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Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes & presents  !! Thank you for remembering! 9th July 2011, Saturday My dear chopstick had "painstakingly" organised this mini KTV gathering for me before I left for Europe. But unfortunately, Jen couldn't make it due to her health condition, Serene was leaving for Melbourne and Karen had to attend a wedding last minute. So, Cirrus & I met up at Somerset MRT before walking over to *Scape KBOX. That was our first time there and I believe it would be our last time as well. A long queue was formed in front of the counter at 2pm and the staff's attitude really CMI! She had got no expression on her face when trying to explain about the payment. AND, we had to make ALL payment first before we could start our KTV session. That was a different policy from other outlets. We had to order all 8 drinks for 4 pax. >.< We finally got into the room and started to 点歌. Olivia & Soojin (Olivia's Korean friend) came shortly after. This time round, 我们唱Korean songs唱得很过瘾！更巧的是，Soojin也是Rain的粉丝！ So we took turns to sing and left the KTV at 5pm. 
Even though we started slightly after 2pm, the session ended at 5pm sharp! =.= We then made our way to Takashimaya to meet up with Karen at Zara and head down to Tampopo for dinner. After dinner, we shopped round the foodfest at the atrium area, trying out some sample food, before going over to TCC at Wisma for coffee chat. 
Thank you ladies!
13 July 2011, Wednesday
Many asked me why I didn't take an off day on my birthday, but I don't see the need in that. If I have any birthday gatherings on the day, it will be at dinner time when my friends ended their work. So I will end up wasting my time alone at home doing nothing. Why not go to the office and receive everyone's well wishes and you can get some work done as well? That 1 day off can be saved for future travel plans. Haha! It was a stressful day at work with lots of HR and customer issues, but nonetheless, I managed to tide through the day with a wonderful birthday lunch with my lovely colleagues. We set off to Pasta Fresca, located at Bukit Timah, at 12pm. 
This was a lovely place but the food there were average. They served all kinds of pasta in different shapes and fillings, in different pasta bases. But we find the pasta's flour taste were a tad too strong, which made it felt like we were eating mee hoon kuey! Haha!  
 
 
Pasta in all shapes and sizes!
My colleagues also prepared a surprised Tiramisu cake for me! I was still complaining why the staff off the ceiling fans when it was so hot! 原来they were preparing the cake and candle!   
Thank you for the lovely cake!
The restaurant was located next to a durian stall, their signboard read:
百年老树
王中王
猫山王 Royston, Dong & Eileen don't like durian! We purposely made fun of them by jokingly tell them that we were going to buy some durians back to the office for dessert. I bet if we did that, they would have fainted in the car! LOL! In the end, Simon's car's passenger bought some apple/mango/DURIAN strudels! We had them during tea time and honestly, the durian strudel was the best! 榴莲的味道超~浓郁的！ I left the office at 5.30pm sharp, as I had an appointment with Jo and Wei Dong at Holland Village! So before boss could make me stay back later, I told him I'm leaving on the dot. Haha! Lina & Dong joined me to meet up with Jo at her car, which was parked at the shuttle bus pick-up point. It had been a year since they had met since Jo left Wiley. =) After a little catching up, I hopped on Jo's car and set off to Holland V to meet up with Wei Dong. We had an early dinner at 3 Monkeys cafe. Since it was still early for drinking, we sat in the cafe till about 8pm before moving on. I did not order my food with Jo & Wei Dong earlier on, as I was still full from lunch, but I ordered a sirloin steak at around 7pm, after they had finished their meal. =) We then moved on to Cold Rock Ice Creamery for dessert! 
With our customised ice cream!
We proceeded on to Wala Wala Cafe Bar aftermath. It was my first time there and it had quite a nice ambience with live band performance. Jo even caught sight on the lead vocal and I even helped her to ask the waitress for his name. Haha! We ordered some mocktails and chicken wings for snacks. It was indeed relaxing to chill out after work like that. We should do that more often! We stayed till 10.45pm before leaving and nice Jo gave us a ride home.
14 July 2011, Thursday
My birthday celebration did not end yesterday. I met up with Linhui, Huiyu & Val for dinner at Hard Rock Cafe @ Orchard! Initially I was quite reluctant to go there, as I know how the restaurant would "sabo" the birthday person. But I didn't want to be a spoilsport, so we decided on that. We ordered our food and true enough, the girls managed to inform the cafe staff about my birthday and I was made to stand on the chair with 2 ice creams in my hands! It was so paiseh to have so many pairs of eyes staring at you. There was another birthday in the house and so there were 2 of us getting pulled up on stage. 
Luckily they did not ask me to do any funny stuff after singing the birthday song. Thanks ladies, very unforgettable indeed. Huiyu, you'd got your revenge! (I sabotaged her at Fish 'N' Co for her birthday.) 
With the lovelies.
After we finished the ice cream and brownie, we were busy meddling with the camera and polaroid which was given by the cafe. The girls were busy decorating my polaroid. 
Busy "vandalising" my polaroid
The end product which was pinned on my office desk now! =)
We left around 10pm, before the live band started. When we left, I heard one of the staff shouting to his colleague, "Steve, they are leaving already. Faster, faster!" Not sure what was that for, but I was sure that they were referring to us. We then spent almost 20 minutes outside the cafe taking polaroids before leaving! 
100% camwhores! LOL!
Val left in her BF's car while the 3 of us walked over to Shaw Centre to call for a cab home. Linhui & I shared a cab home. And that marked the end of my 2-day birthday celebrations. Thank you my friends and colleagues. I had a great time. ^^ For more photos, click here! After more than a week in Europe, I'm getting really sick with the breakfast menu. Bread, bread and more bread! If not, it will be eggs. I can stand no bread now and it kinda makes me nauseatic upon seeing it. I am sticking with cereals for breakfast. I'm in the Bognor office now, clearing emails and clear some stuff. Looking forward to dinner at David's place later and London sightseeing tours tomorrow and Friday! I was feeling a little gloomy and emo yesterday afternoon. Hopefully the upcoming programmes will cheer things up a little. Ciao! ^^ I am at Changi Airport T3, departure gate B2, waiting to board the flight! (SQ322) I have mixed feelings of this trip... Excited - because this is the first time I'm travelling to Europe.
Scared - Worried about the security in Europe. May it be a wonderful, enjoyable and safe trip ahead! The SMS from our boss on 30 December really made our night. I thought he would ignore our suggestion but who knows, he had actually considered the proposed off-day for us! Dong was still unconvinced when he received the SMS from boss and he even called me to verify the news! Cheers Boss! ^^  I spent my NYE with my family at Aunt May's salon for BBQ. Yes, we were BBQ-ing outside a salon. It was certainly a first time for me! I had a fun night counting down with my little cousins. 
