14th Day in Vietnamland

Best of 14 days of Vietnam

Date : 16th December 2008
Day 1
Location : Bui Vien Street, HCMC

I was riding behind Phoebe all the time. She picked me up from the airport and settled down in the MC house. Met up with Murad (again) and went out for lunch with other sg @ers and discussion with phoebe about JD.

Date : 17th December 2008
Day 2
Location : Some random restaurant, HCMC

Lijun's arrival, we had a welcome dinner thingy and it was a great meal. Saigon red, Hot pot random stuffs, bun (read as boon, a kind of noodles), Banh Khot, Banh xeo and other random stuffs.






Date : 18th December 2008
Day 3
Location : Somewhere in district 1, HCMC

My first day to RMIT, started off with a good breakfast pho ga(chicken noodles). met bunch of cool RMIT people. the campus is great.




Date : 19th December 2008
Day 4
Location : CanCham, HCMC

Went to a random xmas party in some rich man's house. Paid ridiculous price for it for not enough food and no beer. interesting people we met in the "party" anyway.










Date : 20th December 2008
Day 5
Location : Cu Chi tunnel

I was discussing strategies to fight against the US army with the VC (viet cong). It was an interesting day finding out more about the religion at cao dai temple.

Date : 21st December 2008

Day 6

Location : Somewhere, HCMC

i went to this place for dinner, a huge area where they decorate it as HCMC many many many years back. Free flow of traditional vietnamese food at a place with good scenery and nice environment

Date : 22nd December 2008

Day 7

Location : Somewhere near the airport, HCMC

Had chicken feet as "dinner". picked up Andy from the airport and moved out of MC house at night to a place nearer to RMIT.

Date : 23rd December 2008

Day 8

Location : Somewhere near Ben Thanh market, HCMC

Went to this place something like a bakery for smoothies and bread. Quite expensive for Vietnamese standard of pricing. But its good environment and stuff.

Date 24th December 2008

Day 9

Location : Loc's House, HCMC

Instant noodles + beer + ice cream for dinner at home. The beer in the pic is for display only. we didnt actually finish off all the beer.

Date : 25th December 2008

Day 10

Location : Phuong's house, Vung Tau

BBQ dinner at phuong's house. Nice beach, great fun with cool people. Cheap and good beer and nice hot pot stuff.

Date : 26th December 2008

Day 11

Location : Some beach, Vung Tau

went to the beach and got my sun glasses for 20,000 VND (abit less than 2sgd). Slacked at the beach for almost the whole day and really good time there. I miss there now.

Date : 27th December 2008

Day 12

Location : RMIT, HCMC

picture with LC RMIT after LCP election. Congratulations to Thao for being the LCP.

Date : 28th December 2008

Day 13

Location : Somewhere, Mekong Delta

1 day tour to My Tho city and took some random boat rides around the river. visited a few places, drank some honey tea, had some fresh fruits with traditional vietnamese singing, and a coconut candy factory.

Date : 29th December 2008

Day 14

Location : Loc's house, HCMC

Breakfast bought by Lam, its called Ba'nh Cuo^'n. Its some super nice rice skin wrapping some vege and some pork. I know whatever i say doesnt really make sense, but i know how it taste like so its ok.

Interesting Vietnam

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6th day in vietnamland

Sunday, 21st December. 

6th day in Vietnam. 

Location. King Baguetteria, Tran Quang Khai, HCM, VN

I arrived in Vietnam about 1 hour late from scheduled. Sighz, tiger airways. Meeting phoebe who picked me up in the airport is a good feeling. The others got their trip 99% planned by Long through booked trips.  

My first time travelling in scooter with my backpack, phoebe almost had no leg space coz of my backpack. first shock was seeing Murad coming out of the MC house half naked, he got no more red hair.
 

The lunch was great, for about 6sgd, we had buffet kinda thing in a proper restaurant. Great not because of the food, i mean the food was mediocre, but the 6sgd for buffet was great. 

Get to go out for a vietnamese hot pot kind of thing on the 2nd day evening for dinner, met up with Li Jun who just arrived. of course other @ers as well. the hot pot is really good. started liking Viet food after that. 

After which i spent 2 days in RMIT, helping out in SRB and meeting up with the members of RMIT. ALL of them bunch of fun people. apparently RMIT Vietnam is exactly the same as RMIT Aus, buildings are similar, you get the same degree, and they even studied australian law. o, the ice cream in RMIT is reallllyy good. I had that for twice after lunch everyday.  

I also spent an evening in some so called xmas party in cancham, which i think is super overpriced for "not enough food", "loads of ang mohs" in a "rich man's house". But getting to know lam and loc is good fun. at least i managed to pick up some random viet there. 

and not to forget a day of cao dai temple and cu chi tunnel (read as gu qi tunnel). With long there as translator and tourguide its really great fun travelling in Vietnam. But i dont really like the idea of guided tour coz its like being forced to move out of the place even though felt like staying longer at some point of time. not to mention its SUPER overpriced. 

Summary. 

in 5 days of Vietnam. I did...

