BOOM!

I have a Singaporean friend living in the suburbs of China and on 元宵, he invited us over to let go some fireworks.

I am actually not a big fan of fireworks because they're loud and dusty and just a few minutes of lights. Quite literally blowing your money up in smoke.

Plus, how spectacular can they be when you can buy it for home consumption?

However, Someone was very interested so we went.

My friend, on hearing our interest, went to buy more powerful ones. Haha.

The two boxes thingy are the fireworks and the long one is the firecrackers.

In the end, I was very surprised the fireworks was too good!

Flew up in the sky and BOOM!

Whatsapp me if you'd like to see the video.

Driver!

After much deliberation that started even before we moved to Shanghai, we have taken the plunge to get a driver.

The driver's first day is today! Quite excited!

I have so many plans and ideas. We can have a wireless access point in the car so that we can surf the internet all the time.

We can leave our badminton gear in there after games and then head to lunch without lugging the bags.

I can then go to golf more often.

I'm actually thinking of picking up yoga. Wonder if it's too gay.

If we see the need to, we will buy a car too. I have a friend who has been living in Shanghai and he might be leaving at the end of the year. Maybe will take over his one-year old C-class if we see the need to.

w00t!

Home-Made Soya Bean

While I often eschew meeting up with friends over the weekend, opting to stay home for TV instead, one good thing is to see how people live. Almost invariably, we would see something interesting that we can buy that'd enhance our life.

This time, it was a soya-bean making machine. According to my friend, it's rather simple to make. She actually made it and then boiled some sesame tangyuan (frozen kind) and it was great!

Decided to buy it and try. Turns out the box is huge. Have to wait till our driver starts before I can bring it home from office.

Ill keep you informed.

Taiwan Snacks Again??!?

One of two new team members I hired last year is a Taiwanese and when she came back from her home town over CNY, she brought me these.



Overload of Taiwanese snacks now.

From only going to Kaoshiung in 2000, my first trip to Taipei was 2013 and we went three times in 2013. A little bit sian already. Not going to spend anymore leave in Taiwan anymore.

COLD!

It has been freezing ever since I came back from Shanghai.

The weather has been erratic with bursts of snow, then sunshine, then snow again, then rain then windy in between. However, throughout it all, it’s just been cold.

I took a pic from my office of the snow.

Then it stopped snowing 15 mins later. See how I took special effort to take from the same angle to demonstrate the difference?

During this period, my trusty under-table heater has been put to good use. In fact, I used it the other day to warm my cookie. Hee hee.

Subdued

If there’s any doubt that Shanghai is too crowded, we confirmed this last weekend.

We wanted to go to this korean chicken restaurant that a friend recommended the other day. For some dumb reason, we didn’t know this was located in Korean town. By the time we got there, we saw queues and queues of people queing at other restaurants even before we found our restaurant. I knew then that it was going to be futile because if the restaurant is as good as they say it is, the queue will be crazy too. Plus it was 5:45pm on a Saturday. Still kinda early but Shanghai people eat early.

I was right. By the time we found it, the queue number was #677. They were serving #190 at that time. Diao. We decided not to wait.

It’s true, at least for me, that when you can get something, it makes you want it more.

So, we decided to go back the next day. We thought that if we went after lunch, we would have a good chance of having the supposedly delicious Korean chicken for early dinner.

Hmmm.. it was raining. Does this mean that there’d be less people queuing?

This sight at another restaurant along the way didn’t bode well with our prospects.

 

DAMN. It’s just as crowded. Queue number was #122 and we got #289. 

Since it was early (3pm), we decided to wait. And since it was raining, we decided to wait indoors in a café.

The café was super crowded. I guess everyone had the same idea.

The queue to order drinks at the café was about 40 mins and the time for the orders to come was 20 mins. So that was an hour gone.

After using up all my lives in Candy Crush, it was 540pm. We have waited a total of 2.5 hours by then.

Checked the queue number - #227.

By simple extrapolation, the queue moved 100 places in 2.5 hours. That means that it’d be more than an hour before our turn.

Regrettably, we decided to give up. We are disappointed, because after two failed attempts, we didn’t manage to subdue the queue.

We vowed to be back.

End of Days

It's Old Aunty's last day tomorrow.

I actually cant imagine how it'd be like.

