Fwah!

Now you know why i have to bring Hello Panda from Singapore.

Cost almost S$2 in the supermarket here. Plus this is a heartland supermarket!

Arrived!

I know I have arrived as a home party host when I have this in my home.

We bought this at the hotel supplies place.

Given its the festive season and we have our new place, we arrange for our various group of friends to come over. We had one party last weekend with some of Someone's ex-colleagues.

Then on last night, we had another group of 12. We have just enough chairs and stools for everyone! We dont even have enough cutlery even though we bought some from the hotel supplies place.

Then today, my team will be coming over - without Old Aunty. She's on leave so I took that as an excuse to not invite here as "I dont know if she's out of the country".

Phew, cant wait for the party season to be over so that I can just simply enjoy my new apartment.

Yummy!

Someone had some friends over in Shanghai last weekend. Spent a good part of Saturday with them.

We are so different. I'm much more anti-social. When I know of friends coming to Shanghai, I lie and tell them I'm travelling. Haha. In fact, a Singapore friend asked me to join our other SG friends for dinner cos they knew that Someone was entertaining friends. I told her I wasn't feeling well.

With that, I began my perfect weekend of TV and more TV and one of my favourite drinks. Buy one and the second one is 50% off. W00t!

Well Hung!

Wanted to hang some pictures the other day.

Realised I never hung one before.

I have seen pictures being professionally hung before. There were a lot of calculations.

I decided that I needed to do a lot of calculations too.

It has to be in the centre of the wall. No shit.

Because the hooks we had were rather long, so we needed to use two so that the point of hanging can be lower and therefore not peek out of the frame.

Therefore, the hooks have to be equidistant apart.

Decided to draw a modal diagram.

Boring!

Saw this on my desk the other day.

Nice medium sized box, nice weight.. I was curious what it contained.

Turns out to be this. Boring.

Wonder why Chinese people like to send such stuff. Tsk tsk.

Dim and Dimmer

When I decided that I wasnt going to renew Old Aunty, I began to think about what I'd say.

Should I take the apologetic approach where I go "It's not you, it's us"?

Or should I go full on and let go a full torrent?

A few interesting ones came to mind.

I thought of pointing and saying to her..朽木...你是朽木！Hopefully that would be suffice.

And then I thought of another tack.

There's this lamp in our now old place. It's a lamp that looks interesting but it's actually made up of many little bulbs that were all working when we moved in. A year on, a lot of the bulbs blew and all that's left was this:

 

So I thought, I could show her the picture and saw you're dimmer than this dim lamp. 

Still undecided on this. 

New Furniture!

With a bigger place, we sought to find more furniture. Someone actually never asks me for anything but she had seemed keen to add more furniture so agreeing seemed to be a logical step.

At the same time, I was inspired by somebody who told me he likes quality furniture. I decided I shouldnt lose to him.

We passed by this Chinese furniture shop the other day. It advertised that it was having a closing down sale. I'm not sure how true that is but the stuff inside looked interesting.

We saw a table which looked interesting to be placed on this particular short wall for our wallets and keys. Then we saw another one exactly the same but in a different wood but double the price! Of course he said that the second one is made of a better quality wood.

After a quick google, we verified that this was indeed true (although there's no way of knowing that it's actually made of that wood. Haha) and whacked it. Subsequently, after we left, i was kinda surprised that we made a decision to spend so much on a tiny table in such a short time.

Here it is, in all its varnished glory. 

For some reason, I was very attracted to this table. Dont know why. Managed to bargain it down a little, then BUY! Havent really decided if I want to put it at home or in my office.

Saw this little stool. Thought it'd be perfect to be put in the hallway to wear shoes.

Then we asked for a bundle price for this as well. Too many stools in the house so this is beside the couch as a mini coffee table of sort.

Didnt Get the Hint

A few of you have messaged me to ask about Old Aunty.

Yes, she didnt get the hint. She thinks I was being too personal. Wrote me an email late the night of the review.

Now I'm pissed.

"看了你对我的一年的综合评价感到十分气愤，等我休假回公司后我需要与你逐条沟通，摆事实讲道理，希望你实事求是地正确地评价一个人，否则我会向公司申诉的."

 

Blah..

The review on Old Aunty's last working day for 2013 didnt go very well but that was expected.

She felt indignant and felt that I gave her a bad review cos I didnt like her personally.

I told her that I didnt didnt like her personally but I just didnt like the poor quality of her work.

She said that she felt that the President supported her more but little did she know that I'm already getting into trouble with the President for not getting rid of her earlier. Haha. What a douche.

I actually think I'll take pleasure in getting rid of her.

IT Box

In this day and age, I think there arent many households that do not have an IT box to put all their IT peripherals.

