北京欢迎你

Hi readers! Finally I have some time to myself again, after all the reports and settling down and everything (actually I have not really settled everything but I have done what I can do for now). Just a few updates, I am still in good terms with the girl :) though to be honest I am not very sure if our relationship can go anywhere (if we decide to take it further at all). I mean, my English is not exactly fluent; I often find myself at a loss of words, more often than I like. Moreover, Singaporeans speak much faster than many native English-speaking people in the world, which makes my "loss-of-word" moment much more pronounced. I also find it hard to express certain things to her, which I think will be a problem if we decide to take the relationship to the next level. Regardless of how this relationship will develop, I would be forever thankful to her for, directly or indirectly, teaching me lessons about relationship. For example, now I understand what people mean when they say "communication is important in a relationship". I know it is important, but without experiencing it yourself, it is really just a cliché phrase to blurt out to your attached friend when he/she is having problem with their other half. Now I also know why sharing common values is important in a relationship (both of us are cheapos lol), why LDR fails (I have not met her for only a few days and yet I'm already missing her :( missing her smile, her smell, her antiques, her everything... And I am not even attached to her), why understanding is important (you readers know how unusual she is. Trying to understand why she behaves in certain ways has enabled me to see her in a different light), why.... Why am I talking about all these now... ("Curcol" alert)

Anyway, my initial intention of writing this post is to share with you all my first impressions living in a 4-seasoned country. One thing that strikes me hard the most is the importance of weather forecast when planning your days. Back in my home country and Singapore, I never, ever (literally, not even once) check the weather forecast. Weather forecast app is always one of the first apps that I delete when I buy a new phone, thinking that it is just another bloatware. But everything changes when the fire nation attacked (ok sorry). So that day we (Tsinghua exchanger from NUS) went shopping to a supermarket just outside the campus (rather far from our dormitory). It was just a light rain when we set off so we thought it should be fine to just ride our bikes with umbrella. We could not be more wrong; when we were about to go back, the rain got really heavy and we decided to wait in the supermarket for a while, thinking that it is going to stop shortly, just like the rains we encounter in our home country. But we waited, waited and waited, but the rain did not even get lighter. So one checked his weather app and found that the rain is forecasted to stop tomorrow afternoon. Thus we decided to brave the rain. However, the rain was so heavy and some of us cannot ride a bike with one hand (one hand to hold the umbrella while the other to control the bike), resulting in some of us drenched from head to toe. One guy jokingly said, "北京欢迎你" (reference to the 2008 Beijing Olympic song). Lesson learnt: check the weather forecast before making any travel arrangements.

Seriously, though, as someone who has never travelled so far in his whole life, the weather here really shocked me. How is it possible for the sun to shine so brightly in the afternoon and yet the air is as cold as 20 degree C? How is it possible for the sky to be so bright and the wind blowing peacefully in the afternoon, and in a blink of an eye, the wind blows very strongly such that it causes many bikes parked around the dormitory to topple. Just 2 weeks in and I know why all the people from 4-seasoned country always say that the weather in tropical countries is the best. Now I totally agree with them.

So yeah, I just would like to share my initial impression of the weather here. I think it would be quite fun for me to read this post again when I am going back to Singapore from my exchange here in China. How naive I was to think everywhere in the world will feel like Singapore... Hahahaha.

Anyhow, gonna end my post here. All the best in your future endeavours! :D