In Search of Sydney U

I was so tired after unpacking til 3am last night, I slept til 11am before getting up to shower and have brunch. Met Mong Ling after tt at Broadway to buy some groceries and then took a taxi down to her place at Mallett Street, which is just a stone's throw from the Mallett St campus. Basically spent my day exploring the route to the main campus and the Mallett St campus, since I'll be having my orientation at the former and studying at the latter.

The place didn't look half as bad as what pple described, altho it does look much less glam than the main campus.

Sydney is Spiderland! There r lotsa huge webs everywhere (especially in Mong Ling's place, which has been vacant since Nov 07).

Took this photo along the road while walking back from Mong Ling's place, which was approximately 25 mins walk from Unilodge. These spiders are really FAT, but not yet the biggest I've seen.

After walking 20 mins, I arrived at the main campus of Sydney U, which is where our orientation will be held from 20-21 Feb.

The entrance.

The road leading up to the main building.

The sun was so strong that I could hardly open my eyes!

This is the path leading from the campus to Victoria Park.

It's a pretty neat place. Small, but at least it's got a pond and lotsa birds.

After walking around Victoria Park, I went back to Unilodge (just across the road) and cooked dinner.

Had kangaroo sausages with pasta for dinner today. First meal that I cook in Sydney. Kangaroo meat is supposed to be environment-friendly cos kangaroos eats less than cows and sheeps and does not emit methane (a greenhouse gas) like they do. Kangaroo is also high in protein, iron and zinc, and very low in fat. Well, tasted like PIG LIVER! Lol. Will prob eat it again tho, since it's environment-friendly, healthy and CHEAP! This whole box of gourmet sausages cost me just a little over AUD$3.

I'm missing Singapore food already! Bought this at Bi-Lo for AUD$2.47 on offer. Heh.

G'day~!

I'm in Sydney!! I'm missing everyone back at home already, especially my dear. Starting to really appreciate the cost of living back home, cos everything is so expensive here! Just forked out AUD$4.18 for a crate of 12 eggs today! That could have bought me more than 3 dozen eggs back in Singapore... Sighz.


Anyway, a big THANK YOU to those who sent me off, as well as all my well-wishers. Miss you guys lots!

Not in this photo: Zhong Quan and Huimin

Our last photo before I left...

Caught some really cool shots of Aussie from the plane (Adelaide I think)!

Finally we're in Sydney!

The weather was really great when we arrived. Wanna go to the beach!

The Maxi-taxi that took us to Unilodge.

Saw this guy along the way! Is he going to the MEGA SALE?? NO! He's the postman! LOL.

The building that looks like a museum is Unilodge, my home for the next 2-3 months.


My room's really nice and cosy...

...Only AFTER I finished unpacking though! ;P
This is the living area.

My desk...


Bird's eye view from my loft...


My bed and wardrobe's in the loft. =)


And finally, the attached toilet. You can see the spiral staircase in the mirror.

Well, that's all for now! Hopefully I can keep this up and blog thruout my 9 months in Aussie!

She's leaving!

How time flies. Before we know it, Gladys is going to leave Singapore in less than 24 hours! It's quite scary actually. Will I miss her? Of course I will. Luckily she's only going for 9 months and I'm gonna visit her in May/June.

STOP BULLYING EDISON CHEN! 不要在欺负陈冠希了！

Steven Lim is at it again! This time it's about the photos of Edison Chan. Honestly, I personally feel that it's rather embarrassing. I wonder how he gets the courage to do all these stuff.

My Last Week

Well, finally started clearing my leave and in just 1 more week, I'll be in Sydney. Not feeling particularly sad/excited/scared etc. In fact, I'm too darn lazy to start packing. As for my plans for this whole week, I'm already almost fully booked. Better try to squeeze in some time for packing!!!


P.S. Oh yeah, before I forget, Happy Lunar New Year~! It's been more of like a LUNATIC new year for me so far. Too much to do, too little time left! I did manage to win $21 in mahjong today though (Free dinner for 2! Thanks Danny!). ^.^

Happy Lunar New Year

Happy Lunar New Year to whoever is reading this! 恭喜發財

I'm hoping that 2008 in the Lunar year will be a better year for me. And for Gladys. And for all my friends and family. Here's wishing all the best to you!