Given i'm a wannabe-geek, our IT box is super full and very messy. Took the opportunity of the move to sort things out.

Gosh so many things.. micro USB, 30-pin power cable, lightning, power plugs, battery packs...

 

Sounds like a no brainer but I have decided to categories them according to the type of connections. 

 

Then I have individual bags for them to differentiate. 

I like being anal at times. 

End of Days

I mentioned earlier about the timetable leading to the beginning of the end for Old Aunty.

She applied for leave the other day so her last working day is 16 December, returning to work on 2 January.

I am on leave and back in the office on 6 January.

Then the entire department is supposed to be fly off to Singapore on 8 January for a meeting. Since we arent going to renew her contract, no point wasting money for her to fly to Singapore.

So with that, i'm going to have to not renew her on 6 January.

I wanted to give her a subtle warning so i told her that i wanted to do her review before she went on leave but she went back and forth on why it should be in January since she should be graded on full year results. I actually thought it might be easier on her if I gave her some subtle head's up before January so I insisted.

Oh well... so difficult this one.

Saint

Someone is a saint sometimes.

We found a new Taiwanese hotpot place recently which was very delicious. We have been going there twice a week.

One of the waiter is from Taipei and he didnt look too happy working in Shanghai.

So, Someone brought him a packet of ready-to-eat braised pork gravy thingy which we bought from Taipei to help him with his homesickness.

Moved!

We moved today.

Someone basically arranged for our move with the movers from Singapore to Shanghai in May.

Then in July arranged for the unpacking of the stuff.

Then now the packing and unpacking of all our items. She's getting very experienced, but she hates it. She's very good at it though. It's exactly 12 hours since we started the process and now everything is in order.

The weather was good today too. From psi of 600+ last weekend to 97 today.

Remember a time in Singapore when 97 was hazardous and everyone get their undies in a bunch when that happens?

Now 97 is the new 27.

I'm bushed.

Departures

A few weeks ago, I received news that the President of my previous company left the company, presumably due to poor performance of the company. That was shocking to me because he was actually one of the founders and part owner of the company.

He has a very bad temper. I once saw him throw his cell phone on a restaurant table WHILE WALKING TOWARDS THE TABLE. That was scary.

In any case, I guess his temper didnt go down well with the board members.

Then just this Monday, I heard that my first ever boss left the company. That was even more weird. I guess that gels with my earlier post in which he said my note "came at the right time".

I texted him the other day and he hasnt replied. So many questions are swirling in my head.

Smog or Fog?!?

Sometimes I get confused on whether it's foggy or smoggy.

I'd like to think it's foggy cos it's winter but these few weeks, it's more likely due to the smog.

Here's a view from my office in the afternoon.

Hotel Supplies

We have long heard about wholesale warehouses or the likes where they sell hotel operating supplies like cutlery, crockery and what not.

Always interested to go but our current apartment is just so small that there's hardly enough space for additional stuff.

Of course, now it's a different situation so we went the other day.

It was surprisingly run-down but even more surprisingly well stocked. For someone who has travelled as much as me, it's actual kinda familiar seeing those items in hotels I have stayed. It actually felt like toy 'r' us but for adults.

We saw this. Wonder if we should buy this to put ice milo since our house is so big now.

Of course, given that we love to eat sushi so much, we contemplated getting this dragon boat to put sushi in. That'd really signify that we have arrived!

Taxi Stand

Sometimes in the morning peak hour rush, it's hard to get a cab.

Sometimes I have to resort to waiting outside the public toilet where I heard that taxi drivers will come here to pee.

WIFI? Repeater?

Landlord just texted us to say he has installed the internet and WIFI in the room.

Now I dont know what to do with my WIFI router. Maybe use it as a repeater since the house is SOOOO big. Haha.

Have I mentioned how big it is?

It's 203sqm. I think I might get a little scared if there's a thunderstorm and I'm alone at home.

Blah

Another downside of managing people is that you have to do yearly reviews. It's like playing Santa, remembering if they have been good or bad all year round and thus determining what "gifts" they get for, in this case, CNY.

Last year, I only had to review three people but now that I added two more people... more work.

All these review criteria have these corporate speak that I dont really understand at first glance and that makes it taxing to read and understand and then assess against my team.

I wonder what my review would be.

*scary*

Gay?

It was the Shanghai marathon today and I had seen from my Landlord's wechat this morning that he was running it.

Later in the afternoon, he sent me some pics of him at the starting line??!?

I didnt know what to say so I gave him a thumbs up emoticon.

Then he said, I should go train up so that we can run together??!?

I told him that Someone and I had signed up for the gym at the new condo.

Then he gave me a thumbs up. 

.....

I believe Landlord is going to feature quite a few times over the next two years.