already feel!

the first week was more like a social week, attended cumas and cumsa squashes, cooked for kids (twice) and attended a delicious dinner courtesy of my generous scholarship organization =P

work started pouring in the second week - haven't penned any essays since june, so i had to overcome the urge of writing in conversational english (like what i'm doing now) and adopt a serious biologist tone. speaking about work, i really do feel that the lectures this year are of a much higher level than that of last year.. lectures about dna and the nucleus are rather cheem, and incorporates a lot of recent research.. they even want us to read through journals (haiz, what a chore) cos spoonfeeding's going to end real soon ><

i'm now going to labs 4 times a week (2 more than last year), and they do take up a lot of time.. although i'm taking one less subject this year, i still feel that i had more free time last year - heard from a senior that he has a very slacky timetable for his third year specialization, hope it applies to me next year as well haha =)

hmm can smell pizza from the oven in my kitchen, will makan now haha.

g1 pen

2006-10-16T16:37:00.000+08:00

i have a habit of spinning pens during lectures, and occassionally they do drop on the ground, and some even roll to the seat in front of me..

that happened to my g1 pen today, and being a *cough* gentleman, i decided to get my pen after the lecture.. and proceeded to forget all about it when my lecture ended.

now i have abt 25 g1 refills.. without a pen to refill it with. i have another lect in the same place in two days' time, hope my pen sits tight till i find it ><

EDIT: found it already. yayness :D

cookouts

2006-10-15T23:58:00.000+08:00

had a really really busy week - work's starting to pour in, while lectures are getting cheemer and cheemer. activities are also in full swing - there's no respite for returning students i guess..

anyway, as to welcome the new bunch of nat scis, i organised a mass cookout - it was my first time doing such a mega thing, it's good that i've learnt the procedures of booking a common room in magd (which included the continual email pestering of the person in charge of it), and that i shld never underestimate the amount of stuff to cook for 28 hungry people.. asking every second year to cook stuff with a portion size of 3 pple was a mistake, the correct figure should be about 10. (warning: maths. in one dinner, one person cooking for himself would cook like 3 dishes (of portion size 1), so if one wants to cook for 3 pple, one must cook one dish of portion size 9).

i had a pot of leftover rice, and as i didn't want to waste 5 cups worth of rice, i cooked fried rice (without any packet sauces) and treated 4 of my "kids".. i had to split the cooking into two batches cos of the sheer volume of the rice.. but in the end, it was edible enough to be completely finished by the 5 of us =P

need to catch up on sleep - tomorrow's gonna be a busy mugging day to complete 2 essays due on tue. *yawn*

power of camb chemistry

2006-10-10T17:45:00.000+08:00

during our chemistry b (aka organic) lecture today, the lecturer used sildenafil (more commonly known as viagra) to teach us about some key organic reactions..

.. and then he proudly declared that the invention was very much a cambridge thing - it was synthesised in the chemistry department in camb..

no wonder there's a "pfizer lecture theatre" here la.. probably to thank camb for their commercially-successful invention =)

note: i checked out wikipedia about it, but apparently it doesn't tally what my lecturer said.. hmmmmmmmmmm

not-so-ideal start to the year

2006-10-05T23:53:00.000+08:00

today was a rather !@#$% day for me - not only i forgot to set my alarm clock (i wound the metal thingy to the correct time, but i forgot to pull the top plastic thingy up), i ended up forgetting that i had to meet my chem supervisor in my haste to go to the next lecture (cdb).

haiz.

bicycle tyres

2006-10-02T20:36:00.000+08:00

although i've been back for a week, it was only until today that i finally decided to do something about my bike. my bike tyres were quite flat, as it hasn't been used for quite some time (its tyres were last pumped in.. february).

i borrowed the bicycle pump from the porter's lodge, and proceeded to unscrew the cap that sheathes the valve.. and i was faced with a rather odd valve, which looks like this:

it looked weird cos it was the first time i was dealing with this kind of valve, and at that time, i didn't know i was dealing with a different kind of valve. i stupidly unscrewed the top, and thus succeeded in deflating my tyre even more - it's now completely flat. i wasn't able to fit the bicycle pump over the valve after repeated tries, and i gave up after it.

that was when i went back to my room and did a google search about bicycle valves.. and found that there were actually two kinds of valves. the other one looks like this:

this is called the schrader valve (the previous one is a presta valve), the one which i think is more commonly found. no wonder the pump couldn't fit over the valve! took me 10 mins to figure it out.. grr.

now really dunno what to do with my flat tyre.. think i'll go buy a pump that fits over a presta valve..

culdt website

2006-09-29T16:35:00.000+08:00

if you have the time and don't mind reading random stuff, check this website that i just designed:

http://www.srcf.ucam.org/culdt/

this, and the fact that i've been bringing juniors around camb nearly everyday, is really making me really tired. *yawn*

back in camb!

