Hong Kong - Final

After spending a whole day in Disneyland, we were all dog-tired and thought it would be good that the boys as well as the 'old man' finally get to rest in the hotel to boost back their energy while i report to 'work' on Monday!! But as i returned that night, huby already complaint it was torturous & strenous to confine the boys in the hotel as they just couldn't sit quietly even for 1/2 a minute and huby was forced to resort to shouting & yelling to control them.....i can imagine how taxing that could be on one's mind ..... poor thing !!! So of course huby brought them out just for the sake of jalan-jalan, makan-makan & most importantly to ' kill ' time !!

Now what happened to me when the above drama unfolded ??

DAY 1

Due to the high rate of staff turnover, almost 60% of the team in our HQ-HK was newly hired while most of us coming from overseas have been long....old....staffs! Email & phone calls were the only communication we had prior to this, so first thing in the Monday morning was ice-breaking, getting to know who is who....engaged in all d hand shakes & hugs!! Then followed by "updates" from each country as well as different functions!!

Then, lunch was at SUPER STAR restaurant which was a well-known restaurant for DIM SUM & other chinese cuisine!! Food was quite good except a little pricey!! Weather was fine and it was not as HOT as the day earlier when we were in Disneyland.

The 2nd half of the day was filled with TEAM-BUILDING games/activities. It was quite FUN & i must say it removed away to a certain extend the stress, the tense environment & the boringness of the events in the 1st half of the day! Seeing the "usually acted very professional people" engaging in some of the silly games was very hilarious to me! But i reckoned that it was indeed very successful in building up our relationship!!

Team mbrs were blind-folded but to make a rectangle shape with the string!

6 members were to balance themselves on a piece of small paper (legs off the floor). The above was the winning team : tips are, get a strong member to stand in d middle as a pillar for the rest to hold-on. None of the rest could make it......hahaha

My team was the winning team : to use only newspaper & tape, we are to make/build the tallest object. Yeah....we won but but but, the gifts were only the company's T-shirt & cap, cheh !!

All in there were 4 games played & that ended the day around 5pm. As our hotel was just across the road, some of us went back for a short rest/change & gathered again at 6pm for dinner! Dinner was at YU restaurant, in OneCapital tower which was located nearby the office, so it was walking distance & convenient !! Typical chinese cuisine, with 9 courses dish. I must say, i was surprise despite there was bills to pay for 3 tables (30 plus of us), we were served with luxurious meal.... thought d co. was starving for cost-control...*wink-wink* !! was told that a table cost abt HK$3,000.....wow !!

There was suppose to be karaoke system in our dining room but guess without any alcohol, the people wasn't 'high' enough to sing their guts out so facing with shyness, the group decided to disperse around 9pm. No doubt, the issue of crony was inevitable....some of the drinker crony went ahead to the pub, then the asian ladies crony decided to go for a walk.....or rather shoparound!!

And i must say we were very lucky to befriend some of the NICEST Hong Kee we'd ever meet.

My taiwanese & philippino colleagues including myself wanted to go for a walk & when we asked to find out the place where there's night street market or so, 2 of the HK ladies INSTANTLY offered to take us there. I felt really appreciated & reckon that was a very good hospitality!! There we boarded the MRT to WONG KOK where the popular "lui yan kai / woman street" was located. It was indeed the right place to visit, as given such late hours, the street was still brightly litted, shop was still busy operating & lots of people still wondering around !! Our first stop was at the Esprit warehouse outlet & managed to grab some clothing for the boys as well as myself at reasonably cheaper price than M'sia !! Ordinary khakis long pants for kids could be easily sold at RM100++ here but i got them at HK$120/RM60!!

Then, we proceeded to the woman street & bought the followings:

- a dozen of under wear for the boys;

- Toys Story 2 t-shirt;

- helo kitty pyjamas for myself.

Then our throat started to itch hence a cold, icy drink/dessert was the solution! Pop into a dessert house at 11:30 pm & we had more than just a drink !!!

Mango sago is always my favourite and the other 2 were durian pancake & mango coconut roll.

By the time we travelled back to our hotel, it was already way past the midnight !!!

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Day 2

It was the most drop-dead boring day! It started to rain & got wet everywhere. I was kind of culture shock seeing the drastic change in weather!!!

