well, I've been back in Shen Zhen for the past 3 days and I leave this afternoon. I can say that things seem better than the last time I was here 1 year ago. Most of construction work that was going on last year is now complete and the city is actually looking pretty nice these days. This time around I stayed at the same hotel that I stayed at when I first visited SZ. Novotel. Last time that I was at Novotel they were also doing construction. So they're also finished and the hotel feels better than it did before.

It's funny, when I had to decide between hotels, I had to decide between Novotel and a cheaper one down the street. Now that I have to pay for my own expenses, I almost decided to stay at the cheaper hotel. But luckily I decided to live a little more comfortably at the hotel where my colleague is staying at. I didn't consider all the different costs that my friend could cover for me because she still has an expense account. So she helped cover some meals and taxi fares.

 

Anyways, I've only been here for two days and it already feels like I've been here for weeks. (basically, quickly adjusted to the same feeling of the place as I had before). It's fun to be here, but you get bored and sometimes lonely after a while. After work hours, people usually go off and do their own thing.  My friend that's here right now on business has been here for almost 6 weeks. She's been living in the hotel and speaks almost no Chinese. I can only imagine how lonely and frustrating it must be for her to live in SZ.

 

So I head back for BJ tonight and then it's time to get ready for orientation training and finish writing up the marketing report.

...And see off a friend to the airport :(

I just arrived in Shen Zhen today. Soon as I got here I spent the time with some old co-workers to just talk about life and business :)

 

I checked into the hotel and got ready for a shower...so I was taking a shower and there were two bottles of "liquid" in the shower stall. For some reason I just assumed one was shampoo and the other was conditioner. Well I was wrong, I ended up washing my hair again with body soap. good job eric!

 

Anyways..I'm staying at the Novotel. I stayed here before 2 years ago when I was in SZ for business. I can say that they've made a lot of improvements since I was last here. not bad.

Man, travelling to ShenZhen in a few minutes and I was trying to find my hong kong money...couldn't distinguishing what was what!!!

I almost mistakened Taiwan money for HK money.

so this is the currencies I have so far:

 

Korea

Thailand

Japan

Hongkong

Canada

USA

China

Taiwan

 

:) 

I just realized my problem...i think with my head too much!! and not with my heart !

Why is it that the ones we love the most are the ones we hurt the most?

 

So I was thinking the other day about my first gf. We went out for about 2 and half years. The first year was all good (as I remember) but then I think after I left for University it was kind of downhill from there. Constant arguing, crying, late nights talking on the phone, u know that kind of stuff. Anyways, I used to think that I did what I could to make everything work. (basically almost saying that it wasn't my fault for the break up) But now thinking things over, I was probably more at fault then I realize. 

To this day, people still say I'm somewhat "engineer like",  but if I'm "engineer like" right now then I must have been very very "engineer like" before. Perhaps too straightforward thinking, too rigid, too black and white. I'd like to think that I've changed since then but actually I think it's something I still need to actively work on...hmmm..

 

I dunno, these days it feels like with a certain "friend", that unless I work harder at improving these aspects they will lose their patience on me.

So that means I shouldn't take things for granted, learn to appreciate the things around you and show it, and I should put more effort into improving certain things, i.e studying Chinese, etc.

I feel frustrated. Difficult to explain.

weird..i just had a strange dream last night. For the longest time i haven't been able to remember any of my dreams at all. But today it was kinda of nightmare/dream. I dreamnt that I got fired at work because I left out some confidential documents in public. Such a strange dream. I think maybe it has to do with the anxiety I'm feeling with the project we're doing with Intel. Not sure.

 

Anyways, before I went to bed I was thinking about my friends again. I was thinking about the kinds of problems that they might have had to go through while they were growing up. I could just imagine them in their teenage years at home just trying to get through high school and having to deal with "issues" at home. I can't imagine how tough it is to deal with family problems. I'm happy that my family is quite simple. We don't really celebrate anything regularly, (xmas, cny, etc.) we don't travel much and our lifestyle was always quite simple. At times when I was young I kinda wished we did more "stuff" but now that I think about it I'm much happier for the fact that our family is simple and free of problems. When I was growing up I never had to think about family problems. Sure there were arguments here and there but never anything that lasted longer than a few days. My parents always made sure that all I had to worry about was school. Despite being so lazy as a kid, luckily I was able to do quite well in school. But I think I could've done much more better...oh well.

So ya just thinking about the things my friends might have had to gone through when they were growing up just makes me so thankful for the family I have now. Thank you God! Sometimes when I see my friends I wonder if they still have psychological scars and if they still linger inside them. At first glance, you would think there's nothing wrong but sometimes I just want to sit down beside them and ask "Are things ok?"

 

Come to think of it, I think talked about this before in my blog but it was about someone else.

 

Oh, ok, I know why I started thinking about this. I think it's because I was watching Adam Sandler's movie "Reign over me". And yes this is a serious movie, not his usually funny nonsense movies.  The movie's about a guy who looses his wife and three kids in a plane crash and then he goes into psychological denial about everything that's happened. He looses touch with reality and withdraws himself from society. Only till an old good friend finds him again can he escape the despair. Quite sad but a good movie.

 

oh went to a "mafia" bar yesterday...basically a place where you go to play mafia. (杀人）

quite interesting...

I'll talk more about this later... :)