2006-09-26T09:57:00.000+08:00

haha i think i was one of the first few undergrads of my college to come back from their long vac, so the college has been pretty quiet for the past few days..

some pics of my new room =D

view of my desk - there's a skylight above me, which means that the room is quite brightly lighted in the day, but not so at night.

the door, food cabinet and my bedroom (it's separate from the main room).

sofas! last year i had only two chairs and a wooden stool, this year's room is a great improvement over that haha.

view of my bedroom.

sigh, if the kitchen was as well-stocked as my previous year's, and if the shower point wasn't that far away from where i'm staying, i'd consider my room to be perfect haha =) but i think it only needs some getting used to - i bet i'll like this room as much as i liked my previous one when i eventually get used to it =D

third 13-hour flight

2006-09-23T14:51:00.000+08:00

the long vac's almost over, so is the validity of my 3-month flight ticket.. haha whenever i tell someone familiar with the camb system that i'm flying on 23rd, i almost always will be asked "why" in return. it's not that i dun wanna fly back later with friends, it's cos the price difference btw a 3-month ticket (600 pounds) and a 4-month one (700+) is rather significant, so i chose to return one week earlier and save on that 100 quid (in retrospect, i think having an extra week of accomodation in magd is about the same too haha, so i should have had bought the 4-month one).

will fly in 9 hours' time, hope there aren't any more repeats of the incident where a drunk had his ass hauled away last year, which successfully delayed my flight for 30 mins.. and i'm wishing fervently that no one's sitting beside me, so that i can have extra leg and arm space hahaha =)

keratosis pilaris

2006-09-21T23:59:00.000+08:00

i had been having small bumps at the underside of my arm for about 10 months, which wasn't itchy nor reddish, so i had been ignoring it for quite some time.. until yesterday, when my mom decided to let a skin specialist look at it.

basically he diagnosed my condition on one look - keratosis pilaris - and he prescribed a cream for me to apply over the affected areas.

after a bit of wiki-ing, i found an article about it, and it was rather surprising.

(copied directly from here)

Keratosis pilaris (KP) is a very common genetic follicular condition that is manifested by the appearance of rough bumps on the skin and hence colloquially referred to as "chicken skin". Primarily, it appears on the back and outer sides of the upper arms, but can also occur on thighs and buttocks or any body part except glabrous skin (like the palms or soles of feet). Worldwide, KP affects an estimated 40 to 50% of the adult population and approximately 50 to 80% of all adolescents. It is more common in women than in men. Varying in degree, cases of KP can range from minimal to severe.

There are several different types of keratosis pilaris, including keratosis pilaris rubra (red, inflamed bumps), alba (rough, bumpy skin with no irritation), rubra faceii (reddish rash on the cheeks) and related disorders.

Most people with keratosis pilaris do not know they carry it. While KP resembles goose bumps, it is characterized by the appearance of small rough bumps on the skin. As a result, it is often confused with acne.

Keratosis pilaris tends to occur as excess keratin, a natural protein in the skin, accumulates around hair follicles (process known as hyperkeratinization). Bearing only cosmetic consequence, the condition most often appears as a proliferation of tiny hard bumps that are seldom sore or itchy. Though people with keratosis pilaris experience this condition year round, it’s during the colder months when moisture levels in the air are lower that the problem can become exacerbated and the “goose bumps” are apt to look and feel more pronounced in color and texture.

There is no cure for Keratosis pilaris; treatments are largely symptomatic and must be repeated. Regardless, exfoliation, intensive moisturizing cremes, Retin-A, lac-hydrin, and medicated lotions containing alpha-hydroxy acids or urea may be used to temporarily improve the appearance and texture of affected skin. It seems coconut oil used on the affected areas during showers benefits a lot, and in some cases, can even make KP disappear.[citation needed]

Wearing clothing that is looser around the affected areas can also help reduce the marks, as constant chafing from clothing (such as tight fitting jeans) is similar to repeatedly scratching the bumps.

