等放lunch

Lunch hour at the office is an exciting hour because...

1. LUNCHTIME!! food food food food...
2. I get one hour of absolutely nothing to do except eat, shop and explore Central.
3. I get to leave my teeny tiny cubicle and chair to take in some fresh air outside and stop my ass from getting flatter than it already is.
4. It signifies that I have already reached the halfway mark of my 8 hour workday.
5. There are PLENTY of sales going on around here!! H&M, Esprit, AX here i comeeeeeee!
6. 鄭少 comes to visit me for lunch =)

next to the weekend, lunchtime is my favourite time of the week =)

我愛計(婆仔)數

在香港買東西比在大陸買困難:　在大陸就把價錢除五，　但是在香港就要除七 （除五點都比除七容易）. so when i shop, I have to mentally divide the price by 5 or 7 to get a "Canadian equivalent". generally speaking, things in Hong Kong are pretty cheap right now mostly because the prices are divided by 7 (strictly speaking, should be 6.7 but if i have to be that concise, I will have to bring a calculator with me wherever I go). 基本上買東西都不會肉痛.

但是收人工就比較心痛. I am cheap labour in this Hong Kong market, making a meager $800HKD per a 5-days week which is honestly less than what I make at Gourmet. So let's do the math...

$800HKD per week / 5 days a week = $160HKD/day
$160HKD per day / 8 hours a day (1 hour break inclusive) = $20HKD an hour
$20HKD / ~$7HKD/$1CDN = < $3 CDN

wow. I am making less than BC minimum wage. in fact, I am making less than when I delivered the Tri-cities News 2 times a week during grade 10 (I made around $10 a week then and it takes me around 1 hour to deliver the papers once).

man remind me again why I am doing this.

Currently listening: 盧廣仲 - 好想要揮霍

我的 OL 生涯 Day 1

one word: bored. all I did was attempted to translate a letter from English to simplified Chinese and file a pile of paperwork that was 1/3 of my height. to be honest, the kind of law that they do at this law firm is corporate law (handling mergers, stocks, companies, etc.) which is something that I totally am not interested in. still experience is better than no experience and something to do is better than nothing to do. plus the people at the firm are really nice.

currently watching: ID 精英

P.S. 好緊張呀.....下禮拜一有烈火雄心3...with 黃宗澤

i got my blog back

After being deprived of my blog for almost two months (China decided that blogspot was not something that the Chinese public should be allowed to access), I finally got my blog back by arriving in Hong Kong (aka land of sweltering outdoor heat and full blast indoor a/c) two nights ago.

It was quite frustrating to have my blog blocked as I was traveling throughout China because that was when I had a lot of things to say and share. And it was a good way to remember the minor details of my three-week trip. But now, thanks to the Great Firewall, my Chinese experiences will be forgotten and I will not remember half of the things I saw, ate, heard and experienced by the time I return to Vancouver. So much for promoting the goodness of the Chinese and demolishing the prejudices that the outside world has against China. The only thing I will probably remember now is how I, firsthand, became the victim of the oppression of my right to free speech and blogging.

Whatever. At least I am back now.

and somehow, I'm in Shanghai again.

A final little relax trip until finals hit in two weeks. To my credit, I brought my notes and textbook too so that I can study. And I actually DID study today. Went to Xintiandi on the 109 route bus (a mere 2RMB my friends) and bought an iced coffee (25RMB) and two croissants (11RMB each) and sat down to study, outdoors in the brilliant sun, surrounded by little chirping sparrows trying to eat some of my crumbs, for 2 hours.

The cafe that I was at is called Paul and comes directly from Paris. In fact, the last time I was there, the two Americans that I happened to found myself in a conversation with told me that the croissants in the Shanghai Paul were exactly the same as the ones they had in the Paris Paul. And honestly, the croissants were heavenly. Before, on my "best croissants" list, T&T croissants came in number 1 (it's sad when the best croissants I had were from a Chinese supermarket in Vancouver) but now, they're definitely Paul. I might consider buying half a dozen to bring with me when I leave Shanghai...

Currently listening: 小步舞曲 - 陳綺貞

1 Corinthians 13

Recently, Karen told me a simple way to "checklist" myself and see if I really love the people around me. It comes in the form of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:

Love is patient,
love is kind.
It does not envy,
it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It is not rude,
it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects,
always trusts,
always hopes,
always perseveres.
Love never fails.

So, everytime I am not doing one of these things, I am not loving the people around me enough.
The plan is, every now and then everyday I'll try to run the list through my head. However, I still haven't managed to memorize the whole passage yet but I guess I don't really need to since I rarely fulfill the first "requirement" of love anyways: patience. Maybe when I get the patience part down, I can finally move on to kindness, etc.

Currently listening: Put on Your Sunday Clothes - Michael Crawford

Back in the BO

Yes after a one week absence from Ningbo, I am back to my daily grind of exchange, living-on-my-own life.

Both Nanjing and Shanghai were excellent and I took too many photos, went to too many places and ate too much food to post all of them here.

However, I will show you this:



On my supposedly 4 hour bus ride from Nanjing to Shanghai, the bus driver decided to overload the bus by having people sit in the aisle on little stools too. Extremely crowded, uncomfortable, stuff and dangerous.

That's the uglier part of China.

Currently listening: 今日 - 陳奕迅