2nd day of work.. and surviving (thank god it's Thursday)

Well day 2 of work and instead of a sleepless night i just didn't have enough sleep. Guess that's what happens when you stay up an extra hour to play Crash Bandicoot... Anyhow, i forgot to mention that i experienced by first peak hour crush on the MTR, it wasn't too bad (meaning that it could have been worse) people are actually pretty good on the train. You're not packed like sardines, you still have enough 'personal' space (if you know what i mean). I can still remember getting stuck on a packed City Rail train once on the Cronulla/Sutherland which had decided to skip Rockdale station so by the time it got to Kogarah people were throwing people out of the way to get off (pfft, so inconsiderate!).

OK, back to my second day of work. It was a promising start, got into work and found that my boss had given me something interesting to do - investigating and sorting out the transitioning of support of an application into our team (my specialty!). That killed a couple of hours. It's about 1pm at the moment so the day still has a chance of getting boring but we'll have to see.

....

Evening update, you know I spoke to soon. I ended up spending the rest of the day 'dawdling' over the work my boss gave me, coz the next thing i had to do was get him to check my plan (he was away today) and then talk to the gurus of the application... started to fall asleep around 4:30pm and i still had 1.5hrs to go - i guess i could have left but i felt sorry for my team mates - 1 of whom is a work-aholic and can't say no to people, the other is like me but he's been there longer so is actually expected to support systems he knows nothing about...

The strange thing i noticed is people know they don't know but don't appear to be doing any troubleshooting it's sooo weird and not very productive, can't wait to get my hands dirty and start learning stuff...


You know i've really decided that i like Sydney food better, at least i like the Sydney supermarkets betters. It's more suited to my tastes - I mean not being able to read a lot of Chinese doesn't help but still i'm just never in the mood to go out and actually buy anything particular to eat. Instead i just stock up at the supermarket with 'western' stuff which ends up costing more than if i'd just gone and got a bowl of noodles...

For example, after bolting from work at 6pm i headed to causeway bay and did some shopping at causeway bay. my shopping yielded: a block of cheese, sliced bread, korean/japanese cold stuff to eat with rice and then i headed home and made rice, fried some dumplings up (which didn't turn out so good - definitely need to get a new frying pan and saucepan) and sat down and ate most of it... not so much fun eating by yourself. It's all the little things that make you miss home and the fact that work hasn't picked up makes me feel like i'm wasting my time. Next week on i'm going to spend less on food (i actually think i may be putting on weigh argh!!! - definitely cut down on food... but it's so hard - the only good thing is that i'm not snacking... much)

I really do need to get off my butt though, these people rarely get off their chairs - i'm surprised not many people suffer from 'office butt' - oh well only i more day to go (and it's casual dress tomorrow and there are friday drinks as well BONUS!)

My first day at work

Well after another restless night, i had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 7:30am. Gave up though and went back to bed for another 10 minutes.

Finally dragged myself out of bed, got dressed, drank some tea and then headed off to work.
Turned up at 8:45am (i figure that was pretty safe) met my new boss who says that there isn't a set time to work but he comes in around 8am and finishes at 8:30pm (huh!!!)
Anyhow was shown around my new office and found out that there isn't really that much for me to do at the moment because access to applications haven't been sorted yet so... read the intranet!

Ok, it really doesn't take long to surf an Intranet site - there's only so much that is relevant to you (e.g. finding out when you have public holidays, what kind of leave you can take, how much sick leave you can take etc etc - BTW HK has publich holidays every single month except for August and November. May has 3 holidays! ) Cool!

Ok back to work, i was taken out to lunch and met a girl from the Sydney office who was visiting for a week - poor thing has been working late and hasn't even done any shopping!! But during lunch it was discussed that there is a lot of 'exchanges' planned between countries and that the support team (only 4 of us including my manager) will swap with people. So looks like i may come back to Sydney in a couple of months for a bit of cross-knowledge transfer (or whatever you call it)... mmm checked the travel policy we fly business class for anything over 5hrs (yes!)

