LAST WEEK

Last week can mean two things here. Firstly, it can be 'the week before this' and 'the final week'. Let me explain it to you further...

Last Week (The Week Before This)

Last week was a hair-pulling week. I will go in brief and explain later. Monday and Tuesday I helped Miss Huang translated loads of documents and letters. Tuesday and ThursdayI had to draw my PCB board. Then as y'all know, Wednesday there was no work due to stoppage of electricity. Friday I was searching for Satellite Receiver Dealers. Finally, Saturday I was doing routing.

Now let me explain why it is a hair-pulling week especially on Tuesday. I got like a pile of work from Miss Huang (bare in mind, I'm not complaining. Just reporting.), ranging from documents, letters etc. I can tell you, I translated like 10 to 15 over of such documents. Whenever I think it would be over, more came in like a waterfall. I may be exaggerating. Hee. But when I thought I can finally concentrate on my PCB board, more work came in and I know that translating for them is the top priority as anytime, they need it for a client.

I still got this one whole long chunk of letter that I have not translated. Y'all should see the letter, once you see the letter, you wouldn't even wanna touch it. HAHA. It's freaking long!!! At least I managed to have a time aside to do my PCB, but it wasn't enough time. Continued on Thursday.

Monday was still alright, doing only some translations for Miss Huang. Then Friday I set aside to do my search for Satellite Receiver Dealers and all. Thursday, redraw the PCB board. Initially I wanted 16cm by 4cm but when I place a protype into our metal chassis, it doesn't seem right so I changed it to 25cm by 4cm. I tell you, drawing the board itself is not easy at all. Remember I told you that it's like EAGLES? I take back those words. It's EVEN HARDER than EAGLES!!!!

Saturday I started on the routing. I don't even want to start talking about the routing part. I thought it is the easiest to route, you know having the lines to guide you and all. But I was wrong. There's no routing lines at all. YES, YOU HAVE TO MANUALLY TO THE ROUTING!!! Meaning to say, I have to flip over the board many many times to route. Using a DMM to see which lines is to which lines. Mr. Chen said that when you come into the 'working world', you can't fully depend on the routing lines, it wouldn't get the best routing. So they usually route according to the schematic. Not easy yar? I think so too. But Mr. Chen is really really helpful in helping me though seriously he's very very busy!!!

Last Week (The Final Week)

Dearest friends, guess what? In two days time, I'm leaving Shantou. YEAH-ness. Mr Tan had informed Wendy and I that we can come back early. I'm seriously excited. I will be coming back to school to see all of you on the 20th August yar! Mark it in your calender. Don't come hugging me as I will cry. Having to separate from everyone for this long is mentally challenging and I'm glad it's going to be over really soon!

Loves.

Stoppage of Electricity

Due to now being the peak of Summer, every industrial park are taking turns to stop work to 'share' the electricity. Every summer, the electricity consumes here is very high. So our company's turn is on Wednesday. For the past two weeks, we are permitted not to come to work on Wednesday. Do not know whether this thing is permanent for every Wednesday. But if we do not come to work on Wednesday, we have to on Sunday.

They are seriously workaholics here man! I can never imagine my Sunday being burnt!!! My saturday has already been burnt so let it be. Now even my Sunday! Sigh... We'll see about it man. Anyway, it's another 29 more days to go. I'm finally coming home soon after so many days! I seriously can't wait!!! =)

We have finally taken the first step, which is to drill our casing. Took us quite a lot of preparating to finally do it as we were to use handheld drill instead of those machine drills that we have in school. There wasn't proper size for the drill so we had to file the hole to be bigger. The first photo of the holes does not look really good though. But wait till you see it being covered.

This is how the exterior of the metal chassis looks like when we attached the DVB-S Receiver PCB board to the casing. The second photo is the interior of the metal chassis. That's how the PCB board of the DVB-S receiver looks like. Seems complicating yar? But I think we did a smooth job for the drilling. Told you after it is covered it would look good.

So the drilling part of our MP has been done. What else have I been doing you must be thinking?

Well, 广奇 has given me their software (Protel 99 se) so that I can draw our PCB board. Some of the components must be created and put in the library of Protel 99 se, so I have been doing it. This is the same like using Eagles for Integrated Project. Hopefully by next week, I will be done with the PCB board design. Then we can fabricate and solder it. =)

Besides MP, boss has given us a new assignment. Every week, we are to look for 4 dealers from Europe. These dealers should be potential clients for the company. So I have been looking for these dealers to submit each week. At least there's something to do than always having to translate.

