Just a blog post to say to those that read this that I still intend to keep this blog going but I just haven't had the time!
Back in Perth in a few days!
p.s. Happy Chinese New Year!
p.p.s. and Yay for Australia day :D
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
If you don't like the Chinaman's driving, stay the hell off the sidewalk.
China's Culture Clash>>
Driving
The driving conditions is probably one of the biggest differences between good old Perth and China.
There are little to no line markings on the grounds, but it doesn't really matter because no one uses them anyways. If you can squeeze between two cars, go for it! Also, using the car horn is synonymous with driving. It's used at least every 30 seconds (seriously). Traffic lights are sparce at best and there are even less road signs, so cars are usually all piled up in random fashions at intersections inching forward whenever possible. Car indicators could be removed from the features of a car. It is common to just park on a two-way road and thus take up room, so that no two cars can pass side by side. Yet it's still a two-way road. Hence the frequent horn usage. Also, on top of this, motorcycles are more common than cars, and the pedestrian sidewalks are evidently made for motorcycles too.
Ironically due to all this, Chinese drivers are probably amongst the most skilled in the world. Otherwise, there's no way on earth anyone would have the confidence to drive there. Like hooning? Go to China.
Food
First dish on the first day was chicken. Sounds good so far. Except when the plate came, they included the entire chicken. As in, everything. Particularly important to note was the chicken head placed proud centre of the whole plate. Like the chicken was decapitated. It's two beady black eyes stared out blankly, it's thing on top of its head (forgot what it's called) waved slightly as it was being rotated on the big centre plate.
Dinner included duck. And the duck head.
I'm really weary of soup now. This is from the first day only. The soup all contain really er interesting things, like white fluffy things that look like what you might find under a staircase and in dark corners. Soup for dinner contained something that looked like a brain (though it actually wasn't) and had a chicken leg sticking out of it. Both soups were, according to mum, "very expensive". Soup before bed was made up of bird saliva. I'm serious. The bird saliva is manually collected from birds nests, and is subsequently very very very ridiculously expensive. A bowl of it (say 250mL) is easily 200 China dollars, which is the equivalent of about $40AUD. It did taste good though and it's really good for your health, so I suppose it's fortunate I didn't know before I drank it.
I've always been a bit squeamish though.
Toilets
Damn those holes in the ground.
Pollution
Yeah, not much more needed to be said. Woo, constant fog!
Hey Pretty Girl
This is a perfectly acceptable (and maybe expected) greeting to any female, regardless of whether you know them or not. It is more commonly used by females to other females though- to waitresses, shop sellers, people in the street. Guys generally use it when they want to sell you something...or want something from you...yeah.
Mah-jong
China style. I'll teach you all when I get back. It's pretty fun- fast games, no points, little rules. Flowers are wild cards. Great for those of you that don't like playing with points/don't know how. Basically a race to create a winnable hand.
I find it amazing that China is the most rapidly industrialising country in the whole world (and wow, they had the Olympics here last year?!). Great for a holiday to meet all the relies I didn't know I had but either way, I wouldn't want to live in China permanently, even if it's where the future money earning potential is. Give me our peaceful, built-up, clean Australia any day :).
Driving
The driving conditions is probably one of the biggest differences between good old Perth and China.
There are little to no line markings on the grounds, but it doesn't really matter because no one uses them anyways. If you can squeeze between two cars, go for it! Also, using the car horn is synonymous with driving. It's used at least every 30 seconds (seriously). Traffic lights are sparce at best and there are even less road signs, so cars are usually all piled up in random fashions at intersections inching forward whenever possible. Car indicators could be removed from the features of a car. It is common to just park on a two-way road and thus take up room, so that no two cars can pass side by side. Yet it's still a two-way road. Hence the frequent horn usage. Also, on top of this, motorcycles are more common than cars, and the pedestrian sidewalks are evidently made for motorcycles too.
Ironically due to all this, Chinese drivers are probably amongst the most skilled in the world. Otherwise, there's no way on earth anyone would have the confidence to drive there. Like hooning? Go to China.
Food
First dish on the first day was chicken. Sounds good so far. Except when the plate came, they included the entire chicken. As in, everything. Particularly important to note was the chicken head placed proud centre of the whole plate. Like the chicken was decapitated. It's two beady black eyes stared out blankly, it's thing on top of its head (forgot what it's called) waved slightly as it was being rotated on the big centre plate.
Dinner included duck. And the duck head.