Ok now to the important thing, the office is a bit far from the other business area (it's near the water) so in terms of food there isn't much to eat around my building. But in true investment bank fashion what they provide us goons is AMAZING!

Massive kitchen with comfortable seating area and here is what they have. Couple of sandwich presses, four different types of sliced bread, snacks(biscuits, chocs etc), fridge has fruit drinks, iced tea, soft drinks, milk, water and most importantly alcohol!! I think there's even fruit but i didn't notice (obviously there were more appealing things to look for). Oh of course there was tea and coffee - couple of types of tea as well probably about 6-8 types

Take that, Graeme hehehe


Anyway i'm going to be better prepared for work tomorrow, going to lug a text book to work so i can read it (but it's probably going to put me to sleep... oh well)

Last day of freedom... and a foot massage

After a really crappy night of trying to fall asleep but not being able to i dropped off and didn't wake up until 10:30am - went back to sleep and finally go up around noon. There were still a quite a lot of things that i had to do, open a HK bank account and get an iron (to iron my shirts before i turn up to work tomorrow) and a bit more shopping.

The bank account was surprisingly simple, would you believe HSBC have 'pre-made accounts' so all they need to do is grab an envelope with an account number and it contains ur key card, atm pin and phone banking pin - unbelievable. Though the keycard doesn't have your name on it, which isn't that secure (anyway...) another thing is they have cash deposit atms so you don't have to queue in the bank - it's a bit slow try feeding in 10 bills one at a time (i'm assuming it's so it can validate each note) and a line is forming behind you... sorry people.

They have a similar thing for passbook accounts as well - Australia could plagiarise some of these processes.

ANyway with my account all sorted the next thing was to buy an iron. Now i bought an ironing board the other day and it's not your standard australian sized ironing board - u can call it a mini-board (basically it has these little fold out legs and you put it on top of a table) - now i obviously have to consider the size of the iron when i consider the size of the table, it'll be pretty silly to buy a normal sized iron for such a small table. But then you have to consider the features - i ended up running back and forth trying to decide on which iron to buy - and i thought 'hey i'll just buy the cheaper one' but then it turns out it's the last one in stock and that one has a scratched plate - definite no-no right... so back to Broadway and i just picked a decent looking one which ended up costing me about $45 AUD - good enough.

Last thing on my list was a foot massage, there's a place called the 'Foot House' just down the road from me which specialises in massage and reflexology - Ben gave it a go the last time he came back and said it was ok so i figure i'll give it a try. They also have an introductory offer atm so that a 50 min massage only costs $104 HKD (divide by 7, you aussies!) and damn it was a good massage - the people are really good coz they ask you whether you've been sleeping well or if a particular section hurts and that the side-effect is xyz etc... Needless to say i was feeling very good afterwards, didn't even realise my foot was that stiff until i walked out and felt like i was floating.

So, i paid for my massage and also paid up-front for an 10 massages (normal price of the massage is $168HKD - which is still cheap by Sydney standards). Also booked a massage for mum and me this Sunday so as soon as she arrives she'll be treated to a nice relaxing massage.


Seriously suggest a foot massage to anybody who's been travelling/walking a lot and/or having trouble sleeping - i'll let you know tomorrow if I get a good night's rest (though if I have problems sleeping it's because i'm nervous about my first day... incidentally i actually don't know what time i'm supposed to show up... mmm 8:45 sounds safe but i'll feel stupid if my manager wasn't actually in by then hehehe oh well early is better than late right)

Going to eat out with Jessie tonight, Shanghai-nese... yum yum

Back to Hong Kong

Going to skip the details of my UK/Europe tour until i get my own internet connection and can type about it in detail.

Today i went to pick up my visa from the office and then had to make a trip over to macau and then back into HK. The trip takes about an hr each way and the ticket guy was shocked that i was buying a 11:45am ticket to macau and wanted a 1:30pm ticket back (he convinced me to get the 2:00pm ticket in the end) - in any case i caught the 1:45pm TurboJet back. Not bad and i got to sleep on the way there and back.

