emo emo big big elmo. haha. hate it when i'm emo. baka. you see, questions are always running thru my mine. and when i dun have the answers, emoness set in. thanks satan. and i did try to push the emoness away by thinking anything tat's of God and His kingdom. why be emo? why let emptiness have its way when it should be filled with God's spirit? i'm glad to have a God who is living and so real. i'm glad tat He answers most of my prayers promptly. but as for those that are still in His pending tray, i shall and i must be patient to wait upon the Lord. other than this, wad shall i do? i'm called to live a purposeful life, not a life filled with junkies and letting my feelings get the better of me. you better get this straight, babe. you have a greater purpose tat God has ordained in your life. a purpose to serve Him and in turn, LOVE Him and enjoy His presence forever. dun just say only. put it into actions! and i realised tat humans generally are VERY FORGETFUL. forget wad? forget God's faithfulness and unfailing love for you. humans tend to remember those bad things that happened to them better than those good happenings. when you receive blessings, do you stop to give thanks and glory all back to God immediately? when things do not go your way, do you find yourself totally submerged into the emoness instead of still giving praises to God despite the trials? tough stuff ain't it? come on, we are just humans. can't we grumble a bit when things go wrong? yah i understand. i tend to complain quite a bit too. but how do you define a bit is another issue. haha.
still pondering bout taking up a discipleship group (DG) next year. tho i have already submitted to God on this ten months ago, satan is trying very hard to lure me out of it. a bunch of sec 1 girls i'll be taking up. i hope i can live up to their expectations tho. you see, the oldest sms i kept were from Ai Tin, my pastor's wife, also my BS leader together with my pastor, Uncle Kien Seng. on 6th Jan, 2008, 8:37pm: "Gracia has requested you to be her DGL when she's in sec 1. KS and i are givin you 1 year to pray about it." totally shocked me. i mean God wouldn't have been more clearer, esp after Lixian poked me bout taking up a DG tat very day too. i was very uncomfortable about it tat day when Lixian talked to me. i just shoved it off. little did i noe tat was a warning from God. haha. and upon receiving that sms, i told God, "ok ok, I surrender!!" so i replied, " oh, why me? is she primary 6 this year?" 9.29pm: "Yep. She says she likes to talk to you cos you v funny and nice." these are the exact words copied from the smses. can you believe it?? i mean, the 'v funny and nice' part is undeniable. but... the pastor and his wife already booked me to be their daughter's DGL one year in advance. tat nearly blows my mind. few days later, i asked Ai Tin casually again how did her daughter decide tat i should be her DGL. so she was explaining that she was talking to Gracia and talked bout YZ next year and out of a sudden Gracia requested for it. so... tadaaa! hmm.. i must say i am honoured. but before my head gets any bigger, i must be reminded of the extra load and pressure i will face bah.. won't say tat it's a pressure. i certainly hope it'll be a JOY and pleasure for me to guide those girls in their teenage years! I hope I will be a very fun-loving and caring and encouraging (instead of naggy) DGL. I’m pretty excited bout it actually. Haha. I typed the following in my hp one random night before I sleep.
Motivations/ Reasons behind leading a DG
- Equip them in the Word of God correctly
- Obey God’s command because I love Him
- Lead by example in love
- I want to share my life experiences with them and hence testify to God’s faithfulness and unfailing love to me. The God who has shown me these attributes of His is also the same God they have a relationship with.
- Count my blessings! Name them one by one!
- Have fun studying the Word of God together!
- Arouse their interest to want to find out more about what God has instructed
- Draw myself closer to God as I lead and learn. As my pastor said, the person who learns the most from a BS session is the BS leader. How? As you prepare the BS material, you do more research and provide Bible knowledge to them. Also, you will learn a lot from your girls too. At the same time, get to know how they think and react to the questions.
Yup, so are you convinced that all these points outweigh the costs?? Service comes with sacrifice, serene. =D
You gently call me into Your presence, guiding me by Your Holy Spirit.
Teach me dear Lord, to live all of my life through Your eyes.
I’m captured by Your holy calling
Set me apart, I know You’re drawing me to Yourself.
Lead me Lord, I pray.
Take me, mould me, use me, fill me, I give my life to the Potter’s hand.
Hold me, guide me, lead me, walk beside me. I give my life to the Potter’s hand.