Ride on motorbike

Drove motorbike

Shared MC house with MC

Had buffer kinda thing for 6 SGD

Randomly ordered without knowing wat im ordering in a cafe

Went to a club

Had BBQ with RMIT members

2 days of SRB, each from 2-6pm

had lunch in RMIT

had pho as breakfast

sit in cafe for few hours just to use internet

had street instant noodles

took xe om

took taxi

took alot of free rides from @ers here

had hot pot the vietnamese style

paid 20 sgd for ridiculous party

had strawberry milkshake from street stalls

count 1-10 in vietnamese

learnt simple words in vietnamese 

risked my life 1000 times crossing the roads 

bought a helmet for motorbike at 3.5 sgd

started my own mini vietnamese langyuage notebook. 

crawled in the cu chi tunnel

visited cao dai temple

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FAQ

Q1. 

Q : so what do you think about Vietnam? 

A : Interestingly messy

Q : huh?? 

A : because in sg and malaysia everything is so boring that u will never drive a motorbike in the opposit direction against 1000 other bikes. And its really interesting because u never know when to move and when not to move, but somehow viets know. and there are almost no fixed direction for any vehicles, taxi do U-turns in random middle of the road, people popping out of no where and the roads are so unorganized to the extend i have no idea how its numbered and named. That makes it interesting for a person who have been taking MRT and seeing shopping mall everytime coming out of a MRT. Perhaps is just too sick of the similar daily life, no excitement, so i got quite excited about the traffic in HCM. 

Q : So your name is? 

A : Siew Yik

Q : *blur face* huh? 

A : Siew Yik.. *swt*

Q : *paiseh face* how do you spell it? 

A : S..I..E..W 

Q : S..I..E.........

A : W

Q : W..

A : yeap, Y..I..K...

Q : Y..I..K.....*silent for 2 seconds* Siew Yip?? (there are 1000 other variations of this)

A : *watever you say* yea...Siew Yik..

Q : o...ok..Siew Yik...

** somehow my name is abit hard to pronounce and i usually have to repeat my name 2-3 times before people getting it. Perhaps i should introduce myself as SY ** 

**********************************************************

But i really like the experience im having here, everyday is exciting. People here are fun and relaxed, things are cheap, and you can get killed in traffic anytime of the day. So everyday is the last day. Cool !! 

And LC RMIT people are so cool !! omg...they are just damn cool and fun !! 

Interesting Vietnam

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Vietnam in less than 24 hours

well, NLDS has ended. A very nice ending indeed. I went over to LiJun's place to stayover and here i am back in pgp, waiting to pack my luggage after the washing.

Next destination :
Airport @ 11pm
Vietnam @ 8.45am 16th December

The interesting thing of the day ??
I was doing some calculation with Lijun ( for some reason i was quite close with him throughout NLDS ) and realized i slept about 8hours in total for the past 7 days. not including yesterday which i slept for almost 11 hours.

Its because i was packing my room rushing for check out the day before premeet, and then went over and started pre-meet and NLDS where all the sleepless talking nite goes on.

I have no idea, but most of the time were not spent productively. most of the time includes waiting for other people and talking cock. Of course, reasonable of time are spent on work too.

Afterall, i think this year's NLDS is amazing (as usual)
but the gala dinner was great, venue was great, food was great. great celebration.

and i met some cool vietnamese in NLDS too. O, and i met some people from RMIT too. and interestingly, there are some koreans in RMIT. I guess not only need to learn Vietnamese, need to learn basic korean too....tutor anyone?

Lijun will be joining me a day later, where he is spending around 20 days over there. So i guess probably, xmas and new year will be spent with him then. But the cool thing is his trip was decided so quickly. He was complaining he havent done any of wat he has planned, and he foresee the coming few weeks will also be spent randomly. So i suggested why not come join me at Vietnam. The next thing is he got all the airfare details and contacted @ in VN, and then got the tickets after complaining it went up from 200 --> 300+

Anyway, i guess will be nice to have someone to go out for a beer if im bored in VN.


Looking forward to Vietnam.


Interesting me.

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AIESEC life

Currently in a random service apartment somewhere near SimLim. Using LiJun's lapto. He is sleeping right now.

Havent been sleeping much in the past 39 hours.
Dont foresee much sleep in the next 24 hours either.

Good luck and Jiayou NLDS !!

Gonna spend the next few days with over 180 really cool people from over 18 countries. After which rest for a day and Vietnam I go.




Interesting AIESECers.

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How do I live without you

How do I,Get through one night without you?
If I had to live without you,
What kind of life would that be?
Oh, I...
I need you in my arms,
need you to hold,
You're my world, my heart, my soul,
If you ever leave,
Baby you would take away everything good in my life,
And tell me now
How do I live without you?
I want to know,
How do I breathe without you?
If you ever go,
How do I ever, ever survive?
How do I,
how do I,
oh how do I live?
Without you,
There'd be no sun in my sky,
There would be no love in my life,
There'd be no world left for me.
And I,
Baby I don't know what I would do,
I'd be lost if I lost you,
If you ever leave,
Baby you would take away everything real in my life,
And tell me now,
How do I live without you?
I want to know,
How do I breathe without you?
If you ever go,
How do I ever, ever survive?
How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?
Please tell me baby,
How do I go on?If you ever leave,
Baby you would take away everything,
I need you with me,
Baby don't you know that you're everything,
Good in my life?
And tell me now,
How do I live without you,
I want to know,
How do I breathe without you?
If you ever go,
How do I ever, ever survive?
How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?
How do I live without you?
How do I live without you baby?



