Queen Mary 2

The largest passenger cruise ship in the world now. What an awkaward timing. It arrived in Hong Kong at 7am and is leaving at 7pm. And I have night lessons, so I can't catch it on sea. And to make things worse, it is docked at the container port of Hong Kong for Victoria Harbour is too shallow for it. Without any fanfare to welcome it, I even had a hard time trying to take a photo with it. I called the HKTB hotline and they told me to go to Lai King. Yes, it did bring me to the container port, but damn..it is a restricted area! And so I made the best alternative by gut feeling and went to Tsing Yi. On the MTR I saw it...and I got further and farther from it...

Trailed the entire Tsing Yi Park Promenade Park onto another whatever park and then into some restricted prot area which did not seem to be guarded, though I saw Customs and Excise building. And finally got the shots I wanted..well, not exactly what I wanted but good enough =) It was a little Titanic-like, even the Southampton origins...cool



Update at 10pm: shit..just read that it past through Victoria Habour at night for the laser show..sheesh..i hate PR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back in HK

Well, I am back. Since Saturday. Sian, I am the latest to leave and the earliest to come back. Ever since then, it has been a swirl of things to do the assignments that I know I won't do but still insisted to myself of bringing it back to Sg to try and do it. Now I know I have 2 midterms next week..and a whole lot of project deadlines coming up, but I have no idea how to get them started at all. And I wanna play some more!

How I spent my CNY, the aniticipation on the day of departure was immense. Despite not knowing which counter did JetStar check in from and everyone else seems to know, and the airport which broke down from the terminal to the plane, and the delay after queuing for take-off, and landing after midnight, it was all worth it! My room, my privacy, new air-con, my bed, my bolster! Damn, I am missing them again. Yes, and especially privacy, without idiot bitches who will talk behind my back in language which they know I don't understand but I sort of figured it out, and talking softly behind my back. Fuck off, talk to my hand. I had enough of these PRCs, they are such fucking idiotic bastards. Go to hell! Give me my private space. When my things are done around here, it will be time for real business. Trust me.



Ok, now that it's out of my system. Met up with friends and relatives over the CNY. Played Mahjong and ate like there's no tomorrow. Felt at one point in time that it was a wrong decision to go back, 'cos it just made me more homesick, but well, it is all part of the experience I guess. And yea, I crashed SCI for a day. Gosh, the school is like...empty! No year 2s! Where is everyone?

And yea, I have started retro-blogging but the network here in CUHK is screwing things up again...except for the BT that runs fine (Singnet has throttled BT speeds!)
Still in time (15 days not over yet)...

猪你新年快乐

Bye..for now

Packed. Set. All ready to leave Hong Kong...for a week. I'm going home!!!!

I know I am so damn not supposed to be homesick, but yea, this is the 1st time I have lived apart from my family for so long (1.5 months). In NS, the longest confinement was only slightly over two weeks (BMT before christmas) so I am so darn happy to be heading back. Guess I will be retro-blogging when I am back, since I need to sort my over 3GB of videos and photos...so look out for it.

And the hall's getting locked, alarms armed, and gates pulled down. Yes, the whole university shuts down from 3pm today. The office stops, the halls locked (though exchange and foreign students can still stay) and will only reopen next week. I guess it is right to go home, or else it will be really inconvenient.

Oh yah, and yesterday I missed the entire day of lessons! Woohoo! Haha..CNY mood ma..can't help it. Went grocery shopping at Tai Po's wet market to prepare for our reunion dinner and return to I-House after going down to FYS to change Yvonne's skirt which she bought an L size the previous night. I brought my new year goodies over but after the dinner which Yvonne painstakingly took like 3 hours to prepare (we started at 10pm), everyone was too full for it. No thanks to Alvin's desserts. Hahaa...but the pineapple tarts and ba kwa are still popular..heh.



The rest of them played cards with YS's housemates and my world slowed down after taking my medicine. Yes, I have been sick for the past few days. Cured my own sore throat but phelgm developed (the usual..see doctor here worse than SAF, even though the hardware is better, the medication still sux) and so I left early and went back to do some last-minute packing...

Anyway, I am so gonna slack now and simply just nua..it's a pleasure I have not indulged in for a long time...

年宵市场

As CNY creeps nearer, we just get more festive...haha..went to visit the CNY street market here in HK (aka Chinatown and Outram?) but it was much larger being at Victoria Park. BUT..the flower was at one side and the rest of it all is stuck with inflatable toys! Kiddy...and so many Vday stuff..it didn't feel very CNY-ish...hahaa...

Oh yah, their political parties can set up stalls there and sell books, spread ideologies etc! Cool...imagine CSJ setting up a stall in Chinatown..HAHAHAHAHA

But anyway since we were out, we wandered around TST and so yah..we just past time randomly here...

书不是人读的！

CNY Celebrations

Had a blast at Chung Chi College's CNY dinner tonight. Why? First, for HKD20 you get a 6 or is it 8 course meal. Second, we had fun with friends again. Third, the other non-Chinese were kinda amusing. Hahaa...even the prof at our table was sianz that we already know most of what CNY is..it is so not amusing to us. We played games like arranging the 12 zodiacs in order (guess which was the first table?) Afterwhich Alvin was like "So, how many should we get wrong?" in a quiz of 12 questions regarding Chinese customs..haha..but we lost, simply because we dun even understand some of the questions...lolx...and I finally got to meet the legendary roomie of someone's...hahahahaha

New Asia College Graduation Day

Yes, I am on exchange. So what has it got to do with me? Haha...Jeff, my buddy is graduating this sem! And the funny thing is they have college-based phototaking day like months before they graduate...so woke up to a dreamy morning outside of my window and waited for them to be done, each faculty does it at their own stall..and since I gathered everyone at NA, we decided to do a little hall visiting..my hall which I have discovered the rooftop a couple of days back and Angie's hall and helped her discover that she has a pool table too! Hahahaaa...

From my rooftop a couple of days back:

Lamma Island

The anticipated 南丫岛 turns out to be more of ...nothing. Except for that windmill and power station, it all it has are two small beaches. And the seafood aren't that great. We even had to go TST for wanton mee in order to fill our stomaches. But we did meet up with other CS peepz and NTU guys, and coined funny terms for everyone. Even though we may not talk a lot in SCI, we sure did in this one day.

And yes, accelerated friendship can occur on exchange. But within this cycle comes the conflicts. We see each other everyday. Do we need that time alone? Maybe it is right for groups to break up once in a while. It is needed the only way forward.

Queen's Pier

Headed to Admiralty after lessons to collect my student Octopus Card, and wandered around because the afternoon's filmmaking class was postponed to Friday for a lighting lesson by an indiustry practitioner. And wandered I did. I ended up at Central and went on to take some memory shots (using N70, forgot to bring my digicam) of Queen's Pier which is about to be demolished following the fate of the Central Star Ferry Pier...