sian sian sian... was doing my 思考题 for GEs at PKU.. but give up in the end.. simply have no mood to do... stuck at my database at work.. just dunno how to continue.. feel very tired everytime i sit down at my work desk. dunno lei, dun like the working environment there.. no communication between the pple in the dept.. have decided that i won't want to work in any manufacturing plant after i grad.. it's a super sian place... day in day out maintaining this machine that machine.. run here run there.. 看了都 sian... ok.. i'm whining.....

It's another weekend gone.. with lessons at PKU going into full swing, days at coke seems shorter. It seems to be a good thing, however, the weekend seems shorter too… haha
The days at coke now was just looking forward to Thursday whereas the days at PKU was looking ‘backwards’ to Friday…hee.. really need to proposal working days reduce to 3, studying days staying at 2 and weekend remaining at 2 too..

I have decided to get a speaker system from the ‘sim lim square’ here. Been looking thru the catalog online, have short listed a few.. gonna get a 2.1 system.. cost will be abt 30-40 sing bucks.. think it’s definitely cheaper here.. guess I’ll be visiting the electronic market here very often as it’s just beside PKU, so tink will be going to Carrefour n the electronic market after sch every fri or sat ba…

Last Friday PKU organized a student exchange session between us and some of the PKU students, well… there’s nothing special abt this session though except for the dinner and the dinner sucks.. haha.. got a few chio bus here n there.. hmmm.. maybe it’s just only 1 or 2… haha….
think due to the nature of study in PKU, most of the students here are taking double major while the others are going on to research or master level in their specialization, most of them are taking subjects like medicine, archeology, physics, economics, environment etc.. mostly non technical related subjects. Guess their mentality was just to study n study till they reached the peak of the study hierarchy… looking at their attitude towards education, I can see a reflection of them in those PRC students in NTU…haha…

But unlike NTU, the study environment in PKU is really good, although everything is being taught in Chinese, but the prof here really pose questions that will let u think… quoting one of my prof teaching us here, he said, “ there’s not right or wrong answers to my questions, there’s only ‘top’ and ‘below par’ answers to them”… he just meant that no matter how irrelevant is our answers is to his qns, as long as it is logical and holds our own personal opinions, supported by facts and figures, it will be a top level answer… guess u’ll nv find tat type of marking standards in NTU.. ya, think it’s because the courses in NTU are all those with all the formulas and standard procedure.. which means u can nv smoke ur way thru… sian

Went to 颐和园 on sat after lesson, it’s one of those many imperial gardens with lots of ancient structures from the ancient times.. I’ve always feel ancient when walking thru these old imperial places.. there’s always been this curiosity of mine on how ancient emperors led their life, the stories from long long time ago, the deception, the conspiracy from the olden dynasties, the story behind each and every grandeur of the original structures… wow… everytime I’ve stepped into such places, I always think that it’s just 100 or 200 years ago that some emperors might be standing at the same point as I am, looking at the same thing.. n what might he be thinking at that point in time while looking at the same scenery…. Hmmm…

Well, maybe it’s due to the lack of time and the crowd, the ‘ancient’ feeling that I have at these places don’t always last very long, maybe it’s just that I don’t have the time to linger ard a particular spot for longer period. Guess I will be reading more on the history of such places, if I have the time.. hee.. it will be very interesting after reading thru stories and visiting the exact same site where the story happen… it’s cool… n ya, companions that u go to these places are also very impt.. that’s wat I feel after so many visits, with different grps of pple, to these historical places. Maybe 2 will just be a nice number if I’m touring these places again… hee

This weekend of mine ended with a visit to a salsa pub on sun nite, was invited by a few of our PKU counterparts.. erm… it’s not strictly a pub that is solely dedicated to salsa, it’s just that the theme for that pub every sun is salsa.. there’s not many pple there, but most of them know how to dance… haha, in the end most of us(the NTU pple) who went there just sit by the side and chit chat.. haha.. hmm… it’s not that we are anti, we did join the dance for a while, then after tat, we just exit from the dance floor.. becos we are just so stiff n un-sexy on the dance floor… haha.. guess gil will like the place over there…. Nice experience… think the pub is called taku, location is very near PKU, didn’t remember the road name in which the pub lies…

So that’s my weekend and here I am again, sitting at my desk at coke, starting a whole new week of work…

Finally the 4 day work week in beijing starts le.. woohoo.. With a 4 day week, time in office seems shorter than the usual 5 day one.. maybe it's the tot of not working on friday ba...

Anyway, friday appears faster than it should be.. woke up early in the morning, abt the same time when i went to work daily...transport: chartered bus... the whole journey to PKU takes abt 1.5 hrs during peak morn traffic and 45 mins during sat non-peak period.. cost: 22 RMB, abt 2 times more than taking public transport..but chartered bus save us the trouble to transfer from bus to mrt to bus then walk again.. very mafan ah... haha

First lesson at 北大, our lecturer was absent due to some other commitments.. in his place came another prof.. he's the lecturer for the 2nd part for that particular subject... all i can say of the first lesson was that it was stunning.. think most of the prof in PKU are very zai.. cos taking this prof that took over us for example, even though he did not prepare for the first lesson, he can just go on n on during the lesson without any divergence from the topic.. can see that his tots were very clear and organised... ZAI...

