An email, tens of hugs and hundreds of kisses later... it is never easy to say goodbye

With the handing over of the much delayed resignation letter and the sending of an almost poignant email, the 3 years journey in New Zealand is sealed with a kiss as the date draws near and the reality of our home coming sinks in.

With mixed feelings I sent this today:

Dear Wellington Team,

I tried to type this email a hundred times now but couldn’t seem to get it right because I am someone who has never learnt to say goodbye, more so to people whom I had grown to love and enjoy being in the company of.

After 3 years in this beautiful land and over 2 years in this company which provided more opportunities than I could ask for, surrounded by wonderful people like yourselves who had forever changed my world view of New Zealanders (in a positive way no doubt!), a few colloquial jokes I learnt along the way (I still couldn’t decide if the blank look I gave was funnier than the joke itself), the time has come for me to return to Singapore.

3 years ago, I took the leap of faith and got out of the comfort zone in my journey to New Zealand when Caleb and I decided life is about experiencing the new, not living the old. In the last 3 years, I learnt how very enriching life could teach me when I have nothing but faith and love in my hands. After 3 occasionally challenging but nonetheless wonderful years, it is now time to return back to Singapore in our pursuit of career opportunities and physical closeness to our family and friends who had never left our hearts. Now that I have people etched in my heart at both sides of the planet, it was never an easy decision to make.

I had notified Graeme this morning about the date I leave (I am glad his heart was strong enough to avoid a cardiac arrest because my own heart was pounding from a decision which I still find it hard to come to terms with at times). At the very least, I know I will still have a wonderful Christmas function with you people next week. I guess we will never lose our sense of wonder as I witness the copious amount of alcohol a Kiwi can drink and similarly you will forever be perplexed with the frequency of a Singaporean girl's hunger.

I will miss you all, tremendously.

Love,
Cheryl

Tears are shed with many hugs and well wishes. Despite the cultural and racial differences being the one and only Asian amongst a team of Caucasians, we formed a bond so strong it amazes me at times. They are professional at work yet crazy at play, prudent with clients yet openly affectionate within the team.

In the words of my colleagues and how they love to say it when they call it a day, I say the same to them now: Well played, Team! It's been one helluva ride with you guys.

Paparazzi shots at the Races

I suspect moving back to the other side of the planet may spell the imminent demise of this little blog of mine since it was set up as a therapeutic outlet for me to connect with my family and close friends back home. After the big move back I will possibly have neither time nor motivation to rattle in this little wailing wall anymore. We'll see.

From the time the decision was made to relocate back to Singapore, a mixture of emotions overwhelmed me as the thought of resuming the old life is both exciting and daunting. Changes invariably always require stamina, energy and a great dose of faith but maybe that's how we remain in awe of this journey call Life.

*****


It is almost an annual event now for our office to have a day out at the Races as Summer approaches this side of the planet. The Flatmate (the Central Regional Manager) shouted lunch and gave us $10 each but most of us lost our lunch money by the first half of the races. I get a huge amount of grief and discouragement not from my losses but from my colleagues' amused look on their faces when I stared blankly twice at the lady behind the betting counter because I am really quite clueless about placing a bet. I felt truly embarrassed when I stammered incoherently whilst clutching the $10 note in my hands and felt pairs of eyes staring at me either in curiosity or mockery.


Since I am someone who believe very much in cutting my losses I decided to just sit and watch the horses racing madly around the track after I blew away my lunch money. I was quite bored at second half of the races so I decided to analyse my colleagues' odds by attempting to calculate the probability and standard deviation of their winnings. I presume that was not very well received because I had never seen such spontaneous and synchronized rolling of eyes and head shaking with a crooked smile on my colleagues' faces.


On the way back, these crazy colleagues of mine decided to go on a pub crawl despite drinking since 11am in the morning. We literally stopped at every single pub along the way throughout the 2 hours journey from the Race Course back to Wellington city. It was a miracle we made it back to Wellington on the same day because I seriously thought at the rate we were going, I would have to sleep in the mini van for the night.


I shot a video in the mini van with some of them looking like rock star impostors on the run. This is after they had drowned about 20 litres of wine and beer but before inebriation officially kicked in. In other words, the behaviour captured in the video is deemed rather normal at this stage. Click on the 'play' button to witness the normality in our everyday office:



I became paparazzi of the day just so I have something to blackmail and coerce my colleagues into surrendering their lunch when I am hungry for the 30th time in the office.

