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in shenzhen

my client invited us to shenzhen to attend a conference on monday. they put us up at a luxury hotel where the conference was being held. it was pure bliss. i rang joa, who was nursing a sprained ankle at home, and told him that i'd finally found where i belong. he snapped back and said i shd stay on and never return.

i didnt get to see much of shenzhen. all i know is that the roads are clean and there's lush tropical greenery everywhere just like singapore. in fact, it was the first time i saw palm trees in china! the conference was plain boring so i snuck back to the hotel room after the first hour to nap.

we ate lots of cantonese food. and it was a good respite from the northern oily and salty palate that i'm still not used to. '粤菜' they call it, taste close to home. lots of ginger and garlic flavour, shrimp sauce, salty fish ... e-fu noodle, char siew pau ... all my favourite things!

breakfast was a spread. pancake, crepes, waffles, french toast, sausages, hashbrown, porridge, cereal, fruits, muffins, and so much more. i had a soak in the jacuzzi spa in my hotel room with the TV in the toilet on. i rang up the concierge and made silly requests just to have the chamber ladies run up to my room to deliver more shampoo, fruits and water.

saw the picture above? that's not a beach. that's the swimming pool in the hotel that is actually a mini man-made beach with a life-size ship squirting water in the day and is a pub/bar at night.

me in the tub!

i'm not cheering on.

this was scribbled on a dust-smeared rear window of a van.

cousins and friends have told me that they were trying to look out for me on tv every time they catch a broadcast of an Olympic event. it was sweet of them to be reminded of me as they watch live happenings of what's really going on around me. the thing is, no i wasn't at the opening ceremony, and neither was i at the table-tennis finals when singapore won the silver medal, and no, i haven't attended a single sport event and doubt i will at all.

the truth is, it's very regrettable. and even though joa's absolutely keen to watch a basketball game with the US team playing, and i did get a free ticket to the hockey semi (AU vs UK) yesterday which i didn't go, but that was the closest we got.

we did contemplate buying tix of the black market, but these tix would cost at least S$120. the cheaper ones would be events that we're totally not interested in: sports like boxing. so we just made do watching them off the tv. but then it occured to me last night after joa had mentioned that cctv channels only broadcasted events when there was a china team playing.

so yes, other than seeing the streets unusually litter-free, being given a free china flag at the grocery shops, and people on the streets chanting "中国加油", nothing's quite different. it's hard. i mean, since forever, singapore has never made it anywhere in the Olympics. so this is the first, and before this, Olympics have always been something that was far-fetched, impossible and nothing to do with our puny island.

today's wednesday. after work, there's no gym, no badminton, and no kookas, so joa and i decided to hit town in the evening, have a nice dinner and shop among the glitz of the city. plus i want to check out the Olympic souvenir shop and boots for winter.

random complains

work is boring ass these days. i seem to have lost the enthusiasm to write anymore proposals. all i want to do at work is to reply emails, chat with friends and watch a video. i get frustrated when i'm called to meetings that waste too much time and people who hold their nationalism even in copy slogans. hate cliches like 'a win-win future', 'a boundary-less world for a boundary-less future'.

that's my desk. and nathan, my american colleague and mentor who sits opposite.

tuesdays badminton

joa loves to play badminton on tuesdays with some of our friends. but it's far and it's a weekday. plus i dun really get to play becos i'm bad at ball games so i'm not keen.

we got into a fight about it last week. and i'm tired of arguing about it week after week. so we came to an agreement that he'd go every 2nd week.

today happens to be the week he wouldn't play but a friend asked so he was contemplating. he asked and i reminded him of the agreement. it wasn't so much about whether i'd have to spend a lonely time at the gym. it was just about him honouring our agreement. it took me 2 email replies to assure him that i wasn't upset and he cd go if he wanted. eventually, he decided that he'd prefer to honour our agreement. and reading his email, i felt almost too proud.

so it got me thinking that maybe i shd take badminton more seriously so i can play with him every week. but what's more impt here is us learning to give and take.

gym tonight. *smiles*

hotpot

i'm starting to enjoy beijing hotpot. disliked it the first 4 times i had it. beijing hotpot is boiling lamb, veg, potato, vermicelli in tasteless herbal broth and dipping it in sesame sauce. now that i'm taking to sesame sauce, i'm starting to enjoy the local hotpot now. still, nothing beats my mum's steamboat.

btw, this is mika, my housemate from poland. finally, i have a pic with her.

