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Monday, August 24, 2009 @ 8:33 PM

thank you "lee" who lives next door and who didn't lock your network

I have blogged this entry since a few days ago but can't get any wireless outside of work.
Imagine my awe when I click on my AirPort at HK Macs and see like 20 unlocked WIFI networks...Pfft. Free for like 20 mins, any second after that is chargeable.

I think the day the MTR here stops functioning will be equivalent to when wireless@SG starts charging- catastrophic. We are so reliant on it we feel indignant if we are deprived of it.

Let’s see, last Friday, when I was happily TGIF-ing, my then-boss asked to talk to me. At his café themed to keep the dreams of people alive afterschool, he told me that he was going to terminate our contract if I don’t show a significant improvement at work. He said I will bring trouble to whatever companies I go to, and that I shouldn’t go on to get a degree if I’m this bad. Maybe it’s shock or maybe it’s numb to such words, I just nodded.

So the plan was that he was to give me a series of tests starting this Monday, to see how much I have learnt from TP. When Pat and the school hear about this, they were quite upset la, like why is this man testing their student…blahblah. It’s funny hearing Pat upset about something else rather than bad kerning and dark packaging names and whatnot.

In the meantime, the weekend was good beside the nagging worried voice at the back of my head.

I saw Hope Hongkong’s 17^th anniversary.

All the congregations came donned in their own colour, have an awesome time praising and ending the night with a banquet.

Tried some roadside snacks before the banquet!

Yes, youth was assigned purple.

Ladies' man, tsk HAHA

with his favourite pose

Samatha!

She is Harry Lam's sister and she guided me to church on my first visit there.

Charles is very funny, he doesn't really know what to say to me,
so he always smiles.

Met ChinHo in Spore a few months back,
so so heartening to hear his story, he has only been in Christ for a year!

This one is really ladies' man,
I Q-ed to take a photo with him.
Met him in SG too, fan of kinderjoy, haha.

These two boys and all the littler ones always remind me for jonquek, petetong and the SA boys back in NE days,
and I hope they keep being moulded and growing up strong.
Such good and willing hearts.

I intended to head to Tai-O and spend Sunday quietly and perhaps, emo fashion when God sent another gift on Sunday- Derrick See!

I received a mysterious phone call last Sunday asking me to guess the caller, and what a good deal- a right guess and I was brought to all the best food places in HK. His family came just to savour the local delicacies that he cannot believe I haven’t been eating.

Portuguese eggtarts to die for,
at Sheung Wan.

ju pa smthg smthg fan.
clap clap derrick for being able to order in canto

We went for littlefatsheep 小肥羊 with his very kind and generous family too.

He walked me about Causeway Bay, to all the malls I should have been to long ago but didn't, and we waited for all that food to digest, before

ending the day with this.
Awesome crisp bread toast thing with butter and condensed milk, ohhhh.

Funny how on that one day we talked more than we ever did all the years we know each other added together, but yay thanks for your encouragement!

Visit his site HERE to check out more foodie hunts- all over the world some more.

So, on Monday, I went to a random bridge in Central and started drawing the buildings.
It was damn hot.

I saw this near the bridge too,

Creamo told me you can book with the government to hold your little protest.
quite fun sounding LOL
Can I protest about no free wifi network?

Midway the course manager called and told me they are going to pull me out before I get terminated, hahaha. With some relief, mixed feelings, I was on the ferry going to leave the pier to go home when Pat suddenly smsed me a number to call. I called and the boss that picked up was so full of energy it’s like my highnessx3? ,
and I went “Oh do you need to see my portfolio now?” and she went (this is classic)
For what? If it’s not good, will I send you back? No!

But eventually she saw and was alright with it :D
Pat got all confused when my ex-boss says my drawing skills are very poor, and the new boss says my strength is in illustration, LOL.

And she asked me to cab straight over to the company and I had to run out of the ferry and up a cab. And yes, I am currently working at Shyalala.

It must be all of your prayers, covering me,
thank you Huaxiang for the random call on Saturday and getting the group to pray for me.
Thank you lovely classmates, I heard you guys have been worrying.