「我不難過」
又站在你家的門口 我們重複沉默
這樣子單方面的守候 還能多久
終於你開口向我訴說她有多溫柔
雖然你還握著我的手 但我已不在你心中
我真的懂 你不是喜新厭舊
是我沒有 陪在你身邊 當你寂寞時候
別再看著我說著你愛過 別太傷痛
我不難過 這不算什麼
只是為什麼眼淚會流 我也不懂
就讓我走 讓我開始享受自由
回憶很多 你的影子也會充滿我生活
我並不懦弱 你比誰都懂
雖然寂寞 這會是我最後的寬容
終於你開口向我述說她有多溫柔
雖然你還握著我的手 但我已不在你心中
我真的懂 你不是喜新厭舊
是我沒有 陪在你身邊 當你寂寞時候
別再看著我說著你愛過 別太傷痛
我不難過 這不算什麼
只是為什麼眼淚會流 我也不懂
就讓我走 讓我開始享受自由
回憶很多 你的影子也會充滿我生活
我並不懦弱 你比誰都懂
雖然寂寞 這會是我最後的寬容
抱緊我 再抱緊我
這一份感動 請你讓我留在胸口
別在說是你的錯
愛到了盡頭 是非對錯就讓它隨風
忘了所有 過得比你快活
我真的懂 你不是喜新厭舊
是我沒有 陪在你身邊 當你寂寞時候
別再看著我說著你愛過 別太傷痛
我不難過 這不算什麼
只是為什麼眼淚會流 我也不懂
不要再說 或許這是最好的結果
現在分手 總好過你不愛我一拖再拖
鬆開你的手 離開你左右
我向前走 這會是我 真正的解脫
Labels: I'm not sad
oh yes oh yesss i'm back to blog. and i can hear you BRA saying FINALLY! hee! sighhh super lazy to blog. but still i was planning to blog bout my first week of school and how God was so amazing on Sundae night (or izzit Mondae? =X)
started school on wed, 17th sept. ha. i can't believe the first shock i had for the first dae of school. i guess the night before i was TOO excited. like a primary one cute little girl starting her first dae of school and getting all so excited bout it. and the shock was, i woke up late!!! for some reason i didn't even noe my phone was in silent and vibrating mode. when i was awake for the first time, i peeked with my eyes three-quarterly opened(which i'm not sure wad time was it then), there was light filling the room. by right it should have been 7am or past tat already. BUT i kept assuring myself tat it's not time yet. my phone alarm is SUPER reliable. usually. then i noe something is amiss. woke up to check the clock. 740am! was supposed to wake up at 7am. jumped out of my bed, panicking like a squirrel. washed up and all, thinking there goes my breakfast. mum adviced me to take taxi. i already was planning to do that! haha. reached school on time. spent $12.30 on cab fee. (broken my promise not to take taxi for a year ever since i came back from China.) had ISORG and Auditing. ISORG is Information Systems and Organisation. until now i still find ISORG no link to my bestest fren. Accounting. (RIGHT!) the lecturer is Mr. Jack Koh. a man in his fifties i guess. close to baldnessing of 75.12345678%. quite a funny and lame dude. a cool chap who told us that he's afraid he might have sounded weird. and he explains that he wasn't like tat usually. just tat he had some teeth problem so a bit LH. noe wad's tat? LAO HONG (lose wind in hokkien). i can't believe i actually laughed at tat. haha! =X well, it's good to start your day with a laughter, if not, LAUGHTERSSS. he's the only lecturer who set up a blog just for his ISORG students mainly for resources and Q&A session and stuff. got to noe it even b4 school started. and i tot this guy must be quite a devoted lecturer. guess so far, i can't comment on tat yet. next, went for Auditing. i always had this perception that Miss Chu is an old virgin, very demanding, very naggy and shaggy. but lo and behold! she's a young lady (or rather she looks young), married and with 2 daughters. interesting lecturer, very focused and looks approachable. friendly smiles attract me so yah. i was welcomed. =) intensive first lesson of auditing.
