3 baby hamsters

yeh... finally got my hamsters after a week of waiting for their hair to grow, and their eyes to open. They looked really small when I first saw them... and I named them A, B and C tentatively, although they look no different from one another, and so I do not know which is A, B or C. Currently trying to train them to shit and pee in a designated room, and to get use to the human touch so that they'll not bite when they grow older.

Here are some pics... enjoy.

Bathroom

Toilet

Chicken Rice and Hamster Stories

Went to Boon tiong kee for the above-mentioned for dinner today. I noticed many newspaper cuttings regarding the shop's past and present hung up all over the wall. And i realised many discrepancies among them.

One of the older articles said that the chicken rice was Cantonese (the chicken was supposed to have yellower skin with meat that was less white in colour... compared to Hainanese)... while a newer article mentioned Hainan Chicken Rice instead. In yet another one, the owner refused to reveal his secret recipe except saying that it's got to do with the quality of the chicken... and recently if u guys remember, there's an article which showed the entire recipe for the chicken and the rice.

Anyway, why I am wasting my brain cells remembering such stupid stuff... hmm... have I ever told u about my hamster?

Well... I had this hamster a few years back which bites whenever I tried playing with it. That's not the main point though... in fact, its quite a sad story. Well... apparently it started losing appetite and was just lazing around the entire day... not like its usual self, where it will run the wheel, climb the sides of the cage or roll about in its bath tub. One fine day, we decided to bring our dear hamster to the vet. I didn't go though... it was my Dad, Mum, Sis and hamster who went. From what I heard, it was kindof weird when they got there cos everyone had dogs or cats in their laps... while my family... they had a hamster in a cage. Anyway, the hamster finally got to see the vet and upon examination, he made the diagnosis of jaundice. Management? Put the hamster to sleep. Hmm... sadly that was what happened, and that was the end of our furry friend.

I was thinking whether the vet went through the the pre-hepatic, hepatic and post-hepatic causes of jaundice (hepatic = liver btw). I mean, maybe he could have operated on our hamster and cleared the obstruction which was causing the jaundice... or resected a section of the liver which was sick etc etc... I think I'm thinking too much. Anyway, I'm thinking of getting a new hamster now... heh... hopefully this new one will not bite, if I do get one that is...

Random post

Sorry for the once a month post... im caught up in studying nowadays.

anyway, another song i found... really funny... viets are copycats!
http://music.yeucahat.com/listen.php?s=18760 - jay zhou

http://music.yeucahat.com/listen.php?s=14410 - JJ lin's jiang nan in the background of a rap

http://music.yeucahat.com/listen.php?s=8474 - JJ lin

for the last 2 songs... pls bear with the messy rap and hip hop squeaky DJ spins at the beginning. Haha... enjoy!

James Blunt

hmm... long time no post... too busy studying and doing shit. anyways...
http://msninconcert.msn.com/music/JamesBlunt/en-sg/artist.aspx

scroll down the list and click on 10. 'Goodbye My Lover'. Old but really nice and sad song. He really looked pretty sad singing the song... o well... I'm going to steal his new album from my sis soon.

Lust, Caution

Boycott the nc-16 one pls... it is the China version of this movie... zzz
Being a more open society vs increasing profits. Promoting arts vs increasing profits. Everything is in terms of profits. What a dumbass world we live in.

Whatever it is, it seems like they won though, cos' "Lust, Caution" was the no. 1 movie in Singapore the last time I read the papers. Stupid sh*t.

Paul sings Nessun Dorma

I think everyone should take a look at this clip. It had been posted on the medsoc blog as well. It's really funny to see the change in the judges' facial expression from that of "ya... here we go again... opera zzz... will slam him jia lat jia lat" to that of awe. My hair stands up everytime I watch this, and I watch this once everyday! =p

Boston Brass

I went for the "Philharmonic Winds meets Boston Brass" concert at the Esplanade with Shuwen yesterday. Wasn't supposed to go in the 1st place... Huijun had too much stuff to finish (I'd assume setting papers and doing some sai gan again...) and so I took her place.