In my previous previous job, I had witnessed people literally tearing as they packed their belongings into a box.

In the days leading up to this last day, I have had mixed feelings. I sometimes hope she would just leave quietly at 6pm without any fanfare. Perhaps she will come by and say bye and thank me for my guidance, although it's unlikely. Will she kick up a ruckus?

I also contemplated being nasty and telling her that Im glad she's going and tell her it's not just me who wants her away. Everyone, including President, wants her out and blames me for letting her stay so long.

Just the other day, I chose the high road and decided to be nice.

Until...

I saw that she left the Valentine's Day snacks that I bought for the office on her table, untouched and uneaten, after she has gone for the day. It's not like the snacks were forced onto her because the drinks were all individually ordered and you could refuse the cookie.

Bitch.

So now, I am back to being undecided on how I should act on her last day.

Stirred

We went to Macs several times during my time in Singapore.

Various reasons really but primarily because it's a convenient snack between mahjong sessions or just not having enough food from a relative's.

On the breakfast Macs with my family, I found out that Macs has a new stirrer. I kinda like it. It has the nice length, nice look, flat so it's easy to store, hard enough so that it stirs properly, the list is endless. As you may remember, I'm on a constant search for stirrers for my daily hot drink in Shanghai.

Therefore, in my numerous trips, I have pilfered quite a bit of these stirrers. Did a rough calculation. I think if I used a stirrer a week, I'd have enough for three years. Haha.

Valentine's Day

I decided to do something nice for the office on Valentine's Day.

Decided to buy everyone tea and cookies.

I ordered this:

 

Not really tea but at S$2.40 inside got real pear. Quite nice and refreshing. 

Of course, all the greedy Chinese staff were very happy. They took a while to decide where to order the drinks from.

Hopefully it sweetened their day. I understood that there was a few single girls in the office feeling sian. My secretary even asked me if I knew any guys to introduce to them.

Satay Fever

One of the foods I missed most was satay because there isnt any chicken satay in Shanghai. It doesnt help that it is my most favourite food.

On this trip, I didnt manage to eat any satay until the last day when we had a family dinner at my sister's.

Took the opportunity to buy carrot cake, bak cho mee, hokkien mee, chicken wings and of course satay from Blk 85.

These are the stuff dreams are made of. 

Hmmm

It's kinda odd that this trip's stash didnt fill up the entire table like the other times. 

I think it's because the table here is bigger than the other apartment or perhaps I brought back heavier stuff this time.

It was a rather disappointing trip on the shopping front on this trip. I bought stuff for Someone and my mum and my nephew and gave out so many angpaos but tried as I may, I couldnt find anything to buy while in Singapore. Even a last ditch attempt at the airport before I left yielded nothing. :(

Looking Forward

I was actually looking forward to coming back to Shanghai.

After the Taipei holiday, then Singapore trip then 13 days in Shanghai, Beijing and Sanya then Singapore again, I just feel kinda unsettled living out of my suitcase.

In fact, I feel kinda dirty after my trip to Singapore. I didnt have my nail clipper and my nails were long and I didnt get to exfoliate. My face felt caked even.

So those were the first things I did. Of course, I did these after I unpacked everything because that's the subject of my OCD.

So with that, I am now ready for the year of the horse.

Sick :(

I have been sick the few weeks leading up to my Singapore trip.

I wasnt getting better so we went to the doctor to get it straightened out as well as stock up on meds.

What was shocking was that the doc said that it's an allergic reaction in my sinuses probably due to the bad air and then he looked into my nose and said that based on what's swollen inside, I should have had difficulty breathing for the last 20 years, not 2 weeks!

It's kinda shocking but I am not entirely surprised because I think I have a very high tolerance so I guess I must have lived with it all these years.One thing I have noticed over the years is that I started to breathe through my mouth and my mouth will open when I'm not paying attention.

So now I'm supposed to do nasal sprays every night and hope I get better else it may be surgery time.

So there we go..... more than $600 worth of meds.

Rolling Rolling Rolling..

I saw this picture in my phone and wasnt sure if I mentioned this.

Our nice friends in Taipei gave us these egg rolls before we flew.

The last time we went to Taipei in September, he gave us pineapple tarts which was da bomb! So i was mildly disappointed when it was ONLY egg rolls.