fridae, 19th Sept. attended Elements of the Law of Contract and Corporate Finance. ELC was by some indian guy who looks so much like Abdul Kareem (my HRM lecturer who was very very not dedicated to teach well+he's a lecturer who loves to pronouce V as W eg. 'Where are you going?" he will say, "Vhare rrr u goingg?" + a lecturer who compromises with his quality of teaching +me getting so traumatised thinking tat i would surely fail HRM (after the paper coz i worte so little, 2 pages for each essay) and have to ta bao to this year = me scoring 60 marks for this subject only by God's grace!) ok ok. stop complaining YOU!! sorry. =X this guy, Mr A. Ram, inevitably was caught by me pronouncing the same way as how Abdul did. but but but. he's not the highlight of the lecture. Contract LAW is! so fun and interesting!! first lesson is already so intensive. thank God for a change. =) time passed so quickly and i hoped we could do more of it. next, CF was in a super big lecture threatre. and the lecturer was late by 10 mins. i'm very particular bout lecturers being late. i mean anyone who has a date with me should NEVER be late, esp when it's a male, whoever he is. oops i did it again. at first, this guy dressed so casually came in and occupy the lecturer's seat on the stage. yi bin and i really tot he's the repair man for the computer or smth. haha. he spent another 10 mins or so trying to fix the system and tat's the more we were convinced he is the repairman. but even b4 he sat down he was holding onto a file so the suspicion didn't really stand for me. but yi bin was pretty convinced. then some guys in black came in and ask him if the system is ok. lalalalala... he really is Johnny Tan, our CF lecturer. Haha. First lesson was a breeze. Learnt the basics in PBF and the first lecture was a recall of wad we learnt back then plus a few more new concepts.. And i dunnoe whether i should be proud to say tat i scored better in PBF than POA. Maybe. Just maybe. I should be in the banking and finance sector. Still praying on tat. =) till now still no idea wad’s debit credit. How to be an accountant???!! Maybe auditor to start off with for first 3 years (which i highly reckon i won’t be able to survive tat long under such a no-life environment) and then get CPA. If possible, i was thinking if CFA is good too. Then either stay in an auditing firm for good or jump to banks. Be Thou my vision. For all you noe, i may become a full time missionary after graduation? Tat... i highly doubt so too tho. Hee. Oh yah. Finished with introducing my 1st week of lessons. Homework piling up but i managed to kill them all even before wed.
As i reflect and ponder about wad i shall do in the future, i am also prettie excited to unravel what God has in store for me day after dae! =) it’s like there are always SURPRISES every now and then whenever God showers me with bountiful blessings or when God answers my prayers or even when i’m going thru difficult times.. but i’m ALWAYS assured deep down that God is going thru this with me too. I’m NEVER alone. It’s this assurance tat allows me to take things easy when i noe His yoke is easy. =) wanna share the Sundae night incident. It was superrrr hot tat night. I felt as if i was in an oven or smth. And so i tossed and turned and couldn’t sleep. So i utter a passing remark, “oh God, if only you would send a super heavy rain NOW!” be very careful wad you wish for, even if it is unspoken. Within the next 10 to 15 mins, God sent loud and assuring thunders down as if to tell me He had heard me. I’m serious when i say the thunders come from nowhere at all. There was no sign of raining before i asked!! And then expectedly, the heavy downpour accompanied the thunders. I was so filled with joy tat i began to sing and invent own lyrics on the spot (on my bed). It goes something like this... but still, incomplete.
Oh Lord, You are amazing
Oh Lord, You are amazing
My heart wants to sing
Of Your great love and mercies
And i thank You for always hearing me!
You are real and personal
My refuge and strong tower
You have not rejected my prayers
But You assure me
You’ll never withheld me from Your love!
And none can remove me from Your love!
