eliao's Xanga

hello from HK :)

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 08:45:55 GMT

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 01:27:01 GMT

oh it's nice to be an internet area where I can surf freely and access websites freely :)

time to start fresh...

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 01:14:18 GMT

well thanks to big brother, I'm going to change blog site to something more manageable.

http://ericliao628.spaces.live.com/

bye xanga!

busy busy

Tue, 15 May 2007 10:51:53 GMT

Strange, that during my most busiest times I decide to something in my blog.

So what's new with me these days?
I went to shanghai last week during my May break. It was a funny situation, I got my friend's mom to help get us discount plane tickets and then stayed at another friend's Mom's house. I never knew networking meant asking a friend's moms for help :)

so ya, Shanghai was pretty cool and stuff. All I can say is that traveling during a chinese holiday is not necessarily the best time to travel, especially if you don't like crowds. It's not just a little bit busy it's SUPER busy. People are everywhere. We went to one shopping area and the streets were filled with people. Insane. It was like the starting line of the Bay to Breakers (marathon). Basically a sea of people on the street, but this time everyone had black hair so all you see are black heads ;) I'll try to upload my photos to my usually photo website.

So we also went to the shopping district. insane as well. We got there just as about the stores were going to close but managed to walk around the building a bit. Anyways, I think there's a least 8-10 of these buildings that sell fake stuff and clothes. Well, after the stores closed, which was around 5, there was the strangest sight. Once the stores closed, many of the shop owners started pushing out there racks of clothes outside onto the street to start street selling clothes. At this time the streets became full of clothes with people yelling discounts here and there. It was like a crazy flea market. Not sure if I have any pictures of this.

Shanghai is definitely "the place" for clothes shopping.

So what have I been up to?
Lately I've been pretty active trying to promote some changes in the MBA program. Just today we organized a pizza lunch for our class, where afterwards we talked about the overall MBA program. After talking about internships, lectures, etc. I finally came to a conclusion, Chinese students for some reason lack self-confidence. There seems to be a lot of uncertainty in their life, so they approach MBA life very cautiously.

anyways....oh something funny I heard today in class. I think most chinese people know what "guan xi" or "face" means, right? well, in class we were talking about how different people have different requirements for buying shoes.
In one case we said "Young chinese teenagers need to buy brand name shoes otherwise they will lose "face" among their high school friends"...amusing...when we talk about face it's usually mentioned in a business context :)

well back to studying..

my apologies..

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 11:16:24 GMT

It's been like 2 months since I've wrote in my Blog. Why you ask?
Because the Great Wall has decided to block all Xanga sites. It's funny though, I can still get Xanga updates through email. Speaking of which, when is someone going to design a webpage that allows me to update my blog through email?!!

So how am I writing now? I managed to get a "special" tool from a friend that allows me to jump over the Great Wall. So far it seems to work pretty good. Jumped over without any cuts or bruises :)

Anyways...i'll have to write more later, I'm supposed to be studying for a finance exam on Monday, and then the following day I'm going to Shanghai! ya!

more updates to come :)

sick again :(

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:17:33 GMT

Ahhh memories of japan......

I went to Japan last year for a business trip and ended up getting sick. I think I had strep throat because my neck was a little swollen. Anyways, I was sick, yet everyday I would still go walk around Tokyo. What was I thinking? Here it is: Japan's a friggin expensive place and this'll probably be the last time I get to go to Japan on an Expense account. So ya, I remember in the later half of the trip I'd go to the customer we were supporting and then I'd leave after lunch, take a nap and then go venture throughout Tokyo. It was crazy, I think I had the fever, I was shivering all the time and I really couldn't taste the food I was eating.

so ya, I'm sick again and I felt I just had to go outside and attend chinese class. I sure felt like crap biking to the school. Afterwards I went shopping to buy some food so when I get home I don't have to go out again :)

anyways...i have a few more days to recover till "real" classes start.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:21:43 GMT

dang...my cheque for 41 cents is going to expire in less than 90 days. I forgot to cash it along with my $10 and $2.18 cheques.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 13:10:23 GMT

uploaded pictures from my teaching trip in Yunnan!

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:29:50 GMT

wow it's amazing...I've been gone for more than 4 weeks away from Beijing and my bike is still in the same spot as I left it. There's still hope for the bicycle community :D

oh, did I mention that one of the brakes on my bike doesn't work and the left pedal fell off too? :P

home sweet home...

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:01:51 GMT

well...it's been a quick two weeks of vacation. Things just went by so fast.
When stepped out of the plane and into Beijing airport, for some reason it just felt like 'home', the place where I could just sit back and relax and not worry about anything. It's strange, Beijing isn't really quite home because there's still so much about the city I don't know about but definitely where I can just relax. Maybe it feels like home because I live by myself and there's no one to bother me?

Anyways, it's nice to be back in my dorm room....after unpacking all the stuff I brought from my other home in Canada, I dread the day when I'll have to move out of my dorm. There's so much crap in my room now.

It was also nice when I stepped out of the airport today. It was a nice cool clean smell. Of all the places I been in the past few weeks, right now I like the beijing weather the most. (so far). In California, it was just raining, in toronto, it was just freezing. (like -15C type) and well Yunnan was freezing too but quite as cold as Toronto, although it feels a heck of a lot colder when you don't have any heating anywhere! (when I say anywhere, I mean anywhere, restaurants, hotels, bathrooms, school, etc.)

well..managed to get up to date on Lost, and 24, started up 2 new series, Heroes and Prison Break which I'm almost caught up on. Still have Desperate Housewives to catch up on and I think that's it?

ok..time to eat something. oh need to get my facebook account started. I hear it's the "cool" thing to do these days :D