Oh my, I think I will miss them when I leave.

An announcement to make

Those really close to me would have known by now but still, news like these ought to be announced formally even though the channel is rather informal in this little blog of mine. No, I am not pregnant in case the misleading title got some people excited.

The pigeon (read: courier man) had finally delivered all documents for my job offer 5,600 miles across the globe and I’ve signed on the dotted line so the deal is sealed, done and dusted. After over 3 eventful years in this foreign land, we are kissing New Zealand goodbye for now in pursuit of career advancement, lower taxes and physical closeness to our much loved families and friends.

It is all very surreal because as recent as our last trip home in July this year, it had never crossed our mind that the Polar family will be making our way home by the end of the year. God's plans indeed surpassed ours all the time.

The focus for now is a series of mad logistic arrangements to haul the treasures we had accumulated over the years from Wellington back to Singapore (I need to find a best friend in DHL express). It is very difficult to focus when summer is almost upon us and there are so many activities lined up for the weekends. And of course, we will drown a couple more bottles of good wine and endless rounds of dining by the waterfront and fine restaurants hidden in the nooks of Wellington city before the big move back home sometime in December.







Talking about food, I am now seated beside the Central Regional Manager, whom I termed the new ‘flatmate’ as there are only two of us in the same pod. My ‘flatmate’ had grown very wary of my insatiable appetite and consequentially ate his breakfast, lunch and morning tea all at 7.30am in the morning before I sashay into the office. That was his reaction to my fellow colleagues’ warning that his chocolate cake for morning tea and Salami Sandwich for lunch will be gone if left unattended because a certain Singaporean girl may eat them in a flash.

I mean I am a little hurt you know. Hunger is a natural human reaction you know. Why is it that my fellow colleagues have such unnatural adverse reactions to my natural human reaction? I am devoid of human rights because my hunger is being frowned upon and guarded against in my office. These are the same people who affectionately calls me ‘Sweets’ every morning but apparently they thought my need for food is not so sweet.

Tasting Notes

A weekend of food and wine without examination stress and term paper deadline is simply... bliss. The correlation between bliss and food is unmistakeably and undeniably a positive 1 for me. In finance this is termed as perfect correlation. In my household there is no vocal term for this except the silent act of head shaking from a certain Bear. He's given the expression 'loss for words' a whole new meaning whenever I exclaim the 3 magic words-- 'I'm hungry again!'

Having forged their friendship through gadget discussions and devising conspiracies to hide their purchases from the unsuspecting wives, the Pirate King is naturally very sad about the prospect of the Polar Bear swimming back to Singapore. As the Pirate King faces the reality of losing his partner-in-crime in the not so distant future, he declared an early summer with weekend activities lined up almost every week.



We drove more than an hour to Carterton for brunch at Gladstone vineyard on Sunday with the Pirate family, followed by wine and more wine at Martinborough, the winery region of Wellington. New Zealand abalone is known as ‘paua’ in local terms, and paua fritters and fresh scallops are my all time favourite dishes in this land. The Pirate King was however visibly disappointed with the western way of abalone cooking, which obviously differs greatly from the Asian ‘Ah Yat’ abalone style. Hello Mr PK, this is New Zealand can? Where to find ‘Ah Yat’ abalone for brunch??

Vynfields Estate was our next stop, which was a hidden treasure we chanced upon a year ago when we went winery hopping around Martinborough with Vonnie and her husband.



Vynfields must be one of my favourite vineyards in the region where we had fine organic wine presented in flights of 5 glasses, accompanied by warm home made bread rolls and delectable chocolate cake whilst basking in the sun in their picturesque gardens overlooking rows of neatly planted grapevines.





After consuming an almost copious amount of wine at Vynfields, we hopped over to Ata Rangi Estate (recommended by my wine connoisseur girlfriend in Singapore and we've been hooked since) for more wine tasting. Their Pinot noir is world renowned and possibly one of the most expensive pinot (over NZD145 for 1.5L bottle!!!) we’ve drank in this land where wine is cheaper than water.



