December updates

I finally got some time off this last 2 weeks of December. Trying to clear my leave so I don't have too much accumulated to bring into the new year. The first day of freedom I actually decided on self-improvement, so I went to the dentist.

I hate the dentist. I don't hate the person but I hate having to go through the ordeal of having my jaw pried open and have drills and sharp pointy things inserted into my mouth, and thus I hate the dentist. Why would someone choose this profession is totally beyond me. You end up being the most hated person around for that one hour, and the job ain't fun either, having to deal with bad breath (not me) and disgusting pieces of food stuck inside awful cavities. I had to overcome the urge to bite down on her gloved finger each time she scratch that metal pointy thing against my teeth. The grating feel makes my curl my toes in a "fingers scratching across blackboard" kinda way, or fork scraping against glass plate. Urgh. Did scaling and she had to use this industrial size drill cos it's been a long time since I've been to a dentist and I've made a sizable deposit in my teeth which is as stubborn as me. Apparently the machine got too hot (I was the second patient) and she accidently touched my lip with it and I flinched cos I felt the burn and now I have a blister on my lip. It was that hot. That aside, I've decided to make my next dental visit the next century. She was not the most encouraging of dentists as well, she told me I have to remove all 3 of my wisdom tooth or else have them rot in my mouth. I'm sure there are people out there who lived through life with their wisdom tooth intact and without any trouble. I'm not removing anymore wisdom tooth cos the trauma of the last removal still haunts me.

Rewarded my efforts after the dental visit with some warm soup. Had Motto Shabu Shabu buffet. It's now my favourite Jap buffet in town now. THB 259 per person for unlimited items like sushi, bacon, all sorts of meat, several types of mushrooms, vegetables, drinks...it was good. And the soup base was soooooooooooooo good. And the dip was good as well.

My favourite fatty bacon...

Watched Avatar in the evening and it was soooooooooo good!!! Go watch it!

Jan and friends came for a visit this week as well, went with them to Phi Phi island, my 3rd trip thus far. Phi Phi is actually quite boring for day-trippers. It's like a Chinese tour program where you only get 30 minutes at certain attractions and then you have to get back to the boat and brought to another location for another 30 minutes of sightseeing. You will enjoy it more if you get the chance to stay at least a night and soak in the backpacker, laid-back island feel of the place. Pop into a beach bar and chill along with raggae music for a good part of the evening, then head to a raving disco right on the beach till the early morning. Stumble back to your modest guesthouse for the night, wake up the next morning with a good hearty breakfast, rent a longtail boat and go out to the islands to do your own private snorkelling. With a small longtail boat, you get to go to all the coves that are not visited by big commercial tour operators. I miss those days.

The private pier where our speedboats to Phi Phi island are docked.

I booked the tour through a friend. He's very sweet in that he tries so hard to make sure we have a good time. Called and asked for feedback after every trip and made me feel like a whiner for ratting out on the driver. The driver has my number as he had to contact me to pick me up for the trip, but on the way he kept chatting and asking questions, then when I got to the pier and was waiting for the rest, he gave me 7 missed calls cos he didn't get my name earlier. And then in the evening when I was returning, he gave me 8 missed calls just to tell me he bought the souvenir photograph for me and would give it to me the next day. On the way back with another driver, he kept calling and I let it ring and ring until I ran out of battery. This kind of stalkerish behavious scares me, and turns me off big time. Yesterday morning and this morning he was still calling, and I'm still ignoring.

3-engine speedboats...don't play play

Tropical paradise.

Oh, I re-coloured my hair too. I really like the standard at Chakri, this hairdresser at Tesco Lotus. They have very good skills...not too expensive too. colour and highlight less than S$100

They went snorkelling, not me. I hate the fishes at Phi Phi..they are well attuned to humans and know that humans bring food, so they swarm towards the boats...it's a damn scary sight...Apparently at Similan islands, you are not allowed to feed the fish, so they leave you alone and go about with their own lives. That I don't mind visiting and snorkelling. I don't like to be bait. I want my first virgin experience with snorkelling, at Ang Thong Marine National Park where we went to a secret little cove for snorkelling. It was heavenly. We were there for hours without feeling it. I want that experience again.

Last night was Sales' Thank You/Christmas Dinner at the same old Phong Phang restaurant. Good food, abundance of food, we had 9 whole fishes!!! 15 oysters!!!! 9 steamed flower crabs and 3 black pepper black crabs!!!!! 2 huge plates of fried rice!!!! 6 items of appetizsers x 3 sets!!! 5 bottles of red wine, 2 bottles of white, 1 bottle Vodka, 1 bottle black label, 1 bottle beer!!!!!!!! It was a particularly hard year so we rewarded ourselves duly by eating hard too. Too bad it was a weeknight so nobody could go party after. I was also tired....I think I am getting too old for this.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Party

Tis the season to be jolly!!!

Been attending quite a few Christmas parties/Thank you parties these days.

First up was the GM party. It was actually surprisingly fun. Always thought it would be hard to party with management, but guess what, alcohol is a universal "lubricant", it removes all friction!! **Get that dirty thoughts out of your brain** Management turned out to be quite fun...especially when they added me, the life of the party!! **Chey ba**

Cheers~! THe food was good, the alcohol was plenty...it was a good party

Ko. Boon, I found out, is allergic to chicken...this is the first time I know someone is allergic to chicken...which is quite unfortunate cos our staff canteen is Halal so we have a lot of chicken.

Reservations, Sales and Executive Office's goodlooking girls

Gift exchange! This was a little unfair, the instructions were that we were to exchange gift items valued at MINIMUM THB 300. I bought a Starbucks coffee mug worth more than 4oo baht, and I got a notepad. Oh well.

Trusty bartenders made the night a lot more fun. They are my banquet boys, they know my preferred choice of poison. Got tipsy at the end and asked P'Gung how many glasses did I drink, he said one, cos I didn't change glass. So cute.

Party Girls. Put us two together with copious amount of good quality alcohol (no JW Red please, minimum black, best of all Jack Daniels, no Gordon's gin please, make it Bombay Sapphire Gin) and we become the life of the party. I was actually quite embarrassed by my behaviour actually. These are the management who are considering my bonus and giving me my promotion...and I formed a train and had them following me. Ah well...leadership qualities you know.

Saranghaeyo!

There goes the train that amused the heck out of everyone. I grabbed Pooh's shoulder and suddenly everyone is in a line behind me.

See?!

It was a fun party! Surprisingly. I hope management didn't regret inviting me along. Hahaha....

Merry Christmas!!!

FedEx, you are hereby in my blacklist

 

Once again I have to be tortured by the amateurish and lacking service of FEDEX! Fed UP really!!!

 

I don’t want to over-generalise, so I can only say the service of FedEx in THAILAND is pathetic.

 

Called them on Tuesday and asked them to bring the boxes and the airway bills cos my client leaving today, Thursday. They promised me that they will bring everything by yesterday. But the idiots brought envelopes for me and no airway bills. I don’t understand. I said BOXES!

 

Then today, I called them again cos I didn’t get anything I wanted. The Phuket office didn’t pick up the phone. I called the Customer Service, waited 10 minutes to be connected, get connected to an idiot who mumbles his answers, then he tells he can do nothing cos today is public holiday.

 

WTF. I know it’s public holiday which is why I asked them to bring the stuff by yesterday. And I didn’t realise FedEX doesn’t work on a public holiday. All I am asking is that you pop by with some boxes and the airway bill, do these people NOT WANT business? You can schedule the pickup over the next few days, but I need to have some airway bill and boxes. The most annoying thing is we asked them beforehand, anticipating that it will be public holidays. But I didn’t realise the staff here have vegetables for brains.

 

And then the poor Supervisor who came on the phone next. I bit his head off totally. I was ranting like “You’re telling me FedEX is closed on public holiday, that you cannot even bring the stupid boxes and airway bills because we are not in the zone of delivery today? Like Phuket is just an hour’s drive from top to bottom, you cannot just pop by with some spare airway bills?! Do you not want business?! Because I am telling my hotel to cancel you for next year! I’m going for DHL or TNT! Who gives me boxes when I asks, and has the presence of mind to leave spare airway bills around!!!”

 

Well, I have spread the word to my organisers and event planners TO NEVER EVER USE FEDEX EVER to ship their stuff in Thailand. NEVER!

 

Super Long Blog of Hong Kong

Just came back from a short but hectic holiday in Hong Kong. It was a good break. We were lucky cos I was just researching for air tickets to ChiangMai when I stumbled upon a new promotion of Air Asia's direct flight from Phuket to Hong Kong. At S$83 per person for roundtrip including taxes!

Booked it immediately of course. Actually my plan was to stay from 24th Nov - 29th Nov but the tickets were being sold so quickly, the only dates I got was from 26th. Which was a blessing actually cos once there, I ran out of money very quickly, so I could not afford to have stayed any longer anyway.

On Air Asia's direct flight to HK. Yay! Trip to Hong Kong! A first for Sup.

At the HUMONGEST Hong Kong airport. They have train system just to bring you around the airport! But immigration was really fast and efficient, though the officers can smile a little. I think it's part of an immigration officer's job to scowl at any visitor just so to warn them not to misbehave in their country.

It was a challenging first hour in Hong Kong. Took the airport express bus and didn't know where to stop at all. Thank goodness the bus driver could understand Chinese so at least I could ask him where. Once you hit Nathan Road in Kowloon area, everything looks the same. This is a pic of our little room in a little guesthouse in Tsim Sha Tsui area. Raymond, the owner, was very friendly and helpful. The room costs about S$60 a night with private ensuite bathroom. Small, but I think it felt authentically HK. And comfy. Got aircon somemore. We barely spend any time inside anyway. We were out by 9am and back again at midnight.

The tiny sink!!

View from the room of the opposite block

I got the bigger bed...wahahaha

Tsim Sha Tsui at night.

Alas I ran out of money to shop by the second day cos food turned out more expensive than expected. So no Jimmy Choos or H&M for me...sighhh

Hong Kong Milk tea

Our first foray into Hong Kong cuisine. I have to tell you something. I am a hopeless Chinese. I cannot read traditional Chinese words. So what I do at restaurants is recognise a word like 面 and then point something from there. It's quite fun actually...each meal is always a surprise cos I don't really know what I ordered. This was nice, french beans and succulent beef. Thai beef is too tough and tasteless.

An example of point-and-hope-for-the-best style of ordering. I thought I ordered Fried Rice, turned out it was Fujian Fried Rice, which was this. DOES NOT look like Fried Rice to me, but tastes oh-so-good anyway

Hong Kong dollars look like monopoly money....so colourful!

Our breakfast at "Dai Ka Lok" fancy name Cafe de Coral. It was cheap and filling.

The whole purpose of my trip to Hong Kong was DISNEYLAND. It's not my first trip, I did LA's one many moons ago, but I like thrill rides. Turn out this one only has ONE thrill ride, but well...I still love Theme Parks.

I actually took the wrong train the first day, I went through the longer way to change train at Central and walked a mile to Hong Kong station when I could have changed at Lai King but it was a good mistakes cos we got to sightsee a bit on the way. I think one of the most impressive thing about Hong Kong is the architecture, the way they built bridges so high up, their beehives of apartment buildings etc. I would like to go into one of those buildings and see how big is it cos it looks like a beehive from outside, and the ceiling height must be quite low. Anyway, this is the MTR line going to Disneyland, all decked out in Disney style.

NOt too sure where the resort part of Disneyland is, but it's a thrilling feeling walking into a Theme park

We were given hologram glasses to view the night's parade, but unfortunately I opted to go shopping at the Factory Outlet at Tung Chung so we left at 4. Anyway both of us were so tired of walking around Disneyland and it was getting boring.

I like the fact that they have a repository for lost children, for their parents to come claim them. If no one claims them for the day, what do they do?

SPACE MOUNTAIN! My all-time fave. I wanted to go on it over and over and over again but Sup the scaredy-cat almost died on his first try and refused to queue with me again. Oh well.

Super long queue for this autocar thing. Quite boring too, but it's probably the only occasion that I get to drive a car on my own.

To Infinity and Beyond!

Tarzan's treehouse.

Finally getting onto Tarzan's treehouse.

yay. Tarzan.

I love the streets, how everything is so according to the theme. It's cheesy to some but refreshing to others.

Bye Disneyland! Probably won't see you again, at least not in Hong Kong. Too many China Chinese cutting my queue and yelling instead of talking. Are they born without any volume control? Was queuing at one of the rides with these 2 China aunties in front of me, yelling away at each other. Then they suddenly up 10 levels on their volume followed by frantic hand actions, gesturing for their comrades to join them in the queue, right in front of us! I would have made a huge fuss if they weren't so loud and scary. But fortunately for us, we made it into the next round despite the additional people in line. Too bad for those behind who have to wait another round, but from what I see, they were another brunch of mainlanders so serve them right.

This looks like Tokyo. Or at least what I think Tokyo would look like since I've never been there.

That night, after Tung Chung Factory Outlet (everything was soooooooooooooooo expensive still) we made it back to Kowloon for the "Symphony of Lights" show at Avenue of the Stars. I think Hong Kong has done a great job with the concept of this, a nightly show for the tourists. But the overall showmanship was actually quite...bland. The lights on the buildings are definitely attractive (orchard road pales in comparison), but I couldn't really tell that the show has started if not for the music or the sparse green laser lights. Still, I think Singapore can copy the concept for the Marina IR project.

THe green laser lights are the only highlight of the show

During the show...

And during the show.

My dad is a star!