=>>>Psalm 66:20<<<=
Labels: First week of school and a new song for HIM
22th Aug Fri
Recalling yesterdae (thursday’s) Hangzhou trip.. After breakfast, we went to the Xihu to meet our tour guide Mr Zheng. (oh, we change tour guides like changing clothes everydae. So when we go to a new town, we meet a new tour guide) came to the bridge named Su Di. Sat on an air con boat and we saw 3 islands that made up Xihu. After taking photos, we went to the tea platation. Then we went to the place where Liang Shan Bo and Zhu Ying Tai studied at and met. And then they fell in love. The story was soooooo interesting! Let me recall.. Liang is a very dumb and retarded guy who doesn’t noe or have any clue that Zhu likes him and tho she showed obvious signs that she is a girl by the way she sit, her ear has a earhole and eyebrows are thin, he didn’t pay much attention to the abnormalities. after they graduated from the same school, Zhu foresee that they will be going on their separate ways and back then it’s very difficult to communicate. They actually walked up and down a short bridge 18 times before separating. The bridge was a short one but the feelings for each other is very loooooonggggg. (qiao duan qing bu duan) And i guess during that time, Liang still doesn’t noe Zhu is a girl and she likes him. Zhu didn’t make it obvious to him and confess to him. Instead, not giving away ‘his’ identity as a female, Zhu challenged Liang to go for the official exam and be a scholar. And only after accomplishing tat will ‘he’ promise to xu pei ‘his’ 9th sister (which is Zhu herself) to Liang. Liang was very delighted and he worked hard and came back as a scholar after several years. BUT sadly, Zhu was already married to another rich dude whom her father has xu pei her to him. Back then they emphasised on ‘Men Dang Hu Dui’ which means the rich shall marry only the rich. Liang was from a very poor background. Hence his proposal very unlikely might be accepted by her father. After all, she’s married to another man. Zhu didn’t want to disobey her father so she had to marry Ma.... hence, in order to not leave a bad name to Zhu’s family and bring disgrace to her father, she elapsed with Liang and they committed suicide by jumping into a river together. Awwww... wad a beautiful story! Well, i won’t want to commit suicide tho. Just find that this love is too fairytale le. How can it come alive in todae’s time? Pple give up on their feelings and relationships easily now.. tat’s too sad to be even mentioned. Alright, back to Hangzhou. After which, we had dinner at lou wai lou. A 100 years old restaurant aka bai yuan lou given that the price of any dish will definitely cost at least 100 RMB. Had nice dinner with the fish(lots of bones), pork (3 layers!), veggi and soup. =) always cannot finish our food coz they are always in very big portions! Then we went for the Xihu Zhi Ye. It’s an indoor show of zha ji which re-enacted and gave a Nice summary of the whole Xihu history from Song Fei sergeant to Liang Zhu to thousand hands god to guanyin to Longjin tea plantation. Went back to hotel! This time to Tailong Business Hotel. Not too bad too.. just not as grand as the Huadu.
Now onto Fridae itself. We are finally at Shanghai! Went to this ancient lady’s garden and met the future-telling master (notice it’s not fortune teller). Haa.. he’s quite accurate. he said my name consists of tu huo jing (earth,fire,gold) and cannot marry someone born in the year of dragon. Will prosper if i enter banking, accounting and stocks sectors. LOL! Next, we moved on to lunch at Tong Ren Tang. We had a good, tasty meal. Then we went for this complimentary FREE leg message oso as part of the program. One Chinese physician, relatively a young man came and greet us, intro a bit then he brought another older man. He’s a more senior physician there. Came in and greeted us too. Encouraging us to ask him questions regarding health problems ets. Felt my pulse and saw my face colour then started to terrorize me to buy medicine. I was stupid enought o show a timid face. When asked to buy 1 bottle of the medicine which costs 880RMB (equivalent to S$182), i timidly said i’ll think bout it. Tat BAKA doc raised his voice at the timid me and said, ‘STILL NEED TO THINK?? IT’S YOUR HEALTH! MONEY IS BODY OUT THING HEALTH IS A LOT MORE IMPORTANT!!’ and my stupid head just had to nod along in agreement. Sigh. And there. I was ROBbed of my 880RMB. Very sad. Till now, i’m still remorseful over it. Roar. ROAR!! Next we move on to familiarise ourselves with 2 of the shopping places with our tour guide, Xiao Xiong which surname is Zheng. We hang around for half an hour since we’ll be going back to ChengHuangMiao (which isn’t a miao but just a shopping centre in the structure of a temple) . the other place is Nanjing Street. Not much things tho it’s a long stretch of shopping centres and shops. But i managed to get a LINING black dri fit shirt with golder words ‘China’ in English at the left sleeve and in Chinese at the back, all in gold. Nice shirt costing 129RMB. Not bad not bad. After which we set off for dinner at Di Long. It’s actually in the shape of a dragon boat. 4 storey high i think. Food was good. Set off to the cruise ship to enjoy the scenery of Shanghai buildings at Huangpu river. Fantastic view of the famous buildings filled with so much ever-changing colours from the buildings! Next we went to our last hotel which is Huajing Grand Hotel. Since the night is still young we went opposite our hotel to roam around their big ‘Giant’ and tried looking for international phone card for Enyun. At the side of the road, there’s this street small eat!! Tho i heard comments on avoiding the street food, i still tried anyway! They look delicious!! That young man was barbequing the sticks of food as you order. We orders lamb satays and the following... indeed, the jing zhen gu and squid tasted SOOOOOOOOOO super nice and tasty!!!! Wah! Wanted to have second round since it’s just opposite my hotel. But just plain lazy. And i comforted myself tat good things cannot eat too much one! You’ll take them for granted or may even get sick of them since they come by so easily and conveniently. Haah!! Talking bout human principles to treasure people around you! Hee. Yahhh NOW. RIGHT NOW, i missed the food!! =)
