It has been an absolutely fantastic experience this 4.5 months of my life spent studying at the university of canterbury in christchurch new zealand.
I will miss the friends I have met there, who have come from all over the world.
Parting is sweet sorrow as Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet but nevertheless it has to happen, for me.
Singapore is home and home is Singapore.
To all my friends and family who have followed my journey over this 4.5 months, I thank you for your precious time in reading this blog, your comments have been invaluable. I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
And as I told many of you, this blog served to provide a glimpse of my life and to keep my family and friends updated about my whereabouts and wellbeing during this period of my life away from you, away from home, away from Singapore. With my return to Singapore, I can be contacted quite easily.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, guys and girls, I will leave this blog for those who still want to read past entries and for those who will chance upon it in future. I will probably drop by occasionally to reminisce.
But beyond that, this will be my last post. I will not be updating it any more.
THANKS for the memories
Saturday, July 7, 2007
7th July 2007
Sister's commencement ceremony - the reason why I came back to Singapore so early.
There was a thunderstorm early in the morning. There was more rain in the morning than in all my time in New Zealand. And I heard thunder for the first time in months.
I am not sure if I should describe the feeling and emotion as therapeutic but it was actually kind of nice to hear it.
Went for the ceremony and met some friends there by chance. K and C had both found jobs in banks and were starting work within the month at stanchart and ocbc I think. Also met yaning my boss in EMCC who has relinquished her position as she wants to work part time.
Everyone I met over the past few days has commented on how long and thick my hair is and advised me to get a hair cut. This I will surely do, on monday.
When I first landed, I really felt the humidity. I never really felt completely dry but it's getting better now as I've been back a couple of days already. Showered about 3 times a day for the past few days but intending to cut down to 1 or 2 soon.
In the 48 hours since I've been back, I've also tasted my mum's cooking as well as had chicken rice, dumpling (shui3 jiao3), shao1 rou4, ngoh hiang, sweet and sour pork, ma pou tofu, yam basket, yeo's green tea, HL milk, digestive biscuits, milo, ang ku kueh, barley, ice lemon tea, 9 layer cake, lotus paste bun, etc.
I am also in the midst of giving out the souvenirs and chocolates to family and friends so just be patient guys!
Sister's commencement ceremony - the reason why I came back to Singapore so early.
There was a thunderstorm early in the morning. There was more rain in the morning than in all my time in New Zealand. And I heard thunder for the first time in months.
I am not sure if I should describe the feeling and emotion as therapeutic but it was actually kind of nice to hear it.
Went for the ceremony and met some friends there by chance. K and C had both found jobs in banks and were starting work within the month at stanchart and ocbc I think. Also met yaning my boss in EMCC who has relinquished her position as she wants to work part time.
Everyone I met over the past few days has commented on how long and thick my hair is and advised me to get a hair cut. This I will surely do, on monday.
When I first landed, I really felt the humidity. I never really felt completely dry but it's getting better now as I've been back a couple of days already. Showered about 3 times a day for the past few days but intending to cut down to 1 or 2 soon.
In the 48 hours since I've been back, I've also tasted my mum's cooking as well as had chicken rice, dumpling (shui3 jiao3), shao1 rou4, ngoh hiang, sweet and sour pork, ma pou tofu, yam basket, yeo's green tea, HL milk, digestive biscuits, milo, ang ku kueh, barley, ice lemon tea, 9 layer cake, lotus paste bun, etc.
I am also in the midst of giving out the souvenirs and chocolates to family and friends so just be patient guys!
6th July 2007
Woke up at 9am, checked email and received a reminder email to submit fyp project list. I found out that I had selected only 9 projects and I needed to have a minimum of 10 projects before I could submit the list. Oops. And so I did the necessary.