On the first day of 2011, I made a trip to City Square JB with my mum, bro and Aunt Jessie & family. It's been a while since I last went to JB and we had a good time shopping and eating! We did a 6-hour shopping before heading out to Woodlands Waterfront to spend the last few hours of 1-1-2011. =) ************************ 2010 has come to an end. I had an eventful and challenging year. I had finally graduated from University and this has certainly eased my parents' financial burden and I'm slowly learning to stand firm on my own in the working society, which is a really big milestone for me. I had loads of busy and hectic times at work, but I do feel a sense of achievement from my 工作岗位. More challenging job scope, evolving team and new teammates. I greatly appreciate my boss' foresight and the opportunity he gave me and I hope the passion I had for my work/team will persist and more opportunities to develop and mature myself further. I believe our team will continue to evolve and I am sure there will be more changes for me in the upcoming year. I trust that my boss will make all the best arrangement for all of us. With new people joining the league, I hope our team will evolve to become stronger and perform even better in the new year! I am glad that I have a bunch of really supportive and helpful bunch of colleagues. 我们同事之间的感情had certainly 升华and we are even closer now! I hope our team will continue to be this fun and supportive!  I did not travel much this year, except for a long 10-day trip to Korea & Hong Kong in June and that was a really fun and enjoyable one. But It was a concert/fanmeet-full 2010 for me! In 2010, I had attended JKS fanmeets (SG & HK), Luo Zhi Xiang's concert/fansign/handshake session, CN Blue's showcase, JYJ showcase and MULA concert! These performances certainly gave me a break from all the stress and pressure and allowed me to catch a breather. I can foresee alot more coming up in 2011. Fangirl-ing 无罪！Fangirl-ing 万岁！Hehehe!  I also get to meet up with a friend whom I had not met for almost a decade. 那种心情是既兴奋又紧张的！It seemed like we had just planned the return trip not long ago but it had been 3 months since we had last met up. I am not sure how things will 发展 in future but I am not going to push anyone of us too hard. I am thankful for the memories. 一切就顺其自然吧！ I am grateful for my family who have been really trusting and supportive for me in everything I do. Their words of encouragement keep me going! I hope we can all stand as one family like how we had always did! 新的一年，新的展望，但愿一切都能顺心，更勇敢的面对2011吧！ Christmas week can be really a fun and enjoyable one with your lovely friends, family and colleagues around. 20 December 2010, Monday - Pre-x'mas kimchi dinner! I met up with the Linhui, Huiyu & Valerie at Ngee Ann City and headed off for dinner at Crystal Jade Korean Restaurant. Business was pretty good that day and we waited for almost an hour before we got ourselves a table. This dinner meet-up really made up for my cravings for Korean food, though the BBQ pork wasn't really that yummy, but the other dishes were nice. 
Our sumptuous feast!
We had fun chit-chatting over dinner and did a mini gift-exchange for pre-x'mas. Hehe! I love the gifts I received from the lovelies. Time always seemed to pass really fast when the 4 of us get together. We can never had enough time to finish chattering! ^^ 
Thank you lovelies! =)
More photos. 23 December 2010, Thursday - Pre-x'mas Nandos dinner! After 5 months, I finally met up with my HJM. We haven't had time to arrange for a meet up since then! I made my way down to Plaza Singapura after the renewal check-in meeting in office and Jo was already there with Weidong, another friend whom I hadn't met up for ages! Jo and Weidong had an impromptu meetup before meeting me. Weidong stayed with us for a light dinner and we did some catching up together. Jo and I sure had loads to catch up on and it felt good to be updated with each other's life. I think we spent more time talking than eating. (Or is it only me? LOL!) 
With Jo!
With Jo & Weidong
It was a weekday night and so we couldn't stay on longer, we still had to work on X'mas eve. After footing the bill, we accompany Weidong to do a little sweets-shopping before we head home. It was nice catching up with you guys! Meet up again soon! ^^ More food photos here! Christmas Eve Early in the morning, we started doing some gift exchange in the office. Many colleagues from other department had gone on leave during the X'mas week, but most of our department's peeps were still at work chionging the last bit of invoicing. (P.S. Our region had done exceptionally well for this December's renewal and we had hit an unprecedented high this month for APAC! Management was really pleased with us and we even received a huge hamper from our Global SS Director! Cheers!) And it was a half working day for us today! I headed down to Tanjong Pagar to meet up for a Christmas Eve tea with Cirrus, who wanted to siam from her office X'mas party. We went off to Tom N Toms Coffee and had a short tea together before I went back home. Instead of spending Christmas Eve counting down with friends, I spent my night with my parents. We went off to Farmart for dinner and my mum 心血来潮 and suggested going to this newly open recreation park, Woodlands Waterfront. 
I wasn't aware of this really cool hangout place in my neighbourhood and I was totally fascinated by the recreation park. The huge "spiderweb" thingy came to sight the moment we stepped into the park. 
Never had a chance to climb on such a web before.
And I climbed my way up!
So did my parents and they were having a good time!
T
They even had swings there! Reliving my childhood there!
The last time I sat on a swing was at Hongdae in Korea! Hehehe! This park was a really cool place where we could overlook the Singapore-Malaysia causeway. Initially we thought that we would be able to see some fireworks display from JB (as it was Christmas countdown night) but we left the park a little disappointed at 12mn. But I think we had enjoyed our trip to Woodlands Waterfront. It was definitely a place for family and friends to gather. 
Overlooking JB
Standing by the breezy jetty, I couldn't help but felt a little nostalgic and missing some companionship. But of course, at least, my parents were there with me for the night. ^^ More photos here! Christmas Day! There wasn't much of a festive feel at Orchard on Christmas day and it felt very much like any other weekend. I met up with Jen and Cirrus for lunch and we did a little gift exchange at Tampopo Japanese restaurant. 
Gifts from the onnis.
 
A little more Christmasy feel with the little santa hat. Hehe!
We did a little shopping after lunch and Jen decided to head back home to do some winter packing for her upcoming Korea trip while the chopsticks headed down to Changi Airport T3 for TCC. We actually spent more than 4 hours in the cafe! 
Our cute Santa smiles chocolate drink and tasty Mentaiko crab spaghetti!
So excited about the cute Santa Smile drink!
MERRY CHRISTMAS! More photos here! Boxing Day! Our boss, Steven, had cordially invited us to his place for a BBQ lunch on Boxing day! We were all looking forward and excited about this BBQ gathering. Shanice, Lina, Dong, Serena and I met up at Lot 1 to grab some tidbits and alcohol before heading down to Palm Garden. (Yes, it was the place where I used to have my Korean classes. Really missed that place!) Shirlyn and Simon joined us later. Steven had also invited his brother and mum too. 
$76 worth of tidbits and alcohol!
We helped out with some preparation and soon we were all feasting on the food. As usual, the guys did most of the BBQ-ing. 
Men at work!
Steven had also prepared some wine and 5 of us actually walloped up 4 bottles of red/white wine, 6 cans of Sapporo beer and 4 bottles of Hoegarden! Gee, we can really drink. LOL! Palm Garden has really nice spot for photo-taking. 所以我当然不能放过机会！We had some group photos taken with the help from Steven's brother. 
We had so much fun! Hehe!
We had also planned for a gift-exchange session and we had to bua puay to pick our presents. 
Shake ar shake...
Coincidentally, Shirlyn and I got each other's gifts! LOL!
Steven got an organic shampoo from Dong! LOL! So funny!
Lina got the mystery white wine gift from Steven!
Gift exchange completed!
After another round of drinking, we made our way to the bowling alley in Palm Garden which Steven had booked. We were late and so we only get to bowl for only half an hour. We had so much fun there and had agreed to plan for another game here! 
