spring is here

Okay so this is the morning I woke up to. Normally its bursting with incandescent sunlight but today its so dark and gloomy. You can vaguely spot that the buildings in the background are sort of smothered by smoke. I cant really be firm whether its fog, a rise in the SPI index (very familiar to us Singaporeans) or a natural phenomenon of the weather since its the 2nd day of Spring and clouds might be wanting to form but hampered by the still undesirable temperature. I wanted to blog yesterday but I was to tired and fell asleep. So here is my entry on events that happened yesterday. Enjoy......




So this is what I had for lunch yesterday at 紫荆食堂 which cost like S$2 in total. I decided not to eat the egg since it tasted like mercury, it had this conspicuous metal taste. I was rather bewildered because how could anyone possibly go wrong with fried egg? But well the other dishes tasted fairly well and I proceeded to lessons after which.


Yesterday after class I went to the administrative office to change my class to level 3 class 02A. Well I think it would pose not much of a threat still by going to this higher level class since I think I should be attending a level 4 but I am quite adamant in not doing a whole lot of composition/作文 during my soujorn. Anyway I challenged/ asked my teacher regarding a question that she put to the class, she asked us to read a sentence from a para but only the second sentence and not the first. Somehow, I still dont know why I listened to her and read the second sentence only when you know ALL Singaporeans would be so kiasu and read the whole damn passage.

So the sentence goes as follows:
而且科学家们指出，单身生活方式造成威胁，甚至比控制全球人口所带来的挑战还要大。

and her question was :

对什么有挑战?


Don't you agree that the sentence above in no way played a part in anwering the question? Since it did not cover who/whom/what/where it affected. It just merely said singlehood poses a threat. a threat more threatening than controlling over population.

and her answer was : 世界

like seriously... eat my shit..

So me being me, questioned/ask the teacher in front of some students in the class how could one possibly derive an answer from the sentence. So she was telling her answer from her master analytical skills which totally sounded preposterous.

So I told her:
"这个句子根本没题过向什么东西有影响，只是说单身生活方式比全球人口曾长还要南控制"。


Which was correct right? After which while I was telling my friend what I told the teacher and she walked away. Like ok chillax woman, I did not intend to challenge your intellectual capability as a normal human but just wanted to clarify how could you get your answer from that sentence.

Or did I.....




So after changing my class, I had to change my textbooks too and the bookstore was at this place called 京裕宾馆. It had a row of korean food restaurants and 1 japanese restaurant. It was a small street that exuded a warm cosy feel when I entered. The food on the adverts looks good enough for me so I am quite sure I will be patronising there very soon one of these days. You must agree that it looks really good/cool. Anyway, you guys must be wondering whats with the dog. On our way there we saw these 2 aged ladies walking the 2 dogs and I was laughing because the white dog was so DIRTY that its white fur changed colour. I wanted to stand next to the dog with my white jacket to show how dirty it is but I was afraid the owner would kao pei me. Though, the picture doesnt illustrate well the degree of dirt on the canine but trust me it was quite a funny sight.




For dinner, yumi, chloe, yu chol (korean) and myself went to one of the canteens to have dinner. I love eating in school since the food is really budget ahha. But the thing that puts me off is either the taste or how cold the food gets. Unlike Singapore, they cook the food bulk so that they wont have to keep entering the kitchen to cook, they just cook the portion they wish to sell and display all of it at the window. So its quite disgusting to be eating cold egg. Upon exiting the canteen, there was this small tentage which provided a spectacle cleaning service for FREE as a publicity stint for their shop that was rather near 清华. The personnel said they use ultrasound technology to clean the glasses but all I could hear was them talking la. (ok bad joke) but they just put my specs into a small machine that had a pool of water (see picture above), for 5 minutes and I tell you, my vision through my specs had never been so clear! Its probably better than the first time I bought it AHAH!!




