So! I’ve been here in HK for almost 3 weeks now. It’s nearing the end of my trip; I’ll be coming back to Vancouver on Monday!! I guess you can say I’m looking forward to going home, but I also want to stay here a bit longer too haha… Unfortunately, it’s back to school for me this semester, so I’m going to have to leave for sure…

Hmmm I’m not going to bother with any detailed explanations here. Basically, I spent most of my money on clothes within the first week that I was here… I didn’t really buy a LOT in terms of quantity, but I think that the quality of the clothes I bought are pretty good. Don’t expect my entire wardrobe to be completely different!! I think the biggest part of my trip that I wanted to update was my terrible Christmas Eve…

Basically, on the 23rd at night (24th midnight/early morning) I suddenly woke up feeling really sick, as if something was stuck in my stomach and wouldn’t go up or down. Anyhow, I ended up having diarrhea and vomiting through the night (3 times I think? Maybe even 4? I lost count…). Needless to say, I wasn’t even able to get up from bed on the 24th. So, I spent Christmas eve in bed!!!!!!!!! Christmas Day wasn’t that much better either… I still wasn’t feeling that great, and I really only had enough energy to get up and walk around slowly around the mall that’s connected to my hotel, but wasn’t really shopping or anything. I slept again for most of the day…

Good thing is, by the 27th I was pretty much feeling 100% and I could eat normally again. I went to Disneyland with a friend, and that was pretty fun. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much at the beginning. However, after spending a couple of hours, I had a lot of fun and we ended up staying for like 8 hours!!

After missing out on Christmas eve, I made sure that I had something to do for New Year’s Eve. The thing is, it wasn’t really THAT great haha… I went to TST with a friend to watch the fireworks, and we were there since 7:30pm (fireworks weren’t until 12…). Normally, that wouldn’t be much of a problem. However, I didn’t have a PSP, and it was [strong]really[/strong] windy. And I mean… really windy… Anyways, we stayed for the whole thing, so at least we didn’t stand in the wind for nothing haha…

Anyways, like I said, this is supposed to just be a summary. If you want to see my pictures, visit my facebook:
www.facebook.com/clickk

I’ll have a much longer and detailed blog update when I get back home! Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!!

You may be asking, how did these circumstances arise? Well, to tell the story, I must start from when we purchased the plane tickets, back in March of this year. At that time, it was arranged in such a way that my dad would leave on November 30th, my mom December 10th, and I December 20th. The reason for this (as far as I know) was because my dad wanted to go back a week earlier than my mom so that he can go golfing with his friends. I wasn’t leaving until the 20th, because at that time, I was still looking for a co-op job for this Fall semester and I wasn’t sure if I could find one. If I could, however, then I wouldn’t be able to leave until (I estimated) around the 20th.

Fast forward a little bit now; when the Fall semester came, I still hadn’t found a co-op job, so I gave up and decided to just take the semester off. Now, since I don’t have any obligations for the semester, there was no reason for me to have to wait until the 20th before I left for HK (wouldn’t be very fun, to leave for only 2 weeks anyways!). Therefore, my mom tried to change my departure date to leave the same day as her. However, her flight was already full, and the closest date would’ve been the 11th. It really didn’t make much sense to have to drive her to the airport one day and have her fly by herself, and then I fly by myself again a day later, so we changed BOTH of our departure dates, and ended up changing it to the 7th. In hindsight, it would’ve been a much smarter idea to change our dates to the same flight as my dad so we could all leave together, and also get an extra week to play in HK… Anyhow, whatever the reason, the conclusion was that my mom and I would leave Dec. 7th, and my dad would leave Nov. 30th. Everything was fine leading up to the end of November. I started my countdown somewhere around 250 days, and slowly counted down, day by day, until it finally reached 30. I was getting more and more excited as the days got closer and closer to 0!

Anyhow, fast forward a little bit more now… So, November 30th was last week today. I drove my dad to the airport while mom was at work. Everything was great, and as I saw my dad off, I couldn’t help but think, “it’ll be me walking through those gates in a week!!” Before he left, he had told me to make sure I took care of my mom so that she stays healthy and able to board the plane when the time comes. Little did I know, the unforeseen circumstances that came up today was exactly that. My mom is feeling sick and did not feel up to getting on a plane for 14 hours.

