To be honest though, it is quite nice to be home, away from the humidity, mosquitoes, suffocating crowds, and random drippy signs. The thing that bothered me most was that as much as I shower or attempt to stay hygienic, I was never able to feel totally clean. I’m also really enjoying the awesome weather we’ve had this summer so far. Last week’s heat wave would’ve been unbearable in HK. Hallelujah for air conditioning!

So to compensate for lack of any real content, I’ll turn this into a gimmicky music post! Again, I’m gonna try to put up songs that aren’t rampant everywhere. Not indie though, I’m probably still not “cultured” enough to appreciate it. New-ness of music is not guaranteed :P

Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars

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Snow Patrol is underrated!

Agnes – On & On

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Alphabeat – DJ

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Pixie Lott – Turn It Up

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Bruno Mars ft. Cee Lo & B.o.B – The Other Side

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Yes it’s a song about vampires. Don’t hate.

Rick Ross ft. Ne-Yo – Super High

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Epik High – 바보 (Fool)

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My other favourite off their album, epilogue, is Coffee. So chill and relaxing.

Hyori Lee ft. Daesung – How Did We Get

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You may know Daesung from Big Bang. He gives me the creeps, but I can’t deny he has a really nice voice.

SNSD Girls Generation – 별별별 (☆★☆) (Acoustic R&B Version)

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APM Mall, all prettied up for New Years. This mall is open until 2am.

One. It’s so fast-paced that you don’t even have time to think. People are always rushing everywhere, and it makes you want to rush too. I feel like I have a million things to do at any given time, and I need to beat everyone to it. Nobody dawdles around, so when I do, I become anxious and speed things up again.

Visitors' viewing platform in Lantau

Two. Hong Kong does not occupy a particularly large plot of land, but there is just so much to do and see. Get off at any MTR station and you will find shops, restaurants, scenery, or some sort of activity. Seriously I have no idea how anyone can save up for their retirement here. There are too many consumer temptations.

Starting on the Sunday right after Boxing Day, I accomplished a feat that is not easily attained – I met up with Charmaine 6 days in a row. That is my achievement for the holidays. And maybe reading & watching Twilight. In any case, here is a recap of my comings and goings over the last week or so, in bullet format, because you know you love bullet points (with horrific grammar) just as much as I do.

• Dec 27th: Pacific Mall for lunch, walked around P-Mall, got bored of P-Mall, went to Vaughan Mills, bought shoes, broke.
• Dec 28th: Downtown for dinner, watched Avatar in 3D, mind got blown.
• Dec 29th: Brunch at Cora with friends, dinner party hosted by co-worker who served us a delicious full-course meal.
• Dec 30th: P-Mall area again to take care of banking-related issues and chill over bubble tea.
• Dec 31th – Jan 1st: NYE party at Lily’s house, made dumplings, rang in the New Year playing the most intense 3-hour game of Monopoly ever.
• Jan 2nd: One last dinner and karaoke with some of my favourite people before the term begins.

Finally I’d like to wish everyone the best of luck in 2010, and definitely help me stay updated via blogging/Twittering/MSNing/Facebooking/Google Waving/morse coding madder than ever before.

I gave people some pretty random explanations, like how I was bored last term, because I wanted cultural exposure, experience a new school, or “cuz it sounds fun”. Those are not untrue, but probably not the real reasons.

Around springtime, I might have been going through some kind of mid-mid-life crisis with mixed thoughts about what I’ve done and achieved so far in my twenty-ish years. I found the answer to be ‘not freaking much’ and labeled my life as rather unremarkable. Also it seems that this entire year has been a test of my breaking point, with its many joys and disappointments, successes and failures, which shook me up a little.

I’ve always been content with a ‘make do with what life hands you’ kind of adage. Then I realized I wasn’t satisfied. There was so much out there that I needed to experience, so it felt suffocating to stay in the same town, with the same people, living the same life. I felt like those around me were sprinting past, making their own routes through the landscapes, while I was just plodding along the beaten path. Being younger than most of my friends only added to my innate fear of being left behind, which I suppose finally got the better of me. I couldn’t sit around passively hoping for anything to pop up – I’d have to reach out to opportunities myself.

Excusing the sheer cheesiness, I guess the bottom line for why I wanted to go on exchange is some soul-searching. I want to discover, meet new people, do random things, make mistakes, learn from them, become a more worldly person. It’s partially a challenge to myself, to be thrown into a brand new fast-paced environment without any crutches, and keep my head above water. Five months is not nearly long enough, but I’m hoping for the dizziness of the experience to set me straight. I can barely take the monotony anymore, and I want a complete 180, but still be able to find my way back. Although this is my home and I’m surrounded by family and friends here, it somehow still feels empty, so I just need to leave for a little while.