Went to school in the afternoon. There was a predeparture briefing for departing SEP students. Talked for 5 minutes about my own experience. Met Faith and Yiling there! Amazing, happy to see them. Yiling's SEP album is really beautiful. She must have put in lots of effort. Heard that Suhui is touring south east asia with xiaoqiang. Met Simin who is going to University of Canterbury on 7th July. Answered all her questions and gave her as much advice as I could. Elaine the IRO officer was telling us about a possible competition for SEP photographs in September during international exchange day; Faith, Yiling and I expressed our desire to win the top 3 prizes. :)
And then it was time to go home. But not before meeting YK by chance in the PC cluster where he was doing some graduation gift for a friend of a friend.
That evening, I went to AMK hub to get a replacement SIM card for the one I had lost 3 months back while touring the north island. It was really big and new and had a huge number of shops, ranging from fish and co to sushi places, to zone x, to cathay cinemas, etc. Spent some time watching people play time crisis 4, initial d 4, etc. Realised that I have not stepped into an arcade for almost half a year.
Woke up at 9am, checked email and received a reminder email to submit fyp project list. I found out that I had selected only 9 projects and I needed to have a minimum of 10 projects before I could submit the list. Oops. And so I did the necessary.
Went to school in the afternoon. There was a predeparture briefing for departing SEP students. Talked for 5 minutes about my own experience. Met Faith and Yiling there! Amazing, happy to see them. Yiling's SEP album is really beautiful. She must have put in lots of effort. Heard that Suhui is touring south east asia with xiaoqiang. Met Simin who is going to University of Canterbury on 7th July. Answered all her questions and gave her as much advice as I could. Elaine the IRO officer was telling us about a possible competition for SEP photographs in September during international exchange day; Faith, Yiling and I expressed our desire to win the top 3 prizes. :)
And then it was time to go home. But not before meeting YK by chance in the PC cluster where he was doing some graduation gift for a friend of a friend.
That evening, I went to AMK hub to get a replacement SIM card for the one I had lost 3 months back while touring the north island. It was really big and new and had a huge number of shops, ranging from fish and co to sushi places, to zone x, to cathay cinemas, etc. Spent some time watching people play time crisis 4, initial d 4, etc. Realised that I have not stepped into an arcade for almost half a year.
5th July 2007
The morning of departure saw me rising at 9 am to finish packing. I gave away lots of stuff which I did not need, like tissue paper, squeeze bottles, survival blanket, engineering paper, graph paper, posters, biscuits, soup, etc to Eli and Meat who were the only 2 students remaining on my level.
Thanks to JieYing for giving me a ride around to settle stuff like checking in my lugguage at the airport, lunch, buying souvenirs and closing my bank account. Reaching the airport at 2.30pm for 2.35pm flight was a little worrying but at least I got a good workout running to the departure gate and clearing customs in 5 minutes, something I've never tried before.
Then it was a 2hr 45 min flight to Sydney where I was informed by my sis to buy krispy kreme donuts and darrell lea chocolates. Try as I might, I could not find the krispy kreme outlet and so I asked the salesgirl. She told me the outlet is outside the departure lounge which was confirmed by my sis when I got home.
Boarded the flight from Sydney to Singapore at about half past 5 Australian time. Met the 2nd irishman in 2 days. Prior to this trip, I had never encountered any irishmen. J had just finished his 3 month travel of australia and had to go back to ireland. He was quite sad that his travel visa was finished as he thoroughly enjoyed his time in australia. We were fortunate that there were only 2 of us because this meant that we had a middle seat empty which meant more space to put our stuff and move around. The flight proved to be a turbulent affair and I could not get much shut eye for the 7 hour flight.
Eventually we landed at Changi Airport at 11:40pm and I was glad to be home, after 4.5 months away in Christchurch New Zealand. Got home at about 12.30am and only went to bed at about 3am Singapore time as I checked my email, do the bedsheets, shower and read the Straits Times.
The morning of departure saw me rising at 9 am to finish packing. I gave away lots of stuff which I did not need, like tissue paper, squeeze bottles, survival blanket, engineering paper, graph paper, posters, biscuits, soup, etc to Eli and Meat who were the only 2 students remaining on my level.
Thanks to JieYing for giving me a ride around to settle stuff like checking in my lugguage at the airport, lunch, buying souvenirs and closing my bank account. Reaching the airport at 2.30pm for 2.35pm flight was a little worrying but at least I got a good workout running to the departure gate and clearing customs in 5 minutes, something I've never tried before.