When the counter lady said the best Pinot was ‘too young’ to be tasted, she was greeted by 3 very disappointed Singaporean faces. Being the cynical Singaporeans that we are, we rationalised that this is a ruse devised by the vineyard owners to keep their most expensive wine away from wine thirsty patrons like us.



With all that food and wine consumed, we tried to fool ourselves that we can burn it all off by hitting a few balls at the unplanned detour to the golf driving range. To facilitate this false belief, we paid for the biggest bucket of golf balls and paid the penalty with swollen palms, sore arms and backache towards the end. We were so desperate to finish hitting the hundreds of golf balls that we outsourced the task to the youngest one in the group.



The Polar Bear murmured that my swing is so graceful when he was looking through the pictures. I would have been truly flattered if he didn't add, it is so graceful I look more like I'm practising ballet than golf, and ended that remark with the most spastic ballet pose he could emulate and snigger incessantly after that. Someone in my household is not very kind.



It was a fine weekends indeed, more so with the fact that the waiting game had ceased with my job offer halfway across the globe getting finalised (finally!) Once the physical Letter of Offer wings its way via the courier man to reach me in this far flung land, it will complete our contemplation to relocate back home.

"The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." -Exodus 14:14

His words kept, as always.

The Pan-filled weekends and other tales

The weekends I broke free from the shackles of my exams for this semester, I went for a ballet for the young at heart and for those who never want to grow up. Sounds familiar and very much like yours truly.

To quote the synopsis of Peter Pan:
If you believe, anything is possible. Soar through the clouds, fight the pirates and relive your childhood dreams with this magical, fun-filled production. James Barrie’s Peter Pan has enchanted audiences for more than a century, and the Royal New Zealand Ballet captures all the excitement and fun of this swashbuckling family favourite.

Although the die-hard romantic in me very much prefer La Sylphide performed last season, but the whimsical Peter Pan production does hold its magic and provides great entertainment, and more so when I could sit back and enjoy the ballet without a long string of financial formulas generating various permutations at the back of my mind.

This is also the time when I can resume to cultivate my everlasting love for scrumptious food over long brunches and I would not need to rush home after my meals to bury myself in finance readings and books.



This is also the season of barbecuing in the wonderful backyard of our gardening fanatics who have the most impressive garden amongst the usual suspects. They've even built a private playground at the backyard for the kids whilst the adults gathered over the BBQ pit.



It was also exciting albeit stressful times as contemplation continued in relation to our relocation back to the sunny motherland. A twist to the saga saw the Polar Bear with one too many job offers in Singapore whilst I play the waiting game with the Circus Ringleaders back home.

As I looked back at my 3 years in this land, and my entire 30 years on this planet, I had an epiphany on one constant theme of my life which is succinctly summed up in 3 words— God never fails.

So, I learn to heed His words expressed through the love letter He wrote to me thousands of years ago-- Be Still (Exodus 14:14 and Psalms 46:10) and His promises will surely come to pass.

Dreams are made of these

I guess there is no need to reiterate the fact that I didn’t have much of a life left for the past few weeks which had been evident in my little hiatus in this space.

I was travelling through a whirlwind time machine playing catch up over thousands of pages of readings for my studies with senseless calculations over derivatives valuations , beta, alpha, standard deviation, variance in equities analysis and every other term imaginable of which the computations make little sense to anybody including yours truly.

8 years (and counting) into the financial sector, the financial terms still amuse me as I forever wonder how do we explain a ‘naked call’ or a ‘strip bond’ to a normal layman or client and still maintain a straight and serious face. If that’s not hard enough, try explaining ‘straddle’, 'strangle' and 'collars'-- different Options strategies. When my one of my ex colleagues and I termed our sector as 'The Circus' I guess there is some truth in it.

After trying to cram in as much as I can for the upcoming exams next week, I am seriously getting quite sick of burying myself in books filled with equations expressed in an assortment of Greek symbols. These days my dreams are in Greek. If you are reading this, I am dreaming and you're in my nightmare.

I can't wait to get this over and done with and wake up to my life (and sanity) again.

Weekends @ Christchurch

True to my self-fulfilling prophecy I will still be trying to complete my Beijing and Singapore trips' blog by Christmas, if I can find the time by Christmas.

It's been a mad week so far with work, studies, and serious contemplation about decisions of life. The act of contemplation can be really tiring, which is why I find myself exhausted over the weekends because procrastination is no longer a strategy and the delay tactic couldn't work anymore once the offer was presented on the table.

