The journey...

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

2009-12-08T20:40:00.008+13:00

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

2009-11-28T20:36:00.040+13:00

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

2009-11-18T20:03:00.011+13:00

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

2009-11-09T21:52:00.021+13:00

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

2009-11-02T22:09:00.010+13:00

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

2009-10-22T15:23:00.009+13:00

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

2009-09-28T19:55:00.017+13:00

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

2009-09-22T19:41:00.006+12:00

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?

2009-09-16T13:48:00.009+12:00

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

2009-09-10T22:19:00.034+12:00

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)

2009-09-03T22:02:00.027+12:00

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

2009-08-29T16:00:00.008+12:00

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.

How doctors tried to kill their patients

2009-08-21T20:14:00.010+12:00

I must really comment on the medical system here which is leaving a sick Singaporean girl like me in distress.

It's a very strange medical system here where you register yourself with a certain GP and you're stuck with him/ her until you find another clinic to take you in. The problem here is there's such a shortage of GPs that it's near impossible to find a clinic where you're not placed on the waiting list. The option of murdering a patient in the clinic of my choice to free up the space doesn't sound quite viable so I really don't have any constructive solution to this ongoing problem.

The real problem is if you don't register yourself with any GPs you don't get to see any doctor when you're sick (clinics usually don't take walk-ins and if one is so sick one is dying there's the A&E option). Crazy I know but it seems like that's the way the medical system operates in this part of the world.

As unlucky as I can be I got to register myself with this horrendous, detestable and abominable (run out of adjective) GP when I first moved to this land as a green horn few years ago. Let's call him SGN (Si Gin Na) to vent my frustration. (For the benefit of those not proficient in the Hokkien language, sorry I really don't have a succinct translation for this endearing Hokkien term).

So I had fallen sick after the 'Amazing Race-like' holidays. I was testing my limit with the 300 km drive out for client meetings which zapped the life out of me yesterday. I finally braced myself to see SGN this afternoon before I cough my lungs out.

As unlucky as I usually is whenever I arrange to see SGN I had the most unpleasant time with him (again). The nurse placed me on an appointment at 12.45pm and I finally got to see His Majesty at 2.05pm. His nurse was not in the least apologetic over the waste of my and the Polar Bear's precious time (I was so traumatised by the past experiences that the Polar Bear had to accompany me to see SGN). When I requested (politely in all honesty) to have an indication of how long more I have to wait (because at the back of my mind I couldn't disregard the truckload of work waiting to be done in the office) she placed me in a waiting room like a sacrificial lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

The doctor came into the waiting room and give me a lecture on why I, the patient, must be very very patient AND why I, the patient, must keep waiting simply because he is doctor and I am patient AND why I have no right to question what time he can see me since it's mayhem in the clinic today with winter bug circulating the country AND he, the great doctor could not lower his pride to just say 'sorry we screwed up here due to our poor time management and efficiency'. I really couldn't be bothered to go into a fiery riposte with him because I just want to get my prescription and leave.

The Polar Bear finally thought enough is enough and valiantly rose to the occasion to retaliate his accusations. I see that the Bear had been 'kiwi-nised' (most New Zealanders do not back down until justice is served) because he made sure our point of view was being put across to SGN before SGN had a chance to retort (which he attempted to). I was vehemently cheering the Bear on silently in my head because the chilli padi in me was simply too sick to fight for my rights there and then.

The best part of this whole waiting room drama was he walked out of the waiting room after reprimanding me without attending to my medical consultation. We then continued to wait for an eternity before SGN finally, eventually, thankfully, came in to have a proper consultation with me. My only regret was I didn't cough into his face when he was examining me with his stethoscope.

At the end of the whole drama he gave me 7 days sick leave (a luxury I couldn't afford at work now) and placed me on 10 days antibiotics (seemed like my biological engine seriously needs some overhaul) and 300 Paracetamol tablets. I suspect he's trying to kill me with Paracetamol overdose and I'm not yielding to his tricks!!!

Time machine needed

2009-08-17T21:30:00.009+12:00

Some of my friends back home had been asking me about my Beijing and Bali trips but I've absolutely no time to post the pictures in recent weeks.

In fact I've been so busy at work and so behind my studies readings and assignments that I devised some innovative time management ideas which backfired tragically. I took an entire day's dosage (40ml at one go instead of 10ml every 3 hours) of cough syrup in the morning since I'll be too busy in the day to do anything about my persistent cough. I then felt like I was floating around the office with a 20kg helmet strapped around my head for the entire day with excessive drowsiness and drug overdose.

Every evening I was coerced to develop a love-hate relationship with the Excel spreadsheet generating regression tables and correlation matrix whilst the Polar Bear is so bored and free he's watching PM Lee's National Day rally now. He's not even patriotic (in fact people like him had been labelled 'quitter' by SM Goh isn't it?) so I gathered he's just got nothing better to do. How come life is so unfair?

To make my life just that little more exciting (as if it's not exciting enough) I was scheduled to drive 300km (yes, 300!!) return trip to another town for client meetings this week, next week and possibly the following week.

The newly bought GPS will be my best and only friend for the trips and I'm still trying very hard to cultivate our enduring friendship because it doesn't seem to comprehend my instructions now. The other day I keyed in my destination which is intuitively 20km away but the GPS showed I will reach said destination in 4 seconds. How I could ever do that is beyond me but we'll see.

I promise the holiday pictures will make their way to this blog someday (after I find a more innovative and most importantly proven way for miraculous time management).

Some things never change; some girls will forever stay the same

2009-08-10T21:00:00.010+12:00

It's been a week since I flown back to Wellington after my 'Amazing Race' holidays. I felt I've never really recovered from the trip which zapped my energy dry annually; more so this year with 3 countries in 5 weeks.

The birthday celebration this year was spread over a week (actually maybe an entire month since I was literally eating and partying every single day for the month of July). This is the first time I celebrated my birthday with the usual sworn-to-love-each-other-forever girlfriends since I left Singapore and I'm absolutely exhilarated to resume the yearly tradition (we never fail to gather at our birthdays every year for the past 16 years).

I felt very loved when they brought me to Dempsey Road (actually a tad too posh and romantic for noisy, crazy girls) for crabs simply because they knew I was drooling over the crab dinner they had a few months back.

I'm not sure if these girls are too excited about all of us leaping gloriously over our melodramatic twenties into the imminent big 3-0; or they're in some sort of self denial and masochistic state over the turn of the decade. Over the birthdays this year, we're individually made to turn our faces green by blowing the same number of candles that correspond with our age.

All that can be seen was this ball of flame before me and the poor cake was almost set on fire by the time they finished singing the birthday song in every language imaginable.

Despite the turn of the decade, we still partied till dawn and I flew to Bali bearing a remarkable resemblance to the Panda on the actual day of my birthday. More on that and the rest of the 'Amazing Race' after I recover from my one week jet lag. I need some sleep now.

Normalcy resumes (or maybe it's the beginning of insane times ahead?)

2009-08-04T19:45:00.008+12:00

I've flown back to Wellington for 3 days now and it'd felt like a lifetime ago. Every year that 10 hours journey from Singapore to New Zealand starts and ends on the same note with mum and niece sending me to the airport to hug me goodbye. No tears (mum always hugged and left me quite happily. Maybe her daughter is more emotional than her) as I disappeared through the glass door. Invariably after I board the plane alone by myself I always cry into the eye shade that shield me from strangers' glances.

The night before I left Singapore my sworn-to-love-each-other-forever girlfriends gave me the last surprise of the year by appearing before my house with a small bouquet of flower, farewell gifts and a truckload of local Singapore food (satay! rojak!) because they know how much I love to eat. We hid in my room, the room I stayed in before I got married which mum kept intact all these years. Having buried ourselves in my mountain of soft toys and laughed so much, mum fed me with bird's nest that night fearing that I had probably lost my voice.

So I'm back to freezing Wellington and normalcy. Back to chewing my cold sandwiches for lunch. Sorry, actually since I commerced on the new role I've no time to chew my sandwiches anymore. I simply swallow. The height of the files piled on my desk is simply phenomenal. A twin tower had formed in front of my desk and Burj Dubai is most definitely in the making.

It felt almost liberating to dress up and watch La Sylphide by myself on Sunday because much as the Polar Bear tried to appreciate classic ballet like his wife did, he couldn't hide his clueless albeit relived face each time we walked out the theater.

I actually find myself loving the solitary experience which proves to be enthralling and strangely comforting on my second day back to this home at the other side of the planet.

Sleepless in Lion City

2009-07-05T19:27:00.011+12:00

Time is never enough in the Lion City as I immerse myself in the ephemeral joys of my annual pilgrimage home.

My life story for the past 1 week had been eating with a vengeance and meeting with friends I knew forever. Some had changed whilst some remained the same but most of them had one thing in common-- they collectively stare at the way I eat with the most peculiar expression on their face.

Last night I had an early birthday celebration with my sworn-to-love-each-other-forever girlfriends and the husbands. They tried to hide my birthday cake and present and gave me the most amused and irritated look when I kept tugging on their sleeves and asked "The cake's for me ah? That's my present ah?" Then I widen my eyes and blink at them incessantly with the silliest grin. I derive pleasure when they cringe uncontrollably.

The birthday dinner of crabs were so good I thought I was in heaven. I seriously couldn't stop licking my fingers because it was finger licking good.

Sadly I've neither time nor proper logistics to upload the many wonderful pictures we took but they will make it to this space someday (in the very distant future given the crazy schedule). I'm typing this in record speed because everything plays on fast forward mode in Singapore.

Phrase 2 of our amazing race schedule starts tomorrow with us flying out of Singapore and back to Singapore and out of Singapore and back. I am pretty impressed with my own stamina and energy level.

The final countdown

2009-06-25T22:32:00.008+12:00

In 24 hours' time I'll be transiting in Auckland for the flight home. *Beaming uncontrollably*

I told sis to pick us from Changi Airport T3 foodcourt instead of arrival hall because we'll be making a mad dash to the food court for breakfast. I can truly sense my sister's disgust when I told her what I plan to have for breakfast (Duck rice plus added char siew, Ipoh Hor Fun and a bowl of dumpling soup).

From Saturday on, I will be able to replace the Eggs Benedict with 'Orh Lua' (oyster omelette) and French Toast for Ya Kun Kaya Toast. I can finally live the ~~American~~ Singaporean dream again!!! At least I know what I'll be dreaming of tonight.

Paralinguistics features of speaking in UPPER CASE

2009-06-23T21:37:00.008+12:00

Being the dutiful and long suffering wife that I am, I helped the Polar Bear to purchase a car insurance a couple of weeks ago. When one deals with a banker who either has no common cow sense or couldn't really be bothered or... worse, a fatal combination of both, one can be ensure of many nightmare that ensued after the deal is done.

The policy arrives in the mail with Murphy's Law in full force. Anything that can go wrong had gone wrong.

So I called the bank for the nth time to rectify Murphy's Law. The last call ended with the call centre assuring me all is rectified. I'll just have to wait for the wrongly deducted premium to be refunded into Polar Bear's account. So I waited patiently.

That was more than 1 week ago. My patience has officially run dry. So I called for the nth+1 time. The last straw on the camel's back broke when I have to cultivate a 30 mins relationship with the poor hotline person (PHP).

Firstly, I was made to relate the whole drama for the nth+1 time to PHP. Then, I was made to listen to insipid music and placed on hold whilst she tried to transfer me three times (Yes, THREE) to the insurance department.

Then, she told me she couldn't get through could I please call back during office hours which is 9am to 5pm. I checked the clock and wondered why she tried to transfer me three times to a department that closes at 5pm since I called at 8.30pm.

Then, I was made to understand it takes 10 (yes, TEN) working days for the insurance department to see the wrongly deducted premium, only then they can refund me the premium which was wrongly deducted. 'What kind of an antique system does the bank use that takes TEN working days for a transaction to reflect on YOUR screen just so YOUR own people can see YOUR own bank's transaction?', asked a very perplexed, long suffering wife. Do you think a more appropriate place for that system should be the national museum and not the bank then?

I was also made to understand that I should fax them the banking statements which THEY issue to me so THEY can see the wrong premium deductions. So YOUR BANK sends me the statements and YOUR BANK now needs me to fax YOU the SAME statement so YOUR colleague can see that the premiums had been wrongly deducted? I repeated after PHP who at this point began to realise how absurd that sounds to a normal human being with full mental capacity.

Since I was made to understand their many wonders of the banking system, I thought it's only fair that she was made to understand my many frustrations of that wonderful system. Paralanguage is a powerful message transmitter indeed. I just need to speak in UPPER CASE with the right words emphasized and I can totally get my message across to PHP.

Although it is the height of winter now, I was left all hot and bothered by the end of our 30mins conversation. I'm sure PHP can feel the heat emitting at the other end of the line because she went exceptionally quiet in between making apologetic noises. This is one of those rare instances when the usually vocal Caucasian went pretty much speechless because one couldn't really fight logic could you?

To add salt to the wound I have to drive 60km out of Wellington to see a client up north tomorrow whilst waiting for PHP's insurance colleague to call me back. I am sure they will not fail to pump up enough adrenaline to last me through that 120km journey back and forth.

Back in the windy city that is Wellington

2009-06-20T20:10:00.013+12:00

I don't know how some of my friends managed to go shopping or sightseeing during their business trips. I could barely find the time to breathe properly, let alone engage in the impossible mission of shopping or the unfathomable sightseeing!

The work trip induced occasional panic attacks in me when I realised the area of coverage I had to single-handedly cover in the new role extends 300km up north and the whole of South Island. I'm sure my business card has been printed wrongly. The title under my name should really be 'Wonderwoman' or the likes.

For most of the trip I was forced to eat alone and had to resort to befriend the waitress who took my order. Our friendship didn't extend very far because of her limited comprehension of the English language and my limitation of the Japanese language. I am only well versed in Japanese dishes (Sake, Tako, Soba, Ebi, Tempura etc) and car brands honestly couldn't get us very far (Honda, Suzuki, Toyota) either.

That being said I am most delighted to have Japanese food for 3 consecutive days and I think I can live in Auckland if need be, simply for the fact Asian food are found everywhere! One fine afternoon I had 12 glorious pieces of sushi, Japanese salad and miso soup for lunch and I thought I was in heaven.

If not for the fact that I didn't want to return to the office smelling like a roast duck, I would also have lunched at the Hong Kong Eating House with rows of roast duck and succulent char siew hanging by the front which left me salivating mentally.

*****

In other news it's 1 more week to home coming and I cannot wait to get on that plane!!! As living testimony that moderation is not practised in this household we bought 10kg of gold kiwifruits to lug home for both sets of parents and siblings.

This is on top of 8kg of honey, 4 kg of chocolates, 3 kg of muesli and candy bars amongst other treasures we are lugging home for the family. Add on our 5 weeks of basic needs (which is not so basic for the Princess. Must have matching earrings, matching shoes and matching bag) I hope the weighing scale at the SQ check-in counter breaks down before we check in so we don't have to pay for exceeding the luggage weight.

If a famine breaks out during the plane ride I am pretty sure I will be the first to be robbed.

The ultimate 'To-do' list and the ultimate waiting list

2009-06-16T21:42:00.006+12:00

This is the Wellington campus of my part-time studies. This is also where the examination hall is hidden within, where I tested time and again the ability to write faster than I type and fall flat at the desk with exhaustion after each 3 hours paper.