I'm really weary of soup now. This is from the first day only. The soup all contain really er interesting things, like white fluffy things that look like what you might find under a staircase and in dark corners. Soup for dinner contained something that looked like a brain (though it actually wasn't) and had a chicken leg sticking out of it. Both soups were, according to mum, "very expensive". Soup before bed was made up of bird saliva. I'm serious. The bird saliva is manually collected from birds nests, and is subsequently very very very ridiculously expensive. A bowl of it (say 250mL) is easily 200 China dollars, which is the equivalent of about $40AUD. It did taste good though and it's really good for your health, so I suppose it's fortunate I didn't know before I drank it.
I've always been a bit squeamish though.
Toilets
Damn those holes in the ground.
Pollution
Yeah, not much more needed to be said. Woo, constant fog!
Hey Pretty Girl
This is a perfectly acceptable (and maybe expected) greeting to any female, regardless of whether you know them or not. It is more commonly used by females to other females though- to waitresses, shop sellers, people in the street. Guys generally use it when they want to sell you something...or want something from you...yeah.
Mah-jong
China style. I'll teach you all when I get back. It's pretty fun- fast games, no points, little rules. Flowers are wild cards. Great for those of you that don't like playing with points/don't know how. Basically a race to create a winnable hand.
I find it amazing that China is the most rapidly industrialising country in the whole world (and wow, they had the Olympics here last year?!). Great for a holiday to meet all the relies I didn't know I had but either way, I wouldn't want to live in China permanently, even if it's where the future money earning potential is. Give me our peaceful, built-up, clean Australia any day :).
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Only good girls keep [blogs]. Bad girls don't have time.
Title adapted from actress Tellulah Bankhead.
I have changed and experienced a lot over the past year that was 2008. Regardless, I hardly swear, I don't binge drink (FYI PM Rudd- two standard drinks a night for females should not be considered binge drinking), and I definitely don't smoke nor do I do drugs. I am a well-mannered, polite young lady (even if this is disputed by my pseudo-brother dearest). However despite this, for some reason, I've been labelled on numerous occasions a 'bad influence'. Even my pseudo-husband (there you made it into my blog, now you're famous :P) avoids mentioning me to the parentals when listing people attending a particular event in attempts to be allowed to go. The only thing I'm going to influence you to do is to go out more often than not, which at our age can only be a good thing, yes? And maybe run the wrong way down escalators and end up with a fine with a value with three digits, but I digress.
Rihanna's latest album Good Girl Gone Bad is about her rebelling against her little girl image from when she was 17 (or so she says). I've never had the need to rebel against a particular image or from my parents. Those that know me will know that I can pretty much do whatever I want; my parents are big on the whole 'it's your responsibility' thing about nights out and my life in general. Though for some reason, my mum has suddenly been very intent on me making my bed before going out (don't ask me- I think it's a waste of time).
My parents have a few favourite speeches. The 'This isn't a hotel' speech and the 'You need to spend more family time' speech are frequently heard. Not to mention big sweeping statements about 'the youth of today' and the 'society that is generation Y'. Do we really 'demand rights and forego all responsibility'? That came up when I argued a point about the parentals doing the exact same thing that they just finished telling me not to do. It reminds me of all those times in primary school when the 'No hat, no play' rule was enforced, teachers still had control and would patrol the outdoor areas telling all us kids to wear hats, when they themselves weren't wearing hats! Yeah that was annoying. No one was game enough to point this out though, so we just nodded meekly and wore our hats. Then we grew up.
I have changed and experienced a lot over the past year that was 2008. Regardless, I hardly swear, I don't binge drink (FYI PM Rudd- two standard drinks a night for females should not be considered binge drinking), and I definitely don't smoke nor do I do drugs. I am a well-mannered, polite young lady (even if this is disputed by my pseudo-brother dearest). However despite this, for some reason, I've been labelled on numerous occasions a 'bad influence'. Even my pseudo-husband (there you made it into my blog, now you're famous :P) avoids mentioning me to the parentals when listing people attending a particular event in attempts to be allowed to go. The only thing I'm going to influence you to do is to go out more often than not, which at our age can only be a good thing, yes? And maybe run the wrong way down escalators and end up with a fine with a value with three digits, but I digress.
Rihanna's latest album Good Girl Gone Bad is about her rebelling against her little girl image from when she was 17 (or so she says). I've never had the need to rebel against a particular image or from my parents. Those that know me will know that I can pretty much do whatever I want; my parents are big on the whole 'it's your responsibility' thing about nights out and my life in general. Though for some reason, my mum has suddenly been very intent on me making my bed before going out (don't ask me- I think it's a waste of time).
