summer 2007: hong kong and japan segments!

interning at DBS
a humbling experience :). having to go in there knowing nothing about finance...do a crappy chinese translation of my powerpoint presentation...mess up pitchbook binding (the pages fell out half an hour before a big meeting between our corporate banking team and the client)...oh and one moment i'll never forget - accidentally disconnecting THE boss who was on long-distance call from the singapore hq. muakaka! (in hindsight the stitchy side of me can appreciate this, but at the time it was a tad bit humiliating.) these things really made realize how getting As in school kinda means nothing in the corporate arena.

then there was the research+ powerpoints + elf-ish duties of rushing stuff for my co-workers who, poor things, had tens of conference calls daily and many pending presentations all at once.

but i can't stray too far from the typical internship story and say it wasn't worth it. the team was genuinely nice (and so smart in a down-to-earth way) and i made some friends :D. and even a pathetic number-cruncher like me finally figured out how to handle corporate financials. although i admit that many mornings i was glum about work, it's just something i had to try out. if anything, it's kinda like an immunity card for times when my dad plays the whole you-should-consider-a-respectable-career-like-banking hint.


hello hokkaido!
onto happier memories! so after 6 weeks of work (made bearable mostly by getting to see a bunch of hk visitors: risa, cinnie, lanxiu and childhood japan friends larry and fred) i was rewarded with a lovely time in japan. some snapshots of our little adventures on the southern coast of hokkaido...

day 1: driving from the airpot in Chitose to our ryokan (traditional inn with tatami rooms and onsen - hot public baths) for the night. as you can see, stitch earnestly served as our navigation assistant while my brother and i just took photos.












left: mom happy about dinner
right: and with good reason - here was our menu (we were served everything on it! though many were tiny sculptures of pickled vegetables and seafood)

day 2: Muroran
breakfast! and then more driving along the scenic coast. i like the lighthouse picture with the sea of japan.











the rest of the day was spent driving southwards along Hokkaido's coast down to Hakodate. along the way, we raided some supermarkets for japanese snacks, which proved immensely popular for the car rides :D

day 3 and 4: Hakodate
Hakodate was one of those treaty ports opened by the americans in 1854. port implies sea which implies....seafood!

early morning excursion to the seafood market - lots of kani (crab) and ika (squid).











eating grilled crab at a market vendor // michael and me at the pier












the star-shaped park in Hakodate, complete with a quaint moat and viewing tower! and us up on the tower











Afternoon, Dusk and Evening Views from Mt. Hakodate
going up the cable car ropeway at 5:30. then the afternoon view at 5:45ish? not that many people there yet...6:15 the lights slowly flicker on! and night view at 7:15

left: the open sea during sunset

our Hakodate visit coincided with their annual street dance festival, which was fun to witness. i regret not taking pictures of the hordes of people dancing behind the parade trucks and buses (though i do have a video of a flock of people jumping up and down and dancing to the organisers "IKKA, IKKA, IKKA, IKKA!!!" i think it means dance...not quite sure but i should really know this huh. help, risa?

days 5, 6, 7: Sapporo and Otaru

so the rest of the trip was spent in Sapporo. we did a little sightseeing at the old government building, Sapporo TV tower, some parks but generally our stay consisted of a lot of eating (tonkatsu - fried pork cutlets served with rice, soup and shredded cabbage, japanese hamburger steaks, udon, ramen, sashimi, more crab, yakitori YUMM) and shopping.

me and my wonderful parents and brother...:) a lot of our late evenings in the hotel were spent doing Sudoku challenges, puzzle challenges and card games hahaha. we're a very competitive lot. (or at least within the family setting)

left: parents and the sapporo tv tower (nothing special i think, but it's a nice pic)

below: another dinner revolving around crab...hairy crab, long-legged crab, err plain crab. and me standing in front of a hot foot-bath site where people get to soak their weary feet

Otaru - another coastal town famous for glass warehouses and the small canel you see in the below pic. a very touristy place though. the vanilla yoghurt ice-cream there was amazing though.

naturally i have to leave you with a glimpse of stitch! okay prior to this japan trip, i considered myself to be a pretty hard-core stitch lover. but the Japanese seem even more smitten with stitch - he is everywhere! in every marketable form too! i went to small town supermarkets and he was there grinning like the hawaiian imp that he is, on 100 yen cups, chopsticks, fans, cushions, hair accessories (little stitch heads clasped to hair bands), towels, bags, stationery and this was just in the suburban areas of southern hokkaido. in the city, stitch is visibly popular than mickey mouse or any other disney character. so i'm not crazy after all teehee.

and now home in singapore again. technically i wasn't away for that long, but it felt like it. (can't imagine having to stay at Brown for most of the summer...!) it's strange cuz even in hk i sometimes feel very out of place despite having lived there for 8 years. can't quite pinpoint the reasons for this; perhaps it's just the constant rush of city and working life and all the fuss on appearances which gets to me sometimes. singapore really is, as one of my coworkers and friends commented, more casual. this isn't a moral statement; singapore is just a little more laid back and i guess this is good for comfyness-loving people like me.