23rd Aug, Sat
slept and woke up at 820am!! Oh oh.. not at 645am as planned everydae! Slept so soundly that i didn’t even hear my alarm. It was drizzling out there. We got ready, had breakfast and took Da Zhong taxi (there’s at least 8 different types and colours of taxis in Shanghai but xiao xiong told us that Da Zhong is the most reliable one and won’t purposely bring you round and round the town like wad the other private taxis might do to tourists.) to Cheng Huang Miao to collect my Chinese name chop! Haha. Bought it on the previous day at 50RMB after bargaining in a very TAITAI manner. Hee. You see, as for me, not having it is nothing big deal at all. But seeing that the salesgirl was so desperate and persistent, i decided to play along and de hun jin chi!! At first the offered price for the not so nice ones was 75RMB tho the price tag is 450RMB. I said it was too expensive. She pressed in and asked for the price i wan. I said 30 or 40. She said too low and demanded 60. No thanks! Then she said Ok, 50. Lowest give you 50. I kinda agreed and then went forward to take a closer look but this time on to the NICER ones! Haha! And decided on a rice-white one with a small sketching of a valley with waterfall on it. It’s round based. They said cannot coz these are the nicer ones, cost more! Then i said.. oh then never mind, na jiu bu yong mian qiang le xie xie ni! (no need to force yourself to give me discount.thanks!) started to walk away. They said. Too low le.. but i said Ok, never mind then. THEN after some tuo tuo la la, they finally agreed to the price of selling it at 50 RMB! Haha!! See?? I’m such a good bargainer!but firstly must see their attitude lahh..if they are desperate then can be so demanding. But i regretted not cutting more since they still earn from at least S$10. But since the name is carved out, just pay for the craftsmanship bah...next we went to buy the famous Xiao Long Bao! 16 XLB costs 12RMB!!! How cheap is tat!! Haha! Then roam around and shopped at the shopping mall which is also part of the CHM. Next took a taxi to Si Chuan street where i managed to get my white-blue stripes oants and my mother’s inner beauties! Yippee! Thank God i found them and the saleslady is very friendly and approachable! :D next we managed to get a shirt for Esther and a pair of grey balloon shorts for Peijin. Then went around the 3 mega shopping centres to look for ben ten watches for my nephews but to no avail. The funny thing is all 3 of them have kids section. 1 even specializes in children’s stuff! Roar! Cannot find any Toy r’us! We went to eat mac before buying my mummy’s inner beauties. The average mac set meal costs around 22 RMB which is roughly the same price as ours. BUT BUT BUT the standard of food really REALLY CANNOT MAKE IT!!! Roar! TOTALLY CAN! The fries sucks and the big mac burger i ate sucks too!! Even the coke tastes not so very nice! Or maybe i’m just whiney lah but seriously, it’s not nice! Missed Singapore mac already! Then after shopping and dragging myself around even tho i was suddenly confronted by right side migraine, we took taxi back to hotel at 330pm as we’re suppose to meet Mr 7 at 4pm at the hotel lobby. But when we called him, he said he needs another 40 mins to get here. So we went opposite our hotel and tried getting a farewell cum gratitude card for Mr 7 at the ‘Giant’ but couldn’t find any!! It’s such a lousy ‘Giant’. So we bought a green notebook. Managed to use up all the pages writing our thanks to him. Basically enyun only used up one page. But i tot leaving blank pages is really pathetic so i did wad i could to fill up the roughly 40-pages notebook (by writing one Chinese character on each page haha! But not all lahhhh) when we finally met him, he brought us to s illegal counterfeit shop tat’s constantly on the move to prevent getting caught. since he has the contacts, he drove us there and indeed tho it’s ulu, those counterfeit shops are shops instead of along the tunnel or something like tat as i tot. Haha. Hee that rhymes! Then went to search for Coach bags and purse for my sista. At the same time looked out for Burberry too. So in the end settled on buying a colourful but trendy Coach bag, a brown Coach purse and a Burberry purse. At first the saleslady offered 1500++RMB but again. HAHA! I bargained with a strict face. 1000RMB i said. She said no, they dun earn much from these blah blah.. remember: they always use the same excuses. But since i’m most likely the very few customers they have, i did it. And after much reluctance and my firm stand on 1000RMB again, plus the help of Mr 7 who said they are still students, blah blahs... so she was whining away saying ok ok 1000 1000 lah.. sigh.. HAHA!! But still it’s at least S$200 leh! And enyun got a top for her dad. So happily we went off. Then went back to the same hotel and had dinner. It’s sat so super packed. Thank God once again that Mr 7 has contacts and he noes the manager of one of the restaurants, we managed to finally sit together and eat. Just the 3 of us. As always, in fact this time is worst, the whole air con restaurant was filled with cigarette smell!! Both me and enyun cannot stand it but still eat tolerantly. By the way, Mr 7 oso smokes alot. When asked why, he said he smoke only when stressed or bored. hA! Quite true. When nothing to do, he’ll reach into his pocket and start smoking. He noes we hate the smell and he tried not to smoke in front of us.
