isntitwonderful

It is a long and narrow corridor.

Doors line up neatly against the sides of it and they are painted with many different colours. Noting that colours on some doors are fresher, it is easy to tell apart the doors that have just been put up and doors that have been there long enough to demand for a free upgrade from the Government if they actually belong to HDB. However, regardless of the age of the units, all of them have a wonderful wooden board at the front and those boards are tidily hung with strings and nails stuck onto the doors. Engraved in similar fashion, English letters appear on those wooden boards but they seldom make sense to readers.

Almost everyday, without fail, I will take a stroll down that walkway and inspect the units individually and thoroughly. Some have locks on them but armed with my trusty paperclip that can be cunningly transformed into a lock picking device, I am able to unlock them with ease. Every unit has its own style, as determined by the owner of each unit who takes his or her time to improve or add to it. The interiors are incredibly well thought of and they allow me to easily find a spot where I can relax and immerse myself in the given settings.

There is, however, one unit that I will conveniently skip because it is situated right at the end of the corridor and somehow, I will have headache whenever I am inside the unit. Today, I have decided to be adventurous by paying it a visit.

The door creaked as I pushed it open. The shiny metallic coating of the hinges had fallen off, revealing crude patches of rust. The living room was filled with cobwebs, especially the cupboards which held fine china. A bronze sculpture of a charging bull stood prominently at the corner of that room and it was covered with a thick layer of dust. Feeling stuffy, I turned on the ceiling fan and dust fell freely on my head.

Damn the owner!

The terrible condition of the unit forced me to make an early exit and although I was covered in dust, I am glad that I made the visit.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaarakkkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkakkkkkkk”, is the sound you hear when someone rolls up the metal shutters at the front of his shop. The shop, which was closed for more than 2 months, is now open for business.

Welcome back!

Akin to the dream of all sportsmen, which is to break their personal best, I have shamelessly realized mine, once again, with this post that is due for some time. Previous record was a timing of few weeks and I improved it immensely to a few months. I’ll probably qualify for a medal if there is such an event in the Olympics.

The status of my blog, or rather the emptiness of it, has always bother me and it bothers me more to know that I am getting too lazy to update it. Well to be exact, it is not the laziness but more of the lack of personal time to pen a post. Yunlong mentioned about taking pride in his posts some time ago and I totally agree with it. Back in Singapore, I could hide in my room and spend all the time that I need to think about what to write. However in Shanghai, there seems to be less time available for me to gather my thoughts and my inability to pen my thoughts effortlessly is certainly not helping me in making progress.

Akin to family and close friends whom I have not met for a long time, my blog has been left behind, but definitely not forgotten. To prove my point, below is what I have typed during my Lunar New Year break. I have decided to post it anyway as I believe there will be some of you out there who are interested to know what I have done (say yes, please).

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Winter woes III:

Despite the blistering cold, the distance and the fact that millions would be fighting for seats like a huge musical-chair play, many Chinese moved home to be with their families to celebrate Lunar New Year.

Few days before the start of the LNY, I went to Guang Zhou with my colleague to visit a client company and I stayed there for just one night. Zero exploration was done on that night when I had the time to wander off a little as I decided to catch some random movie on HBO. Besides, the 3-to-4 star hotel was located dubiously far away from any place and I concluded that I would possibly lose my way. No shopping center, night market or even a 7-11 was in sight while en route to the hotel. Also, spending one night out in the open would be miserable, especially when there is a warm and cozy room available. I have always doubt the cleanliness of beds in hotels but it definitely beats sleeping on pavement where fresh phlegm lies every 10 meters apart.

On departure day, we left for Guang Zhou Bai Yun Ji Chang and we reached the airport early at about 10 am but it was already quite crowded. Owing to the bad weather, many flights were disrupted and airports were temporarily out of operation. We were informed that our flight would be delayed infinitely and faced with no other options, we waited with many others at the lounge. As we bought higher class tickets, we were allowed entry to an exclusive lounge where snacks and drinks were readily available. More people were seen gathering at the counters outside the lounge as the day dragged and loud commotions could be heard. At certain points, it did seem that riots would break out but the glass panels that separated us from the edgy horde appeared solid and impassable somehow.

After a rather interesting delay of 13 hours, our plane to Shanghai was finally ready for flight at about 11p.m.

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That’s all for this reopening message. Take care folks!

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Originally uploaded by rifle1984

stations look like those we have in Singapore. even the advertisements are by JCDecaux

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Originally uploaded by rifle1984

snow flakes?

The temperature dropped a little more and the dark pools started to solidify, forming mixtures of ice and water which were slippery to walk on.

Soon, heavy snow came and covered everything in white. It was a pretty sight but it came with a hefty price tag. Cars froze in action and drivers started to honk more excessively (drivers here have an infamous habit of honking excessively. It is as though their horns are attached to the accelerators. No-honking signs are in place to remind drivers not to wake the whole neighbourhood up but they don’t seem to give a damn, equivalent of asking school children not to play soccer at void deck with those signs featuring black-stickman, which according to yl, are only directed at dark-skin people)

Owing to the awful traffic conditions, many turned to the trains, transforming the carriages into cans of minced meat. It was rather overwhelming to see that many people waiting to get into the stations and trains and I thought of heading home to avoid being pounded. What reason should I tell my boss? Tripped on a little snowman? Anyway, the sheer number of people queuing at the stations reminded me of the time when peeps and I were trying to cross the JB customs minus the stuffiness. They should really install some fans at JB customs before someone faints/collapses – maybe that would be ah hai because he is cluster phobic.

