“With satellite TV and the internet, events are also magnified across a global listening board. The world is now their stage. We see this in the protests that have erupted during the Olympic torch relay. The Olympics is China’s coming out party, to celebrate its progress and opening up to the world. They sent the Olympic torch overseas in what is described as a “journey of harmony”. But not surprisingly, China’s opponents see this as a golden opportunity to make their point. So as the torch travels the world, it has faced challenges at virtually every stop so far. Vivid TV images of demonstrators waving banners, scuffling with police, and making concerted assaults to snuff out the flame are beamed live around the world, achieving an asymmetrical prominence, and so influencing public opinion against China and the Games.”

Full text here.

Random Facts Meme!

1. I love Apple Pie: If there’s apple pie or anything with pomme on the menu, that’s what I’m getting. I think it started when my primary school handed out McDonald’s apple pies on the last day of school when I was six.

2. Since I was five I wanted to be an interior designer: now I’m studying accounting and finance. I guess I’m just a coward in pursuing dreams.

3. I am scared to tell people my bad dreams for fear they will come true: Sorry Melle for using your sentence.

4. I could have Pret sandwiches everyday for a week: that’s when I was working in Hong Kong, maybe it was partly to escape my mom’s evil homemade sandwiches. Plus this was because they had this weekly special featuring bacon, spinach, egg + mayo and sundried tomatoes.

5. I watched Moulin Rouge 11 times: I don’t have to explain myself .

6. I can redeem a NDS using my air mileage membership: My record was taking the plane 12 times in one summer. I really like trains much more.

7. The only anime I finished watching is Fullmetal Alchemist: and watched it 4 times. I like the Getbackers too … but it’s not very well known I think.

8. Cooking is my thing to do to relax: if I could take nice pictures of food, I would have been spamming my blog with my cooking long ago.

9. I still haven’t upgraded my Wordpress: I don’t have time to fix times if it screws up … meaning I’ve make a new layout real soon.

10. Deviantart is very free porn website: I don’t know if that came out correctly or not but what I really meant to say was I love looking at the creations on that website so much!!!!!!!!!! However I want to mention my new found love: Etsy … I just love the paper goods, I wish we were back to snail mail times …

Tagging: Crystal, Louise, Chris, Amanda, Joyce (you guys don’t kill me, I’m just curious *innocent look*) …. what happened to your site Louise?!!?!!!!

Finally I’m announcing Hiatus.

Thanks everyone … so much!!!

I started from having no idea what to name him to being torn between all the suggestions. If he knows that he’s so love, he wouldn’t be hiding under the sofa so much! Apart from that, he likes to attack my stack of Financial Times accumulated by the corner. Maybe he can advise on me on my investments in the future - say by peeing on the stock that he thinks is good.

Some suggestions I’m going to mention:

1. Shao’s Renren (仁仁). I will most definitely name my pet panda that when I get one. Very bilingual.
2. Regina’s Fudge. Probably gain weight every time I see him.
3. Shawn Knight’s Bob. My wireless internet connection is called I am Bob. Forgive me, I’m strange.
4. Erica’s Apollo … very meaningful suggestion.
5. Crystal’s Maomao (毛毛). Exactly like Momo when pronounced in Cantonese!
6. Laarni’s Bunny King. (Unrelated: my boyfriend’s surname is Wang which means King in Chinese. Chinese people always pronounce his name as ‘Kiss’ … … …

And after all the indecisiveness, I picked Caramel Macchiato (by Melle) … favourite Starbucks drink. It’s fawn fur really makes me think of caramel. (SG’s Caramel for short I guess.)

Hopefully he will settle down here soon. He’s taking up a lot of my time and I think my goldfishes are starting to feel neglected. Promise I will keep up in getting back with everyone when I’m finished with all my interviews and getting him feel at home.

1. Winner gets a fan picture from the little hairball himself.
2. He will be named by you ..

I think I’m just generally not good at communicating let alone sell myself. Will I end up working at McDonald’s for the rest of my life? (No offense to McDonald’s employees.)

O! My future is so bleak … [dramatic exit]

When I started applying for summer internships, I wanted to have a more ‘formal’ email address so I went to gmail trying to open out an account with my full name. It won’t let me. It bloody won’t let me because the username has to be a least 6 characters long. My full name has only 5 letters but stop bullying me!

Whenever I spell my name out, there always will be a long silence.

I guess this problem really just applies to people with Chinese names. Most of my Chinese friends have English names too but since I thought mine was easy to pronounce I didn’t need one.

May I should change my name when I renew my passport or something but I can’t think of one that will fit me. I would want to name my daughters Chloe and Agnes though.