He said that these egg rolls were "有钱也买不到". I was a little skeptical because if that was true, then how did he get it.Plus they look like this:

Doesnt look too appetizing.

We didnt eat it till some time after we got back. Someone showed me the website that talked about the shop. I didnt read through it except that I heard that there's a waiting list of at least a month and it's in some small town I think. Our friends pre-ordered three months ago!

We tried it eventually and gosh.. it's pretty mind blowing for such an ugly thing.

Language Barriers

I mentioned here that I have become china-tised.

This point hit home when we were having dinner with my in-laws at our favorite frog leg porridge place in Geylang.

The PRC server asked something and my in-laws didnt understand her, but I did.

This is serious stuff because my in-laws are Chinese teachers....

Macs!

It's almost a family tradition when we were younger.

We would go, as a family, to Macdonald's for breakfast only one time in a year and that'd be on CNY Day 1. That's the only place that's open this early on this day that's fairly decent.

We havent really done it in recent memory but it was quite nice to do it this year - my dad, my mum, Someone and I.  The only downer was that my sister couldnt join because she was nursing at home. 

In our typical efficiency, we went early to beat the crowds.

Here's me with my big breakfast deluxe. So many permutations nowadays. My mum reminded me that my sister and I used to get a headache after eating the honey with the hotcakes. I was surprised she remembered. Haha. Yes, it's kinda weird but we did used to get a headache after eating hotcakes.

Help!

One of the more meaningful things we decided to do recently was to "adopt" a disadvantaged child in Shanghai to sponsor his primary school education until he graduates.

I had heard about this boy whose father abandoned them when he was very young and the single mother has to take care of the boy when at the same time, she found out that her own mother was diagnosed with cancer. They didnt have enough money for treatment and therefore, she is now waiting to die. I cant think of another way to phrase that.

Because the single mother had to take care of both of them, she couldnt find a proper job but to find out that was flexible and didnt require travelling. So she ended up as a social worker for disadvantaged children.

We decided to choose them because of her plight and also because as a social worker, she couldnt put her own son up for official help. It's kinda complicated.

She and her son came by my office the day before i left for Singapore. They kept emphasising they dont have anything to give except some couplets that he wrote.

Beautiful eh? He turns 8 this year.

Some of these kids' stories are rather heart-wrenching. We are still on a look-out to find one more to "adopt".

Open or Closed?

Remember her?

I found out that she's pregnant! I hadnt realised she got married and I asked my assistant. She said the girl got married a few weeks ago after they found out she's pregnant. Chop chop sia. Got hitched in Feb 2013 and then pregnant in Dec for a January 2014 wedding.

I must say I am a little shocked that I hear more and more girls getting pregnant before getting married. I know of someone else who announced at her own wedding dinner that she was going to give birth in six months' time. I dont consider myself a prude by any measure but I had thought that China was still a rather conservative society.

Shocking!

Mahjong Comatose

Someone picked up mahjong while in Shanghai and therefore, during this trip back to Singapore, we played mahjong. In total, we played a total of six sessions. Nearly to a point of overdose but it's always a good time of catching up and joking around.

Comfort

Between our palace in Shanghai, parents' home in Singapore and the usually-decent hotels I stay for work, my parents' home in Singapore is comparatively the most run down. Shower water pressure isn't great, no duvet on the mattress, no light switch at the side of the bed, no cable tv in the room.. The list can go on.

But yet, as you can imagine where this is going, this is home. Home, where my mum would prepare a bottle of water everyday placed by my bedside. Home, where the mattress is a little too soft my liking physically but yet strangely comforting emotionally.

Home is proverbially where the heart is. Sometimes, I cringe a little, just a little, when I'm out in shanghai and say I'm going home (referring to my shanghai apartment). That, in that context, is more of a reference to where I stay rather than where I consider home. 

Do..Do..Do.. Donuts

Faithful readers of my blog know of my earlier obsession with donuts.

Krispy kreme used to be the poison of choice but I have since stopped craving for it.

Maybe it's because there's a KK in Shanghai but also maybe because KK doesnt taste as nice in Shanghai.

I read with much amusement when Singapore welcomed her first Krispy Kreme. All the queues, all the excitement.

We passed it by the other day. Couldnt help but to queue and buy a couple.