Apart from continuing with the routine updates, there were also macro excel training & other system training !! No official lunch & dinner was arranged for this day so it was a FREE & EASY day...........supposingly !!! But i don't have d luck. I was sort of 'force a little' to accept a lunch invitation by a function head in which i had an accountability so no choice, die-die and don't like also must attend !! The worst part was, my indian colleague was a vegetarian & can't even possibly 'eat' our chinese vegetarian food, hence we had no choice but to accustom to his taste so obviously indian cuisine was the decision !!! I was like ..... \#%$@&*/ .... oh my god, i don't even eat indian food back in my home country!! And knowing that the rest of my buddies (who don't need to attend d same lunch with me of course) happily went to enjoy themselves, i got so so so envy!!

But after eventually forced the food down my throat, i felt guilty......guilty for being bias & guilty for blaming on the choice of indian food bcoz i was way SURPRISED to discover that the taste of the indian food was not just good but extremely delicious, yummy & juicy man....tsk tsk tsk!!

There we had good food & a good exchange of stories from different countries as well !!!

After lunch, the training continued and most of us had a hard time controlling our eye lids from dropping down......arghh, i was very sleepy!! It was not until the presentation by the Thai ah pek that woke everyone up by virtue of his hillarious & humourous style, hahaha....that was a good one!!! The official hour ended at the dot, 5:30 & everyone got back to the hotel for a short break before heading for their respective personal plan. Most of the south asian colleagues (who were 'old' staffs) had made a dinner arrangement with some of our ex staffs who had left the co. You see.....these HKee must be good people that justified the continued friendship even after leaving the company, no??!! These good samaritans brought us to a very very very very FINE Japanese cuisine, oh dear....i'd never even savour such a fine one back home, felt so amazing....blessed....and lucky!!

Very nice view too........million thanks jacky, denise, stella, julia & raymund !!!

SHOW TIME

so fresh, so juicy, sweet, tasty, awesome !! btw, i wonder if d japanese lady(left front) ever agrees with my tastes....hahaha

It was so thoughful of my japanese colleague who brought us a souvenir each, now...i learnt what to do next time...hehehe
Arigato sachiyo !

After the dinner, i got back to meet the boys & was greeted by their cheerful smiles coz dady brought them lots of toys !!!

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Day 3

Oooh ya, btw at 3:30pm on Day 2, it was already announced that TYPHOON Level 3 reached HK !! We were told ahead that should it accelerates up to Level 8 by morning of Day 3, we should remain in the hotel !! YOO HOO....... cheering beneath the heart !!

True enough, it was declared a "pat hou foong khau / Level 8 typhoon". But i still woke up early as usual & met my colleagues for breakfast afterwhich we continued with our chat (gossips) in one of the lady's room!! While we chatted, we also looked out for the latest updates from the TV news. At 11am, the typhoon level was down to 3 & our mobile phones were heard ringing with notice to report back at work........oops for lunch actually as it was nearly 12pm !! It was Thai food this time at Chili Club. Everyone seen walking with an umbrella, as it was still raining cats & dogs! AGAIN.....was surprise by the good taste! I had underestimated yet again that the thai food would not be as good but wrong wrong wrong i was again. Even the thai ah pek also acknowledged that it was great this time, hahaha...

After the lunch, the other half of Day 3 was for OUTDOOR event. What do you think it was ??? Any good guess??


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Here u go .... it was BB BALL somethg like paint ball !!

It uses the light weight bullet instead of the messy paint !! But i tell you......it can caused you god damn pain in the arse.... !! I got a little brusing on the thigh & leg as i failed to hide myself from the shooting of the enemies!! It was my very first time playing the game & as much as i had appreciated this golden experience, i wouldn't actually go back for more as i was just not adventurous enough to enjoy it !! All i felt was scare & afraid...i basically just stood where i got started until the enemy came....hahaha !!! What i hated the most abt the game was the smelly mask & the jacket that made us all smelly & sweaty !!

This place was located at the 18th floor of a very old building in an industrial area. The co. hired a coach to transport all of us there which took about 1/2 an hour to arrive. From the pathway to the lift, the place looked so eerie & for a moment i had been thinking if the aging lift would be able to send us all up to 18th floor, gosh !!

Here are how the entrance looked like:

Anyhow, i still valued this experience very much !!

