China (pics first)

here are the pics. this one's for u nat! :) treasure my effort! i took 5hs! and i can't imagine how much longer i will take to post in words!

outside the shanghai airport

maglev train. learn the chinese...

max speed! 301km/h!

the outside of the train, not a very professional pic...

xiaolongbao! shanghai is crazy abt it, served it almost every restaurant we went. youtiao was freaking oily!

i tought this was a cute fire extinguisher box (as it is stated in the pic). haha

at the 4D show. had to wear that special glasses. lol, i look weird cos of my flat nose!

trying out archery. outof 3 tries only one shot within the circles, another went too high, the other went too low. lol, im so lousy, but not but for 3 tries. i had tried archery a few times in the past, but nvr practised

i thougt this chair is cute! i wouldn't mind having it in my house, but with cushions please!

in a cool magic room where the floor was slanted at an angle and we had to lean 45 degrees backwards in order to feel stable. if we stood upright, we would feel like falling over and slam into the wall in front.

the professional explanation

at the entrance stood liu xiang with the country flag. this demonstrates how the china people treasure their olympic hero.

madame tussauds wax museum!

with the guy i derived my previos nickname in school. presenting to u, mr albert einstein.

with one of my fav actors and comedians! charlie chaplin!

nic tse.

a large omega watch outside some mall, acting as a clock

blur... the oriental peearl tower. taken when on the cruise along the shanghai bund. i still remember shivering in the cold! it was raining and there was strong wind.

it's not very clear, but can u see the signs under the expressway? it was kind of confusing at first, then my buddy explained to me why it is so. she said the the 2 arrows on the right were a different junction from the one on the extreme left. so t he road was like an inverted F.

fishing at ma shan farm. caught none! but it was fun!

look! so much food! till the waitress had to stack plates up in order to have space for more plates!

nice cliff! really nice scenary!

yun yun and shariel who were sitting opposite me in the sampan like boat

in a cave with a hollow ceiling! very cool place, had achoes when u spoke.

me, chen lao shi (my funny chinese teacher), jinting

with wu lao shi, the all time fav in our school

with mr lim, the wackiest and lamest joker. my a maths teacher for this year too.

me and nice scenary! and the air was cool and shiok!

jiangong school in shaoxing. they was pretty hospitable! had a red banner to 're lie huan ying' us

their school definitely has more green then ours and the compound is much bigger

the students ride bics to school. reminds me of the jap high school dramas i have watched, like 1 litre of tears!

their field and basketball courts. their field is the full 400m field and is where they hold their assembly. they also have about 3 basketball courts, an indoor sports hall, and table tennis tables etc. so much more then what our school offers. well singapore=shortage of land too.

the supre talented art students. :)

the last look of the school. in the bus and it was raining.

one night at shaoxing, we celebrated mr lim's birthday. the teachers!

mr lim and his cake. i felt like caking him, but was aware of the dire consequences! so i of course didnt!

caught a roti prata man! a rare sight! spotting an indian in china was so rare that he was the only dark skinned soul i had seen (apart from south african tourist), what more, he could speak fluent chinese!

at lu xun's native residence. (this guys loves to smoke too, something that makes me less admire him)


the zhou family greeting hall, where they attend to guest. zhou family is another term for lu xun's famliy. his surname was zhou, lu xun was his pen name only

lu xun, the great writer. once alive, long gone.

sherilyn trying to imitate the expression displayed in the pic


ditto

me, doing a poor job. and im disgusted by it. :(

at my buddy's house. her name's yi jia. and i taught her to play pachelbel's canon in D. she was so eager to learn it after i performed for her. :) she learned super fast! and common interestin using the com and watching tv. we watched meteor garden! and surprise! she knows vitas and loves him too! i guess he's more popular in china. :)

ke yan inscribed in stone. ke yan is one of the most scenic places i have ever come across!

mr lim is extra!!!!! no u see him...

now u dont! what happened to him? haha, i shooed him away and he obeyed to me! no lah, i just omitted him from the pic lah, im not so disrespectful.

claimed to be the best stone under the sky. okay, i can accept that.