After that it was a bit of home shopping, got myself some chopsticks (there's chopsticks in the apartment but not the ones i'm used to and it feels weird using someone elses stuff eventhough ithey're kind of mine now), an ironing board (all i need is to get an iron...)

couple of bathroom related stuff for washing clothes etc.

But there are a couple of other things that i figured i need to get. A new frying pan - the frying pan in this apartment is about the size of a bread plate (it's even smaller than the 'small' frying pan i had at home!) i may also think about getting a new saucepan as well coz the one here is 'smallish' though it does fit a packet of instant noodles quite nicely so it's not crucial but still...

hehe may just leave all the kitchen stuff to mum when she gets here - i also need a washing machine/dryer... at the moment i'm washing stuff by hand after my shower hehe

The Day After... and Berlin

Ok, as i mentioned i had quite a bit to drink the night before (but obviously not as much as the MOH) Needtheless to say i didn't exactly have a good night's rest. In addition to the time difference causing me to automatically wake up at 730 in the morning i was royally screwed. I did manage to get back to sleep until 830 when Ben knocled on the door to check on the MOH (who was semićonscious at this stage and really feeling the affects of the drinking, she didn't remember the events of last night) except she was feeling absolutely crap. I staggered up and stumbled back to my room to brush my teeth finish packing and then going down for breakfast (i was feeling ok, except for a slight empty 'weird' feeling in my stomach - i figured i shouldn't shock my system so settled for simple toast and marmite. )
Ran back up from breakfast and finished packing and Yan, kindly offered to drive Ben and me to the station but after 'losing' my wallet and checking out we had missed to the 1013 train (they only come every hour) then the 1113 train was 30 minutes late getting into Waterloo - i was supposed to catch the 405 plane to Berlin from Terminal 5, only JUST missed the check-in time but since the flight was closed i was forced to get the next flight which cost and extra 105 pounds (ouch!) - now i knew i was cutting it fine with the 1113 but i seriously had no choice and the train was bloody late!!!! arghhh, the stress of rushing to try not to miss the flight and the after effects of the alcohol had me shaking in hunger (or whatever u want to call it) by the time i was booked on the next flight so next thing on my to do was to feed my queasy stomach. I found a bar-restaurant and indulged in a 8oz rib eye steak with chips. feeling a little bit better but my stomach was still feeling queasy... got on the plane and then found out i had an 'emergency exit' seat (and the BA guy didn't even warn me, to top it off the button on the seat was broken so it wouldn't tilt back, turns out none of the seats at the exit could tilt - it's like torture, thank god the flight wasn't that long but seriously i was not feeling good by the end of the flight. the only thing i can say is that the german airport was verrry efficient in getting us through. i was surprised that the immigration/custom guys are actually stationed outside the gate that u arrive at so as soon as u get off the plane u are at customs before u pick up ur baggage, really cool .

decided to take a taxi to the hostel (only cost 20 euro!) and was surprised at how cool the hostel was. i'd definitely recommend it to people coming to Berlin, it's the Meininger on Shoenhauser Allee, the rooms are clean, bathrooms are decent and breakfast is nice - walls are a bit thin but thats ok). As my first experience in an hostel i'm very happy. The rooms are a little stuffy but can't expect everything to be perfect.

The Wedding

Ok it's 2 days after the fact but this is the first opportunity for me to write. The wedding was prettz uneventful (aside from the ceremonz, if u know wat i mean) the dinner was nice as was the castle (side note: lulworth cove is a reallz nice place to visit if u like to hike and go on a kayak tour around to see 'jurassic age' cliffs etc (see photos when i get around to posting later)