Then came the 2nd day, different prof(cos we are taking 3 different subjects in PKU, so will be meeting abt 5 tutors all in all i think), he wore sandals with t-shirt, bringing his tea and laptop for the morning lesson.. very casual wor.. haha
n that gives us a hint of our dress code for lesson next week ba... hah

He's also another tutor who can just gabble non stop.. n with content somemore... but as compared with the 1st tutor we met, he's still a bit 'died', so after 1.5 hrs of lesson time later, most of us in the class were quite sian liao.. haha, btw, there's only the 14 of us taking the course as PKU dun start their sem till 1st of september.

So much for lessons in PKU, actually the fun thing this weekend is us going for the weekly gathering of Sporeans in beijing at the Swissotel on friday. We got this lobang when we met one of the comm member from the spore chamber of trade in beijing. He's ard 50+ yrs old, living in beijing for abt 10+ yrs.. very friendly guy and with hell lots of business contacts in BJ. Ya, so under his recommendation, me n my apt mates decide to go look look c c how this weekly thingy is actually like....

The ambience at the Swissotel here is not bad, but most of the pple there are sporean in BJ doing business.. so in the end we feel a bit lost there.. haha... but hai hao, luckily the 50+ uncle(we call him uncle andrew) was there and he introduced us to quite a few of his comm members there and brought us to the 'lau pa sat' in beijing for supper. The lau pa sat here is actually a restaurant opened by sporean. The shop is located near 三里屯, selling spore food like carrot cake, fried kway tiao n so on... i tried the teochew kway tiao.. have the looks of spore food, but with the serving of china food and tasted so so only.. hee
as the food there is quite ex(as compared to the usual pricing in BJ), most the customers there i think is sporeans..

After tat i joined the lot, including uncle andrew and his clique, for a chill out session at a nearby pub at 三里屯. The pub is called cappuccino. There's a live band there and basically the crowd there just sit down, listen to music, drink, or play with the dices provided there.(there's a game similar to bluff, like guessing the number on the dice each time it is rolled)
Ya, i had a fun time there, listening to the experiences of the old birds in BJ and drinking diluted chivas like nobody business..and everything is being paid for by uncle andrew and gang...oops... haha.. too bad there's no dance floor in the pub... did feel quite high after the session.

Hmmm... have no idea how to write my entry... went to the great wall n spore embassy over the weekend... one was tiring, the other was homely.. *unrelated* =P great wall was packed with pple... esp near the 烽火台 where the lane is only restricted to a path to 2 pple.. n most of the local tourists there are really 'pushy'..sian.. they like to push u here n there in order to get create their path out of ya... some of them can get quite rowdy too... haiz... suan le.. i shall adopt the bo hui attitude.. as long as they dun irritate me directly can liao.. hee

Sat trip to 十三陵 and 长城 was a tiring one.. so decided to try something relax on sun.. went to the bazzar at the spore embassy.. expected it to be nothing much.. n it turns out this way.. really nothing there n the cover charge(typical spore.. cos this fee is in the name of donation... haha) is really expensive.. just go inside is abt 100 RMB le.. stayed there for a while then i 'run' liao.. went to 秀水街 n bought lots of dvds.. they are high end pirated dvds wor... hehe.. although costing 10RMB, but the quality of most of the dvds are guaranteed there... i shall make more visit there to build up my collection wor.. hehe
now i have 3 places to buy my dvds.. 西单 to buy animes and tv shows, 秀水街 to buy movies, a street near 天坛 that sells sporting wear, 中关村 to buy electronic stuff... hmm.. i will be finding more places... haha...

The weather is getting cooler in beijing le.. maybe the typhoon, that is about to bring torrential rains at this moment when i'm writing this, will bring the temp further down here ba... brr...

Went to 秀水街 to buy a new pair of slip-ons today.. cos the slippers i brought to beijing is getting cmi le.. haha
Bought the shoes at 150 RMB.. abt 30 spore dollars ba.. dun whether it is worth it or not.. asked the salesgal to get me a new pair, but in the end think she just changed a shoe box that's all... diao... cos it just happen that the display pair that i tried on is abt my shoe size, so the sales gal just try to chic me into taking the pair..but i asked her to get me a new pair.. think i'm too tired, didn't notice the stupidity of me until after i pay her.. haiz... hope the shoes will last lah, although can c tat the base is sticking not so well to the leather...hope it can tahan normal wash n water soaked terrain ba... hmmm..... *pray pray*.. but the comforting thing is that the shoes still looks not bad... hee