a hugh buddha carved from a rock. it was very magnificant! u can compare its size to the people. and there was a bird resting on its right index finger. a cute sight.

white- happy. black- sad.

the 3 beauties, plus sara jane (the extra, haha) see the beautiful overhanging interlocked shade of pink leaved trees above them!

friends n i on the path fit for a wedding ailse!

human pyramid, from bottom - wye syn-wang lao shi-mr lim-sara jane. i guess mr lim wasn't too happy, being shorter than sara jane.

i wouldn't mind having a house like this by the lake. but modern of course!

mr lim, the china version of stamford raffles? haha, far from it!


yun yun n i in a boat

the disgustingly bitter cup of wine that each one of us had for free. i took a sip and gave up on the rest. although it was famous shaoxing wine

pic with the heroes of war

friendship made during the trip, or rather, friendship strengthened

unglam of the shaosxing teachers. can u believe it?! the woman inside the sedan is the oh so sophisicated principal of jiangong school. it was the day she showed her panties and i happened to take it down. too bad, i didnt feel like deleting the pic. well, i can use it to blackmail her next time. no lah, just jkjk.

sheen yih and i. :)

my group! the blue group is the best!

yun yun's super unglam! i secretly took it. she sits behind me, so one time, i whipped up my cam in time to snap this priceless pic!

shairel and i, partners in coach and roommates in hotel

this i forgot where, but mr lim paid to ring this bell and wish us some good fortune in our studies. oh so nice of him..



see, man are differentiated by their smoking habbits. how idiotic! these are toilet signs btw

outside a restaurant in hangzhou, a valuabble one in a life time pic with the principal


the teachers! they look so youthful!

alas, time to say adios! last pic with my buddy and her friend

at yue fei's mauseleum. i liked this hero the day i read about him when i was young. his story is just too tragic!

a effigy of him, he looks rather grand!

the leifeng pagoda of the legend of madam white snake.

isnt this beautiful? these rows flowers greeted us on both sides in the flower garden

this is so splendid! furthermore, there were a few squirrels scurrying about, making this place seem so picturesque

a nice pond with many and much red fish. we had a chance to feed them when mr lim bought some fish food. :)

i find this place nice. :)

the brilliant cultural show we watched in hangzhou.

ahha, gotcha mr lim! his tongue is stuck out! and the soldier is cool! makes the place seem like it was really in the song era.

there was even this impirial edict pasted on walls to make the place even more authentic.

clarissa, she owed me a pic, so she payed back. :) a bubbly girl she is.


sherilyn and i. :)

oh! this waterfall is gorgeous!

does thsi look like candy? well it is! a very cool looking one too!

a worker at the mei jia wu tea plantation. he was drying tea leaves in a hot wok

a cute tea pot! a large one though!

tea bushes on a hill. a hill provides the favourable conditions for growing tea leaves.

cha

a wardrobe

a typical bedroom

a dressing table! anybody want? well, the mirror's evenr tarnished!

a weaving cloth object. so ancient!

chicks! along with chicks, many more animals were seen, mainly dogs.

this dog is sooo adorable! it cos be a star in a movie!

a fluffy flur ball! my friends mistook it for a cat! haha

i would like to own a big dog like this one when i grow up! :)

i like the reflection!

friends

along the old canal at suzhou.

the hotel at suzhou. the toilet had glass walls! good thing there were screens!

at the tiger till park!

again, i like the trees here, but what's mr lim's head doing there...

i found this display of flowers soooo beautiful and unresistable, so i had to take a pic

evidence of the legend of the stone cuting sword comes true in my eyes

this is a pagoda that was preserved since its time. :)

at the foot of the hill

the majestic oriental pearl tower

in the OPT, nothing to see lah

the view from the OPT. i guess the black building's the financial trade centre

im feeling quite dead now. so long and tedious! anyway, im sick with sore throat now. it sucks!

