Chengdu.

I just got back from a 4-day working trip to Chengdu.  This trip was for the preparation of the upcoming big project which I’m working on (if you are interested in finding out more about this project, you can check out the event website at http://www.ghmc2014.org).

I don’t think I could ever have more gratitude as far as this trip was concerned.  Normally working trips are not fun trips because of the nature, and sometimes they get more stressful rather than anything else, but this time round it was a little less stressful because I had a lot of help from the folks in Chengdu.  Furthermore, my stay in Chengdu turned out to have actually allowed me to get away from the typhoon that hit Hong Kong.  Some may say that I was unlucky to have been unable to get that half-day typhoon-inflicted holiday, but seriously, I never think typhoons should be anything that we should feel happy about.

This trip was also rather uneventful for me in a sense.  For the 2 nights, I would have dinner with my colleagues and then it’s back to the hotel for some rest and personal admin.  In the past I probably might have taken the opportunity to do some walkabout in the city, but somehow this time round I was more comfortable to be just staying in the hotel room to rest, catch up on some office work and go for an early lie-in.  Is it that I’m really getting old?

安順廊橋 – One of the locations which I was working at these few days.

Endnote: These couple of nights have been much easier for me than it would otherwise be.  Thank you so much…

Singapore.

OK I’m not in Singapore yet, but I will be next week.  Would be having a week of holidays and it would be nice to be home to see my parents and friends. The last time I was in Singapore I could only spend a couple of hours to have a meal with my family, and didn’t manage to see any of my friends. Hopefully this one week is going to make up for that. Initially my stay in Singapore this time round was supposed to be somewhat different, but plans get changed and now I have more time to myself.

This September was in a way quite special because it’s the first time that I’m heading home to Singapore instead of doing a trip somewhere else. Since returning to Hong Kong, I always have a habit of travelling around in September (except 2007 when I was starting my last job). If I could recap…

2008: Tokyo
2009: Taipei and Seoul
2010: Shanghai and Seoul
2011: Taipei
2012: Seoul and Busan

As you can see, it seems like I have always been travelling around East Asia in September, so this September is kinda special! And the good thing about my job is that I tend to be more free from the second week of September. This year is a slight exception because of some changes at my job, but since I’ve applied for my leave before that happened, so I guess I’m still good.

By the way, I’ll be in Singapore from 18th to 24th September, arriving around evening time on 18th and flying off in the morning of 24th. To be honest, I can’t wait to fly off next Wednesday!

Typhoon.

Apparently a typhoon is heading towards Hong Kong and rumours have it that the Typhoon No. 8 signal will be hoisted in the late afternoon or early evening. I’m not betting on it – it’s probably just a plot to let everyone look forward to work in the afternoon. Of course, if it does get hoisted, I don’t think I’d complain. I fancy an early night off.

I noticed that there is a 3-week intensive Korean language course offered by Sungkyunkwan University, and being a Korean freak like myself, I am really interested in enrolling in the course. I think that would be a massive experience, not to mention that I would get to live in Korea for a massive three weeks. The only problem for me is to sort out how I could apply for such a long period of leave (15 days), as well as securing enough dosh to last three weeks in Korea without having to really living on a shoestring budget. Well, the application deadline is in December and the course won’t start until March, I guess I have some time to really think it over. I mean, for all you know, I may not have accumulated 15 days of leave by March and I could forget about the whole thing.

Anyway I am planning on a end-of-year getaway trip. At things stand, I am looking at Taiwan and Korea (haha) for a total of about 10 days. Strange it may seem, but I prefer travelling in late autumn to early spring. The weather is usually much friendlier for someone like me and as I always say, I am a winter animal!

Migration.

After being on LiveJournal for the past 11 years, I’ve decided to call it a day and move everything to WordPress.com. Wouldn’t really say it was a calculated decision, but I was just getting a little miffed about posting using LiveJournal as I thought it wasn’t entirely friendly. There’s nothing wrong with them, just that it appeared unfriendly to me.

There are many things that I would need to be fine-tuning over here, so it may look a bit bare and that now. But I do like the fact that I can access the posts I made back in 2002 easily on WP, and I think that would be fascinating to look at myself and my life 10 years ago. When I was in college, I definitely blogged more diligently. Now that I’ve been working and such, I guess sometimes laziness takes precedence somewhat.

We are coming towards the end of March, and April is a month that I definitely am looking very much forward to because of my two trips out of Hong Kong – I’ll be heading out to Manchester, England during the Easter period for my pilgrimage to Old Trafford, home of Manchester United. It’s a dream to go there, and even though my stay there is kind of short, I’m very much looking forward to it. At the end of the month, I’ll be heading to Beijing (by train, may I add) for the Mayday concert in the National Stadium (aka Bird Nest). To be honest, if the concert was being held anywhere else, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. But the Bird Nest is another place altogether and I think the experience is going to be massive. I’ll be looking forward to that.

As for the short term, I’ll just look forward to the weekend first – and I’ll be heading to Ocean Park on Sunday!