Keratosis pilaris often improves with age, and can even disappear completely by middle-age. Some, however, will have keratosis pilaris for life.

Scratching and picking at KP bumps causes them to redden, swell, and even multiply. In some cases, they will bleed and/or scar. (oh no ><)

one month in hk: prologue

2006-09-20T15:10:00.000+08:00

besides working *cough* diligently in the office, i do take advantage of my weekends to travel around hk.. why else would i go there to work, if not to explore and live a hk life? =)

first of all, some pics of the place i called home for a month:

i really have no complaints about the service apartment they booked for me.. the word "condo" doesn't exist there, so it can be rather misleading to a sporean if i said that i stayed in an apartment.. it's more like a condo than an apartmnet lah haha. my room is rather well equipped, u can see a stove in the background, there's a fridge hidden in the biggest cupboard, an attached bathroom..

.. tv, sofa, a double bed (was it the company's intention for me to..? =P). i later checked out the website of the apartment i was staying in, and to my shock, i found out there were four types of rooms, and i happened to stay in the most expensive type, with a rent of hk$9,600! (approx s$1 = hk$4.60, rm1 = hk$2) in comparison, my pay for a month's work wasn't even half of that!

view out of my window.. sort of proves my "1 apartment, 1 aircon" theory =) btw, my room didn't have a fan, so basically my aircon was on whenever i was in my room.. that's why i didn't find it surprising to know that hk is #4 in the world's in terms of electricity consumption per capita.

the reception area downstairs. btw, i found out that service apartments are rather common.. the way to differentiate between a normal apartment for residents and a service apartment is the presence of this reception area (i think) haha.

view of chun yeong street, where my apartment is located. it's actually an outdoor market in the morning haha, that's why i am greeted with a distinctive fishy smell whenever i leave my apartment for work =)

this is how it looks in the evening, pic taken from the upper deck of a tram =)

i can assure you that trams is part of the unique hk experience - it's not only popular among tourists, but even more among the locals! the trams charge a flat fare of hk$2 per ride, very much cheaper than taking the mtr! (a ride on the mtr for one stop costs hk$3.80, i know that cos my working place is one mtr stop away from the mtr stop near my place haha) needless to say, after taking the mtr for 2 wks, i switched to trams entirely to travel to work after i realised how -cheap- they were haha. tramlines are only found on the northern regions of hong kong island, so when traveling in kowloon / new territories / lantau island, i had to find other means of cheap transport haha.

some pics of trams:

taken outside central mtr station (central is the cbd of hk, so whenever you see pics of tall tall hk buildings, chances are these buildings are in central)

pic of tram at the tram stop. the tram stop is similar to a bus stop, only elongated and much narrower cos these stops are built ON roads. sometimes cars are allowed to travel on tramlines - in parts of wan chai, the main road only has one lane for both cars and trams.. as trams are rather slow, i wonder how it feels like driving behind a tram - must be quite exasperating haha.

akan datang: pics from my weekly excursions haha, this is just a prologue mar =P

backkkk!!

2006-09-14T21:25:00.000+08:00

i had a rather interesting trip back to ipoh =)

after lunch, i quickly went to collect my paycheck, but what i thought was a hit-and-run errand became a rather protracted one cos i ended up chatting to the person who gave me the paycheck, cos she was asking me abt what i felt abt my work attachment (and she was rather friendly too haha).. it was rather troublesome cashing my cheque - not only i had to walk to a hsbc branch which was like 10 mins walk from my office, i had to queue up for another 10. not cashing the cheque wasn't an option (for obvious reasons) so i had to wait patiently..

and then after reaching my apartment, i had a quick shower and ~~packed~~ shoved all my stuff - i had to help import lion dance paraphernelia back to camb, so on top of my own stuff i had to somehow (miraculously) shove in 20 t-shirts and 800 cards..

as it was raining cats and dogs - typhoon warning 3 and amber rainstorm warning (hk has this system of classifying how heavy their thunderstorms were.. typhoon warnings have a max of 10, and rainstorms come in three colours - yellow, amber and black, in order of severity. dun ask me how there can be a yellowish/reddish rainstorm) - it was no wonder that traffic progressed much slower than normal.. so the trip to the airport, which i thought would take an hour, took an hour and a half. i rushed to the check-in counter upon arrival, but it turned out i wasn't that late cos the flight was delayed by 30 mins. erps.