Helped Miss Huang to translate a few documents once in a while when she needs me to. Answered the company’s phone once in a while when there’s no one in the office to pick it up. If I'm not helping the company then I would be doing my MP. That's all for now. Cheerios!

Video of Egg Thingy

What I Have Been Doing...

I'm here again to update you on my doings. I have compiled a few days stuffs to show you. I have realised I did not show you what I have done on the 8th of July. So the bottom first photo reflects 8th July. I went to the US mega shopping mall, Wal-mart. It was initially a hot day so I went to get a bowl of fruit shaving ice. Really good. Had pizza that taste like bread for snack. Really had a fun time!

This photo below shows a variety of food that I had. The bottom right hand corner and the middle picture at the bottom is what I had on the night of 15th July. They are 水饺 (steam dumplings) and 胚芽珍朱奶茶 (milk bubble tea with embryo) . They wrap the 水饺 here very beautifully and it is delicious. I have mentioned 胚芽珍朱奶茶 a few times because I think this drink is really really nice.

The top left hand corner was what I had on Monday (16th July) for lunch. I had 牛肉丸 (beef balls) and 牛肉沙茶干果 (beef dried noodle). If you have followed my blog, I have mentioned 'sar chang jiang'. The correct spelling should be 'sha cha jiang'. In chinese it would be, 沙茶酱.

The last two photos, top right hand and bottom left hand corner, are 珍珠丸 (pearl balls) and 灌汤包 (bun with soup in it) respectively. I had it on the night of 16th July. I have mentioned 灌汤包 many many times too. I didn't know it was 灌汤包 initially, thought it was 小笼包. I finally got to taste it after going down 3 times and it is REALLY GOOD!!! This is the fourth time man. We happened to see the same stall serves 珍珠丸 so we got it to try. Not bad but not as nice as the 灌汤包. It's like glutinous rice ball. GOOD GOOD FOOD!!! I need to seriously go on a diet when I'm back man.

Remember this egg thingy? I have took a photo before but the photo wasn't clear and appealing so I was there again on the 16th July. I even record the whole process of making it. Will be posting it in the next post. Anyway, here in China, the eggs are expensive to them. If we want to add eggs into any dish, it would be RMB 1 per egg. Then this egg thingy is RMB 1. But this egg thingy is cheap and really nice. Do not know what they call it here. May find out and let y'all know soon.

Cooked on the 17th July (Tuesday) at 香兰 and 敏珊 place. We had DUMPLINGS!!!! Haha. Didn't wrap it on my own. Bought in packets. The brand of this dumpling is 龙凤. This brand that I have typed is in simplified Chinese, the one on the packet is in traditional chinese. This brand does really good dumplings. Help me see in Singapore whether they have it!!! If you see it, let me know and do not forget to get some for yourself to eat. Cook it with vege and it can be considered a meal. The soup and all are really nice. Had a filling dinner.

I have realised that since last Thursday, I have been going up to 香兰 and 敏珊 place to cook and it is really fun with their companion.

3rd Week of MP

This week, Boss and Miss Huang have went up to Shenzhen and Hong Kong to do some work. Wendy went up to Shenzhen to get our MP components so that we can start working on it. These past three days have been really relaxing. I must admit that I have slacked and all quite a bit but I still do work when I realised that I'm lagging behind.

Monday and Wednesday, I have been translating some documents for Miss Huang. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, I fully concentrated on MP because there were no work assignments. I have also been answering phone calls for my colleagues and diverting the phone calls to respective colleagues. I have always like answering and making phone calls.

Thought I could design the PCB while wait for the components to come back but 广奇 said that we must wait, in case if we didn't get it. Meanwhile, I have been ‘playing’ around with the satellite receiver, PR-3810. Practicing how to configure the settings to display the TV programs. I’ve also read the instruction manual (in Chinese). Gosh! I managed to read the instruction manual and survive from it!!! 广奇 had asked me to reset the setting and try configuring it myself and I managed to do it. So, I have learnt a lot through this practice.

广奇 gave me a website to see how I should 'Add a satellite' or to 'Add a program'. So I reset to default and practice to receive other channels. By inputting different Trans Frequency and symbol rate, I would be able to see other channels. The whole of yesterday's afternoon, I have been doing it and I'm vey familiar with my satellite receiver now.

Thursday after work, 香兰 was really nice, she invited me over to her place and we cooked! Had loads of fun!!! Each and every colleagues are really nice to me while I'm alone here. I went over to her place till about 9pm and headed home to watch TV.