And wouldn’t you agree that it’s the picture books you read as a child that leave the most lasting impressions?

I made a pilgrimage to Waterloo last last weekend to celebrate Halloween with friends and sort of take a break from work, study, work, study. I will point out that I still got some studying done there. In any case, it was quite the weekend. Never experienced so much drama in my life. As for the rest of the week, it wasn’t that exciting, though I did get to have some one-on-one dinner/drinks with a few peeps. Everyone’s schedules are ridiculously packed these days, so I’m grateful for those pockets of time.

Saturday I sat my lazy ass home all day and mainly just procrastinated. I’d read one paragraph and decide that I deserved a break. So now I am caught up on all my TV shows. Sunday, in an effort to semi-redeem myself, I headed to UTSC and met up with some fellow nerds to study. We grabbed dinner at Sapporo, a Japanese restaurant in the plaza beside my house. In all my 10 or so years of living in this neighbourhood, I had never eaten at that particular place. It’s one of those things that are always there but you never notice it until you’re looking for it, or someone else points it out. We split two platters, and the food wasn’t bad, but after about three hours, I was hungry already. This week hasn’t been too eventful but we have made some strides with regards to vacation planning.

So what else is up? I guess in addition to the main things I’ve been whining to people about (work, job search, CFA), there are some other interesting/fun developments/projects I’ve taken up, just to keep myself from falling into a pit of despair. So far they have been doing a good job of preserving my ever-fleeting sanity. Guess you could say I’m stirring up a little something-something for myself. I probably have too much on my plate, but I LOVE the hecticness of keeping busy. After all, what else is there to do with life but live it?

While in Loo with Jin and Lily, it occurred to all of us that we are sort of going through a very girly phase. Or maybe it’s not just a phase… I still don’t know. Apparel shopping hasn’t appealed to me in a long time. I find it tediously dull to comb through racks upon racks of clothing to maybe find that one holy grail of an item. Bargain-hunting and claustrophobic changerooms make me feel like I’m just wasting my time. In fact I now shop like a guy – on a needs basis, and no meaningless browsing.

Galeries Lafayette in Paris. Be still, my beating heart.

Once upon a time I was a hater. I thought painted faces and fragrances were for either super-glam people/events or fakes/uglies. Hell, I had no idea what pressed powder was. BUT. Throw me in Sephora right now and my eyes will sparkle more than an otaku in Akihabara. It may have been imminent, but I developed a deep attraction to cosmetics and skincare products. The colours, the shimmer, the gloss, the scents, the snazzy packaging – draw me in like bugs to a bulb. Unfortunately, this obsession does not ring cheap. (Once you shell out $40 for a lip gloss, there’s no turning back.) I’m happy to have oozed some of this infection to Lily, getting her hooked on beauty-related blogs. I am still blown away by the devotion some of these bloggerettes have towards cosmetics. The vast array of products they try, the depth into which they conduct their reviews, the breadth of comparisons and “looks” they are inspired to create, the amount of judgment they cast upon the difference between a coral pink and a nude pink… Let’s just say that I have vastly expanded my colour and texture vocabulary to a degree I never knew existed. I still don’t really wear much make-up, and I’m nowhere close to matching the level of passion these people pour out for the beauty industry, but love the aspects of it. For now, I will just lust over pretty Dior compacts, swap product recommendations, and worship skincare regimes with mah girliez.

Due to the above mentioned encumbrances, I will also have no social life until December 5. And then I will probably need to go all out holiday-festive-style. I would say that this past week wrapped up my fun quite nicely. Last Saturday I had lunch with Nic, then went for a haircut in Pacific Mall. Jo and I decided to try that new place upstairs (I forgot what it’s called already). It was okay, nothing remarkable. I will keep trying different salons to find a really really good one, or at least somewhere with a decent price-to-quality ratio. Afterwards, we wandered around the mall and moved on to Market Village. As some of you may be aware of, Market Village will soon be no more. Instead, they intend to replace it with the biggest Asian mall in North America (a title currently held by none other than Pacific Mall). There was a pretty large model in the main foyer, so I snapped some shots:

You can see P-Mall as the red building in the front. Behind it is the proposed reconstruction of Market Village, with a luxury hotel attached. Those lush looking trees in the parking lot are LIES.