and thanks to the weather, when we eventually seated ourselves in the plane at 7pm, we were told our departure would be further delayed by 30 mins. grr. but nvm, they compensated by screening x-men 3, which i haven't watched previously haha.

the worst thing was that i missed the 1230am bus to ipoh >< other methods of transporting myself 300km north of where i landed were rather pricey, so i had to wait for the morning bus..

with 9 hours to burn, i devoured half of the jinyong novel that i brought with me, which i haven't touched at all previously (i love my foresight) =); attempted to sleep for four hours and getting bit by bedbugs (yes, i learnt through the hard way that there are bedbugs in the cushioned seats at klia, ouch); was frozen by the aircon arnd 5am cos i was sleeping a few paces from the outlet; and then eating breakfast at a shop near the bus terminal arnd 8am.

it was a smooth ride back to ipoh, with the exception of having the bus stopped by a police officer and seeing the bus driver getting fined (dunno for what reason, cos i was sleeping during most of the ride haha).

better make the best of my time in ipoh.. 10 days only before i fly back to camb!

last day of work

2006-09-13T12:08:00.000+08:00

everything that has a start must end sometime (not sure about the universe though haha)..

after working for 4.5 weeks here, i'll be jobless again in half an hour's time; getting my paycheck in three; flying back to kl in six and a half; and eventually reaching back home in about fourteen.

time to go around the office and give out small presents to my co-workers..

peculiarities of hk's tv

2006-09-12T17:40:00.000+08:00

haha after watching one month of hk's tv, i feel i'm at least qualified to pass comment on it =)

for tvb pearl, they have an odd way of proclaiming which company was the main sponsor of a particular show. for instance, sony bmg is the sponsor of "play it loud", hence the announcement goes like this:

"sony bmg's 'play it loud' is brought to you by..
*pause*
*announcer catches his breath*
*pindrop silence*
..sony bmg." (duh! who else, pfizer?)

and the main sponsorships do fairly accurately reflect the interests of the sponsors. for instance, "countdown to beijing olympics" is sponsored by omega, "science minutes" by delia memorial school (taikoo shing branch) and "alias" is proudly sponsored by.. bmw =P

(btw, am i the only one who think it's weird when SCHOOLS advertise themselves on tv? there were students proudly proclaiming that it's fun going to school in the advert - how convincing is that? haha)

also, the prevalence of one certain marketing technique is rather obvious.

how to sell face makeup? maybelline uses zhang ziyi as their selling point.

how to sell hair dye? l'oreal, gong li.

what about office space? no problem, pacific place happens to have a few models who prance around the office - does that mean blue-collared workers have a chance to bump into these beautiful ladies on their way to work if their benevolent employers decide to set up office in that place?

even luxury apartments? yep, the grand waterfront hires the 2004 miss universe, jennifer hawkins, as the ambassador for the project.. does the advert portray what high class living is about? erm, nope. but it does make good eye candy for a minute, though. (btw, the media blitz is not just limited to tv - buses and trams are painted with larger-than-life ms hawkins smiling.. who wouldn't if they're getting a big cheque for it?)

nonetheless, i still like hk's tv hahaha.

museums in hk

2006-09-11T18:02:00.000+08:00

visited four museums - hk heritage museum, museum of art, space museum and science museum - over the past weekend.. wanted to visit a fifth (museum of history) but it was closed at 6pm, haiz. the museum of history is actually just beside the science museum, which closes at 9pm, so if i had planned correctly, i would have visited the museum of history before the science museum..

overall the museums were okay, but i always felt that the museums were very small - any one section of the louvre is bigger than most of the museums that i visited. but precisely because of the compact-ness and the diversity of subject matter, i didn't get bored that quickly (anyone who tried reading all the inscriptions of the paintings in the louvre for an hour will get what i mean).

i noticed that most of the exhibits were from rather recent times - most exhibits come from the past few centuries, so unlike european museums where art galleries sport paintings from the renaissance. what i saw in the hk art museum was quite different from european museums - the former had a mix of european and "chinese" stuff (eg calligraphy, jade pieces), while the latter almost always focused on european stuff. i do admit that i haven't been to that many museums to draw such a definite conclusion, but that's just what i feel lah..

