My sister told me that her baby was one week late. Since I said goodbye to Guangzhou and came back to Shantou to see my family before I fly to London. I am so surprised that the baby is so eager to say hello to me and the baby was born on 30th July at 3: 35 pm – exactly the day I arrived in Shantou. It’s a baby girl and weighs 5.8kg, with big eyes and looks like exactly like my brother-in-law. I am now officially an aunty.

My family is overwhelming excited; even thought sister was a little bit disappointed it was not a boy, because she was expecting a boy. My brother-in-law and I are happy to have a baby girl anyway! I will be flying this Friday and next time when I see the baby girl, she can speak, and will be more cute. Baby’s English name is called Natalie.

我的侄女出世拉！

姐姐告诉我说宝宝1个星期迟来报到了。已经跟广州告别，想在飞伦敦之前回到汕头见见父母，也希望姐姐的宝宝快出世，在飞之前能见上我侄女一面。惊喜的事，宝宝在我到达汕头的第一天就出世拉！姐姐虽然比较虚弱，但宝宝是顺产，5.8斤。大小都健康，宝宝超级小,两个大大的眼睛，就像我姐夫一样，长得很漂亮和大气，我还帮忙换尿布呢！哈哈，我终于做了小姨了！等我下次回家，她可能就会说话了。宝宝的中文名叫奕希，英文名叫Sissy，因大家都叫希希，所以我给她命名为Sissy!

As some of you know, my time in London was a testing period to see what the city is like. Very shortly I will be moving there to study for a masters degree at the University Of London.

Saying goodbye to Guangzhou, and especially my good friends, is not easy. I have spent a total of seven years in Guangzhou, arriving here as an innocent girl from Shantou. I’ve enjoyed my life, my studies, and my jobs here in Guangzhou and it is not without some sadness that I leave. However, although I am scared I am also excited to have something new and challenging to look forward to. I will need to start from scratch and work very hard, but the rewards should be well worth it.

I really wish I could take all my friends with me to London and I will miss them all. I am so glad they are always there for me and want them to know that they have played an important part of my life. I wish the best of luck to all of my friends and hope to see them in London.

See you soon Guangzhou.

5月在伦敦旅游了一个月，又回到熟悉的广州开始工作了，好像觉得从没有离开过广州似的。已经辞职的我，再工作多半个月，就生活在伦敦了。现在在准备好所有的一切，开始我的学生生涯，我将在其中一所伦敦大学读硕士。

其实很舍不得跟广州说再见，特别是我的朋友们，毕竟我在广州生活了7年了。４年的大学生活到3年工作；从一个什么都不懂的汕头妹，到可以说能自力更生独立生活在广州。我喜欢我的工作和简单的广州生活，但我意识到是时候为将来而准备而冲刺，让自己的英文水平更近一层，拿个更高的学位和国外的工作经验。说真的，我又是担心又是兴奋，因什么东西我对来说都是从头开始。前路茫茫，但一想到新的东西，新的朋友，也是给自己的一种加气的鼓励把。

真希望能把所有的朋友都打包跟我一起飞到伦敦，我会多么想念你们的陪伴和笑声。谢谢大家对我的厚爱和支持，你们在我生命中是如此的重要，祝大家心想事成，记得一定要来伦敦看我哦。

再见了广州，我把我的青春的黄金时间都奉献给你了，咱们后会有期。　

As a big fan of Sex And The City, I have have been waiting to see the movie. London was chosen to host the premier, and all members of the cast showed up in Leicester Square on 12th May 2008. It’s a pity that I wasn’t arriving in the UK until the week after and so missed the chance to see them. Never mind, the movie opened to the public while I was there, and I did get chance to see it.

Love is complicated…

The movie is a continuation of the last season from TV, and begins by filling in the gaps of the time immediately after the close of the TV show. All the actors are very professional and give skillful performances in the movie. The movie contains different elements which will touch and break your heart, as well as give you joy. I will not say too much about the details of the movie, but you will find out when you watch it. Actually I was in tears several times for the humorous conversation, heart-breaking moments, happy unions, and especially the understanding of different kinds of love in the movie.

I enjoyed the movie so much and there are many moment I felt so connected. I guess the movie is also the end of our legendary story of Sex And The City series. Like the movie says: there are always perfect ending in fairy tales, but in reality, there is not always a perfect ending in our lives.