My parents have a few favourite speeches. The 'This isn't a hotel' speech and the 'You need to spend more family time' speech are frequently heard. Not to mention big sweeping statements about 'the youth of today' and the 'society that is generation Y'. Do we really 'demand rights and forego all responsibility'? That came up when I argued a point about the parentals doing the exact same thing that they just finished telling me not to do. It reminds me of all those times in primary school when the 'No hat, no play' rule was enforced, teachers still had control and would patrol the outdoor areas telling all us kids to wear hats, when they themselves weren't wearing hats! Yeah that was annoying. No one was game enough to point this out though, so we just nodded meekly and wore our hats. Then we grew up.
Friday, January 2, 2009
I have the attention span of ... oo look, shiny!
I have a rather short attention span.
Couple this with the fact that I like trying (nearly) absolutely everything, this explains a lot. Throughout my life I have attended lessons for ice-skating, swimming, ballet, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, badminton, tennis, rock-climbing and sailing, and those are just the sports. At a buffet I will put a bit of everything onto my plate, except for those disgusting things like beetroot and cheese.
A week or so ago, I decided to learn guitar, completely from scratch. Learnt the notes, a few chords, a few songs. Haven't touched it in the last few days. When I start something new, I throw myself wholeheartedly into whatever it is. I printed off the chords with fret drawings, cut them out and make them into impromptu flash card type things. I haven't used them once.
A couple of days ago, I decided to make this blog. This is not my first attempt at blogging, I started a blog once upon a time ago. It had one post in it, and if I recall correctly, it was titled "I wonder what this button does...". After that, I never touched it again and promptly forgot all about it. I didn't even remember I had previously made a blog until I finished making this one when things seemed a bit all too familiar. I also have a msn space thing (http://gloria3107.spaces.live.com/), but that's slowly sitting there collecting dust in the cyber world. Undoubtedly, the posting frequency of this blog will over time decline drastically, but at least it is already beating the success of my previous blog.
A few hours ago, I decided to learn sign language. Again, this is not my first attempt at learning sign language, I already know the alphabet. However, I know unless there's some external motivation, that will probably be it.
I actually started this post intending to also write about something else, but I don't remember what now.
Maybe instead of simply a short attention span, I just have the memory of a goldfish.
EDIT: Stop telling me this blog won't last til whenever! I intend to keep this one going, really.
Couple this with the fact that I like trying (nearly) absolutely everything, this explains a lot. Throughout my life I have attended lessons for ice-skating, swimming, ballet, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, badminton, tennis, rock-climbing and sailing, and those are just the sports. At a buffet I will put a bit of everything onto my plate, except for those disgusting things like beetroot and cheese.
A week or so ago, I decided to learn guitar, completely from scratch. Learnt the notes, a few chords, a few songs. Haven't touched it in the last few days. When I start something new, I throw myself wholeheartedly into whatever it is. I printed off the chords with fret drawings, cut them out and make them into impromptu flash card type things. I haven't used them once.
A couple of days ago, I decided to make this blog. This is not my first attempt at blogging, I started a blog once upon a time ago. It had one post in it, and if I recall correctly, it was titled "I wonder what this button does...". After that, I never touched it again and promptly forgot all about it. I didn't even remember I had previously made a blog until I finished making this one when things seemed a bit all too familiar. I also have a msn space thing (http://gloria3107.spaces.live.com/), but that's slowly sitting there collecting dust in the cyber world. Undoubtedly, the posting frequency of this blog will over time decline drastically, but at least it is already beating the success of my previous blog.
A few hours ago, I decided to learn sign language. Again, this is not my first attempt at learning sign language, I already know the alphabet. However, I know unless there's some external motivation, that will probably be it.
I actually started this post intending to also write about something else, but I don't remember what now.
Maybe instead of simply a short attention span, I just have the memory of a goldfish.
EDIT: Stop telling me this blog won't last til whenever! I intend to keep this one going, really.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
So, I made one of these...
Asides from what is already stated in the title, there's not much other point to this post.
This blog is looking pretty boring as of right now, but I can't really be bothered looking up/stealing other people's html codes and that jazz so maybe later.
p.s. HAPPY NEW YEAR !!
This blog is looking pretty boring as of right now, but I can't really be bothered looking up/stealing other people's html codes and that jazz so maybe later.
p.s. HAPPY NEW YEAR !!
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