Blow by Blow- 20 march

20/3/2011

I am a very underground person. Only I will have such an idea in my head.

To go to the shopping district at 9 am in the morning. i thought all the shops would be closed. Boy, I was wrong. In fact, most of them already were open, catching the Sunday morning crowd. I was kinda expecting a 9am orchard road scene, not so many cars; many shops still have their shutters down, less people on the streets.

But no. people are already starting their day in china, even on a weekend. I think I’ll be eating breakfast at 9 am on a Sunday morning. It certainly shows the difference in the types of lives we lead. The Chinese take each day to be their last and live it to the fullest, while we sometimes happily whirl away few hours. Maybe if I applied their attitude into my life, everything will change.

So after doing something underground like going to the shopping district at 9 am in the morning to pick up a coat, the next underground thing was to go to school to have lessons. On a Sunday afternoon, and isn’t the school deserted on a Sunday? My impression of Sunday afternoon was to sit in my grandparent’s house to watch cable until my head hurts (literally). Spending Sunday afternoon in school was certainly different from all my Sunday afternoons (visiting, sleeping, tuition, work, homework, etc.)

My buddy was in school too. There are people in school on a Sunday, just that classrooms are not open, so everybody’s sitting outside doing homework/catching up with friends/playing basketball/snapping photos.

Students staying in the school dormitories are mainly from other provinces or other countries. My buddy pointed out that there are foreign students on campus, but a small number stay in the school dormitories, and many prefer to rent their own outside the school for slightly higher price. Many of them are actually taking the arts degree program than the languages one.

Pity I can’t find other Singaporean students other than us. The school community seems used to the presence of foreign students (people don’t stare at us for being different, they stare at us for being loud) but I think being able to meet one would greatly help in this. It’s hard to talk to strangers without anything in common.

I wanted to find a tailor for mend my coat for its buttons, and she brought me to the one in the dormitories. He couldn’t mend the coat for me (as he was busy with 3 others), but he lent us some thread and a needle. And we ended up stitching buttons after dinner in the school canteen（锅盖饭 again）, when we returned it he didn’t charge us for using the thread, but I left my other coat (brown) with him anyway so I felt less guilty about using his thread and needle (it needed a wash and iron anyway.), and I’m looking forward to a clean coat during the trip to Beijing (this one has deep pockets, although it’s thin. Wearing more layers = bringing less). Hopefully it’ll be done soon.  

I'm typing this in class, so I'm not exactly focusing.
PICTURES:

Gate repairs. It was my first time coming across such a thing, given that Singapore doesn't have many of such people with these skills. They still prefer people with business sense. I don't know how everybody knowing how to run a business is beneficial to Singapore. These skills are important as well, y'know. 

Small stall selling 葫芦。It's my first time seeing such things. And I thought that 葫芦 belonged to the realm of 武侠小说, like the things people used to store water in as a water bottle. Neither have I seen them grow to such a huge size. 

 A "karang guni" man. We meet him a few times during our stay, and we always hear him call out, just that his accent's too thick, so I can never understand what exactly was he saying. He goes about with his outfitted bicycle, in Singapore they come with trolleys or something like that. 

A extension dove/pigeon coop from an apartment. Curiously, all the birds seem to return to the coop after 5pm, and the streets will be free of free ranging birds. I thought all the birds had nests somewhere, but I didn't expect them to be kept. Pity that i never went to the house for a closer look. 

Bicycle repair station! The man running this station on wheels repairs bicycles at a reasonable price, just that his business is small, so he carries his equipment in that giant 修车 cart, and cycles off when he's done. In Singapore, even the ice-cream carts are fitted on motorcycles, rarely you see bicycles used.

Flowers blooming on the trees. There is no cloud in the sky, so I don't know if it's a good thing for the lack of rain about. This type of flower is called a 梨花， which blooms white flowers for a quite a long time (they were still there during the last week), first time experiencing spring weather. I always get Autumn when I go overseas.