Friday after work, 香兰 accompanied me again but this time, 敏珊 came along too. They brought me out for dinner and we had a long walk after dinner. I was looking for some souveneirs so they brought me to a place to get it. But didn't find it. So we went to get 凉茶 (herbal tea), some cold drinks and popsicle. We were like water buckets because the weather was really HOT!!! 36 degrees if I remember correctly. I felt as though I was dehydrating.

Today they will be back but I do not know what time. Bye for now!

2nd Week of MP

I have been keeping myself busy at work with MP/SIP. From Monday to Tuesday, my job varied from conversing with the company’s clients using English, translating documents and letters from Chinese-to-English. On Wednesday and Thursday, I totally concentrated on MP, as there were no work assignments for me.

I have helped the company to produce a manual guide, ‘A guide to Setting Up A Server’ (English Edition). I feel really accomplished that the company has put their trust on me to complete this manual guide. While doing this manual guide, there were so many errors in it that I do not have to follow what they wrote in Chinese. They told me to write whatever I deem is right. After I have completed, I have learnt tremendously on how to set up a server. A little like what I have learnt in NETFUND but more.

Too bad they do not sell this manual guide or else I could have part of the profit. Hee. As I have heard them selling their manual guides before and people would buy.

For MP, I have been making a list for Wendy so that when she goes up to Shenzhen, she can purchase them. The list includes, metal chassis, LCD monitor, fan and speakers. I have just received our receiver PR-3810 yesterday and I have analyzed it and came out with the measurements for the metal chassis. I have also been analyzing the PCB boards in the website as I will be designing a PCB board for our MP soon.

Wow! I seriously can't wait for Wendy to come back with the purchase and start doing hands-on work. For those who are interested in knowing what kind of MP we will be doing, you can visit the link below:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.ttkws.com/html/jswz/30/20070310/1170.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=3&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DJVC%2BWZQ828%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

The above site is not our product but we are doing something similar.

Shave Ice

Hey all! Ate this last Saturday (30th June 2007) but forgotten to upload and let all of you see. Really very refreshing and nice. Only for RMB 2 (S$0.40) and you get many varieties of fruits.

You should see the RMB 3 one. Damn HUGE! Confirm cannot finish one. So I have never wasted my money to eat it.

MP has started!!!

Sorry everyone for I have not blogged in a while. I have not been able to access my blog. My friends have informed me that my blog has some probs. Please bear with it for the moment. I'm not able to access my page so I can't really seem to do anything.

Anyway, continue viewing my blod and leaving your message and I will get back to you asap. Let me reply to some of you here first.

Ryan and Maeve - please bring your bickering somewhere else. Haha.

Yana - I think you know why my face was red. But I was blushing. Hee. Take photo with pretty girl.

Joanne - Thanks for informing me about my tagboard but I have not been touching it so I do not know what's wrong with it.

Shihui - I miss you too and no problem on the testimonial. That's the least I can do.

Weihan - Don't worry, the virus didn't spread my lappy and I'm glad my friends weren't affected too.

Ok, to the important bit - MP. I have started MP last week (25th June 2007). Really happy. I know some of you may be dreading it and pulling your own hair. But to me, being able to start my MP is a joy. Maybe I have not meet the suffering part yet. But I have been doing my readings aka 'wasting' the company's resources. Haha.

Anyway, basically for the first two weeks, I'm expected to read up on the brief DVB technical specifications, purchase a DVB-S receiver and source for a LCD monitor.

Regarding DVB-S, I have read up on the MPEG-2 video and audio compression, Elementary and Transport stream, QPSK. For Satellite TV, I have touched on L/Ku/Ka band, polarization, Dish antenna and Low Noise Block (LNB), First down-converted IF frequency. Within the DVB-S and Satellite TV things that I have to read, there are still about 3 stuffs that I have not touched on and not to forget about Analogue Video Format too.

Yeap, I have been reading a lot! Last tuesday, I managed to source for many models of LCD monitors for my MP, which can relax my mind away from the reading. Can be really tiring reading so many things. Mr Chen, the engineer, gave me a book to read on DVB-S too. BUT everything is all in Chinese so I'm taking my time to read it. If I see any keywords that I think I must know, I would go online and find for the keywords and read on it in English, which is far easier than reading it in Chinese.

Well, this week, I would continue to up my knowledge on my MP and I hope the rest of you in TP are striving as hard as me.

I know it may be Youth Day to the Youths but let's not be disheartened, we are still young at heart and I'm sure most of us are accustomed to not celebrate some Public Holidays (Children Days etc.). Hee.

Nevertheless, enjoy your week! =)

Food... Glorious... Food!!!