Now the 4 of us made our way to 五道口 again to walk around. This is where I purchased this S$0.80 fried chicken burger. It tasted quite nice and will sure buy it again. Then we proceeded to a korean supermarket where I did not buy anything since my sister stocked up a gargantuous amount of junkfood in my room which I probably wont finish till semester ends since eating alot of junkfood makes u sick. Also, I spotted a part of the convenience store that sold condoms. The brand was DONLESS condoms which I thought was quite funny since how can u not don a condom for it to be effective. It probably meant that if you were to wear it, you would not notice its presence. like very duh riteee..







Shortly, I had a craving for ice cream and were scouring the district for an ice cream parlour but landed ourself at this Italian restaurant where I had chicken mushroom soup and my first sip of 清道啤酒. I had never been a fervent fan of alcohol (and dont think I will ever be) but this beer tasted much better than most of those that I had tried before. Especially tiger beer! Oh there was this lady selling these 2 dogs on the streets which were really really adorable! I feel like bringing one home to Singapore in the future but I dont know how to get by doing the immigration pass. It cost 300yuan before bargaining. Emilia if only you were here man. I bet you would be screaming.

Oh and because I 打包 (ta paoed) food for my korean house mate on 2 occassions (you know how much I love feeding people right? my Orion Section 1 bunk mates or platoon mates would know), he gave me this oreo like packaging cream puff marshmallow thing which is filled with cream. like omg having too much junk food alrady! and I dont have my sports shoes here to play badminton or go to the gym.. speaking of badminton, jeannie chew, where are you...

Ok guys so thats all for now... I think I am going 天安门 tomorrow if the weather is good. Will post some pictures if I do so =)

my patek philippe- geneve. oh i mean MC

Alright I started of the day with a small meet up of myself with some of the 公寓 commitee over at Level 2 of my block. I was supposed to represent the residents in 紫荆公寓 and speak about the problems or areas needed to be rectified. I spoke on the wrecked hot water pipes to some of the toilets (sinceI am probably its greatest victim as I nvr had hot water in my toilet since the first day I came here), how we should have clothes drying machines on every floor (as only level 4 and 7 has it), how I can explicitly hear people opening and closing their doors from my room and some other stuff. As many of you would know, I have an amazing ability to make others digress from a topic to something irrelavent to whatever conversation should encompass. So the commitee members and myself were talking about places to visit in Beijing such as tian an men square, great wall, summer palace and alot of other places of interest.

So here we have photos of my classmates and I in our classroom. Don't mind the constipated face, I think I was going to laugh as Yumi (from japan) said she would help us take a picture when I took out my camera. But as you all know, I was taking a sneak video on the conversation between the japanese and koreans as I thought it was rather entertaining but Yumi foiled my plan! I think they are a cool group of people but I will be going to a different class next week so tomorrow will be the last time I see them. Today during chinese, we had 听力 and the teacher was being really annoying by repeating the tape over and over again when the students couldnt give the answer. I did not want to give the answers since I did not want to attract too much attention and seem like a arrorgant bitch. After all, I am not suppose to be in that class. Oh yes and 诸葛亮 was covered explaining why it was written on the white board. Very Siannnn.

While for dinner Yumi Chloe and I went to Tafi, an italian restaurant near university which serves a 5 course meal for SGD10. So much so for being budget in china but I guess I just had to try it for once. Here we have my carbonara and Yumi's Takaro pasta which is seafood roe pasta. The food was ok, average in Singapore terms but thankfully it wasnt at the same culinary level as last night's dinner. Which by the way still gives me shivers. You guys certainly got to be wondering what am I trying to do on the picture to the right. Well, I just wanted to show you guys how miserable that slice of cake was. Though it tasted quite delightful, quantity clearly wasnt at play. But after all the bad food I have tasted in MC, I would give up on quantity and beg for quality. And yeah the fork was really thin which kinda of reminded me emilia's arm for some weird reason.

