Basketball.

I went to the Southorn Indoor Stadium in the afternoon to catch the matches in the “Straits Cup” (海峽盃) Basketball Tournament. This 3-day tournament featured 4 teams from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Macau. There were 2 matches on show today: Taiwan Beer vs Hong Kong and Fujian SBS vs Macau Fukien Sports Club. To be honest, most people in the stadium just now were mainly there to see Taiwan Beer, which is the Taiwanese league winners. However, due to one reason or another, they didn’t really play up to expectation and they duly lost to Hong Kong 75-83. I seriously think if Taiwan Beer played up to their standards in the Taiwanese league, the result would have been very different. That said, some refereeing decisions didn’t go in Taiwan Beer’s favour, so I guess it’s kinda destined that Hong Kong would win this match.

One sidenote, I had the opportunity to wave hi to 黑人, who is the marketing director of the Taiwan Beer team. It turned out that he was wearing the same cap that I was (the commemorative cap celebrating Taiwan Beer’s championship win this year – a limited edition cap, may I add), and while I waved hi by lifting my cap, he also returned a hi by lifting his cap. Nice gesture, really (though deep inside I actually wanted Hong Kong to win).

Hot.

After experiencing 37 degrees almost everyday while I was in Nanjing, suddenly enduring temperatures like 34 degrees in Hong Kong doesn’t seem that unbearable. That said, I’m still a winter animal.

I spent US$9.95 yesterday to get the iPhone 2.0 firmware for my iPod Touch and to be honest, it was one of the best deals that I’ve made for this whole year so far! Now my iPod Touch is literally an iPhone that does not have the capabilities of a mobile phone – almost everything you can do with an iPhone can be done on my iPod Touch! This firmware upgrade was brilliant as now I can run iPhone applications. Yesterday while I was playing with the Google Maps on the gadget, it was able to accurately pinpoint to the location that I was in (which prompted me to wonder if there is a GPS device inside the thing), and even calculated the fastest route for me to get home from school (a 9.5 kilometer trip that should take only 13 minutes by car) – just like the Google Maps on the desktop! And this firmware upgrade also (finally) included handwriting input support for both Traditional and Simplified Chinese, and its accuracy for identifying the characters are actually pretty good.

A nice gadget made even nicer by Apple. Now I don’t think I need to buy the HTC Touch Diamond already. W00t!

Meeting.

It was a tiring day for me yesterday. Work in the day, then meeting at night. When I was back in NUS, having a meeting at 9.30 at night didn’t seem to be a problem at all, but now that I’m working, having a meeting at 9.30 is something that I don’t think I could handle that easily. Coupled with the fact that I kind of only had one day of rest after returning from Nanjing, I was completely knackered the moment I was done with my meeting. Hope this won’t be repeated.

Anyway if you have seen my sister’s blog you would have realised that her camera was damaged. The main culprit of course was me because I dropped it accidentally while I was in Nanjing (though the sucker in me would insist that it wasn’t my fault), and while I’m trying to claim from my travel insurance, I think it might be likely that I have to get a new one for her. And since the one that was damaged was a Sony DSC-T200, I think the only one that made sense as a replacement would be the DSC-T300…

And this thing costs $3,390…

Still exhausted, and still have a day of work to look forward to. Not the best way to start a day, really.

Nanjing.

Yoohoo – I’m back from Nanjing. Actually I was back yesterday, but I had a bit of work to do after I touched down, so I delayed my post until now. Sorry about that.

Anyway Nanjing didn’t really change from the last time I was there, except that it was much hotter than the last time. Everday the highest temperature was at 37 degrees (reported to be, anyway) and it definitely didn’t make for a very comfortable time. However, the weather was about the only complain I would have in the whole trip, because I did have the opportunity to meet different people and see different things, and having 7 days to see Nanjing is always better than just 1!

I spent the whole of today recuperating from the 7 exhausting days, which was brilliant because I was bascially lazing around, watching TV, playing on my PS3, and did a bit of reading as well. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday. And with a few hectic weeks ahead of me, a break like today is always welcome! That said, I don’t think I’ve fully recovered from the trip yet, and with a new working week ahead, I think that definitely doesn’t sound like a good thing!

The whole of today was spent preparing for Nanjing.

It’s the first time that I’m on a working trip since coming into HKBU (could well be my last, for those who know what I’m talking about) and honestly while I’m quitely looking forward to it, there’s also quite a bit of nervousness that’s playing inside me right now. I’m not sure if things would turn out fine, I don’t know if the kids are going to be alright for the next 7 days, I do not really know what to expect from the place… etc etc. There seems to be so many things that are playing on my mind right now that I somehow am feeling a bit nervous. I’ve got my supervisor going along with me, and while that should offer me some kind of assurance, I’m also at the same time even more afraid of messing things up especially when she’s around.

That said, the one good thing about me is that I kind of let things take their own shapes when they happen, so I guess I’ll deal with any situations should they arise, and I think with my intelligence I should be able to get them dealt with nicely. It’s time to be confident!

I don’t think I would be able to update that often when I’m in Nanjing because of the GFW in China, so if you don’t see me for the next 7 days, don’t miss me!

Friday.

It’s Friday today!

This whole week so far has been very tiring for me, with all the preparation for the trip to Nanjing, as well as the project assignment in school. I was discussing about the project with my group mates until close to 12 midnight at Festival Walk, and it definitely wasn’t the best way to end the day when you see the lights going off at the shopping centre.

