Wednesday, December 31, 2008
~ 12/31/2008 09:00:00 AM ~
Truly, as I have mentioned in the last entry, a November morning in Singapore is chilling. A bright, sunny December afternoon in China, however, is freezing. That is how it is.
I did not go out far in Tianjin honestly, apart from roaming in the circular (not exact) area with my house as the centre and one thousand metre as radius, helping to buy food from the neighbouring supermarket, and Crazy English magazine from newsstand opposite the gate of my residential area. I need to keep myself being dipped in an English environment all the time even I was away from one of the most authentic one is South East Asia. Oh, I also purchased some movies as well, and they might come from Somali if you know what I mean, because the movies were so cheap.
However, I did take a longer journey in Tianjin, on the Christmas Eve, because my best friend Tianyu’s house was outside what we called “Outmost Boundary”, meaning the most remote area in Tianjin, because it was away from the heartland. The houses there were grand, and they loomed into my view from the dark as Chenmeng and I walked into the residential area in the evening. Nevertheless, the security at the gate was poor in explaining directions. Left, right, left. Better than Left, left, left. Otherwise we would find ourselves have walked in a circle and came back in front of him. It snowed the day before, and everything was covered in icy, milky carpet. Actually it was more than my description. The snow had been so heavy that it made riding bicycles or even driving a difficulty. I say “we walked with snow crunching under our feet”, but I would rather prefer “we waded in the snow and had to avoid having shoes sunk inside the snow.”
That night, we had a potluck dinner, or Bring Our Own Food, if you still remember the still-not-too-old J1 students’ catastrophe just ended two months ago. Fortunately I did not think of that then, and I had a good appetite. The salad, grilled beef, pork and chicken on the table were very popular. The movie we watched that night was Zohan, a quite GP-friendly movie with a collection of facts about Obama, Afghanistan and Martin Luther King. It was a fantastic comedy, something much more than a PG of course.
That is all I can tell so far. I wish to stay at home, but I also could not wait getting my hands on the new semester, though I know much tougher things will be waiting, maybe I have to deal with the same thing again. But I know when the competition, which is against my will, is over, what is lost will be restored. Let's hope, or let's pray.