I gave it 4.5 stars of 5.

作为Sex and the City 忠实fans，我们期待已久的电影版终于上映了，虽然我赶不上12号他们来伦敦的首映，但上周末去电影院就让我一饱眼福了。

爱是复杂的…

电影的主题是关于不同的爱，也是续最后一集连续局接下去的故事。有我们期待想发生的，也有我们不想发生但却发生的故事。每个演员的倾力演出让这部电影更加有味道。电影有很多触动人心感人的场面，有幽默的对白和场景，有伤心落泪，幸福的喜悦和女主角们的坚固友情，这都在短短的2个小时里呈现出来。我不能说太多关于剧情，大家到时候看了就知道。感情十分丰富的我，都被很多场面感动得满面泪水。

Sex and the City 就象是陪伴我们一起长大的故事，2008年这部电影也是对这部连续局10年来划上一个句号。象电影里面说的，童话故事都有完美的结局，但现实上不是每个人都有没有完美的结局，但当然我们还是要保持生活的积极态度。我们会想念这个传奇故事的连续剧，我们也会想念他们的服装，更想念曾经陪我们一起走过的岁月。

Some people might have heard the song from the Apple Nano advert “1234″, but not known who sang it. The singer is Leslie Feist, from Canada. I am so lucky to have seen her perform in London at the Royal Albert Hall, which is situated in the Knightsbridge area facing Hyde Park. Before the concert we walked for a while in Hyde Park and it is huge, beautiful ,and peaceful.

The Royal Albert Hall was opened by Queen Victoria in 1871 in memory of her husband, Prince Albert. The exterior of the building is very distinctive and looks like a giant mushroom. We went inside and there was a guide to show us to our seats, which turned out to be a small private room containing four seats, as well as a private dressing table. I was so thrilled! The interior is amazing, with a huge open circular space in traditional English style. I felt like I was a princess watching some opera.

The show started at 8: 30 PM. Wearing a short white vintage dress with frilly sleeves and high top tennis shoes, Feist played most of her songs from the recent album. Set against a backdrop featuring a woman drawing live finger paint art, this was also a highlight of her concert. Nearly everything about the performance was flawless. She didn’t have any edgy voice, and sang with such dexterity and clarity. She can move from breathy to yelping to full-bodied and elegant. I have to say that her voice is so beautiful and powerful.

Feist was also a very good conversationalist, making jokes, and coercing the audience to join in various songs. It was hard not to like her, and it was a pity that she didn’t sing one of my favorite songs – “Secret Heart”.

Anyway, I am very pleased to watch her professional performance at the Royal Albert Hall. Absolutely it is worth five stars.

On the second day after I arrived in London I went to see the Delays play in concert at KOKO on Camden High Street. KOKO is a strange place – it is an old opera house, once one of the largest in London, and is spread over four floors. We chose to go to the first floor and look over the balcony where we could easily see the band. I have to admit that the concert was amazing and I enjoyed all the songs. Greg Gilbert, the lead vocalist, has a very special high voice and the atmosphere was very exciting. I can’t believe that he looks so young, but is so talented, to create so such distinctive music.

They have released three albums and my favourite album is “You See Colours”. One of their songs was featured in an episode of Veronica Mars.

Here is their myspace page.

John took me visit all the attractions in London at the weekend. We have been through London eye, The Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square,The Tower of London,The British Museum,Tate Gallery of Modern Art, China Town, Buckingham Palace, OXO Tower, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul`s Cathedral, Shakespeare`s Globe Theatre and Brick Lane. I can’t believe that we have done so many tourist places in these two days, but I got a lot of fun and different experience as well.

On the way I also went to play on the Mary-go-around for few minutes. It sounds childish, but actually I haven’t done that since 1990; it just reminded me of my childhood. Many cool artists perform their show near London eyes. You put some money, then they will move or perform for you. Funny things is I wasn’t expect to see a man dressed up with a horror mouth in his stomach and I was screaming and everyone was looking at me. And then the man decided to make me scream one more time; he was chasing me and used his scary month to bite my arm. God…so funny but I couldn’t help screaming.

I have to say there are so many places to visit in London and I love the city atmosphere.