I must comment that the 5 members of the Boston Brass were amazing. I was exceptionally impressed with the trumpeteer... he was able to reach incredibly high notes with ease, and with such beautiful tone as well. The horn player was very powerful too... he sounded like 3 horns put together. Oh... and the tubist was like running up and down the scale with ease in all the pieces; and the euphonium/trombone player sounded like me when he played the euphonium, mellow and warm. =p Juz kidding. They sure did captivate the audience with every piece they played and with their sense of humor. I do hope that they will be back to perform again soon.

Well, credit must go to the Philharmonic Winds as well, who played host to the magnificent 5. From my last post, you should know that I enjoy performing. However, I hate listening to symphonic band concerts because I feel that most of the pieces played are boring... fun to play, sucks to listen, if you know what I mean. That wasn't exactly the case last night, though I initially thought it would be, especially with pieces such as " Rienzi Overture", "Symphony for Band (Symphony No. 6)" which has 4 movements ...zzz..., "Tam O' Shanter" and "Redline Tango", all of which were unheard of by the amateurish me. The pieces were on the contrary, pretty exciting, and all in all, it was a good concert.

Yep... Lionel and Zhiwei, good job!

Old photos

I was browsing thru some of my photos which I had stored in my laptop and I chanced across these... I was performing for NTU symphonic band at the esplanade and this pic was taken during the intermission. I thought everyone in the pic looked great and happy and without worries except for the pimple which appeared on my forehead the day before the concert.

Sighz... sometimes I really miss playing or performing in a band. O well... hopefully in the future, regardless of how busy I may become, I will still get a chance to do so.

1st day of my new posting

The entire 1st day was like an orientation kindof thing. We had intro and mask fitting sessions, a meet-the-HO-for-lunch session, and a practical skills training session. And there was afternoon tea during the prac skills training session, which was good... really appreciates it when the coordinator arranges such welfare stuff for us nooblettes of the medical field. At least we do not feel neglected like we do on other occasions...

Apparently my team has 4 patients in the list... a stark contrast to what I had in medical SIP. Well, I'm not sure whether this is a good sign or not... It is a battle between "More time for studying and preparing for final MBBS or slacking" vs "Less time to polish up my practical HO skills". Whatever it is, I will see how everything will go over the next couple of days... and well, hopefully I get a balance of both.

Anyway, call me slow or whatever you like... I just found out about facebook, and I'm currently in the midst of exploring this new frienster-lookalike-thingy. O... btw, my gf is in Shanghai right now, for work again... yucks. Sighzz, I'll just have to wait for her to return on Thursday night. =( So in the meantime if you are bored at night, you can call and talk to me, or you can ask me out for supper, as that will be part of my GFP.

Grow Fat Plan

For those who don't know, I'm on a Grow Fat Plan, GFP in short. So far I've been trying to eat in between meals and having an occasional supper... latest figure showed that I had gained 1.5kg! How exciting! HAha... So many people trying to slim down while I'm doing the exact opposite. I do hope this upward trend will continue...

As for my next posting... Surgery SIP!!!!!! at TTSH!!!!!!!!! I'm kindof excited about it right now, though I know it will be a tiring 4 weeks... hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in whatever little time or energy I have at night to study. I need to catch up on my ortho... cos during the last week of my ortho revision posting, I was concentrating on the paeds OSCE test, hence lots of stuff still undone. Hopefully I'll have a good posting ahead...

Rat Potato Eee

Life! gave it 5 stars... Zhiwei said it was the best cartoon he had ever seen... these raised my expectation of the movie and true enough, it didn't disappoint (which was usually the case if my expectation of a show was raised). For those who still do not know what I'm talking about... I'm talking about Ratatouille. The scenes were stunningly detailed, and like what my sis said, this animation seemed different from the others. The feel and visual graphics were different, and I felt that this movie was not meant for the kids, so please don't bring those kiddies into the cinema, who will in turn make a hell-lot-of-noise and spoil the movie. My fav character is Ego btw... before I raise your expectations any further, go watch it... it is definitely worth it.

