December 2010 Archives

Top 20 Moments of 2010

December 31, 2010 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Due to my laziness, this entry is way late, so I'm gonna leave this up for a bit and then backdate it for my archives. After an amazing run last year, I didn't think anything could top 2009. It was then that I really got out of my comfort zone, began to travel, and started having some serious fun.

This wasn't easy, but here are my top 20 moments of 2010. I worked hard for it, and it definitely had its rewards. Looking back, it was just so amazing... I don't regret a single hour or penny that I put into planning for it. Without further ado...

1. Going to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics!

Believe it or not, Vancouver was actually my third Olympics (the others being the 2002 Salt Lake City and 2004 Athens Olympics). I'm absolutely addicted to the rush and atmosphere of competitive sports. This time was special though, because I got to enjoy it with my friends Edward, Andrew, and also my boyfriend. We got to watch curling, ice hockey, victory ceremonies and figure skating practices.

2. Enjoying Winterlicious & Wintercity!

This was the first year I participated in Summerlicious and Winterlicious. I tried five restaurants in total, and they were delightful. My sister, Jacky and I also volunteered for the Wintercity festival, and it was great to see so many kids come out to have fun.

3. Graduating.............

The UBC formal was a great night! I love dressing up, and seeing my friends looking (especially) pretty makes me happy! :) Convocation was a snoozefest but it's ok.. I'm doneee!

4. Lights/Owl City Concert

What's a year without an awesome concert? I love love LOVE live performances and shows, and Owl City was simply amazing.

5. Watching basketball

I've disliked basketball my whole life, but Jacky dragged me to a Raps game and I actually found myself liking it.. a lot. We watched three games and they were so much fun! We got amazing seats because we usually go during half time to get discounted tickets from scalpers. I think once we got lower bowl seats for.. $20?

6. EXPLORE 2010!

Explore is a 5-week French immersion program I took part of in May. It was so very rewarding. I made some amazing friends (that's you Joyce! hehe), took part in local excursions to Québec City and Montréal, and reviewed some French ;)

7. New York!!!

This marks the beginning of our 3-month megatrip. It was a nice albeit short trip. We're going again soon and hopefully we'll get to do more this time around. I love shopping in SoHo :)

8. Watching the South Africa World Cup... Live!

One of my many dreams come true. We traveled to five different cities across the country and watched six matches. We lucked out and caught a glimpse of Steve Nash and took photos with the Ghana national team. Good times.

9. Playing with wild animals :)

Lions, cheetahs, penguins, crocodiles.. You name it, we were acquainted with them in South Africa :)

10. Shark cage diving in Gansbaai, South Africa

This was extremely EXTREMELY unpleasant. I got really seasick and threw up three times. But the part where the shark came close.. I guess that was cool.

11. Driving a go-kart on the streets of Barcelona, SpainEr... Being driven around, I mean. It was a lot of fun.. kinda dangerous though.

12. Staying up all night to watch the running of the bulls!

Jacky & I took the train to Pamplona for the annual San Fermin festival. We pulled an all-nighter in the freezing cold to watch the bulls run in front of us for a total of.. 5 seconds. It was pretty cool though.

13. Adventure Camp in Neuberg, Germany

This was a lot of work, but the rewards were plentiful. It was fun working with the other counselors, and the kids were really cute. Well, most of them.

14. Splurging on Swarovski in Vienna, Austria

Ok, not really "splurging", but I spent way more in an hour at the Vienna store than I have my whole life.

15. Being totally useless in Rome, Italy (seriously..)

Maria and I were constantly making McDonald's breaks; they had the best milk shakes! We were constantly exhausted from the heat and the lack of an efficient transportation system... But the little silly things made it an awesome trip.

16. Flying on a hot air balloon in Cappadocia, Turkey

It's supposed to be one of the best places in the world to fly a hot air balloon. For that reason it was ridiculously expensive, but the views were gorgeous..