Back to the wedding, dinner was finished and the dancing started. People were kind of slow to get dancing so anywayz i got drinking with the maid of honor and another friend of hers (& Pat), his name is Yan (? i think thats how u spell it=... we polished off about 3-4 bottles of red and white wine and danced for a while when the maid of honor (hereafter referred to as the MOH) sat down on the dance floor. Ben, Yan and I picked her up and lay here on 3 seats. Her feet slid off so i thought i#d put them back on the seat. but as i was doing so her head/shoulders somehow slipped off and her head hit the chair on the way down. (cameras flashing in the mean time). Afterwards she started getting sick so Ben picked her up to take her down to the girls' toilet (which was in the lower level of the castle) so with me leading the way we were taking here down but my cousinsä in-laws were standing at the corner of the stairs so ben tried to walk by them (unfortunately that was where the stairs turned and the steps were very narrow so ben slipped and nearly dropped the near comatose girl. We finally got her in to the disabled toilet where she let loose for the next hour or so. The 3 of us looked after her the best we could as we stuck coz the coach wouldnät arrive to pick us up until 12 and the chances of a taxi willing to drive her back to the inn was almost zero (not to mention that around lulworth and wool there is almost no reception for most mobile phone providers).

[I'll flesh this post out with more dteail later when i get to a keyboard where the letters are where they're supposed to be, iäm using a german keyboard atm]

Tower of London and .... Wool

Well, my last day in London proper involved getting up bright and early so we could make it to the Tower of London and then catch the 2.5hr train down to Wool (which is near Weymouth, past Portsmouth for the uneducated ^_-).

The tower was interested, the crown jewels impressive and we managed to spend over 3hrs there (way exceeding our initial estimate of 2hrs) - by the time we returned to Bond Street to get our luggage and went to Waterloo we had missed the 3pm train (the next train was at 4) - I used this opportunity to go to Monsoon to try on some dresses they were nice but alas, either too small/big or there was something wrong with the cutting of the dress. So result of London shopping (aside from food and souvenirs is zero) NOT FAIR!!!!!

Uneventful trip down to Wool, ben and i half-played a game of scrabble. I kept dropping the letters, spent about 10 minutes trying to flick a letter out of the side of the seat, some old guys was wondering what i was doing. Luckily i managed to flick it out - imagine losing a letter in a game of scrabble. It's tragic!

Anyway Ben typically started to nod off so we stopped the game and had a snooze until we reached Wool. There were only 2 taxis at the station when we arrived and they were quickly taken - had to wait ages for a taxi to arrive but once we got it we arrived at Lulworth Inn fairly quickly. There was confusion about the place we were staying once that was sorted we settled in and headed downstairs for the pre-wedding meal.

Dover Castle

Ben and I headed down to Dover Castle today, the 2hr train trip to Dover Priory meant that we didn't get to the castle until 1:30pm (it was a 20min walk from the station to the castle itself, uphill no less grrr, i wasn't happy - the alternative was a £6 taxi ride up but Ben felt like walking)

I recovered from the walk fairly quickly and we were booked in for the 2pm tour of the World War II underground tunnels, and they were really cool!! I think they're the highlight of all the tours i've done so far. Dover Castle was interesting but there weren't a lot of rooms accessible and they were pretty much bare (unlike Hampton Court) - nevertheless they were interesting enough and since we didn't have enough time it was good that they weren't too furnished or we would have spent a lot of time looking at the furnishings.

The only drama of the day was when Ben and I got separated and wouldn't you like to know that there wasn't any reception at the castle - not that it would have mattered, it turns out Ben went to look at the Battlements which were UNDER ground... grrr I search all the paths leading from the keep for him and was about to give up when he finally came back aboveground - and it didn't even occur to him to see what was taking me so long... typical Ben.

I have also realised i haven't actually bought anything in London and our time is running out, we need to head down to Wool by 2pm at the latest since it takes almost 4hrs by train to get there. So tomorrow we're going to rush down to the Tower of London @ 9am spend a couple of hours there, get our bags then go to Waterloo and catch the train. There are some dresses at Monsoon that i like so i'm going to squeeze in a fitting of the dresses there, hopefully i'll get some last minute shopping down otherwise i'm going to be mad...

Pity there's nothing around Lulworth Castle worth seeing, we're basically spending 2 days in a place where there's nothing much to do...


PS: We had a cornish pastry for breakfast, interesting - Ben's one was tastier steak and stilton cheese, my traditional one was boring by comparison - i think there was only 1 piece of meat in it. We didn't really have lunch but had afternoon tea up at the Keep Cafe (the tea was nice but i didn't like the cakes too much). Dinner was a nice steak at the American Steakhouse near Victoria Station, it was surprisingly good.