Today I am writing from London. I arrived at Heathrow airport after 12 hours flying with British Airway. BA was great with money and services. I arrived at terminal 5, which is very new and I have heard some negative news – unluckily I experienced it too. I was met at the airport and entered an elevator which then got stuck. We pressed the emergency button and the staff helped us to restart the system.

Leaving the airport we took the London Metro, known as ‘The Tube’. My first impressions are that it is very small, especially compared with Hong Kong and Guangzhou. I’m told that the metro is over 100 years old, so maybe that explains it, and would certainly explain the lack of air conditioning.

We arrived at John’s new two-floor house where he has his own garden and parking place. As a city girl, I have never experienced living in a house with two floors. I walked through the garden and entered the house to find it is stylish, modern, cozy and most importantly, feels like a proper home. I will take some pictures to show later.

We walked around the local area and then went Oxford Street. While there we entered Selfridges, a very big department store, where we amazingly saw Paris Hilton promoting a new perfume. Paris is so tall and slim and was surrounded by a lot of people. Wow, I thought it was so cool and the first time for me to see a celebrity in real life.

Anyway, in the afternoon we also went to Sainsburys supermarket to buy some food. There are lots and lots of different kinds of food from all over the world, food selections and they are far to expensive if you convert to RMB. For example, vegetables in China are generally only a few yuan while here they are many times more expensive. However, you can’t think like that as you are comparing different countries and different standards of living.

It is exciting, exhausting, and very strange to explore London. I have seen I saw a lot of stylish and chic people walking the street. I’ve seen many different types of interesting people and I am still not used to hear so many people speaking British accent around me. Right now I’m still overwhelmed with everything and my body is too excited to feel any jet lag.

The weather was hot and sunny until the day I arrived, then it was chilly and cold. I didn’t expect this after leaving hot and humid Guangzhou. Another difference I’ve noticed is that you can see daylight until about 10 PM. They have long daylight in summer, but short daylight in winter. I guess everyone like more daylight!

John has booked the Delays concert later tonight and we will have a Rock and Roll night. I can’t wait.

伦敦的第一天

今年利用年假计划五月份去英国旅游，因为5－6月份是英国最好的旅游季节。12 小时的飞机在早上6点钟到达了英国。乘着英航到了伦敦希思罗机场，进了5号航道，出了机场，在入了关的时候，没有任何的指示你应该排哪里，我就跟着大队就行！移民官会问题一些基本的问题哦！

拿了行李，英国人都很有礼貌，见我个子小就帮我搬行李，出了机场，约翰已经在机场等我了，听说5航道的设计有很多问题，晨早留留我们居然困在电梯里，真是有问题啊，按了紧急按钮才帮我们打开门，超搞笑！人生一次困在电梯里！伦敦的地铁因是很早就建成，容纳人数超小也很拥挤，听说有很多条线也很慢。幸好广州和香港因后发展所以都是用了采取最新的地铁和设备！对了，他们地铁是有暖气而反而没有空调的，外面舒服过里面呢。爱鞋子的我瞄了一下大家的鞋子都超干净。这时刻对我来说，什么都是超级新鲜！
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I’ve worn contact lenses for more than 10 years and my eyes were rated at minus 7. Recently I decided to have eye surgery to correct my eyesight and after a few minutes inside a LASIK machine I’m now told that my eyes are 1.2 or 1.3! I can see things perfectly without any blurring. How amazing it is! I had my surgery at Guangzhou No. 1 hospital and I know they use a German machine. The operation was very small and almost painless, although it sounds unpleasant to describe (which I won’t do!). If you do suffer from bad eyesight then I really recommend you to try it out. The cost for me was RMB 7500 and has definitely been worth it.

700度近视激光好了！
听了很多朋友说近视激光技术发展的很快了，近视治疗已经是小手术一宗。了解一个月之后，我和涵终于觉得花这笔钱。我们选择了广州市一去治疗，选择了最贵的LASIK 准分子切割手术￥7500，因我们是高度近视，短短的1分钟，我们的眼睛就重建光明了。手术之中一点都不疼，有点害怕，过后有点则热感，闭着双眼隔一天，第二天复查就好了。以后还要好好保护好眼睛，不过没有近视的人不知道，高度近视的辛苦，不戴眼镜或隐形能看到东西一清二楚，实在幸福无比。

What it will be a good beginning to start 2008? John decided to meet my parents, and we have our new plan for 2008, that I will be studying in London for my masters and we moved to London. I am not sure my parents will like the ideas, so the most important thing is to introduce John to my parents. I know it sounds silly that we have been dating for almost 5 years now, and finally we have the chance to introduce both properly.