Mmmm... but at S$2.60 for an original glazed, very expensive!

Dream Come True

You'd have heard me talk about Sushi Oyama in Shanghai all this time.

I am not sure if I had mentioned where we eat when we are in Singapore.

My cousin, the same one who found Sushi Oyama on a blog and asked us to go, introduced us to Ki Sho.

We would go to Ki Sho with her when we have time in Singapore.

Ki Sho is better than Oyama in that it has better dessert and because my cousin is a big regular there, we get better and more stuff. We always end up very full and sometimes even dabao dessert. Haha.

We went Ki Sho again on this trip back. Upon arrival, we found out that my cousin was actually under the weather but she didnt want to cancel last minute on the account of respect for the chef.

Behold the beauty of the magnificent otoro who gave up his life for our enjoyment.

Cousin isnt always the nicest person but with her under the weather, she wasnt in a mood for much talking and after 90 minutes, she decided she had to leave. She said we could carry on eating. I  was glad because I wasnt even half full yet.

It was at this time when things got surreal.

The chef, whom we have met probably five times now, then said to me.

"I need your help. We need to clear our fish because we are closing for a week for CNY."

I..I couldnt believe what I was hearing and asked him to repeat.

Yes, he needs us to finish his otoro and kinmendai and saba and butan.

I felt obliged. I felt that I had to help him in his hour of need. It's really a dream come true. We always joked at Oyama that if he needed someone to help clear his wooden box of fish, we'd gladly eat the slab of fish like a slice of cake.

Now, we have the opportunity to help someone finish his stock.

We just whacked. Otoro, chutoro, otoro, saba, kinmendai, otoro... In between, I kept asking him if he was joking.

No, he wasnt.

So we continued.. until he said stop.

Stop, because he was running out of rice.

Someone, never missing an opportunity, quickly told him that I love rice. He said he knows.

"Because in the 1.5 years we have been open, we only ran out of rice three times and he was here for two of them."

These words would forever remain in infamy.

With that, he used the remaining rice to make this:

After that was dessert, which was fabulous as usual but i was too high to take any pictures. We went back stuffed, still unable to believe the night of our lives.

Snip Snip

I was at Parkway Parade looking for a hairdresser to look my best for CNY.

I was too lazy to go to my usual place in Marina Square (S$28) but yet I was apprehensive of what I could give at Parkway in terms of quality and also if they'd mark up their prices due to CNY.

I was right.

Supercuts and one other place wanted to charge me S$50 - $60. That was nuts. Im now married. I dont need to pay more than S$30 for a haircut.

Then i came across this one in a small korner.

I havent been to this types in ages. I'm not sure if I am ready. I'm not sure if they're ready.

I went in and inquired the price. S$12 plus $2 mark up. Fair enough, since I'm on austerity measures.

As I sat down, I realised that places like this doesnt provide wash hair service. Gulp. I hope they dont leave too many stray hair around.

In the end, it was quite good! Someone actually even said it looks better than usual. Diao.

Good Ol' Times

I was a little apprehensive of arranging golf this time I'm back because it's been some time since I last played and it's going to be a horrible game.

However, on the way there, I began to remember the times when I was driving down the north-south highway, blasting my music, zipping around and then smelling the fresh air on the course.

Upon reaching, here's what greeted me. Aaaaahhh.. how beautiful.

I had a rather decent game because my friends were also having a bad game that day. Hee hee. 

Timings

CNY.. A time where traditions and obligations ring especially important.

A time where a lot of people are on leave for a long time but at the same time, obligations and responsibilities mount higher.

A time of reunion and an inexplicable need to queue for bak kwa and craving for pineapple tarts. It's inexplicable to me because I crave these all year round.

Shops are closed because everyone has to prepare for CNY.  Golf courses are closed for the same reason. It's a nightmare to find legs for mahjong.

In our frustration, we just made an executive decision to not come back for CNY again because time and leave is too precious to be chasing things can can't be chased. 

Slippery Packets

In my previous post, I wrote about giving red packets to my staff.

We werent allowed to use company red packets for personal stuff so I had to find alternatives.

In the end, I managed to find Heineken ones. A little odd because I dont even drink.

