It'll be an awesome 2010! =)

Ok, I'm finally back to blogging since taking another long break. Just didn't feel like doing anything after I came back from reservist haha. But it's a new year so I have resolved to improve myself in some areas, not least of which is to stop procrastinating and be more disciplined and efficient in doing things. Shall list my resolutions in another post tmr. For now, this will be a recap from New Year's Eve till today =)

New Year's Eve/New Year's Day - Met up with Jonathan, DS and PY at Parkway Parade where I changed money for my HK trip and we had dinner at New York New York. I never realised PY was so frank in his comments on certain things and it was certainly v funny to hear some of the crappy stuff. Anyway, we headed for Timbre Mobile and somehow we never bothered to get the 2 ppl with Iphones to check the location. Instead we walked the wrong way for quite some distance before they finally checked and by the time we reached there it was already full. The funny thing was that we were joking about "Drag Queen Night" as the theme and when we got there, there was a band of guys singing "Nobody" (by Wondergirls) with some cheesy movements thrown in, which did kinda make it look like "Drag Queen Night" haha.

In the end we somehow managed to get ZT to host us so we went to this Fairprice outlet near Parkway where we saw 2 gays (pretty sure they were) shopping and it was quite gross cos we were walking past them and then 1 of them apparently was touching the other guy's hair and the other guy was saying something like it was very satisfying... Ew... =s

Cabbed down to ZT's place and I never realised that he's so rich lah! The house is like a castle? It was huge! Anyway we had some good clean fun together with LJ (with his shocking pink tee again) and Leon joining us and just crapped around and they had some Martini while I had my sparkling apple juice haha (I don't like to drink liquor), which was a lot cheaper and sweeter! =p

Hung out until about close to 4am where we proceeded to walk a long way to Upper Changi Road to have breakfast at some Muslim stall which apparently was pretty good but I couldn't eat anymore (I don't seem to eat much nowadays anyway - perhaps becoming a mutant as someone said haha).

Cabbed home and slept at 5.30am... then I woke up at 7.30am to go play futsal at ECP. Insane right? Anyway, amazingly I played probably my best football since a long time back when our IGC beat the choir boys 17-1 a few years ago in street soccer. Was the top scorer (or at least joint top) with 4 goals and even my army kakis were surprised. It felt good out there and most of my shots actually hit the target haha, which is not often the case I must say. My fav goal was one where with my back towards goal, I used my left foot to tap the ball to my right behind me then turned and executed a left foot shot to the far corner of the goal. Nice! Anyway too bad there was 1 particularly good goalkeeper or I'd have scored more. Nevertheless it felt great to start the year with a bang! =D

Reached home at about 1pm where I rested till evening before meeting Jon and LJ (again!) for dinner and then some shopping. Dinner at Ajiman was good! It's a new Japanese stall at Orchard Central, just beside Quiznos. Please do NOT confuse with Ajisen, which from what I heard is really sucky nowadays and I've not gone there for a while nor do I intend to go there in the near future. Anyway I tried their fried rice, salmon sashimi, enoki bacon, and squid and it's quite good! Think the price is very reasonable so I'd strongly recommend the place if you like Jap food =)

Nothing much to shop though for me that night, unlike our previous outing the week before where I spent >$500 on shopping! Still looking to get new clothes as I revamp my wardrobe. Need to up the style factor =)

Then went home to settle some admin stuff before I started to pack for my HK trip in a few hours time...

2nd to 5th Jan - HK Trip!

Slept for about 1 hour the night before and I was in a very tired state when I went to Changi Airport. Anyway I went to HK with some of my friends (8 of us) and it was a pretty good trip in general, just a bit disappointed I didn't get to shop much for clothes/shoes as I expected but still enjoyed the eating and sightseeing. In a nutshell...

2nd Jan - Flew off at 6.40am and reached HK at about 10+am where we had breakfast at the airport before taking their City Flyer (a bus) to Mongkok, where we walked to Stanford Hotel. After checking in we went to have dessert at a popular franchise called "Hui Lau Shan" (or Xu Liu Shan as it is pronounced). It seems like a really famous brand cos I saw many stores wherever we walked around in HK. Anyway their mango sago with pomelo (yang zhi gan lu) is really yummy! Must try!

Took a train (their system is almost like ours, very easy to travel) to this temple called Wong Tai Sin (Huang Da Xian) where I prayed a little and even went to get a divination lot, something which I did in Japan before also but this time it was a little bit more interesting and funny. You know those scenes you see sometimes in shows where ppl kneel and shake this wooden container filled with the bamboo sticks? I did the same too and then 3 sticks fell out so I just thought I'd pick one of them lol. I walked out and told my friends cos I was wondering where to get the lot for the stick I chose and they laughed at me. Apparently if more than 1 stick falls out, you should put back all the sticks and shake again until only 1 drops out. My friend also said I should ask if it is the correct stick by throwing 2 coins and see if they face the same way or different way - if different means that the stick that drops out is the correct one (though I thought this was v extra cos if only 1 drops out means correct liao mah right?).