Leann Rimes - How do I live


















IBM T60 or now people prefer to call it Lenovo T60. Watever....






Exactly, how do i live without my laptop !!

I slept very early yesterday about 6am, alrite, fine.

I slept very early today at about 6+am, after finishing my episode 33 of Gem of Life. Too much Drama?? Struggled to wake up this morning (or merely 3 hours later) around 9.30am after a morning call. Rushed over to a meeting which (supposed to) start at 10. I switched on my laptop and i realize, eh, how come it never turns on. then i press the button again, nope. its still not on, then i looked closely i realize i still can see some very dimmed down image of my computer startup screen. I went OMG what happened to my com. Cannot...cannot die, all my impt docs inside.

Shit, HOW!!

gave it a try, forced my eyes open damn big to see where is the button. managed to click on it after spending 5minutes locating the mouse cursor and move it over to press the restart button.

Damn, still cant. Give up!

Computer centre after meeting and lunch. Part of the conversation.

The guy : Yes?
me : yea, my laptop. screen.
The guy : yea, wassup with the screen? distorted? *:P* hahha..
me : erm, not really. blackout. but not exactly blackout.
The guy : ooo...blackout ar, hardware problem, wait i help u check.
.
.
.
The guy : U need to bring this to LT 26 at science, next to there got a lenovo service centre. its hardware problem. LCD problem. not gonna be cheap though.
me : What? its not under warranty?? *swt..*
The guy : ah...no...they wont charge u service charge only.
me : *DAMN!*.....*SMILE*...alrite, where again? LT 26? thanks.


15 minutes later at IT coop near LT26. Turned out that the another guy at the service centre say its LCD cable problem. O...cable problem...*phew..*

how much gonna cost ar? Nothing, coz its under warranty. *bigger phew..*

None the less, laptop will be away for 3-5working days. THATS A ONE WHOLE WEEK!!



U so need to check out here everyday to see if i did make the effort to go find a com to online to check mail and leave a few words.


*********************************************************
Quote of the day
*********************************************************

A joker called today.
I missed the call, and called back.
Summarized conversation as below.

Joker : Hey, where are you
Me : In science, wassup?
Joker : Wanna ask you if you are interested in some big business
Me : What kind of business?
Joker : hah...Forex.
Me : O? like how?

Quote of the day :
Joker : Like I give you 100SGD and you give me RM220

*********************************************************
Note : The joker going Msia today. Its a good deal none the less.
Too bad I didnt have so much RM with me, else i would have
earned like RM20 or so. I heard 1SGD = RM2.4 thesedays.
*********************************************************



Interesting Experience.

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Water Car

Image taken from Flickr


NOPE, not this kind of water car.

Recently came across this video about H20 car. A Special Car that can run solely on water. Of course, its by the japs AGAIN. The japs are damn good. The car is like a 4seater size with only 2 seats, because the backside of the car contain a DAMN HUGE box which is supposed to somehow someway extract the H from H2O to use it for power generation. But the car design still need some improvement lah.

Whats more interesting is it runs on ANY water. ALL KINDS of water. so scary, imagine even sea water can be used to power the car. Apparently 1 litre of water can power the car to run 80km/h for an hour. And they are planning to mass produce it.

If the technology can be transfered and use in other forms, that would bring a whole new world. Sea water can be used to power car, when why not other things?

IF sea water can be used to power things,
the world would never be short of energy!

no more energy shortage discussion,
no more alternative energy research,
no more oil prices index.
There wont be any war because of oil.
Countries wont fight so hard over a piece of land which are not even visible during high tide.

Anyway, enjoy the video.






Interesting tech.


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I woke up about 11am the day before. and spend most of my time surfing the net, testing different thing on blogging, and trying to understand why there are a thousand ways to calculate Nusselt number.

Well, i have been doing quite well in the testing of different thing on the blog but not so for calculating Nusselt number. Not to mention i have no idea what is Grashof number, Peclet number, Prandtl, Rayleigh and so on so on so on...

Exams were horrible, bored, sleepy. here are some pictures if you are some lucky people who have no idea how exam looks like.



























Anwyay, after surviving for over 24 hours without sleep, i went out to meet up with some friends for lunch at Jurong Point. Ah Cher, Zhi Cheng and Chien Lung are friends i met back in Kuan Moo Tuan 2005. Its basically a really cool trip to Taiwan, spending about 21 days for Round-the-Taiwan trip with a whole bus load of new friends. Ah Cher came all the way from Seremban and Zhi Cheng and Chien Lung are working and studying in Singapore. Anyway, we spent some time in Pizza hut talking crap and reviving memories, and of course, update each other with news. Pictures after i get it from Zhi Cheng.

So there goes about 5+ hours including all the travelling clocking my total hours to 30 hours without sleep.


.......................................................................................................................

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