Alas, the glossy packet made it impossible to write on my roller ball pen. Ended up having to find postage labels to stick at the back of the packets.  However, the labels were wider than the packets.

Diao.

Had to then tear off a part of the labels so that it can fit. Super troublesome. Ahhh.. the lengths I go to for being nice.

Black or White?

It has been six months since I got my air purifier. There's a little timer on it that reminds you to change the filter after 180 days. After 180 days, a blue light pulsates until it starts to get a little irritating.


Here's the before and after for the purifier. Can you tell which is which?

Yearly Review

Just as I did my yearly review recently, my blog also has a yearly review.

As you can see, since the inception of the blog in 2010, we have had mixed fortunes.

Obviously 2013 was a high because of the deluge of posts of my time in China. Hopefully we can create new heights in 2014!

 

Packets of Blessings

I was wondering if I should give my staff ang paos. I think I should but I couldnt remember if I did last year.

I asked my secretary and she said I did and I also gave stored value cards for mobile phones for them for New Year too. She said she remembered because she said she told her mum that her mum so generous. New Year and Chinese New Year also got present and she even kept the red packet.

I forgot I was so generous. I didnt get them anything for New Year.

My excuse, if I needed one, was, I was away on holiday.

One dilemma is if I should give Old Aunty a red packet. I was irritated with her the other day because she was dragging her feet in giving me the contact details of the client for her project. Plus, she's basically ignoring me at work.

I was even contemplating in telling her that she's not welcome in the company anymore and everyone from the President, CFO, HR all wish that she leaves as fast as possible. I actually have the authority to give her garden leave so that she doesnt just come in and stare at the computer but I just dont feel like.

With that, i decided not to give Old Aunty a red packet. I called each of my team into my office on my last working day to give them. For my secretary, I specially included a stored value card, since she sometimes does things for Someone. 

Tarts

We flew to Singapore from Taipei when we were there in September.

My mum had wanted some pineapple tarts.

We went to buy a couple of boxes from two brands.

We also got a box from Someone's nice ex-colleagues. These are the same guys from here.

Turns out my mum preferred the one from nice ex-colleagues.

Therefore, when we were there in December, we decided to go get some.

Nice and bright shop! Expensive stuff though. The boxes in the back of the picture look so gold and so gleaming!

There was a more expensive variant versus the ordinary type. No idea what it entailed so we asked if we could try.

They gave us an entire piece of each type. Probably it's the greedy me who's impressed. There's even a little tasting korner. Turns out the cheaper one was more palatable to us. Heng.

Power App

I have longed expressed my admiration for some of these Chinese apps.

There's this flight app that allows you to get live update on the status of your flight, including whether it has taken off from its previous destination or if it's delayed, which terminal and which gate I should board at and even which carousel my luggage will be at upon arrival.


There's even an analysis of how punctual this flight is in the past. 

Power.

CNY

Once again, CNY is looming. Once again, the annual trepidation that I get when this comes.

In recent years, it has been relatively event-free but who knows?

Hopefully, with my sister's new-born, it'd take away some of the stress of who should visit who and where and when.

However, as i type this, I wonder if it'd actually exacerbate the situation.

*finders crossed*

Fly Fly Fly

It was a stressful time at the end of 2013 because we were in a big rush to close the deals and meet the target.

It was frustrating because even with the stress, we didnt manage to accomplish the target.

Therefore, I decided that come 2014, I'll travel more often to be more pro-active in meeting clients and showing my face more often to clients so that I can help push the deals for my guys.

That's why before the end of January, I'd have taken eight flights.

*gulp*

Being Watched?

I have so many watches at home that the helper asked Someone that day if my work involved watches.

Gulp. That's not good.

Just when I was eying the Yacht Master II.

China-tised?

It was a little weird for me when I first touched down in Singapore last week.

First of all, gosh the humidity. Hit me like a brick wall. A hot brick wall.

Then I had the inclination to speak to the taxi driver in Chinese. That was fine until i wanted to ask for a receipt. I said 发票 instead of 可以给我receipt吗？Stunned the driver for a while before i recovered and used the right terminology.

When I entered cars in Singapore, I was sometimes surprised that the driver seat isnt where I thought it'd be.

The oddest was when I was in a restaurant then I heard Singlish from another table. I spun around immediately, glad to hear a familiar accent in a foreign land. Oh wait a minute, I'm not in a foreign land. Im back in Singapore. This is how everyone speaks!