It hasn’t been an easy journey, all the stuff he said to me rings in my head. It’s the first time in my life I open up PS and/or AI and my hands just froze in half fear half lost, like as though it’s foreign software.

Pat has been encouraging- “You’re one tough cookie!”

I have a lot of wonderful quotes:

ZY: what?! but designers don't like to conform what, how can he stereotype us?
YT: But everyone has common dreams what, unless you want to be a.. starcatcher?
HX: With your help I can advance against tonnes of test ; with my God I can scale a the boss perception about me.

And so many more.

You’d realize, if you’re here alone, you don’t have much time to be sad, each day comes and goes, and you pick up and stop crumbling.

Sometimes when it gets tough, I go on my ride on the Hand.

I sit in a huge Hand in a purple universe, and it takes me away from this mass of green and blue ball we reside in, and I realize that really, no matter how horrible it can continue to get, it will be 3 months, a quarter of a year, a speck of my life, nothingness in eternity, for you who believe in eternity.

And it’s just comforting to me.

Tuesday I headed back to Afterschool with half a drawing, got attacked!, and left with all my things. And I moved!

I left Dbay with all its pretense and serenity and un-HKness,

I used to wake up to this every morning

Does that pink tinge of cloud remind you of the opening scene in UP?

It's a really funny feeling trying to rid your presence from a place,
removing any clue that you ever existed and resided there.
Don't we sometimes try to do that to people's lives?

And I moved to the Church’s ministry house in Price Edward.

I now see this opposite me. Hello HK.

The house does not have much, but the efforts they go through, to clean it up for me, and to arrange it for me means much more.

Right now I am typing from Creamo’s house, she has very kindly offered a city of refuge for me, the refugee, and made her cousin stay away a bit longer so I could reside here till another sister leave the ministry house.

All this moving around made me realize that we are really wanderers.

I wander and wonder!
Because I know very well that I will not stay here all my life, I don’t store up things and make very casual temporal arrangements. In the same way we are not meant to dwell forever on Earth, but we spend our entire dwelling storing.

The people at Shyalala have been so kind and I’m actually doing real work,
I can’t ask for anything more, I think the past three weeks were necessary to show me and make me learn things I would otherwise never had.

Thank you Lord for being faithful, for knowing me well.
Thank you family and friends for undying support, I am showered with love.
Thank you so much everyone at Hope HK, only in Hope do you find “strangers” being a family to you.

I came to Hong Kong thinking I have something to give,
But I have been given so much more instead.

Maybe it’s a MinOps thing, maybe it’s my pride, or maybe it’s how everyone kept introducing me to the HK delegates during camp and told them to “make good use of me”, but seeing their 17^th anniversary celebration, I need this wonderful community a lot more than they need anything I can offer skill-wise.

Yesterday night Creamo asked me along for dinner with Jolin (Jacq’s sis) and Richard. They were in HK for holidayyy. And we had claypot rice, ahh, nice.

LIEW DEWEN, I AM WAITING FOR YOUR GREAT COMING, LOL.

I love staying with friends.
(Miss you YT & ZY, my china snoring buddies HAHAHAHA)

I woke up to this this morning.

Thank you Creamo!
I love breakfast, though it makes me diarrhoea, but it’s awesome!

I had some confused fun before service with the people, they have an event called
mix&match, games&gags,

and always laugh when the host fumble over the words.

I had to run out halfway during p&w to pop by the places where my Shyalala and lalastudio colleagues were hard at work at.

We are doing this campaign for Esprit called Esprit friends, and got people all over HK to share their friendship stories and stand a chance to be Esprit’s new faces. The response has been good, I saw people dancing in the middle of Causeway Bay’s outlet. I guess this is advertising at its best- when it touches people and make some bit of difference, giving some warmth, though yes, eventually money needs to roll in from this.

I only appear at the office in time to help with Flash banners, but it’s been fun seeing the whole campaign come to live. See for yourself at THIS SITE.

Go ahead and laugh your head off, I did that intro flash u_u

Concluded the night with good Italian food with some Hopies at good price, amazing!