Long story short, she’s suffering from ‘vertigo’ — in Chinese: 耳水不平衡 — and feels really dizzy and disconnected all the time. So she called and postponed our departure dates to the earlier date possible: Dec. 11th. That’s in four days, on Friday, and we leave in the afternoon around 3pm. Judging by her state right now, it seems pretty slim that we’ll get to leave. Unfortunately, if we don’t leave on Friday, then we won’t be going back to HK at all and my dad will come back. We’ll just end up spending Christmas here.. or maybe we’ll go somewhere closer? Anyhow.. if we do end up going to HK, we will arrive sometime around 9 or 10pm in HK on Dec. 12. That’s also my dad’s birthday, so we’ll end up missing MOST of his birthday… Also, our Japan trip was scheduled to be Dec. 13-18… However, given my mom’s situation, I highly doubt she’d be able to fly 14 hours to go to HK, and then next morning get on another plane and fly another few hours to Tokyo. To be honest, I don’t even think I’d have much energy to do something like that… So, I’m pretty sure the Japan trip will end up being cancelled, regardless of if we make it to HK…

At this time, I’m really not asking for much; I just hope my mom gets better, and we can make it to HK to spend Christmas.

With all this happening, that’s also why I suddenly feel that the new school semester is just around the corner. At first, with the HK trip, I was still thinking, “there’s still a one-month trip in a faraway place that I can enjoy before having to think about school!” But now, if we really don’t end up going to HK, school will seriously feel like it’s just around the corner, since it’ll just be the same routine here in Vancouver that I’ve been doing for the past 3 months… Anyhow….

For Spring, I’ve enrolled myself in 5 engineering courses. That’s 15 credits total — now, it’s not actually 5 3-credit courses, but there are a couple of 4-credit courses and a couple of 1-credit courses. My schedule — in general — is pretty decent. I don’t really have that many complaints about it… I have lots of time to go to badminton drop-ins on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I can even fit it in on Tuesdays if I really wanted to. The only big complaint I have is Tuesday… My first class is a tutorial at 9:30 in the morning (haven’t had a morning class in ages!!!), and I then have a huge 3-hour break… After my 3-hour break, I have 5 straight hours of lectures and tutorials!!! I have no idea how I’m going to survive through that, but I guess only time will tell… Anyhow, click the picture to enlarge it so you can actually see what my classes are, hahaha… I compressed it compared to the schedule that’s displayed on GoSFU.. The GoSFU one shows each box as half an hour, but I compressed it so that each box is one hour. Makes my schedule looks a lot prettier than it really is hahahaha

Then… we were originally told that there would be two wireless microphones, since both Andy and I needed one. On the day of, however, one of the mics didn’t work, so the only thing I could do was either use a wired mic, or use the ear mic (the ones that hang from your ear.. the ones that singers use when they have to dance and sing at the same time). I didn’t want to use the ear mic, so I was stuck with the wired mic. So we finally got everything set up, and the sound check was perfect. We were ready to perform!!

Of the 5 performers, Andy and I were the last ones to go, so they had to move the keyboard off to the side (so it doesn’t get in the way of the other performers). Finally, when it was our turn, we had to bring the keyboard and table and everything back out.. After setting it up, I started playing and singing.. From my perspective, everything seemed to be going fine, since I could hear the piano fine, and — since there were no monitor speakers towards the stage — I wasn’t able to hear if the singing was too loud compared to the piano or whatever. It wasn’t until AFTER the performance that people told me that the piano was really quiet. So I was wondering… did someone change the volume when they moved the keyboard out of the way? But I JUST found out what the problem was!!!

Take a look at this picture! On the back of the keyboard, there are 2 cables plugged in. One is for the pedal, and the other is the power adapter. There’s also an empty input there!! That was supposed to be where the cable goes to plug the piano into the speakers!!!!!!!! So the problem was… When they moved the keyboard out of the way, they also unplugged it, and I didn’t realize =.=

Anyhow, that itself wasn’t a HUGE problem… for our performance, I start off by playing the piano and singing Khalil’s Singalongsong. At this point, the audience thinks that I am the only performer, and that this is the performance already. However, when I repeat the chorus the second time around, I stop playing the piano, and Andy — who’s sitting with the audience the whole time — starts beatboxing to my singing. So when we reached that part, I decided to take the mic off the stand so I could hold it and sing. When I did that, the cord for the mic fell off!!!!!! So then I had to end up singing extra loud to make up for the fact that I didn’t have a microphone to use!!! Then, the same problem happened again later on, in the middle of our performance… The whole thing seemed sooo sloppy…

And besides that.. When I was singing Billie Jean, I totally went offkey on one of the notes =.= and I’m sure it sounded terrible… I’m a little scared to see the video now, if there is one.. Anyhow, I’m still happy that our performance was enough to get us first place!!

Anyhow… during the first few weeks of playing with my parents, my dad somehow got a really high score of 237. I don’t even know how he did it now.. maybe it was beginner’s luck?? He doesn’t even move from the starting position and just throws it, and because of the natural curve that comes from his throw, the ball entered at the perfect spot to get him 3 consecutive strikes, followed by a spare, followed by 4 more consecutive strikes. Luck or not, he had very consistent frames that game and achieved that high score. At that time, he was bragging, “No one’s going to be able to beat that score!! It’s too high!!” And at that time, I was thinking the same thing… Unless I have a VERY lucky game, I wouldn’t be able to beat it.

