Golden Week

Finally after 11wks the hols have started...its going to be our longest break to-date. With my boss on in office on both Wednesday n Thursday, Chelsea can dont come to work on Thurs, plus 2-IC Rachael at Gary Zhen's side doing Shampoo formulation, I was king at my lab...finished my formulations n all the tests than started surfing the net...nvr read CNN so meticulously in donkey long...so Gary was sad-case cause he got no internet at work + he had all his info on his com wiped out after his com kena some prob...i also scared liao, went to copy all my documents over to my D drive.

Fri was boring sch again.

Sat had sports day in the morning. Turn out was bad cause some of them had to work on Sat n Sun so that they can have the whole wk off. So had 2 vs 2 soccer; Rui meng n I against Jianyou n Rong xin at the tennis court. Running up n down for defense n quick counters really shacks u out. U muz be thinking where is Gary; well he woke up late, had breakfast than came down by tat time we started to play captains ball with the gals already. Was really fun i muz say. So it was Rong xin, me (the twin towers..haha..total advantage), Jin jin aka screen-saver gal, Ying sin (shoppin queen), Yi Lin (暴力 gal dont be tricked by her demure exterial) against Rui ming (Longyang IC = Sai kang warrior),Gary Zhen (need i say more; my roomie), Jianyou (6 pecs!!!), Carmen (ultimate cold joke champion; go check out Ben's blog for Quote of the Day specials). Ya talking about that, Ben Teo Junrong is back in Spore (shld be back in Shanghai today; he went back on Fri dont know why also).

Anw aft the game, our household when to 七浦 to relief our sickness by seeing the doc (retail therapy does wonders). Super empty on Sat la, we thou it was because everyone went back to their home town but the shop keeper said it was more like pple workin over the wkend to have the whole of next wk off...So everyone spend min $40 at least; Gary bottomed the chart with $40 odd than the champion was Yanwen (a whopping $160!!! but what to do, their monthly pay is like 1k more than Gary n I every month)...

So peeps back in Spore got to go back sch again tml (manz...hols gone in an instants...hope u guys are recharged for the next on-slaught..jiayou ba!!!)...going to Inner Mongolia from 1st Oct till 5 Oct...so no updates till next sat i guess earliest...

The most....

1)STANDING in office was 7hrs (ya n i work from 830am-5pm)
2)BITTER food was the darn bitter gourd in office (even the china pple there take liao dont eat); but im different breed, just wack it all up- YUKS!!!
3)KAN CHIONG person is my 2-IC Racheal (lunch finish muz go up str away; wat the heck!!!)
4)鸟ing i got is 4 in one day (avg is 1 a day)
5)MEMORABLE trip was 黄山
6)BONDING SEESION was 3days in a row (starting with the Mid-Autumn Festival till last night)
7)SUAY day is tied (top up 50yuan to some wrong card that has not been activated yet and buy top up card and lost it immediately{happened just yesterday}; GOOD JOB Clarence)
8)PUZZLING thing is K.F.C been still unattached...加油，加油，加油!!!
9)SHOCKING news is Mr Personality is attached (well done Bro!!!)
10)LOVED song is Destiny's Child Emotion.
11)IRRITATING cough is still domain in me (when i go run; so now i dont exercise lor)

MAF success!!!!

Some pictures from the museum visit last Fri

Entrance

Team GIP

4 storeys of history

Which traffic light color are u?

Ties that bond








Sunday had our Mid-Autumn Festival celebration at our place. Preparations for the food begin since morning with head chef Ben n Carmen (chair woman of the event) getting the fried rice, fried beehoon and green bean soup ingredients cutted and all. All the talk about how unhygienic the outside stalls were tossed out when we saw the process going on in our own kitchen. Messy la, no place to put the food so had to make use of the casing of our bedsheets as containers n even good old plastic bags. 4pm came n all the others started to pour in. We had taiwan sausage fried rice, pineapple fried rice, crispy SPAM fried rice and Seafood fried rice from Ben, fried beehoon n green bean soup from Carmen, ham sandwich and salad from Swee Meng's household, fried wanton n popiah from Shopping Queen's house, drinks from Bing Xian's family.

So we started eating since about 5pm (felt like my CNY for the preparations and the arrival of visitors). Than there was a movie screening of Pricelss (french movie; not a bad movie indeed, but cant remember the french title thought). After that had some drinking game for bonding. It came togather really well, getting to know all the scandals being stirred around and hydrating after our meals. Got of laughter, fun n bonding are the memories we had. Now more plans are in the process for gathering in other housholds. The day ended with some mooncake (although we were all so full from the over estimate of fried rice and a LUCKY DRAW proudly sponsored by Givaudan. Haha, Carmen was picking the 3 lucky numbers to win the most attractive prizes. With 3rd price going to Cactus Gal; a bottle of color bleach all the way from USA. 2nd prize went to Bing Xian (*ahems* scandaled; manz was it fate?!?) who had to feed the 3rd place winning mooncake n vice versa. !st prize went to none other than *drum rolls*
Jiang Han; 2 face towels which she so willingly try to give to Rong Xin as the lucky draw ended.