Although we saw it coming, but it was still mentally draining to make a decision when one couldn't quite decide.

To think that the week before last we were still relaxing by the hot spring in Christchurch and sipping wine in the vineyards when we flew there for the weekends. As I need some clarity and sanity away from decision point, I'm not going to contemplate anymore tonight and will wait for God's sign.



The highlight of the Christchurch trip was Hanmer Spring. From the time I had my first hot spring experience in the onsen of Japan a couple of years ago, I fell in love with the idea of idling by these warm, thermal pools in a cold country.





Hanmer Spring is beautifully set in foliage of greenery with snow-capped mountains as the perfect backdrop in the distance. Being the tropical girl that I am with spoilt heater sensor (I couldn't seem to feel warm anymore in New Zealand), I braved towards the 41 degrees Celsius sulphur pool with the Polar Bear following suit.

When the Polar Bear emerged from that pool, steam was emanating from his head, ears and nostrils like a kung fu master in the martial arts movie. I had to fan him repeatedly before he evaporates and passed out.



I would be able to have a very Singaporean style breakfast if I smuggled an egg into Hanmer Spring because I think producing a runny half boiled egg (Ya Kun style) in these sulphur pools is very possible.

Christchurch is freezing (especially in the morning) even though we are now well into Spring. I traipsed around the city in the early part of the day, all wrapped up in a puffy jacket which made me look like a strawberry flavoured marshmallow. It’s embarrassing because nobody walks around looking like a marshmallow in Spring, except me.





Christchurch is as I remembered it when I flew there 2 years ago- Gothic buildings in a quaint English-like town. I also remembered the most wonderful library I had seen in this lifetime is located in New Brighton (a suburb of Christchurch), with the reading gallery overlooking the ocean in perpetuity.

New Brighton, with its vast ocean and long jetty, is still as wonderful as I remembered it. However I didn't remember it was half that cold with the wind giving me a natural perm by the time I finished the walk by the jetty. I also didn't remember there was such talented people doing a huge sand drawing by the beach, only to have it all washed away when the tide turns.





I’ll need to fly to Christchurch again in the next couple of weeks for work. I am tempted to lug along the electric blanket and wrap it around me. I just hope I will not get electrocuted and fry my brains (although one can argue it’s already been half-fried by the Finance papers I’m taking this semester).

The reason why one shouldn't anyhow name their kids

Since my last post on the ongoing dilemma I'm faced with, I've friends who had very kindly informed me of various job opportunities within the inner circle back home.

So I've a friend who told me to try for a role, which prompted me to ask my 'spy' in said organisation for more information. My trusty 'spy' on the ground told me this story about the recruiting manager:

One day the manager has a staff in her team, who has a relatively common surname-- How. Said staff also has a rather ordinary name-- Annie. However when you put the ordinary first name and last name together, you get an extraordinary name.

Said boss then told the staff to change name, her reason being, 'Later our clients think you anyhow anyhow, then how?' (in true blue Phua Chu Kang Singlish as I can imagine).

You mean in Singapore now, the boss can anyhow anyhow, suka suka ask their staff to change name ah? Wah phiang, pengzz! (My Singlish still never lost touch, right?)

Ok, granted that if my parents gave me a name like that I'll probably want to shoot them like... twice over. But still the boss's remark is appalling to say the least.

If said boss did not pick up said staff from the SPCA, then what gave her the impression that she can treat her staff like the way she treats her pet? Change name?? Change to what? Does 'Cookie' or 'Pepper' and the likes fit the bill?

I pride myself in not being a judgmental person. I've also been told repeatedly by different friends that I am a natural optimist. However my optimism at this stage doesn't give me enough courage to send my CV to the pet owner for a name scrutiny. I also do not think the chilli padi could work well with the pet owner, because it will not be a pretty sight when each other's tail is being stepped on.

What should I do?

Life is strange. When one has no choice, we find ourselves in despair. When faced with choices, we find ourselves engaged in a deep quandary on the right path to take on this perplexing journey called Life. Which path would one chose when faced with bifurcated routes?

3 years on, there is now a very real and tangible opportunity for the Polar Bear to swim back to Singapore and I'll float home with him. 3 years on, we have to chose to go or to stay, again.