Yes I just got my first imitation purchase in MC. Its a fake Patek Philippe and I am proud of it ( I am so dale, an LSU joke). It was quoted to me at 870yuan but chloe bargained to 200yuan for me. I dont know whether its expensive but $40 for a watch seems alright to me and i think its quite nice too. I bought this watch at a shopping centre called 秀水街 which is the left picture. Oh and geraldine, I did try to get you your LV Tivoli handbag there but my it did not match your description- did not use one piece of material and since this other MGS girl said that it's "so fake the material", i did not get it and the stupid sales lady was so insistent of selling it to me. So damn annoying man some of the sales personnel here.

So on my way back from 秀水街 back to 清华大学, we managed to pass by 天安门 which was beautiful at night with all the lights on but as I was too far from it and with poor lighting, I could only capture some very mediocre shots so I leave you with these 2 pictures to visually ravage on. I shall pen off now and see if I shall do any more blogging as I came to realise that blogging can be quite tiring since blogspot is not very user friendly when uploading photos.

Oh and after many many request why the pictures of the girls are not on my blog I shall leave one for you guys. It's Miya (korea) and Chloe (australia).

worst dinner experience ever

okay so as the title suggests, I officially had my worst dinner experience since I had stepped on soil of MC. But I will start my entry from this morning to finally the utter climax of this entry - the dinner.

Actually, morning class was pretty alright. Though it was elementary, I learnt some useful stuff which I had probably forgotten or overlooked in when I was studying in chinese before. Today the 老师 mainly covered 配词. Like what words would you match with stuff existential or

non-existential. Also, previously she taught us the difference between 发布，发宣 and 发行.

发布- Publish. Such as articles on newspaper.

发宣- Announce. Such as notifications.

发行- Deliver. Just deliver la.

So after class my friends- chloe and naoto hori (a jap), proceeded to have our lunch at one of the canteens. Well above is what I had for lunch, beef fried rice. Evidently, cooking oil in MC has to be free since it was really oily and salty to add. Apparently, chloe's dumpling was very appetising but I didnt try it. So anyway the only reason that made lunch very satisfying for me was the price, I paid 4Yuan for my meal: 2.50Yuan for my rice and 1.50 for my drink. Hence, the meal cost me a gratifying 80cents. Yes readers, scream in astonishment.

So after which I crashed the 401A class which was also doing something like 报章报道 but the damn teacher was talking about the different publications that MC had. From tabloids to magazines to sports which was not related to the damn lesson. I wanted to know what was the syllabus like and what kind of homework I would get or have to do. And here we have that very teacher in the picture above and all his crap written on the board. Yes SHRIEK.

Okay so at 1830hrs, chloe, miya (a korean exchange student who majors in chinese culture) and myself made our way to this porridge place where my sister said sells very good porridge. However a very sad decision was made, we walked past this chinese restaurant and somehow a unanimous decision was made to have our meal here. It kind of had this old age charm that probably attacted us. This decision was the beginning of the end as only tragedy ensued from here on. So this is what happened. Very sadly, they screwed up my chicken cutlet rice set order and gave me some meat rice dish that I painfully consumed. I would like to believe that its dog meat so I can tell people that I have eaten dog in china but I dont think it is. So I did not realise that this was not the dish I had ordered and that the waitress asked me to pay for the dish which she had wrongly given me. I didnt argue since it would be quite sad if they had to fork out their money to pay for this as you know these people are very fortunate as us. Then after, I had to wait a good 15mins for my right order to be placed on my table. Obviously that skank lied since she said that my order was on its way. My evaluation was that the chicken cutlet didnt have any meat taste (which I thought was rather skillful since you can eliminate it's orginal taste) and it tasted only of batter/flour. Amazing culinary skill you must agree.