Fried rice paradise...


Showcasing culinary delights from the other households



Every ready to hog the lime light...haha


kk try to find the only Sporean in the picture...




GIP's been a blast so far in terms of time flying past as well the hours of fun we had. Half the attachment is over already and next week we are off to Inner Mongolia!!! Stay tune for updates

Hola!!! Amazing Race Shanghai

Yesterday was a super Amazing day...was in sch for 汉字与汉语 class in th morning. The lesson was on the American n Asian style of teaching. So we were divided into our liitle groups for reading and discussions with Ben, Gary Zheng(dont call him Hanbin anymore), Swee Meng (Rui Ming is Swee Meng, Swee Meng is Rui Ming; apparently Jiangqing could not tell the difference until after a few wks...hahah) and me. So there had to be a leader in the group to represent the gp and considering Ben n I were part of the elite lousy speaking gang we had to fight it out for 五岭盟主得位置. Having trained into Scissor, Paper, Stone in Facebook; i crushed Ben with my Stone in it (arrrr taaaaa!!!!). So Ben was the leader this wk...Yea!!!

Here are some positions of Various Sleeping Gurus...Watch, learn n discover guys...


Kk so the lesson was very interesting, look at JianYou's super positioning (he was next to the teacher somemore (最危险的地方是最安全的地方)


Xiao Ying in "hanging moment" and screen-saver mode gal, JinJin (true master of the art)


JJ with her 1st stance (neck rigid with look of focus on her face...


JJ 2nd stance (lying down looking attentively at textbook); got 2 more but no chance to catch it...dont worry i will jiayou de!!!

Afternoon went over to join the Spore freshies in Fudan for amazing race bonding session. The 5 of us, Ben, Gary, JinJin, Rong Xin n I were divided into different groups to mingle with the others. So this is my group below...



The people were great, GL Joyce n I were Sporean while the rest were M'sian. Our clue cards were horribly difficult and add to the fact most of us did not have lunch worsened the prob. In the end after using some lifeline (some hints of Who Wants to be a Millionaire in it), we found our way to 豫园@ 陈皇庙. It was raining the whole time and we were misled into thinking the place we were looking for was a
dessert shop. After 1.5hr of frustration (lots expensive food buying to quench our hunger n anger, as well as a deeper understanding of 陈皇庙), finally found out that we were supp to find a 茶壶.





Evidence we were there (on arrival shot still feeling happy)


Angry shot after the programmer TUA us on what we had to find...Raarrrrr

After that lots of walking about (i mean my group spent the least on traveling cost; only cheap cheap 11yuan). We thought we last liao when others were onto their 2nd or 3rd location while we just completed our 1st. Next was the walk through some small alleys to take the boat over to Pudong side. Visited the viewing tower to find a parrot amongst the pictures in the gallery.

One of the alleys we passed selling cheap electric appliances...





The boat ride across the 黄浦...was only 0.5yuan so cheap and i was the 1st one in my house to take it...hhaa... also all the motorbikes n passengers board the same area




More pics of the boat...

Than of we went to 外滩 to find some weird ligthhouse look alike with boat host on top. The programmer still want us to find the name of the building but it was totally fenced up under-construction (thats where my GL called the programmers to scold them...haha..fierce manz...kind-of reminds me of a Cat in our Omaha gp...lolz...

Cloud cover so thick it covers the whole viewing tower thats 88 storey tall...



Yea me at base of the tower...


Ya view from the bottom outside the building...so foggy till u cant see the top...


The gallery of pictures where we were suppose to find a white parrot (piece of cake!!!)



Little bit of History along the stretch of road to 外滩...1st lamp post in Shanghai (n its now along the busy st of Shanghai...how cool!!!)


This is the end of the 外滩 area...freaking loonggggggggg walk to get here just to take this pic in awful rainy weather...

Walked to People's Sq after that (OMG it felt like forever before we arrived) only to discover to our horror that the swing we looking for in the park (we was realli far away)...really felt like eating a buffet on the spot at that time...After that went back to Fudan, was 3rd overall with Ben's gp the 1st (they won by default after JinJin's group had to much time penalties), RongXin's group was 4th (they went to eat Burger King...haha), than Hanbin's group was last (he put the group airplane and went home from People's Sq there cause it was nearer to Longyang...Overall i got to know Shanghai slightly better, came to know a few more frenzs, burnt all my breakfast n lunch meals from the walking but enjoyed myself thoroughly...woohooo!!!



Final leg of the race...


Immersion with Fudan Sporean a success!!!