I fly possibly the first flight out from Wellington to Auckland tomorrow and possibly the last flight back from Auckland to Wellington on Friday night. As at the time I left the office this evening, my 'To do' list is 5 pages long and counting. Only 5 pages long, and I'll have 5 grand days in Wellington next week to wrap things up before I go on 5 weeks leave. I'm both tired and terrified of typing the number '5'.

If you didn't get it by now, I honestly, seriously, wholeheartedly, sincerely needed a break. Now.

*****

In other news, it's hailing in Wellington again. I am thawing in the room now contemplating how many woolen jackets I should pack into my luggage. Should I bring the electric blanket too? The Polar Bear could not believe I am bringing my trusted travelling companion for business trips. What's wrong? It had always travelled with me for business and leisure through the years. I don't find anything wrong with lugging a pig along and it is going home to Singapore and Bali and Beijing with me no matter how much the Polar Bear is displaying his signs of disapproval!!!

In other additional news, I curled up in bed the other day and rang Humble House at Esplanade (Singapore) thinking I must be the way ahead of the (kiasu) pack by making reservation for weekend lunch in July. The Polar Bear and I plan to go to the award winning restaurant with mum and mum-in-law during one of the weekends. Who can be more enthusiatic than us right? Making long distance calls for reservations.

I was mortified and nearly fell off the bed when the waitress told me with her all familiar Singlish accent,

Our weekends bookings all fully booked until end of August.
Waiting list can wait but got 200 people waiting. You want to wait?

...
...
...

Looks like I had truly lost my art of kiasu-ism. Maybe I should tell her,

I am booking for July 2010. Can?

The concept of time is a conspiracy

2009-06-12T12:39:00.006+12:00

My exams for this semester falls on the coming Monday. Ironically I find myself hyperventilating not when I'm reminded of my examinations, but of the things to do after my exams.

I'm not sure if said hyperventilation syndrome occurs due to excitement about home coming 2009 or the amount of work I need to complete before home coming 2009. A change in role at work ensures that I'll have many nightmares to cope with until the hour I crawl into the flight home.

I have so much work waiting to be done before I fly back to Singapore that I am starting to think 24 hours a day is a misguided conspiracy. Surely there has to be more than 24 hours a day for modern mankind when everything needs to be completed urgently urgently urgently.

My carbon trail starting from next week is going to look something like this:

1 day after exams: Fly to Auckland for work
3 days later: Fly back to Wellington
1 week later: Fly to Singapore
1 week later: Fly to Bali
2 days later: Fly back to Singapore
1 day later: Fly to Beijing
1 week later: Fly back to Singapore
2 weeks later: Fly back to Wellington
1 day later: Peel face off the floor. What year is this?

Other than the first flight for business I guess I am really not complaining about the rest of the carbon trail since the yearly trip home is what I always look forward to. I also hereby discharge any responsibilities I may have in relation to the potentially adverse consequences to the Environment from the flying schedule.

To reinforce why a day should consist of more than 24 hours, I have 3 weeks out of 5 already filled with friends' dates and family meals. I certainly need more than 5 weeks home. Either that or 1 week should comprise of more than 7 days.

The correlation between cupcakes and happiness quotient

2009-06-08T17:48:00.013+12:00

After yesterday's attempt to buy the supposedly best cupcakes in Wellington failed on a most tragic note (sold out!), I was thrilled when my office's receptionist came to my desk this afternoon holding 2 exquisite boxes with the most gorgeous looking, glittery chocolate cupcakes hidden within.

'Wow, it's Christmas! Who is it from?' I could barely hide my excitement as the cupcakes were placed before me. 'Your husband just dropped them off', the receptionist replied with a wink.

So the Polar Bear went to the Old Bank's Arcade during lunch time to buy the cupcakes I missed yesterday. And he bought 2 (yay!) for the bottomless pit. Double happiness!

One must understand the Polar Bear is a logical and practical being (signatory trait of IT professionals?) who is really quite romantically impaired, so this is a totally unexpected albeit pleasant surprise. One must also understand it is actually very easy to make me happy because little things like these are magnified in my heart.

Prior to the kind gesture I had resolved not to cultivate any sharing spirit because I have every intention to consume 2 entire cupcakes by myself. However I thought it would be nice to reciprocate by bringing them home to share with the cupcake bearer for desert after dinner. That is why I resist eating them in the office (a great test of self discipline and endurance) and resort to the act of sniffing into the two little boxes every 5 mins for the smell of chocolate to waft through my nose. I look like an addicted glue sniffer. My colleague looked at me quite strangely; I gathered he must be envious.

Seeing how I could not stop grinning whilst nibbling on the cupcakes after dinner, the Polar Bear analysed out loud that since cupcakes costing a mere $6.50 each can make me almost ecstatic then he need not buy LV bags or Chopard watches for me henceforth. $13 for 2 cupcakes is a more economical solution. Although there is some truth in what he's said but I am just flabbergasted that he has reverted back to his irritating logical and pragmatic self in less than 12 hours.

When the sun shines again

2009-06-07T20:13:00.014+12:00

I've exactly 7 days to memorise 2,026 pages of tax, estate and trust laws for my examinations this semester. Instead of burying myself in the books to master the art of photographic memory in 7 days, I was out dining the entire weekends. I overcome the guilt by convincing myself I needed all the brain food to survive.

Self deception is the greatest deception.

*****
The weather had miraculously turned wonderful this weekends so we finally could cruise around town in the little red car with the sunroof opened without turning into blocks of ice. Sunny days like these are best spent having a meal by the restaurants along the waterfront because the sea and skies are the colour it should be-- blue, the colour of Smurf. That is why on sunny days like these the Smurf song plays repeatedly in my head like a broken down record.

I told the Polar Bear I love Japanese food and I could eat soba and sashimi for an entire month if need be. He thus decides to challenge that and make me sick by bringing me to the same Japanese restaurant on 2 consecutive days.

We had dinner on Saturday night at a restaurant called 'Two Souls' with love as its theme. How romantic. Except it was '6 Souls' for us with the Pirate King, Mrs PK and their two kids. Even though we didn't live up to the theme of the restaurant with 6 not-so-romantic souls, the food was great and the company greater.

On Sunday after brunch we went to the Old Bank's Arcade where the shop that supposedly sells the best cupcakes in Wellington is located.

The Polar Bear made non-committal noise to himself when I expressed my intention to consume 2 dark chocolate & raspberry cupcakes and I am not sharing them with him. A dark cloud formed above my head when the sales girl told me apologetically that the dark chocolate & raspberry cupcakes were sold out.

Sold out? I repeated in disbelief.
Sold out. She repeated in confirmation. 'Come back tomorrow' was her best attempt to offer her condolences.

We ended up driving to the Butler's chocolate cafe to get my chocolate fix of the day. Even though the Polar Bear said I should be sent to the rehabilitation centre for my chocolate addiction, I do not find it strange that I need to consume dark chocolate everyday. Neither do I find it strange that I usually display signs of inebriation (I could not stop smiling when I get my chocolate fix) from the cocoa and sugar high.

The weekends ended on a fine note with lots of good food consumed and lots of rubbish purchased. The Polar Bear bought me a soft toy that looks like a mutated cross between a teddy bear and a bull terrier. The reason for the purchase:
Just so I can cover my ears with the mutated toy when he snores at night.

Frozen

2009-06-01T21:46:00.008+12:00

It's Queen's Birthday today, which meant we in New Zealand gets a day off work even though I neither know the Queen (which Queen is this?) nor the reason why the day differs from the Queen's birthday holiday in Australia. That being said I've never been more happy for someone else's birthday other than mine because of the long weekends it brings.

It is also the first day of Winter in this part of the world and we were greeted with hail, rain, sleet and storm as a colourful welcome pack in Wellington. Except I don't really welcome it. I cannot believe it was 3 degrees Celsius on Saturday morning because when I crawled out of bed my frozen face assured me it must be minus 20 degrees Celsius. I find it hard to even express myself through appropriate facial expression. It was an irony that I couldn't frown and sulk at the cold because it was simply too cold. I also could hardly smile without looking spastic.

It was so cold that I placed the fleece hoodie over my head at home with the Polar Bear teasing I looked like some dodgy backstreet hip-hop dancers doing a rap or two.

The windows panes were frosted and looked like a gigantic fridge opening to the treacherous world outside. At some stage I could not differentiate if it was hail, sleet or snow. I saw snow flakes drifting dreamily outside the house and I'm quite sure I'm not hallucinating. It is extremely rare to snow in Wellington City region, (if any at all) but it sure looks like it's the kind of precipitation formed when it is really really really cold out there.

Hot chocolate by a heated cafe in this weather is like heaven on earth. I think this will form part of my survival kit for Winter until I fly back to the warmth of my motherland.

The revised story of the Little Red Riding Hood

2009-05-23T17:23:00.016+12:00

I always thought I married a typical IT geek who is down to earth with no cunning tricks up his sleeve. That belief was put to the test when the Polar Bear craftily justify the reason for buying another toy masked under a very noble cause.

One day a certain sly Bear (who at this stage is looking somewhat similar to the Big Bad Wolf) crept up to his unsuspecting wife with the brillant plan:

Happy Birthday Wife!

What?

This is your birthday present.

What!?!?

You said you prefer Japanese cars to European cars right?
You said you like the bright and airy feel of a car with sunroof right?
You said red is your favourite colour right? (Wrong, actually it's pink)
You said you like two-door sports coupé right?
It's the perfect car for you! Happy Birthday! (but it's not even my birthday yet!)

I now understand how mum felt when I gave her a shocking pink mini skirt in my size as her birthday present when I was 15. Is this what they mean by 'what goes around comes around'?

I am going to ask the LV boutique if they accept car trade-ins for their bags. Times are so bad now, they might just agree to exchange the Little Red Riding Hood for that newly launched limited edition bag. I'll never know.

As a consolation, the 'birthday present' does look quite cute (just like me, said the devious Bear) beside his hog like machine. At least now the wipers will not sweep mockingly before me when I try to indicate a left or right turn.

Phoenix is not a bird and Winter is not wonderland

2009-05-21T19:47:00.003+12:00

My colleague announced in the office the other day he's got the tickets to the Phoenix. I asked a simple question and he looked totally mortified and about to burst out in tears and collapse on his desk.

All I asked was if the Phoenix is Rugby or Crickets (I thought kiwis are only obsessed with these two games right?) and he exclaimed it's the Football!!! From the look on his face I suspect he might get a cardiac arrest if our discussion progress any further. New Zealanders are passionate about sports so the simple question I asked is almost unpardonable. Due to his extreme reaction over the fact that I cannot get simple sports facts right in New Zealand, I didn't even dare to joke that I know the Phoenix very well- it's an esteemed bird in Chinese legends.

*****

In other news Winter had not officially arrived but it's already freezing everywhere. Today my colleagues pointed towards the distant mountain ranges and we could actually see snow capped mountains from a very, very far distance. It was so far that I thought it was clouds if they didn't tell me it's snow.

Despite the atrocious weather, my colleague still cycles to work and parks his Volkswagen Passat at home, even when it rains. It is so ridiculously cold every morning I wonder why he didn't arrive in the office with a crown of ice ensconced on his head. He must belong to the same species as the Polar Bear. No wonder they hit it off so well at my office after-hours drinks last Friday.

These days I take 20 minutes to get dressed because there are simply too many layers to pile on. I'm covered in knee high boots, opaque tights, woollen beret, woollen gloves, cashmere scarf, and woollen coat. I'm bearing an uncanny resemblance to a sheep now but I'm still an embarrassing frozen piece of Singaporean ice despite 3 years in this land. Now that further affirms the reason why I didn't believe in the theory of evolution.

The story of roasted chickens and other weekend news

2009-05-14T19:10:00.009+12:00

By this time of the year I thought summer should be well and truly over in this part of the planet. We witness a global phenomenon today with the erratic air conditioning unit in our office creating a Sahara desert within our little pod.

By mid day we were practically roasting with me rolling up the sleeves of my cardigans in a very unladylike manner (I looked like the friendly Bangladesh construction worker back home) and my colleague collapsing on his table for the 30th time in the day with his tongue sticking out by the side.

If the air regulating unit is graded an IQ score it must have a grand total of -10. On certain cold days it blew out cold air (instead of warm air) transporting the whole office to the Antarctica. If we typed too fast on those days our fingers may drop off from frost bites.

On certain sunny days warm air (instead of cool air) wafted through the office. If the people in the opposite building peeped through our glorious glass windows they would see a row of chickens in ties and suits roasted in the oven.

Such is the intelligent state-of-the-art office building I'm working in.

*****

Some pictures of the weekend brunch at a restaurant that offers splendid view over part of Wellington city from a distance. Followed by wonderful Mövenpick ice cream by the harbour.

And dinner at the authentic Korean restaurant opened by native Koreans (at least they speak Korean so they should be authentic enough). I am forever grateful to these good people for a taste of Asian food in this land. Kam-sa-ham-ni-da! (I'm a linguist genius don't you think?)

Who let the bulls out?

2009-05-06T18:58:00.008+12:00

More than 6 months ago I looked at the equities markets and were appalled yet impressed at the speed of its decline as indexes around the world plummeted like a rock down the seemingly bottomless pit.

Of late I am equally appalled and most definitely impressed at the surging market as indexes around the world rise with a vengeance unseen since the Lehman era (which seems well and truly forgotten). Maybe investors are senile by nature, or maybe human are easily blinded and bribed by greed.

Why must financial stocks charge like a senseless bull after I sold them? Why did DBS rise by 35% after I sold it? Why? Why? Why? *shakes fist at the sky*

I recently read a report that charts bear market rallies to last an average of 70 days historically. We are now over 50 days into this spectacular rally. Another 20 over days (at most) and the bear's paw should emerge. Let's wait and see...

In the meantime, my crystal ball tells me I really need a crystal ball.

Pass me that remote

2009-05-04T20:09:00.003+12:00

There was a movie I watched sometime ago about this guy praying for a remote control to fast forward the bits of his life which he dreads and I wish I have that remote control for this week. Just so I can fast forward to next week because I would have handed in my tax assignment by then. I wouldn't have to analyse the case study anymore and work on my 5,000 words report every single night after dinner. The sight of the case study honestly makes me nauseous.

Maybe if I have such a remote control I might as well fast forward it to June 26 straight away, because I will be over and done with for this semester and be on the flight back to my motherland and the 'Amazing Race' holidays in between. Every time I think of my upcoming trip I can't help but grin to myself. That's why I must be careful not to day dream about my trip in the office or I would risk looking really stupid.

Alright, got to go back and work on my beloved assignment. I have no words to succinctly describe the paper I'm doing this semester but long-suffering must be a virtue (at least I think it is).

5 minutes of fame and Autumn Leaves

2009-04-28T21:00:00.018+12:00

They say bad news travel fast but good news travel at rocket speed when your manager can broadcast more efficiently than the classified ads. My company pays for my studies, therefore in due course the news of my academic placement on the Dean's list travelled from Wellington to Auckland and some even say to Australia. To be honest I am quite impressed with how news can travel this fast and far. I was asked to be featured and earned 5 minutes of fame for being the cover girl on the latest news article published in the company's global intranet.