It has been really long since I have blogged. For this edition, I have compiled all the food that we had for the past few days. Not a lot though as most of the time I have been staying at home. Found loads of TV programs to watch on TV. Pictures may not be cleared as I have used 1.3 Megapixels mobile camera. Nevertheless, Enjoy!

BBQ Night. The man behind our BBQ-ed food. The varieties of food available here are alright. As compared to the BBQ that our boss brought us the other time, this would be lesser. Had Bak Kwah (Pork), Tofu, Chicken Drumsticks and a wing (not in picture) for RMB 8.50 (S$1.70).

When eating BBQ, the drink to complement your food is 王老吉 (Wang Lao Ji - as shown in picture below). It is really nicer compared to Jia Jia Liang Teh.

This is Shantou's version of Kueh Chap. I prefer the one in Singapore, where the food is separated from the Kueh. The kueh here is very much different too. It taste more like porridge when you bite on the Kueh, whereas Singapore's very smooth and silky.

A Sunday, which we wanted to stay at home and cook. Had 八宝粥 (Eight treasures Porridge). It has barley, green and red beans. Loads of beans in it. So you make up to 8 of it. Eating it with the soy sauce (scallop flavour) makes it even better. We had some leftovers and made dessert with it by adding sugar. Actually it taste nicer when it is sweet.

We told 黄小姐 that I still wanted to eat the 小笼包 that I haven't got to eat. Then she brought us to this shop that is near her place. Instead of being 小笼包, which looks like it, it turns out to be a smaller version of the 肉包 (Pork bun - which is dry in it). I just found out that in Shantou, it is not called 汤包 (Soup bun) not 小笼包. We also have 童子鸡 (Tong Zi Ji - Upper left in picture) and Wanton. Seems like I will have to continue hunting for the right 小笼包 then.

Life has been a little monotonous recently. It is now Thursday and I have still nothing much to do. Everybody seems to be busy except for Wendy and I. 黄小姐 always going out of the office every now and then. 陈广奇 has been running some tests for some stuffs, 沈香兰 staring at her computer from start of work till end of work. 香兰 has the most calls everyday. Always seeing her on the phone. See! All of them are busy and yet we have nothing much to do.

My translation days might come to an end. Piles of translation become one per day. Sometimes, it is not that we want to slack. So all we could do is to do our own research or seriously slack sometimes. Being in school to a certain extend may not be a bad thing. When you are bored, you can talk to your friend on the left or right. Wendy is sitting in front of me so most of our communications are through MSN. You wouldn't want us both to be shouting when we are talking. That wouldn't be nice when everybody is so concentrated in their work.

At least yesterday wasn't too bad. I got a couple of letters to translate and I have chatted with the French customer again. That's all. I'm even surprise at how fast this week has gone past so fast, yet there's nothing much we can d0. Mr Tan has already proposed a MP for us to do and 黄小姐 has also helped us to convey the message to boss. But I think he is still too busy to answer anything or is he considering really hard? Well, I think I am giving it a try today when I see him.

Anyway, after work yesterday, we wanted to eat 小笼包 (a bun, which has soup in it). Really nice to eat. China and Hong Kong have really nice 小笼包, so wanted to taste it. But when we got to the place, they said that they had stopped making 小笼包. So sad. But what we ate in the end wasn't that bad too. Ate their specialty noodle and soup (really good), nian yong bao (some paste bun, on the top left-hand side of the first picture) and 排骨 (pork ribs, second picture). The pork ribs, 黄小姐 paid for it and the nian yong bao I paid for it because Wendy didn't order anything. So in total, I have spent RMB 16 (S$3.20) for all these. It was damn filling.


As usual after dinner, we went for a walk and saw Ou Jyi (欧吉) Black Bubble Tea shop. 胚芽珍朱奶茶 (Plumule Bubble Milk Tea). Plumule is the bud of the ascending axis of a plant while still in the embryo. It is really nice and healthy. The first time I drank it was after the first badminton session, boss bought it for me. Ever since, I only drink that and nothing else. They have a promotion for all large cup drinks going at RMB 10 (S$2). But because I added pearls to it, so it is RMB 12 (S$2.40). I enjoyed drinking it but was really really full after it. Punishment for greediness

Art of Appreciating Tea

10th June 2007, Sunday - New Found Friends

It was a Sunday evening when boss gave us a call to ask us out for dinner. We were about to go out to settle our own dinner anyway. But since he invited us, then we went with him instead. The picture below is the entrance of the place, where we went. The place is beautiful and very near our place. We have passed it a lot of times but never thought of going in to eat. Boss said that it is cheap to eat here.