i liked the science museum because of the abundance of hands-on exhibits, but i was kind of annoyed by the large noisy crowd in there.. parents seem to equate science museums to playgrounds - i often see kids streaking around me and screaming their lungs out, and their parents seem oblivious to the din their kids are causing. yes, i know kids are excited easily, but at least teach them how to behave themselves in a museum laaaaa.. and some kids can be plain rude - when i was playing some of the hands-on exhibitions (hey, that's why i was there in the first place =) some kids just walk up and start messing around with what i was playing, and their parents were just a few steps away! these kids are of course few and far between, but it's enough to make me lament the dearth of etiquette in today's kids (man, i do sound old haha). grr.

oh ya, i had a shock in the space museum, something which is not related to the crowd there. i tried out the moon-walk exhibit there (the machinery is similar to that used in rock-climbing, but it supports only 5/6 of ur weight), and as it can be used by pple within 40-80kg, i had to weigh myself on an electronic balance.. and i was stunned when i saw the first digit to be a SEVEN. i always thought i was abt 65kg! ><

nonetheless, museums in hk are worth going, but not when there's a big crowd in those places..

one more week

2006-09-07T18:04:00.000+08:00

work's been so-so these days, am in the midst of doing quite a number of ad-hoc stuff.. completed a write-up on how my company was supporting the clean air charter in hk, and before that, reviewed and suggested improvements to the company's websites - not just the hk one but also the china one (apparently they have two different websites "to cater for the different business cultures of both places". okay lor). just finished helping my supervisor guess-timate the budget for the cdo's travels haha.

there was a guy who replaced my cpu today (long story about why he did so), but when i requested that he install firefox into my workstation, he promptly made me a super-user with administrator rights. my eyes nearly popped out when i saw him doing that - i couldn't believe that my simple request automatically made me that trustworthy! (*cough* OF COURSE i am trustworthy la).. this happened just when i was grumbling inwardly about my inability to change basic settings, for instance changing the amount of time elapsed for my monitor to automatically switch off =) and before that, all the icons and menu options were all in traditional chinese (grr), and now it's back to english.. woohoo =D think it's something significant when you spend nearly 7.5 hrs on the pc everyday - simple stuff like language settings do actually make my life a whole lot simpler =)

can't believe i get happy that easily hahaha.. one more week to go!

two crazy days

2006-09-05T17:43:00.000+08:00

the past two days had been rather.. eventful haha.

on sunday, i went with a group of friends to macau.. the five of us met at 9am, and then proceeded to buy ferry tickets.. the ferry used in carrying passengers to macau isn't the normal, rock-until-you-feel-nauseous type of ferries - it's a hoverferry, which is much more stable and faster than the normal ferry. of course, such a luxury comes at a price (of hk$150).

on landing, we made a beeline to the most famous tourist attraction - the 大三巴 (ruins of st paul's cathedral).. which turned out to be "like that lor". seriously, there's nothing that special about it, besides it being a delicately ornamented wall. it's amazing how a burned down cathedral could still pull the crowds that other intact cathedrals couldn't..

there were so many biscuit shops and bak kwa shops in the vicinity of the 大三巴, and we couldn't resist buying something from the shops around there.. they were pretty generous in giving out free samples of their biscuits, which acted as a crowd puller cos i bet no one could resist freebies haha =) however, i got rather pissed with the bak kwa sellers who would cut a small piece of the bak kwa they were holding to, offer it to you, while serenading you with "special offers" from their shops (unlike the biscuit shops, which you could just take a free sample without getting saliva in your ear).. needless to say, i avoided them like the plague.

after that, we went to have a meal at one of the more famous restaurants in macau (can't remember the name though haha).. ordered 猪扒包, 蟹粥, beef noodles and fried wantons and then shared it amongst us.. some were easy to share, but it got rather tricky when it came to dividing the noodles. the meal was quite delicious without being exceedingly expensive. btw, the shops in macau (at least those situated at touristy area) accept hkd in place of mop (macau pataca), which was good cos mop$1 is slightly more expensive in value than hk$1.