I was deluged with congratulatory emails and most of the colleagues in Wellington office came up and spoke to me as though I've landed on the moon and back. Truth be told I was actually a little embarrassed by the attention (I'm actually very shy one). I didn't really enjoy being in the limelight that much despite the Polar Bear insisting I am an attention seeker at home (with my constant whining for food). At least I was glad my colleagues didn't realise that picture of me in the article was taken at a restaurant with a big piece of salmon steak at the table.

Other than my 5 minutes of fame at work, my personal life had been utterly consumed by the assignment due for my tax paper. One requires great stamina and endurance to digest the legal way of robbing (read: tax) and one who masters the art of tax expertise must have had their DNA changed for photographic memory and a mind that defies cognitive logic.

*****

Some autumn colours during the weekends before my life turns sepia with nerdy tax readings.

Seasons change and the ephemeral moments it brings... I never really understood until I moved to this land.

Being stood up by mum and other sad tales

2009-04-19T15:48:00.005+12:00

I enrolled for this semester's papers without giving much thoughts to my sanity. I should have known better. Any papers remotely linked to 'tax planning', 'tax laws' or 'estate laws' are not designed for normal people with a sound mind.

As at time of writing, I am on the verge of jumping out of the window in frustration over the term paper due in 3 weeks' time. I eat, sleep, dream of tax laws over the entire weekends and my term paper is barely 5% completed. The case study of the question spans over 3 generations and 6 different companies. The main text book for the paper comprised of 2,026 pages printed in font size 8 or smaller. Someone kill me now.

*****
Before my insane-laden-with-tax-laws weekends began, I supposedly had a 'girls' night date' with mum and sis on Friday night to converse over webcam via MSN. Sis made a pact with me that she'll be online with mum on Friday evening, so we can wave each other hello 5,300 miles across the globe and make silly faces over MSN video conference.

We made the pact because previously, sis attempted a very innovative way for mum to see me. Her complicated method entails:
1. First connects with me over MSN webcam.
2. Then calls mum's mobile (mum was not home) and used 3G to video conference with mum.
3. Then shoves mum's live image on her mobile phone's screen right in front of her MSN webcam so mum can try very hard to see me and I can try equally hard to see mum.
4. Both mum and I ended up seeing a blurred ball of light of each other. How enlightening!

To simplify the above process which had been proven to be rather ineffective, we made a 'date' to meet online on Friday evening for a simple MSN video conference. On Thursday I got an email from sis informing me that mum will not be free on Friday evening and hence our 'date' is cancelled.

Who would have thought one would be stood up by one's very own mother? Grrr...

How come even retirees in Singapore are so busy?? Does anyone in Singapore ever stop and smell the roses or balacan along the way? Obviously not.

Singaporeans eat their way through Easter weekends, in particular the bottomless pit

2009-04-13T19:58:00.025+12:00

When I'm busy, I eat alot to alleviate stress. When I get the chance to relax over an extended weekend, I eat more to alleviate boredom. Good Friday was spent feasting at the Pirate King's place with the usual fusion of Singapore home-cooked food and New Zealand wine.

On Saturday the usual suspects comprising of Singaporeans and ex Singaporeans (who betrayed our motherland to withdraw CPF!!) drove out to the coast for brunch by the beach and fruits picking at the fruit orchard. Endless rows of trees dotted by autumn leaves provides the perfect backdrop for the Polar Bear to try out the newly purchased photographic toy.

En route we couldn't resist the Kapiti ice cream outlet that forever changed New Zealand's world view of ice cream. The candy shop next door selling handmade candies of all shapes and sizes is every kid's fantasy and every parent's worst nightmare. The biggest lollipop I've ever seen in my life measuring a radius of at least 30cm can be found in this shop.

The Polar Bear said the way I carried the apple bucket looks like the way I carry my speedy 30. So cute he said. So cute that it makes his hair stand on ends that his wife is forever a city girl no matter how hard he tries to acclimatise her.

Easter Sunday is declared as a statutory holiday in New Zealand and hence by law all retail are banned from opening for business on the day. I know this sounds unfathomable to someone from Singapore but it's true.

On Easter Sunday after church, the Polar Bear momentarily feared for his sanity when he thought most cafes and restaurants were closed. Amongst the few things he feared in life, I believe my hunger is one of them. Not only is my hunger insatiable, he often display signs of abnormality when I started playing 'sweet music to his ears' when I'm hungry. He's the one who described my whining as 'sweet music'. However upon hearing my 'sweet music' he often pulls his hair, rolls his eyes and twitches his lips. Isn't that abnormal?

To preserve the Bear's sanity, he tried his luck at our favourite Yum Cha restaurant and could not conceal his relief upon seeing the 'open' sign.

The long weekends ended with a fusion Chinese lunch on Easter Monday with my favourite dish of fresh scallops wrapped in rice paper. Typing that makes me hungry now. I just had my dinner 1 hour ago.

All other free time over Easter weekends had been engulfed by readings for the new semester. Other than the tax readings that puts me to sleep, it's been a fine weekend as I ate my way through the long weekends.

The tale of a chocolate Easter Bunny

2009-04-08T12:22:00.006+12:00

Easter is round the corner and the office is filled with hot cross buns and chocolate Easter eggs and bunnies. Our business associates had very kindly sent some really pretty Easter bunnies to the team. It would have been truly wonderful had my manager not made the fatal mistake of allocating one single bunny to the 3 of us in the team within my pod.

Our heads stuck together to scrutinise the Bunny closely and we debated over how best to dissect the Bunny in a fair and impartial way. The debate soon escalates into a squabble within the pod, except we were laughing and causing a fair bit of commotion whilst squabbling. We are a weird bunch; I blame the markets for the slight psychological imbalance.

To settle this unresolved conflict within our professional perimeters between 3 grown adults and an Easter Bunny, I've promptly appointed myself as the sole Trustee of the Bunny. I announced to my 2 fellow colleagues that I would get the legal team to draw up the Deed of Appointment for the Bunny if we are still fighting by lunchtime.

I also have to make the hard decision of consuming the whole chocolate Bunny (measuring 25cm by 15cm by 8cm) all by myself to promote workplace harmony within the team (no more bunny= no more fighting), even though that constitutes a breach of trust as a Trustee. Not only is my reputation at risk, so is my waistline. I am so self sacrificial I know.

Our version of Osim i-gallop

2009-04-05T16:53:00.020+12:00

The end of daylight saving today dictates winding back the clock by an hour and spells the imminent arrival of autumn and winter. A wise man once said, change is the only constant in life (who's that wise man who plagiarise me??). Strange as it sounds, the changing of seasons evokes a string of pensive thoughts at the back of my mind as I lament over the fading summer in this part of the planet.

At least it's been a great summer this year with decent amount of sunshine and the usual summer dos. I've rediscovered my interest in horse riding during summer and was thrilled with a horse riding school just 15 minutes' drive away from my place.

I could hardly believe the riding route was just 20 minutes away from Wellington City. The scenery of wide pastures of green and meandering streams as we rode on was breathtaking. It is a different world altogether, undiscovered and cloistered in a hidden part of Wellington.

The lazy bum trained up bums of steel as I galloped intermittently and was petrified at some stage when my horse attempted a grand prix moment by competing against the horse beside me.

Maybe I should have told my colleagues that horse riding is what I do occasionally as a form of exercise. Never mind that by occasionally I meant once or twice every summer. Frequency is merely a relative term what.

The difference between a Singaporean girl's and her kiwi colleagues' exercise regime

2009-03-31T20:00:00.005+13:00

The other day as I was getting ready to knock off from work I saw the in house solicitor sashaying past my desk in running gear. You must be going to the gym! I asked. I'm running home, she chirped blithely. I thought she was joking so I laughed and laughed and laughed so hard until I realised I am the only one laughing with pairs of peculiar eyes staring at me collectively, perplexed at what is so funny about her running home? So she's serious, it's not meant to be a joke you feeble Singaporean.

If it's not meant to be a joke then it's seriously not even funny because she lives a good 15 km away from the office. Let's put that into context. 15km... that means in Singapore one can run from their office in Shenton Way back to their Katong home via ECP. You cannot really blame me if I laugh so hard can you?

I'm not sure if it's the fresh air in this country or the go green attitude of its people, my colleagues lead an amazingly healthy lifestyle that no professionals in Singapore would even contemplate. A colleague who sat diagonally across me just went for a 106km mountain bike race over the weekends. Not 1km, not 10km, but 106 km! He's not that old, his grandson just shares the same first name as the Polar Bear. He's only got 3 grandchildren; he's really not that old.

Another colleague who sat beside me cycles to work every single day. Rain or shine, summer or winter, he battles on with his bike (mountain bike, not motor bike) and helmet 30 mins to work. Every. Day.

One day said colleagues asked me what exercises do I like to do in my free time? In all honesty I replied 'Shopping' and both laughed and laughed and laughed so hard until they realised they were the only ones laughing with a Singaporean girl's eyes staring at them piercingly. What is so funny about the way I exercise?

Networking 101

2009-03-25T18:53:00.004+13:00

In all my working life since graduation, I've been engaged in client facing, revenue generating roles. Networking is paramount in the quality of my rice bowl. In a pragmatic revenue generating environment, the rice bowl is made of anything but iron and steel. One has to practise the art of plastering a smile across the face in a sea of strangers and talked like you've known these people for an eternity to keep the rice bowl full and safe.

Of late I've been fine tuning the art of small talk as I had been attending multiple meetings and conferences with speakers who call the shots on monetary and fiscal policies in this country. People are desperate to make sense of what's happening in the markets today. My company sends me to represent the desperado because I looked distressed enough when I read the daily Bloomberg news.

I often find myself squeezing blood out of stone to attempt common topics at a table of 9 other middle aged, half balding men. What's a Singapore girl got to comment on All Blacks when all she knows about Rugby is a group of men piling on top of one another like the mushroom stack ordered for brunch? And what's a Singapore girl to do if she cannot quite differentiate between sailing and yachting and windsurfing? Are they the same or is it just semantics?

Sometimes people asked about my background and my move to New Zealand. I could not bring myself to tell them one of the things I missed the most is Singapore food. It's too shallow and too embarrassing. I also could not describe how Spaghetti Bolognaise can never substitute Bak Chor Mee no matter how one wields one's imagination. They will never be able to understand how Bak Chor Mee taste like.

So I find myself amazed at own self that not only did I not doze off at the table from the lack of common topics, we could small talk so much that I developed amnesia from the sheer insignificance of it. I could not even remember what we talked about after the breakfast is over. Maybe that is the true essence of networking.

Some Nerdy news and some other photographic magic wand

2009-03-17T21:40:00.011+13:00

The financial crisis is morphing into a nightmare that the world could not, but desperately wanted to wake up from. Those who are not feeling its effects probably had migrated to the moon. Even in this far flung part of the planet one is feeling the heat of the crisis. I asked myself (in vain) why am I in the office 7.30am (!!!) in the morning staring at Wall Street news in Bloomberg when half the news are depressing half the time.

Most companies are seemingly in denial when they set the company's revenue targets which at best sound overly optimistic, at worst plain unrealistic. However, these companies miraculously snap out of self denial mode during cost analysis because they became very realistic with pay freeze and recruitment freeze to contain cost.

In other not so depressing news, I've got my study bonus for the summer school papers to contribute towards my shopping fund in July when I fly home. I was also pleasantly surprised to receive a letter after getting my results that I scored the 2nd highest for the paper internationally (the paper was offered extramural). Strangely I was almost ecstatic when I got my A+ grade (because I didn't like variety in my grades) but was not exactly thrilled knowing I was 2nd in the cohort. Maybe I was brain washed since young and coming in 2nd is so near yet so far. If it's not 1st, it's not the best and if it's not the best, why bother? Ok, darn the cynic in me.

*****

Over the weekends Vonnie and her husband Mark came to our place on a whim in pursuit of Mark's dream to be professional photographer. Dreams? What dreams? That guy with his way cool professional gadgets is a dream come true. He could turn our doorway into a photography studio with his 'models' in almost home pyjamas. He's even got those kind of dual big flash hidden behind white umbrellas (what exactly are those called??). That guy is sure serious about his 'hobby'.

The tale of a Singaporen girl in a kiwi office

2009-03-10T20:07:00.014+13:00

It was without prudent discernment ( I really should have seen it coming) when I related the sad story of the relentless search for a decent pair of running shoes whilst having afternoon tea in the office. Teasing and snicker aside, one even insinuate I can apply to be Pumpkin Patch model since I can fit rather comfortably in their shoes and clothes. Grrr...

Being the curious kiwis that they are, said colleagues sitting around me asked about the current year's Chinese zodiac sign. Kev, who sat beside me, said he must be born in the year of the duck! Just look at his feet, he can almost waddle around with feet that size. Another colleague said Kev can go diving without flippers. Both then proceed to waddle so well around my desk, it may cost Donald Duck his day job if they had audited for the same role in Disneyland.

To further investigate this ludicrous phenomena of the vast difference in feet size between 2 fully grown adults, I was coerced to participate in the following comparison:

I cannot remember what they wrote on that stick-it note pasted on the giant's shoes but it doesn't matter because it's not going to make any sense anyway.

It's not going to make sense because a usual conversation between me and my work mates resembled the following:

Me: In a nut shell, the market is simply capitulated currently...
Colleague: Cheryl's in a nut shell now, that's certainly a better place to be in than the markets.
Me: ....

That's part of the communication in the office. It must be their way to lighten up given the solemn nature of our business. Maybe for a business which involves execution of wills and to administer estates on a frequent basis, and battling with portfolio volatility due to recent market free fall, nonsense like these ironically makes sense to preserve the office's sanity.

*****
In other news, the search is over because I finally found a pair of Puma running shoes last weekend! I was just a little flabbergasted I have to get the kids size 2 because size 3 was too big. Maybe I was so embarrassed by the unbelievable look on the sales man's face that my feet shrunk by a size there and then.

Not so happy feet

2009-03-04T20:56:00.005+13:00

I am really quite distressed over the search for:
- a normal pair of functional and
- aesthetically appealing pair of walking shoes and
- in my size and
- sold in New Zealand.

A quick calculation on the probability ratio reveals the chance of meeting all the above criteria is practically nil (one in a million years does not quite count). I tried almost every pair of shoes in the Adidas store in Wellington city and felt like a wrong candidate for Cinderella's glass slippers. None of them fits. I don't need to take them off... I can literally kick them off.

In a very desperate attempt to widen my 'hunting ground', I resort to online shopping in New Zealand websites and the following headers appear under my shoe size selection:

1. Pumpkin Patch flower shoes (for those back home, Pumpkin Patch is the NZ equivalent of Oshkosh B'Gosh)
2. Winnie the Pooh Sneakers - described as 'cute and convenient with elasticated laces' in the ad.
3. Barbie girls shoes
4. Hi Hippo beautiful pink shoes.

One does not know how to react when one felt like laughing and crying simultaneously. To say I am extremely frustrated is an understatement. I am extremely frustrated. Hi Hippo?? Let me hit the pole please.

I am having serious problem buying decent footwear in this land. In addition to my smaller than usual feet, having a decent sense of fashion is exacerbating the problem . No, it is not because having some basic sense of fashion shrink my feet by a size or two, but because there are some designs sold here I will not be caught wearing in a hundred years.