These are the first few dishes that we ate. We ate about 7 to 8 dishes, all really nice. In the picture below, the left dish is mushrooms (My favourite is this. Don't know how they cooked it but it is really really good), the top-middle dish is a type of noodle, which I don't really know what they used to do it (but I heard melon if I'm not wrong), the right bottom one is chicken. Semi-cold chicken. Really nice. There were soup, duck stew, ngoh hiang (dad's favourite), fried tofu, salted mee suah was our last dish. Sorry if I have forgotten any. Special sauces came with almost every dishes to complement the taste. Nice combinations anyway. This meal cost us RMB 100 (S$20). I think they gave discount because when we finished eating, the place blacked-out. The generator snapped. I knew it because it snapped right in front of me. As in, I was in the angle that I can see it happened. Anyway, besides boss, we met his primary schoolmate, 阿国.

We went to boss's tea shop after dinner to try all his different kinds of teas. We tried 铁观音, which just came in yesterday and many others, which I can't remember. After staying there till about 9pm, we went to Happy Hours KTV. Yeah! More songs to sing and met another friend. She is 阿国 girlfriend, 玉儿. But she asked us to call her 阿玉. Hee. She is a really nice person to hang around with. Easily to start a communication with and sings really well too! 阿国 is really lucky!!! 阿国 and 阿玉 joked that they met downstairs at the KTV when I asked how long they have been together. They are a really cute couple with good telepathy level.

After KTV, which was 12am, we went to boss' Mahjong den to drink more tea while he settles some stuffs. Becoming a tea freak. We sat there quite a while, drinking tea, chit-chatting then we went for supper. Had seafood for supper. Not bad. We ate loads of fishes. But other than that, there were crabs (I didn't eat because it is semi-raw), small prawns (very sweet and nice to eat). Can't remember the rest. Then we headed home after a long while. But all I know, we reached home a 3:30am. Then we dozed off because we cannot take it already. Too long of a day. Still got work today.

9th June 2007, Saturday

No translation today but had to communicate with the French customer almost the whole day. He actually wanted to settle everything by today. But due to time constraint, we weren't able to test completely. Furthermore, his SmartCard was running out of cash because we couldn't use the 'blocker' to insert the card. As we don't have the 'blocker' with us. A 'blocker' is a device to insert the SmartCard in and stop the channels from minusing any money out of it when you are running your test. Apparently we wanted to test the CV12 with the SmartCard on the 410 receiver but the French guy said that the receiver and the CV12 are at two different places. It will take 2 days to bring the two things together. So he wants us to send him another CV12 sample but it will take about 3 days. Well, but we have already sent it to him today. As much as we want to finish doing all the test for him and all but like 黄小姐 has said in Chinese, "When doing test, it definitely needs time".

After work today, 黄小姐 needed to OT for a while so we waited for her because we were going for dinner together. We took a cab because it was raining heavily. Wanted to take trishaw initially but 3 persons on a trishaw on a raining day is disastrous. This is the back of the cab. As though I'm in jail.

We alighted at Turbo Restaurant for dinner. I could recall myself being famished and could eat everything in the menu. This is really near Wal-mart. RMB 10 (S$2) for the cab fare but it was split amongst three of us so we had to pay RMB 3 (S$0.60) each. Of course 黄小姐 paid more for the cab fare. Erm... not that I wanted it to be this way. Well, the interior I would say is really cosy with really good ambience.



I wanted to eat the delicious looking ice-creams above but my meal came in a set so I gave the ice-cream a passed. Maybe I would eat it the next time since this is a summer promotion.

This is a fruit-vege salad. Really nice the way they combined the cucumber, apple and tomato in one dish. The soup below is cream of corn. C-O-R-N. Me like.... Hee. I love my meal. Wait till you see the main course. It's even BETTER!!!

Taa-daa!! When it is served to us, we had to do a little cooking, which is almost the same as Pepper Lunch. But the food at Pepper Lunch really allows you to cook to your satisfaction. I ordered medium rare. But once I flipped to the other side, the middle still had a little blood but it is not entirely medium rare anymore. Maybe should order rare. Haha. But all-in-all, it is really sumptuous.

After the main course, we had ice-cream! They not only served the ice-cream. Below the ice-cream is cubes of apples. Really nice combination. Initially they served us chocolate but it was together with the appetizers so by the time we finished everything, it would have melted so we requested the waitress to bring it back till we asked for it. Initially it was chocolate flavour but when we asked for it, the flavour was different. But I have enjoyed it nonetheless.