Hamburg steak with mushroom sauce

shrimp salad

Sausage thing

(Sorry the true italian dishes got swallowed very quickly ah, I don't have the photos)

OH and zy, we have the lemonhead girl here too HAHA.
purposely copy your photo somemore leh. HAHAHA.

Misses!

I say all your promises wont let go of me…!

I spent a lovely relaxed Sunday with Creamo, it’s been a while before my heart was calm and I really just want to enjoy. And enjoy we did.

We slept in happily and missed breakfast, brunched near her place.

Fried rice with prawns and mangoI should just marry a mango farmer..!

She brought me to Shek Kip Mei, and we went to Jockey’s Club Art Gallery.

It was an ex industrial building converted into a whole artists ville, and it now houses many studios and artists.

The guy at the other side said I could shot him too if I find him good looking. I didn't. HAHAHAHA.

Amazing amount of shoe moulds used in the olden days to make well, shoes.

These are some pikkas of their studios and the lovely things these people collect and put outside.

This is Fat Girl, and she does ugly pretty. HAHA.

She totally spam the area outside her studio with these horribly cute blue naked girls hanging about.

And this is her studio!

Look at the penguins!

I guess it's good that we went on Sunday when all the studios are closed, we could peek freely.

Extremely clever and interactive "wallpaper"

Postits!

space

Saw this photo exhibition by ...(i'm sorry i cant read the French name written in the chi brochure). It's called 一枚银币的两面。Two sides of a coin basically. The entire exhibition makes use of very symmetrical photos, but the two halves are of opposites, of ironies. The whole clashing of wonderful symmetry with such contradictory opposites is really very captivating.

Rooftop

And they have

floor zero, freaky hor

While I was here kept thinking of the TDS dudes and all your excited eyes when you see this, was thinking of getting you guys to come when I realize you are miles away. I could so imagine us whining and talking about having our little studio space in a corner.

And this, is … G.O.D- Goods of Desire’s hugeass store, filled with antiques and awesome vintage things. *drools and hyperventilates

They have this huge wall filled with old mailboxes, and the other filled with vintage clocks, and a coke glass bottle chandelier.

And amazing mini models of HK scenes

They even bother making the stain real

We braved the 33 degree mad microwave heat, had an awesome eye feast and went to Kowloon Tong’s Fashion Walk. Hello Atas and wealthy, and hello having an ice skating rink in the middle of the mall.

We sat, munched on snacks and ben&jerry’s! B&J’s is quite rare here, so having it while watching ice skating people zoom about was a pleasure.

(& yiyou, if you ever read this, I got you your Uniqlo iceskating shirt, it’s at a hyperventilaworthy price too!)

And this pink little girl is really awesome, she went through her routine like more than ten times, spinning about and skating backwards effortlessly. Makes me actually feel like having a kid man. Recently I have seen many cute ones, HAHA.

We went walking about, and… wow, I actually want to be rich now.

I want the new mini-diana! Never mind that you pro photographers will scoff at lomo suckers like me, but oh my yes, I am indeed one. The mini Diana is so super cute, takes square images and half rect ones..!

Went to this atas lifestyle store called francfranc, they throw havianas in buckets to sell like they are bathroom slippers. *laughs at NUM.

She suggested going to the mall’s food court for dinner, and in my head was the awesome imagination of many dozen stores… when i realize it’s Hong Kong, and the food court is kinda like Lido, loads of seats outside fast food joints and try-very-hard other cuisine stores, look at this, they used the wrong word for our dear country’s name, I was actually outraged HAHA my secret patriotism.

星加坡 leh?!

We had Ajisen, at a much lower price(!), and ended the day feeling the many awesome glossy PageOne design books. Ahhh, books from Victionary are a lot cheaper here since it’s HK, I am going to move everything home!

And like I said, you guys see the happy moments recorded here.. it's not easy staying alone, but I am truly blessed to have everyone around. Sometimes at night things can get dark. (duh, HAHA)

I spent 15mins choosing a cheap and good laundry detergent to handwash some clothes,
wish me luck.

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