In the olden days of china, having small feet is said to be a trait of privileged rich demure girls. I must be living in the wrong place at the wrong time! It's now the age of 'The curse of the Golden ~~Flower~~ Feet' in the western world.

The list keeps growing

2009-02-26T19:50:00.006+13:00

True to the 'Amazing Race' theme of our hibernation plans for winter 2009, the Polar Bear added another destination to the Singapore trip that is already looking rather insane as it is. 3 countries in 5 weeks. I think he must be training himself for audition for the next season of Amazing Race.

Due to the fact that a certain Bear does not have a single ounce of romantic cell in his logical brain and is pretty much sentimentally impaired, the plan to whisk me off to a mysterious tranquil island to mark a special occasion is revealed before its time. Ironically he asked me to help with the holiday bookings meant as a 'surprise' for me (?!?!) How wonderful... what a surprise! I'm so very surprised.

Contrary to the Bear who loves the sun and the sea, I am usually not an ardent fan of sun-filled seaside beach resorts (maybe that explains the reason why I'm so fair my friends said they need shades to block off the luminescence reflecting off my legs). However in the midst of booking our accomodation, the following truly excites me as images of an impossibly idyllic resort conjured in my mind.

The cynic in me says the pictures are photoshopped. The cynic will be subdued when she lounges by the private beach with a Mojito in one hand and a chick lit in another.

The labyrinthine language

2009-02-18T22:07:00.010+13:00

Due to my almost non existent sense of direction and the Polar Bear's almost GPS-like sense of direction, he would usually plan our travel itineraries to save his blood vessel bursting at the trip. He doesn't really concur with my method of using the word SALE plastered across boutique windows as my sole form of direction markers.

So we are going to Beijing in July. The informative websites with 'insider news' and local knowledge are mostly written in Chinese. A certain Polar Bear cannot read Chinese very well. One gets impatient and frustrated when one got to exercise his imagination having to guess through half the web page due to one's limited ability to decipher the wonderful Chinese language.

The law of nature dictates that for the one week I've finally break free from my financial readings whilst waiting for the new semester to start, I cannot stare into blank space and relax. I've been reading Chinese websites for travel research and I ended up reading the same line again and again. In scientific terms, we call it parallax error. In real terms, I think I am going crazy with Chinese words clouding the screen like an intricate maze.

The last time I read this much Chinese was more than 10 years ago when I took my GCE 'A' levels Chinese.

My friend commended I was brave to take Chinese as an 'A' levels subject. I think bravery is directly correlated with age. Either I'm incredibly brave or I'm suffering from early onset dementia. Why else did I not recall the last time I went to Shanghai I had to tiptoed my way through the pavement with dried spit and joked one needs an umbrella in China to shield from human spit and not the rain. Neither did I remind myself of my near dehydration state when I did not dare to drink water because I could not bring myself to use any public toilets other than the hotel we were staying in.

Yet strangely I am looking forward to seeing historic artifacts that stood the test of time. The stories behind them. The country which I could identify nothing with but ironically being classified as the same race in this part of the world. The place that witness the rise and fall of world power and revolutionary changes.

It is going to be interesting (I just need to bring along that patio umbrella and clad myself in a diving suit as a form of protection against human spit).

Self denial before the final countdown

2009-02-08T15:55:00.010+13:00

I am sitting for the exams of the summer school papers in less than 24 hours. I am either in self denial, or attempt to thrive under time pressure the last 3 days. The activities I had been engaging myself leading to D-day are not remotely linked to my summer school papers:

1. Clubbing with Vonnie in celebration of her birthday.
2. Feasting with the usual suspects in celebration of Mrs Pirate King's return. She whipped up a meal so great, it felt like Chinese New Year again. I love love love Mrs PK's cooking.
3. Challenging the young and old with Nintendo wii Fit. I am discovering my hidden talent in the balancing act and is proudly the queen of 'Hula Hoop'.

Vonnie's birthday celebration at the 'biggest bar in the heart of Wellington' probably saved the club's day because it felt like an unplanned private function with her friends being the only patrons on the second floor. In contrast the sports bar by the side were filled with party goers. I cannot comprehend why chic posh bars prove to have lower popularity than boisterous sports bar.

With half of the friends from the Ceroc class, most attempted their feet at Ceroc with the birthday girl taking the lead. The nice thing about Ceroc is one can groove to the steps with any genre of music.

I want to get back to my Ceroc classes once I figured out how to multiply 24 hours into 48 hours so I can work and study and go for Ceroc every week and still have a life. Before I figured the way out, I am in self denial blogging when I should be studying. HELP!

Our version of Amazing Race

2009-02-03T20:51:00.007+13:00

Eversince we booked the flights back to Singapore, I was over the moon and felt like holding the Polar Bear's hands whilst singing the Smurf song with a rainbow hanging over my head.

Maybe the Polar Bear had been a fan of 'Amazing Race' for too long. He must be inspiring to win a million dollars when he donated to Singapore Airlines in exchange for the following:

26 Jun: Depart Wellington --> Auckland
27 Jun: Depart Auckland --> Singapore
10 Jul: Depart Singapore --> Beijing
In between: Possibly going Shanghai to visit my 'chopstick sister'.
17 Jul: Depart Beijing --> Singapore
31 Jul: Depart Singapore --> Christchurch
01 Aug: Depart Christchurch--> Wellington

This Saturday my sworn-to-love-each-other-forever girlfriends will be holding an important conference round the mahjong table to discuss an additional destination for everyone in July. They are so excited over it I can almost feel my computer screen vibrating with their gaiety in the emails and msn messages.

Maybe I'll peel my face off the ground, exhausted with jet lag and overwhelmed with fatigue on that first day of August but for once, the princess in me is not complaining! (I can't get that Smurf song outta my head now).

Not such a hard call after all...

2009-02-02T21:42:00.005+13:00

when one simply cannot wait, cannot think, cannot sleep for anything remotely linked to home visiting. The Polar Bear hit the 'booking' buttons on SIA website this evening and promptly went to exercise my American Call Option within 1 day (at least I am still in-the-money, but the Polar Bear is now out-of-the-money)! Pardon the financial jargon. Brain cannot function in a non-financial way currently due to impending exams which is slowly but surely clouding my senses.

So I'm flying back to Singaland on 26 June for hibernation. Will be there for the WHOLE of July and coming back to Wellington on 1 Aug. Woo hoo... I am going to sing my Elmo song again... la la la la la la...

When my colleagues know I am going to disappear for 5 weeks (yet again!) they went on to sing 'Singapore girl, you are a great way to flyyyyyyy.....'

My colleagues crowned this my theme song in the office due to the fact that I'm the only Singaporean girl in the office. On many occasions, they looked at me, out of the blue, from time to time, for no apparent reasons, and started crooning this song to me. I seemed to have sparked off the karaoke craze in them because they always have something to sing about 'The girl from ~~Ipanema~~ Singapore'.

As you can see, I provide good entertainment material without even having to try.

A hard call

2009-02-01T21:28:00.006+13:00

I will be sitting for my summer school's exams in exactly a week's time from now. Instead of analysing futures and forwards, I spent my Sunday evening analysing(and developing a throbbing headache in the process) a series of date and flight combination in an attempt to secure the cheapest airfares possible for my home visiting this winter.

The airlines might as well go and rob a bank in this part of the world. That will deem to be more morally acceptable than to rob an excessively homesick Singaporean girl desperate to escape winter.

One must be going crazy from one's occupational and academic obsession when one analyse airfares booking in the following manner:

1. Compare SGD one way fares vs NZD return fares.
2. Calculate if any arbitrage opportunities exist.
3. Mentally develop a Forwards strategy to hedge against any possible airfares adjustments.
4. If #3 fails, switch strategy from the airlines to the Husband. Attempt to buy an American call option from Polar Bear to secure flight seats. Exercise the option before NZD plummets further.
5. If #4 fails, place in a GTC (Good 'til cancelled) order to the Bear; but make no attempt to warn him of settlement risk from the wife.
6. Come to think of it, said risk from #5 does not exist because no settlement required = no settlement risk. See! I've even had the perfect risk management strategy for the Bear!

Question is, should I long or short the airfares of Singapore Airlines?

This is proving to be a harder call than the actual share prices. At least in the last 6 months or so, even a chimpanzee knows one ought to short the market.

恭喜发财

2009-01-27T20:17:00.015+13:00

新年快乐！

为了证明本小姐我的华文水准非同凡响，我在此破天荒用华文写篇小blog entry 来迎接新一年的到来。我家那只华语烂到不能再烂的北极熊，一定对会对我另眼相看。像我这样冰雪聪明，聪明伶俐，兼通各种语言的老婆，要上那儿找。（如果他读不懂还好，读得懂他可能要在这大年初二吐出来了）。

光阴似箭（我的华语真的很不错吧！），一转眼我已经是第三年没跟家人庆祝新年了。每次过年，我都特别想家。想念妈妈天下无敌的丰富团圆饭，想念那群死党吵闹笑声，想念那过年的气氛。想念吃肉干，黄梨塔，还有所有在这里吃不到的新年美味佳肴。

还好每年都有一群像我和北极熊一佯流落在外的新加坡寂寞小孩，一起庆祝新年。每年少不了一起捞鱼生，捞个风生水起。我还特地用红包装饰墙壁，增添新年气氛。我真是个天才。嘻嘻嘻。

没想到用华语写blog，这麽累。还有不知道为何我用华语写的废话听起来特别废，连我自己也受不了我自己。我不行了，我已经very impressed with my chinese standard 了。就show off 到这里。

在结篇前，让我plagiarise 我读到一篇很有趣的新年贺词∶

新春又来到，
新年问个好，
办事步步高，
生活乐陶陶，
好运天天交，
越长越俊俏，
家里出黄金，
墙上长钞票。

The last sentence is hilarious! I wonder if that ever happen, will one rejoice or freak out?

Oh my it's so much faster to blog in English. My chinese typing speed is so slow, I feel like a deep sea diver typing under the sea.

Anyway, here's wishing all a great year of the Ox! In true blue ah lian style-- HUAT AH!

Summer daze

2009-01-19T14:58:00.013+13:00

So I've been busy. Like seriously kind of busy. Like busy-until-don't-know-what-I've-done kind of busy. Like busy-until-cannot-form-coherent-statements kind of busy.

A combination of factors had created the strange phenomena as described above. Work had been insane (reckon that in New Zealand! I wouldn't blame one who could not fathom that because I couldn't too). If anybody wants to understand why working in a supposedly laid back country can be insane, just try working in the financial sector in times such as these, where markets had generally fallen between 35-50% year on year with Central Banks around the globe twiddling their thumbs at their wits' ends thinking how to salvage a pretty screwed up situation.

In addition to working in the most interesting sector in perplexing times, summer and studies is a potent combination that engulf all my time outside work. Maybe I should quit my day job and just go pick fruits, judging by the amount of time the Polar Bear and I spent at the berries farm with unprecedented level of enthusiasm.

Mental note to self: Never be 'keh kiang' and do summer school again. Summer with its glorious weather simply entails too much temptations to lure one away from financial readings. So I find myself indulging in the many activities of summer and studying with an almost suicidal intensity when reality sets in.

My friend came visiting from Singapore and she must be the one and only Singaporean who stayed in Wellington for 5 days as part of her 10 days NZ holiday. The rest of my friends who travelled to New Zealand have ~~crazy~~ ambitious itineraries which seek to conquer north south east west of New Zealand in 10 days. If they stopped by Wellington for that long, they would have to travel by helicopter around New Zealand non-stop for the rest of their trip.

It is very nice to have friends visiting from Singapore, to discuss about the country I've left physically but not emotionally; to talk like good old times effortlessly and regain the comforting sense of familiarity that is reminiscent of home.

That time of the year - Part 2

2009-01-11T18:38:00.013+13:00

Due to a friend and her family from Singapore visiting me in Wellington for the past week, coupled with my obsessive quest to top the cohort in my postgrad course, my Christmas update (part 2) is finally published at the time when mum is almost preparing for Chinese New Year.

One of the highlights of the trip must be the precipitous trail leading to the Dawson Falls. When I say precipitous, I am not exaggerating. Even the Pirate King contemplated rolling down the trail, and he had gone through the supposedly gruelling army training in Singapore (if it is not gruelling, all the male species of our motherland will not be reminiscing their NS days in disgust right?).

So the trail was indeed most physically and mentally challenging, although it was a... 10 mins trail. But still! 10 mins felt like an eternity when my poor legs almost succumbed to that arduous path. I might be able to scale it effortlessly if the cliff gushed out LV bags instead of water.

The remaining part of the trip to New Plymouth is pretty much the usual blue sea and green pastures that is typical of New Zealand. I was quite fascinated with the professional looking camera of the Pirate King at some stage and both Polar Bear and I were taking a zillion pictures of the unwilling model (Pirate King).

My attempt at professional photography failed miserably because through years of using the digital camera, I had lost the ability to focus through the viewfinder instead of the LCD screen. It felt like my little blonde moment when I stood before the unwilling models and asked them how to focus huh?

The occasional lake here and trees there that reaches to the skies were found now and then.

On our way home, Mt Taranaki which had been hidden amongst the clouds was finally unveiled on the final day of our trip allowing us to catch a glimpse of its majestic snow capped peak from a very far distance.

That time of the year - Part 1

2009-01-03T00:36:00.014+13:00

The usual long Christmas and New Year holidays that almost form a tradition in itself in New Zealand is always much looked forward as a time of resting and travelling.

I managed to have a longer break than usual with Christmas and Boxing day falling nicely on a Thursday and Friday, and New Year's Day repeating the cycle the following week. It was with much delight that a mere 2.5 days leave translated to 12 days of break for the year. Talking about year end sale and multiplier effect! Even my annual leave can go a longer way in this time of the year!

As twiddling one's thumbs for 12 days sounds like a bad option to someone who doesn't need to study (read: Polar Bear) and doing financial readings for 12 days sounds like an equally bad option to me, we planned for a trip out to Taranaki and New Plymouth (about 5 hours drive from Wellington) for Christmas.

Mrs Pirate King happily flown back to Singapore for Christmas, leaving the poor Pirate King behind for meals of pizzas and take aways day after day. Being the loyal friends that we are, the Polar Bear and I rose to the occasion and went through 'thick and thin' with Pirate King, through travelling over thick mountain tracks and thin grass of pastures that is.

The city of New Plymouth is rather ordinary except for the 7km coastal walkway which stretches almost the entire length of the city. Endless ocean on the horizon seems to reach to perpetuity here. Friendly dogs are seen frisking playfully along the walkway with their owners; toddlers waddling with parents; couples strolling with hands over shoulder to shield from the sea breeze.

We reached New Plymouth on Christmas day itself. Mich and Phil, together with their parents, had very kindly invited us to their place for dinner. It was most wonderful to spend Christmas night in a house with a real Christmas tree twinkling with lights; wine over laughter; homely dinner with cravings of the ham and the usual Christmas splendour, and most of all a dash of love and friendship that essentially epitomize what Christmas is all about.

I wish you had a good Christmas too.

The days leading up to Christmas

2008-12-21T18:16:00.007+13:00

Some of my friends asked if I've migrated to outer space due to my prolonged absence in this blog. Truth is when one is working with perplexity generated from the amount of work appearing magically from nowhere, and studying with an almost suicidal intensity for summer school, I do think migrating to the moon sounds quite like an option to me.