When the cold wind blows...

Reports are just in that the typhoon is now toned down to a tropical storm. Nothing much to report just that a day without boss is like a total liberation!!! Anyway half the company seem to have gone to HK for the meeting. So lunch was plentiful. Hanbin is seriously well fed by his 2-ic Marie. Apparently French are very particular about their food so they dont eat much here, especially since the food here is SOOO NICE. Ya HB may look more Chinese but im having more of a Chinese appetite...YEA!!! Longyang Mid-Autumn Festival (MAF) is on this Sun at our place. Cant wait for the party than...

O ya Happy Bday JY...n congratulations...so even thou im far far away in China im still rather up-to-date coompared to Fang...haha...anyway u guys enjoy the KTV tml...wait up for me when i get back than we go happenin ya...

Gusty day...

Today Typhoon Wipha was blowing across Lonyang i guess. The wind was warm like humid warm; not like the type of cooling breezes when u stroll along the beach. Good thing it was not raining, just that on the way back the rain plus wind combo threaten to wreck my Spore umbrella and turn it inside out (think the Shanghai bought umbrella sure cui want if i brought it)...ya so those scenes of strong gale winds inverting umbrellas are really possible...next time shld bring my poncho le...covered frm head to toe, lighter n take up less space in my bag...
Today had my 1st ever 1/2 hr LUNCH BREAK...2nd time sitting at another table, away from the wretched Racheal (dont know wassup with her wanting to go back office so quickly evertime after lunch). So there HB n I were taking our time enjoying our lunch (savouring the 2 pork chop we had; yea shiok i say!!!), and we thou they would wait for us to finish and give us the why-u-eat-so-slow pressure since they finished their meals in 15mins. But to our shock (more like pleasure), they left after eating. And HB was still saying something abt eating slowly every time so they have this mindset that he's a slow eater and can dump all the blame on him as to why we take longer lunches (but actually lunch times are suppose to be half an hr anyway;its our entitlement not a privilege)...ya hope more sitting away from Racheal days ahead...

Sulzer would be having their family day on the 14th next mth and the gals are trying to make a whole house affair. Tog with the help of their colleague, Lee Shin, all of us can go (perm staff can bring up to 4 next-of-kin family memebers, Carmen and Yanwen each can bring one related kin. Ya so it was decided that Hanbin and Jianqing both had the MOST Chi-na look so they will be Lee Shin's younger brothers (so flawed actually since China has a 1 child policy or was it stop at 1 son policy...hahah well we gg to just fake it anyway!!!). Since they both had to have surname Lee, Hanbin wanted to be called Kuan Yew (ya as in MM LEE) and Jianqing wanted to be Ming Shun (Christopher Lee...pengz...), haha so we qte a laugh last nite....Than Ben was too dark so he acting as Yanwen's 表哥，while im going to be Carmen's brother!!! Going to be the most 'chu stun' if we pull this on next month...will keep u al updated...

Typhoon Wipha's coming to town...

Just heard over CNN that Shanghai is bracing itself for its worst typhoon in years. No wonder its pouring like crazy the whole of today...
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070918/china_typhoon_070918/20070918?hub=World

Because of that, Linda (if u still dont know, she's my boss) might have her meeting in HK on Thursday postponed till further noticed. Thats not exactly nice considering i feel like wearing jeans when she leaves. U know how ironic it is when the Givaudan rule book states that u cant wear jeans but 3 quarters are fine...Black shoes for the guys but ladies are wearing slippers...and close to the whole office staff in the building are wearing jeans while Linda tells me "its an office so u cant wear jeans"...WTH i say!!!

That aside, was talking to Chuzhen last nite and she told me how quiet the Omaha group is this days...ya i can imagine considering she is MISSING the good old naggy days when HB was around to counter her every words...nostalgic hur...haiz...see la 不懂珍惜到你失去位置...haha...

Than those who are going for GIP next sem if u all got any problems can go check out Ben's blog...he did up a FAQ for GIP pple...Been watching some movies of late, Norbit was hilariously funny (Eddie Murphy is multi-characterly talented) , Die Hard 4 was explosive with Maggie Q killing some serious arse, than there was HB's obsession with collecting awarding winning movies; this movie called Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter kinda reminded me of the Jap film from Arvind by Akira Kurosawa...simplistic but with lots of hidden morales in it...Than finally theres been lots of fireworks going off not far from our place...will videotape it down the next time i see it...