After a few rounds of the games, we were done & boarded the coach again to

NEWAY karaoke centre for the NIGHT OUT, karaoke buffer dinner !!

This was by far the most HIGHLY rated event as far as ENJOYMENT is concern. Things were a little stiff at the beginning. People was seen busy stuffing their stomach. Then after a couple of rounds of beers, things got heated up!! And it was the Philipino lady that heated up the dance floor. When the spice girl song was played, she can't resist anymore & gushed out for the microphone & started to swing her flexible & sexy moves !!

Boy boy boy........everyone got stunned by her sudden moves but not long after, we all got "HIGH" & joined in the moves as well as sang to the top of our lungs !!! Guess people must be working too hard & needed to release the stresses so badly!!

The philipino lady in purple taking up on the stage....i'm so proud of u babe !!

See how enjoy everyone was .....

It was so cheerful each time i looked back at these photos....... everyone seemed to enjoy themselves so much including myself!!

It was indeed a very wonderful & memorable night for me.

Here is a group photo which i had initially doubted if i should put it here.....but after knowing that these photos were all flying around in Facebook (can't believe they do that), there shouldn't be any issue on privacy !!

When i reached the hotel around midnight, i was in total shock as i still don't see my MEN (both old and youngs) back yet!! Things that ran thru my mind: where were they?? what were they doing at such odd hours?? isn't it already way past their sleeping time?? sure the boys are still awake at such hour??

I immediately rang up the terrible dad & was informed that he was at his uni mate's pub together with the boys. He said the boys were enjoying themselves so much with all the "leng lui"/pretty chicks there........alamak !!!??? i was speechless for a moment, only to remember to shout at him to come back asap!! tsk tsk tsk......

I then proceeded to quickly pack up our luggages for tomorrow's departure home !!!

That's the end of our Day 3.

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Day 4

I actually didn't get to go for a NICE dim sum with my family during my entire stay in HK, luckily before heading home, we still managed to steal enough time to go for a well-recommended dim sum nearby, i.e. Ho Choy restaurant. The food was good for me but not good enough to satisfy my fussy huby.

The super soft, sweet & juicy "tao fu fah" boiled in the coconut will long remained in my memory !!

GOOD BYE / "SELAMAT TINGGAL" / "CHOI KIN" Hong Kong !!

Arghhh..........what a long-winded post, i'm so tired now & hope i didn't bore you out !!

What's Malaysian authentic....?

In 2 weeks time, we will be heading to HongKong. Almost a week will be gone which mean works will be piling thereafter. As this is also my official working trip, there are additional paperworks to prepare for the conferences besides other routines. Anyway, i don't care coz i'm only looking forward to visiting Disneyland with my boys & 'lou kung'! Plus possibility is there might be an outdoor activity being arranged by my company to the Ocean Theme Park...ngek ngek ngek!!

So this week will be occupied to clear off some upfront work....for eg....u know that monthly important task called 'payroll'.....else by the time i'm back my colleagues here would curse me for the late coming $$$$. Then coincidently, there is also this ad-hoc UAT project which was still bugging me.....hate it....hate it......who wouldn't dislike if it means distorting your ordinary & peaceful work cycle?? Anyway, whatever it is...... that's life we call....full of unexpectancy !!

And life can really be stressful when all that matters are to race & race against time.

And out of the hectic schedule, i still have an important... yet not so important (u may say) task to accomplish.....that's to get " THE SOUVENIRs " for my counterparts in HK. I bet you agree that little stuffs like this is just so important when meeting with some distance friends. For some of the colleagues that we had been working together over the years, we had develop a relationship that certainly worth the effort to extend our appreciation/gratitude for the return favours/assistance or simply collaborative efforts in completing some task together!! So there is this lady who is neither a superior nor subordinate but just a peer who are very helpful & nice so i decided to get her a gift........been thinking for a while what to get her. She is easily 10 years my senior so it's NO easy task to get a suitable gift for her. Instead of getting the usual displaying souvenir, i have finally decided to get a consumable item that ladies (of all ages) love to use ...............yeah, a lipstick!