In between contemplating my outer space migration, I've attended luncheon hosted by the man who calls the shots in the Reserve Bank. Whilst he was addressing to the selected few to 'play their role in the economy', I realised
1) It takes a very tall man to take a position as high up as a governor;
2) I am surrounded by a sea of giants, predominately male with the majority looking twice my age. 3 inches heels with power suit apparently didn't help much to blend into said crowd.

In other news, it's that time of the year in the office with appointed colleagues (in Singapore context = kenna arrowed) taking on the unpaid role of Santa and Christmas fairy. Gifts exchanges over ice cream and strawberries, it was all fun and games much needed in the December mayhem of work.

In other additional news, I still think the Japanese make better cars than the Germans. Left is right and right is wrong between the two countries. Why can't they manufacture cars with the same orientation for their signal indicators? These days when I drive, the wipers sweep before me in a seemingly mocking manner when all I wanted to do was to signal right. Confused by the sweeping motion, I then forgot to turn right and I turned left instead. I need to switch back to good 'ol trusty Japanese cars to save my sanity.

The usual summer dos

2008-12-07T19:43:00.014+13:00

Much to my delight, Summer has officially arrived in this part of the world with great weather and clear blue skies. Being the tropical girl that I am, it takes great discipline to drown myself in financial readings in this cheery weather. Obviously I was not thinking when I enrolled for summer school and I do foresee putting my speed reading ability to great use again. Anyway, I digress.

So the past sun-filled weekends had been wonderful for long scenic drives to the countrysides. Rows of pine trees and gorgeous river surround us as we cruise about along the highway out of Wellington City.

Summer is the season when one will be inspired to drive long hours just for a nice meal. We drove 1.5 hours out of Wellington city to this bistro, a hidden gem set in the vast green pastures with great alfresco dining.

I am frequently perplexed that in New Zealand, we are usually the only customers in a great restaurant with such exquisite food and million dollar view. Oh well, of course cows and sheep don't indulge in fine dining, so why does it surprise me that we are the only diners around... The idea that a bistro here will be packed with customers in this land is as absurd as turning around and realise a cow is dining beside me.

Summer is also a time where barbecue precedes as the favourite activity whilst catching up with friends. Last Sunday the usual suspects gathered around a pit of fire and a truckload of meat in the wonderfully restored garden of our Singaporean turned Kiwi family (please don't tell on me that I am associated with these 'traitors' or I may not be able to return home one day).

I am really impressed with the work done in that backyard as we feast in the summer sun with cool lemonade and juicy chicken wings. Don't be deceived by that jungle setting look alike backdrop in the picture because at the other side it's a different world with quaint benches and reformed walkways.

I think the host should quit their day jobs and be landscape architects. People like me who's absolutely clueless about gardening will pay them good money to engage their landscaping services.

If their heads are not going to explode, mine might.

2008-12-03T15:36:00.009+13:00

I am so about to explode into tiny flaming bits. Now I understand why the no 1 trigger for heart attack is not stress, but to be surrounded by stupidity.

If people whom you encounter or deal with simply exercise 5% of their common sense (if it exists at all in the first place), mortality rate would certainly be lower and the world would be a happier place.

I am in the midst of submitting professional membership with a Financial Institute here. The hoops I have to jump through to get something as simple as that done is pretty amazing. One would have thought I am applying for professional membership to be a circus lion or something.

To cut a long tragic story short, the documents had effectively flown between Wellington and Auckland at least 10 times and the application form was yet to be sent to the designated office. If my documents can accrue frequent flyer points, I could have redeemed a pair of tickets back to Singaland! This is getting ridiculous.

On another tragic note contributing to the elevation of my blood pressure, I sent my watch to the one and only authorised dealer in Kampong Wellington for battery replacement. Oh, to replace battery on a watch of such value, we must do a pressure test on it, they chirped. We cannot take on the risk of our clients coming back after the battery was replaced that we've spoilt the watch in any way.

So how much do I have to pay to cover your butts, thought a very curious watch owner. Not much... said the daylight robbers. $50 if we can perform the test. An additional $ 150 if we are to send it to the specialised dealer outside New Zealand.

$200 to change a watch battery?!?! May I introduce you to this new equipment from Singapore, also known as the Barang dou. Armed with that chopper, it would be a faster way to rob somebody than a lame pressure test. This is also getting ridiculous.

The highlight of a tragic story is often its ending.

After being invisibly robbed, I took my watch home and realised the super professional watchmaker who charge the super high fees to change the super battery had super fix my leather straps the wrong way round. I now get to wear my watch upside down. They have super change the orientation of my whole watch when all I wanted was a simple change of battery. For a mere $200, they've transformed my watch into a Frank Muller Crazy Hours. Isn't that superb?

The unprecedented sighting

2008-12-02T19:30:00.007+13:00

Being the good and responsible citizens that we are, a small group of Singaporeans in Wellington felt obliged to aid in the market recovery and was on a noble mission to pull New Zealand out of its technical recession by way of excessive consumerism.

The other day I was wondering out loud ( to myself, in all honesty) if I should upgrade my ipod given that the world had already moved on to high resolution colour screens and colossal storage space. The Polar Bear picked on the cue and volunteered to deliver my Christmas wish list to Santa. Remember to hang a big Christmas sock by the bed, was his friendly reminder to me.

Last week the Polar Bear's usual partner in crime (otherwise known as the Pirate King) informed him about this touching-heaven-changing-earth grand opening sale for an electronic store in Wellington. To illustrate how unrivaled the sale was, it had created a 101 most memorable moment for us as we strolled to the store on that fated morning.

Reckon that! Endless queue formed in sparsely populated sheepland! The deja vu moment of Hello Kitty craze in Singapore, this is the first time I've seen a queue formed in Wellington in anticipation for a store opening.

So the Polar Bear ran his errand for Santa and everybody, including himself had an early Christmas.

Races

2008-11-30T15:55:00.010+13:00

Despite (or due to??) the financial meltdown and the consequential stress generated from the ongoing financial turmoil, my office organised a day trip (during business hours in the name of team building) to the race course to watch some horses racing madly around the track and punt the day away. In view of the deteriorating market conditions, punting at the races sound like a rather good investment alternative to my colleagues.

It's my first time at the race course. I am constantly being introduced to new vice in this land. My colleague was trying so hard to explain what's a 'trifecta' and a 'birdcage' (I thought we are going to the race course? Are there birds there??), he might be bursting a blood vessel in the process.

Said colleague who organised the outing managed to get entry passes to the member's stand, therefore I wondered aloud my vision of ladies trotting around in high fashion.

Me: Do we wear big floppy hats to the race course?? *big hand actions to emphasize the impact of a big floppy hat*
Colleague: Certainly! If you want to look like a big organic mushroom standing in the middle of a race course.
Me: ....

That's the usual nonsense I put up with in the office. I must commend on their wild imagination and great stamina to tease me relentlessly though.

No high fashion hats, dresses and gloves for us but it was a beautiful day nonetheless. Wonderful early summer heat, tons of super cold beer and cheering on horses with funny names that can make or break one's bank.

There she goes again

2008-11-26T18:41:00.004+13:00

By international standards, I am not the tallest girl around. More so in this foreign land with 90% of my colleagues towering over me. Whenever I drive the company car, there is no way I can reach the accelerator without adjusting the car seat forward.

Today I jumped into the car wanting to speed off like Speedy Gonzales to my appointment. I've done this countless times, start the car, pull the seat lever forward and off I sped. However, this afternoon I pulled and pushed and dragged and there was no way the darn car seat was moving. Now thinking back, with my hand trying to roll myself forward with the entirety of my body weight, I must had looked like I was rowing a boat on dry land in that little car park.

At one stage, I was practically crawling before the accelerator and clinging onto the steering wheel in an attempt to pull myself forward. After the last resort of bouncing, pouncing and jumping on the seat for a good 5 mins failed on me, I resigned to the fate of endless snigger by my office mates and dialled for help. When my colleague came to my rescue, the look on his face was classic. He was laughing whilst looking like he wanted to cry any minute.

Though it was most embarrassing to leave the office in the above manner, I was glad to get out of the office. Glad to get away from the madness of the financial frenzy stemming from funds being frozen due to illiquidity. Glad to get away from the pile of papers on my desk which had reached new and dizzying heights.

In times like these, I seek solace in cruising along the highway with music blasting in the background. The rush of the car gearing up and overtaking every car in sight. These little grand prix moments by myself enables me to regain sanity to face the insanity of work.

En route back to the office, I couldn't help but stopped by the seafront to take a breath of fresh air with the sunlight streaming onto my face. To capture a piece of tranquility before heading back to the cell of irrationality.

There's a reason why they say call centre jobs are the worst jobs ever.

2008-11-21T09:49:00.004+13:00

Like any other ordinary students pursuing a costly degree in Singapore, my brother-in-law JY took a bank education loan with me as his guarantor. Let's name said bank 'Balek Kampong Bank' (BKB) for confidentiality purpose.

BKB had been a source of grief to JY and myself. Despite instructing them on several occasions to send all related correspondences to JY, they stubbornly chose to incur overseas freight charges and send letters of reminder/ loan revision etc to me.

So dramas arise again due to miscommunication (I don't have to be a prophet to know this will invariably happen) and JY was wrongly charged with unjustified overdue interest on his loan. Blood doesn't have to be thicker than water for me to take sides with JY. I blatantly admit that I take sides; fierce loyal sides when it comes to family.

To make it impossible to deal with BKB, they have this strange policy to speak to me, and me and me alone, about any loan queries. Totally disregarding the fact that the loan was disbursed to JY for his fees. No, JY cannot clarify anything with them. No. Their mouths are sealed, lips are zipped.

JY msn me at 10.30p.m last night informing me that BKB refused to talk to him. Tell BKB to call me, said I. Tell them to call NOW because I'm going to sleep soon. JY said the message had been relayed and hence the waiting game begins. I waited and I waited in my sleepy half zoned out state for 1.5 hours. If I was in Singapore, I could have flown to Jakarta with that time!

After the excruciating 1.5 hours wait, the BKB officer told a rather indignant Chilli Padi a contradictory story about why poor JY had to pay overdue interest. I guess the chap didn't prepare for the tsunami that ensued:

YOU SEE! That's the problem when you guys refuse to communicate with my brother-in-law. I DON'T HAVE SOME KIND OF A PSYCHIC POWER TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN MY BROTHER -IN-LAW'S ACCOUNTS! Here you are telling me he's got insufficient funds at the end of the month for payments but he told me otherwise. I have no reason to doubt him but every reason to doubt your bank's system accuracy taking into consideration that I had instructed not once, not twice, but at least THREE times for your bank to send the loan correspondences to him in Singapore! So now what? DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BE SOME KIND OF AN OFFSHORE TRANSMISSION ROUTER RELAYING MESSAGES FROM SINGAPORE TO NEW ZEALAND AND BACK TO SINGAPORE?

The poor guy sounded like his phone headset had just sprung off his head and bite him in the tongue. He must had been speechless for a good 5 seconds. In his panic post-traumatic mode, he came up with a brilliant plan to offer JY a one day only authority to discuss with them about HIS own education loan. Wow! One day only promotional plan! JY, take it up while stock last, before it's gone!

The call ended with my friendly reminder to him that in the event he needs to talk to me again (I sure think he prayed like mad he doesn't have to), call me by 5.30p.m Singapore time taking into consideration time zone difference. I served that friendly reminder to prevent him from calling me in the middle of the night with a ball of fire erupting out of my mouth 5,300 miles across the ocean and consuming him up in flames.

Sure, you can call me in the middle of the night if your childhood ambition is to be a piece of bak kwa.

Myth Buster

2008-11-11T22:09:00.004+13:00

Nobody can say New Zealand is a laid back country when

1. The Polar Bear has to dial into conference calls from 10pm till 2am (!!!) in the morning.
2. I have to start my readings for summer school barely a week after my semester 2 examinations.
3. Every time a task was being struck off from the to do list at work, 5 other tasks reappear magically out of nowhere.

So there, myth busted. This is no retirement village like what some people imagined it to be.

The sun filled weekends and other news

2008-11-09T16:11:00.013+13:00

Now that my exams are over and with the weather getting better as we countdown to summer, we are almost obligated to spend the weekends outdoors.

The Pirate King and his family thus organise a small little picnic at this park where ducks waddle around and properties in the neighbourhood with land so big, 2 horses are found galloping in the backyard.

Now, looking at the picture above, I wondered if that black hoodie of the Pirate King is to shield the sun or to reinforce his image as the Pirate King. If it is the latter, I must remind him that pirates are donned with black one eye patch, not black hoodies. He must have got it wrong.

It felt like home as we sat there engaging in our usual Singaporean nonsense and singlish jokes, whilst sipping on Gewurztraminer and chewing on Mrs Pirate King's 'Ramly Burger'. Like me, Mrs Pirate King turns into desperado when she craves for singapore food and she calls her western burgers 'Ramly burgers'. As an appreciative recipient of a free lunch, I shall cease my comments here.

*****

Ever since his hog-like new toy arrives, the Polar Bear's enthusiasm to drive to various places has increased exponentially. After church and brunch today, we drove to the Hutt river as it is supposedly to be one of the 'Lord of the Rings' scenes.

Hutt river looks different every season. In Spring, a refreshing view was presented as the river ripples glimmer in the sun, with endless rows of trees and their budding leaves lining along both sides of the river banks.

We went grocery shopping thereafter. Due to some enticing offers and our rather hopeless addiction to anything remotely chocolate and fattening, the fridge is now bursting at its seams.

There are at least 50 magnums and ice cream cones in our fridge currently. I feel full just by looking at that mountain in the freezer. It is apparent that moderation is not practised in the household.

*****

In other news, like America, change had come to New Zealand as the last Prime Minister was sacked and the National Party came into power. And like America, people cheered like crazy after some bloke was assigned one of the world's worst jobs.

I wondered if these blokes had done a cross country comparison in terms of salary versus job scope or not. A similar role in a tiny tropical island with law abiding citizen obedient beyond comprehension, is earning 10 times more than what these blokes are earning. And the best part of the same job in that tropical island? They'll never get sacked.

That black guy in US and that white guy in New Zealand will be feeling darn cheated if they found out the truth.

The Big Wellington Workout

2008-11-06T20:19:00.007+13:00

After a weekend of panic reading and 3 hours of continuous writing, my examination for this semester is finally over. Therefore I can regain my sanity for now and do some no brainer activities again... like staring into blank space and blog.

Taking this term's examination is more physically demanding than the Olympics triathlon. On that fateful day, of all days, the Polar Bear had to fly to Auckland for work. As my sense of direction is non existent and I have never, ever taken a bus before in Wellington, I bravely decided to depend on the most prehistoric mode of transport to go to the exams hall-- walking.

So I walked, (bless my legs) for a good 45 freaking mins from my work place to the university to take the afternoon papers. To add salt to the wound, for some inexplicable reasons, universities are always built on high sloppy grounds. 10 years ago in Singapore, I have to climb the precipitous terrain of NUS (ok I exaggerated but those slopes are steep!) Now 10 years later in New Zealand, I have to scale up the impossible streets of Wellington to reach Massey.