HOWEVER!! Lately, I’ve developed a different way of throwing the ball that gives me a much higher chance of hitting strikes, so I’ve been trying to beat his record these past few days. My own personal record was 214, but anything above 200 for me was hard to get… With this new method, however, I’ve been consistently getting scores of 180 or higher, often breaking the 200′s. Resort keeps a record of the top 5 high scores played during that day, and the 5th highest score that I got was over 200. So, I was thinking to myself… It is definitely possible for me to break my dad’s score!! However… I got very close, but no luck… The closest I got yesterday was 236, which was just ONE pin away from his record of 237. Today, I tried again, because I knew I was getting closer and closer…

I played for over an hour with still no luck… Again, I was very consistently getting high scores, but none of them were high enough to beat his record. Finally, after two hours, I was about to call it quits. My first frame of that “last” game was a strike, but I didn’t even get a spare on the second one. I told myself I was getting tired, so I’ll just bowl this last game out and then call it a day. However, my accuracy amazingly started to pick up after that frame! I didn’t miss any more frames for the rest of the game, and ended up getting a 221. I then thought to myself… “I better keep this momentum going and play another one!!!” Next game, I did very well again, and I ended up getting 237, tying my dad’s record!!! I now had a crown beside my Wii’s icon, but I thought, “No, I’m not going to share the crown.. I want it all for myself!!” So I played one more game, and had a VERY solid game. I had a score of 243, finally beating his record!!! I was SO stoked that I had to take a picture. Enjoy! XD hahahaha

Besides that, I think the biggest update thus far would be the fact that I’m performing at SMagic’s Talent Show! Basically, the event is a halloween dance/costume/cocktail party, and for the first hour and a half or so, they have a talent show portion. I had to audition and everything!! So originally… I was thinking of just singing… I was having a hard time thinking of what kind of song to sing though, because most of the songs that I know are Chinese songs, but the event’s going to be primarily English-speaking and.. well… probably a lot of white or white-washed people, so it would make more sense to sing an English song instead… At first, I was thinking of singing “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You” since the KTV was easy to find haha… But then after thinking about it a bit and talking it over with a friend, I decided to go with my friend Andy and do a joint performance! Basically, it’s a singing/beatbox show that we’re going to be doing. I’m also playing the piano and singing!! It’s gonna be a performance with absolutely NO pre-recorded music at all, so it should be really really good!! I don’t want to say too much about the performance, because it’d be best if you guys can actually come and support me XD

The auditions for the talent show went really really well though. Andy and I had only practiced for a couple of hours and just threw something together. After we performed, the judges said that they really liked our performance, and that it was really creative and really entertaining! I was so stoked after we got in!! And it’s coming up soon, so I’m getting even more excited about it!!

haha anyhow… I’ll try to update this blog a bit more in the future.. >.>

Lyrics:

Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You
唱: 方大同
曲: Michael Masser
詞: Gerald Goffin

If I had to live my life without you near me
The days would all be empty
The nights would seem so long
With you I see forever oh so clearly
I might have been in love before
But it never felt this strong

Our dreams are young
And we both know they’ll take us
Where we want to go

#Hold me now
Touch me now
I don’t want to live without you#

*Nothing’s gonna change my love for you
You ought know by now how much I love you
One thing you can be sure of
I’ll never ask for more than your love

Nothing’s gonna change my love for you
You ought know by now how much I love you
The world may change my whole life through
But nothing’s gonna change my love for you*

If the road ahead is not so easy,
Our love will lead the way for us
Just like a guiding star
I’ll be there for you if you should need me
You don’t have to change a thing
I love you just the way you are
So come with me and share the view
I’ll help you see forever too

Repeat #, *, *

我們都忘了　這條路走了多久
心中是清楚的 有一天
有一天都會停的　讓時間說真話
雖然我也害怕　在天黑了以後
我們都不知道 會不會有以後

*誰還記得　是誰先說永遠的愛我
以前的一句話　是我們以後的傷口
過了太久　沒人記得當初那些溫柔
我和你手牽手　說要一起走到最後*

我們都累了　卻沒辦法往回走
兩顆心都迷惑　怎麼說
怎麼說都沒有救　親愛的為什麼
也許你也不懂　兩個相愛的人
等著對方先說想分開的理由

誰還記得　愛情開始變化的時候
我和你的眼中　看見了不同的天空
走的太遠　終於走到分岔路的路口
是不是你和我　要有兩個相反的夢

Repeat *