The cast from heroes came on 31st Aug and I was crazy enough to be there... so here are the pics. Pardon me for such lousy pics... but I couldn't stabilise my hands at all as those lunatics around me kept waving and screaming and knocking into me. These are the least blurred ones...

Well, they were 30 mins late and appeared for about 10 mins... zzz, pretty dumb I would say. Nevertheless, I can't wait for season 2 of Heroes to be out. It will be one of the little joys and excitement that I can look forward to during the upcoming no-life days...

The past few weeks

I went to watch fireworks on both days (Friday and Saturday - 17 & 18 Aug) and thought that China's fireworks were more special. They had stuff like exploding flowers which I had never seen before. However, the show was marred by lots of smoke which consumed the entire sky, including the fireworks, and made Singapore look like Genting Highlands. I'm not sure whether that was due to the coincidental absence of wind which allowed the smoke to linger around or "ah-hem" due to the quality of the fireworks. I mean, with the recent spate of events like the recalling of made-in-China toys which had too much lead on em made me feel that the latter could be a possibility. Anyways, I enjoyed both shows although I would enjoy it more if I could listen to the music which accompanied the fireworks.

Recently my dad is crazy over karaoke. I think the karaoke session we had during my birthday had sparked the inner-singer in him. He bought like 100 over dollars worth of english songs collections from Mustafa as well as a new dvd player, and has been having karaoke sessions every weekend. Of course, me and Shiqi joined in and thus, we had quite a lot of singing sessions at home the past couple of weeks.

Yesterday, I treated Benson, Chunfa and Lijie to my well-overdue birthday dinner. We were at Carnivore at Chijmes, which was a Brazilian-style buffet whereby the chefs walk around brandishing knives and a variety of meat types skewered on a metal rod. They will come to your table and carve the meat right in front of you onto your plate. Interesting concept but soon enough, we understood why the place was named Carnivore. We had all kinds of meat (beef, chicken, mutton, pork) from all parts of the animal (hump, thigh, rib... ...) on our plates in a span of 5 minutes. They tasted good but after awhile, we got really tired of the meaty stuff and lost track of what we were eating. The starter buffet (yes, starter, don't ask me why I didn't have it before the meat) was a huge relief from the slabs of meat, meat and more meat. The only non-meaty stuff which were carved onto our plates were fish and pineapple. The pineapple was good and refreshing as it helped to cleanse the meaty taste in our mouth. By the time we were done, our tummys were bulging and we had sworn off meat for at least the next couple of days.

After that we went to Dragonfly at St. James Power Station. The place was pretty crowded and it seemed like the re-entry queue was longer than the paying queue. We were going into the paying queue anyway, so it didn't really matter to us. The crowd there consisted of mostly people in their 30s to early 40s, which made us the youngest ones around. We certainly felt a little out of place. Anyway, the performances put up by the live band and guest singers were ok. Sly was there. As was the guy from echo boyz who didn't make it into the Singapore Idol finals. Among the crowd we spotted the careless whisper guy (the guy that whispered an entire song during the Idol contest) as well as Patricia Mok, who looked really happy to be there. All in all, nice music but old crowd.

By the way, the cast from heroes are coming to vivocity next Friday, 31st Aug. Ha! Too bad the really cool heroes will not be visiting our sunny island. The heroes coming include Hiro, Niki, Mohinder and Matt. Oh, and Lijie commented that I look like Peter Petrelli without my glasses on. I totally agreed.

Birthday and Annivesary

On my birthday, we went to some steamboat restaurant behind the 7-storey hotel opposite Bugis Junction. Their crab noodles are supposed to be famous. Their Hainanese chicken too. We ordered a steamboat set for 6 (my dad, mum, sis & bf, me & gf), the crab noodles, and the steam chicken. The crab noodle was good, the steam chicken ok, and the steamboat average.

Me & gf

Sis & bf

Dad & Mum

Dessert after at some shop which has pictures of celebrities (who had visited the shop) pasted over their front window. The almond paste and the mango + jackfruit + dunno-wat tasted really good.

And karaoke...

