Sunday, March 25, 2012

Almost Summer

I've started studying for the PE exam. It's slow going so far. I've had two semi-productive study sessions these past two Saturdays. I was struggling at first to find good study material and finally found a book for the seismic stuff. I think I only need to know the basics so hopefully just cramming in formulas will be enough. I'm hoping that this studying will pick up soon because I don't think I will be able to manage to cover all the topics at this speed. Just kind of worried about the subjects that I don't have regular exposure to, like seismic, surveying, and the chemistry of wastewater treatment....

I finally managed to book the flights for my parents' vacation to Thailand and Singapore last weekend. They are on the blog now! It's such a hassle to find flights to go to 3 different countries. I realized mid-search that most airlines don't/can't do such things. It's nearly impossible to book something like this with the same airline because would need to make a stop in their home country before going on to another one. Luckily, there are cheap airlines out there that do one-way tickets so I ended up booking a lot of those. Now I just have to figure out the hotel situation... I don't know how much energy I have on this trip to do very much. At least we're in Bangkok for a few days and it seems like we'll have enough time to actually do some decent sightseeing.

Last Sunday I went for a hike up Beacon Hill. I took the bus to the monkey reservoir again and started the hike from there. I actually have a lot of choices for decent hikes starting from there. But I don't like these monkeys very much and that bus stop just doesn't give me the same kind of refreshing feeling as say, somewhere in Sai Kung or Lantau. There's just something about the Tung Chung MTR station that makes me feel very happy, even though there's actually no decent trails starting from there. Anyway, that trail actually keeps going up Lion Mountain, which I thought about ascending. But the day was actually pretty hot and the 500mL of water I brought wasn't going to keep me going up another mountain. And I was actually feeling kind of tired on the way down from Beacon Hill. I wish I have a better sense of how much water I need and can manage to bring exactly that. It's very important to have just the right amount of water on hot days.

This Sunday, I decided to skip the hike and just wander out to Sai Kung. I haven't been there in a while and just wanted to see the sea up close again. There is so much greenery on the way. The mountains over there are just more lush. I had a urge to move over there but it's really too far from work. I explored more of Sai Kung town this time. Not sure why I never managed to do so before. There are so many little shops and the old Sai Kung town is really interesting. So many little shops and back alleys. It would be really sad to see the place "developed" with high rises and huge shopping malls. There are some people who want to do this and I think it would definitely be a shame. I lined up for another pineapple bun and ate it sitting on a bench admiring the cloudless blue sky. I think the sky gets bluer in California though. The weather today was so much like a cool summer day in the Bay Area.

While walking around Sai Kung, I saw this couple pushing a stroller with 3 cats! Two of them were very big and fat. The last one is very young and had a collar on that tied it to the stroller. The two fat ones were just so happy to be pushed around. The lady had one of them in her arms and so many people stopped them to take pictures of the cats. They said that they started taking their cats out for strolls when the cats were young and they've gotten used to it. The cats were so mellow! Especially since there were so many dogs around. I think there's a dog park or something around because the piers seem to always be full of dogs. The couple was really nice about letting people pet their cats.

Looking forward to "summer" starting and we start getting this year's new graduates and summer interns. One graduate started last week in another team. One of the secretaries is now doing a "new staff introduction" email when people start. I think it's pretty good because otherwise you might not know if that person wasn't in your immediate team.

1 comment:

yalu said...

Ahh, there's a Beacon Hill here too! Today we lunched in Beacon Hill and Lilei said it was her first time there and she thought it was a really nice neighborhood.

I can't believe you saw 3 cats in strollers.. I really wished you had gotten a picture of that!