Devoid of Anything Useful

It seems like this is late.

There is just too many things over here which cannot be expressed in a page of text.

The Chinese lessons in the morning helps. I absolutely cannot deny that.
Only sometimes, my body does not agree, even after coffee, and I accidentally take some shut-eye.

Last week we went Tianjin for fieldtrip. The ecocity was...ok. Nothing much there except for the exhibition centre.
I should think that Singapore is not doing it by herself is becuase our land is ultra-scarce.
Also went to Nankai, secondary school of Zhou Enlai and Wen Jiabao

Then we went Tiantan. The echo wall had too much noise to be fun. The 天心石 looked like something out of Golden Sun.

Immersion started. Their lessons were almost alike ours.

For geog we have not many things in our country to analyse, so we just pluck stuff from anywhere.
They have the 3rd longest river (Yangtze, which they were learning about) and other stuff to boot.

For their history they did Republic of China (1911-1949). Started with the flag and stuff then went on to the 83 day joke.
It was less propaganda than expected (actually no propaganda, it could totally have been a lesson in Singapore).

Computer lessons were imba? All the machines were linked to a desktop switcher application, so instead of having a large projector, material needed will be fed to the screen directly.
Their textbooks had V.Basic and Artificial Intelligence, but I think they are not really touched.

English? Seriously, their standard is better than expected. In fact, the PRCs in our class should have picked up more than 85% of their English in these classes.
The friendly neighbourhood angmoh is not too bad (lived in Canada, now in 双井).

Politics was not too much of that. If I were to rename the lesson, it would to be Current affairs, Civics and Moral education.
But again, I haven't seen much yet.

In P.E. they actually learn a set of moves. Fun overall.

Saturday at Tian'anmen square and National Theatre (国家大剧院). Seeing people queue up like got Hello Kitty just to see Mao is amazing (pun coincedental, now intended).

Bought many stuffs, of which I will be rather gged for. Nevermind that.

Tuesday went Xiangshan. Nice climb to 557m. Cable car down cost 50 RMB. Back in SG the same thing would have costed about $15.
Also got Botanical Gardens. Inside got Sleeping Buddha Temple also.

Heard about the crazy wind, wait till you see those over here.

2 days to Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty, can't wait...

Due to us working harder to get the key, I am here on a foggy Sunday

When entering the Bird's Nest last week, I was held back for a while because of my pliers. I still have it by the way.

Great Wall was fun. Nothing much to report though. Just that the very steep part was extremely best.

Zoo was yay. Panda. Didn't bother with Zoo plaza.

Its fun when you find Tengoku. Its more fun when you find many different Tengoku all in one place.

ZhongGuanCun（中关村）is that place. In Singapore's terms, it has at least 5 SLim Squares, 2 SLim Towers and a Sunshine Plaza.

When I arrived, I found myself getting off on the wrong end of the street. Nevermind as I walked on.

I had a set of directions to HaiLong Center. Walking there took about 20 mins, but along the way the names of the buildings looked fun.

As I had no interest in consumer electronics, I was going over to a building which I saw "LED" pasted all over.

On the way, a building caught my eye. 中关村国际动漫城

Woah. 3 floors of worthy stuff ain't that bad... The top (6th) floor was a “动漫主题餐厅”. I did not enter for the mere reason that I thought it be a maid cafe, and the food would burn my wallet.
The 5th floor was about 7 KKnMs. I havent got any loot from there, but I saw a Mikuru figma for 210RMB. There were also Oppai mousepads, including Furukawa Nagisa. The 4th floor was about the same too.

Then, I went over to the place for LEDs. 1 for about 0.30RMB is not bad. I got 10 of each of the 5 colours.
There were also laser modules for 10 RMB. I got 5. LDRs were also 0.30RMB.
I also had 4 LED matrixes (8x8) for 6RMB each. Obviously I tested them on the spot with my VOM.

The weather is getting better, air-con ish.

My magazines are heavy. I dunno if they will make it back.

Youtube is accessible with Tor.

Yet again...

Much has happened since Tuesday. I'm going to blog by week cuz there is no time during the week.

I have left contact with the ground for longer than 5 seconds (more than 6 hours to boot)
Not too much of an experience, but I must say it is different.
I would just take it like an uber long bus ride, but with added stuff like the entertainment system is not bad, and the risk of dropping out of the sky.
This would also be my longest trip overseas so far, not with family to boot.

Achivements aside, day one (Mar31) was just an intro to the nice cold weather of Beijing (and temperate countries in general)
When I got off the plane, I wondered if the cool air-con like temperature there was heated or normal.
After this week, I bet it was heated. But at that time I did not know...
It was freezing cold after stepping out of the airport to board the bus.
The trip to the campus was rather long, and is nice how you can look in one direction and not see a building.
I knew the road directions were swapped, but I only conciously realized when I started taking videos.

After we got off the bus, it was king cold. While wating for luggage retreival, it was cake cold.
Everyone ran into the building rather quickly due to the cold wind. Did I mention it was cold?
After settling down in the dorm for a bit, we went off to the campus. Toured almost everything there.

On April Fool's, I stared at my feeds updating with all the technology pranks but could not really catch up.
Lolling at the people on Facebook was also fun.
Torrent speeds are good, much better than at home (excess of 20kbps compared to 5), so I was more than happy to leave my laptop in school to feed off the netz.
We went off to Beijing Planning Exhibition Center after lunch. Took the public buses.
Most of the buses are long, the entrance is in the middle, manned by a condutor who has tasks like making sure those without a card pay cash,
making everyone squeeze to have space, and to make some random announcements. Exits at the 2 ends, which everyone makes their way to.
It took about an hour (never felt it that way), and the exhibits quite zai lah.
Passed by Tiananmen Square on the way back, saw roflMao. Looks less grand somehow.
Online lesson left most people gaming, while I attempted to catch up with feeds and think of which compo to write

Mornings are spent drinking 3-in-One Nescafe, taking those vitamins, changing into uniform, and layering yourself.
It takes about an hour, mostly because the brain does not operate well at such temperatures.
I wake up at 5+ am, the sun rises at about 5.30am, I finish most of the stuff by 6+ and leave before 6.30am

On Thursday we joined in the Mass exercise for the first time. Everyone was either lolling or trying to catch up.
It was slightly harder than Hare Hare Yukai, mostly because I don't get to do a Frame-by-Frame study of it.
Then my PE was after that, and I opted soccer. We played with some local students and one angmoh international students.
We got pwned rather badly, but no one was truly owning.

Apparently we got caught up in science week, something like ISYF. There was something called Brain Olympics which was a quiz show.
Then also got some debate. Motion was "Building upon knowledge is more important than creating knowledge".

The Chinese Lit lessons are currently on Poems, whether she will do something else I dunno.
The Chinese Studies in Chinese was basically that, just with a different angle.

Friday was lessons as usual. There was the closing ceremony of the Science week. Rather grand socialist shit.

Saturday went Forbidden City. Big. Huge amounts of walking. Tian'an Gate not as grand as on TV.

Sunday went shopping. Got stuffs but no clothes or shoes.

Monday went Bird Nest. Looks smaller than on TV.

Tuesday having lessons then going Great Wall

Due to unforseen circumstances, I wrote this on Friday night but no internet to post until now.

By the way, I got some loot over here. Will show in the meantime

More about the first 2 days...

later

(My idea of a mirco-joke)

Its vveeeeerrrrryyyyy cccccoooolllldd here...

Internet is less blocked than I thought, and rootshell.be got me to youtube (currently text only though...)

Yays