For this set that I ate, it is RMB 26 (S$5.20). Went a little shopping after dinner. Always good to walk a while after dinner. Shopped till 11pm and decided to head home. Yeah! Another week is passing soon! =)

Video of Automated Locker

8th June 2007, Friday

I nearly forgotten to remind all of you something. Before you continue reading or scrolling (which I think you wouldn't care), please prepare a box of tissue or hankerchief because the following content is not for the hungry souls. Enjoy!

Friday morning at work, I was rushing to complete my PR1 and my weekly progress report for Mr Tan. Well, not really rushing but still manage to finish it before lunch. How hard can a report be? Then after lunch, I started doing loads of translations work. One after another kept coming. I even told 黄小姐 that I couldn't even breathe. Yesterday can be considered a busy day then. When Mr Tan didn't receive two documents that I have sent him the day before, I had to redo because I didn't keep one of the document. Then did quite a lot of research on MP4 too.

For lunch, we ate Claypot Rice. I would never had thought that they really brought the whole port to our place. They have many kinds of claypot but all of us chose between 排骨 (pork ribs) or chicken.

香兰 and I ate the chicken one. For RMB 5 (S$1), you get this kind of portion but eating it more like eating bones than the meat. But it is still nice. To my opinion, I think eating the chicken has more meat than eating the pork ribs. The bones of the pork ribs are so much bigger but very little meat on it.

But seriously, I wish it wasn't after lunch on Friday, besides all the translation documents piling up, I had to msn the French customer again. I think you might have guessed, the problem has not been resolved. Still got so much problem. But I guess to a certain extend I was lucky to have finished all my work then I start msn-ing the French customer. One thing I was happy though it that when I have finished all the translation and all, it was 1630 (4.30pm).

After work, we went to 玫瑰园 (Rose Garden). Don't be silly, it is not literally 'Rose Garden'. I don't even see any roses when I alighted from Bus 9. If we were to take Bus 9, it is only 4 stops till we reached Rose Garden. Then we decided to go for dinner first. We stumbled across a cafeteria which sells duck rice. 黄小姐 wanted to eat duck rice but we ate something else instead. They have so many varieties of food here. The eggs, vege and the soup you see come as a set with the meal. Since all of us ordered the set, they decided to put everything into a plate.

You must be wondering why there's three eggs when there are four of us. Apparently 黄小姐 was too hungry she took hers and they remembered I had to take photos. If you can spot carefully, her egg is on the top left-hand corner of the picture above. Oh! The below picture of the vege is disgusting. I think some of you will think is nice but I don't like the bitter taste so skipped eating this. I can get my protein from somewhere else Like Meat - ROAR!

This soup is really superlicious. This is 黄小姐 soup. The rest of us drank this seaweed soup, which I don't know why its cold. Not bad but 黄小姐 soup is better and and warm. She and I drank half and we swapped soup.


The above is the casing for my rice set is nice yar? Like a treasure case. Then when you open it, you will have 火爆牛肉 (beef.). Really nice. Everybody said that mine is the nicest. The sauce is so nice together with the beef and the rice. Mouth watering.

No no, I am not showing more of my food. If you observed carefully, the bottom one is 黄小姐 set. Hers is called, '金菇滑鸡', which means golden mushrooms with chicken. I like how they prepared the golden mushrooms. Really really nice. For my set, it is RMB 13 (S$2.60). Very cheap for the set.


The above is 香兰, which is 红烧排骨 (roasted pork ribs). Not bad but the rice is not as nice as the one in the treasure chest. Then the bottom is Wendy's 鱼香肉丝. Using fish sauce to cook with chicken meat. This set would be RMB 14 (S$2.80). I only know 香兰 and my set because we were looking at it together.

We traded with each other's our ingredients like having pot luck. The feeling is very nice. Look at how much we enjoyed our food. Erm... at least I think I am. My smile seems to be the widest. Don't know what's with the rest. They said the food is good but the expression on their faces seem different. Don't be fooled by their faces, trust my face will do. It is really NICE! Hee.

After dinner, we went to walk around, which is good for digestion. The apparels shop there are really nice and up to date to style but can be quite costly. So I just looked. I promised my mom I wouldn't spend anymore for the time being anyway. Then we came past, 大众 supermarket so we spent like an hour and a half in there because 黄小姐 wanted to get some 日常用品 (things she uses daily) to stock up. She bought us this ice-creams to thank us for spending time in there with her. Then we continued shopping at the other side of the road. That stretch of road has many apparels shop - some are expensive and some are affordable.

Before I end, remember the automated locker I told you about? I have managed to take a video of it with the help from 香兰 when we were at 大众 supermarket. So I will post it after this. The purpose of doing so is to keep your valuables inside so as you don't lose it while shopping or they do not want you to be shoplifting from their store. You can only find it in supermarket. Hasn't seen it anywhere else.