Labels: China trip part two (22nd and 23rd Aug)
(continue from 23rd Aug post...)
I heard from Mr7 that the hotel has alof of restaurants opened to the public. Hotel rooms are from 6th floor onwards. and usually they won’t really want to entertain a small group of customers like us. We waited for the dishes for at least 20mins. No joke man. There was egg tofu with fishball meat on top, veggie, beef or was it pork? And only after we are done and super full, there came the mushrooms soup (got my FAVOURITEST jing zhen gu!!) and watermelons with baby tomatoes. And THEN.. came the fried fish slides (i think). Only caught a glimpse of it and adviced Mr 7 to ta bao home and eat. We went rushing for time to catch the ‘last’ Maglev train thinking that 8pm will be the last as wad he had told us. So rushed!! The Maglev train will reach straight to Pudong airport. When we reached there, he bought tickets for us and then we asked a baka to take a photo of us with Mr7. Roar. It turned out rather dark. But all’s well. Then when we were about to part with Mr 7, and bid farewell to him, i handed him the notebook of thanksgiving and a sweet(peach flavour. I still remember the first time i offered him sour plum and he immediately rejected haha and later on offered him this peach flavoured Hichew and found out tat he’s scared of eating sour stuff!! How i noe? He asked immediately after i offered sweet to him if it’s sour. Haha. =X) before we took the escalator up to board the train. Can see he’s like quite can’t bear for us to leave. Haha. Keep waving goodbye to us until we are finally out of sight. “D he has been a very good driver, always thinking on our behalf and for our benefits. Haha. Really yong xin liang ku lehhh.. boarded the train and started to zi lian on the train. Not many pple boarded. Basically less than 20 i think.. just in my cabin there’s only a few. Hee. Can’t remember how long the train took to reach the sirport, maybe about 10 mins? Took photos and more photos on the train and at the airport. Ahhh... missed home already!! :D
Finally i finished typing everything! It took me at least 2 hours for all these!! Haha. Memories! Memories! Memories! Thank God for His faithfulness!
He never sleeps. He never slumbers!~
Labels: China trip part two (22nd and 23rd Aug) continue
the following is stored into my handphone while i was on the move around China from 19th to 23rd Aug 2008. just a brief summary of the key happenings and places i went. =)
19th Aug Tues
4pm. reached Shanghai Pudong airport. after retrieveing back our luggages, we were searching for Mr Xue, who was supposed to be our driver. BUT then cam Mr. Qi, who's to replace him. He came up to us with a piece of paper telling us he's from which travel agency and told us he's our driver for the whole trip. being the super-duper-very-careful-and-suspicious ME, i asked him to call the company to double check. oh well, tho i got to speak to the lady over the phone who told me tat he's trustable and it's true that he was sent to replace Mr Xue, i still had suspicion. so i watched his every move and all. but wad to do? we trusted him and the lady on the phone (err.. like do we have a choice?? i won't noe wad to do if i continue to entertain my suspicions) haha.
