i love singapore

okay i must admit this post is not exactly up to date. given the fact that it's already the 15 of august, and national day fell on the 9th. but i really wanted to post about my hk experience and how it made me realise there really isn't any place like home (oh pick up your lower jaw from the floor, and no the gah-men didn't pay me a cent to write a post like this).

(i'll try to keep this brief because like the many singaporean students i'll have to mug the entire night away, oh now you know why i have those eye bags and look perpetually distracted in class. hahaha!)

by the way i was just kidding. my corny attempt at trying to make this as singaporean as possible. though i must admit no that isn't what singaporean students do, we don't study throughout the night, no way! in fact we study throughout the night and day! okay, enough of being corny and rather lame.

on the first few days in hk, my lungs and nose really felt how lovely the air was there. my nose felt so full with you-know-what (i bet the nasal hair must have been working hard at trapping all the particles of dust) and my lungs felt a bit clogged. it wasn't that bad, but bad enough to remind me that 'oh man i once had asthma' (yes i did, and an asthma attack isn't really much fun if you're interested to know).

and back to the cliche of 'we just don't treasure the things we have right now'. i think air, gosh of all things to be thankful for, yes air! i think we have a pretty darn good standard of air. and this is coming from someone who hasn't been to london or new york! and to be honest another thing i could think we're so blessed with is english! though i must admit the local form doesn't seem to match up to the standard view of how english should be spoken, wah i must admit ah i am very proud of singlish as well ah! so there you go, i'm thankful for english and singlish, now what other country has such a useful variation of the english language?

not convinced on the usefulness of english? let's compare 'excuse me, where is the toilet/ loo?' to 'xq me, toilet where?' and need i mention that you can imagine how the latter sounds compared to the former. wow singlish has more tone even in it's written form!

i have to admit though, pride of singlish does not liken to me writing in singlish. i believe there are 2 different 'types' of english we have to learn, english english for formal use, and english singlish for casual and conversational use.

one thing i did like about hong kong though is their multitude of eating places. it's just amazing the multitude of eateries, cafes and restaurants they have there. i did enjoy going up the travelators at the mid-levels, though the walking down wasn't so fun. the peak tram was kind of cool, and the view from the peak pretty darn good, the star ferry was fun to sit on, and the malls are filled with so much stuff. but in the end, city by city comparison i'll say,

there's no place like home.

and since we're on the topic of singapore, congratulations to a new fellow citizen going by the name of a certain wendy watson.

i'll put my hk photos up on flickr soon. there's quite a few collages to be uploaded onto dearest gray-matter.

on a sidenote, ymlc's venue's holiday inn, batam. hooray! that means a nice hotel to stay in and i'm so going to crash tania's room. and i better bring my swimming costume, and........ wait a minute, it's supposed to be a conference! ahhhh, it's me deprived of my beach holiday, i think i better plan one in september to make up for it.