Day 3, Beijing

Woke up at 6+ am today to another bright and sunny day, went for breakfast and we started on our tour today at 8am.

toured the forbidden palace, tian an men square, si he wu and ended the tours for the day.

will update photos because I finally got to buy a SD card which we forgot to bring along. and today being a work day, the places were comparatively empty. could you imagine them when packed?

China Day 2, Beijing

Left for the airport at 6am, woke up at 5am for the ride to the airport. Had McDonalds for breakfast to the amusement of finding out that their sausage McMuffins were made with pork patties. Reached the airport at 6.30am and was greeted with a rather empty Shanghai airport. Checking the E-tickets again, I realized that my mom had read the time wrongly. Instead of a 0855 flight, we had assumed it was a 0800 flight and we lost one hour of extra sleep time. As it was still early, the shops were still closed and there was nothing to do except to sit around and chat to pass the time. During check-in, there was a group of people presumably from the countryside who cut queues as well as a lady squatting down to apply her makeup. The check-in process was done rather quickly with minimal hassle. On the good side, I managed to find free wireless internet access! Hurray! Managed to check my emails and send out a few more as well. To someone: don’t be sad, I’ll be back soon! Flight was delayed as there was someone who did not board the plane in time and I think we missed the slot allocated initially for the flight and had to re-queue for the next available slot to take off. The flight was delayed for an hour and we departed Shanghai for Beijing at around 10am. Arrived at Beijing at around 12pm, cleared through customs in a breeze! No temperature checks at all so it was really fast. Went to see the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, saw the exterior of the 7 Star hotel which Bill Gates booked for 1 billion yuan for Olympics. Definitely cool! Nothing much in the stadium though, and the place had people smoking on the seats. So much for preserving the stadium. Went to the hotel after that to rest up, went for a super quick dinner and watched an acrobatic show at the Tian Qiao Zha Ji Yuan and returned to the hotel to rest.

shanghai day 1

Left Singapore for Shanghai and the flight was from 10am and touched down at Shanghai Pudong Airport at 3.05pm. The Airbus 330 was cramped in the economy section and I couldn’t get any sleep at all. The in-flight entertainment system was useless as they provided earphones but they were not connected to the movie showing on the central screens. So I couldn’t see the film clearly nor could I hear anything at all because the earphones provided were useless. To add on to that, there was a fat guy snoring so loudly that people in the row in front of me turned back to see who was snoring, and there was a baby who kept on crying as the pressure system must have made it very painful for the baby. When we landed, the passenger across the aisle switched on his hand-phone the moment we touched down and all his messages started coming in and with his phone on full volume it just kept on ringing and ringing and ringing. As a whole, I wish that I was not flying the same airline back but I don’t have a choice there. I will at least enjoy the time that I am going to spend here in China. Clearing the customs and health checks were still alright with no signs of temperature taking going on though. All the officials were wearing masks and people with coughs were made to wear masks. Cleared through immigration and met the other two people who would join us on our tour. The driver was late, so we made small talk whilst waiting for the driver to arrive. Reached the hotel Jin Li Hua at around 4.30pm so we arranged to meet each other again at 5pm for dinner and do a bit of exploring around the neighborhood. The temperature was around 20 degrees Celsius and with the wind blowing the temperature dipped even more. Had Bi Fong Tang for dinner as it started drizzling and it was the only place we could see in sight that appeared to have decent food. After dinner, we went out walking and found the night markets selling food, pirated DVDs and clothes. The emporium was a total letdown and we couldn’t find anything that was worth buying. We returned to the hotel at 7.30pm with nothing to do other than shower and try to settle down into bed whilst having the sound of drilling accompanying us to sleep. It is now 8.30pm and the construction drilling is still going on. Will be heading up to Beijing tomorrow on an 8am flight and I’m hoping that there will be breakfast served on board the short two hour flight. Going to try to sleep now and would be waking up at 5am tomorrow. Thus ends the first night in Shanghai.

Graduation

papers have been over for a few days now, and i'm packing my room, going through all the things that i've touched and went through for the past three years. made a lot of friends, lost someone dear to me, perservered through, met the one for me, started on working life, getting a right attitude, keeping going on, created a lot of fantastic music with great people, gave a lot to the band and received even more back. Found the Lord in my path again when I was lost. The list just goes on and on..

somehow, the feeling that this phase of my student life is over started when I finished the papers for economics. the final paper towards my major was over just like that. all the effort put it, and the rest is up to Him. the feeling of student life being over is something that you yearn for once again, that you want to turn back time and start all over again, where you have no worries about what you were going to do tomorrow because its already planned for you. all you have to do is to focus on your grades and be there to do your best for your academic pursuits.

at the end of the paper, whilst everyone was rushing off to prepare for their next paper, i just sat there at my desk, and had this surreal feeling that everyone's rush around me held different meanings. I was just this spectator in this large arena where everyone showed their skills and abilities and everyone else was watching each other as well. seeing the flow of people whilst you just sat there within and without the arena of the examination hall, just feels like you are in another dimension.

at the end of the last paper of my academic life, seeing people around me wearing winter gear to "fight" the cold of the exam halls brought a laugh to me. I was just weary and tired of all the pursuits already and in a way, I'm glad its over and yet, I miss that I would not have the same experiences again. Life in NUS has been full of all emotions. A large rollercoaster ride that I enjoyed and would not have changed for anything. If anything, I would make more mistakes and made even more funny things happen.

even though i made the first ever mistake of my life of not bringing my wallet out on the morning of the last paper, the rush home and back to school through the traffic jams brought a lot of thoughts to my mind. even though it was the last paper, i still had to give it my best. I still have to give it my all. to push through to reach with the minimal time lost. Even though there were a few other people who were late or later than me, they strolled in and did not have the urgency to actually complete the paper. perhaps that was their way of remaining calm and collected to handle the paper, but to me, it felt like they didn't care about the paper.

student life is over now, and time to proceed on with working life.

going to shanghai and beijing to settle things there next week, and will be back after that to concentrate fully on my work. Jiayou!