My knees were wobbly by the time I slumped onto the chair in the examination hall. The invigilators must had thought this strange Asian girl was suffering from real bad exams anxiety because I think my face should be looking quite green after that walk.

After that big walk and 3 hours non stop writing, I felt like I had gone for a 2.4km run (I might had seriously walked more than 2.4km) and done 1000 push ups. These papers I am taking are pretty amazing. Before they test my academic knowledge they first test my physical endurance level.

The Pig is now ensconced in the garage

2008-10-25T15:32:00.015+13:00

Due to some unforeseen circumstances and after a heart wrenching negotiation, the Polar Bear called off the deal at Christchurch and bought the Pig, otherwise known as the ultimate driving machine. (What a ultimate strange slogan)

Never insult a machine by giving it demeaning names, because one may have to eat her words and ride in it eventually. My sister is going to roll her eyes and grit her teeth when she reads my post because she's driving the Pig too... and a cloud of red haze may descend on her head if she knows her Singapore Pig is 10 times more expensive than our New Zealand Pig.

The Pig is now trotting around the driveway, looking all resplendent in the sun. The Pig's skin must be really hardy because all that friction produced by Polar Bear's fervent polishing this morning could have set it on fire.

We then have the Polar Bear beaming in his Beemer as he plays with the in-built TV and is pleasantly surprised that the TV reception is crystal clear.

With the GPS receiver looking like a shark fin and the hog-like front, the car does look like a weird cross between a shark and a pig. The Polar Bear, however, seems to like the mutated look and he is all excited about the function of the 'shark fin'. I can only nod intently (yet not quite knowing what's he talking about) whilst he goes on and on earnestly.

He didn't know my nodding and words of agreement was actually targeted at the following invitation I was reading:

Yes Darling... this does sound like a good purchase indeed... yes, I agree! Of course I agree!

His Car and Her Food

2008-10-18T14:34:00.016+13:00

So the Polar Bear contemplated between buying the car that had the distorted peace sign or the car with a striking resemblance to a pig. He finally chose the former and I reckoned maybe he didn't quite fancy the idea of cruising around in a hog-like fuel guzzler after all.

After the purchase confirmation, we now have a very focused Bear in the house obsessed over arranging car insurance, further comparsions and every possible research to be made before his super car collection. If the corners of my eyes didn't fail me, I think he grins to himself at times when he stares at the picture of his car. I am pretty sure he is going to wear that silly grin on his face again upon seeing the magic picture in my post.

Oh did I mention he's going to fly to Christchurch to bring the car back to Wellington? Such is the level of vehement enthusiasm for his new toy. He did not even fly to Singapore to fetch me back to Wellington when I was on holiday. Somehow I have this vision of him hugging the car like a long lost friend at the Christchurch airport.

In between the tedious and seemingly endless car hunting, we've been dining and dining and... dining.

On a fateful day in December 2003, the Polar Bear probably did not realised what he was getting into when he said 'I do' in that dreamy church setting. He was actually saying 'I do' to a perpetual eating machine and thereby incurring his biggest lifetime liability to feed a bottomless pit.

Politics Talk

2008-10-14T19:31:00.008+13:00

In view of the upcoming election, the Prime Minister of New Zealand is on a TV programme debating live with the Opposition Party leader. To see the two leaders engaging in razor sharp ripostes with a pinch of sarcasm targeted at each other, it was an interesting eye opening experience for a true blue Singaporean girl like me.

Born, bred and being part of 'building a democratic society, based on justice and equality', ironically the nearest I got to democracy was probably the Singapore pledge I recited every morning during my primary school days. One doesn't need to examine the political sphere too closely to understand why. The moon has to be more than blue for PM Lee to go on a live, impartial debate with Low Thia Khiang; where voters can question the leaders and put them in a spot. Where you don't have to jump through hoops to address real issues of life. Where politicians have to earn their votes.

Hand on heart, I think the Singapore government had done a great job and the little red dot had come a long way to be where we are now.

However, politics is certainly more interesting in a land like New Zealand where one vote democratically with a tinge of dilemma. This is unlike the other world where voters cast the vote because it is a no brainer with weak opposition who is weak not necessarily because of incompetency, but weak because they didn't have the chance to compete on level playing field. The hammer doesn't get the chance to wield its power because it will be struck down by the lightning in a flash.

In a democratic society, one should have the chance to send the leaders packing if they don't do a good job and get to witness that they are mere mortals, not God.

Uncanny Resemblance

2008-10-10T23:05:00.010+13:00

In these times of rising inflation and plummeting currencies, equities and anything imagable in one's investment portfolio, who will be spending on frivolous things like... another car? Who else except a particular bear somewhere in the southern hemisphere.

Maybe the Polar Bear is the one with true business acumen between us, because he seeks to buy at opportune times like these when sellers are turning desperados.

So every night he's been doing serious research on his pending purchase. And tonight he showed me this and said, nice right? We'll buy this.

I gave him my most honest, heartfelt, knee-jerk reflex response:
'I think it looks like a pig.'

He had given up on asking for my opinions thereafter.

The roller coaster ride

2008-10-09T18:18:00.005+13:00

So I had been missing for a while because in the last 1 week I was hugging my laptop every evening churning numbers for business reports due for my studies.

Meanwhile during my little hiatus, the market's gone nuts. Volatility is the name of the game now and the swings are getting higher, wilder and more spectacular than ever before. I was indeed impressed (new positive word for horrified) that the equities indexes around the world can shed so rapidly that they'll probably go bald faster than some of my 80 years old clients.

Then forex started participating in the fun and whilst I was sleeping last night, AUD and NZD did a somersault to moon and back. Today I saw the yields on dual currency deposits (a form of investment product Singapore bankers tout to high net worth clients) and almost fell off my chair. If you hold USD and place an option against AUD, strike at spot today for 1 week you'll get a yield of 148% p.a.

Now to put that into perspective, a normal dual currency deposit of the same variables and strike level on a perfectly normal day may give about 15% interest, or maybe 20% or maximum 30% on a very good day if you treat your banker nice.

I have never, ever, for the life of me, seen a dual currency deposit that yield an astonishing 148% p.a before. Who can ever offer over 100% p.a interest for these deposits? Well... volatility and uncertainty can.

Interesting... very interesting times we are living in now.

Top dollar in the Circus

2008-09-29T19:46:00.007+13:00

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- 'Wall Street's five biggest firms paid more than $3 billion in the last five years to their top executives, while they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring down the investment-banking system.'

I feel like going home and crawling back into bed after reading the first paragraph in the first article I read for the day from Bloomberg on a humdrum Monday morning. The tens of million dollar salaries made me realised how very low down in the food chain I am in. Surely there could not be such vast disparity in the similar sectors? Yes? No!

USD3billion!! That kind of pay shared amongst the top guns staging the possibly biggest financial collapse in history. Apparantly monkeys these days are not paid peanuts anymore.

A touch of humour

2008-09-24T16:38:00.005+12:00

We have a fridge in our office's kitchen. Today as I opened it I was horrified with the revolting sight which prompted me to send the following email to the entire Wellington office:

Dear all

I had taken the initiative to throw away some yogurts way way past expiry date before they contaminate the fridge. I do not believe anybody with a normal digestive system can consume yogurts which expired in Jun 08 and not get a bad bout of tummy upset thereafter.

In case you are the owner searching frantically for your long lost yogurt, this email serves to advice you that it's in the bin where it belongs and please don't attempt to pick it up if you are not desperate to go on immediate sick leave.

Yogurts are not like wine- they don't get better with age.

- C K

One of the in house legal counsels then replied:

Maybe someone was growing bacteria for penicillin.

I have colleagues who have the same quiet sense of wicked humour as me.

The wonders of Spring

2008-09-21T16:22:00.019+12:00

Spring is the season when the freezer in the air seems to be magically switched off by God and flowers start blooming everywhere. Though the tropical girl in me still votes Summer as my favorite season of the year, Spring is the prettiest because of the array of colours adorning Mother Nature in all its botanical splendour.

The 101 things I cannot do in this lifetime include gardening. Instead of green fingers, I suspect I am born with a special ability to make most budding plants suffer a tragic death under my hands. Had the gardener not come and tend to the patch of greens in our house on such regular basis, I am sure my place will be hidden amongst a forest of weeds.

On Saturday when I went to the stores selling an assortment of pretty seedlings and plants in preparation for Spring and Summer, I can only watched with envy from a distance. And take pictures for the blog.

I was so tempted to buy one of these so that tomatoes can grow out of the garden. I love my sandwiches with tomatoes and for some very strange reasons, tomatoes are atrociously expensive in New Zealand.. like more expensive than meat! However with my (failed) attempt at growing coriander on the kitchen latch, I think I am sealed to the fate of eating a lifetime of expensive tomatoes from the supermarkets.

Every weekends the Polar Bear and I go for brunch faithfully. Other than church, brunches in various cafes is the most consistent thing we do week after week in Wellington. He will read his morning papers whilst I'll enjoy hot chocolate presented in a way so pretty, it breaks my heart to stir through the foam.

The weather was too wonderful to head home after brunch, so the Polar Bear drove to a country garden about 1 hours' drive away from Wellington city.

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom now, covering the entire picturesque garden and painting a postcard worthy canvas.

When we walked through the cherry blossom trees which formed a canopy of pink above me, the petals swayed in the breeze and fell softly like flakes of snow around me. It was a magical moment as I stood there savouring the wonderful things God can create out of nothing.

With the rolling hills in the distance, the lush foliage of green and pink, and the quaint accommodation dotting the top of the garden, I must say this place is rather enchanting in Spring.

The unceremonious death of Lehman Brothers

2008-09-16T18:41:00.006+12:00

Bad news kept feeding through the pipes, and the ultimatum came this morning with Lehman Brothers undergoing liquidation that sent a wave of heart attacks across bankers throughout the world. By 'bankers throughout the world', I actually meant my ex colleagues and friends at the other side of the planet.

Some emailed and said they feel like crying. Some are showing symptoms of a panic attack (cannot breath, cannot talk, cannot think). Some are prepared to be screamed deaf by clients (I hope their health insurance is not with AIA, else maybe cannot claim when pronounced deaf). Some started praying when the last time they prayed was more than a decade ago before receiving their 'A' levels results. One even dialled 5,300 miles across the ocean and ask me if she should ask her clients to cut loss today or continue with margin top up as equities tumbled.

I can empathize perfectly but I do not know what to say in response to the whole financial nightmare except to brace yourself as the Titanic approaches the ice berg. In retrospect, this subprime crisis that reared its ugly head last year was indeed the tip of the ice berg, and nobody knows how big and wide and the real volume of this humongous chunk of ice is going to be.

I've not seen anything like this throughout my years in the banking slave houses, and I doubt anyone in my generation did as we watched in horrors how financial institutions with 100 over years of foundation crumbled just like that. How names that dominate the Wall Street suddenly become history. Extinct. Gone. Erased. Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers... and those in the business simply got this sick feeling there's more to come. 'Impossible' doesn't seemed that impossible in these interesting times we are trading in now.

As of today, all still seems calm in my workplace except for the incessant exclaims of astonishment by colleagues and another one saying 'she need a beer right now' at 10am in the morning as she was reading through the financial news. What was I doing? I was glued to Bloomberg for the whole day in a mix of fascination and trepidation as the ugly world unfolds before me.

I thank God that trustees are conservative by nature. Way too conservative. So conservative that no finance companies, no credit linked notes, no mortgage backed securities are structured into investment portfolios. I probably take more risk driving the car (especially with my half baked driving skills) than our business willingness to take risk in a client's portfolio.

I used to sneer at this lack of risk appetite and conservativeness. Now I am just thankful I don't have clients calling me gasping at the other end of the line in response to their exposure in these banking giants undergoing a meltdown. But I am keeping my fingers, and my toes, very very tightly crossed.

Live one day, at a time.

2008-09-10T20:05:00.009+12:00

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
And when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

...

You are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you...

- Isaiah 43: 2-4

I once had an accident so bad, the car didn't survive but I did. Looking at the impact of the crash and the aftermath with half the engine smashed and steering wheel and stereo dangling near my lap, I knew without a doubt that had my car been 2 seconds faster, this blog would not exist. For I would probably had ceased to exist after that fateful day in year 2002.

Not many people, not even my close friends, knew of the crash because I emerged surprisingly unscathed. My 'father-in-law' (I was not married yet) was in the car business and he got the tow company to pick the remains of my car. The people didn't see me but judging at the state of the car, they told him to prepare for the worst because surely the driver cannot be in a good state with a car that shape.

I remembered my friend Ven was with me in the car. We were sent to the hospital together although I only had a few bruises on my arms and a very, very irate face after jumping off the car and practically brawling at the blind bat who crashed onto me. Maybe they sent me to the hospital to calm me down.

The Polar Bear rushed to the hospital soon after. My back was turned when he walked in. Ven saw the look on his face. Many years thereafter, she still tell me she can never forget the look on his face. She said that was... the look of love. The look of panic and concern as he walked in, head turning in all direction till he saw Ven. The look of fear. I never got to see that look. I wished I had.

Someone once told me, live each day as if it's the last. If one has to put that in perspective, then one will

Remember to love with patience and respond in kindness.
Remember the good and not the bad.
Remember the things that matter in life and forget the trivial.
Remember... that we are but human.
And remember why we had to remember all the above because today could really be the last. Who knows?

The girlfriends

2008-09-08T20:03:00.004+12:00

I was doing a '3 way' conference call via msn with my sworn-to-love-each-other-forever girlfriends this evening. Tons of nonsense, some OMG updates about one of the carefree girlfriends finally ditching her single hood and getting hitched next year (!!!) and another girlfriend's hot suitors' updates. And things about love, marriage, God... all exchanged in the midst of jokes and heartfelt comments.

We were enjoying the conversation so very much, and suddenly I missed those laughing and laughing and laughing-until-we-cannot-laugh anymore times with them. Sometimes I pity our husbands at our outings because they watch their elegant wives morphed into strange laughing monsters when we got together. And I think the husbands are probably flabbergasted because words that makes no sense to one outside the sisterhood can spark off laughter within us.

And, it dawned on me... after almost 16 years of friendship, 12 years after parting our ways in high school, 2 years spanned across different countries (and sadly we are globalising more with one of us moving to London/ Spain in the name of love), our friendship remains unchanged. Totally and utterly unchanged.

In this changing world, the unchanging nature of our friendship warms my heart, and more so when that realisation dawns on me on a cold early Spring night 5,300 miles away from home.

Simplicity can be perfect too- The perfect way to end a week

2008-09-07T16:42:00.020+12:00

Life's little pleasure and enjoyment is...

A glass of beer to wind down on a Friday night. (Though I was never a beer lover, these NZ brewed beer did their magic to change my taste buds and my mind)

Dining by the sea and watching the skies turn dark. Watching the city lights lit up and twinkling like a million stars from a distance.

Hot chocolate on two consecutive days.

Chick lit books on a lazy afternoon.

Staring into space on the couch with music in the background. Sunlight streaming through the deck into the lounge.

Strolling along the harbour on a bright sunny day. Observing the patrons at the alfresco cafe watching the world go by.

Admiring rows of sail boats and yachts lining the harbour and sailing into the unknown.

The smell of lavender blooming at the doorsteps to signify the arrival of spring.