The happy Wiley bowlers!
Shanice, Shirlyn and Serena left earlier and the rest of us sat by the pool side under the umbrella and spent some time chit-chatting. So relaxing... We should do this more often. Hehehe! We left around 5plus and took a lift from Simon to Lot 1. Dong still finds it a little early to go home and so the 2 of us went down to Wanchai HK cafe for a little drink before going back home. What a fun day! I'm glad to have such fun bunch of colleagues.  Boxing day photos here! MERRY CHRISTMAS! I'm finally back blogging and it had been a really eventful December month for me! 4 December 2010, Saturday - MBLAQ Fansign & MULA concert Jen, Cirrus & I made a last minute decision to go for the Mnet Ultimate Live in Asia Singapore Concert held in Marina Bay Sands Exhibition Hall. Early that morning, we made our way down to the exhibition hall to try our luck on the 1st 1000 tags, which would permit us to enter the concert hall in the priority queue. Unfortunately, the queue was already snaking outside the convention hall when we arrived and our friend, Naziah, had called earlier to tell us the chaotic scene when the door opened to release the tags. So the 3 of us made our way to IMM aftermath. MBLAQ & miss A would be having a fansign session at IMM Garden Plaza. Though we did not buy the Singapore version album to gain entry to the autograph session, we were still allowed to stand behind the queue to see the artistes' 庐山真面目. Many of the fans were all queuing at MBS, so it wasn't really crowded at IMM. We were able to wander round the big space at the garden plaza. When MBLAQ finally arrived, we were all busy snapping away and tip-toeing to try get a glimpse of the boys. After getting enough shots, we adjourned to the carpark and waited for the boys to come out. We were so near them and Jen onni even got to hand their photo to GO when he walked past! =) We then made our way to MBS to queue and the concert started at around 6.30pm. We were totally captivated by 2AM's power singing and 2PM's charismatic performances. I am so in love with their songs now and hope they will have another show in SG soon! =) MBLAQ, miss A, 2AM, Beast & 2PM put up a wonderful show that night even though MBS exhibition hall is absolutely not a good place for concert. Check out the videos uploaded here! 8 December 2010, Wednesday - Wiley Year-End Party I had a wonderful time with my colleagues at Wiley's year-end party @ Love The World Soul Rock Bistro Bar. It was definitely a rare opportunity for us to mingle around with our colleagues, both from the Clementi & Parkview offices. We will soon all be under one roof! Though the quiz got a little boring in the middle, but it was a great interaction with our teammates. =) 11-13 December 2010, Saturday-Monday - Marina Bay Sands Hotel stay All thanks to Uncle Tee's family, my family got a chance to stay at MBS for 3 days 2 nights! It was a relaxing experience and finally found a chance to try soaking in the pool at the Skypark. We even had a chance to get into a VIP-only restaurant in Resort World Sentosa at night for a dimsum supper. How nice. Check out more photos here! Stay tune for my X'mas updates! I had a wonderful 23rd birthday and am really thankful to all my friends and relatives for their lovely birthday wishes, sms, overwhelming Facebook messages and call! Thank you all for the presents and lunches too, lovelies! 10 July 2010, Saturday The onnis, Olivia and Cirrus actually treated me to lunch at T.G.I.Friday @ Heeren. Before we met up for lunch, Cirrus and I arrived earlier to do some shopping in 313@Somerset and check out the STAGE store at *Scape. 小猪would be there to 剪彩later in the afternoon. There was already a long queue outside. We hanged around a little while more before heading over to the restaurant to meet up with the rest. 
T.G.I.Friday restaurant @ Heeren
We had prebooked the movie tix for Eclipse. But we were still early for the show after lunch, so we made a trip down to *Scape again and 小猪was already in the shop! We moved high and low, trying to find a "hole" to see him from outside. 
One of the best shots
After I got a satisfied shot, we moved on to Cineleisure to catch our movie. The movie was 124 minutes long and this sequel had a tinge of vampire humour which I fancy, though many said that it wasn't as good compared to its previous sequels. After our movie, we bid goodbye to Olivia and adjourned to this Greenhouse cafe in 313@Somerset. It was a florist cum cafe business concept. The florist had a very nice name, Pocket of Poises. We were attracted by their swing seats in the cafe the previous time we walked past it. It had a really country and romantic feel. Hee. 
Lomantic leh~~ =)
As it was still early, we decided to end our day at Tom N Toms Coffee. So we ended up at another cafe again and called it a day at 9pm+. Thanks onnis for the STAR necklace from Seoul, lunch and the company. =D 13 July 2010, Tuesday This was my first birthday in Wiley. I was greeted with a gift from Elsie the moment I stepped into the office. The birthday wishes from my colleagues made me feel the warmth. =) Oh yea, Jo had joined Wiley on a 15 months contract and she was there to celebrate my birthday with my colleagues too. Thanks for the cute gift, HJM! =) My department colleagues and I went to Earle's Swensens @ Vivocity for lunch. It was a great, long lunch. All thanks to the grilled seafood combo which I ordered. It took damn long to cook and the chef actually forgot to include the salmon into the dish and got the staff to bring on the small piece of salmon to me when I was halfway through my food. Bah! My food ain't yummy at all. But the ice cream cake totally made my day! Since it was my actual birthday day, I was entitled to a free slice of ice cream cake. My colleagues also 另外ordered another full ice cream cake for me! 
I'm lovin' it!
I had a hard time cutting the cake and that reminded me of my 18th birthday cake.
But I'm still lovin' it! =DD
Group photo with the cake!
Helen (on extreme left) is our new team leader and Jo (on extreme right) is my new colleague!
Thank you all, Wiley people. You guys made my day! 15 July 2010, Thursday I had a belated birthday and catching up dinner with Linhui, Val and Huiyu at The Ship restaurant at Shaw Centre. Though the restaurant is located at some really ulu corner, but the ambience was good. Nice recommendation, Huiyu. Thanks you ladies for the company! More photos, click here! March seems like a good month for birthdays and wedding. Both my boss & Simon's birthdays are just exactly 1 week apart. Though we had an advanced birthday celebration for Simon (because boss will be away for a week), we also bought him a yummy Bengawan Solo cake on his actual birthday day (16 Mar). ^^ Our SS team seems to be getting smaller and smaller. =X Exactly 1 week after, we had a mini birthday celebration for Boss at Sushi Tei Vivocity. It was my first time patronizing Sushi Tei and I like both the food & ambience there. I especially love the Slipper Lobster Mentaiyaki! Absolutely delicious. 