after visiting the city hall, we decided to pay the good ol' lisboa casino a visit.. was greeted with a gust of cigarette smoke upon entering the betting grounds. as most of the games there require minimum bids of hk$50 (yes, all bets are in hkd and not mop) and hkd$100, so we proceeded to the slot machines (which were really inaccessible, mebbe cos it's not that lucrative?).. i changed hk$20 into 10 hk$2 coins, and then proceeded to lose all of them in one go (out of my 10 tries, i actually won only once - a measly sum of hk$2).. one of my friends was luckier - she was at one time hk$10 up, but proceeded to lose her winnings and stopped betting when she lost her winnings.. another friend of mine stopped when he lost hk$10. haha i wonder how the casino would profit if most of their clients were people like us.

after the casino trip, we went over to the fisherman's wharf, and was greeted with a man-made monstrosity.. from the name, one would imagine a peaceful harbour with boats rocking gently amongst rolling waves, but no. it's a collection of buildings which try to imitate famous sights around the world, for instance the roman amphitheatre and 唐城. was really disgusted by the utter fakeness ><

went to eat at a icecream shop selling new zealand icecream nearby, 6 scoops came up to hk$70. not bad.

as some of my friends had dinner plans, we took the 630pm ferry back to hk.. had the feeling of getting cheated out of my money - not just the hk$20 at the casino (grr), but most importantly the utter fakeness of macau. what's so nice about their attractions anyway? the only salvagable point is their food, which i must say is quite affordable (by hk standards) and nice.

we planned to meet after dinner to sing at a ktv.. initially apprehensive cos i never had such an experience, but peer pressure works wonders haha. i have to say it was a rather pleasant experience, even though i actually SANG in the company of others (cos usually i try to spare my friends from my not-exactly-very-melodious singing).. however, the hidden costs for fruits and drinks were quite scary - we never expected it to be pretty expensive! ouch.

as mtrs stop running past 1am, i was eventually driven home by my friend.. at 245am. didn't realise time passed faster when one belted songs out.

needless to say, i left my bed with great reluctance that morning, in the end reaching my office slightly *cough* late. but since my supervisor was off on leave, i was less *cough* productive that day haha.

then after work, i met up with a friend to visit a colleague of ours who had just given birth to a pretty tiny girl.. never realised how tiny a newborn is. as i decided to cook cos i felt bad about my spending spree on the previous day, i had my dinner at 9pm.. and plopped into bed shortly after.

back to my usual productivity today, even managing to cram in 45 mins of blogging time in my working hours =) hey, i finished what i was supposed to do and wasn't assigned extra stuff, to be fair..

lalala working hours over, will be heading back soon..

random trip

2006-09-02T19:11:00.000+08:00

was feeling rather bored this morning, so i randomly decided to travel to tai o, a place at lantau island, cos it was featured in the hk brochure that i had, and oso cos it was rather far and ulu-ated - i wanted to see the other face of hong kong..

i didn't expect the traveling time to be that #!*@% long, but it was really worth it.. took a tram (cheap but really slow) to the ferry pier at central, and then took a ferry to lantau island.. there was an alternative way - take the mtr - but i wanted to see the sights of hk and save money, hence the longer, indirect route haha.

i wasn't disappointed. it was a nice change of scenery, where green is the dominant colour instead of the concrete grey i see daily during weekdays. the air was distinctly cleaner - makes me realise how serious the air pollution situation is on hk island (recently it was reported in the news that more than half of the expat population here considered leaving hk bcos of the dirty air), and i got to see houses on stilts, obscured temples; and i experienced a very adrenaline-inducing bus ride (cos tai o wasn't exactly near the jetty i landed) - lantau island is rather hilly, and the width of the roads there do remind me of camb, where buses perform their miraculous cornerings with good tyres and a dose of luck. initially i thought the hk$10 bus fare was kind of steep, but since it was 30 mins long and as exciting as a rollercoaster ride (saves me a trip to disneyland haha), it was really worth it =D

however, i feel it's kinda ironic when a fishing village is designated as a tourist attraction, but if it wasn't one, i wouldn't have known about it from the brochure.

going to macau tmr, whee =) and am leaving the central library now - my stomach's grumbling, and apprentice is on at 830pm later on tvb pearl haha.

happy bday, msia!

