Bangkok 2015

I only knew Bangkok had winter season when I did some research before going there for 4 days. We booked a package on Expedia which was cheaper than individually booked.

The weather was super cooling with strong winds in the day and around 21 degrees at night so it was so awesome to walk around the night markets.

Hotel Muse is quite nice. This is the view from the pool.



Day 1:
I went to take measurements to make a whole suit which I thought was quite expensive for Bangkok standards but oh wells, at least it turned out really nice. They were really fast too.
Dinner was one of the cheapest and best meal at the food street at Thong Lor. I must have mango sticky rice and coconut juice once we touched down.



Thailand tourism campaign: Kingdom of Lights. We walked to Big C for some grocery shopping and I bought my travel size stuff.




Day 2:
Breakfast at Crepe and Co, Thai milk tea crepe cake at Central Embassy was quite good, then platinum mall for some cheap shopping, Siam, Siam Paragon. The usual. And we bought LeTao cheesecake which was ultra amazing.



Dinner at Eat Me restaurant



Scallops



They ain't kidding about their black truffles. They shaved the black truffle in front of us. OMG look at the flakes.



Drinks at Speakeasy bar, a rooftop bar in our hotel.

Day 3:
After my second fitting in the afternoon, we had brunch at Terminal 21 foodcourt, also super cheap and good, then it's night market time at artbox, food and more drinking at night.







Day 4:
The morning was kind of a slow epic. We did it and woke up quite late. Street side wanton mee for breakfast, Jap for lunch and last minute grocery shopping, then I went to collect my suit before checking out of our hotel. I kinda liked the hotel though. It was a pleasant stay, nothing to complain about and everything was fine. Maybe except the TV which didn't work well.

It was my first time doing a Thai massage. They use more body weight and did major muscles, it was less focused. Bali massage is more delicate, more of fingers and focused at certain muscle group but it was too gentle. Both are cool though I liked the Bali massage a little bit more.

After that we da baoed Four Seasons Duck and my favourite mango sticky rice to the airport and ate them all delicious food while waiting for our flight.

Somehow I felt this trip to Bangkok was super enjoyable than my previous time, especially the moments when we had more than enough food but we kept on eating and eating. Maybe it's the company, maybe it's the food places we went, or maybe it's just everything together.

Out of the blue

These few weeks have been crazy. In fact after October it's just one surprise after another and I barely had time to breath or do my own personal stuff like watch my shows or finish my comics.

Things just happen out of the blue and knock you out of your routine life
People getting married or attached; sudden training overseas, me being stuck in a foreign land for a day without resources; people getting retrenched; me scoring an interview but no more leave; sudden Bangkok trip; suddenly my taobao stuff came back; suddenly I have 2 hours off etc etc...

From time to time I was really worried because resources are really stretched and there's nothing more to squeeze but everything generally fall into place. Principles of equivalent trade. There's some to gain and some to lose, like my epic trip to HK. Lost one day of leave and extra expenditure, but had some crazy nights.

This month my boss's on leave for half a month and then I'll be on leave until next year! Woohoo! First Bangkok then Japan. I'm really looking forward to the snow and the onsen, my third time this year.

Interview at P

Redundancy

Redundancy.

That's the word that my company use for political purposes to express retrenchment, being let go or fired.

The last two weeks of November has been crazy. Thursday we heard the news of CMB cutting people. 3 of my colleagues in UK has been made "redundant". It was a shocker since they said that trade is still one of our strategic priority and the colleagues that were retrenched were so wonderful. It all happened within one day, they were called into the office and asked to pack their stuff and do some handover. I felt really uneasy but my manager has already told us to be mentally prepared.

The week after, our head called us into his office, then he started explaining. I was super nervous at that time, when he said those who are made redundant are not in the office today. In the Singapore office,  5 of us were affected. 3 were told to leave while 2 were re-deployed. I think our morale was super low at that time because it was really nerve-wrecking for us. Even one of the colleagues said it was her first time experiencing this in 30 years in this company.

I was super worried because one, I'm really a new comer and two, I think my role is quite redundant and three, my head didn't seem to like me very much. 2 of the impacted were my good friends, and some were wonderful colleagues. Should I be relieved I wasn't made redundant or should I panic that the company is too practical?

Anyway right on point, I received a phone call for an interview at P&G. I really hope I can get a better package than my current one. 

A short epic hk trip

I had the most epic trip to Hong Kong last weekend on 15th Nov to 17th Nov.

My first work trip in this company, I was very bored of Hong Kong but nonetheless it's great to get away from the office for a while and stay in a hotel. I was put up at Courtyard at Shatin, nice hotel but faraway location.

As usual, I arrived on Sunday afternoon and straightaway went to Mongkok for Cha Chaan Ting, Dim Sum, then went to Causeway Bay for some shopping and more eating and souvenir buying.

Epic 1: I met up with Reika and LJ who happened to arrive in HK that night, we had dinner. And cheese and wine after that and I got a little high and spilt a little bit. Reached back to the hotel past midnight to be ready for the training the next day.

Epic 2: I arrived at the training center to find out the training was tomorrow. I was quite pissed coz I didn't have any clothes or cash but luckily extending the hotel stay and changing the flight was very smooth. That means I had a whole day to myself. And I didn't bring my phone charger but the hotel was nice to provide me with one.

Epic 3: I msged Reika with my limited battery and luckily they woke up just in time and after our heavy dim sum lunch we walked from TST to Mongkok, stopping by Australia dairy on the way. We walked so much

Epic 4: After dinner at a nice char siew rice place with Nic (Reika's friend), we decided to sing K and booked a place at 9pm and they said we could sing till 5-6am for around $30. LJ ordered 3 freaking towers of beer and I wanted to go home at 11pm, 1am finally at 2.30am, with 2.5 towers of beer downed and I was super tipsy. I slept at 3.30am with the lights on and had to wake up at 8am for my training.

Epic 5: After training, I had to catch the 8pm flight so I straight to the airport and found out that I was upgraded to premium economy. The first time in my life I got upgraded by the airlines. It was the best thing that came out of this trip. The seats were so comfortable and I could recline till almost sleeping position. Noise cancelling headphone, big pillow, big screen but no premium meal.

I am so pissed that my boss made me pay for one night of hotel by myself and I had to take one extra day of leave.