And is anyone interested in going for blood donation with Gladys and I on Saturday? It's Lunar New Year period, but Gladys and I are probably going for blood donation this coming Saturday in the afternoon. If anyone is interested in going with us, let us know!

Leaving Soon...

Just signed my deed with Singhealth today for the scholarship and all of a sudden, it just hit me that I'm leaving Singapore in just slightly more than 2 weeks. I feel so moody now, missing everyone and everything here even before I'm gone and feeling scared of this new place that I'll be going to for 10 months.

Oh well... Perhaps I'll feel better when I finally receive my visa approval and when David can confirm when he'll be coming to Sydney. Then I can add yet another TickerFactory counter on this blog!

Photo Updates on Koreans Visit - 1st Day

As promised, I'm gonna post some of the photos that I took when Myung Sun and her Korean AMSC friends came over to Singapore 2 weeks ago.

It was really an exciting time for Mervyn and me. We were really looking forward to seeing Myung Sun again. It's been 2 years since we last saw her in Canada. I must say that we were quite stumped over how to bring 14 people around. Luckily, they decided to break up into small groups in the end, so we just took a small group around. Anyway, after a hour's wait and straining our necks looking out for Myung Sun, we finally saw her at around 4pm. The funny thing was we watched her come out of the gate, but she did not notice us until we were right at her face. :) Of course, the first photo was of the 3 of us in the airport:

We took the train down to Bugis to go to their hostel in Little India:

After a long walk from the train station, we finally arrived at their hostel, The InnCrowd:

I must say that I was quite surprised at the prices of the backpackers' inn in Singapore. For just SGD20 a night, you can get a bed in an air-conditioned room, with free Internet and free breakfast! Considering how expensive it is to live in Singapore, it's quite cheap.

They didn't have meals on the plane ride from Thailand to Singapore since they took AirAsia, so they were really hungry by the time they settled down for dinner. I think it was about 8pm before we reached Outram Park temporary market. We separated into two tables, with two ladies joining me and Mervyn. Well... Of course, since they sat with us, we had to treat them to a good spread of local food, which included malay kangkong, Bedok chui kuey the famous claypot rice of that market, sugarcane juice and glass jelly which they did not have in Korea. I hope they enjoyed the meal:

The Koreans were really into the tropical fruits, having came from a temperate country. And furthermore, fruits are really expensive there. When Myung Sun told us that even an apple costs around USD3 to USD4 in Korea, Mervyn and I were really shocked and not surprised at how the Koreans were so fascinated with the fruits here. How lucky are we Singaporeans to be able to get nice fruits at such cheap prices!

We brought them down to the Chinatown area, and then walked all the way down to Clarke Quay. Two of the Koreans were daring enough to try the G-Max Swing:

Honestly, I got scared just looking at them taking the ride. I think the older I get, the more cowardly I get. And perhaps, it's not just me, but a lot of people as well.

Of course, since they're all medical students, how could I not show them The Clinic? For those of you who don't know what's The Clinic, it's a hospital-theme pub, where they have wheelchairs and hospital beds for seats. They even serve drinks in IV bags, but those drinks cost SGD50 per bag, so I never tried them.

Leaving them at Clarke Quay to enjoy themselves, Mervyn and I caught the last train back home.

Of course, those are not all the pictures I took. For all the pictures I took on the first day, follow this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/clldavid/2008_01_14AMSCKoreanStudentsVisitDay1

Life is getting harder...

Life is really getting harder... Inflation rate is getting higher, prices are getting higher, interest rates are getting lower.

Going back to GTS

I just received an email from the Management Associate Programme (MAP) manager of DBS. I've been given a placement in Global Transaction Services (GTS) as per my request. Actually, I requested for either GTS, or somewhere in Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB), with no preference of one over the other. But well, I think GTS is a good place to work in. I've been there before and I know that the people there are nice, and there's a lot of things to learn. Plus there's quite a bit of development area in the department, since the department has embarked on something new in the past year. Also, the department deals with the products, and supports the front end of not only the Singapore office, but also works with the offices of other countries.

For those of you who are lost in the terms, Global Transaction Services basically deal with transactional banking products. It's not a very front end job like the Relationship Managers (RMs), but it's also not that back-end as we go out with the RMs to meet the clients as well. There will be lots of things to learn, it won't be easy, but I do think the challenge is quite interesting. I hope I'll do well there.