For sometime, i have been eyeing on this ANNA SUI cosmetics...... i have neither use it nor knowing if it's good, instead i just simply adore & got melted over the design & beauty of its outlook! They are just so so so girly... so fashionable ... so fancy.... so unique.... so creative.... i just fall in love with it! And so i had been finding excuse to get my hand on it one day which eventually came.......i got one as a gift & how could I not be getting one for myself....that's just not me?? Then my conversation with the sales assistant got more & more indepth and my weak nerve failed in holding back my desire so i ended up falling into the trap of "buy more up to a certain amount to get the FREE gift set"!!

At first, i landed myself on the eye glitter cream.......

But still not enough to reach the target.......so the next choice is a lip gloss !

then OK i reached the first free gift target.... but then.... i was only a little more behind from reaching the biggest FREE gift..... that is almost the whole range of their skin care products .... arghhh, greediness eat me up!!!!

so this time my instinct told me to get a neccessity item (which i'm going to get anyway in d future) & there goes my final target..... the UV/Sun foundation care. I tell u... for those who r fond of using foundation with UV protection, do give this a try...it's amazing... coz it gives u an instant "clear bright" look !!!

The ultimate objective of the whole struggles in me was to get this.........

Btw, these 2 mascara set (included above FOC) have been missing from my collection... so they came in just in time..... too nice to be real, huh!!

Now, my dilemma is these "flower-dovey" little boxes are just too awesome to be thrown away!! I'm out of idea what should i do with them..... there's no way that i'll let them get into the dustbin so i think i'll just keep them for my eyes until they bore me out someday sometime!!!

OK that's enough of promoting & boosting about anna sui......i don't get any commission out of it!! Btw, i'm a bit hook up with this 'sui' products until i nearly forgotten the FOCUS of this post!

The lipstick above is only meant for a special colleague but i still have a whole bunch of colleagues working along with me in my HQ and i can't be getting each & everyone of them a gift, right? So....i'll just settle with getting some Malaysian authentic snacks to share among them. Now don't u agree that this is a task even more tough?? "Hongkee" are known to dislike spicy / strong flavour food & are very health concious. Yet our Malaysian food/snack is famous for its' strong spices.....in other words mean unhealthy!!

So please help me to think.............so far, these are what i have in mind:

-penang "tambun biskut" with the "tao sar" filling in sambal flavour (MIL brought us recently & tried it...quite nice);

-ipoh chicken biscuit / "kai chai peng";

-"sart khei ma"......forgot what is this call??;

-triangle shape dodol of both coconut & durian flavour;

-probably some "kacang putih" ("murku assorted".....banana chip.....the likes);

- anymore please ???????

A fruitful MC....

The power of advertisement had lured me into buying a box of coloured contact lens that claimed to enlarge my eyes' pupil so that my eyes look "bigger, fresher & glittering" !!! And i started to wear that pair of lens during the past CNY.....as of this week, it has been a month where the life cycle of that pair of lens should have already expired !!! But since i naively agreed that it indeed made my pair of eyes more shining....i was reluctant to throw/replace it. And as i forcefully continued to wear it, my eyes started to encounter discomfort (very red & teary eyes) yesterday morning at work......yeah i got eye infection. What a vain pot heh ???

But since i did not have the specs with me & the fact that workload was still like mountain, i bear with the discomfort....and the usual "eye-mo" drops don't offer any solution. So i left only when my eyes couldn't stand anymore late in the afternoon!!

So after dinner, a visit was made to the GP. Dr. said it looked not just the usual eyes infection, i had 'red eye' & asked me not to take it lightly. She then jokingly asked me to throw away all my contact lens.....saying things like: why need to wear contact lens......specs no good meh ???

Then she started to tell me the perscriptions.....antibiotics, allergy, eye drops & eye oilment..... i was like : alamak.....like that also so much medicine kah???

Btw, i finally continued the cholesterol pills that was outstanding from my diet for quite a while!!

Then dr. further instructed that : your eyes need to stay away from............TV........PC........then i interrupted : what ??? but i have to face the PC like at least 7 hours a day woh !!!

So dr. said : ok, then tomorrow u rest at home, i give u one day MC !!!

ooh......, ok......, wow......yes yes yes!! As i really never expected it, it suddenly reminded me how long I have not had a medical rest!!

My mind immediately flooded with a long list of things to do on a 'ME' day........oops, dream not so early, it was school holiday this week so means i had to babysit my monkeys while not working!! Yet i don't care.....i just tagged them along with my plan !!!