It looks mouth-watering & tasted wonderful. ^^
When we were almost done with our meal, Shanice & I excused ourselves, saying that we need to go to the washroom (It's the same old trick but somehow it always works! Haha!). The rest of them knew that we were going out to get the birthday cake, except for the birthday 'boy'. (Boss doesn't want to be called BOY, but playful Uncle Simon kept ka jiao-ing him with that. Haha!) Shanice & I walked a long way out before we came to the 'nearest' store that sells cake, Bakerzin. We picked our cakes and add-on cookies and 'sped' back to Sushi Tei before boss started to sense something fishy. (We told the rest to tell him that I'd got a tummyache, that was why we were taking so long. =X) I finally remembered to bring along a lighter for the candle. We lit up the candle before we reached the table and boss was totally surprised by the 'cake appearance'! LOL! Boss & Bakerzin's Chocolate Mousse cake So while eating the cake, Boss started coming up with all the 'what-if' questions for us to answer. Though they were all work-related questions, we felt that those were some interesting topics to chat about. =) Group photo before we left Sushi Tei For more photos, click here! ****************************** It seemed like yesterday, when all the cousins gathered in Granny's house running and scrambling around. Another of our cousin got married last Saturday!!! The second one among us to get hooked up. Hehehe! Cousin Nicole & her groom Though not all my cousins were present on that night, the rest of us still had a great night together. They had instant photo service at the entrance of the ballroom. Cuzzies & Granny Congrats to Nicole & may the 2 of you stay blissful & loving forever. =D For more photos on the wedding, click here! Happy lunar new year everyone! It's already the 7th day of CNY and the long holiday is coming to an end soon. Though I had gone back to work for a day for this week yesterday, but I very much had a long, good rest over this CNY week. I had taken 2 days' leave (17 & 18 Feb) to go on a short trip to Penang & Cameron Highland with my family and we set off on the first day of CNY. However, our plan changed when we got to Penang. We found it rather bored to stay for another day in Penang and was kinda turned off by the thought of having to be caught in a heavy jam on the way up to Cameron Highland. So we decided to come back home earlier. We got back on 16 Feb midnight. But at least we managed to meet up with the long-time-no-see Reverend at Penang. For the past few days, it had been visiting, eating & collecting ang bao. We also celebrated my 外婆's birthday on Thursday. CNY has been good so far other than my stupid wisdom tooth which has been giving me a hard time since 初一. I will have to go visit the dentist soon to stop the tooth abrasion which is giving me PAIN~~~~~ with any mouth movement. Wishing everyone 恭喜发财，事事顺心如意。人日快乐！ Last Saturday, I had arranged with the birthday girl, Jo, to have a mini birthday celebration for her at Vivocity. We reached Vivocity at around 4pm and went round to do some shopping before our movie. We caught the movie by Jackie Chan, The Spy Next Door. We had a good laughing dosage before we left the theatre with growling tummies. Click here for a short movie review. Thanks to my colleague, Stanford's recommendation, we managed to find a really nice and cosy corner in Vivocity. I was told that the restaurant was designed in Roman style, etc. So I was really looking forward to seeing the real thing. We made our way to The King Louis Grill & Bar, which is located next to Daiso on the 3rd floor. The exterior of the restaurant was enough to make us start snapping away. Instead of making our way into the restaurant, we brought out our cameras and started posing away with the restaurant exterior as background. They even have 2 Romanian knight figurines at the entrance! After taking a fair share of photos outside, we headed back in. We were totally attracted by the cosy, dim-lit interior.  The ambience was comfortable and they even had music played in the background. The Lord of the Ring movie was shown on the various TV sets hanging on the wall. The 2 of us got totally excited with the nice surrounding and started camwhoring again. Self-timer shot Other than looking through the menu and ordering and eating our food, we spent the rest of the time taking photos. LOL! The staff there were very friendly and helpful. One of them even took the initiative to come over to help us take photos when we were looking for some help. Keke! Top: Jo's Sirloin steak Bottom: My Ribeye steak  We were happy with our food! Yum! Halfway through the meal, I was thinking of how I could prepare a "surprise" for Jo. I told her that I needed to use the loo again and went up to one of the waitress and pretended to ask for the washroom's direction. Amidst asking the direction, I asked her whether they served birthday cakes discreetly. But they didn't have birthday cakes, so I ordered their signature 4-cake dessert instead. I even asked if they have some candles and she said she would try to see if she could find some for me. I made my way back to our table after making my cake request, saying that I had to walk a long way out to the washroom (which is true!) and I decided not to go. After our meal, the boss (which we assumed that his name is Louis as the restaurant's name is The King Louis) came up to us for some feedback on the food and restaurant settings. And we got to know that the restaurant was newly opened in November 2009. (后来我才知道，Stanford somehow knows the boss through another friend of his, who was invited to be the 驻唱歌手of the restaurant.) Not long after, the dessert was served, with 3 candles stuck on 3 of the cakes. LOL! I'm not sure why they had given us 3 candles instead of 1 or 4. But I really appreciated their effort to meet the customer's requests. Good service! I'm sure this is a very different birthday cake for Jo! LOL! The portion was just nice for the 2 of us! Birthday girl & her cake! Cutting the cake She's trying to emphasize that she's 23 and not 3 or 30! LOL! Taking a shot with the knight in shiny armour before leaving! We had a heartful, enjoyable and happy birthday dinner. It was already 10plus when we finished all the camwhorings. We made our way back home aftermath. My birthday gift for Jo. First look at it & it reminded me of her. LOL! Happy 23rd Jo! Hope you enjoyed the evening, the restaurant and the little gift. Love you loads loads! Hehe! For more photos, click here! My Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 2009 were pretty well spent. After almost a month after my dad's injury, I'd decided to plan a mini Christmas gathering at my place on Christmas Eve, to cheer up my dad a little. Since it was Christmas eve, we only had to work half day and so, none of us was in the mood to really get down to work. Even our systems were in the holiday mood on that day. As the system down in the morning, so we couldn't do much things in the first hour in the morning. Steven was on leave and Dong had went on a short vacation, so it was only Shanice, Simon, Shirlyn, Stanford and myself in the department on X'mas eve. We ended up having a mini popiah party in the meeting room. Chef Simon had prepared some carrot cake and wrapped the popiah on-the-spot for us! Yummy!  I really love the carrot cake! =D~ Nothing much was done and we were all counting down to the going home time. We ended up having popiahs and carrot cakes for breakfast and exchanging X'mas gifts. X'mas gifts from my colleagues ^^ I quickly rushed back home after the half-day work and started helping out my mum and grandma to get the stuff ready for the party at night. Auntie Jessie and Minghui also came early to help out. Linhui & Huiyu also dropped by early before the party. Though it was a short meet-up time at my place, I had a great time catching up with them. Meet up soon, ladies! =D The guests started coming in at around 6plus in the evening and I started mingling round. Jo & me! Check out our home-cooked buffet! I had prepared some small gifts for the kids and the adults would have a gift exchange session later on. Luckily there was Davis, Wei Li's friend, who knew how to make some balloon figurines, which made the party not so boring. LOL! All the kids, and even the adults, were impressed by Davis' balloon skill and were queuing up to order their balloons. So funny. Of course, a party would not be complete with some games and laughter. In order to liven up the festive atmosphere, I'd planned a few games for the little ones to participate in. First was the 七手八脚 game (similar to Twister). It was really funny to see them in different poses. The demonstration by Zeee and my bro really set us laughing like siao. All different kinds of poses. LOL! Then there was this game which the participants had to follow the instructions and raise/put down their legs and hands accordingly. The kids were really sporty and they sure had loads of fun. After all the games, it was time for the gift exchange. Thanks to Minghui who helped me to print/cut out those cut little number tags for the secret santa gift exchange. Yes, I even bought a X'mas tree for the party! LOL! It didn't take long for us to go round the living room, drawing lots for the gift exchange. The party was a success, though not many stayed till midnight to countdown to X'mas. Thank you all for coming, for being such a sport and your help! You all made the party a success! Hee! =D One last photo of the night before I called it a day! ^^ ******************************************************************************** After a happening X'mas eve, on X'mas day, I had arranged with the onnis to go to Jen's apartment for a crabbing session. Hee! The crabs were good! With the onnis on X'mas night! We spent the night crabbing and crapping. After finishing the crabs, we rot around Jen's room and watched some clips and the first episode of A.N.Jell before going home. It was quite a good drama and I had finally finished watching it after hearing so much from Jen and the drama made me even more into STARS now! LOL!  