Wensi.isneW

Preparing for steamboat/grill at Young’s place

Watching 3d UP with RZ

Special ramen outing with MB after THE COVE

Woah.. lots of spring onions hahaa…

Contented with the corn ramen!!

“What does 没 and 有 in没有mean?” asked my Italian friend.

I replied, 没means ‘does not have’ and 有means ‘has’. As the words came out, I realized that I’ve never really thought about mandarin this way. No wonder non-mandarin speakers often comment that mandarin is a complex and difficult language to pick up!

Inside afghanistan. Was having breakfast at home on Sunday, while watching this programme on nat geo. It was a documentary about the soldiers based at a hospital and specialising in emergencies.

There is one scene that has been recurring in my mind. A soldier was ambushed by the enermy and badly wounded due to the blast. He was air-lifted back to the hospital and wheeled into the ER. As the nurses attempted to remove the soldier’s boots.. One of his foot came off!!!!! That’s not all, the doctors realized that the injury was too serious and they had to amputate both legs, above the knees. The next scene was the nurse taking the amputated leg and placing it in double plastic bags. Gosh..At that moment, I thought to myself.. is there really any meaning in war? How can soldiers recover from such trauma?

The documentary was pretty well done, there were heart stopping moments, instances where you feel that human spirit will triumph…and most importantly, how everyone at the base looks forward to returning home to their families. It brings a different light to the situation in Afghan, it is not merely a 5 second news flash or an article in the papers.

If only we can learn to embrace peace.

We celebrated Jimmy’s birthday during lunch. The restaurant was tucked away at a corner of level 6.. we were the first customers of the day. Apparently, the place has been there for decades and the waitresses and chefs are all seniors.

I tried their shashilk beef and really enjoyed it. I’d recommend it to any beef lover! The borsch soup was also very filling, and almost every customer ordered a bowl.

We had a special dessert too, i think it was something ‘alaskan’. Jimmy was so happy, look at his smile? And the other two were busy taking pictures of him with the cake/dessert.

Sunday Brunch @ Dempsey. Met up with my friends from my canadian exchange.. hehe.. we were given the seats facing the forest, out in the open. The menu resembled a newspaper and the items on it sounded quite exotic… can you imagine squid ink pizza? I went for the Asparagus and poached eggs.. while the others had benedicts’ eggs, salmon hash and the blackish pizza. I initially wanted to try the ‘freeform eggs’..but kwan said that that’s something she can cook for me.

We moved into the air-conditioned section once a table was available. Shared the ‘3-in-a-box’ cakes!! Carrot cake was a must Kwan ordered the berry-jin drink .. hehe.. looked really colourful but tasted pretty strange.

It’s a happy start to the week! Had lunch and dinner dates.. hehe.. It really is a plus point to work in the city, where it is convenient for friends to visit. Had a good chat with rz over sushi and grilled bacon.. (yes yes, I do MISS you!)

Work has been fun; everyday’s different but filled with laughter.
I find myself putting different skills to use, being tactful, encouraging, and thinking from the other side of the fence.

A little bit of design, research and planning…I particularly like designing our internal newsletter – Tinkling with the photos and captions.

Researching on must try foods, cultures and quirky stuff, and learning a little more about our island.

Woohoo, let these fun times keep coming!

The girls came over today.. an afternoon of food, more food and kiina!
Too bad kwan wasn’t able to come It is nice to have a leisurely afternoon with friends and to chit chat about about anything under the sun. I’m looking forward to the next outing at ah nei’s house!

Thanks xuehui!!! I finally got the pooh hahaha…

Had lunch with jw and zw in school and they were saying that this plush was made in china (and it really is). Haha.. back in the library, jw decided to undress pooh!!

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. I’ve put a X on those I’ve read, and the total was 28! 72 more to go…

Here’s the list:

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (X)
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (X)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee (X)
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell (X)
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman (X)
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien (X)
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens (X)
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (X)
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis (X)
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (X)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini (X)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden (X)
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne (X)
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell (X)
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown (X)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding (X)
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon (X)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon (X)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding (X)
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens (X)
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson (X)
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White (X)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom (X)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (X)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton (X)
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery (X)
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas (X)
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl (X)
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo