Attended a Chemistry seminar given by Prof. A.B.P Lever from York University in Toronto. He is a heavy-weight figure in inorganic chemistry and it can be evident from the fact that he is the chief editor of Coordination Chemistry Review. The title of his talk was "The Ruthenium o-Benzoquinonediimine system. Towards 50% pi back donation". It is pretty interesting and I've learnt that he actually came out with a parameter (similar to that by Hammet in physical organic) that measures the electropotential of ligand and from here, in theory, the chemist is able to calculate the redox potential for any metal reduction.

Anyway my Guilin trip is confirmed cancelled due to the reasons mentioned in the previous entry. It's not very practical given my workload, all the deadlines and of course the time spent travelling. Money is also an important consideration. I can go there any time in the future when I have more time for holiday. Right now, I can spend my remaining days exploring every corners of HK. There are still many places which I want to go and so I hope to visit them before I return to Singapore.

One of my friend from Mainland gave me some dried fruits which he brought back from Inner Mongolia. He rushed back a couple of days ago and came back this afternoon. It was really nice of him to brought me some stuff which I have never eaten in my life. He brough me 2 types of dried fruits, one is know as 沙果 which tastes like dried grapes and the other one is 榛子 which has a shell that is as hard as a rock!

I don't feel very well today. The weather turned cold suddenly, averaging about 20 degree celsius. Had a terrible headache before Advanced Organic lecture in the evening but still manage to follow the lecture. The headache got worse when I had dinner with Alice, Richard, Daniel and Yuin Yee but strangely, it became much better after I ate the dessert made by Emily (took a photo of it). How sweet!

I'll be exploring more places this weekend; shall not disclose the itinerary as yet :p