Anyway, I went to get the lot from someone outside the temple and later on my friend helped me to interpret the poem using some online reference also though his Chinese standard was already v good and he could give a rough idea even without any help. Apparently it's what they call a "shang shang qian" (which is a very good divination lot) so hopefully it's true cos I was asking some matters about "yin yuan" (meaning affinity I think...) cos I had someone particular in mind and my friend said that I should proceed and I should pay careful attention to details so ya I'll see how things go... Don't wish to get my hopes up for nothing so it's best that I don't expect anything... =)

Went to shop at Nu Ren Jie (Ladies Street) which is quite near our hotel and bought 2 small board games for very good prices I felt. Would've bought more if the bigger games could've been made cheaper. Anyway, it was quite funny cos my friend speaks Cantonese so he does all the negotiation. He was looking at some supposed 100% cashmere shawls which the lady told him HK$150 but he wasn't too keen about it anyway so he just moved on and as we walked further the lady started quoting lower prices: $120... $100... $80... $60... price is inversely proportional to distance from seller. lol, which made us wonder what kind of quality the shawls really were.

Went for dinner at Itamae Sushi where I had foie gras, salmon belly and a 200ml can of 4% alcohol by vol peach-flavoured liquor cos I wanted to try a bit. The food was sooooo shiok! The liquor was ok lah since I'm not a liquor person though I liked the peach taste but even at 4% I developed some rashes that night so yup my body's tolerance level for alcohol is very low.

We walked to Temple Street after that and along the way we bought some umbrellas that were kept in containers that looked like wine bottles, which apparently are becoming fashionable but are still pretty ex in Singapore. Started to rain a bit so we took cover in a "Hui Lau Shan" shop and had dessert again, which brought an end to our first day as we headed back to the hotel after that.

3rd Jan - Went to eat congee at this place called Nathan Congee & Noodle which was somewhere along Nathan Road (a VERY long road) and it was a nice cosy place with a lot of local flavour. Had this abalone congee (bao yu san si zhou) with you tiao which was yummy!

We then headed to take the ferry as part of our journey to Lantau Island but we kept stopping along the way for some unplanned shopping for the ladies due to some weird reasons. Firstly my friend wanted to buy shoes cos his shoes were falling apart so the ladies went to shop at a nearby shop and in the end my friend didn't buy shoes cos there weren't any nice ones but the ladies continued to shop and bought stuff. Then along the way somebody said they needed to make a quick trip to the toilet before moving on but on the way to the toilet they saw some sale for ladies stuff and then got distracted again for about an hour or so haha. Nonsense sia! =p

Anyway the ferry trip was quite a nice one then we took a train and finally we took a cable car up the mountain! It was certainly the longest 25-min ride in my life (2 times some more!) cos I'm afraid of heights and in the cable car you can see the sea and valley hundreds of meters below you but it was also a very beautiful sight and overall I enjoyed it. Too bad I was probably too stoned to realise the opportunity to relate that cable car ride to the energy profile of a reaction or I would've filmed a nice video for teaching. If I get another chance to take a cable car I'll try to do that!

Oh ya, please don't be stupid like me and think that there's no winter in HK cos apparently there is though it doesn't snow and it was freezing on the way up the mountain. I chose not to bring any jacket there and all my clothes were short sleeve so I was freezing in the cable car and trembling so much (like I was possessed) that my friends had to lend me a jacket and gloves. Thankfully one of my friend bought a jacket during the shopping earlier so she lent me hers to wear and the rest were amazed that I could fit in it haha (though I still need to slim down).

We had a nice lunch at a Chinese restaurant there and shared this huge candy floss before we made our way up the long flight of stairs leading to the Big Buddha. Of course we took a photo of our customary funny pose, just like we did the last time in Kamakura in Japan. I said that we should go travel to all the places with giant statues of Buddha and take pictures - that would be quite cool! The view up there was pretty nice though I found it hard to capture with my camera so I just spent more time relaxing and enjoying the view.

After that we came back on another harrowing ride on the cable car before proceeding to go to "The Peak" where we went up to the Sky Terrace for a stunning view of the surrounding area. But it was extremely cold!!! Went for dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co Restaurant & Market, a theme restaurant based on Forrest Gump. Typical western food I guess so nothing really special about the food though the fish and chips and clam chowder soup were nice. But I like the design of the place cos I like the movie also and brings back fond memories.

Took an open-top bus ride on the way back and it was quite a nice ride then we headed back to our hotel for a little supper before calling it a night.