With a tremendous good news is that my parents have moved to the new house, where is next to the Meritus Shantou Hotel. The house is designed by my brother-in-law Marco with a modern, soficiticated but simple. Although it won’t be the same house we grow up and spent 20 years, I like our new house, big, fashion and the location is fantastic.

Anyway, John was nervous to see my parents. My Dad treated us to the expensive Chinese seafood restaurant at the first night. My Dad knew John doesn’t like seafood, but have already prepared several vegetarian dishes for him. How lovely it is! Then next day Marco drove us to travel around Shantou. Unfortunately because it was new year, many local cuisine shops were closed, but John has tried some traditional bubble tea in OU JI. The third day, John saw our whole family relatives including my grandmum accidently. With the kindness everyone was enthusiastic to show John about different things, drinking gongfu tea with him. However, we didnot stay long and went to hang out with my friends. Last day we spent sometime with my cousin Aileen & Xun to have breakfast and we left Shantou.

The time in Shantou was short, but fun! It was a special New Year for us and we hope to see them very soon again!

2008年怎么样有一个好的开始呢？约翰决定要拜见我爸妈，因为我们08年有新的人生计划，我们将搬到伦敦，然而我却要辞掉安稳的工作，而去英国读硕士，不知道我爸妈是否同意这个主意，虽然我和约翰拍拖快5年了，都没有正式介绍给父母亲看-（因我不想他们罗索）哈哈！

好消息是爸妈搬新了新家——金色花园，在君悦酒店隔壁。新家是由姐夫Marco设计的，简单时尚富有现代气味。虽然不是我们长大的地方，但是我蛮喜欢的，空间大，又新，地点又好。

约翰蛮紧张去看我爸妈的，老爸请我们去吃海鲜，知道约翰吃斋专门点了很多斋菜，真贴心！第二天姐夫车我们去游览汕头，看很多旧时后留下来的古迹，例如：小公园的英国邮电局 （我从来都不知道呢）， 下午我们去亲戚家见了40多个亲戚！这下子约翰可吓呆了，大家蛮给他和功夫茶，吃这个吃那个，大家对他都很热情，我们见太多人就走了，和同学一起去喝欧吉珍珠奶茶！第三天早上，我们和表姐晓华表妹旬一起在麦当劳吃早餐之后就回广州了，结束了短短4天的新年之游。约翰很感激大家的厚爱，让他留下汕头超级好的印象，他甚至说大家都很热情，给他一个不一样的新年。希望很快和大家再相见拉。

（我带眼镜是因为要去做 镭射激光治疗，请见笑哦 ！）

We always planned to visit Beijing, but never had the opportunity. Finally, this Christmas, we had a Beijing trip (and before the 2008 Olympics too).

We arrived in Beijing at 4 PM with a heavy foggy sunset. Beijing has winter trees that look just like Christmas trees. The temperature was -3. I haven’t been to Northern China before so I had no idea what the cold weather felt. I quickly found out that it was really dry and cold and you could feel your hands becoming numb when not wearing gloves.

Our itinerary was: first day to Great Wall, second day to Summer Palace, third day to Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and maybe Heaven of Temple. We had very little time to visit these symbolic Beijing attractions.

Great Wall

Our original plan was to visit Mu Tian Yu instead of Ba Da Ling, but we decided that Ba Da Ling fitted better with our schedule. I was very surprised at how difficult the transport is in Beijing, even for a Chinese speaker. There are no directions or signs to show you how to get to popular destinations. From research on the internet we took the subway to Ji Shui Tang and then went to find the 919 bus. This simple task took a lot longer than it should as, upon leaving the station, there was no indication of where to find the bus. We headed in one direction chosen at random and came across seven 919 buses, each going in different directions. I wonder how foreigners will handle this!

Luckily for us we had a beautiful clear day with blue sky and sunshine. The Wall itself was full of tourists, as expected, but we chose to walk in the opposite direction to the crowds. The walk is very tough and steep, and it is really breath-taking to see how long the wall is and how magnificent it looks. Every step reminded me of old stories about the wall’s builders.

We walked one hour on the Great Wall before returning to Beijing to see the Yong He Gong Temple.

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