What are your favourite names?

P.S. Regarding me felling off the chair, I didn’t know how it happened. I just sat on it then landed my butt on the floor. To add on top of that stupidity, I ripped my pyjamas pants whilst getting up.

edit: It was snowing yesterday. It was snowing in April here in London! Everyone was wearing T-shirts on Saturday because it was like 18 degrees but Sunday morning it started snowing and I nearly got my butt frozen off sleeping without heater on.

Rubbish talk apart, having a online shopping cart is an extremely useful tool for an online shop. Oh! What am I saying? No online shop can be without a shopping cart!

Well, I would like to take chance to introduce Ashop Commerce to you. They’re a leading provider of hosted shopping cart/ecommerce software. It will offer you all you need to open a success business and sell things online.

For those who have been thinking about it as well and also have the resources, don’t hesitate! I will promise to be one of your first customers.

To blog for money nor not …

I’ve seen this a number of times and see people recommending this so I am just going to try this out.

I mean mostly I’m against “get paid for blogging” (well, just for myself) because I hate ads … however Smorty’s quite neat. You just have to post an entry, there’s no messy graphics etc. Which is cool. Maybe some ad will come up that I actually like … maybe then I can blog for charity … although I’m a shite writer …

How it works is it connects advertisers with Bloggers and then Advertisers pay bloggers to write about them. So it is really to get paid to blog. There’s actually nothing to lose right?

I think different blogs get paid different amounts such post. They rate your blog by something called PR. I read in the forum that PR4 sites get paid $19.20 for each post. I get $6, but I don’t know how to find out what my PR is really. Why don’t you sign up for the sake of finding out what your popularity is?

Well, so why don’t you click on Smorty here and try it out for ourselves.

Hotel Continental Palacete

This is where the 24 hour buffet (free and very delicious) and ice tea came from in my last post. One of the few places I’ve stayed that didn’t chase me out of the hotel because it was past check out time. (I like to sleep in even on holidays.) The staff are very friendly, speaks good English and also offered to help me post my postcard. The rooms are quite tiny for the price they charge but very functional and PINK! Also, you can’t possibly ask for a better location. It is in the middle of the shopping area and 3 minutes away from La Rambla.

Other places to stay I recommend: Apt. Gran Via, which is located one of the main streets close to many attractions. It is an apartment in one of those stylish Spanish-style buildings. I stayed there the last time I visited Barcelona. Since I was with friends, this was great for our budget. There’s also a very ancient lift, that you have to slam to metal gate shut yourself. Very clean with Ikea duvet covers. There is also a youth hostel that I saw on Passeig de Gracia, which I think has great location. A friend stayed there and said it was great. You can find these on Trav.com, I use that for every accommodation I book when I travel. (This is not an ad.)

Escriba (El Xiringuito)

A very relaxing little restaurant by the beach. They make paella in front of you and in pans nearly the size of … of … I can’t find a suitable thing to compare, see for yourself below. It’s very local, they don’t really speak English. Actually, I don’t suggest going anywhere with an English menu. Be adventurous, that’s the fun in traveling. It was recommended by my mom’s hairdresser.

What made the restaurant special to me was it’s windows. There were pictures of a chef printed on its windows, against the blue sky and white clouds. We asked the owner if it was pictures of his father … since he didn’t speak much English he just said yes and didn’t explain further. It was as if his father is watching down at him and his little restaurant from heaven.

Try ANY of their paellas and also their apple tart.

Apparently, they have two cake shops in the city center. Check out their website, I was very surprised to see such amazing and cute flash content.

(Chef not very cooperative with his expressions…)

Barcelona to me is definitely Gaudi’s city. I think he is the main reason why Barcelona is so special. Out of all his works, Sagrada Familia is his greatest. I didn’t put any photos up of it because I don’t think they present a good picture of it’s beauty and majesty.

Other places

My mother made me take the Tourist bus for two days while we were in Barcelona. It is so against my principles. For me, I like to go to only places that I’m interest in and also walking to explore the city.

The photos above are taken on La Rambla. I always thought it was very touristic. But seeing all these florists, pet shops and markets, I think it’s really for the locals. You should also visit all the houses built by Gaudi and also … I really would like to visit Dali’s museum, it’s in Girona, somewhere just outside Barcelona.

The left is a very chic boutique where they do alterations for you for everything you buy in just a few hours. Shopping in Barcelona is great too but beware that the sales, in even the most luxurious stores, don’t speak English and insists that you understand what they are saying in Spanish. However, when you are on the street asking for directions, everyone seems to speak perfect English.

One Last Thing

Please visit and join Stare.nu forum. Have been wanting to plug this for a while now.