As for my 4th year annivesary with Shiqi, I forgot to bring the camera... so no pics for that. We went to Wild Rocket (in some hotel at Mt. Emily). We had ginseng chicken (ang moh style) soup, cod linguine, lamb shank and some chocolate lava desert. Every dish was really good... and the ambience was cosy. I would recommend the place to others... but note that the price is pretty steep.

Oh and FYI, I met JJ Lin Junjie at NUH the other day. He was there for some charity with the kids in the paediatrics ward, and he walked past me! Haha... if not for my lab coat and student profile, I would have gotten his signature!

Maria 김아중(Kim Ah-joong)

From the movie "200 Pounds Beauty"

Hey There Delilah

The 1st time I heard this song on the radio, I thought "wow, nice song". The other day on my way home, I was thinking about this song and hoping that the radio will play it again, and true enough, I heard the soothing guitar intro... so here I am, posting this for u to enjoy too

My bad

When I'm taking bloods and I miss the vein, I'll be like "the vein is too tiny" or "old pt, vein move around alot" or "obese pt" or "very edematous pt" and so on and so forth...

And the other day I suddenly remembered something which my GP said during my GP posting: "Blame the singer, not the song" and I realised how true that was, and that I had been finding excuses for myself all along. O Well, I guess I need more practice...

Linkin Park - Shadow Of The Day (with subtitles)

Nice song from LP's new album... all the other songs are great too!

2 more weeks

2 more weeks to end of SIP, and 4 more weeks to holidays! I'm sleepy everyday right now... waking up early in the morning and staying in the hospital the entire day. I think I'm getting used to it though... I mean, if I don't, I will be in a worse shape when I start my housemanship.

Anyway, the MO of my team just switched to another team, and we miss him pretty much. Initially he looked pretty aloof and dao, but he soon warmed up to us and was teaching us whenever we were walking from patient to patient during our morning rounds. Yesterday at around 430pm, I saw him in my ward and we said hi, and I asked him about his new posting. He asked me whether I had any good cases, which I assumed he was searching to bring the year 3s through. Then again, I was thinking to myself "hmm... he's not taking any year 3s...", and so I asked him what he wanted them for. What he said next completely surprised me... "to take you through the case lah!" Too bad I didn't have a good case, but nevertheless, I was really grateful for his initiative and thoughtfulness... what a nice guy! In the end, we went through the approach to lower limb weakness and he had to resume his work after 30 mins.

O well... btw, so far I don't think SIP will make me depress... maybe it will only set in after 1 more week... we shall see. =o

Sleepiness

I'm really very tired & sleepy. Good night!

It's a Small World After All

I met my gf for dinner at TCC at Bugis today... and guess who we met as we were about to leave the place? Zhiwei and Jingyi!!! They were there for dinner too... and they saw us and took our seats. My gf had to leave as she was going for her piano lessons (some stuff with improvisations etc); as for myself, I went to the National Library to study. I was there for about 20 minutes before it closed... and I decided to go back to TCC to join ZW/JY.

Gf joined us after her lessons and in the end, we chatted till' about 10+ pm. Hmm... I believe that it is fate that brought us together as we had to be at the same place at the correct time. For this, ZW and JY... please SMS me a number from 0-9 asap... which I will put together to form my 4D-number... wish me luck!

SIP part 1

Just a quick post before I go to bed: I need to wake up at 615am tomorrow morning again.

On day 1 of SIP, I became a phlebotomist (a person trained to draw blood), as I spent the entire morning and the entire afternoon taking bloods. It was pretty exciting initially as it had been some time since I last took blood, but the excitement was short-lived. After awhile, it became more of a chore... I think they should hire phlebotomists to lessen this aspect of the Houseman's workload. Anyway, hopefully at the end of this 4 weeks I'll be a real pro in performing this task... hundred hair hundrerd hits (bai3 fa1 bai3 zong4).

Day 2 was a little more interesting as I did my 1st discharge summary and I had to stay for passive night call (up to 11pm). And I did my 1st ABG (arterial blood gas)... from the femoral artery. It was pretty exciting, though a little scary as well, to be poking the needle into an artery. Of course, I did it under supervision... and everything went well. The night call was ok... I set some plugs, took some bloods, clerked a new case, and reached home at 1145pm.