Actually it didn’t really strike me this year so much that half a year is over (probably because when the first six months were really over, I was actually in Taiwan – I think it matters), and when I look back in the past couple of months, I somehow realised that I’ve been getting myself very busy with a lot of things. Work obviously has always been busy for me in this capacity, but it’s the other things that are occupying my time. Schoolwork, postgraduate association, NUS-HK alumni… there seems to be an endless list of things that I’m getting myself involved in. So much so that I would very much prefer lazing around at home on weekends just to recuperate from the whole week of activities. But sometimes even that is not possible because I’d need to be getting things done on Saturdays and Sundays too! That said, if you ask me if I am enjoying all these, I think the answer would be a yes, because I think that’s what make life worth the while.

That said, I think I’m still very much living in the now rather than planning for the future. I guess perhaps one fine day I should start worrying about that problem. One fine day.

Ideas.

I was on the train the other day with my classmates and we were complaining about how horrible the services provided by some companies are. It’s like, some companies (for example, my holy beloved estate management company at where I live) are just hopeless in their work, and they don’t work on something unless somebody makes some noise (i.e. complain). And it seems like for some of these companies, you always need a very strongly-worded letter to make sure that they do their work. And then an idea struck me – I could build a website in which people can select the words and phrases to use in their complain letter such that it appears very strongly-worded yet at the same time do not sound vulgar. I believe such a website would probably attract a lot of hits, and if I can provide other people in similar plight an easy way to vent their frustration, I think that’s worth all the while.

It rained very heavily again this morning, but it wasn’t heavy enough – a black rainstorm signal would do nicely!

Rain.

It has been raining quite continuously for the past couple of days and I don’t think it’s such a fun thing at times, even though it means that it wasn’t as warm.

Yesterday evening’s class wasn’t the most interesting one that I’ve ever been to, and that resulted in me succumbing to the sleeping bug for the first time since entering CityU last September – I fell asleep in class for about 10 minutes (or was it more?). To my horror, the lecturer had only gone through 3 slides on his PowerPoint. Fascinating.

Somehow I seem to be very much lacking sleep for the past couple of days. I wake up every morning feeling absolutely horrible, and I carry with me a very tired body to work. Even though the tiredness would gradually subside as the day goes on, it would come back at around 2 to 3pm and it is definitely the worst part of my day – I would be doing work with my eyes closed (not a stunt, if you ask me) because I seem to be so tired.

Maybe I should go concuss on my bed at, say, 9pm tonight. Perhaps I need to get out of office early to ensure that I complete whatever I need to before 9 and thus go sleep at that time.

Monday.

It’s never fun to be going back to work on a Monday, especially after a fairly exhausting weekend like the one I had. I was in Shenzhen yesterday with Isaac and his girlfriend who flew in from Singapore – it was great seeing them and I definitely enjoyed the weekend, even though it meant that I have to endure a very tiring day today in office. I actually woke up with a pretty bad headache, but I thought I’d still pull myself out from bed and head to work. Thank God the headache subsided somewhat throughout the day, though a little pimple on my nose does make for some rather uncomfortable moments, and it’s not fun that my nose is completely red now – I certainly look like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, and the worst thing is that it’s nowhere near Christmas yet!

The weather in Hong Kong for the past couple of days have been acting up strange. It wasn’t exactly hot – certainly not as hot as it was in Taipei – and it’s raining quite a bit, which means that actually it does feel a little bit cool, which suits me pretty well! Of course I’m quite sure that the temperature would go back up very soon, but I’m actually quite happy with the weather for these past few days – long may it continue.

For those of you who haven’t already realised, I’ll be heading to Nanjing on Sunday and would be coming back on Saturday. It’s quite weird actually, that up till April this year I’ve never been to Nanjing before in my whole life, and then I’m going there twice in slightly more than 3 months. There must be something about me and overseas trips.

Ayumi Hamasaki is heading to Hong Kong for a concert later in the year, but somehow I just am not having any urge to go watch her this year. I guess it must have been that the “something new” factor is gone. Last year when she was in Hong Kong, it was her first concert ever out of Japan, so everyone was very excited about that. But this year, I somehow just am not entirely interested. Well, it’s still rare that she’s coming, but it’s not like I must go watch otherwise I would die. It would be a case of “if I can get tickets then I’ll go”, but that would be a major question because the pre-sale tickets were already sold out the moment it became available, and with the public sale due to open on the 10th, it certainly doesn’t look very good. I’ll leave it to my sister to take care of it.

Off to sleep – I need rest.

Mambo.

I thought Mambo is something that I have to give up by deciding to come back to Hong Kong – but apparently the Singaporean community in Hong Kong collectively decided that Mambo is something too important to be missed, so they decided to have a Mambo night here in Hong Kong, and boy, do I not miss that!

Of course, with much constraints around, it is only natural that the exact atmosphere at Zouk cannot be brought over, but I thought whatever that was on show was certainly good enough. The DJ wasn’t the best in the world, but I thought he did a fairly decent job in playing some pretty good music. The old me on the podium at Zouk suddenly came back and there I was, doing all those silly moves that somewhat “captivated” the crowd. On more than one occasion I was asked to stand on the sofa (!) to show my moves, which of course being as low-profiled as I am (haha) I declined the offer. But what made me feel most heartwarming was when someone came up to me and say that my moves remind them of home – I think that’s about the biggest compliment I could ever get. I guess for most of us Singaporeans (or even quasi-Singaporeans like myself), there’s always a part of us that would be associated with Mambo Jambo. I’m pretty sure in some stage of everyone’s life, we would have stepped into Zouk and had a night of totally forgetting ourselves to the tunes of Bananarama, Ace of Base and Rick Astley. Whether you actually like it, Mambo would in one way or another be inside us.

I hope there would be another Mambo night in Hong Kong soon!