HongKong!

Hello

HAHA pwns. Had no time to blog from after a's cos playing too much :P

So, from the beginning of the end of a's came the end of the end of a's. I recall there were whoops in the ISH after Phy P1 on the 30th x) I lamely went home after that so, whatever.

Partied much, played LAN after church..Justine's house, then Edmund's house as a pre-PTP gathering for Lu, who enlisted on 11th Dec. Then..night cycling with some of my classmates. Did 42km and died; does not bode well for my 40k OCBC haha. Will train.

Helped out with church youth play rgd props and costumes. So there was a night where I looped Fireflies by Owl City say, 30 times. Then I met Nat and Rachel the next morning at cityhall to buy props stuff at Bras Basah; was too early, we dropped by Macs to have breakfast. I stepped in and voila, said song just started hahaha. Spent about $40~ which I've yet to claim from Dianne. Hmmm, photos and videos of the skit are on facebook; welldone much (:

Left for HK on the 17th, bought much stuff which I will tally at the end of the post. Ate ALOT, Japanese food, seafood, hotpot, yumcha yepp, those are about all the varieties. Kept eating Japanese food haha, cos here I stay in yuen long in the New Territories, and there's a Jap place here which serves huge ass pieces of sashimi at cheappppp prices :D And the first weekend I was there, i.e. 17th 18th 19th 20th was the coldest part of winter, lucky me. 12deg to 15deg or thereabouts.

Went Guangzhou on the 24th, sat in my uncle's Benz HAHA, helluva comfortable ride up into Shenzhen, then GZ lo. Second wave of coldness thanks, dropped to about 12degrees again. Mmm..learnt something interesting, which kinda made me distrustful and emo, but got over it cos it's not exactly my problem. Celebrated my grandma's 80th da shou :D good fooooood haha, and a cute manager who served us personally xD Shopped and ate, yerps (:

Came back HK on the 27th. Ate moar, shopped moar. Mom and bro left on the 31st and I ate moar and shopped even moar, and I'm leaving tomorrow morning on the 5th at 9.10am on a CX back to Singapore (:

I went to my cousin's church on the 3rd for a Cantonese service. Was pretty interesting, and I got introduced as "lau see meng (my Canto name) from Singapore" right before the message! It was really cool, like those visiting people in my own church who are from like, Australia or Philipines or Cambodia or whatever heh. I totally wasn't prepared for any, you know, emotional moments during their service, since I don't know their songs, but they sang All Heaven Declares in Chinese, and I just cried :$

It's really really..humbling, that I'm somewhere else, in another country, speaking another language, with a totally different culture from Singapore, and I still can..hear God's people praising him, worshipping him together with me. Like the starting was some uhm, random celebratory song about how we're all God's people but I felt no kinship with the song la, cos dunno the tune haha. Then after some build 'down' they started singing All Heav'n Declares in Chinese and I was like, wow! and yeah. People all over will worship the Lord our God in different tongues, but the meaning is still clear, we will worship together (: I gave up trying to catch the song with the Chinese words and just sang the English one from heart haha. Truly a humbling experience, and it seems like I'm unable to reproduce the feeling I had on Sun in words here :x

Yepp, so.. yeah. Moving on, every time I come to HK, my relatives will just spam me money, saying they dunno what to buy for me hahaha. Over the years, the real value of their money drops lol. Most give me a hundred HKD (some 200, some 300) still give the same amount now. Considering the effects of inflation here (which IS noticeable when I come back), my real disposable income falls. If I were to convert that into SGD (which I will not, in such an unfavourable position), the purchasing power in SGD in Singapore would fall even more (just two or three years ago, HKD4.4 : SGD 1, now it's HKD5.5 : SGD1) due to S'pore's appreciating stance and HK's currency being pegged to USD (which is currently, in the dumps).

Not that I'm complaining with the extra cash on hand, it's just that after awhile it kinda gets a little embarrassing especially when you know someone's not that well off etc. Also, this time round I rarely went out by myself, meaning that the person I go out with pays for my food and my shopping :\

Tallying up my purchases (and gifts) in HKD except when stated otherwise:
` 1TB EHDD :P $599
` 4GB thumbdrive $88
` New bag 119Yuan
` Souvinirs 61 + 50Y = $118
` Eggroll food thing $50
` Cycling shorts $129
` Design sticker for my hp $15
` Asics shoes $199
` Esprit cargo pants $129
` Esprit shirt $69
` Hat $49
` 2 pairs of low socks $15
` 6 pairs of ankle socks $20
` Cloth bag from my daddy (: --> my parents paid heh.
` Christian book + keychain$128
` Pig ear chewtoy $58 --> Qing biujeh gave it to meeee (:

` Slippers $39

Total: $1840 = SGD 335 prox. Ooh. I only paid for the slippers and a random cup of bubble tea.

All heav'n declares
The glory of the risen Lord
Who can compare
With the beauty of the Lord

Forever You will be
The Lamb upon the throne
I gladly bow my knee
And worship You alone

I will proclaim
The glory of the risen Lord
Who once was slain
To reconcile man to God