Then it was a 2hr 45 min flight to Sydney where I was informed by my sis to buy krispy kreme donuts and darrell lea chocolates. Try as I might, I could not find the krispy kreme outlet and so I asked the salesgirl. She told me the outlet is outside the departure lounge which was confirmed by my sis when I got home.
Boarded the flight from Sydney to Singapore at about half past 5 Australian time. Met the 2nd irishman in 2 days. Prior to this trip, I had never encountered any irishmen. J had just finished his 3 month travel of australia and had to go back to ireland. He was quite sad that his travel visa was finished as he thoroughly enjoyed his time in australia. We were fortunate that there were only 2 of us because this meant that we had a middle seat empty which meant more space to put our stuff and move around. The flight proved to be a turbulent affair and I could not get much shut eye for the 7 hour flight.
Eventually we landed at Changi Airport at 11:40pm and I was glad to be home, after 4.5 months away in Christchurch New Zealand. Got home at about 12.30am and only went to bed at about 3am Singapore time as I checked my email, do the bedsheets, shower and read the Straits Times.
2-4 July 2007
3 days of snowboarding was expensive but it was thoroughly enjoyable. I do not know when I will have a chance to do it again so it was with my enthusiasm and relish that I woke up at about 6am every morning during my last days in New Zealand, and eagerly checked the metservice and mount hutt websites for updates. The decision to go depended on whether the mountain was open at 6+ in the morning. Fortunately, my last 3 days were a "Go" even though the snow base was not good.
There's not much else you can do on the 1hr 45 minute ride from christchurch to mount hutt. And when the bus is full, you either sleep or talk to the people seated to your left and right. This I did on my trips and I met I from Ireland who at 17 years of age had already tried ecstasy and weed, etc. He was looking forward to going to amsterdam for his 18th birthday. I was to find out later that he did skating and surfing so he picked up snowboarding really quickly, easily and without falling too many times.
People I met on the snowboarding trips included Clinton (17 years of snowboarding), Kate (who did Summit 6 quite a few times), Peter (who goes on alternate days or when there's powder), Lisa and Daniel (korean students who kept urging me to try highway 72 and broadway with them, which I declined since I was still falling on the magic carpet).
I loved every minute of my experience on Mt Hutt, except for the falling over and chaffing of the legs part, but still that was an experience in itself.
3 days of snowboarding was expensive but it was thoroughly enjoyable. I do not know when I will have a chance to do it again so it was with my enthusiasm and relish that I woke up at about 6am every morning during my last days in New Zealand, and eagerly checked the metservice and mount hutt websites for updates. The decision to go depended on whether the mountain was open at 6+ in the morning. Fortunately, my last 3 days were a "Go" even though the snow base was not good.
There's not much else you can do on the 1hr 45 minute ride from christchurch to mount hutt. And when the bus is full, you either sleep or talk to the people seated to your left and right. This I did on my trips and I met I from Ireland who at 17 years of age had already tried ecstasy and weed, etc. He was looking forward to going to amsterdam for his 18th birthday. I was to find out later that he did skating and surfing so he picked up snowboarding really quickly, easily and without falling too many times.
People I met on the snowboarding trips included Clinton (17 years of snowboarding), Kate (who did Summit 6 quite a few times), Peter (who goes on alternate days or when there's powder), Lisa and Daniel (korean students who kept urging me to try highway 72 and broadway with them, which I declined since I was still falling on the magic carpet).
I loved every minute of my experience on Mt Hutt, except for the falling over and chaffing of the legs part, but still that was an experience in itself.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Snowboarding on Mt Hutt, and snowing
Snowing 1
Snowing 2
Snowing 3
Snowing 4
Snowing 5Finally managed to get some snowboarding action in on my 4th attempt at getting up Mt Hutt. And it snowed for 1.5 hours which made the slopes slightly better than when we first arrived, since powder is better to ski/snowboard on. Fell many times and it is extremely tiring, but I just kept going since Singapore will never have snow and mountains.
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