Wow! It has been a while since I have blogged. I did nothing much since Monday. Actually like all of you doing your MP, I can't wait to start on mine too. It can be really boring doing translation everyday. Researching for stuffs regarding Telecommunications (电信) is not boring. At least I get to learn stuffs I never knew. The constant translation for letters and documents from English-to-Chinese, vice versa has already been inculcated into part of my life. I'm so immune to it but bored at the same time. Besides having to research for stuffs such as DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB-C and much much more, I have to translate it from English-to-Chinese. Well, that's nothing new.


You must be thinking, "Why don't Clarissa use the wikipedia.com in Chinese? Wouldn't it be faster?" Apparently, I'm not stupid to use that method but the information given in Chinese is so limited. Clarissa definitely knows how to jump to short-cuts in order to work fast and all. But you wouldn't learn as much. Therefore, I have been doing the long way. Do you know that wikipedia is being banned in China? Apparently, the government wouldn't want the Chinese to know too much. So it can be quite hard to search for information. But I have my witty ways.


So far, I have learnt so much Telecomm terms in Chinese, such as Modulator (调制器), server (服务器), Card Splitter (分卡机) etc. But I know you don't really bother knowing it in Chinese when all of you have the pleasure of using English in Singapore.

Work aside. I ate green bean soup yesterday. I miss my mommy's - it has sago in it. My favourite. Here they put melon in it because the weather is getting hotter as summer is making its way in.

After lunch when Yan Jie (boss' sister) returned, she bought HUGE watermelon for all of us. Sorry for I have taken one bite realising that I haven't taken a photo of it. Wanted to keep it because I have never seen HUGE watermelon before. Yeah yeah, call me noob. I never take the side that has loads of seeds. I though I was eating watermelon seeds instead of the watermelon itself.

4th June 2007, Monday

Let me fill you in about my work. Recently 黄小姐 and I are handling with a French customer. He is ordering CV12 and servers from us. He's a BIG customer for our company because their bulk purchase is really BULKY!! Anyway, the whole of last week, he encountered problems with the pay per view and the adult channels. So we have been troubleshooting for him. Actually throughout this process, I have learnt loads from the conversation.

Just yesterday, I have talked to him on the phone and he said that all of the channels are working fine. I was elated by the news that we all have been waiting for. Initially it was terrifying to talk to him because he is a big client for the company but my confidence was picked up as our conversation continues farther. Well, before this incident, I have communicated with a Philippines customer so I think there's shouldn't be signs of me being afraid. But today after 12am, the pay per view adult channels cannot be viewed. Apparently, there was no picture. He will be troubleshooting for the next 5 hours but he would first want the production of the CV12. So we are crossing our fingers now that everything is working fine. =)

So when I said that I have been communicating with the company's customer, most of the time is him and another two guys. I feel quite good about this because it seems as though I'm like a businesswoman. Hee. Well, that's not the only thing I have been doing. I have been searching for this Korean product - Mio, for our MP. Wendy found the Korean website but none of us understand Korean. So I have been looking for the English website and found it. I have translated it to Chinese for boss to better understand everything. But I don't think he needs to know only the specifications. So have to search for more stuffs for him.

Mr Tan, if you are reading this. I have to tell you, there's nothing much I can tell you about MP5 because MP5 is more like a software, so there are no specs for it. But still have to better understand it because Mp5 is quite a new thing. Erm... I supposed you all have heard of MP3 (mainly playing music), MP4 (music and video player), and MP5 (able to view television programmes). Cool yar? But it is not easy to find because usually when you search for MP5, results will show more on the MP5 (semi-automated guns) that the army uses. Well, I guess we must work harder than. 3 months is not a long time.

Anyway, after work, 黄小姐 brought us to Suning Electrical stores. Wendy wanted to see some electrical stuffs and buy it home. Nothing much to see though. But I think Chinese are so smart that they could come up with all sorts of products. I saw a MP3 cum Camera at the MP3/Mp4 section. Quite cool. But the salesperson didn't know how to operate the camera so it took us about 15 to 20 minutes there to try to figure. In the end, we still couldn't use the camera. Haha. Then we went for dinner.

Dinner was at this place next to Suning. All of us ate fishball noodle soup. The fishball is far different from ours in Singapore. The fishballs in Singapore is made by machines but the fishballs are handmade here. It's more solid and nicer.