Well after entering the stations, getting into or out of trains isn’t as frustrating anymore. All you need is a horde of commuters pushing you from the back and you’ll be in/out before you get to turn around and yell at the person behind for pushing. Where’s the card, ref? I got ‘left behind’ once and I found myself rugby-ing my way through. Luckily for winter, my opponents wore good layers of cushion and I managed to get past unscathed. It is hard to imagine when summer comes. Cover your nose.

Happy valentines and happy friendship! (whichever applicable)

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Originally uploaded by rifle1984

man cycling down a stretch of old apartments

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Originally uploaded by rifle1984

bridge to cross to get to Long Zi Mong (dragon’s deam) which is the nearest shopping center from my apartment. there’s carrefour, H&M, G*star, Nike, Adidas, Fox, C&A, fast food restaurants and some others. the MRT is right below too. takes about 10-15 minutes, depending on how fast i walk and how slippery the path is)

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Originally uploaded by rifle1984

puppies selling for 180 RMB ( SGD$1 ~ 5 RMB)

Being brought up in a tropical country, I’ve always hoped to experience the four seasons, specifically winter. Snowman, snowballs, snow-capped pathways, roofs, trees and cars and haphazard flurry of snow were some of the things that I wanted to see and because of the changes in global climate, I half expected to see them in Shanghai. My forecast came true, eventually, but I wasn’t exactly happy about it.

To those who are still not aware, China just experienced the coldest winter in a hundred years. The weather is getting warmer now and the temperature is about 3 degrees as I am typing this. For the past few days, the temperature lingered at around 0 degrees and it was unbearably cold.

When I first arrived here, the weather was dry and cold enough for me to breathe out clouds of water vapour and that cheap thrill kept me amused for days. Soon, the weather turned colder and it wasn’t fun anymore to stand in the open. Fingers and ears became cold and numb and lips began to split like cracked glass. My friends and I took cover in buildings and tailgated strangers when there were strong winds that proved to be most annoying.

Two weeks later, snow began to fall lightly. Pieces of snow that were as tiny as dust particles hovered and moved in Brownian motion. Those pieces melted when they touched the ground and because there was so much dirt on the road, puddles of murky water soon formed and grew in size to form swimming pools of it. Comparing to the streets in Singapore where I could almost sit on any pavement without noticeably staining my pants, streets in Shanghai need some serious vacuuming.

Adding onto the pollution issue, the sun is now a rare sight because of the smog. The sky appears to be cloudy all day long and the air doesnt smell as good. The PSI reading is probably 100-130 but no one seems to be too bothered by it. Maybe they had the PSI reading on the corner of the TVs some time back but realised that it didnt matter.

To be continued…

Let me kick things off by announcing that I am safe and sound. Cheers!

I know that my blog hasn’t been updated for the longest time and I am sorry about it because I understand that many of you are concerned about me, or rather my flat mate. I also know that it’s terrible excuse to say that I didn’t have the time to do it but it’s true and I’ll go into that soon. Sit tight.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, a step away from the customs at Changi Airport.

Being someone who has yet to spend more than 2 weeks away from Singapore, I felt uneasy while packing my luggage the night before my departure. Every piece of clothing that I took from my wardrobe somehow prompted me that I’ll miss home and this was probably why I refused to pack my gear earlier. Adding onto the apprehension, I had to pack a year’s stuff in one night and that, seriously, wasn’t as easy as I had expected it to be. I gathered an elephant and had to squeeze it into my backpack. Thank goodness my family helped me out. Thank you.

Tracking back, I met up with several groups of friends and felt blessed to have them around. Saying so, there were a few others whom I wanted to catch up with but timing was rather tight. I played LAN with my ‘clan’ the other day and it was good old fun. The cries of gs, coupled with evil laughter of k

y, was in some way enjoyable to listen to.

Besides that, I had dinner at the hawker at East Coast Park with my jere, xx, wilfred, gs and chin and they got me a shirt and a tie as farewell gifts. Although they didn’t buy from Raoul, I appreciate the gifts just as much. It’s thoughtful of them to pump up my office wear collection. Thank you. Satay, Indian rojak, oyster cake and chicken wings were ordered and the spread was sinfully delicious (saliva drooling down my neck to my long johns).

Just like any other outings with the peeps, I had a fantastic time with them at party world organized by ah hai. He did a marvelous job as many were present and it’s probably his charm that led everyone there. Ys and yl came along although the former didn’t fancy karaoke singing and the latter was injured (hope you’re recovering well and fast). Like a meteor shower that is rarely visible, or rather audible in this case (imagine meteor stones zooming past you like what you saw in Superman), Geraldine sung as a farewell gift to me and I appreciate that as well. While ah wei was trying hard to focus on his songs, I managed to catch up with michelle whose work schedule prevented her from meeting up with the peeps.

Ss organized a farewell dinner at his place which I’m really grateful for. His mum got us plenty of food and prepared the soup base for the steam boats. Both the food and the crowd were truly fantastic. Thank you.

After checking in and receiving my air ticket, I was pleasantly surprised to see many of you at the airport. Words can’t exactly express how thankful I was to have a group of friends sending me off but I managed to control my emotions. The photo-set was awesome too (saw a picture of my side profile featuring my chin). Thank all of you (ss, yawen, zh, steph, yl, nei, ry, hai, ahwei, ys, mich and vish), not forgetting my dear family.

It’s getting late now and I don’t think I’ll be able to touch on what I’ve done in Shanghai. I’ll explain my clause for not updating my blog in my next entry and I’m hoping to do it soon.

Stay tuned and take care.

BTW, china blocked access to blogs and that prevented me from checking/updating my/refugees’ blog. i just got to know of websites that help to change my IP address.

Peeps at the airport

I just installed Torpark which allows users to access internet anonymously using IP of random surfers.

Im now able to surf as per normal! cheers!
The method which i used previously didnt allow me to post pictures on blog because the functions for it were hidden.