Guess what I ate when I got back home? One chicken-flavoured cup noodle and honey cereals with soya bean milk! Hmm... I hope I don't get diarrhoea... =o

Holiday Blues

Sighz... tomorrow is the start of the busy year. I'm hoping that everything in the next 4 weeks (SIP) will turn out well. I'm having a mixed kind of feeling right now... anxious, excited, scared... o well, I wish myself all the best =p

The last few days of my extended holiday cum self-study period was spent singing ktv with my band friends, watching "the girl who leapt through time", solving the Rubik cube (I cheated, following instructions which I got online), packing my bag, and preparing myself for the upcoming semester.

Goal for the coming weeks: to be able to catch Harry Potter despite my busy schedule, and of course, to learn as much as I can.

Reporting time tomorrow: 730am; reporting venue: no idea.

I am back

Yep, I am back after 9 days of rotting at home, studying bits and pieces of stuff, going to school to complete the never-ending microsimulation (I get to save or kill patients in the simulation) etc etc, and today is the 4th last day of my extended holiday.

Starting next week, I'll be doing my Student Internship Programme (SIP) which basically equates to sai2 gan1 warrior without being paid (although it will be a good experience I believe). It will last 4 weeks, after which I'll be doing my paeds revision posting for 2 weeks... and its holiday again!!! I attended the SIP orientation at NUS on Tuesday and the schedule stated that the programme would end at 545pm, just in time for me to make my way down to Jurong Point to have dinner and catch my 645pm "robots in disguise" movie with my gf. Anyway, I had this strange feeling when I met the Sydney girls and KY there. I guess that was cos' they reminded me of Sydney and it was weird seeing them in Singapore... well, I still miss the place!

The talks started at 440pm as planned but as it went on, I realised that I will definitely be late for my movie (and I really hate missing the beginning of movies). The final talk started at 545pm, which lasted till' 615pm. The last speaker was a current house officer and she spoke about her previous experience in SIP, which included feeling depressed and wanting to quit medicine as well as learning alot during that period... all of which I will talk about in my future posts when I experience it myself. Anyway, back to the point. Although the speakers were interesting, I was really hoping that all of them could speak faster so that the session would end earlier, but no, that was not the case. I was practically cursing and swearing in my head as the talks went on... "~!#$% late liao la.... ^%#@# omg... still say some more... and so on..."

As soon as the last speaker ended, I grabbed my bag and left, missing the introduction by the new class committee as well as the class photo-taking session (I'm not sure whether it actually took place after all). Furthermore, I parked my car at Kent Vale... which is diagonally opposite the Engineering faculty, which is extremely far away. I walked to the bus stop and seeing no bus approaching, I decided to walk to the Kent Vale carpark, thinking that I will arrive there faster compared to waiting for the bus. All the walking in Sydney had probably trained my leg muscles to allow me to walk at a very fast pace, which I did... but I forgot one thing. This is Singapore, with its warm, humid and shit-like weather, and as I moved towards my destination, I could feel my sweat slowly soaking up my shirt and dripping off my face... which made me feel like shit as well. As I was nearing the car park, I saw my bus over-taking me. Sighz... determined not to lose to the bus, I jogged a bit, hoping to reach my car earlier than the bus. In the end, I think I reached the car at the same time as I would if I had waited for the bus, the only difference being my legs were aching and I was drenched in sweat. The time: 645pm! I raced down the expressway (within speed limits) and despite Murphy's Law coming true (red traffic lights, slow-moving dumb car in front of me in the carpark at Jurong Point), I managed to arrive at the cinema at 7pm! I missed probably 3-4 minutes of the intro, which was not too bad after all.

The movie was excellent. It was initally thought to be a boy's movie as a few months back when I saw the movie poster, I was like "I'm definitely watching this show" while my gf was like "you go watch it yourself". My sis felt the same way too, unlike the other guys that I met since then, who were all looking forward to the show as well. After watching the trailer, my gf and my sis decided to watch the show... and guess what? After the movie, my gf rated the show 9/10! And she said that she did not mind watching the show again! Haha... boys' show owns.