Sup only knows Jackie Chan out of all the HK stars

And we still have the energy and made it to Temple Street Night Market. Nothing much to buy also. The only things selling were fake goods, which I can get in Thailand at a cheaper rate, and little knick knacks. I only bought the little knick knacks like a bottle umbrealla, that was cute. And lotsa keychain souvenirs for my colleagues.

Settling down for dessert. Sweet potato in ginger syrup.

The next morning I finally got my Dim Sum breakfast! Chee cheong fun with shrimp. Mmm....

Har Gow

Feng Jow

After breakfast we walked to the Star Ferry Terminal to take the Star Ferry to Hong Kong island (pictured from the opposite side) It was a long walk, about 30 minutes, from hotel to dim sum place, dim sum place to Star Ferry. Actually I asked Sup to try to find his way using the map, but he could not tell up from down, east from west. It thought maps were an international thing, anyone can read, but apparently not. Thank goodness I'm a good map reader. Anyway, we finally reached the terminal when I asked Sup if he brought his Octopus card. He said no. I would have killed him there. I told him he has to bring it everyday cos we are using it to go everywhere. At the risk of losing more time, I gave him the map and told him to find his way back to the guesthouse. It was a long wait but he did find his way and come back.

In the meantime I took pictures of ME.

On the Star Ferry for the 5-minute ride to Central. Cheap thrill. Really. As in really cheap. Like HK$2.5 per person.

One impressive HK building.

Two impressive Hong Kong building. I am just amazed at how they manage to build such tall buildings onto a already tall mountainside. How did they get the crane up there to build? The idea of it is just so mind-blowing. I mean, Singapore has skyscrapers but they are built on flat ground.

We took bus 6 to Stanley Beach and it was a very scenic drive. We climbed up mountains, made heart-stopping hairpin turns on the winding mountainous roads. It was a Superbus somemore, so at one point I was looking at the sheer drop from the top of a moving bus swaying from side-to-side. down the cliffside into the ocean. I am in love with Repulse Bay. What do to to get a house there?

Arriving on Stanley beach

The weather was excellent. Cool air, warm sunshine...could not ask for better weather. When we were there it was about 18 -23 degrees celsius. Perfect air-conditioned weather.

Al fresco dining

I bought boots!

Some guy's idea of a boat.

See wat i mean about buildings perched on mountainsides? Hong Kongers must be born without vertigo.

One of those famous tiered cemetaries you see in Hong Kong movies. A lot of these experiences were especially enhanced because I grew up on Hong Kong movies. It's a thrill to see these in real life.

Pottinger street.

The Midlevels Escalator - my personal word of advice? Waste of time. From the way it was described - world's longest escalator blah blah, I was expecting one long ride without getting off. instead it was just standard escalator going up one tier, then the next. Waste my time getting there. I went up halfway then went back down. Got my Octopus card discount and that was good enough.

At the former Police Station

Church we found on the way to the Peak Tram Station

Queuing up at Peak Tram Station, Sup met Jackie Chan.

Going up the Peak Tram, which was a nerve-wrecking experience. The gradient of the slope, the number of people, the distance to travel?! The whole engineering aspect of it is amazing! And to think it's been in existence since 1824! Yes, I was bored waiting I read everything on display. The queue to get on the tram was soooooooooo long. There were like thousands of people there, took us 30 minutes to get to the front of the queue, battling China housewives and Filipino maids on the way. If they think Singaporeans are kiasu, they should see these China Chinese and Filipinos!

At the Peak. I think this was one of the nicest moments of the Trip. I LOVE THE WEATHER did I tell you that? This puts Genting Highlands to shame.

View at night.

At Madame Tussards, the first figure I see upon entering is my darling! he looks weird and not so real, but it's probably one of the few chances I get to taking photo with a life-sized Jay Chou.

And more photos.

Brangelina and Supraise. Look at how Sup got his hands around her waist? I got mine on his butt.

This is the Bae guy right?

And more photos.

Bush looks better here. Less wrinkly.

Chilling with Obama

COOL. They have MM Lee too.

Erm...who is this?

Astro Boy Sup!

I like this pic. I look so buddy with MJ. May he rest in peace.

Gillian's dress was dropping so to preserve her modesty, not that there is much out there that we haven't seen...

We decided to indulge ourselves, given that we had given up hope on shopping - everything was out of budget and those within are not worth the money since we can get cheaper in Thailand - we went for a nice dinner at Bubba Gump - a shrimp restaurant with a view over the Peak.

Onion rings, caesar salad.

my fish and shrimp combo.

his chicken and ribs combo.

Coming back down after a freezing cold queue up on the Peak - 30 minutes wait, we were walking to MTR when we spotted the Bank of China building up close. It's my favourite building at night.

At the airport going back. Have to take photo of Changi Airport's closest rival.