Visit to the Birdsnest and Water Cube

Water Cube

Birdsnest

Was in Beijing last week for business. It has been 5 years since I last visited Beijing and I am quite impressed with the air quality of Beijing now. I don't know but the 2 days that I was there, the weather was great and the sky was blue. I didn't feel air pollution like I used to remember Beijing for 5 years ago. I used to hear from taxi drivers that residents of Beijing hardly get to see blue sky...This time, I saw blue skies for consecutively 2 days! Look at the photos!

On the day of departure, I managed to steal a couple of hours to visit the Olympics ground where the famous Olympics sports stadium "Birdsnest" and the swimming complex "Water Cube" are situated. The "Birdsnest" was really quite majestic and the walls of "Water Cube" really did looked like many bubbles stuck together! Really cute.

Anything is Possible

Li-Ning is a famous sports wear brand in China own by famous Olympics Gold Medalist, Li-Ning. Li-Ning was also one of the official sports wear sponsor for the Beijing Olympics. This photo was taken at Wangfujing, Beijing and the shop was right opposite Nike and Adidas.

Nike says "Nothing is Impossible".
Adidas says "Impossible is Nothing".

And Li-Ning says "Anything is Possible"! That's Chinese creativity for you~ :D

1 down and 17 more to go...

Sorry for not blogging for so long, folks. I have been really really busy with my studies these days. I have just completed my 1st subject on Organisational Behaviour and had my final exams over the weekend. *Phew*

It was an open-book exams, fully online and I have exactly 24 hours after downloading the exams question to submit online. I really love studying like this, I woke up around 11am on Saturday, made myself some nice hazelnut latte, log-in to U21Global campus and started to download my exams paper. It was very relaxing, definitely much better than having to go to a venue for the exams. The best thing about it was, I didn't have to worry about getting to the venue on time, no worry if the place will be overly air-conditioned like most indoor places in Hong Kong and I didn't even have to worry about having to do my make-up and hair! I was still in my pajama when I started to work on my paper. :D

It was quite a long paper, I had to give a proposal as an organisational change management consultant to this imaginary large IT firm based in New York who have just acquired an Indian IT firm and was facing many challenges both internally and with the workers union in the US. I was expected to give the CEO a coherent change management plan to help him solve all the problems that his firm was facing and get the firm back on track for revenue growth. Open-book as it was, the paper was not easy. I was expected to submit a proposal within 24 hours with standards comparable to a team assignment with long deadline. I worked through the day, stopping only for meals, shower and I worked through the night. By the time I completed my proposal, it was 18 hours later! Yes, I worked til I saw day-light at 6am the next morning...

Hubby was sweet, he stayed up the whole time just in case I needed help from him with the PC, made me coffee late in the night and ocassionally gave me kisses for "mental support". He also helped me find the perfect coverpage for the proposal from Office 2007 templates.

TGIF~

Thank God It's Friday! This week has passed kind of fast as Wednesday was a public holiday. It was China's National Day and Hong Kong being part of China now gets to celebrate with a day off. Hubby and I went on a tour organised by the management of our condominium. We went on a boat trip for white dolphin-watching around the waters of Hong Kong and also to catch the National Day fireworks at Victoria Harbour. Going on a boat trip is never a thing for me as I get sea-sick very easily. But since it will be our last year in Hong Kong, so I thought I should just brave the trip and hopefully make it a memorable one for us. With the help of 3 sea-sick pills, I didn't get sick at all! :D

One major disappointment of the trip was that there was no sighting of any white dolphins...we sighted some "flying" little fishes though. There must be thousands of them swimming in groups and they would jump out of the water for a few times consecutively. It was quite a funny sight but other than that, it was just endless hours on the boat which had no comfortable seats. All the seats were either plastic or wooden and I developed so much body aches sitting and sleeping on them. The sea-sick pills made me really sleepy...*yawn*

Dinner was at a really rustic fishermen village in Tung Chung. The food was just so-so and the place reminds me of some old kampongs in Malaysia. Not too bad, at least I didn't get sick from eating the food there. After dinner was another 2 hours' boat ride to Victoria Harbour for the National Day fireworks display. I had expected to be blown away but then again, I was disappointed. It wasn't as exhilarating as I had hope it would be. For a moment I was wondering if I had lost it, lost the feelings that I used to have for fireworks... I remember myself weeping with emotions everytime I watch the National Day fireworks back home in Singapore...Hubby reconfirmed that the fireworks display back home was much, much, MUCH FANTASTIC! :D