On Sunday morning (8th April 2012), I woke up at 5am for my 8am flight to Xiamen city (Fujian province, China) with 10 colleagues for an quarter review assignment, followed by a 1 hour + car ride to Jinjiang City.

The weather was quite cool most of the time (between 16-23 degrees C) and it rained on a few days. We stayed in the shopping district this time, which was generally safer than I thought. My colleagues just laughed and told me that our area is safe enough to walk around alone during the day. Anyway, I probably looked like a student in my hoodie, t-shirt, jeans and backpack.

Compared to Shandong, Jinjiang City was more vibrant as there were more people on the streets most of the time until 10pm or so. There were some stalls selling food and clothes along a few streets like a pasar malam, as well as BBQ places similar to those you can see in Korean TV serials.

Our lunch and dinner at the client's office are usually cooked by the cafetaria auntie, which comprise of at least 8 homestyle dishes, soup, rice , dessert and fruits. Since Fujian is in the southeast coastal area of China, there were mostly seafood dishes such as oyster omelette (with little chewy oysters, preserved vegetable bits and ketchup), stir-fried shellfish with vegetables, steamed egg with shellfish, popiah with little shellfish, stir-fried spicy squid. I think everyone liked the stir-fried frogs' legs, braised duck and other dishes too. XD We had fried durian for dessert on one day, which was really heaty. We tried their local fruits such as pi pa which looks like a yellow pear ([link]). It tasted a bit sour and sweet. Apologies for my lack of photos because I was too hungry to take photos most of the time. XD Of course, there were a few miscellaneous dishes we couldn't identify (probably some kind of meat or animal organs). Dumplings is a must-eat in China.

Fujian province is famous for tieguanyin tea, which has a rich, bittersweet flavour. My colleagues usually buy the tea leaves from Quanzhou city. As for snacks, we usually buy peanut candy, preserved plums, seseme candy.

We usually leave the client's office by 9+pm, so I managed to sleep early and wake up at 7am to do my work in the hotel room. Time passed really quickly, probably because this trip was much shorter than my first China assignment.

On our return flight, there was an announcement that 'there will be a bit of a rock and roll from Xiamen to Hong Kong (before we arrive in Singapore) due to some turbulence'. Well, we managed to rock and roll our way back safely.

Perhaps I am overly optimistic, but I think each assignment is interesting in it's own way and I usually come back with a slightly different perspective. Overseas assignments usually have different challenges like language, culture, food and the way things work. Unexpected things happen sometimes and when you really get out of your comfort zone, you kind of realise that hey, you could do more than you can imagine.

Although I dislike doing routine stuff, I used to get nervous when I feel that I'm not fully prepared for something. At the same time, I've realised that you can never be fully prepared for everything , so the best thing to do is try your best ,learn from each experience along the way and keep moving on. Antagonizing or feeling bad about making mistakes don't solve any problems so I don't usually dwell on negative things. Sometimes I'd worry that I'm too slow, but the best thing I could do is to be more productive and get more sleep so that I can work well the next day.