That was how I spent my 2009 Christmas eve and Christmas day. So happening for the first time! Click here for more photos! Coincidentally, last Friday happened to be the Sales & Marketing Department's X'mas potluck. However, Shanice, Simon & I did not join in the potluck as initially we thought that it would be a boring event. But what we'd forgotten was that, Wiley's damn good at having fun. LOL! But luckily, the 3 of us did not join in the potluck. We just realised that Shirlyn & Sam's birthday was on the coming Monday, 7 Dec. Initially we were unsure of Sam's birthday, so Shanice & I managed to find out from Shirlyn, in attempt to make her thought that we had forgotten about her birthday. =X Since both the birthday girls would be on leave on their birthdays, we had decided to bring forward the mini surprise for them to Friday. On the day before, we had gone to one of the florists at Clementi to order 2 bouquets of daisies (+ bear) during lunch time. Simon chauffered us round on Friday during lunch time to get the cakes and to collect the flowers (+ bear). The bouquets were so lovely that Shanice & I even thought of keeping them for ourselves! LOL! Aren't they adorable? I personally preferred the purple bouquet. =X I'd gotten Elsie to help us booked a meeting room for the mini surprise, so that the birthday girls had got no chance to stumble upon our outlook calendar, to see that we'd be up to something at 4pm. Hehe! When the 3 of us finally came back with the cake and flowers, we had to start our secret mission to deliver the items, safely out of sight of the birthday girls who were having potluck on the third floor, to the fridge on the fourth floor. To avoid that, we actually climbed up the flights of stairs instead of taking the lift. -pant pant- And we managed to get all the stuff up to the fourth floor safely. We got back to our seats after that and not long after, I received a call from Joelyn, who would be joining in the surprise mission. We were told that Anthony, our VP Director of Marketing, had declared half day off for those who went for the potluck! Shucks. That means the birthday girls might leave anytime after the leave declaration. So we had to act immediately! Get the stuff down to the meeting room, set them up and bring the birthday girls over. To avoid running into the birthday girls along the way, we took a run up the stairs again and raced back down to second floor. -pant pant pant- 
Cakes & flowers ^^
After a long wait and 一番折腾，the birthday girls were finally brought into the room. Other than those from our department, Sharifah, the licensing team, Anthony & Alina also joined us in the mini celebration. 
The birthday girls
We went up to take a little peek at the after effect of the potluck party on the third floor. They were having a disco dance floor in the office! Ok, we'd really underestimated Wiley's capability of really HAVING FUN. LOL! We returned to our workstations shortly after that, but of course, we had no mood to work at all. We started taking photos & snapping away. Although Anthony had declared half day off for us (Yes! We were included even though we didn't attend the potluck.), I left only at 5.30pm since I would be meeting up with Joanne for dinner and movie only at 6.45pm. Yup, we went to catch the movie 2012, a 157 minutes long movie. It was a good movie though a little boring in the front. I'll do up a review on it if I can find the time. Till then, ciao! For more photos of the mini surprise, click here!  | Dad | Dec 7, '09 9:57 PM
for everyone |
It's been a week since I came back from my Hong Kong trip. I'll try to get the trip's entries/photos done up soon. So many things had happened over the last week and I've yet got the time to sit down to really do some updates. The minute I got into the car from the airport last Monday, I was told that Dad was badly hit by a ceiling fan while working on 28 Nov, Saturday. He was actually hospitalised for a day at NUH. I was totally dumbfounded when my brother accounted the whole incident to me along the drive back home from the airport, together with Auntie Jessie & Minghui. After hearing that, I couldn't wait to get straight back home to see Dad. I was sent back home first before Bro, Auntie Jessie & Minghui went off for supper. I used the fastest speed I could, dragging my heavy luggages behind me and I finally came in front of my house gate. I was shocked to see Dad's bandaged head when I stepped in. His 脸色 was not of its best of course. I couldn't imagine how much pain he had suffered for the past days when I was away in HK.  I was updated by my mum again on the whole situations and all the treatments dad had got from the hospital and clinics. It was already late and I didn't want to take up their resting time, so I decided to ask further the next day. I was told that the day after the accident, all of my maternal relatives, my granduncle's family and Dad's friends came to visit him. My question is, where are my dad's own siblings? Well, they did send a representative, which was my 三姑 and granny. But what about the rest?! They didn't even bother to give a 慰问 call even until now. And I doubt my granny called to ask about his situation since her one and only visit. This really showed how much concern they had for dad. When they're in trouble, the first one that they'll think of is dad. Now that dad's injured, where has everyone gone to? I'm utterly disappointed with them, really. 反而，it was my maternal family who showered dad with so much concern and gave us so much help for the past week. My 外婆 was practically my dad's 私人看护, taking care of him and preparing meals for him while all of us are out at work/school. I'm truly grateful for that. 我想，爸爸也该有眼睛看吧, 知道倒底谁对他好。 Last Friday, dad was brought back to the hospital again. We suspected that the wound may have got infected. Bro brought Dad to the hospital for the minor operation, which lasted for almost an hour. Last Sunday, Mum & I brought dad back to the hospital for a review. It was a traumatising experience for me. I'd never seen my dad cringed in pain like that before and my eyes were swelled in tears when my dad whined in pain. We got chased out of the consultation room, so that we won't get panicky and hindered the operation process. We waited anxiously outside and I waited for the senior doctor to come out to go have a talk with him. We were asked to go into his room after a while and he told us that the stitching were done. He patiently explained the whole procedure (with diagrams) and dad's condition to me, before I could translate it for mum. It seemed like it was the "bleeder" that had caused the blood clot the other day and this was one of the top 2 most 棘手 condition. They spent quite some time to stop the bleeding. After all the explanations, he said that he was happy with how dad's wound has recovered. Mum went out and brought Dad into the room, his face was pale and he looked totally frustrated and pissed. He was telling us how ungentle the junior doctor was and totally disregard the fact the it was human flesh that she was dealing with. Dad was pretty agitated at that time. Mum brought him out to calm him down a little while I continued the talk with the senior doctor. I went out shortly and dad told me his painful experience again. He wanted to lodge a complain or even "whack" the junior doctor, but because of the language barrier, he couldn't do much. I managed to appease him a little and we waited for the prescriptions and documentations. So while waiting, I went into the senior doctor's room again and tried to convey my dad's emotions to him. He seemed apologetic and assured that he would convey all these to the junior doctor after that. We were asked into the junior doctor's room shortly after. She said that she was sorry to see that dad has got such complications in his wound and blablabla. We got sent out after that