Anyway, I this is what I shall pen off today. I am supposed to go recite 游子吟 which is a
唐诗 tomorrow during chinese class. Thankfully, we learnt this in primary school so its just refresher.

the first day in school

Everyone by now should know that I am doing a module in Chinese Language. As I had expected, I got "0" for my listening comprehension test the other day. Evidently, the teacher did not tell the marker that I was exempted from taking the test. The class I was posted to was teaching a pretty elementary syllabus. But I came to know that anyone could change class if they feel that the class they were posted to is not to the level. However, I spoke to a teacher regarding my case and she told me to choose a class myself that I deem appropriate for my level but the problem is I do not want to pass judgement on my level of chinese but the university to allocate me. I do not want to be in a class where it would be too easy or a class that is TOO hard. Truthfully, though the class I went to was rather elementary, I still learnt quite a number of skills pertaining to vocabulary usage.


I went out for lunch with this Melbourne born chinese girl called chloe (whose parents are currently residing in Singapore) at 五道口 (wu dao kou) which is supposedly the fashion haven for fashionistas. Yes there are supposedly fashion elitist in MC alright though evidently a visual exploration of such endangered species have proven futile in my 6 days here. For lunch, we went to this korean restaurant where I ordered chicken cutlet rice and the rice was so darn miserable. I didnt bother taking a picture of the poor excuse for a korean dish since it would vandalise my pristine blog with such a mediocre dish.

So while walking chloe spotted this pseudo nike home/local brand to china. Its seemingly popular with the locals here as there has been adverts of it on the school's tennis court fence. And its not exactly cheap since a wind breaker there cost approximately S$50. The primogeniture's slogan of "just do it" has been modified to "anything is possible". Even the logo has been slightly modified from its elder brother.

Okay so this is the 东南门 (north east gate) of 清华大学. And before entering the university, a majestic sign salutes you at the door way which probably one of the sights of the university since there were locals who were taking pictures of it. I think that its quite cool as it exudes enigmatic aura of "pre-civilisation" with the stone carved letterings which is indigenous to chinese art in ancient times.

So yes, this is the famous ginko biloba tree thats familiar to many of us since our parents had fed* us drugs containing a certain essence/part of this vegetation that helps stimulate our brain juices. Since its winter now, what stands before us now is a tired looking tree. I guess I would come back to this same tree and take a photo of it in Spring which is going to come in a month's time I think. Leaves should/will be sprouting out by then.

*note: I had used past tense in the above passage since I would like to think that all of you readers out there arent consuming the drug at this point in time. But if you are, may mercy be taken upon you. Especially on you Amos Goh Kim Yang.

Here we have the adminstrative headquaters of the university where the incumbents are working. I wanted to go into the building to take some photographs of the exhibits that were shown there, but apparently, the security guard thought I was probably mentally unsound when i told him about my plan above. He replied "外人勿进" accompanied with a snigger. I just love being bitched by a MC security guard. Dont you? Pity.

Behold, bicycle attack. I mean come on, I need to take something indigenous to china right? not like I am trying to laugh at them or something. But what are china photos without the hot wheels? Some/most of the bikes here are not chained since I guess nearly everyone has a bike. So hamon, if only you had studied here, your bicycle would not have been stolen by some abunehneh/bangladesh construction workers at Kovan. Ehhh watch your mouth, dont come and 鸡蛋 me.

Here is the grand university sports stadium,

清华大学综合体育馆， hopefully I would be playing some badminton here since it looks damn cool! It's almost like a proper sports centre. Now weipin, are you going to send me my racket haha!

Here is the bowling alley of the school. It's quite cool to have a bowling alley in the school premises right. It's a small one though, around 10 lanes, but i think its good enough already. Cool stuff huh. A game there would cost one S$1.60 approx. not expensive i reckon.