2006-08-31T17:27:00.000+08:00

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!

trivia factoids

2006-08-29T17:21:00.000+08:00

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..

weekend #2 in hk

2006-08-28T17:22:00.000+08:00

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

waste treatment plant visit

2006-08-23T15:51:00.000+08:00

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

crystal jade

2006-08-21T17:14:00.000+08:00

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.

a sunday with an internet connection

2006-08-20T15:53:00.000+08:00

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 =)

end of first wk of work

2006-08-18T17:12:00.000+08:00

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 =)

signs of globalization

2006-08-17T13:53:00.000+08:00

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 =)

withdrawal effects

2006-08-16T11:40:00.000+08:00

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?

my first day =)

2006-08-14T18:05:00.000+08:00

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

in 24 hrs' time..

2006-08-12T12:26:00.000+08:00

.. 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 =)

msn

2006-08-08T21:01:00.000+08:00

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..

one more week..

2006-08-07T11:07:00.000+08:00

.. 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 =)

preaching the word

2006-08-01T23:00:00.000+08:00

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 =)

being a pirate

2006-07-31T16:01:00.000+08:00

i never knew being able to read chinese was an asset - it's not that hard to be a pirate online, but it would be much easier if you could read chinese =)

gotta love the immorality of some chinese websites =D

on budget airlines

2006-07-26T21:23:00.000+08:00

since flying by air was of comparable price as that of taking a bus down south to spore, i decided to give airasia a shot - i have to admit, the prospects of reaching spore in a fraction of time i used to spend was pretty attractive..

well, on the whole, the airasia flight i was on wasn't that different from those i took in europe - but of course, there were still some things worth noting =) for instance, there were a couple of interesting announcements when i was on the flight..

before we got off the ground: "smoking is prohibited in the aircraft", and, mebbe as an afterthought, "there are smoke detectors in the toilet.."

when the aircraft started cruising: "this aircraft adopts a 'no outside food' policy, food and drinks are available at reasonable rates.." rm3 for a cup of hot milo? yeah right.

when the aircraft experienced turbulence: "we are going through a bad weather, would all passengers go back to their seats and put on their seatbelts.." never knew that weather can be quantified - it's so hot right now, i wish i could have a rain soon =)

before the plane touched down: "passengers are reminded that the stealing of life jackets is a serious offence.." -______-"

hmm on hindsight, mebbe there were similar announcements on the ryanair and easyjet flights i took to various destinations in europe, but since i could at most understand half of what they were saying (cos when i flew to germany, they used german on top of english; to france, french; etc etc), i may have missed similar announcements =)

also, on both my flights, i reached my destination 15 minutes earlier than expected - "expected" being 60 minutes long - hmm do speed tickets apply to aircrafts also? =) haha not that i'm complaining, i'm more than happy to be able to reach my destinations earlier =)

weekend excursion

2006-07-22T11:21:00.000+08:00

will be in spore for the weekend, yayness =) i'll be taking a flight from ipoh to senai cos the cost of a budget airplane tix is comparable to that of a bus tix, so hopefully i land there in one piece eh =)

new member

2006-07-15T23:58:00.000+08:00

ordered it online last sat, delivered to my doorstep on thurs. yay =)

this replaces my previous 3-year old laptop, which lags like mad. sigh. should have had the foresight to buy more ram then, which would have extended its lifespan by a year or more. but now, i'm not complaining anymore =P

world cup finals

2006-07-10T22:03:00.000+08:00

"it's once every 4 years" - my perfect excuse for staying up late =) it was the only match that i watched from start till end, there were some other matches that i watched but got bored / interrupted before i could finish haha.

since the teams i supported exited well before the semis, i watched the game without favouring either team.. thought italy was the better team before the game, but after watching it, felt that both teams were quite evenly matched. thank goodness for the attacking football, especially in the first half, else i'd be nodding off..

slept at 5am and eventually woke up at 2pm. for once, i managed to have an excuse to lie in bed past 9am, my usual (forced) waking time =)

breakdown of tripos results

2006-07-09T22:23:00.000+08:00

after bugging my dos twice, i finally got my results emailed to me.. after eagerly downloading the file and quickly reading through the row of digits and percentages, i felt my ego expanding, but it got pricked really quickly after that. ouch.

biggest surprise: getting quite good results for chem. left one or two portions (stupid thermodynamics) blank, but still got overall score of ~78%. without chem, i'd be kissing my first goodbye.

biggest disappointment: of getting shitty scores in QB (aka maths). thot it was THE SUBJECT that was supposed to pull me up, not chem.

whatever lar, next stage is deciding on what subjects to take next year..