Ben and I then decided to walk back to Jim's place from Victoria Stn, using this opportunity to take pictures of Buckingham Palace when there weren't a flock of tourists. After that we walked through a badly lit Green Park (but it still seemed surprisingly safe) and then decided that we had to visit Hyde Park. The park was unbelievably badly lit but there were quite a few people there walking, jogging, having a moonlight picnic (don't know how they can see what they're eating though...) we gave up a quarter of the way through and went back to walking along the fringe of Hyde Park then up to Oxford St. It was a nice walk and the train ride gave us sufficient resting time so that our feet are not aching at the end of the day.

There are so many things that i haven't seen in London, i didn't even make it to Harrods (i did walk through Selfridges though nothing really struck my fancy, or the things that did were over £400 - i must have good tastes hehehe). I think i need a couple of more days in London, which means i'll have to come back next time... bugger. Oh well, if Ben's still here i'll save money on accomodation at least.

It's strange but if you think of things in pounds and now Aussie dollars, things definitely seem cheap. For example, a Zone 1-2 ticket for the whole day costs £5.30 - translate that to the Aussie equivalent of a day tripper and London transport is definitely cheaper, especially considering the number of trains available and the efficiency... i guess it's only when you compare the prices that you realise when something is 'better value'. BTW i suggest you read the book 'Predictably Irrational' - it makes a lot of sense.

London (Part 2)

It's Thursday morning and once again the weather is fantastic. Ben and I went down to Hampton Court Palace yesterday and spent about 4.5hrs (and even then it was rushhed) - so if you even decide to go there, make sure you get there earlier than 1:30 in the afternoon.

The Palace is beautiful, it's amazing how they're restored it and kinda hard to believe that people used to actually live there. Life seemed more straight forward back then instead of now, where everyone is consumed with working and making money...

Anyway continuing on from my post yesterday, the London Eye was cool - the funiest part is when the photo was about to be taken, they didn't actually tell us which way to look so Ben, Ingrid and I had our backs to the cameras when we struck a pose. The resulting picture is quite amusing and i will have to post it up when i get the chance to scan it in.

I also got my work visa for HK approved yesterday so that means i'll be starting work in two weeks!!! Arghhh, that's going to be a shock after a month and a half of doing nothing, waking up late etc...

London!

I've been in London for two days and the weather has been fantastic.

Somewhat surprisingly, i haven't been overawed by the tourist sites. Sure they've been nice but nothing worthy of 'ohhh ahhh'.

Let's see:

Day #1
arrived after a 1hr delay at HK international because 1) we were waiting for passengers from another flight that was delayed 2) china decided to close off their air space due to bad weather. Ben and I wasted time playing scrabble (bastard won..., i was sooo close to winning until he did a bingo grrr)
Anyway we got on one of those newer Boeings (the ones where the seat doesn't move but the cushion does so that your bum shifts forwards and you back slides down the chair). Granted this means that the person if front doesn't shove the monitor into your face but seriously it's terrible for your back. I got into such a huff over the seats i thought i'd better sleep so i don't take it out on Ben (unfortunately it was a full flight as well so we couldn't spread out). The good thing is i managed to sleep for most of the flight (>12 hrs, skipped all the meals as well), the bad thing is i found out in the last 1.5hrs of the flight that there wer some really good movies that i could have watched (bugger...)

Arrived at Heathrow and was half-interrogated by the customs person who wanted to know why my stupid HSMP visa was rejected (after explaining a couple of times it was because the Home Office try and make it extremely difficult and confusing for people to enter and in the end 'i couldn't be bothered with it') she allowed me access. Then i had to wait ages for my bag to turn up on the belt (took so long i was thinking it was 'lost' by the ever-reliable Heathrow airport) Luckily it did turn up in the end and Ben and i took the Heathrow Express to Paddington. Gotta love the train, it's cheap and fast. Why can't Sydney do the same - quantity not quality and they'll earn more money in the long run... common sense isn't it.

