huay huay huay!

finally went jogging for the first time in 2 months! 2 months left.

how do i take in enough of the beauty of this place?

which is the prettiest? what a tough choice~

pretty flowers always remind me of joanna!
i dunno what we do everyday that whiles time away,
but a fave activity is admiring flowers on the way after class =)
haha actually i cheated. some of these are from suzhou and hangzhou!

江南

back from jiangnan!
we are all so exhausted from our 5-day, 6-night, 5-trains whirlwind tour of hangzhou, suzhou, shanghai and nanjing. hmm honestly, it didn't feel rushed, and didn't feel like we needed to see anymore of each place (except maybe nanjing where it was just freaking wintery cold after the rain). Jiangnan is so pretty! no wonder the poets are always writing about some shan shui that we can't visualize...
but we were just so exhausted everyday. so many stupid suay but memorable things happened - the kind that u wonder: did that just happen to me/us?!
like being stowaways on the train when we ended up holding on to yesterday's train tickets!!! getting pickpocketed within 10min of reaching Shanghai! rapid downgrade from sleeper cabin to soft seater (like a plane cabin) to hard seater (environment feels 杂乱 ) to STANDING tickets. i can't believe it... and jiangnan -in the south- was colder than beijing!!!!!!!! but we -and my MP3 player- are still safe and sound - thank God! =)
this is what happens when you start wondering: shouldn't your life on exchange consist of more than writing a paper on the importance of family upbringing and juvenile crime~ God knows our thoughts and prayers!!!

being loving/tolerant in all circumstances isn't that easy when yr legs are aching, lack sleep and getting banged against for the upteenth time, horrendous music blasted in your face at 6am by a fellow train passenger...

but thanks to dongyan my shanghaiese fren who came to NUS for exchange just last year. good to see her again! =) in her hometown. and thanks to yingchan the only singaporean in zhejiang uni who brought us around hangzhou too.and thanks to yi and her boys - who we put out of their beds when we camped over at their palace-y shanghai apartment. and one of whom recommended us a suzhou hotel tt charges by the hour - guess why?

and so a good break from travelling is to laze around and watch drama serials!!! my lovely samsoon is soooo addictive - just like Goong~

she gained 7kg to play the role! hmmm just come to china on exchange!! the food in shanghai was yummy =)

watching k-drama feels different with lots of korean students and korean fashion/food right here in bejing...hmmm maybe can try the korean hairdresser soon!

Family in town!

couldn't finish uploading photos last week...
finally blogger is less "blocked" this week (already 19apr!)


Family in town! =)
Dad, mum & Ying came up to Beijing over the Singapore Easter weekend. =)

an update on spring~ a different view of 未名湖

yuan lai it's so difficult to play tourguide! heh~ but i think they liked the 早市 morning market best =) although mum already horrendously bought so many things tt she could only look longingly at the many goodies in the morning market she couldnt bring back. she bought a carton of books back! and that was only cos she ran out of money and luggage space le... ha!

this is the roof of tongrentang 同仁堂. even the roof of the palace 故宫is not entirely gold!
it's this medical hall that were the imperial physicians during the qing dynasties. and because they are proud that they 治未病, 不治已病, of course everyone has something to buy at tongrentang!! horrendous prices~

back to the touristy places...

good weather =)
from my last trip to china in 1999, i remem china= mountains. but this time we've been in beijing city for far too long, finally caught a good sight of mountains!

get your "certificate for climbing up the great wall" here! this is at about 1/4 of the way though. chairman mao wrote: 不到长城非好汉, not 不爬长城非好汉~

climb far look far! 爬得高看得远!

exchange students don't blog this part abt their sem~

or mayb beida's the only uni that has mid-terms...

we guai guai stayed in our rooms trying to finish up our paper in prep for jiangnan trip~ not everyday on exchange is travel/photo-happy day :P

bleh! i can't express my opinion in chinese!!!

i thought could come here to improve chinese.. but from a 25-75 chinese-english expression in singapore, i'm prob gg up to a 50-50 chinglish ba...

suka makan

after cold winters-early spring, there's cold spring winds and sandstorms! sand in your mouth, sand in your eyes, sand in your face! so that's a jollly good excuse not to exercise!

and after the initial complaints about the food here, we've been eating, eating and eating. singaporean student assoc gathering = makan. meet up with qinghua pple = makan. go out with roommate = makan. after dinner, we headed for the minimart - when your food is very salty, you crave for something sweet after dinner! conversation = talk about where has good food (in beijing, china AND singapore). yesterday while trying to decide to get a big purchase for our mums, siok hoon and i headed for... carrefour for more munchies :P fascinated by everything in the supermarket. upon our wondering aloud, a kind auntie explained how beijingers eat the strange-looking vege. friendly beijingers~

and of course, can't miss out on the Peking Duck in beijing
as expected, the first time we ate it with siok hoon's uncle -on my bday!- seemed more yummy! wanted to try the duck heart, duck XX part and duck YY part, but they look more exciting on the dish than when it's actually on your chopstick.

一点点赘肉别紧张,杨贵妃照样迷死唐明皇

eating twice or more of my usual portions :P

upcoming Easter in beijing! quite fascinated by the queue in the middle of a construction site to get into the local church 5min away from beida. but apparently the "approved" churches here have some content "banned". but for what we think as 'conservative' china, our IP professor actually took up a lawsuit against Philips 飞利浦 in her own capacity, trying to make a point about IP protection and exploitation in China. she's one dynamic lady - got Philips to withdraw their patent and donate money to IP R&D in China! it's interesting studying IP law from the Chinese perspective - how they're disadvantaged having started developing their IP system years after the western powers have (which is true!). yes, while downloading my MP3s and watching DVDs from the nearby 地摊...