and waited on. I got my parents to go wait in the car while I stayed on to wait further. I waited for quite some time before I finally got the stuff. If everything goes well, Dad will be able to get his wound clean up tonight and stitches can be removed the coming weekend. I really, really hope that his wound will heal up really soon. Be well, Dad! *prays* On Wednesday, I attended the 'long awaited' gala premiere of Rain's first (as the male lead of the show) Hollywood movie, Ninja Assassin. It was raining the whole day and it seemed like it will always rain when we have to attend anything related to Mr.Rain. Luckily, I didn't have to rush my way down to Vivocity after work on that day. I hadn't been leaving work early for the past weeks, except for the premiere day when Elsie & I had to take a ride in one of our vendor's car to Vivocity! There was a slight jam along the expressway and it was still heavily. But it didn't take long before we arrived at Vivocity. We made our way to meet up with Peishan&group before heading up to the box office for our registration. Serene, Jen & Soolan were already seated at the fanclub reception tables when we arrived. I sat at the reception area after collecting my tickets/posters/MBLAQ album while waiting for my chopstick to arrive. She came shortly after and I dragged her round to start taking photos with all the Rains around the box office. Hehe! The chopsticks went off to get some burgers from Burger King for ourselves & the onnis. If we had left our dinners till the end of the movie, we would have been starved to death already. When we came back hastily with our burgers, chopstick pointed at someone behind me and I heard a familiar voice calling me from behind. It was Joanne! We were totally surprised to see each other there. Kenneth & her were there for Ninja Assassin as well. They'd gotten their tickets from one of their distributors. Hee! We were still wondering 是否会有那么多人去看这部戏 when Soolan told us that there would be 6-7 halls showing the movie on that day. There were indeed 7 halls for the Ninja Assassin Gala Premiere! 真是声势浩大! We even had to deposit our cameras and mobile phones at the security counters before going into the hall. We sneaked up to the front of the long queue in front of the hall entrance with the other group of friends after depositing our items and managed to get ourselves a good middle row seats in the hall. It was definitely more fun watching Rain's movie with the fellow Rain fans. You could hear the oooohs and ahhhhs around the hall when the man showed up on the big screen. Kekeke! Click here for the movie review! =) The movie ended around 9.10pm. We went round to take some group shots on the staircase and standees before heading back home.  Still feeling gory after the bloody movie! =D For more photos on the event, click here! ******************************* Some more updates before I end off this entry: I'm finally a confirmed staff of John Wiley! Last Wednesday (11 Nov), I went for a lunch review with both my bosses at Railway Mall's Ramen Ramen. My manager could really talk and he could make everything sounded so nice and good. He reviewed on my performance for the last 3 months and said that they were satisfied with my performance and pointed out some things that I can improve on. And the following Tuesday (17 Nov) onwards, I am entitled to the meal and transport reimbursements, as well as MC! Hehehe! Work has been manageable and other than handling the China territory, I had to help out with the Japan and Korea territory as well. This definitely gave me an opportunity to familiarise myself with the different territories' working style and expectations. Though tired, I can feel a sense of achievement when I send out every single price quote. The group of colleagues had been fun to work with and that really eased out the stress at work. And Uncle Simon, he always never forget about me when he cooks some yummy food at home. Just last Friday, he actually brought me a bowl of his home-cooked soup. It was really delicious and it certainly felt good to receive such warmth from your colleague. Gam dong leh~~ I'm looking forward to the getaway to HK the coming weekend. Finally something to take me away from work for a few days. Till then, ciao!  | Daboom! | Nov 1, '09 12:18 AM
for everyone |
It had been a hectic week for the past few days. I'd been staying overtime everyday and didn't go home earlier than 7pm. I even stayed till 9plus on Thursday & it was a total dread. Luckily, I was able to either tompang uncle Simon's car to Choa Chu Kang MRT or get Dong to drop me off at Clementi MRT so that I didn't have to walk that stretch of dimly lit pavement to get to the opposite bus stop. =) Anyhows, I find working after normal working hours much more relaxing and... fun, in some ways. Hee! On Thursday, we ordered McDonald's for dinner (and we could claim from the company) and even though we were feeling tired, we still enjoyed our in-office Mac dinner. =) Friday's department lunch was really enjoyable too. We actually had a 2.5 hours lunch at Jurong Point's New York New York! We had so much laughter and we loved the DABOOM dessert, The Giant Banana Split. Keke! 
This is different from the usual banana split I had before and this was huge enough to feed all 8 of us! We started fishing our HPs out and went snapping away. Hee! You may not see how huge it is from this photo, you should have a better idea after looking at the next photo... 
Now you can see how BIG it is, in comparison to our model, Dong's face! LOL!
It was a hearty & Daboom! lunch. (Daboom! is the chef's recommendation icon we saw in the menu.) Hehe! I went for "Michael Jackson's This is it" movie with the onnis yesterday. I had pre-booked the movie tickets 3 weeks' ago and it was already selling fast when I was trying to book for the movie! It was really a pity to lose such a wonderful entertainer. After seeing all the hard work and the high expectations he had put in for his coming-soon concert, we couldn't help but felt bitter while watching the movie. Now I'm feeling 可惜 that I didn't had a chance to see his LIVE performance before and I will not have the chance to see that anymore. He's really the King of Pop. Beat it! I'll do a movie review soon when I find the time. =P Monday's coming again, I guess it'll be another week of war. Good luck to me. Early this week on Tuesday, I was officially pronounced an University of London (UOL) honours graduate! I eagerly went on to the UOL website to check on my results when I received a SMS from Clare informing that the results were out for us to check! (I thought we would have to wait till 5pm that evening!) Before I left home for work on Tuesday, I crossed my fingers, waited for my laptop to boot up to check on my results. I was totally overjoyed when I saw my results! Though the papers were not fantastically done, but as long as I can pass and got an honours classification, I'm satisfied. Because, I know I had already done my best already. =) That means, BYE BOOKS! I was so tempted to chiong into my parents' room and shared the good news with them. But it was only 7plus in the morning, so I contained my excitement & left a message for them before I left for work. ^^ Shanice had graduated last year and Dong just had his convocation last Thursday. Finally it's my turn! I'm so looking forward to the buffet in SIM next year. Hehehe! Anyway, after all the trainings and conferences for the last 2 weeks, REAL work had finally started this week. Though the workload wasn't that much for me yet, but I'd started to touch on some work with the help of Lin Qin and my other colleagues. I'd also helped Shanice with her India territory for the past week and I'm learning something new everyday. =) Here are some photos of my workplace: 
My workstation
Left side view from my workstation
Right view from where I'm seated. The pantry's right at the end.
The seating arrangement of the Sales Support department
Last but not least, Shanice & me ^^
28th Aug 2009, Friday - Wiley Shanghai Night This was a memorable and enjoyable night for me. Being a new employee in Wiley for only 2 weeks, I was really lucky to be on time for the annual Asia Sales Conference and it was really an unforgettable week for me, especially on Friday's Shanghai Night. =) The conference was held in a smaller ballroom today and I was having great difficulties keeping myself awake during the presentations. At least we were seated around a round table for Thursday's conference and we could interact with each other more easily. But for today's, we didn't even have a proper table to place our drinking water and I had to use the MSN on my mobile to keep myself awake. =X Lunch was good & I finally went up to say hi to Mustakim. LOL! We exchanged a few words before proceeding with our own work. The conference after lunch was a total torture. I couldn't keep my eyes open! Luckily, we were given a 45 minutes long break at 3pm and we made use of this time to do some camwhoring. Keke! 