Transformers, more than meets the eye... =p

Day 1 of Year 5

My very first final year posting: self study!!! I think it's more like an extension of my holidays, which is not good at all. I spent the entire day watching tv, playing games, and writing this post. Its a bit funny to be talking about my Sydney elective again right now but I promised to put up the photos which were taken during that period... so here they are (pics)!!! Once again, the pics were selected from a million photos for your viewing pleasure.

Some of the photos were taken by the girls as my camera ran out of memory. I didn't have the foresight to bring the cable to upload the photos into my laptop as I did not think that I would be taking so many photos. I realised I was wrong on Day 2 when we went to Sydney Opera House - I just kept snapping away...

Just a bit on the girls' nice apartment: it was neat and tidy, carpeted and looked pretty new. The girls tidied up the apartment before we arrived, so I think our dropping by got them really busy. And besides, the spaghetti, salad and brownies which we had were all prepared by them. My job was simple: to buy wine from our secret stash which we chanced upon on one of our many walks in the dark, and to get the roasted chicken from Woolworths (supermarket). As I didn't know anything about wine, I asked some of the ward doctors for "wine which is easy to drink" and that's how I got the names Merlot and Chardonnay. Rose (Ro-seh) was suggested by my friend who is currently working in Paris (she'll be back soon though), so I guess being in an ang-moh country does increase your knowledge about alcohol. We didn't manage to finish all the wine that night (myself, KY, WS and SH were the main drinkers), thus we went back one week later to finish it. This time we bought pizza from Pizza Hut and potato salad from Coles (another supermarket). By the way, among the 3 girls, Ruth enjoyed drinking the most... I was surprised that she did not drink a sip of the left-over wine by herself and that the bottle was left unopened the 2nd time we got there. =p

There are many pictures on the food we ate... everything there tasted really good and the portion was really big as well. Take the ice-cream we had for example. The bowl used to contain the ice cream was roughly the size of the girls' heads! The great tasting food we had daily added much enjoyment to our Sydney experience.

K... that's about it... hopefully I can get some self-studying done tomorrow... although I'm still not sure what to study. Despite this being the 1st day of my final year, I still miss Sydney - I wonder when this holiday mood will finally come to an end...

My laptop

Something is wrong with my laptop. Whenever I put on graphic intensive stuff or when I open many windows, a blue screen appears, and my laptop hangs. It used to occur only occassionally but now, whenever I try to play this MMORPG game called GE, the stupid blue screen appears 5 minutes into the game. Besides this, my cd/dvd drive is not able to read the pictures which Qichang burnt for me (in a dvd), and before you assume that her dvd is spoilt, it is not. It works perfectly fine on my sis's laptop. (Weird thing is my disc drive works fine for cds etc...) Yep, so I am not able to upload those photos yet, not till I get this stupid laptop fixed.

Minutes to Midnight, the new Linkin Park album rocks btw. It has less screaming and more singing... which is a nice change to their style, although I enjoy the screaming too. The more I listen to it, the more I like it, so I'll give it a 9/10.

Father's Day

Today is Father's Day.

My sis and I bought a polo t for him. And we decided to dabao (take away) crab and stingray back home for dinner. We wanted to get the famous black pepper crab from Eng Seng (corner of junction of Still Rd and Joo Chiat), which we tried twice before and it was really good. For those who have not tried it, the black pepper sauce is heavenly! It is thick and you do not see the black pepper... it is ground up nicely... and it tastes a little sweet too. And the crab is huge!!! and juicy, and fresh.

Anyway, there is this crab aunty who has a bad temper there. She talks to you in a nasty, inpatient tone, so you gotta watch out for her. Today, I tried calling them at 5pm but the line was busy. I tried again after a few minutes, but the line was still busy. This went on for around 20 minutes and I finally got thru on my way home from my gf's place. A man answered the phone and this was wat happened:

Man: Hello!!!
Me: : Hey! Can I reserve 2...
Man: Pan Xie Mai Wan le!!!!!!!!!!!! (Crabs are sold out!!!!!!!!)
~Ch-kik (hung up)
Me: Huh?
Me: Hello? Hello?