Mixed feelings is what I felt because there’s something to lose on either side of the fence. The optimist in me said we should focus on the gains, not the losses from each decision. However the human nature dictates otherwise. That’s why people generally find it easy to capitalise on gains but extremely hard to cut losses. We never learnt how to cut our losses in time because we're too concerned about the loss. It is true when one invest, and generally true in life.

It takes a lot of energy and faith for one to leap out of comfort zone and make changes in life. Uncertainty is never pleasant.

2 years ago I would have shot out of New Zealand like a rocket if the Polar Bear was willing. However now I am finally starting to reap the rewards of the road less travelled in New Zealand, and a change in plans at this stage meant throwing away part of what I’ve painstakingly built over here. It’s like 3 years on, deja vu.

Yet Singapore is the place where I could possibly push my goals further. It is also my first love. It is where people whom I love resides, it is where familiarity is second nature to me. It is... Home.

Looking back on the journey to New Zealand, I can only say

How very naive yet brave I once was (ignorance is bliss only before reality sank in)
How very painful a journey of uncertainty can prove to be
yet
How very enriching life could teach you when you have nothing but faith and dreams in your hands
And most importantly,

How very, very faithful God is.

*****

I asked the Polar Bear what should we do in our predicament? His reply is succinct, simple and straight forward:
Toss coin.

He’s either got a quiet sense of humour or I’m exceedingly brave to follow him as the Head of the family.

Missing Singapore

With a combination of crazy work schedule, study assignments deadline, endless dining with the Polar Bear and occasional friends meet-ups, I suspect I will still be updating my Singapore and Beijing trip during Christmas.

I'm digressing from the tale of Beijing because I came across these pictures which reminded me of the weekends spent with the girlfriends in Singapore. I now know why we sworn to love one another forever. It is because once upon a time when we were a bunch of young, carefree and naive teenage school girls we sworn to be sista forever (you know how young girls like to do that kind of silly things?) Time passed us by but we were stuck in a time machine because we behaved like the way we were 15 years ago whenever we get together.



The time machine effect induced strange behaviours like hysterical laughter tantamount to noise pollution to the next door's neighbours and posing in a way so silly we would cringe at our very own selves. And no, we were not trying to box ourselves at some stage with the fist-beside-head pose. We were just trying to mimic Maneki Neko (the infamous ‘luck beckoning cat’ in Japan):



Actually the Maneki Neko pose has a global appeal regardless of cultural background because I demostrated once to my colleagues and they could not resist posing like that thereafter.



The empirical proof revealed there was no resemblance between Maneki Neko and us because all we did was risked looking really retarded in the name of frivolous self-amusement. If I look at our very own picture with raised goose bumps, I really would not blame anyone who is cringing uncontrollably with involuntary spasms at these images.



Much as we sworn to love one another forever, all 4 of them collectively cast me looks of disapproval on their appalled faces when the Polar Bear and I bought 6 durian crepes and ate it all by ourselves 10 minutes before our BBQ dinner.





You know the husbands were really quite obsessed with grilling good food for the wives when
1) They came up with a desperate albeit innovative idea of using the palm tree leaf as an umbrella to shield the BBQ pit from the drizzling rain.

2) The scrumptious chicken wings were so well marinated that made one wonder if sweat formed over the foreheads was the secret final ingredient (even though the thought of that is really quite revolting).

3) They fan the BBQ pit so vigorously and with such vehement effort that the food eventually caught fire.



The rest of the Singapore trip was simply spent eating, eating and eating. According to the Financial Controller, we blew $1,600 in one week mainly on food.

I.CANNOT.freaking.believe.it.

I feel full just by looking at the amount of food we ate in Singapore.











Of all the wonderful food we ate in Singapore, mum's cooking is still the best. Nothing compares to mum's home-cooked meals with her years of wisdom and love.

Actually now that I've gained some simple culinary knowledge after my move to New Zealand, I realised the secret to her unparralleled culinary skills is the supreme ingredients she used, so effectively mum had 'played cheat'. If I use a whole can of abalone to cook 2 bowls of Mee Suan, or 3kg of fresh prawns and 1kg of dried scallop to brew the Hokkien Mee broth, I probably will not suffer so much humiliation by my culinary skills then.