After breakfast with dady & saw him off to work, i got the boys bathed, packed & off we left the house at 11a.m.....

- visited the dentist for a long overdue scaling and did filling to 2 of my wisdom tooth;

- browsed the area in search of a center that offer arithmetic lesson for the boys (but failed to locate any);

- lunch at Secret Recipe (knowing that it offered the boys' favourites, hence no feeding-struggle);

That's MY MEAL.......slurpp.....slurpp !!

And a cuppa Cafe Latte on such lazy day was such a luxury indulgence, no!!!???

- next i dragged my monkeys to a pedicure (as expected it wasn't a relaxed one as the monkeys were such a disturb along the process);

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YET, here it is.......

My french mani......."leng mou / cheng mou" ????

- finally we proceeded one floor up to the hair salon for a hair trim on the boys.....(a wedding to attend this week end ma.....)

By the time we were done with the above, it was almost 4pm, everyone was exhausted so we long to go home. Had some rest lying down in front of the TV and not long after, the sound of the gate opening was heard.......dady reached home & game me a relief.

As i treasured my off day so much, i went upstairs for an hour of cardio DVD

work-out .......FUYOH !!

Felt so completed....accomplished....&.... satisfied !!!

Opps......i had my eyes here for at least 1/2 an hour already so i got to go now.......catch up soon !!!

Our co. little ANNUAL LUNCH.....

I wasn't sure what to call this occasion too but it was just an annual indulgence that we had after a hard year of slave.......

Other organisation used to have an annual dinner but with a set-up like "ours" where there are only 3 little mice manning an office.....how to have that? In my HQ (which is located overseas), there was a bigger celebration as the headcounts were many times bigger and the good thing is we (being far away) were not forgotten....a token that i'd always appreciated !!! So, as the year end approached, the management would announced a little "party fund" allocated for oversea staffs to spend in receiving the closing of the year! This year was no exception, we had been given USD35 per headcount to spend....that gave us approximately RM120 per person.

While i could still remember, lets jot it down here: Y2005--we pampered ourselves at AH YAT restaurant with Abalone feast, then a year forward in Y2006--we treated ourselves at JOGOYO (a luxurious japanese buffet) and this time, we decided to go for SEAFOOD and since the other 2 men in my office didn't have their own preference & dislike to make the final decision, i went ahead with my choice to Seafood UNIQUE 23 at Section 13, PJ. We drove all the way from KLCC to PJ just to eat these....................that was droooooooling man.... but was of course at the expense of our cholesterol level, guilt guilt guilt !!!

A scene that never failed to ROLL eyes !!

ABALONE

FRESH WATER PRAWN baked in cheese & garlic!

MY ALL TIME FAVOURITE....CRAB in egg yolk & sweet sour sauce.

Japanese knife clam cooked with ginger

The good thing was the total bill came out so closed to our budget that we don't have to fork out a single cent, hahaha !!!

MY new toys....

Current laptop has already aged about 3 years ++.......still functioning except that the screen has started to dim down intermittently and at times i had to rely on a desktop monitor for the output !!! Since organization usually depreciated computer asset within a 3 years period, i know it was time for a replacement request. There goes....request was put forth....and good news was coincidently the management has also budgetted for PCs upgrades for overseas offices....yeah.....everyone got so excited & eager !! Waited & waited......3 months passed & it soon reached 6 months......anyhow, it was worth the wait, finally last week, i was greeted with the following parcel that morning........

Our DELL laptops have finally arrived..... individual boxes customised to each stuff's needs!! (the engineer prefers smaller size while i prefer the bigger screen, thus bigger size)

What surprises us was they came with a separate LCD screen.............isn't it ***wow*** ??!!

Love my new gadgets.......

How nice.....working can be all refreshing again........heh heh heh yet for how long, that's a question to answer !!

On a separate note, we did something very 'crazy' last Sunday.....

On a usual account, i am that particular person who would 'curse' those people who would queue long......i mean real long, just to purchase something!!! I would not give in to such demand on queue as i always believe there's always something better else where!!!

But but but, this time....my huby was exceptionally 'kepoh'....or curious as to why these little 'wheels' created such a long queue??? To solve his nagging queries i made an exception this time...yes, i queued with him !!

REVIEW :

no doubt quite good....and i shall be back ......only if i can be spared of the "queue"!!