Have I been china-tised? How weird.

Yilan

Someone had some ex-colleagues based in Taipei and gosh they were nice people.

One couple knew we loved to eat and decided to plan an itinerary for us and take us for a whole day of eating and hot springing.

I was actually hesitant because I didn’t want to feel indebted to others and also I wasn’t sure if I liked their company.

However, they were impossibly nice.

Came to pick us at the hotel at 10am. Drove an hour to a place called Yilan. I never heard of the place before the trip. 

This is Yilan. Looks kinda backward. 

Upon arrival, whacked a brunch which was nice and very cheap beef noodles.

Then they brought us to a cheap but good hot spring place.

S$40 for two hours! With a room and a bed and a view! Sure, the view is tranquil and all. Not really my cuppa tea but that’s what the Taiwanese like. The agricultural feel. Hey, it’s real cheap! 

 

After hot spring, we went to queue for bao. Yes, it’s pretty insane but apparently, they only make a batch every 40 minutes and there’s limited quantities. Here’s a pic of the queue. 

There's a little white board there that says that each person can only buy 5 baos and 2 man tous. So they estimated that if there are more than 24 people in front of you, you probably shouldnt queue!?!? What kinda place is this? It's a small little backward town!!?!

We told ourselves that we would queue only for this batch. We were lucky in the end because we literally got the last three baos!! That was insane. The friendly couple shared one and Someone and I each had one. It was good! But I wasn’t sure if I’d queue for it.

Then we drove off for the next stop. Minced pork noodles. 

After minced pork noodles was juices – papaya juice and green bean juice.

Thereafter, we drove off to a night market. Yes, by then it was already almost 5pm and the night markets are beginning to open. We were pretty much stuffed by then but they told us that the mutton soup was to die for and we should try it even though we are stuffed and especially since there wasn’t a queue then. 

Of course, we tried and yes, it was good. No mutton stench and all.

At the night market, we even packed some snacks back.

Then it was another hour’s journey back.

All these, they didn’t let us pay a single cent. I had to fight and force my way through so that i could pay for both our hot springs but that was just S$80! Definitely not enough for all that they've done.

Stash

Here's an obligatory pic of the stash I brought back this time. 30kg with SQ allows me this.

Review

I did my review with my President and CFO when I was Singapore. It was a nervous one for me because this was my first year and I didnt meet the main targets. Previously I mentioned that I signed a lot of LOIs. In fact, my team eventually signed 12 LOIs in 2013 as compared to 2 in 2012, so eventually I bought a good pipeline for 2014. Plus, we signed two LOIs in the first week of 2014! But alas, I missed another target, so yeah, it was a nervous time.

It's particularly scary because just as I could easily terminate Old Aunty without much reason, I thought that they could terminate me just as easily.

We started on the topic of Old Aunty. President said she sent him a note saying how I wasnt a good leader.

*Gulp*

"Good job" was what he said next. "Good job getting rid of her. If anything, you took too long."

*PHEEWW*

The rest of the review went along the lines of how they think that it's a year of transition for the team - new head, new team members, new policies so i shouldnt dwell on the missed target but make sure i dont miss it this year.

I guess that's the best well it could have turned out given the circumstances. I was relieved.

Making a Stand

In the iPad crazy household that is mine, where we each have two ipads, I bought this for Someone so that she can watch TV on ipad without holding it.

Retro

Lest you think that all train stations are so cool and high-tech.

Here's an old school station in Taoyuan.

Taiwan

Taipei.

A city which I have never been to since 2013 but ended up going there thrice, twice of which being for vacations.

It's an odd city. People say it's a mini Japan. We agree. It's clean and everything works.

Check out this display panel outside a toilet at the train station.

Different colored lights to show availability. And no, yellow doesnt mean you're halfway through a pee/shit.

Adult Parties

As mentioned before, we had three parties at our new place over the Christmas period that doubled up as a housewarming party as well.

That's three more parties compared to what we did over the last twelve months in Shanghai. Our old place was too small.

Doing these parties again made me remember how much work it was. I remember our first party in our new apartment in Singapore. I was so bushed from cleaning up that I stopped halfway to call my mum to tell her I now know how tough it was.