4th Jan - Had a simple breakfast before we went for our day trip at Macau. We did some research the night before but in the end we figured we'd just go there and see if we could book a vehicle to bring us around. Took the ferry to Macau and we were approached by this guy who offered to take us around. Of course we were skeptical at first, as most tourists would be, but in the end we felt his price was reasonable after some negotiation and I think it was the right choice. He was very knowledgable in the history of Macau also and could answer anything you asked him. He also deduced we were from Singapore so sometimes he would explain in relation to our experience in Singapore so that we could understand better. Not bad I must say!

Anyway we went to (1) Fisherman's Wharf - they had this Tang Cheng and this theme park related to Aladdin which apparently will be torn down to make way for more casinos (they already have 35 there and Macau only has an area of like 28.2 sq km!) (2) Lian Hua Guang Chang - the place where they had a statue that commemorated the return of Macua to China (3) Guan-Im Statue - which they called "Buddha Mary" cos the statue's face resembled Mother Mary. (4) Penha Hill - has one of the many churches in Macau but the main thing was that it offered a great view of Macau (5) Ma Zu Temple - the temple from which Macau supposedly got its name (6) Macau Tower - we went up to the 58th floor where we had an awesome view of Macau but it was pretty scary looking through the glass panes on the floor that allowed you to look all the way down to the ground. But I overcame my fear to take some nice photos! The place offered some extreme sports also such as bungee jumping, sky jumping and sky walking and we saw one guy doing a bungee jump which looked awfully scary. Even the lift trip was kinda interesting to me to say the least cos you could look outside... (7) Senado Square - a popular area which has cobblestone roads similar to that in many European countries (8) Ruins of St. Paul's - a world heritage site and near a bakery where I bought some stuff like lao po bing and almond cookies...

We didn't have time to go to the newest casino, "The Venetian", which was a pity but it was still a very good sightseeing trip and along the way we had quite a lot of good food like the Portugese egg tart from Margaret's Cafe e Nata (which was unbelievably good and I never ate any egg tart that even came close to this) and the shui xie zhou (crab porridge) at Cheng Chang restaurant.

We still managed to find time for supper after coming back from Macau as we had claypot rice at a shop near our hotel as we ended a very tiring day and we had some guy talk at night which was quite cool =)

5th Jan - Final day in HK and we went to have a hearty dim sum breakfast which was like so cheap and good and had a nice view of the sea. It was all about last-minute shopping and exploring the streets and it was nice as I spent the last few hours with my roommate trawling through some of the streets of Mongkok in search for their local food and we found the polo buns with butter at what seemed like a normal bakery but it tasted awesome! We also had roast goose leg and super duper cheap but good wanton mee (HK$10) so it was certainly a good eating experience!

Finally headed to the airport where I tried to get some souvenirs cos never really shopped much during the trip but only bought some sweets so while stocks last! =p

Oh yes, I remembered something funny. Advice - bring a luggage bag that is very distinctive cos both at the HK airport and Changi airport, it wasn't obvious to me which bag was mine cos apparently black bags with the word "polo" on it are very common and my friends were all laughing at me each time a black bag came out cos they all looked the same.

That more or less brings about an end to the stories in my HK trip. Looking forward to our next trip in March!

6th-8th Jan - long hours of meetings and the 1st day was the worst cos I slept at 4am after all the unpacking and stuff and woke up at about 7am. Anyway the most interesting things I found useful were some CPR exercise as well as my 2 main love languages (based on the 5 love languages by Gary Chapman) - which is firstly words of affirmation followed by physical touch, which was not a surprise to me given my past experiences and also that's probably why I tend to write stuff for others and I usually prefer to receive cards with heart-felt stuff written rather than gifts (not that I don't like but it's rare that I get gifts that really appeal to me). =)

9th Jan - went to watch Sherlock Holmes and it was a very nice movie! I liked the action stuff and I've always liked Sherlock Holmes since reading his story books as a kid. I just found it soooo me and I like the intellectual stimulation as he analyses situations and people and figures out how everything falls in place. His observation skills is also fantastic and he's also a very scientific person - basically someone I wish to be haha.

I remember doing something related to Sherlock Holmes for an electrochemistry puzzle for Science Fiesta in 2008 and I enjoyed it very much and I shall go and try and find out more about him so that I can try to relate my lectures to him - one needs to stay updated and relevant in his teaching to entertain the kids!

10th Jan - forced myself to wake up at 7.15am to go jogging with Jonathan then gymming with him and LJ. It was torturous initially but after finishing the 4km run + jog/walk and working out, I felt good about myself. Aching terribly now but I think it's worth the effort and pain. Must try to keep this up every week now that the term has started! Anyway LJ was complaining like forever about waking up on a Sunday morning to exercise which was quite funny haha but yeah I probably couldn't do it if I had to do it myself that's why it's important to get exercise partners!

11th Jan - first day of the term and nothing eventful today so I spent some time preparing for the term by clearing out my cupboards and arranging my stuff. Once I return the stuff for IGC my desk area should look really clean! Ok, time to sleep! 2.5 hours to blog! OMG!

Anyway, will blog tmr night as promised and it shall be on my new year resolutions! =)