PBP

This morning was having my breakfast as usual. U know the type of Monday blues (nua and dont feel like working kind-of feeling). Was carrying my peanut butter back to the room when the top of the bottle just dislodged from the bottom n smashed my freshly opened peanut butter to the floor and waking slrrpin beauty Hanbin (haha good wakey wakey call i guess). Good thing the bottle was thick; like slightly tampered so withstood a good deal of the impact. So had to scoop out my peanut butter and put it in a tubberware w no lid (good thing Carmen came back with some fruit cake from Ganso last nite after going over to her cousin's place) so i dumped the whole thingy into my zip loc after tat (had to go office to permanently borrow some aluminium foil to wrap it up in the evening). Was examining my bottle just now and noticed how my 7.90 rmb peanut butter bottle was totally unevenly made, the bottom was thicker while the top was just plain unevenly distributed. No wonder so cui (ya pay peanuts, get monkeys!!!).

On a lighter note, since yesterday had started having my triple decker sandwich dinner. Stirred-fried some minced meat with cabbage, bean sprouts and tau kee (over estimated and bought too much, suppose to be for my noodle meal over the next few days). Than had my picnic ham, pan fried bread ( ya we are lacking a toaster here!!!) plus a 喜蛋 and Voila! a dinner is done. Dont know wassup with the others thinking eating bread is bad thou?!? O well im loving it, n tats all there is to it... Going to try cooking steak or chicken cutlet w microwave nuked potato the week after.

Kk enough of this update...got to get back to my report that Linda wants again...25% of the week completed, woosshhh!!!

Sat and Sunday...

Yup so ytr was spend in Fudan reading a passage on chinese fast food in comparison to Western fast food. So we had to read out loud the text (super OMG lor!!!); so long since i had to read a chinese passage. So the teacher broke us down into smaller gps n i was with ben, hanbin (gary shld be his name from now on), su li and rei na. So the most cui one was chinese rep lor ( poor me). Good thing was that i ended learning lots of new words and 成语, and voicing up about what was the flaw in the chinese cuisine system. If this continues everyweek ...yea u guys back home get ready for a leveled up Jianguang!!!

Sunday had soccer with the Lonyang guys at the tennis court. Had this chinese family coming in half way thru thou and shouting that IT WAS A TENNIS COURT in english (think she very educated like that...wth la!!!). Her rudeness was really applauding but did not want to lower ourselves to her level to argue back so we just walked out (we were going to give up the court anyway if we saw her coming in). But after 1hr plus guess the sun was too much for the kids so we managed to play again. Super shiok!!! long time since we played ball; think its going to become a weekly activity now...got to train up before we play the NUS exchange students n Fudan students.

Work again tml...More detergency test, total activity, n mixing of new detergent formulas ahead...

Frm Fudan to Le Chateau...

Fri made our way to school by our usual 50min bus ride (so 50mins of power nap lor) while the shopping queen's group tried a new route to school. Caused it was a working day coupled with a downpour they ended up being really late for lesson. Anyway when they arrived at 940am (sch suppose to start at 9am), the teacher was already there. He gave me the type of impression Prof Kwak gives me with his casual dress sense. So the lesson started went on abt 佛家 (Buddhism)，道家(basically to just bo chap the problem u are facing)and the most elaborated upon one was 儒家 (confucius teachings); how being 证直 required one to 子为父隐，父为子隐. Than the discussion was had us debating about the Sporean system employed and the Micheal Fay incident.

Afternoon was slightly more into screen-saver mode for most after lunch from malan shop outside the campus and the boring lesson. What i learnt thou was that Shanghai was mostly sea in the past until after Qin Shi Huang era and beyond did Shanghai was mostly reclaimed naturally (to think Spore actually had to do manual land-rclaimation). Also the road names in Shanghai were placed not only in accordance to what was around the area (eg 金安寺 had a temple near by) but also in relation to the provinces in China.


Happy that school has ended (woohoo!!!)


Ya we study in this 30 storey building on the 24th floor...NTU where got so high one

After that we made a 3.5hr journey from our sch to Le Chateau for the Singapore Consulate General's Dinner session. Killer jam plus a little lost direction and hungryness (dinner only started at 730pm) left many of us feeling kind of skeptical if the whole event was worth it.

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Horlanding along the way to the Le Chateau ( was another 0.5hr walk to the place after 3hr bus ride)


The place proper...


Tiger, Reef or Heineken for a Hall 8 cum GIP buddy Jason.


姐妹们 Gal power!!!

The Sporean food really made me 感动 sia, i mean coming to 2 mths since i had curry mutton or chicken, chay kwa tiao, 细的 beehoon, braised pig trotters, killer nasi lemak with chilli (here the mala is mostly chili oil only), 九层糕，豆花, cheese cake n moose cake plus sweet potatoe soup. Thats not including the sausags, curry veg, minced pork, soon kway n beer available. Could barely walk at the end of the event. Never even eat breakfast this morning!!!


The C.G
So we came to learn that the Consul General has an event coming up in 2wks with businessmen in Shanghai and it would like to have our help in showing them around. Good time to network with maybe your future employers (as quoted from the C.G). Cant wait to go help out.


NTU GIP HOOYAA!!!