It's better in Shanghai because the cleaning aunty comes every other day.

Having said all that, it's more fun having our own party because at least we can decide what food there is and what the program is.

What immediately comes to mind was the Supposed-to-be-Thai-but-turned-out-to-be-Singaporean-food party. At that said party, there was red wine, white wine and whiskey. All very adult drinks. The only other drink was plain water. Seems like everyone is an adult there. To add to the adult-ness, they played Texas Holdem after.. complete with the carpet thing and chips and all.

Somebody tried to bring an adult element into our house party once by bringing a bottle of wine.

Here's how much there is left:

We will stick to our bubble tea. Thank you very much.

Most Anticipated Post Ever!

D-day was today.

H-hour was 4pm.

Early in the day, some of you have messaged me to ask me how it went.

H-hour was 4pm, so a lot of the messages were premature.

After it all happened, and throughout the evening, some of you messaged me to ask me what transpired.

I decided that it best be detailed in a blog, because I am too lazy to reply everyone in the detail you deserve.

H-hour was 4pm.

At H-5, I discussed the strategy to take down the objective from HR.

It wasn't so much of a strategy because I just told her that I wanted her to break the news in Chinese so that there isn’t any misunderstanding. She was agreeable. That was great because I was feeling all clammy and distracted all day.

Technically, we were going to non-renewal of contract, which technically didn't need a reason. So the plan was to say we will note down her concerns and avoid answering “Why is my contract not renewed?”

That sounded like a good plan.

So HR went ahead. Not surprisingly, she asked “Why?” Then HR deflected by saying that she will be compensated XX amount based on Chinese law.

OA asked again, “Who made the decision? Who’s the highest level?”

“President”.

LL.

“Ok, since it’s the decision of the company, I will accept it.”

(Bravo, spoken like a true communist minion. W00t!)

“Will I be paid bonus for last year’s achievements?”

(Not so much of a commie I see)

HR said “It’d have to be a function of your achievements plus your review by your supervisor”.

When I heard that, I was like diao. The poor review was precisely the reason why she wrote me the “hate mail” some nights back.

OA then took out the review which was by now strewn with Chinese words she wrote as notes for revenge. She went on for 15 minutes on how anal I was about paperwork and spotting typos and her not updating the project update list because as Business Development people, her jobs is only to sign deals. Of course, before she said all that, she praised how I was so detailed and all. Blah blah. She then argued why she should be graded higher on some aspects. Blah blah.

After the initial tirade was over, she went on again about how she should be paid her bonus.

HR said they’ll check policy and then reply.

And then it was done.

It was actually bitter sweet. I was expecting a big ruckus so I had steeled myself. My adrenalin was pumping and al poised but I never got to use it. I had even told IT to back up her emails, back up her laptop and also change the back-up cycle of our server from weekly to daily in case she decides to obliterate it. Well, maybe she might. She still has 20+ working days.

Well, it wasn't over.

After an hour, HR came to me again and said that OA came to her and started talking about bonus and then bitched about me again about how the review was done in 仇恨. How I came in late to work and how she gave me a lot of tips at work and the markets and how when she doesn't know some things about the work, I asked her how come she don't know. Of course, she went on about how she shouldn't be judged on paperwork.

Man, I wish she would leave as soon as possible.

Quiet End

It has been a relatively quiet end to the year. It was a quiet Christmas Eve eve dinner in our favorite cosy japanese restaurant and then countdown to the new year in our hotel room in Taipei.

It was a Christmas Eve eve dinner because Sushi Oyama was fully booked on Christmas Eve. We wanted to give ourselves a treat so eve's eve is fine as well. It was the usual top quality sashimi and sushi and I was at my sociable best (my best is really simply my best and not other people's best because Im really coming off a low base) so that we get some freebies. True enough, we got free oysters. W00t. S$60 saved!

As we were leaving, we told chef that we were leaving for Taipei soon. The guest beside us said she was from Taipei and then we started talking. That was kinda weird really because we didnt talk the entire hour plus we were eating. The lady was really hospitable and said her friend bakes home-made pineapple tarts in Kao Hsiung and she will ask her friend to send us a couple of boxes for free (w00t??!?) That was also kinda weird but hey, who am I to refuse free tarts?

We always meet weird people at Oyama.