China

hey blog! im in my shanghai hotel with internet! so im saying hi! n when im back in singapore, get ready for a lengthy post! :)

The CLIQUE SISTERS!

today, i went to diane's house with my clique! it was tremendous fun! man, i didn't expect it to be such a blast cos i thought i might feel left out or something, some more i was for-going piano, which was something hard to make up for, given teacher janet's tight schedule. also, i was a little emo in school cos of a 'family feud' and felt sucidal, so i wasn't in the best of moods to go diane's house. but thanks to anisha and co., and of course my clique, i felt a little better by the end of school. when i exited school, i realised that i hadn't had my ez-link card, so traveling was a little inconvenient. my dad had taken the card to top up the value and it was not at home, so it defeated the purpose of running home to get it. i had to survive on coins for transport for the rest of time and i had to borrow, much to my dislike, coins from janice as i had no loose change. i was quite depressed cos of that... i could say that i had experienced a roller-coaster of emotions during the earlier part of the day. :(

after school, clique and i headed to campus point for lunch. i had tom yam bee hoon, good thing i could tahan with the help of ice milo. i almost ahd a few tears run loose thanks to it. :) after lunch, we shopped for the quick mix for cookies and brownies. there, vanessa, diane's cousin joined us. when we were boarding the LRT, the doors closed on vanessa while all the rest of us cleared. it was a very SCARY experience! elyssa entered first, then i, sam was third and the doors were closing, when the doors were midway, janice slid in in that precarious moment. after that, it was impossible for vanessa to come in, so she was left behind. however, clique and i waited for her, and we sincerely empathised with her, being left all alone at a LRT station... it was as good as being marooned or something... okay, so when this matter was resolved, we happily headed to diane's abode. on the way, janice was chirping on how 'cool' she was when she slipped into the LRT carriage in time, i bet she was imagining that she was some baddie in some action movie and had just slipped away from the pursuit of the policemen. haha, it was far from it! she was so unglam lah, her waist was leaned forward and she looked like some auntie! haha, just jkjk. i think i have extremely exaggerated this part. :)

at diane's house, we started baking, with the help of diane's sweet and nice mom, aunty dawn! mixing in the premix with butter/oil and cracking the eggs. lol, vanessa, janice and diane did messy jobs in cracking the eggs. and since i had somewhat more experience in baking, i was the supervisor by default. the very first cookie dough we had was too dry! and we cheated a little by adding more butter, even though it wasn't in the right order. while sam, charlene (diane's younger sis) and i worked on the choco chip oatmeal cookie, d,e, j made the brownie. we had a truly enjoyable time baking. the first batch of cookies was put in the oven and came out too light in colour and were too soft, as if they were raw. so we put them in the oven for a while longer and the cookies came out golden brown the second time. though they were initially soft, they soon hardened till so hard that they were the hardest and most crispy cookies i had ever set my teeth upon. which is good! haha, however, they were far, far too sweet! i could just dropped dead from severe diabetes after a few man! and constipation and etc. bah, it was crispy, flavoursome but was just too awfully sweet! hehe, maybe the other didn't mind the sweetness, but thanks to my mom, i have grown too accustomed to less sweet stuff! my mom cuts down the suger in her recipies by nearly half, yet they are still as good! at least to me!

at 4.30, sam had to leave. however, the rest of us stayed on to bake. after baking a few rounds of clean uniform sized cookies, d, e, j and i made heart shaped cookies and j and i went further to make J and L cookies respectively. while waiting for our hard-laboured cookies to bake, d, e, j, v and charlene formed a band! named the clique sisters. lol! it was soooooooooooooo fun! we ran riot! i was the keyboardist, or rather, the pianist. well i could say it was a fine compensation for not able able to attending piano. egh! why im i saying that? not as if i love piano that much! diane was main gutarist, elyssa was jester 1, janice was jester 2 and tambourinist, vanessa was guitarist and main singer, charlene was the drummer. we performed everlasting god and videoed it down. lol!