Okay so this is my dorm. Or rather apartment since its called 公寓 and not 宿舍. Oh and if you didn't know, there is daily room service where they clean my room everyday and the toilet too. Complimentary television which sadly shows only china shows and hong kong serials occassionally. And also a few days back a local guy gave me this menu thing and has a whole lot of japanese cuisine where I could call him and he would deliver to my block. The receptionist downstairs will call me to collect it. Loves this, almost like room service right =) Yes hit me. If only they could do my laundry too.......

Okay now I got some serious/funny news to tell. My university has this "cafereria" which serves chinese cuisine. You know how university cafeterias/canteens are right? But this is nothing like the rest.... Behold in spectacular fashion................

Okay so this the cafeteria/canteen in the university. I ordered 3 dishes over here of gargantuous portions and it cost S$17. Though the supposed wrap of the beijing duck was quite grosse and very different from that back home, the food tasted quite alright.

So here is the beijing duck in sliced form. The wrap is machine produced beancurd skin which had alot of "pores" and the taste was bland. But the duck had salvaged what it could from the overwhelming distasteful wrap.

Okay people, I think I shall stop tonight as I have completed what I had done today. night.

middle country has met its saviour

Ok after all the excessive bitching that I was doing on my (very sad) friendster blog, I have finally found a way to slither past the web authorities of the middle country/MC*. Yes yes I have once exhibited one of my plethora of hidden abilities/talents. I managed to find a proxy site which enables me to blog on blogspot. You must wonder why am I even doing a blog since I never once had an interest to such a past time. But I concluded that should anyone want to know how am i doing in MC, just visit the damn blog to save me from either wasting my saliva or typing on the keyboard unncessarily.

Anyway, the time zone is the same as Singapore's- GMT +8. Of late, the weather has been quite bearable (when the wind doesnt blow) but hardly pleasant when night falls. It's freezing cold and if I dont clad myself with 3 or 4 layers of clothing, I think might be a human popsicle. Also the food in MC is cheap, plentiful and delicious (alright, most of it). One thing about the people in MC that I find quite cool is their customer service attendants who attend to you when you apply for something like lets say internet. On my application form if I did not write down my chinese name and instead of asking me to fill this entry up, the woman would just fill it in herself. Something very contrasting to Singapore.

Anyway this is what I had for lunch, I had this Value meal at this place called "Real Kung Fu"- Zhen Gong Fu. This meal costs me 23 yen. Approximately S$4.60.

The price isnt something that makes you go WOW or anything but its a nice good enough meal. Supposedly a healthy meal (minus the cup of coke of course) since the food here are all steamed, not fried, so to make it more healthier for the diners; supposedly a novelty for this fastfood chain/ restaurant. I had no qualms with the taste, I thought it was nice.


I went to purchase my books for lessons tomorrow at around 1500Hrs. I think they gave me a bad class for chinese as I saw the textbooks and I have 3 books on listening comprehension and 2 books on general chinese stuff. Last friday, I took a class placement exam and went late. so I didnt do the listening comprehension part as the teacher said I could speak rather fluently and the listening comprehension would be a waste of time. So I just did the normal written exam and wrote a very short open ended paragraph which I spoke about how great the people in china are etcetera... So my guess is that the marker for my paper didnt know bout my situation and gave me a "0" for my listening compre. I certainly do not know whether this would appear to be a blessing in disguise since the better classes have to do compositions!!! Something that perhaps is the bane of every Singaporean Chinese. But I heard that if the teacher thinks your chinese is better than the class, you will be pushed to the better class. hmmm....

Okay I think I shall pen off now though I have alot of things to say but I have not organised my thoughts on how I should structure my post so will do a probably better one tomorrow or tonight. I shall leave you with something funny I saw at the supermarket a few days back.

No stupid. Its not dog meat. Don't we all wish it is.

*MC has been used since a certain government body prohibits its citizens to view english blog sites to spare them of reading entries by foreign bloggers bitching about their great land. And to provide at least a certain level of ambiguity for a certain country against me.

Since I am using a proxy site to enter blogspot. Did anyone say illegal?