Life in Beijing

When I turned on the TV, I recognised the scene immediately from Lord of the Rings. Yay! They're showing LOTR on TV!! I simply love the show. Then, Gandalf started speaking.. in Mandarin. OMG. I almost threw up! I quickly changed channel as I didn't want to hear Legolas speak in Mandarin too??? Then this morning on my way to work, this girl in her early 20s came up to me to ask for direction. She went "小妹妹，..." ^%*$%^#&!* I mean, I was in my working clothes that I thought made me look 5 years older than I am??

Apart from the minor hiccups, I'm officially moving in to my house today! Yup, I've finally checked out of my hotel and will figure out how to get to office amidst the traffic jam in the mornings and evenings. Should I cycle to work since it's about 5km away? I think it takes as much time, if not faster, as taking the cab... Or should I buy a car? Hmm......

One week in Beijing

OMG. Why is my blogger control panel in CHINESE now?? The top of my blogger now looks like this:









Someone help me get back my english blogger!! They never even asked me what language i want lor...

Yes, I'm in Beijing for a week already. The week had been tiring with all the house-hunting chores. It was tough finding a place to rent since the rental prices have started to sky-rocket and are now hovering at almost London prices! These people are keeping their houses for the Olympics period as the 1-month olympics is equivalent to 2-year normal rental. So when you want to rent a place now, the prices are based on whether you include the olympics period or not. I almost wanted to give up looking for a 2-room place since they're now way beyond budget and settle for a normal 1-room. But knowing that i've got a waiting list of people planning to visit me in beijing, I decided to stick to my guns. By a stroke of luck, I managed to get a 3-bedroom place at a very decent price. And it even comes with 3 toilets!! This is rare since most places only have 1 toilet even though they have many bedrooms given that china people shower only once a week. Yes, you can smell them from afar. I hope I won't degenerate to their level of hygiene.

Last weekend, I went with Leng to climb the great wall. Guess what? After an hour's drive, we got near there and the police told us the whole place is sealed. Apparently, they were having some cycling competition (involving 18 countries) for the olympics and have closed the area to public till evening! Why do they need to cycle at the great wall?? Stupid people. So up till now, I haven't climbed the great wall. Great.

Today's my 3rd day at work. I'm like doing every other thing except work. I've got so many things on my mind that I want to settle, like getting my credit card, planning my holidays, scolding the HR, etc. The only good thing about joining EY is that they're given me an IBM laptop instead of the stupid Dell!

I'm moving in to my new place this weekend if all goes well. Paying bills here is so troublesome. I just hope I remember to pay all my bills, including that mobile phone bill. Oh did I say I got myself a china mobile number? And I'll be fixing my computer by next weekend or so. I'm so excited...

bon voyage to the bouncing doramon

tomorrow is D-Day! esther cheong or better known as bouncing doramon is going to relocate to BJ tomorrow!!! no more late night suppers with her liao! and no one to help me with assignments (both in school and at work) liao!! thats damn scary lah! hahahaha.

anyways she has decided to bring both her handphone to BJ, her Sing-tel and Star-hub lines. and i just knew it is because she wanted to continue using web sms lah! accountants are born to count every dollar and cents! haha.

anyways hope she will enjoy her job in Ah Tiong land (China). afterall she gave up the chance to become future CFO to be there!! let us wish her bon voyage! hmm..actually somehow i have this feeling that i wont be missing her for long. yeah, i am already planning my trip to BJ liao! haha. :P

Late

We got there at 1.45pm and told the kid to reach the stadium at 2pm. To my horror, the tourney had already started with 4 courts running! We thought it was 2pm all along. Didn't realise that my big sir changed the time to 1pm. It meant that our kid lost via a walkover and it was over for him. It was tremendous disappointment for me as a coach once again. Another type of disappointment though. I must admit that I was pretty upset about it, and being one of the organisers, I feel worse.

Anyway, my other kid got to fight. Although he didn't manage to perform well, the experience he gained in simply standing in the court, fighting amidst the cheers n jeers, was good for him. Now, it's time to prepare for the gals fight tomorrow. The lesson learnt from today's mistake will definitely go a long way...

I wear decent clothes!

I've been so busy running up and down trying to resolve my visa matters, but last Wednesday, I set it aside to bring my grandma out. Unfortunately, my brother was around since he's oredi in ORD mood and had to tag along. The intention was to bring my grandma out for lunch at the humble house. When we got there, the waitress stared at my brother (who, for a while, thought he looks good...) and said "Sorry, we have a dress code here as you can see from this sign here. If you get changed, we'll be happy to welcome you for dinner." Yes, my brother was there in ah-beng top, berms and slippers. OMG. So embarrassing!!! I swear i wore like really nice clothes with shoes and all. So in the end, we settled for the Space by the humble house, their sister restaurant. While my grandma was laughing non-stop during lunch about my bro's ugly dressing, my bro was like shaking his head during the entire lunch and saying "aiyah, wasted wasted...". And I told my bro to walk further away from me.

Finally i settled the national tournament stuffs. It was such a nightmare trying to get everyone to agree with everything. Even my big sir who MIA in korea during this critical moment was providing non value-adding comments. So dehua and me had to do all the slogging till 3am every other night. I'm so glad i'm not going to be around for next year's tournament. Especially when no one really appreciates what you've done. Sighz...... Today's the drawing of lots but i'll be late since i'm having my family lunch at paragon. Hopefully they don't screw things up...

Last night, we brought our shanghai friend out for supper at chomp chomp. It's been a while since i went there. Some shops have changed. But one thing for sure is that i can take chilli a lot better already. I remember I couldn't handle the spice in the sambal sotong very well. This time, i seem to be enjoying the dish instead! Now that I've leveled-up in my spice threshold, it won't be long before i start eating the chongqing hot pot with no sweat. Yay!!

This is an unsolicited entry by Champion Chen

and yes, i still have the admin rights to post something here. hahahaha. and so, EC blabbered nonsense on my blog, i thought i'd return this kind gesture. well, though i think i will miss having her in Singapore, i hope she go to Beijing soon. especially to go there earlier to search for a nice apartment..with TWO (or more) bedrooms specifically. a holiday trip to Beijing with free accomodation sounds like a really neat idea.

well, if you ask me, the one big thing i will miss when she leaves us (for Beijing that is), is that we won't be able to keep up with the latest fashion bloopers. yeah, if you want to know what kind of clothes to avoid, just look the clothes she wear and avoid them. :P

but i really abit sianz leh. since you are sort of permanently located in Beijing, then my holiday destination is now restricted to one area. sianz... aye can you ask for travel assignments plsss? i still have many places that i want to go leh!