On this side you can see the much needed multi-tiered parking lot. I like the mini GO train as a finishing touch.

 I’m rather skeptical with this proposed re-engineering. If done right, it can be every bit as awesome at the model looks. But if anything goes awry, things could end up like the atrocity that is Splendid China Tower across the street (seriously, who the hell named that complex?), which has no resemblance to a tower whatsoever, and still looks like Canadian Tire.

On Wednesday I got to see U2 in concert at the Rogers Centre, courtesy of RIM and JChu. The stage, the band, and the show itself were nothing short of amazing. Can’t expect anything less from the greatest rock band of all time :) I took a few photos on my phone camera, so I apologize for the shittacular quality.

Snow Patrol opening for U2. Look at that STAGE!

They opened the dome. Imagine living in the penthouse of one of those condos... *__*

U2 in DA HOUSE!

On Friday, our department had a team-building event at Polson Pier. I had never been there before, and was impressed by the view from the docks. You can see downtown Toronto to the right and the Islands on the left.

Toronto skyline with perfect weather!

We were enrolled in this “corporate team building activity/competition” thing, which was a big scavenger hunt consisting of many activities ranging from leapfrogging to passing a ball with your neck (not easy BTW). One of the activities was rock climbing, which I decided to have a go at. It was my first time rock climbing, so I was fairly proud to have made it to the top. But yea, fine, it was a really easy wall. Anyways our team lost won because obviously the “winning” team cheated. Since it was such nice weather, I walked to the Eaton Centre with a couple of coworkers along Lakeshore. We walked very slowly, chatting and scoping out the area. It was pretty interesting to see the city from a different angle. I was dead tired by the time we reached the mall, so I hopped on a subway home not long after.

Later today I’m going to my first Women@Enbridge presentation with the CEO. I am assuming most of the people who signed up did so for the very same reason as me – free food :P

Last Wednesday I joined quite a few Waterloo’ers for an end/beginning-of-term dinner. Half of us came from work while the other half had gone rock climbing earlier in the day, so there was this palpable disparity between our states of dress formality. There were people I haven’t seen in a while, and people I won’t get to see for a while, and I enjoyed catching up with everyone.

On Friday I skipped out on work a bit earlier to give myself a head start on the weekend (also there was really nothing for me to do). I bummed around at Fairview Mall until some friends who were returning from the CNE came to pick me up for dinner. It’s amazing how many new friendships are formed with high school acquaintances once you go to the same university… In any case, we had dinner at Lemongrass, and dessert in the same plaza. Then they decided to drag me to Mix2 to shoot some pool. I didn’t really feel like playing, so I just became the photographer.

Sunday, I was up bright and early to hit the beach one last time before we Canucks hide out in our igloos for the winter with our stash of bear and walrus meat. It was essentially with the same people I went camping with, and we decided to visit Sibbald Point. I’ve already gotten a threat from Herbert to give this trip a glowing review. Otherwise he will eat my babies or something. Initially, we were supposed to leave at 8am. But then I guess someone realized it’s a vacation, not military boot camp, so departure time was pushed to 9. We had a very uneventful drive.

Getting this shot was probably the most exciting part of the drive

The lifejacket looks like the Kool-Aid dude!!

That little kid eventually got himself a bleeding foot and my first aid kit helped him :)

When we got there, it was already pretty packed. We couldn’t even find a picnic table. Except there was one that was kind of partially in the water, and we would have to drag it out. After much debate, a group of buff dudes who arrived after us went to drag it out for themselves. We solemnly watched and didn’t dare stop them.

The infamous picnic table

We were extremely jealous of their various-sized beach balls and floaty accessories

Testing the water

Check out those cancer dogs

Just some peepz. Chillinnnnn'

At one point we were all in the water. Lily and I were super sneaky and used our shark-like stealth to splash/drown/throw mud at the boys.

The day is almost over :(

Some more Sibbald Point scenery

New Olympic sport: synchronized shell-picking

Overall it was a very fun and successful ending to a great (albeit short) summer. Now I can’t wait till Christmas…

Universal Studios USA

Universal Studios Canada

Despite being Canadian, I feel like Canada has always been a bit of a lame country. Our greatest export is Celine Dion, we have some sort of inflated pride on being a large, barren (though polite) land mass, and don’t even get me started on the weather.