After dinner, we went to shop to wait for boss to pick us up. Yes, he is back only yesterday (Monday). He asked us to play badminton. He has fixed every Monday for badminton now because we got our own private court. Actually the 'private' court ain't really private because there are still other courts around. But the private here means that we got a whole court to ourselves unlike the first time, we have to share with so many people. Therefore, having to play only one match. Perspire quite a bit, which was a good feeling. At least we can still exercise here and not get fat.

After badminton at 11pm, we headed down to boss' mahjong den. He had to settle quite a bit of things so we sat there drinking tea till 12.45am/1am. Oh! Besides BLUETVSAT Electronics Co. Ltd. and a mahjong den, he also produced tea. No wonder he is forever busy. But tea and mahjong are his side businesses. He concentrate more on this electronic company. I told him yesterday that I wanted to get some tea back from his shop. =)

Well, after the mahjong den, we went to have BBQ and a roadside stall. No worries everyone. I'm fine today. Haha. I think that corn stall previously has problem. I think if a place has problem, boss won't bring us there. The food is good. Ate chicken wings, cuttlefish, beef. There were shell food like mussels and oysters but I don't take them. Desmond, I hope you were with me now because you will totally enjoy it. It looked good and juicy. I guarantee you will like it. Sorry, I don't have pictures for this because didn't bring camera along. Boss reminded us to take photos too. I told him that there will be another time. Hee.

We finished eating and all then boss sent us home. It was already around 2.15am to 2.30am when we got home. Very tired by then. Long day at work.
Just wanted to test my parents' reactions when they see this. Hee. Don't worry mommy and DD, I didn't ride on it. I just wanted to take a photo to show you. So what do you think? Look nice in it? Haha. AND I'm not sitting on any Tom, Dick or Harry's scooter ok. This is 黄小姐. =)

Video of Chee Cheong Fan

Yeah! It is another Sunday. But it has already ended and tomorrow I'm going to work again. Well, we went to this street on the first Saturday when we arrived. We revisited it again today because we wanted to do a 1-on-1 shopping. So we left home at 3pm but once we stepped out of our place, it started to rain. We had to take cover in a book store, which is kind of smaller than Borders at Wheelock, but it has two-storey high. It is a very famous book store here. Whenever we have to describe where we stay, people will relate it to this book store.

Anyway, we thought the rain was smaller so we took bus 24 to the place. Apparently bus 24 route has a lot of famous places to shop, eat etc. But once we got down of bus 24, it started to pour heavily again and we took shelter again. Whenever we see the rain slightly smaller, we will cover as much ground as possible. Till we saw 'Texas Burger'. The logo looks like Burger King's but the food serve is comparable to KFC. So we went to order some snacks there and chill till the rain has stopped. After Wendy finished the last nugget, the rain stopped just as she had predicted.

Then I told her to let's go shopping first. While shopping, we saw this uncle flipping something and looked interesting so we got one to try. The picture below is what we ate. It is actually egg, with meat, spring onion, cai poh (the thing on top of chee kueh) and mushroom. We ate one and thought it is really nice so we went to get another. RMB 1 (S$0.20). Quite filling too for such a cheap stuff. =)

Then after we were finished with shopping, we wanted to get this chicken which seasoning is heavenly. But two times we went there, two times, it is closed. We went passed earlier in the day but decided to buy it after our shopping. But who knows, it was already closed. So I went to buy char siew bao. Two for RMB 1 (S$0.20). Damn cheap man!!! Haha. The taste of it is very different from Singapore's. The char siew is brown instead of red. The pao is handmade so it is much tastier.

We were on our way to go to our bus-stop when we saw a stall selling something interesting. Then we see two ladies standing there waiting for their order so we went to take a look. The ladies told us that if have never tried it before then we should because it is really nice. Actually, it is Chee Cheong Fan but with vege, meat and eggs in it and the topping is with cai poh.

I have recorded the process of making it. It will come after this post. =) Enjoy!

The above picture is without the gravy and the bottom is with it. Wanted to take every single shot so that you can see =) Sorry if I have made y'all drool again. My bad!

The ingredients in it. Not very clear because I didn't want to continue making it uglier. But this should be good enough. Rest assure, it is really delicious! Really really good. Love the gravy. This is RMB 3 (S$0.60). Where can you find cheap and filled-with-ingredient Chee Cheong Fan in Singapore? That's because you can't. Haha. Pardon me.

Anyway, after my shopping, I bought 3 tops and a pair of slippers. Therefore, I have spent RMB 180 (inclusive of food). It is S$36. I have not even touched S$50. =p If I am in Singapore now, I would have spent way more that $50 for these much of things. Well, it's late. Got to wake up early for work tomorrow. Enjoy another week in school pals! Work hard and don't slack my dear friends. I'm watching over you!!! =p