Since I had been eating so much and just for the fun of it, I decide to find out my BMI from an online health calculator. This is the result:

"You have a BMI of 16.22. This BMI puts you under the body classification of "Anorexic" according to the CDC (Center for Disease Control & Prevention)."

That tells you something about the accuracy of BMI's interpretation. You now know why one can never trust doctors and nutritionists.

The tale of Beijing (Part 1)

I just handed in my business report due for my investment papers this semester and killed about 20 trees in the process because it's 50 pages thick. That explains my sporadic updates in this little space of mine and I find myself forever trying to catch up and blog about things long gone past since I came back from my 'Amazing Race' holidays.

The drama on the day of our Beijing departure had been repeated to death so I am not repeating the story again. In a nutshell, having too much fun within an incredibly short span of time is proven to be detrimental to one's memory and alertness. I could not believe we were happily sleeping at home when our scheduled flight took off from Changi airport and that we could be 24 hours late for our flight.



I'm not sure if SQ truly lives up to their motto of 'being a great way to fly', or was it because I looked like I was going to have a heart attack there and then at the airport counter when I realised we had missed our flight, but I've officially pledged allegiance to my national airline after this incident for their flexibility and empathetic reaction to my shocked, jaw-dropped-on-counter expression.

The weather was so sweltering warm in the notorious Pekinese summer and the hotel we stayed in was so nice and cosy I was very inclined to lie in bed and watch Bloomberg the whole day.



The pollution was also so bad that it took me 2 days to realise the foggy, hazy front presented before us will never disperse because it is a permanent feature of the polluted city. However the Polar Bear and I were pleasantly surprised by Beijing on many fronts and the place exceeded our expectation because our benchmark had been set extremely low by our Shanghai trip a couple of years ago. We actually like Beijing and were glad we made the trip against all known odds.



If the Emperors were still alive today they must be flabbergasted that their majestic palace has now turned into a Chinese Disneyland.

Children were jostling and screaming from excitement from every corner of the palace with parents frantically snapping pictures of their precious one. I later learnt from my friend in who resides in Beijing that it was the school holidays but still the number of people trampling the grounds of the ancient palace was phenomenal.



There are heaps of people in the capital of the Oriental Dragon. It was like the whole of Singapore's population had gathered at most places of interest we went to. Despite the tsunami of people flooding the grounds, I was in awe and very much intrigued by the historical events that transpired behind these ancient walls.

Birthday in Bali

It is now way more than a month after my birthday and here I am trying to finish off the birthday blog. The birthday celebration stretched long and wide this year with countless gatherings in Singapore and a short break to Bali with the Polar Bear on the actual day of my birthday.



The sunset in Bali is absolutely stunning. The seafood dinner by Jimbaran beach was average on the taste buds but visually spectacular as the skies changed from hues of yellow to dusk. When the yellow touches the blue with the sun set beyond the horizon and the endless ocean, words or photographs could hardly do any justice to the actual beauty of Nature. It was the kind of moment that could only be captured in mind's eye and etched in one's memory, not with humanly invented cameras.

If there is a reason why I would go back to Bali again it will simply be to watch the sunset and fading skies by the beach. There is something different about the Balinese sunset.



The rest of the time spent in Bali was just the usual lounging by the private beach by the hotel and perpetually searching for decent food. Tranquillity in an exclusive area became a double edged sword because the area we stayed in was so 'exclusive' we walked miles and miles under the scorching afternoon sun searching for food simply because we refused to order boring room service.



My half baked Bahasa Malayu didn't exactly helped much in the food hunt because I could ask basic questions in Bahasa but could never comprehend the replies. It was most embarrassing when I confidently posed a question at the locals and looked blankly back at the person when the answer was given. My linguistic skills deteriorated to a toddler's level when I'm communicating in Bahasa. That's how bad it gets.



In other news, Wellington registered a 5.2 magnitude earthquake and a 4.5 magnitude aftershock on Friday night yet I slept through the night unshaken (pun intended). When the Polar Bear saw the morning news and confirmed he was woken up by the tremors. I looked at him blankly and asked, earthquake? What earthquake? Got meh?

That explains why I have an unspoken affinity with the Sleeping Beauty in my favourite childhood fairy tale- we both have malfunctioned sensors when we're in slumberland.