Conclusion, crab uncle oso nasty.

So I decided to get the famous nai you pan xie (milk butter crab) from Defu Lane, but I couldnt find the tel no. of the restaurant. I parked my car by the side of the road and called my gf, asking her to help me order 2 crabs and a bbq stingray.

From what my gf told me later... this was their conversation:

Man2: Hello?
Gf: Hi... can I order 2 butter crabs?
Man2: Sure... but you can collect it only at 630pm
Gf: Ok... Can I order hung he (bbq stingray in hokkien)
Man2: Huh?! What?
Gf: Can I order stingray?
Man2: Huh?! We don't have stingray! I've never heard of anyone over here selling stingray before!!!! (in chinese)

Conclusion, all crab uncles and aunties are either nasty or sacarstic.

In the end, I had to get my stingray from a coffeeshop near my house. I called them and told them that I'll collect the stingray at 645pm (after I collect the crabs) and they said ok. Everything went smoothly from going home first to bathe, driving to Defu Lane to collect the 2 crabs and man tou (fried buns), and driving to the coffee shop, reaching there at exactly 645pm.

This was what happened there:

Me: Hey, I'm here to collect my stingray.
Auntie: Huh? U ordered mehz?
Me: Er... ya? 645pm?
Auntie went to check some greasy paper stuck to the stall board and yes, my order was there. The girl who answered the call earlier didn't inform any1 else about the order. zzzzzzz... and I had to wait 25 mins for the stingray to be ready.

Final conclusion, today is not a lucky day for me. =0

Bear pics

Some of those who have seen my previous post on Sydney told me that the bear in the room was really cute. We actually took pics of most of the rooms in that B&B place in the Blue Mountain, so here they are. Sorry if the way the pics were grouped together looked like some of the pics in Qichang's blog which I read last night... this is the only way I know how to do it for now, 'till my friend teaches me how to use photoshop. One of the rooms had a bear with a white looking creature in its lap, which I assumed it to be a weird looking rabbit. All the rooms looked really comfy and cosy and warm, like those described in fantasy books, and if anyone is looking for an accommodation and wants to stay in this place, you can email me. I'll give you the contacts for an exchange of a token sum of 5 dollars. =p

Here are some other pics from the place...

The exterior, which looked abit old... but that's where the rustic charm lies...

The entrance...

The dining room with a fireplace...

A candle and a chess set in the common room. The candle is the type that when lit, the wax in the inside will be used up, leaving the picture on the outside intact.


Outside on a foggy day... that was the day when it started to rain. The picture on the right looked as if it had been snowing outside, but nope, no chance of snow so early into winter.

Yep... I'm waiting to get other pics from Qichang's laptop before I can post them up. Seeya!

Sydney - warning: long post ahead (links to pics in the last para)

As many of you would have known, I left home for Sydney on 5th May, and came back just recently on 10th June. Besides having my flight delayed on my way there as well as on the way back, the entire trip was... i cant find the right word... charming.

First of, the weather there was so much better than that warm, humid, walk-5-metres-and-you-sweat kindof climate I've been used to back at home. It got colder throughout the time I was there and I thoroughly loved it. The taxi to my hostel (a mere 20 minute ride) on the very 1st night brought me back by $19 AUD (about $24 SGD)... and it was shared!!! The total cost was $38 AUD, and I'm sure the taxi driver cheated us. When I arrived at the hostel, I was a little disappointed as I was used to staying in a clean place. The hostel looked old, tattered and torn, dim... too bad I forgot to take a pic of that place, but the people running the place were friendly enough, and I guess that made it more tolerable. Anyways, I got used to it after awhile.