From Paddington it was to Bond Street Station and just around the corner at Davies St is our accomodation! It was also a Bank Holiday so the tube and streets were still empty (at 9:30am)

We met our 'host' Jim and he was kind enough to show us around Mayfair. Then it was off to Buckingham Palace to catch the end of the changing of the guard (... 3 mins until my time is up at the interet cafe so if i get stopped halfway that's why)

Met up with Ingrid there and headed down to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben (you'll see photos later). Spent a couple of hours there then bought tickets to the London Eye and went in search of food near Waterloo Station (unfortunately we missed Waterloo Stn completely and found ourselves at Lambton North). Anyway eventually ate at Strada down near the Tower Bridge then headed back to the London Eye. [The photo we got taken there is hilarious...]

Run out of time, will continue in my next post

Geez not even 1 week in and i'm already getting complacent about writing in the blog.

Let's see... did a little bit of shopping yesterday but the thing that took up most of the time was eating (surprise, surprise)

We didn't eat until after 12 but went to a nice place down near Kowloon Tong where they had Islam food meat buns, nice curry (?!), hot and sour noodles. Followed by a drive down to Sai Kung (we passed the place where a bus crash killed 18 people just two days earlier) and it was really nice down there (it was cooler and the air much nicer) what was really fun were the independant fisherman who were selling their catch from their boats (fish, prawns, crabs, squid, starfish, conch etc) to locals who were standing on the dock - they shouted prices to each other. Money was placed in the stretched out net and the goods were delivered back the same way. The prices were cheaper than buying it at the shops along the waterfront where you would buy the food from them and then give it to the restaurant to cook it for you. Very novel nonetheless.

Cousin Dorothy then took us to a dessert place which had some nice durian sweets (for Ben, not for me). I had a nice "yan gi kum lo" ben had a durian ice drink and was then talked into having durian mochi ( i was roped into eating one of them... it's not that i don't like durian. i just hate burping a couple of hours later and the 'fragance' of the durian comes up and nice fresh ugh...)

After this dessert we headed back out towards Jordan for dinner with family friends. This consisted of fish heads, eel (not for me though), lettuce and fish meat in banana chillis (these were hit and miss, some were hot and some weren't). The dessert was what i went for, they have this wong kum gou (yummy stuff)!!

I've got to put the name of the restaurant down (later) but it's next to the Kings Park Hockey Centre.

Anyway, today was nice and relaxing. Sleep-in a little then head down to Tai Koo Shing for some last minute shopping then back to the apartment for packing in preparation for the flight to London (@00:35). We have organised to meet Dorothy for dinner to each roast goose first though (mmm yummy)

From Macau

I was too exhausted yesterday to post. Insufficient sleep and too much food. Then today i had an early morning in order to catch the 9:00am ferry to Macau (that's 11am Sydney time) - my prolonged lack of sleep is definitely catching up to me - what i need is a nice long relaxing massage... ahhh.

Anyway Macau was an experience, so many casinos so little money. (i did walk away with an extra $35HKD from the pokies, probably beginners luck)

We visited the Venetian, very nice shopping area - reminiscent of Venice (not that i've been there) but the atmosphere is nice and relaxing and the people steering(?) the gondolas along the canals have great voices (opera style) - shops are the same as those in HK so you probably won't buy much there (not to mention the fact you'd have to put your shopping in all the casinos you visit). The casino itself is too crowded, i personally liked Wynns best, it wasn't too crowded (at least when we were there it wasn't but that was around 10:30) but the Venetian casino floor looked like a market. We also went to Lisboa (but it's old and I didn't like it very much), the Emperor Garden was also boring and stinky (from cigarette smoke), also the dealers looked very bored - wouldn't make you want to play much.

I'll post pictures later (when i'm using my own computer and internet connection)

The day was filled with food (again):

beef wonton noodle soup
some kind of pancake thing
shark fin soup
some chicken thingy
veges
a pot of tofu/mushroom stuff

The good thing about HK is that you can stuff yourself and after you walk around a bit you're hungry again Q(though, that could be a bad thing in the long run)... i shall have to keep a track of my waist line to see if it expands or shrinks...