Life's little pleasure and happiness includes these, and many others...

The unexpected warmth of a hand over mine in church.

Dark chocolates lining the pantry because someone remembers I cannot live without them.

Friends saying hi and talking freely online, proving distance does not erode strength and connectivity between true friends.

That sums up my weekends that just went past.

Happiness can often be so complex, yet so simple.

Bond of Love

2008-09-01T18:46:00.004+12:00

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
-Romans 8:38-39

A promise, a reminder, an epiphany and a revelation.

I love, no I hate, no I LOVE Excel

2008-08-28T21:32:00.006+12:00

My wonderful business report for my studies is due in a weeks' time. Yet here I am, blogging because I cannot summon enough courage to face the music and start writing.

I had been cultivating a love-hate relationship with the Excel spreadsheet for the financial analysis that needs to be performed before I can start throwing smoke bombs in the report. It was a total nightmare because
1) numbers is so totally not my cup of tea;
2) the laptop is not my best friend whenever I need to do serious stuff with it.

Surely the Polar Bear, who depends on the ~~detestable~~ fantastic Information Technology for a living, will be able to help his wife to excel with Excel, right? But no. He was too busy watching the whole new series of Amazing Race downloaded by our Pirate King friend in Wellington. He merely cast me a 'I-cannot-help-you-so-you-help-yourself' look, exchanged by my 'let-me-die' face.

For all my working life, the sole purpose of the Excel spreadsheet is to do my entertainment claims. The most complex function I had ever used is summation.

So I spend days and nights figuring out in Excel how to generate Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, perform Sensitivity Analysis, generating Scenario summary report... My brain almost went dead trying to think the logic of the programme. I am an emotional being, not a logical being.

Then I started loving Excel each time it listens to my commands and perform wondrous calculation with a click of the mouse. Yet at other times I started cursing it when it shows VALUE! instead of a sensible figure. At times I sprang up from the chair exclaiming yay! with raised arms in the air, at times I slapped the laptop and warned it to better behave and stop giving me crazy numbers. Then I became a psychopath loving and hating the programme all at the same time.

I may need to see the psychiatrist after the completion of my studies.

Back halfway around the globe again

2008-08-22T21:47:00.026+12:00

So I am back at the other side of the planet, trading my beloved char kway teow and hokkien mee for mesclun salads and salmon sandwiches. I realised the Singapore sinful diet is perfect for me, because despite the gross binging manifesting my utmost gluttony and deprivation in its purest form, I have actually lost 2kg when I arrived back in Wellington!

5 weeks whizz past just like that and I am now back in fantasy land. People say they are back to reality when they go back to work and their usual life, but I feel Singapore is my reality because the familiarity of my family, friends and the land I grew up in felt more real than Wellington, therefore the last 2 years in New Zealand somehow felt surreal to me.

I went back to work, horrified at the files piled to the ceiling on my desk, all screaming for my attention. Then I look at my term papers deadlines for my new modules registered this semester for my studies and I decide maybe just let myself black out sounds like a good option.

My sworn-to-love-each-other-forever girlfriends told me to postpone my flight to join them for a weekend of sun, love and laughter at Bintan and it took my entire being of self control, self discipline, 2 hours of calling Singapore Airlines hotlines which is very hot indeed (can never get to a talking human) and the risk of going on permanent no pay leave (coz my company may show me the exit if I still don't go back!) to say no. Then they post all these silly pictures and tell me how much they miss not having me around and reminded me how much fun I had missed out. I have very evil friends and my face turn green with envy at these pictures. I am extremely, terribly, heart achingly jealous of their trip!!

So I had my yearly dose of meeting countless friends and squeezing one year's worth of friends bonding and catching up within 5 weeks. The Polar Bear could not believe the number of 'appointments' I have each day and asked am I Little Miss Popular? Why on earth do I have so many friends to meet??

I was so excited meeting up with my various friends and family that I often forgot about the little camera I have in my bag. There are so many times I've happily gone home and realised I didn't take any pictures with them. The same goes for my little nieces and nephews because I was so engrossed in playing with them. Sigh!

Anyway, these are whatever little portion of photos when my half senile brain was working, reminding me to dish out the camera to capture some happy memories with some of my wonderful friends.

We often ponder and debate if we will still strike the 'act cute' pose when we are in our 40s? Our husbands taking the pictures are beginning to foam at their mouths these days with the classic pose.

With 'Calamari' at KTV! Ability to sing is a prerequisite in private banking.

Wonderful ex colleagues from the slave house. In all seriousness of their professionalism, they told me to fly back to New Zealand fast because ever since I arrived in Singapore, the NZD had dropped like a rock. These people cannot stop talking about the markets and cannot stop teasing me!

My sayang RO who loves me despite my countless mission impossible tasks thrown at her during our slavery days.

Pretty San forever trying to pose in a prettier way. I am so senile I didn't fish out my camera when the whole gang got together TWICE. How could I have forget??

My childhood friends. It is a scary thought when you have friends whom you've known for more than 25 years!! It's a quarter of a century! Cannot believe I am that old now.

Chilling out with Liz, with the world under our feet as we enjoyed the panoramic night scenic view of Singapore.

Huge huge spread of steamboat at Rach's new place. We bought the whole NTUC back and cause a shortage of food supply in Singapore that fateful night.

Those crazy buddies of mine again. We met up just like about 100 times when I was back... and it was never enough!!

And of course not forgetting the pride of mum-in-law who gave Singapore Armed Forces 4 boys to serve the nation. 2 years of national service each, the government owed mummy 8 years in total!!

As usual, I miss home terribly the first week I am back in Wellington, but I guess I will soon grow numb to this feeling because it happens so frequently now. That is what you have to trade for overseas living, and I will stay happy because I believe one is happy when you have

The courage to change the things you can change
The peace to accept the things you cannot change
and the wisdom to know the difference

Time has lost all dimension in the Lion City

2008-08-07T22:27:00.001+12:00

I reckoned if I moved back to this exciting-action-packed part of the world called Singapore, my blog may probably have to close shop because I simply could not find the time to sit down and blog. Not even if I am able to type with lightning speed recently rediscovered from my studies, because 24 hours seemed insufficient for a city girl back in her natural realm.

With the Polar Bear back with me this trip and his undying love for buffet of all sorts, I seriously think we had consumed a years' worth of food in the past 4 weeks. Needless to say, the trip to Bangkok was all about food too. Sa-wa-dee-cup... tom yam soup prease... pad thai prease... red ruby prease... My mouth was chewing throughout that trip. My uncle who's residing in Bangkok offered to bring us out for dinner. He would have thought we had migrated to Rwanda, not Wellington, when he saw the way we eat in the Land of the thousand smiles.

So I had been feasting till I feel sick, laughing with friends till it hurts, endless shopping till my legs ache and hanging around town like an Orchard Road permanent resident.

I don't know if mum pampers me way way too much, or I am simply way way too poor in Wellington. She brews bird's nest soup as 'supper and dessert' for the polar bear and I. I almost choked on my little bowl of dessert when she casually mentioned the cost of these jelly looking material floating in that 2 little small bowls. That amount is the cost of half my return tickets to Bangkok.

Pictures will be up when I am back in Wellington, for time and tide waits for no man (and woman for that matter) in the Lion city. I have to be out roaring again.

The clock starts ticking... now...

2008-07-11T22:14:00.004+12:00

In less than 24 hours, I will be back in sunny lovely Singapore! Lalalalala...

Almost my whole family and my in-laws will be fetching us from the airport. Each time I go back, there is always an entourage of people at the airport welcoming me home. It is a very warm feeling to return home and your family waving with expectant faces across the glass hall.

My sworn-to-love-one-another girlfriends casually asked about my flight details, and I told them don't come and fetch me again. My last trip home, I felt very touched and yet very apologetic that they took the trouble to come by the airport to welcome me home with flowers and all and just to have a 10 mins chat with me. Who can be so blessed to have friends like mine? I am very thankful for their more than a decade long friendship.

Sis said she and brother-in-law will drive 2 cars to the airport. I told her the Polar Bear and I don't need so many cars if my mum-in-law is driving too. We are not bringing the whole continent home, you know? She asked, 'Driving 2 cars is fine. What's the big deal?' I was like huh? Petrol free one issit? Parking no need money issit? My sister is very amazing... maybe everything that can be solved by money is 'no big deal' to her.

I'm going to sleep so when I wake up, voom! I'll be in Christchurch in transit (and collecting my duty free goodies, woo hoo!) and then voom! I'll be in Singapore!

My darling family, beloved friends, to-die-for local food, endless shopping, here I come!

p.s My mobile for contact: 9438-1155.
p.p.s Advanced booking is highly recommended. Reservations are full till the month of August for now, but I have the ability to accommodate 5 meals a day, so will make time for everyone who's called a friend.

The tale of Auckland (Part II)

2008-07-08T21:40:00.011+12:00

On the latter part of our Auckland trip, clear skies emerged and we went to viaduct harbour. This is the waterfront dining and residential area in central Auckland, with sail boats lining along the harbour and blue sea stretching across the city landscape.

It is evident that sailing is a much loved national obsession in this land because the kiwis seem to sail through the four seasons. As long as the sun is out, sail boats will be spotted, dotting the harbour and ocean beyond.

Despite a population of 1.3 million people in Auckland, I do not understand why the streets are surprisingly empty on a Monday morning. Maybe everybody was busy working, or rather all had gone sailing!

So we were traipsing along Queens Street after Viaduct harbour as our flight departure was in the afternoon. I went to have an innocent little look at some little stores since we had nowhere to go and time should not be wasted staring into blank space, right?

The Polar Bear, however, grew impatient with my little window shopping and asked why do I need to keep browsing?? Just buy what I like!

Yipeee...! This is one of the few rare occasions where I love my husband's impatience. Eventually I walked out the LV store a very satisfied girl.

Actually buying well made Vuitton bags make perfect economical sense.

With the prices going up an average of 10% every year, it is an effective hedge against inflation! With the NZD weakening over the last 2 months, I am taking advantage of an arbitrage opportunity here! Before tax prices are cheaper compared to Singapore retail prices thanks to weaker NZD now. I don't have to go to Europe and to get cheaper Vuitton bags! I can get them cheaper in this far flung part of the planet too! Though I just realised, to my horror (about future purchases) and delight (about my recent purchases), LV had just increased their price again.

The best part is, every model, irregardless of its popularity, is in stock. I emailed Vuitton Singapore, all the popular models are being placed on waiting list. I emailed Vuitton New Zealand, everything is available. And judging by the lightning speed they replied me, I reckoned either their service is real impressive or times are real bad and the sales assistants are real free. So free that they can reply to stock queries within 5 minutes.

So we had a really nice and relaxed Auckland trip. The Polar Bear summed it up by telling our Wellingtonian friends, the highlight of the trip was the visit to the LV store where ang mohs were hired to open doors for us and bags that stood the test of time since 1800s are well worth the money.

This is so unlike him. Maybe he had not woken up from his nightmare when he came back to Wellington, so he was talking in his sleep when he stated the above to our friends.

The tale of Auckland (Part 1)

2008-07-07T21:32:00.019+12:00

So we flew to Auckland the previous weekends and here's the tale of the most populated city in New Zealand.

For the 3 days we were in Auckland, we had a really relaxing schedule of leisure shopping and dining within the city. No mission impossible feat of covering other areas around the Auckland region like what we did for our South Island trip.

Auckland has a mix of modern and gothic architecture, like the Bank of New Zealand in Queens street with its giant traditional door in stark contrast to the brand new train station in Britomart.

One of the highlights of the trip was our seafood buffet lunch at The Observatory, the restaurant located at the top floor of the infamous sky tower-- the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere.

Prior to lunch, we went to the main observation deck for a panoramic view of Auckland city. There were also some crazy people doing the sky jump and they must be the first people who paid the operators to perform stunts for our entertainment.

The lunch that followed had all my favourite seafood displayed in all its glory. That, couple with our very-relaxed-nothing-much-to-do schedule explained the reason why we spent 3 hours in the restaurant and enjoying the view that surrounds while we dine at the top of the world.

I have officially turned into a chocolate addict since my move to this land because chocolate here simply taste divine. I don't know what caused chocolate to taste nicer in New Zealand but I do know I have lost all ability to say 'no' to anything remotely chocolate.

The Polar Bear was in his polar self and ate tons of Kapiti ice cream, the Haaagen Das equivalent of New Zealand. Look at my boysenberry against his green tea portion!! I would turn into a block of ice if I ate that much ice cream in this cold wintry weather.

Just before we left, there were some 'sky walkers' doing their stunts. These people are really nuts. They paid so much to jump off the tower and walk on ropes for the diners' entertainment. In return for their performance, we waved at them through the glass, smiled and mouthed 'are you guys nuts?' and they waved back in agreement.

That was how we spent almost half of our first day in Auckland, having a little stroll along the streets and having a long lunch like we had all the time in the world. In remembrance for the trip where time was no longer the essence, we took a picture of what could be one of the most expensive clocks one could ever display at home.

It is, however time for me to sleep and thus part 2 of the Auckland tale is to be continued..

Auckland prelude

2008-07-02T22:46:00.005+12:00

So we flew to Auckland for a weekend of leisure shopping and dining and I cannot seem to recover my energy since.

Maybe I ate too much and all my energy had been drained to digest all that food. Maybe I was way too excited over the DFS sale in Auckland city which expended all my energy when I arrived back in Wellington. It does take alot to remain calm when Pradas, Celine, Loewe, Fendi and Christian Dior bags and shoes are on sale.

The Polar Bear froze when he saw my very excited-don't-know-where-to-attack-first look. Actually he really doesn't need to worry because I don't have the makings of a tai tai, remember? He asked me if I remembered 'Hunting World' tee shirts which were all the rage when we were really, really young. Now 'Hunting World' had apparently been 'hunted' and one would probably look like a Night Safari zoo keeper with that signature elephant printed tees.

So I get the point. He was trying to drive home the fact that some (key word is some, not all!) designer house simply cannot withstand the test of time. I cannot dispute that indeed, but I like the designs, not the logos!

Anyway, too tired to post the tale of Auckland. I will do that after I finished the 101 things to prepare for home return. Counting down! 10 more days... woo hoo!

Money talk

2008-06-25T19:48:00.003+12:00

Maybe my lamentation about the 'self torture' I had inflicted upon myself over my further studies had created the impression that I am doing it even though I don't like it. So one may question the motivation behind this seemingly illogical move. Is it because you are greedy for money? Yearning for success? Purely for promotions and get a higher pay?

Actually the thought of studying finance in this land for the sake of money almost sound like a joke. People in banking and finance here work for love, not for money. The plumber who came to fix our kitchen tap probably gets paid more than me. If money is my sole and only aim, I should be learning how to fix up taps, not fixing investment portfolios.

Undeniably, people strive for success. People work for money as a form of recognition and improvement on one's standard of living. I am not a saint hidden in some lama cave on a Tibetan mountain, so I admit with no qualms that these driving factors applies to me too. And I don't deny the fact that in this world we live in, money is important to a certain extent. Even when you want to bless someone with a gift, you need money to purchase it. They don't fall from the skies. However, money is neither the sole nor the main driving force behind the reason why I seek to improve myself through further studies.