I forgot to mention that I went to Sydney for my overseas elective. I was posted to the gastro department of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. My friend, KY, who went with me, was in the respi department. Yes, that meant that on times when the docs were not free to have lunch, I had it alone. Well, I never do that in Singapore - I would rather skip lunch then be seen in the school canteen alone eating. The food in the cafeteria there was kindof bad though, especially the vegetarian noodles, which felt like chewing plastic - bland and hard. Luckily McCafe was nearby and I learnt to enjoy some Deli sandwiches which were available there. Moving away from the lunch topic, 5 other med students went to Sydney, but they applied for a different hospital, so we met up only on weekends and when we were invited for dinner at the apartment which 3 of em are staying in. Yep... apartment. I kindof envied their place, as a couple of weeks into my elective, i started getting bitten by bed bugs. The bites become erythematous (red) and pruritic (itchy)... which was irritating, and that really sucked big time. I tried wrapping myself in the blanket from neck to toe, and that worked initially. After a few days, I assume that the bugs had somehow learnt to wriggle under my cover, as I found new bite marks on my arms and legs.

Anyway, the elective at RPAH was good. The docs were friendly. The conditions seen were not really seen back in sg. On a "good" day, there were 2 UCs and 1 Crohn's... how cool was that?!

I was looking forward to 1st June. That was the day where my mum, sis and gf would come to Sydney for a holiday! (My dad had to stay at home as my grandpa was not feeling well... )Although I didn't mention earlier in this post, I really missed em. Lucky for the invention of the webcam, the wait was better. I was webcamming with my gf almost daily during my elective, and on some days with my family. The day finally arrived, but before I went to the airport to pick them up, I had to check-in to the apartment. The place was near my hostel, so I decided to walk there, which was a horrible decision. I had to drag my million-kg luggage, carry my backpack, and hold on to 3 huge plastic bags of shoes and food up a 90 degree slope along a dark alley to get to the place (it was dark at that time already). I am exaggerating, but it did feel that way. And for the 1st time in the 4 weeks in Sydney, I was drenched in sweat after the 'walk'. I dropped off my barangs in the splendid apartment, and rushed off to the airport via train. When I arrived, I checked the monitor, and it showed that their plane had "Landed".

I was so damn excited. I got a coffee and sat at the cafe in front of the arrival gate and waited... and waited... and waited. Finally, the oh-so-familiar shapes of my family and gf appeared. This was the moment I had been longing for, for so long. I jumped out of my chair and waved. I'm not sure whether I looked like a clown then, but they were all-smiles when they saw me. I hugged them. The feeling then was really wonderful.

Just abit about the holiday... I drove. And I think it was really an achievement as I drove in all kinds of horrible conditions, from strong gales, to heavy lightning storms at night in the last 4 days. Besides, we were really lucky to have left Hunter Valley just before the area became flooded. It really looked like a flood was coming when we were there. Besides that, the trip was great, and we had a great time. We did the bridge climb (up Harbour Bridge), we saw dolphins in Port Stephen (the whale watch was sadly cancelled due to bad weather), we had some great walks in the Blue Mountain, and we had great food all the way. Now, back in humid and warm Sg, I miss Sydney, but well, I guess I'll be back there again some day. Here are some pics which I've taken, and sorry for such a long post. You have finished reading it... good on yer!!! & have a good dai!

My very first try at this stupid thing

Hmm... I dont have much to say actually.

I mean, my power of language sucks, my essay writing skill sucks, my thought processes suck, and so on... so it might be really boring reading my posts. Plus I think im a busy person, so I dont think I'll have much time to add posts (if thats wat u call it) frequently. I'm busy with school (when school starts); I'm busy in love (24/7); I'm busy with games (tft). What got me to start this stupid thing... I dont know. But I guess probably it is cos' I'm bored, and I wanted to do something different. And besides, I might become a famous blogger, like the one guy that talks about our country.

Ok... that wasnt really a great intro, but at least it is a start. And I need to burn a CD for my gf (for those who dont know her, you'll probably see/read more about her in the other posts to come) cos' she said that I'm really free. Which is true. So yep, I'm off to do something else to fill in my time. Seeya laterz...


Regards,
JW (dont think I'll put this "regards" stuff from now on)