2008 olympic games opening day

it was only on my way out to work that i realised i'd forgotten to take my camera along with me so i can take pictures of the day of the "once-in-a-lifetime festival" in China.

i'd been meaning to take pictures of the decoration landscape plants, the city voluteers, and the unusually clean and empty streets. today, the streets i tread on everyday were at their tip-top condition. there were few cars and few people. the traffic even stopped to let pedestrian cross during the green man light. strange.

i came to work as usual. even though today is a stipulated public holiday. my HR announced that today would be considered an annual leave day since the rule didnt apply to private enterprises. i didn't think it was fair, and so i 'applied' to resume work. so here i am, alone in the office. trying to decide what to do for the opening tonight.

it's going to be a crazy nite. sitting in the empty office i already feel the anticipation of tonight's opening ceremony. everyone's asking around where's everyone heading to. a bunch of friends are going to the park to watch. and joa's keen to go becos there doesnt seem to be any where else. but i'm hesitant at the thought of the crowd, the heat, 3-hours out sitting on the grass, and the trouble we'd be going thru getting in and out of the park.

heading home for a quiet night in front of the tv seems to entice me. but of cos i dun want to miss out on the party fun. so yes, i tink we're prolly gonna head out. and maybe i will take my camera with me.

suddenly i feel happy to be in beijing. yesterday joa said the day has finally come. the day we've been anticipating, to be part of the olympics is finally here. we're right here, in the midst of all the action. quite exciting really. and i didn't think i'd ever feel this way but i do, right now.

beijing welcomes you. and for once, i tink the country has really put up its best form to welcome the visitors. this is indeed the best time to be in beijing. although i dread all the security checks at the subway. but i like it that at least the city is almost clean, has less crowd and is at least quite a pretty sight to see.

just received a call from my colleague. it seems i can head home for the day. woohoo!

bizzare news

my favourite part in the english paper is CHINASCENE. it reports snippets of interesting news published by small-town publications in the country. often the stories of the countryfolks are so bizzare that i'm amused to a point i laugh it like a joke. but they're true stories.

i selected a few of my favourite ones in yesterday's papers:

Husband robs wife to repay gambling debts
Li Yinqu, 32, was taken to court on Wednesday in Huixiang county, Henan province for a public hearing of the charge of robbing his wife Lu Li to repay his gambling debts.
Li owed his fellow villager Wang Lei 900 yuan (S$180). When Li's wife Lu refused to help him repay the amount, Li decided to disguise himself as a mugger and rob her.
Li, wearing a mask, attached his wife with a baton on the evening of May 19 as she rode home on her motorcycle. He was detained after Lu reported the incident to police the next day.
Li made a full confession in court, and awaits its ruling.

Reconciliation plea makes splash in local paper
A young man's half page advertisement on the front page of a local newspaper last Wednesday pleading wiht his former girlfriend for a reconciliation has stirred a controversy among locals in Changsha, Hunan province.
Certain readers applaud this romantic gesture; others deplore it as extravagant.
The newspaper does not reveal the advertiser's identity, mentioning only that he is in his 20s and the son of a local businessman. This romantic gesture cost around 100,000 yuan (S$20,000).

Paranoid younger brother goes on a stabbing spree
A young man surnamed Ding was arrested on Monday for inflicting serious injuries on three members of his elder brother's family.
Ding's brother invited him for dinner on June 21 at his courtyard home intheir village nearby Lishu, a county in Jilin province. When, after returning home, Ding began to feel ill, he thought that his brother and his family had poisoned him.
Acting upon his suspicion, Ding took a knife and returned to the courtyard, where he viciously stabbed his brother's family members before fleeing the scene of the crime.

Police drawn into marriage fee dispute
Police officers at Chengnan police sub-staion in Wenchang, Hainan province, have recently become involved in a dispute over the payment aspect of a marriage contract.
A 70-year-old man surnamed Liang claims to have been duped by a woman surnamed Wu, 21, whom he met last year through a matchmaker. Liang promised to pay Wu 80,000 yuan (S$16,000) upon her agreement to marry him, and both parties signed a contract to his effect.
Liang says Wu disappeared after he had paid her the agreed amount.
Wu, meanwhile, argues that Liang is the guilty party because he paid her only 42,000 yuan, almost half of the amount ageed.
Wu explained her side of the story to police, who were willing to mediate between the two parties. Liang, however, refused to argue the matter out with her at the police station.
Police at Chengnan sub-station have consequently been unable to start a file on the case.