So uttering silent words of prayers(which i always do whenever and wherever i am), we went with him to his van. Well, he looks honest i guess. He said he’s bring us via a van to Suzhou. Initially i really couldn’t make anything he said. Haha! Either he didn’t noe how to speak properly or his qiang is too much for me. Later found out he’s from Anhui (a part of China which i heard is one of the poor provinces) the trip is crazy. Guess how long the whole journey took?? 4 hours!!! So when we finally reach there, it’s 8pm and finally really FINALLY we had dinner. Tat’s when we get to meet our 1st tour guide at Suzhou. After that we headed to our first hotel Zhongtian Grand Business Hotel. The driver and the tour guide stayed over at the same hotel too. Haha. You tot this hotel is GRAND rite?? Me too!! But.... sighhh.. It was actually quite shabby. Ok. Very shabby i mean. And i really couldn’t believe it. So i took out our itinenary and checked and triple checked for the hotel name. It was one or two words missing but i was already demanding tat it was a wrong hotel. Haha. So the driver demanded that it was correct. He went in and showed me the hotel’s name card. Oh well.. i dun easily trust pple, esp not in China. Or anywhere in the world. A bit pai seh bout it. Hehe. Supposedly a 3 star hotel. But guess wad again??? It’s locally-rated 3 stars. That’s alot of difference from international-rating. Not too bad after all. As long as there’s a proper bed and air con and normal facilities and no bugs or anything like tat should be fine. So there goes our 1st night. =)
20th Aug Wed
Woke up at 6.45am. didn’t sleep well. Woke up at 4+ wondering why the alarm didn’t go off. Woke up at 6am, getting frustrated over why the time passes so slowly. Haha. Had breakfast buffet at a supposedly Korean-style restaurant. But i guess there’s no speciality bout it at all. Not much choices to begin with. After breakfast, we headed to wang si yuan. Then to the silk factory where cocoons are used to make silk bedsheets, clothes, pillows with bits of cocoons’ poo. The cocoons are fed with organic veggi, so there’s absolutely no smell in the poo. =) the silk factory also consists of a departmental store selling clothes and stuff made from silk. When we got onto the van. Then we were thinking whether we should follow our itinenary and go to Wuxi or Xitang straightaway since Wuxi is a detour which is super out of the way. Without counting in a possible jam which we experienced the previous day which may happen at around 5 plus, the driver Mr 7 said it’ll take around 3 hours to get to Xitang from Wuxi. And furthermore our van’s air con is not working well. Roar. Oh i haven’t said why we wanna skip the whole idea of Wuxi. It was just a place where we are to shop around at a Pearl centre (jewellery place) and oso visit where the movie The Three Kingdoms were starring at and the warships could be seen. And since the tour guide was suggesting tat there’s really nothing much to see there since the movie was produced quite some time ago, a bit meaningless to go too. Plus we as students oso won’t spend on jewellery, so more pointless to go there. Just as we had decided not to go Wuxi, the ridiculous thing happened. Mr 7 told us that having chosen to forfeit going to Wuxi, his company demanded that we pay S$30 for not going!! Yucks. Wad a way to earn money. So tat’s why i always believed in the real world there’s always a trade off between time and money! We find it totally a ridicule and i wanted to argue and complain to his boss. Demanded him to call back to his company let me talk to the boss. But he has been very patient with me and told me tat since it’s a way for them to earn money, there’s no use talking to the boss. I’m surprised at his patience and finally, we gave in. It actually affected us quite a bit. But still. Trying to thank God lahh.. :D afterall, serene, it’s a thanksgiving trip remember?? STOP COMPLAINING!! Thank God that Mr 7 is rather patient and good to us. So now we’re on the way to change a better working aircon van which is at Shanghai, Mr7’s apartment’s carpark. I was wondering if he’s rich since he managed to stay at Shanghai tho he’s from Anhui.. so this time we changed from a white van to a light blue van. Looks more presentable too. haha. And guess wad AGAIN?? Around a couple of hours after we changed to a new van, the air con gave the same problem again. Have to open the windows. Had lunch at some Xitang restaurant where the waitress was not friendly at all. Guess it’s not just in her tone, it’s in her personalities lahh. Can’t expect everyone to be nice. We ate lin rou (which until now i oso dunnoe wad izzit.) it’s a kind of meat and some shell animal. Quite small and in the size of a... ah ta ji! But it’s very soft in texture which sends creepy feelings down my spine. Haha. Eating something u dun even noe wad is weird. Hee. Ate beef, potato strips, tomato-egg soup and pork (with some hair still not cleared properly. Enyun was busy plucking them out but i just eat lah). Next Mr 7 brought us to the famous Xitang tour and drop us there before fixing the aircon at a vehicle’s repair shop which is very near the entrance of Xitang tour. The 2 blur us went in not knowing wad’s ahead and where to go. Then we came to this palace shelter where a number of old and ‘dirty’ uncles are at. 1 of them was signalling us to come to them. Must be us coz there’s nobody else in front or before us. At first, we were thinking of going around on our own. But there’s one uncle, super persistent, named Chang Sheng Sun. He offered to bring us around on his trishaw. Err. NO. He hardsold and convinced us to take his tricycle at 15PMB dropping us at the centre of the attraction or 40RMB for the whole place around Xitang. The place is like a village with 9 rivers. There are actually 12 poicts of ancient stops in all but we only had time to go into 4 of them. Some ancient places and figures of gods and Buddha and god of fortune etc. After which the uncle brought us to where Tom Cruise was starring at Xitang for a movie. But i dunnoe wad movie. Aha. Took pictures with Tom Cruise’s photo. Then uncle bring us back to the entrance of the place we bought tickets at. :D and off we go to HUADU international hotel!! It’s 4 stars can!! Very luxurious and nice!! Suddenly felt like a cinderalla overnight. And so i gathered that hotels with the word ‘business’ in their name is not very high class one. Hehe.