17. Riding a camel by the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt

I've always loved Egyptian history, so this was again another dream come true. The camel ride was excruciatingly uncomfortable, but you have to do it at least once...

18. ATVing by the border of North Korea

In October, Steve, Ahmed and I went to Yanji, a town that borders China with Russia and North Korea. We went all the way to the border and drove ATVs around a desert. Really memorable.

19. Potlucking with my amazing students & co-workers in Changchun, China
Since the beginning of the semester, we've organized monthly potlucks with our students. For October, November, and December, we've had Halloween-, Thanksgiving- and Christmas-themed dinners, respectively. It's something we all look forward to every month :D

20. New Year's countown at M1NT in Shanghai, China

M1NT is one of the nicest clubs I've ever been to. It's got a huge shark tank, so I mean... ;) I got sick that night, but aside from that there was a lot of eye candy.. so it was all good!

December parties & shopping~

December 26, 2010 9:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Man I've been soo lazy this past month, but it's been good fun :) I'm finally done classes, and we're gonna start traveling tomorrow! Shanghai, Xi'an, Hong Kong & Macau here we come! I get to go home for a month after that too. Awesome!

So... After a month of waiting and 2300RMB (330USD) in taxes later, my camera FINALLY arrived! I'm so relieved. It wouldn't have happened without my boss' intervention, so I'm really grateful for his help.

I've got to say though.. When I finally got the camera after this whole mess, it felt really.. Anti-climatic? In the end I wasn't as excited as I thought I'd be. I'm not really satisfied with the camera yet, but I'm sure with more practice my photos will be better.

A while ago, Katelyn and I discovered.. crackle polish! Apparently it's been around for a long time now, but I've never seen it back home. First of all, you paint a coat of regular nail polish. I chose a silver OPI for my base coat...

Then afterwards, you paint a coat of crackle polish, and it magically creates these really cool cracks. Sorry for the mess.. I was in a rush to take a pic so I didn't really clean up. Cool huh?

My nails from last month :)

Knitting progress? These are 4 scarves I made as Christmas gifts. I gave them to Michel, Katelyn, Steve, and Ahmed, respectively :)

Another scarf I'm working on right now :)

Now onto some of the shopping I've done this past month :) Recently, I've noticed a new trend here.. Apparently it's not popular (yet) at home though. Fair isle leggings! They look so cute on the students 'cause their legs are so skinny. I bought a good 5 pairs for my sisters.

I wish my legs were long and skinny~ The leggings are so cute.

When I was at Watsons, I found a brand that looked identical to Skinfood, my favourite skincare brand from Korea. I bought a bunch of stuff to test it out, and the quality is surprisingly also the same. I'm still loyal to Skinfood though!

I hosted a Christmas party the other day!! I wrote Christmas cards for all the students who came :)

It was a potluck, and we had the most delicioooous food! :)

Guess who made this....? YOURS TRULY! :) 锅包肉 is my favourite Northeastern Chinese dish, and Desiree taught me how to make it! I'm gonna make it everyday when I go back home!! :)

Yummy sushi~

Ryan bought a bunch of Santa hats for us to wear. How festive~

Ahmed and Anna!

Foreign teachers minus Leo! Whitley, Katelyn, me & Ahmed.

Hilarious Secret Santa gift that Ahmed got from Dana :D

Katelyn got an amazing necklace and a qipao from Blair! It's so gorgeous. (P.S. She's wearing the scarf I made her! Yay)

Whitley & Desiree.

I love this pic 'cause it looks like two really intimate couples LOL.

Top hats don't suit me at all...... Haha.

We had my birthday dinner the next day :) We went to a restaurant close to the school and it was amazing!

It's a local tradition for the birthday person to eat a dish of noodles.. something about it translating to a "long life"

My birthday gifts! Yay!

Blair & Liz took a photo of me and got it made into a clay figurine! Cute :)

Ahmed bought a shisha set in Beijing last month, and we went over to test it out. So cool, I don't know anyone who actually owns one haha.