Me, Shanice, Shirlyn Wan
Shanice, myself, Jackson & Stanford finally received our Wiley jacket. Shanice & I also got a 2GB thumbdrive from the marketing team. How cool is that. Hee. 
The conference finally ended at 5pm & we could all leave and get ready for tonight's dinner. The theme for the conference dinner was 1920s Shanghai. Initially I thought of cross-dressing. Since Serene borrowed me a few cheongsam & Dong wanted to borrow my suspender, I ended up as a cheongsam lady for the night. Lin Qin & Yuki were nice enough to invite us to their hotel room for us to get dressed up. So we spent some time dressing up, make-up and hair-styling, with the help from Shanice who had a professional make-up cert. Keke! And we were all dressed up for the Shanghai Night. 
Left to right: Me, Shirlyn Chua, Shirlyn Wan
I think our Assistant SS Manager, Shirlyn Chua, succeeded in cross-dressing. She totally looked like some 小生 who went round with a big camera during the 1920s Shanghai. We headed down back to the ballroom area for the cocktail after we got dressed up. We started going round to take photos while waiting to go into the ballroom to get seated down. 
I like Lin Qin's cheongsam.
Shanice looked really gorgeous.
With Sam before she left to catch her flight.
The 3 gentlemen in our SS department
Left to right: Simon (SS SEA-HK), Steven (SS Manager), Dong (SS Korea)
Left to right:
Simon, Yuki, Shirlyn Wan, Shanice, Shirlyn Chua, Me, Lin Qin, Steven
SG Sales Support team + Sam
Yuki
Dong
(He still looked normal here & that was my suspender he's wearing. LOL!)
Simon o.oV
Steven
Shirlyn Chua
After all the photography outside the ballroom, we proceeded into the ballroom and got seated down while waiting for the dinner to commence. Everyone was so sporting and almost everyone came in the themed outfit. 
The ballroom
While waiting, we chit-chatted with the colleagues around us and I even had a little chat with one of the Korean colleagues (based in Korea), Caren. Again, she was shocked when I spoke a few lines in Korean & started asking me where I learnt my Korean. Hee. 
Caren
Shanice
Emcee for the night
The Wiley Gentlemen
Nice shot. Spot for Dong, Simon & Steven. o.oV
The Wiley Ladies
The organisers had planned some games for the night and 'lucky' me, I was sabotaged by my big big boss, Ms Jane White (Global SS Director), to go up onstage for the game. I couldn't say no to my big big boss right? So I had to 硬着头皮 and walked up to the stage. Dong was also hounded up. X_X We had to send 2 representatives from each coloured table (black, red, white, blue). Dong & I represented the white tables. We were required to do some movements following the emcee's instructions. Jackie Chan (running on the spot), Huang Fei Hong pose & Bruce Lee (Wa dah pose). For the 1st few rounds, we were required to do the movement that the emcee said & for the last few rounds, we were required to do a different movement from what the emcee said. I was knocked out of the game at the last segment. Everyone who participated received a little gift. 
Spot us doing the Bruce Lee action.
I can't believe I actually went up for such a game in such a function, but it was really fun. Luckily, I didn't get sabotaged for the 2nd game which was more difficult. The contestants were asked to dance to the rhythm, following the movement of the person before you and come up with a new movement yourself. The one who couldn't follow up with the moves would be knocked out of the game. Other than the games, we had some live singing performances & the Best Dressed competition. 5 gentlemen & 5 ladies were nominated onstage. I find the company a little 'weird'. LOL! People would get really high and started screaming when they showed more flesh! The winners of the best dressed, both the lady and gentleman, flashed the most flesh! The lady wore a bare-back cheongsam & the gentleman actually took of his blouse during his cat walk when the rest only took off their gloves or outer jackets. The food served were average. I think we were too busy watching the games onstage that we neglected our food. But I love the Mango Sago dessert! The best part of the night would be when the yum seng 声 sounded round the ballroom,one after another and a one loud final one together with everyone in the ballroom. This really gave me a great sense of belongingness when everyone cheered in unison. Such a fun night, we wouldn't forget to take more photos. 
I like this candid shot. o.oV
The Sales Support Team + Sharifah (Account Manager - SEA/HK)
Ira Tan (Institutional Sales Director)
She actually took off her heels to accommodate my height. LOL! =X
Adeline
She's one of the HR personnel & she was the first person I talked to in Wiley. ^^
Jane White (Global SS Director), my big big boss
Last but not least, my China team! 
Left to right: Cesilia, Nicole, Yan Jun, Roger (Associate Director - China/TW), Lin Qin, Aaron
Cindy (not in pic) left early to catch her flight.
The dinner ended off with a disco dance. Steven kept pushing us to hit the dance floor & so we ended up dancing the night off. Dong really enjoyed himself and started dancing really hard. He even grabbed my hand & dragged me to the centre of the dance floor with him! That really gave me a shock. But it was really fun to be there moving with the disco music with my fellow colleagues. So fun. We left the ballroom shortly after & proceeded up to Lin Qin's room to change out of our cheongsam. After getting changed, I went back down to outside the ballroom to bid goodbye to Lin Qin and some others. Lin Qin's flight is on Saturday morning. Though I had only known her for a week, but I could feel the friendship building up between us & I'm looking forward to seeing her again. =) After all the goodbyes, I rushed off to catch the last train and I suddenly remembered that I forgot to bring my wallet today & my ez-link card was running low! Crap, I had to run back to the hotel to tompang Simon's car back to Choa Chu Kang & I waited for my parents there to pick me up on the way back. What a night. I'll upload more photos after I get the photos from the others. After an exciting & fun week, we were all mentally prepared for the hectic months ahead. Examination results will be released on 1 September. I hope the 'backdoor' methods I used to verify the results are accurate. Wish me good luck, both at work and my results. -Cross fingers- After a week full of food, tiring conferences, fun and laughter, Wiley's Asia Sales Conference 2009 had finally come to an end. It was food food and more food almost everyday. X_X It was definitely an remarkable experience for new employee like me and this was the first company conference and dinners I attended. I was totally overwhelmed by the scale of the conference and it was indeed an expansion of my social circle. We had colleagues coming from different APAC countries and I was especially excited to meet my China team. They were indeed a friendly lot and I certainly need a lot of help from them on my work in the coming days. 24th Aug 2009, Monday This was the first day I actually met up with Lin Qin, whose my counterpart based in China. I'll be working very closely with her on my work and she's such an approachable and nice lady. I'm glad to be able to work with such a friendly lady. We spent our whole day in office having our training. During lunch, we were brought out to IMM's Bali Thai and Jane, our Global Sales Support Director, gave us a treat. We had so much fun over lunch and we managed to clear as much food as possible on our side. Keke. Our lunch lasted for almost 2 hours before we headed back to office to continue with more trainings. We weren't let off to go home after office hours. Jane brought us out for dinner at Raffles' City Shopping Centre's Shokudo Japanese Food Bazaar. Dinner was full of laughter and as usual, we stuffed Dong with loads of food. LOL! =X Shokudo's 风格 is similar to what we see in Marche. The food was nice and I'm sure going to patronize the restaurant again. From what I heard from Steven, Jane spent almost a thousand bucks on our lunch and dinner in just a day! Gracious me. We sure can eat!