21st Aug Thurs
It’s a beautiful day!! :D had very very good sleep yesterdae! Better than the one i had back in Singapore.haha! woke up to a western cum Chinese breakfast buffet! Ate beef zou, fried rice, noodles, ham, sausages, cakes, orange juice! Not bad not bad! :D then ta bao 2 pieces of bread with sausages and ham clamed in between for our dear driver (who couldn’t stay with us due to us being a small tour group and the hotel being a very high class one and a giam one too) but sadly, he left it on the waiting table and forgot to eat. But he told us he had breakfast before he came to pick us. Next we pulled our luggage to the van and i realised i have yet to take pictures of the hotel name!! So rushed to do so before boarding the van. :D hee.. super nice and honoured to stay in this hotel. One of the best we had. Will remember this hotel. Now we’re on our way to.... the legendary romantic and mesmerizing HANGZHOU! Thank God for blessing us soooo far! God is so good! God is so good! God is so good! He’s so good to ME!! Cheeerioss! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Labels: China trip part one (19th and 20th Aug)
this is the day
this is the day
that the Lord has made
that the Lord has made
i will rejoice
i will rejoice
and be glad in it
and be glad in it
for this is the dae that the Lord has made
i will rejoice and be glad in it!
hey!
this is the day
this is the day
that the Lord has made!! =)
below is a lovely song i had long-forgotten until i went to TCC todae...
i was made to praise you
i was made to worship at your feet
in every circumstance to find a chance to thank You
i was made to love You
i was made to glorify Your name
and to obey You Lord
i was made for You
Jesus
Beautiful Saviour
God of all majesty
Risen King
Lamb of God
Holy and righteous
Blessed Redeemer
Bright morning star
All the heavens shout Your praise
All creation bows to worship You
How wonderful
How beautiful
Name above every name
Exalted high
How wonderful
How beautiful
Jesus Your name
Name above every name
Jesus
Jesus
Beautiful Saviour
God of all majesty
Risen King
How wonderful
How beautiful
Name above every name
Exalted high
How wonderful
How beautiful
Jesus Your name
Name above every name
Jesus
I will sing forever
Jesus I love you
Jesus I love you
a very beautiful song for my beautiful Saviour.
Lord, i want to forget about myself, my emo state, my desires
i want to drown myself in Your will, your wonderful plans for me.
i want to feel Your heartbeat when all i am concerned of is my own.
i want to conquer satan with You, knowing that he will always tempt me into believing anything else that is not from You.
i want to conquer myself and surrender all to You when i noe of satan's work in me.
just as i tot i'm getting into an emo state again, i can always choose to sing praises to You and drown myself in things that will last forever, Your Word. (and i believe, BRAder, you can do it too!)
you see, satan has been very very smart in using us and tearing us down bit by bit, lots by lots when he plays around with our feelings. tat's how we get emo. when we get into emo state, that's when he starts his destruction work in you and put in tots he wants to put in. things you never tot you'd think, things you never tot is from satan.
life is simple and hard at the same time when it all boils down to making the choice of WHO you want to surrender to. decisions. decisions.
thank God i passed every suject =) i am really thankful. really grateful. really filled with praises and thanksgiving for He has been so faithful! :D i really am not kidding when i declare I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT GOD. you see, there's no turning back. there's no partial holding on to anything that is not of God. God demands our all. ALL. i find it more relieved when i give it up ALL to Him. having much increases the probability of losing much more. BUT yet God, You are too much for me! still, i can't get enough of You. how ironic.
all thanks be to God who has been so loving to me. who has been so patient with me.
how can i live a life that is worthy of YOU? Lord, teach me.
think big, think GOD (of God, with God, for God, in God, loving God)