Official dissuades couple from suicidal jump
Huang Dagong, deputor director of a public security bureau in Lanzou, capital of Gansu province, spent one hour dissuading a man and woman from their intent to commit suicide on Monday morning.
Local police arrived on the scene after receiving a report about a middle-aged couple threatening to jump off a bridge over the Yellow River. Huang came within speaking distance of the pair and reasoned with them for more than one hour until the couple agreed not to jump and, with the help of firefighters, got down from the 10-m high pier.

bad mood

i think that fellow colleague saw that i wasn't paying attention and deprived me of my mystery gift. so now everyone else has either an hermes handphone strap, a coach keyring and i have nil. i tried to sound her out about it but she brushed me off in a most hostile way. wat a bitch.

took up my entire lunch hour and the least she cd do was to give me the gift i deserve. i shdn't be this petty and normally i wdn't. just tat i'm in a real lousy mood today and i want everything that was initially promised! F***!

stupid, stupid.

i'm once again at a point where i find myself unmotivated to work. it's not so much of feeling disappointed towards a superior who spoke too quickly of a career progression, rather i feel out of place and disoriented with my portfolio.

i'm writing this at a meeting. a fellow worker has taken up our lunch hour to present a workshop on retail luxury brands. the problem with being singaporean is that i'm so used to a structure that explains why i have to do things and the problem with being chinese is that they are used to not explaining why they make you do things. so i'm sitting here, with a piece of pizza, some cheese sticks and a coke that they'd supplied for lunch, totally clueless what is going on and enduring the mundane video clips while wishing i'm somewhere else. so i secretly blog.

but of course, it isn't as bad i ramble. we will all receive a mystery gift.

we won't be moving to shanghai afterall. the big boss is optimistic about PR business in beijing and the VP has assured me that there will be opportunties here too. it's a letdown. but i know i will get over it. i just need to mull over it, sulk about it, and eventually see the good in it. so ignore me while i pout, whinge and go all moody.

the weather sucks. i hope it rains all through the olympics. i want to storm out of the meeting room now, head to macdonald's and eat a lot of fries.

i'll be fine. i just need time.

happy 27th birthday

i had my wish this year: a big chocolate cake (albeit it was really blackforest). but it was a cosy dinner with friends even though the central air-conditioning in the restaurant was too warm. i finally had pancakes. stack of 3 with a sausage patty and two sunny-side ups.

just before bed time, joa casually mentioned that he had a little surprise planned. he was grinning all the time so i decided not to probe and let him work it out at his plan.

at 12.04am. joa nudged me firmly. i was already fast asleep and tried to brush him off but then he held up a little chocolate pudding cake from beard papa - i could see he had microwaved it so the pudding had spilled over the top and had stuck a candle. he started singing 'Happy Birthday', kissed me all over my face, pushed the plate of cake into my hands and said he was going to get the camera. all the time i was still in my lying down position, perched on one elbow and trying hard not to drift back to sleep. so i rejected to take the picture and tried to go back to sleep but then he put a little brown paper bag in my hand and said it was his gift and he wasn't sure if i'd like it but he thought i did when i first saw it. it was a pair of earrings and i had a hard time trying to make out its shape becos my eyes were blurry. thinking that i didnt like his surprise, he got quite disappointed. i assured him that i was just really tired, gave him a quick thank-you kiss and went back to sleep.

we had planned to spend the day at Happy Valley. i was really looking forward to it becos i figured it wd be a good de-stress for joa too. but it rained heavily in the morn and i was having the runs. so joa decided that we'd go to the aquarium instead.

it was disappointing although we did enjoy the huge, enormous fish. but the experience just didnt justify the admission fee becos the premise was really small. we wanted to catch a movie but i fell really sick on the bus so we got off, hoped into a cab and headed home. at night we had porridge buffet on guijie. not great.

on the whole, this year was a blast. most importantly becos joa's by my side and he's been really sweet. i hate turning 27. i'm tinking crap, next yr i'll be 28. age is catching up too fast. i cannot be 27 already. i'm too young to be so old! OMG