Last week I had a job interview for Enbridge Gas, and across the street was the headquarters for Universal Studios Canada. I hardly noticed it, and only with a bit of squinting did I fully understand what I was looking at. This excited me for about one millisecond before I realized that it’s about the dullest office building I’ve ever seen, and Universal Music (the shorter building beside it) was equally arid, with some uninspiring banners of recording artists draped on its outside walls. No flashy signs, no palm trees, no interesting architecture, and definitely no theme park. Seriously, Canada…?

In other news, I recently just got back from camping at Sauble Beach with what was essentially the “Fellowship of ACCI“. The trip was overall a success, and I only got 2 mosquito bites while other people got none, which has to be some sort of record for camping! On Friday we arrived pretty late and had to pitch our tents in the dark. The campsites were much smaller and closer together than I expected. It wasn’t as lonely, but the whole “quiet hours” policy was a slight minus. We watched Sunny struggle with the campfire for a few hours, roasting marshmallows in the short spurts of flame he could manage.

The next morning I awoke to people walking around and kids screaming at freaking 7am!! We watched Sunny struggle with campfire #2, had a nice breakfast, and set off for the beach. Sauble water is amazingly clean (especially compared to the vat of crap that is Lake Ontario). The waves provided endless juvenile amusement, and we had a nice big section of beach to ourselves. We then explored the town a bit on foot, in search of a place to have lunch. After some grocery shopping and supply replenishment, we watched Sunny struggle with campfire #3 and had a true camp BBQ. At night, we decided to do some exploring. This was after we beered Matt enough times to make things very interesting.

On Sunday morning, we watched Sunny struggle with campfire #4, and had some huge 4-hour-long brunch thing where the guys would just grill/heat food and eat nonstop. Lily and I eventually became bored to the point that we went off exploring by ourselves. When we got back, it was time to pack up and check out. We then went canoeing down the Sauble River (sadly, T-Pain was not on our boat). It turned out to be quite enjoyable and I wish we booked the canoes for a bit longer. After that we were all pretty much pooped, so we headed home.

I’m rather impressed with the string of decent weather these past few days, so I’m trying to avoid sitting at home all day. Yesterday I went biking with Jo, and today I took a rather spontaneous trip downtown to watch District 9 and meet up with some Loo friends. District 9 wasn’t bad, but probably a bit too gory for my tastes. Tomorrow it’s rainy in the morning but hopefully I can find something to do in the afternoon when it’s supposed to be nicer.

I finished my last exam on Tuesday. After a couple days of post-exam de-stressing (aka bumming around) in Waterloo, I moved out on Thursday evening. As I still haven’t found a job yet, I don’t even know when my summer might end. If things go according to plan, I should have around 2-3 weeks. And I am determined to not waste this lovely pocket of time, as they do not come often.

Yesterday I went to the beach. We arrived close to 3pm and it was blazing hot. In fact it was impossible for me to stand barefoot on the sand without jumping around. We lay around soaking up the sun, and played a bit of football and volleyball (except all the courts were taken so we could only play keep-up). By then it was still really hot, so we thought we’d take a dip in the water. Lake Ontario is super gross. We saw band-aids and feathers and other indistinguishable debris floating around on the surface. But the water was just so damn refreshingly cool. We played some more football/vball in the lake. Of course, passing the ball soon turned into ‘aim the ball into the water directly beside someone so they get splashed by the disgusting water’. Which then later became ‘strand Matt in the middle of the lake because he’s a certified lifeguard’. The last bit wasn’t very successful, though there was a fair amount of chasing and contact lense crises involved.

After we decided we had been contaminated enough by the water, we held an impromptu BBQ in Matt’s backyard. We played some Xbox and chilled a bit more. By the time I got back I was exhausted and easily fell asleep. I love days like that. I’m looking forward to camping on Friday. We’re going up to Sauble Beach for 3 days, so that should be really interesting. Hopefully we can find a camcorder of some sort so we can document our adventures.

I’m mighty jealous of my friends who are able to jet off to Asia or Europe or even just the States/Vancouver. Hopefully this Christmas break I will be able to take a real vacation. For now, all I can do is enjoy what I have here. Back in December, I was able to engage in many “wintry” activities, so I want to make the most of my summer “break” too :)

It feels slightly weird to not have anything on my plate. For some reason I’m not too worried about my job hunt, and CFA is still a long ways off. After two study terms in a row, I miss the hectic life of being in school (perverse thinking, I know). There’s always something to do, something to aim for in the short term. Most of the time it’s just to survive the week. I guess I just need to be kept busy. There’s no better feeling than the sense of accomplishment.