Whitley looking "cool" hahaha

HAHAHA. This one's awesome 'cause you don't really see the shisha pipe.. It just looks like he's insanely angry.

BLAHHH my hair is soo boring. When I get to Hong Kong, I'm definitely doing something. Probably extensions and another perm.. Hmm.. Something to think about!

Last week, Ahmed & I had our last meeting with the kids from our language exchange club. I think this pic is hilarious.

I'm gonna make a special year-end post later. Look out for it! :)

My UPS nightmare

December 8, 2010 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 23, 2010
I buy a Canon 7D with a 28-135mm lens kit off of eBay. That is the exact listing in which I paid for the item. $199 in shipping costs puts the total to a little over $2000 CAD.

November 24, 2010
This is the day it got shipped out according to the UPS tracking website.The shipping process was going smoothly until it landed in Beijing on November 29th, 2010.

November 29, 2010
I left a message for UPS, and a broker called me back. She spoke virtually no English. She asked me to send them a copy of my passport, a list of the package content and to sign this letter:

I am not kidding. Feeling desperate, I hastily sign it and await for "good" news.

November 30, 2010
No good. Beijing customs decided to open my package and "inspect" it. At this point I am already really angry.. One fingerprint on my camera and I swear I was gonna hurt someone.

December 1, 2010
UPS tells me I need an invoice. I provide it to them. My broker Yeling replies with the following: "这个不行啊，您这是网购的吗？你申报的价值是509.25usd，这个发票怎么是1669usd？？" (This is not good, did you buy it online? You declared 509.25USD, but this receipt says 1669USD).

At this point I'm going crazy.. If the sender is going to declare a much lower value, they should at least let me know, right? Totally not my fault. I tell USP 1) the true value is 1669USD, 2) I just want my package, and 3) please use English. After a long period of correspondence, she agrees to do what she can with the documents I provided.

December 3 - 5, 2010
I email and call. No response.

December 6, 2010
Yeling: "hello,you parcel have a big problem, because the waybill value is 509.25usd,and the actually value is 1669usd,the two price are great disparity. the customs thought its had smuggle suspect,and now they need check and audit with it"

Me: Will it help if i contact the sender? I am leaving the country on December 29. Will it get here before then, if at all? What can i do to make the process faster?

December 7, 2010
Yeling: "hello,your parcel had new information. the customs let you call him ,and pls let them know the actually condition and you could discuss with them how to do with your parcel. tel:010-804XXXXX/804XXXXX/804XXXXX."

I call. I told them my situation, and they basically said it's not true and that I can't speak to them directly. "Don't believe in UPS" were their exact words. At this point I'm so furious my head is about to explode.

I email Yeling and tell her what happened. She basically said, oops, my bad, call again and look for Mr. Wang Jun. I do, and this guy speaks zero English. Way to go, UPS. I understand that I'm in China, but if you're working for freakin' UPS or China customs and you're keeping $2000 cameras from foreign girls because you're being petty, then you're asking for it.

I ask my dear friend Desiree to help translate for me and we have a lengthy 20 minute conversation. He tells me I need to write another letter to customs explaining the price discrepancy, proof that I bought the camera, etc.

He said the whole process would take 3 months. What. the. hell. IT'S A DAMN CAMERA. But nonetheless, I supposedly "broke" Chinese law. Apparently there's a law stating that you can't ship over 1000rmb ($120 CAD) in goods to China. $120CAD. My freakin' iPod is worth more than that.

I told him I'm leaving the country soon so I need it within two weeks. He said he'll see what he can do, which means that... Nothing's gonna happen.
I AM SO MADDDDDDDDDD!@#$%^&*()

Christmas wish list!

December 2, 2010 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's so fun to make a Christmas wish list! I know I'm not gonna be getting any of these, but there's no harm in wishful thinking, right? I saw a friend post one of these on Facebook, and I thought hey, why not...