after a super thrilling experience, we made our way to the dining room to eat our fresh made products. :) they were great, but were to sweet. we also ate cheese cake. i receive a relatively big piece of cake, so im prepared to get fat! aunty dawn said i could afford it cos i was a tennis player, well i think im getting paunchy! :( haha, i still love the part when we saboed e and made her eat a huge piece of cheesecake, cos she was always underweight and definitely could afford to grow a few inches sideways. haha, e was so grossed out by the large amount of cheesecake that she had and kept saying that she loves me, appealing to me to help her finish her lot. but i didnt take a chance at getting any fatter than what i am going to be, so i rejected her plea.

after eating a lot, the clique sisters spirit was alive again, we went a little crazy here and there, videoed ourselves a few times, and while i was mainly sober, d, e, j were CRAZY! they were pretty much the clowns in the lime light. lol. oh yeah, and before we left, diane's neighbour came over and ate my L cookie! haha, was a little 'pissed', cos it was specially made by me for myself, not for some small guy... unless his name starts with L too, and had taken a liking to my professionally done cookie, then i might forgive him.

okay, so much said, i have made another wordy post. haha. but i enjoyed myself exceedingly! i love my clique! i mean more the original! :) haha

BRISINGR! the fire!

yay, i have finish the the marvel: BRISINGR. yipee dipee. i accomplished this feat by spending 3 days, more or less locked up in my room, listening to music while i read brisingr. very slow, i know. haha. but all matter is that i enjoyed the story. i love the plot and style of language that christopher paolini is gifted in potraying. however, i feel doubly sad. the reason being that i will have to wait a thousand years before the next book is released. oh man, i can't wait. n i have this very impatient nature that makes things worse! haiz.

p.s i heard from elyssa and diane that codered is reading brisingr! wah, no big surprise here, it all goes to show how good the book is!


[spoilers for whoever has yet to read and is going to read]

my likes:

- i really liked the fact that brom's eragon's real father. :) that makes eragon's lineage more noble, eventhough it is probable that he was born out the wedlock.

- also, eragon's new sword was an idea that suited me well and it came handy for the last battle. :) it was high time that a rider had a proper sword. haha, and the part when eragon cried 'brisingr!', the sword would burst into blue flames. i agree with cp in his message that it was a rather cool thing. lol.

- YAY! arya seems to be opening up to eragon! that's great, cos i want them to be together by the end of the series! if not, cp had better give a good reason man. [okay, erjie was beside me when i typed this and she called me weird. hehe, she forgot that im a diehard romance fan, especially in books. lol]

- i admire the wisdom of nasuada in recruiting the urgals, eventhough they seem more malevolent than good willed, but i think they are vital in the fight against the empire because they are a powerful force in terms of physicality.

- im glad that the varden is progressing in it's quest to achieve the dwarves' trust with the coronation of orik. the dwarves are a race that are skilled weapon smiths and with their alliance, it is definitely a boon for the varden as they need the maximum manpower possible to overthrow the tyrannical, near invincible king.

- roran has gotten married to katrina, thanks to the help of the varden and eragon. that's good cos roran, a valiant hammer warrior, has talent and thus feels obligated to aid the varden. along with him, the people of carvahall seek refuge in the varden. so MORE manpower!

- also, learning the loophole that could defeat galbatorix (the idiotic king) makes the outcome of the book more hopeful. and learning the source of his almost unlimited power makes it easier to counter him. yay, there's light after a dark tunnel. although it's obvious what the ending will be, the novel has immersed me in the conflict, and i have of course taken my side with the good.

what wasn't so great:

- the book was a lil draggy in the late middle. i remember nearly scanning through the part of roran and captain edric.

- arya and eragon had less companion of each other as compared to the other books. that is i feel. but since the minimal time they spent with each other in this book was sweet enough, im thoroughly satistisfied. eragon was comforting arya over her dead ex. hehe. :)

okay at the end of the novel, i realised that the dominating theme of good vs evil has been so deeply imbued in me that i feel that galbotorix is my enemy! haha, that is how well cp convinced me of his story although it is hardcore fantasy. actually, without brisingr to read anymore, (unfortunately, im not one who reads a book twice consecutively, however much i love it. :( ) i feel like the meaning of my life has been reduce by half. now, all i can do is wait for the 4th and final book. :)