25th Aug 2009, Tuesday It was another training day. Lunch was catered and we went to Samy's Curry at Dempsey Hill for a welcome dinner for the Indian team who had just arrived. The curry fish head there was yummy! Ira, our Institutional Sales Director, ordered a tad too much food and we tried hard to clear the plates. Simon, my fellow Sales Support Coordinator (in charge of SEA & HK), dropped me off at Choa Chu Kang MRT station after dinner.
26th Aug 2009, Wednesday It was the first day of the APAC Sales Conference. Our department 'gang' met up at Newton MRT at 8.30am before we walked over to Sheraton Towers, where the conference will be held for the next 3 days. That means, we didn't have to go back to office for the next 3 days! Breakfast was provided before the conference. So we had our bit before settling down in the big ballroom to wait for the conference commencement. It was an eye-opener for me. The big ballroom was filled up with colleagues from all over the world and it was really fascinating to hear people around you speaking in different languages in the same space. LOL! Shirlyn Chua, our Assistant Sales Support Manager, introduced me to the Account Managers from China, who were sitting behind us in the ballroom. I was a little intimidated by one of them initially but I found him to be quite a nice chap after exchanging a few lines on the subsequent days. Like what Lin Qin told me, they were a 热情 lot. Hee. Lunch and tea break were also provided. Oh ya, I recognised Mustakim (my fellow MSL councillor) from amongst the Sheraton's staff. I wasn't sure if I had got the right person, so I didn't go up to say hi until the final day of our conference on Friday and to know that he had actually recognised me since Wednesday! *Faint* We stayed till lunch before setting off to Parkview Square for our training at Wiley Services Singapore. The office there was big and beautiful, even the building itself looked impressive. However, it didn't seem to have much privacy working there. The cubicles there weren't high and it seemed really 'opened' and empty. People who walked past you are able to see what you are doing on your computer screen. I still preferred our Clementi office. =X Our training ended at 5.30pm and we walked over to Bugis Junction to get a cab to get to Dempsey. Our welcome dinner was held at Red Dot Brewhouse. We shared 2 cabs and we were half an hour earlier than the stipulated time at 6.30pm. We went round the area to do a little exploration before finding our way to the dinner venue. 
Red Dot's outdoor buffet
It was a really nice and romantic place as the sky darkened. However, that night's dinner weren't exactly what I had expected. There were only fried food, satay, baked rice, beer and wine. Not much of a variety, but I still had an enjoyable time with my sales support team! 
The sales support (SS) youngsters!
Left to right:
Me, Shirlyn Wan (Contract), Shanice (Indian mkt), Dong (Korean mkt), Jackson (Contract)
With our SS manager, Steven, & Assistant SS manager, Shirlyn Chua
Additions: Jane White (Global SS Director), Sam Piper (Systems Operations Manager),
Lin Qin (SS China) & Yuki Nagai (SS Japan)
Lin Qin & Me
We'll be working closely together for the China market & she's based in China.
Left to right:
Lin Qin, Shirlyn Wan, Me, Yuki, Shanice
With Jackson & Dong
Dong always takes abnormal photos after a few drinks.
Shirlyn Chua (Assistant SS Manager) & me
With Sam Piper (Systems Operations Manager)
We had so much fun doing the yum seng & taking photos. Guess we had made an impression with our loud yum seng. Keke! Such dinner gathering is the best way to get to know with many new people. I managed to introduced myself to the China team with the help of Lin Qin and Shirlyn Chua. =) We left around 8.30pm to catch the shuttle bus back to Sheraton Towers and from there, I took the MRT back home. =D 27th Aug 2009, Thursday Another conference day at Sheraton Towers. Today's a smaller group conference with only the Institutional Sales Department and the Account Managers. The Sales Support team was introduced to the others one by one and it certainly sent my heart throbbing having to stand up in front of so many people in the ballroom! Anyhows. Lunch was yummy. Better than the meal we had on Wednesday. It was our dear Korean friend's convocation today, so he missed the yummy treat. Too bad. =X Halfway through my lunch, Louise, our IT staff, came up to me with a white envelope, saying that it was from Elsie. Elsie caught hold of him to get him to deliver the hats I borrowed from Karen to me. On the envelope it was written in BIG black ink, To: Kym
From: Rain I almost fainted when I saw the envelope. It was really hard for me to keep my Rain fan identity low profile with Elsie around. X_X Luckily it was only Louise & not someone else. =X This was the only day where we didn't have to stuff ourselves with more food for dinner. No dinner was planned for that day and we were dismissed at 5pm after the conference. I was able to reach home by 5.45pm, the earliest for the week. *******************************************
More photos will be put up after Multiply stop giving me problems with my uploads. Another exciting entry coming up for my Friday - Wiley Shanghai Night. Stay tune! In a twinkling of an eye, it had been 5 days since the start of my training in John Wiley. In just 5 days, I indeed learnt alot of things & I'm sure there will be more challenges and new things for me to explore in the coming days. I'm really glad that I've got such friendly and nice colleagues in my department & the other colleagues from the other department are also a friendly lot too. I enjoyed my first week in John Wiley, especially during the training and lunches. With my bunch of department colleagues, the training days went by with lots of laughter and I certainly built a really good rapport with my Korean colleague, Dong. Keke! He's a really funny and helpful guy. =) Lunches were always so "exciting". On Wednesday, the whole group of us (except Steven, our Sales Support Manager) took the lunch bus to IMM. Yesterday, we planned to go to Bukit Timah to have a Pizza Hut feast! (I actually met Lengleng when we were there! What a coincidence!) We had a 2-hour lunch there and we sure had loads of fun over lunch with all the jokes and chit-chatting. And, Dong has got really huge appetite! We ordered 2 Group meals (which have 4 Regular pizzas, 8 drinks, 8 soups), adding on an extra drink and soup, 1 large supreme pizza, drumlets and hut platter. Dong could actually gobble down 4 regular-sized pizza slices and 2 large-sized pizza slices! (And not mentioning about the sides he ate too.) Today, Friday is fixed to be our department's lunch-together day. Nice Uncle Simon actually made the effort to wake up at 5.30am in the morning to make lunch for us!!! Since he's a vegetarian, he made some vegetarian fried beehoon, spicy thick beehoon & a chocolate dessert! Yummy. It was definitely a very healthy lunch compared to the lunch we had yesterday. Keke! Having nice colleagues makes worklife enjoyable and full of laughter. =) I'm looking forward to another exciting Wiley experience next week. Meeting up with the overseas colleagues, dinners and parties. How fun will that be. =D I'll be going for my pre-employment checkup at Tanjong Pagar tomorrow before rushing back home to wait for the Mio TV installation technician to come and have to rush back out to Suntec Convention to meet up with the onnis for buffet dinner. Till then, Ciao! |
