Farewell again

Hey, I think I shall stick with my move to my new site. The Great Firewall of China is just too intimidating. Please redirect your bookmarks/links to www.squarefaced.com

Thanks! This blog looks more fanciful though, and I spent so much time on it I can't bear to leave!

But one must move on, one must venture...

Has the great firewall of China crumbled?

I can access blogspot blogs again without using anonymouse! I wonder how long more it'll last though.

Now I'm wondering whether I should continue with this blogspot blog or be a little more adventurous with www.squarefaced.com.

Blogspot in beta

Pros: Incredibly user-friendly with widgets, so I can play around with some stuff like what you see on my sidebar here; FREE; more patronages due to public listing

Cons: May get blocked by China anytime; no own domain


Squarefaced.com

Pros: Own domain; FREEDOM in many aspects such as design and layout; lower risk of being threatened by the Great Firewall of China

Cons: Webhosting and domain name not free; since I'm not a techie I'm not all that affluent with HTML and mySQL or php etc so things like designing and manipulating are not at my fingertips

Lunch at a greasy spoon

Eating at a grimy place such as a greasy spoon in the suburbs of Shanghai makes me view myself as a good cook. Although cheap (5 yuan for a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, and 5 scoopings from dishes), the vegetables were almost ice-cold since they were displayed on the table for who knows how long, uncovered, in the blistering cold. Bringing sticky rice to my mouth and sipping the salty soup, I realized I'm not such a bad cook afterall. I nibbled on 3 different salty oily chewy vegetables, a tough fried egg, and an unappetizing pork fillet.

I ate at the greasy spoon on the sidewalk leading to my apartment building, and sat with construction workers who seemed ecstatic to be having a hearty meal. While gobbling and slurping down their rice and soup, they kept looking at me, as if knowing it was my first and last patronage. Then, suddenly, while returning the stare of one construction worker, he spit some small parts of meat on the table and some bigger ones on the floor.

Well, I paid S$1 more for the experience than for the food, and walked away feeling happy with the knowledge that I can (and should) actually cook. :)

So Sam and Squareface can look alright

Sam and I went for a photoshoot at the beginning of this month. The place is called 莎莎, not excellent service but reasonably priced (and highly bargainable). While the stylists there were helping us with our make-up, there was quite a commotion because they couldn't decipher whether Sam was a guy or a girl and didn't know what to do with her make-up. Then there were lots of questions and....well, I shan't go there. Sam wanted to leave but it was really fortunate that we stayed 'coz the photo taking itself was quite fun and the pictures turned out...well, it's pretty nice, some of 'em. If you wanna take a look at all our pics, make a comment below with your email address and I'll send you a link. Heh.

For RMB550 (raw cost only. Of course you'll pay more if you wanna have the copies of more pics, which you quite certainly will), we had 3 sets of make-up and outfits each, an 8.5 inch (length) book, a 5 inch (length) book, a crystalized photoframed photo, a 20 inch poster, and a CD with 18 pics (or more if you order extra).

Hmm. I still can't believe I did that. Friends of mine may agree with me that it's so not me to go for this kinda thing. Muahahaha. But anyways I did enjoy myself and I like the pics! Almost like wedding pics eh? hAh.

Students are almost alike almost all over the world

Okay, it's not fair for me to use "all over the world" since I've only observed students in Singapore and Shanghai, and these two countries are just 30 latitudes apart.

Anyway, I have noticed that students from both Singapore and Shanghai exhibit the following:

1. Multi-task while attending lectures (though in Shanghai, the students multi-task by reading other coursework during lectures whilst students in Singapore multi-task by simply doing other things instead of listening attentively)


2. Sleep in lectures


3. Twirl pens!

However, I bet you have never seen the following:

I spotted a student using a binoculars to view the projector screen! I apologize for the lack of power for the zoom of my camera phone though.

Rather amusing, isn't it?

Squareface achieving square body

I haven't eaten this much for a long time, and it is indeed rather gratifying.This morning, Birte (a friend from Germany, is staying at my place for around 10 days or so) and I went to buy fruits, and boy did she buy a lot. I have never had so many fruits in my house before. She bought a pineapple, a pomelo, pomegranates, bananas, oranges, mandarin oranges, and kiwi fruit.

Then, I went to Jing An temple area to have Brazilian BBQ buffet lunch with Rowena. It's a cosy, warm place with delectable dishes. For 55RMB, you get to choose dishes from the buffet table, and a free flow of juicy meat that will make a mild eater instantly a carnivore-convert. You can choose from chicken, lamb, beef, duck, in different forms like leg, shoulder, heart, thigh, etc. These meats are served by the chefs -- they go around table to table slicing the meat off a huge chunk with a large knife at your face. Drinks are charged separately, of course, and a can of coke/sprite cost us 9RMB, which is 3 times the charge at common eateries. So a lunch meal would typically cost you 64RMB. Very worth it, though, if you're okay with being carnivorous for a day. We sat there for almost 4 hours just eating and talking, and eating again.

The Brazil BBQ Buffet eating house

The buffet table

Chicken heart! (And Rowena's fingers trying to form a heart, albeit the Roxy trademark one)

Rowena and I agree -- if anything gets us down, the food/price here in Shanghai can lift our spirits anytime. :)

Walking the Terry Fox Run

I haven't been punctual for morning classes this week but I mustered up the discipline to meet my friends to join the Terry Fox Run event in Shanghai. We were supposed to complete the 8km path but finished with the 3.8km event in the end since we exceeded the timeframe. About half an hour after the gunshot was heard, we were still loitering around the starting point taking pictures and depositing bags haha.

Left: Busy businessmen having to deal with queries on this leisurely walk on the Terry Fox Run.

Right: Fishing!

Farewell, Blogspot

Due to the "Great Firewall of China", I have relocated.