random bits

2006-07-05T22:50:00.000+08:00

haha been following the same ritual everyday for the past few days - wake up, eat breakfast, read papers, play games, eat lunch, play games, slack abit, eat dinner, slack more, and sleep... feel kinda sian already hahaha =) my hols are always like that - i will look forward to it when it's approaching, but once it starts i wish i would have more stuff to do to fill up my time MEANINGFULLY..

thank goodness my parents just applied for a broadband connection - i can never live on dialup anymore i think - but of course the broadband here is nowhere as fast as the one i was used to in college, nor can it ever compare to singapore broadband speeds.. still, it's a marked improvement over dialup =P

haha i realised i still haven't posted pics from my rome trip, should have done it before i left for home cos it's much faster uploading pics using the connection i have in uk.. nvm lah i'll post it 3 months late, when i eventually get back to uk =)

shall go read a book now.. after i finish answering the 5 blinking msn windows =)

yayness

2006-06-30T23:52:00.000+08:00

i got a first! yay =) i knew that after checking FIVE times for it, cos we were told that the results would be released on the 29th but not what time it will be out.. felt so irritated by the system.. grrrrrrrrrrr.

but considering the fact that 20% of the cohort got the same thing, it's not something that i should shout about hahaha.. right now i'm really curious about the breakdown of my results - i only know that i got a first, but not my rank, the marks for my papers etc. but some other pple know theirs alr. dammit.

shall bug my dos! =D

all gone

2006-06-28T23:26:00.001+08:00

my head feels lighter now after the loss of about 70g of keratin (and dandruff).. =)

haha my blogging frequency is dropping to quite low levels recently, not because i dun have internet connection, but simply cos i dun have things to blog abt.. hmmmmm

backkkkkkkkkkkk

2006-06-27T09:28:00.000+08:00

after a 3 hour bus ride, followed by a 12.5 hour plane ride that made my ass hurt like hell, and another 3 hour bus ride, i finally reached back home 2 days ago..

life has since settled into a reassuring routine - eat, eat, more eating and sleeping.. life is good! haha =)

packing

2006-06-23T22:04:00.000+08:00

this was the end-of-year ritual that i was dreading.. it took me one entire day to clear my room! seriously, i never expected my room had so much junk in it!

my room, halfway thru packing (it's really empty now cos i've almost finished packing)

the amount of cereal i eat in a term =) i keep the boxes cos they may come in handy, and oso cos i wanted to recycle them, so i keep them separate from other trash. it accumulated cos i was too lazy to bring the boxes down to the recycling corner =P

daybreak

2006-06-23T03:01:00.000+08:00

after playing 3 hrs of dota, we finally called it quits at ~2.45am.. one glance out of the window was sufficient to send me scurrying for my camera =)

chio right? =P pic taken ~2.55am.. can't believe the sun rises so early nowadays!

sibeh shag

2006-06-20T22:49:00.000+08:00

flew back from rome on the 10pm flight from rome two days ago.. but apparently when we landed, because of some yet undiscovered reason (system failure mebbe), bun and i had to queue for abt 1 hr before we could clear the customs.. grr. good thing our bus to camb came after 5 mins of waiting (it comes every 50 mins, so we were really tyco).

i then had to wake up early in the morning to go for lion dance training, cos we were going to perform for trinity's may ball (may ball = parties held in JUNE after exams by certain colleges.. those that don't have may balls may have spring balls, which are held in spring; or snow balls, which are held in winter).. our performance was not bad, though bcos i ponned so many trainings cos i went to rome, i clanged the cymbals only.

then today, i had to wake up early AGAIN to work in st john's may ball as a set up worker.. met bun and hk at 8am, and we ended work only at 7pm (we were supposed to end by 6pm, but being really nice, we stayed back and worked a bit more.. and also, we had to wait 20 mins for our paychecks to come ><)

that's why i'm really tired now. *yawn*

will post rome pics tmr mebbe =)

post exam chill out

2006-06-14T04:05:00.001+08:00

haha i never expected that chilling out at a friend's room after lion dance would end up in me going back to my own room at 3:30am =) after getting a long-needed bath, while waiting for my hair to dry, i decided to take a picture of the outside skies..

it's sooooo serene outside - birds are twittering already, and also, i noticed that i'm not the only one awake at this hour too =)

haha better sleep now, else i'll wake up past noon today =D