Though I whine (which human doesn't?) about reading through the nights and burning my weekends doing term papers, I genuinely enjoy the process of learning and exploring my passion in the investment field. I enjoy the fact that I am tapping on the potential and capability God had planted in me. Maybe this strange passion for loving your field of work is an alien concept in the current working society where the ultimate lifestyle is represented by lottery winning and cease all labour production to rot at home. I cannot fathom how money without hope of greater achievement or goals can be the ultimate lifestyle.

And of course the things that really matter like love, family, true friendship, sensitivity, empathy and a sense of understanding is something that money cannot buy. And most importantly, the salvation earned on my behalf more than 2000 years ago on the cross of Calvary. That was bought by grace, not by money. Which reminds me to be a little more graceful and apply a little more love and a little less judgemental to those around me.

Free again!

2008-06-21T13:17:00.006+12:00

Exams are finally a thing of the past (for now) and I have emerged to see daylight again.

For the last one week leading to my past paper, my mass of brain cells might have degraded into a big chunk of calculator as I did the most finance calculations since my CFA preparation days. Calculate Sharpe ratio. Calculate Standard deviation. Calculate Price Earning Ratio. Calculate Earnings Per Share. Calculate intrinsic value of share A, B, C, D... Z. Calculate! Calculate!!

Despite the hair pulling experience, I didn't even dare to tug at my hair anymore because a numeric button may just fall from the sides of my head. Now that it is all over, I can finally put my legs up and stone after dinner every night. And play no brainer games on my DS lite. And watch the whole series of Amazing Race downloaded by friend. And eat and shop and go watch 'Sex & the City' with Cath (finally!)

Counting down to the day of home return, I have prepared an excel spreadsheet of the things to eat when I am back in Singapore. My colleague, who peeped over my shoulder and caught me smiling at the spreadsheet, shook his head when he saw the list of local food name on it.

I was hoping he would not know it was food typed on that list because surely a local Kiwi could not associate 'laksa, nasi lemak, hokkien mee, char kway teow, satay bee hoon' with food right? However, I think the 'chicken rice, chilli crab, fish soup noodles' does sound English enough to give myself away. I could not interpret the look on his face, if he looked baffled or disgusted or amused or amazed. All I know is he could not stop shaking his head like an Indian after that.

One paper down, more to go!

2008-06-13T23:57:00.007+12:00

Superb. My first examination for this semester falls on today-- Friday the 13th. What an auspicious date for examinations.

10 years after graduation, I find myself a student again sitting for examinations at this side of the planet. It's been a long time since I scribble essay answers madly for 3 hours straight. It dawned on me maybe 10 years really does have an effect on one's stamina and adroitness. You could have chopped my hands off and I would not feel a thing after that examination because they lost all sense of feeling after writing continuously at an average speed of 500 words per minute. Ok, maybe I exaggerated on the speed but how do you measure the speed when you write so fast that your fingers became a mess of blurred image before the answer sheets?

It also dawned on me the strange financial jargon that surrounds my field of work and in the banking and financial sector. For example 'coupon stripping' (strip what?), 'spread' (peanut butter or jam?), 'yield' (to who?), 'futures' (world peace you mean?), 'hawkish/ dovish' (what's those birds got to do with the interest rates?).

Unconventional and lucrative investments are frequently described as 'sexy' and 'exotic' in the financial arena. Bankers must be a bunch of deprived beings to coin aphrodisiac words in most of their vocabulary.

Those of you in the sector, stop laughing and brace yourself because now you do understand how strange those terms must had sounded to our clients stemming from our respectable discussions.

I cannot write anymore. I need to rest before my hands lose their function permanently from over usage.

New toy, new residency status

2008-06-05T20:49:00.006+12:00

My new toy the Polar bear got for me because it's in fuchsia pink! Never mind the features and functions (though 10 mega pixel doesn't sound too bad isn't it?), I like it simply because of its aesthetic appeal to the pinkie in me.

So we drove to a park last weekend to test my new toy and also to entertain my friend who came back to Wellington again for business trip. (Within a span of 1 week she flew through and fro Singapore and Wellington twice. Her company thought they are sending her to Johor Bahru is it?)

The weather had not been fantastic so we didn't drive as far as we had intended. Eventually we drove to this park where said friend could take some 'kiwi-nised' pictures with green pastures and roaming sheep.

Winter had officially started and fallen leaves are now a common sight. Pretty as they are, I totally abominate freezing climate because it takes ages to wear my layers of clothing every morning. In winter, I feel I don't have a neck anymore because they are frequently hidden in my muffler.

In the evening, my friend was invited to our place for some simple home cooked chinese meals which seemed a delicacy given its rarity here. She was impressed with the repertoire of tricks that the Polar Bear can perform ranging from cooking to doing the dishes. Of course I must agree a bear who can cook and wash and do an assorted range of household chores and double up as the main income earner is very impressive indeed! Which bear in the zoo can do that?

In other news, it's been 2 years since the polar bear swam from the tropical land of the Lion City to this windy city at the other end of the planet. 2 years mark meant we have earned the indefinite permanent residency in New Zealand. In other words, we are now free to roam the world and still retain the ability to return to New Zealand anytime to enjoy the benefits of a resident forever and ever amen. They say the world is our oyster but where do we search for our next pearl?

CATS in Wellington!

2008-05-30T22:00:00.007+12:00

Few months ago my boss told me, in a slightly apologetic way, that I had to bring a handful of my clients to the theater musical Cats. He seemed slightly apologetic because I am deemed to be working 'very hard' for business development and client relationship building for events like these since it infringe on my after work hours. So much so that he had tickets prepared for Polar Bear too, to ensure I don't compromise on my personal family time.

I braved a diligent look and said sure! Anything for the company! And tried my hardest to conceal my heart almost leaping out in joy because I am going to Cats!!! Andrew Lloyd Webber’s CATS!!! It's one of the performances I had always wanted to watch, other than Phantom of the Opera. Now my company paid for premium seats and my boss felt apologetic over asking me to go! What has the world come to?? Maybe pigs can really fly in this land.

It was a rather enjoyable night as I dine with my client and the Polar Bear at this award winning restaurant whilst listening to my client's life story over dinner. Of how he came from Europe in the 1960s, how he became musician and played for the legendary ballerina Margot Fonteyn before. How life in New Zealand was like in the 1960s and 70s.

The restaurant serve one of the best and most expensive deserts in town I think. Deserts alone cost close to NZD60 for us and my heart almost failed me with the price but the sheer pleasure of heavenly taste presented in those exquisite plates of sweetness was beyond description.

The performance that followed was great, discounting the fact that some uncultured bear somewhere asked me 'what's with those cats jumping here and there on stage?' It remains a mystery how a cultured person like me married an unappreciative bear like him. I promptly ignored him as I was totally absorbed into the tunes of 'Memory'. 'Memory' remained one of my favourite songs composed by Andrew Webber through the years. The song is simply achingly beautiful.

So that was the night when I had to work overtime in this land and it was almost the first time I loved working overtime so very much.

I am still alive, although I didn't have a life to blog for the last 2 weeks

2008-05-23T20:49:00.011+12:00

I guess I pretty much don't have to state why I had not been blogging for some time because it's the same old story of my studies taking over most of my waking hours other than to eat and work.

My primary school classmate came to Wellington for business and so we met to catch up on memories over 2 decades ago. She was astonished at how cold and far this land is from our sunny little island where we belonged. It's not even winter and the south island had already started snowing!

If we move down south, I am sure the Polar Bear would move back to Singapore faster than I can say 'freeze!' because with all that snowstorm, he would either be deaf from my whining or be declared bankrupt with the heating bills. I switch on every single item in the house that can possibly emit heat these days when I wake up in the morning. Even used the hair dryer in addition to the fan heater to warm my clothes and gloves before putting them on.

So, back to my long lost friend. I might have turned her into a brunch convert like me after bringing her to this swanky cafe bar for Sunday brunch.

This is one of my favourite cafes along Oriental Bay because it is situated right beside the harbour and one literally have meals on top of the waters. On a clear day, the sea is incredibly blue and sipping a cup of coffee (hot chocolate in my case) and indulging in their warm chocolate cake by the windows is pure heaven.

My friend said food in Wellington is surprisingly good and of course I agree because I eat with a passion. I am so passionate about eating that my colleagues came to realise this passion of mine very quickly. My in-house solicitor asked me how does a girl who weighs about 10 pounds (obviously he is either blind, fails his estimation miserably or trying to be funny) eat about 20 pounds of food everyday. Another colleague never fail to shake his head when I eat (yet again!) at my desk. Then I became their tea break topic whilst they debated and analysed where did all that food go? Am I human? Are all Singaporean girls like that? Due to the fact that I am the only Asian girl in the entire Wellington office, they really don't have much of a basis of comparision and concluded Asian/ Singaporean girls have strange eating habits.

They are so amused by my perpetual hunger that one day, a colleague gave me this giant lollipop handmade by a local candy shop. He said it's perfect for me, suits my appetite. The lollipop is the biggest I had seen because it is bigger than my face.

All I do these days is study and eat

2008-05-11T22:25:00.007+12:00

I now realised the kind of deep sh*t I had gotten myself into by taking on double the number of modules for my studies, in a ~~keh kiang~~ brave attempt to finish the whole course in 2 years instead of the usual four for people studying part time.

I don't have much of a life left because after I am done with term paper for module 1, mid term test is due for module 2. After I am done with mid term test for module 2, thesis is due for module 1. After I am done with thesis for module 1, assignment is due for module 2. And the cycle goes on and on, not to mention tons of readings I had been burying myself in after dinner every evening. A colleague from Auckland asked me if I am working full time when she realised I am trying to graduate within 2 years. I didn't realise how brave I was until I saw the looks in her eyes.

Despite pressing deadlines, every weekends my local friends in this foreign land tempted me with the vice I cannot resist. They know I can never say no to food and they simply kept tempting me with meal gatherings week after week. And there are the Sunday brunches I am now so used to that we simply have to go religiously after church every weekend. I am so dead. I just spend all my time eating and panicking over my studies deadlines.

This week's brunch was at a quaint french patisserie where they claimed their French Head Chef was the private Chef of French Ambassadors in New Zealand and in Europe. Even the waiters and waitresses are 'imported' from French with their sexy french accent which I have to strain my ears and roll my tongue for us to have a meaningful conversation.

Their food didn't disappoint indeed. When I ate my dessert, I almost passed out from the pure pleasures of the handmade chocolate contained in that banana and chocolate tart.

I truly believe I have turned into a dark chocolate addict because I get withdrawal symptoms when I don't get my daily fix. Don't ask me what the symptoms are, they are best left unsaid.

I don't have the makings of a 'Tai Tai'

2008-05-02T22:27:00.004+12:00

Like any other normal couples on this planet, the Polar Bear and I have our disagreements and 'quarrels' from time to time. I put 'quarrels' in inverted commas because they are never any shouting matches involved, but silent treatments because usually I am so noisy and talkative around him, when I am silent we are deemed to have 'quarrelled'.

So that day we 'quarrelled' and he didn't think much about it and slept like a log and snored like a pig, which made me grit my teeth in anger and plotting my revenge in my sleep.

The next day I went shopping and was thinking very, very seriously in my head to buy so much things and chalk up a credit card bill so huge, that will make the Polar Bear think twice before he makes me unhappy again. I will show him the power of retail therapy! I will spend his whole month's pay! I will make him pay for making me upset and oblivious to the fact that he had upset me!

In the end, I realised I do not have the makings of a tai tai for I am not heartless enough. The only thing I managed to purchase was a top that cost barely 10 mins of his hourly pay. I will leave my heart at home the next time I want to carry out the revenge plan.

In other news, the temperature drops to 5 degrees Celsius today and indoor temperature is only 9 degrees Celsius now, yet that oblivious bear is walking around the house in a short sleeve tee shirt. I don't know what kind of a body and skin cells does he possess to be able to walk around unprotected in such temperature. I am sure he makes a very interesting specimen for research purposes.

In other additional news, my typing and thinking speed will be put to the test again with another 2 term papers due very, very soon, with each getting increasingly harder than the other. It's due so soon that I don't know why I am still blogging now. I think it is because I must thaw my brain cells. They are now frozen in this stupid crazy weather.

Sleepyhead

2008-04-28T21:40:00.004+12:00

Being deprived of the fats laden, high carbo lunch (read: Char Kway Teow, Nasi Lemak, Roti Prata and the likes) since I arrived in this part of the world, I had been munching on sandwiches, salads and drowning soup for lunch on most days. After one and a half years of deprivation of what is deemed as normal food for a Singaporean girl, I now realised that I can no longer have the usual Asian meals for lunch without dozing off at my desk at the latter half of the day.

This afternoon the Polar Bear brought me to an Asian restaurant for the much craved fried noodles and I find it a great challenge to keep my head steady and eyes fixed on my computer after that. I was so sleepy that I might have dozed off intermittently. I opened my eyes wondering why the computer screen had rotated sideways when it's actually my head (almost) laying on the desk.

Actually it doesn't quite make sense eating Asian food here in Wellington. The other day we ate roti prata, with two miserable pieces of chicken floating in that pathetic saucer of curry (I think the friendly Indian man in the Kopi Tiam back home could do much better) and it cost NZD7= SGD7.50. The cashier told me brightly, this is the 'lunch time special set'.

I don't quite know if I should look grateful or disgusted. $7.50 for 1 piece of roti prata and 40ml of curry!! Back home, with $7.50 I could have eaten 10 pratas and top with 1 litre of curry I think. Or with the record high of over 6% inflation rate in Singapore for the past year, I can only eat 5 pratas now with $7.50. But still! That's 5 times what I'm getting here! Maybe I cannot blame the Kiwi prata man. He is a foreign talent in this land, so of course he has to charge 'expatriate' prices for his pratas.

The next time when I'm back in Singapore, chomping on my favourite Char Kway Teow, Nasi Lemak and Roti Prata and consequently mumble some sort of nonsense to you friends thereafter, please pardon me. If that happens, it is only because I am sleepy

Life should be fair, a couple should hold the same logic.

2008-04-18T21:16:00.005+12:00

The Polar Bear says he wants to buy this SLK on sale, and his desperate attempt to convince me to 'approve' the purchase is we will enjoy savings of a grand total of $120,000 if we compare the price in New Zealand versus the price of the same car in Singapore. He said we only live once! We must enjoy! Buy the toy!

This is how a normal, practical, sound minded man can turn desperate and illogical. Just dangle an adrenaline induced toy in front of him and he can come up with nonsensical and irrational comparisons.

Going by the Polar Bear's logic, I should get my friend who goes to Europe to buy LV bags for me. If I compare the price in Europe versus the price of the same bag in New Zealand, on average I will be able to save $300 per bag. SO, I need to buy 400 bags to save a grand total of $120,000! We only live once! We must enjoy! Life is too short to repeat my bags in a year.

If he can agree with my proposal, I will agree with his.

Weekend Brunches

2008-04-14T21:22:00.012+12:00

The weather over the weekends was all sunny and wonderful, thus it had been an eventful carbohydrates and fats laden weekend with us dining out at restaurants and al fresco cafes for 3 consecutive days (Friday night included).

Ever since we moved to this part of the planet, Sunday brunch became almost a weekly routine. In New Zealand, most restaurants and cafes worth their salt (pun intended) serve rather scrumptious weekend brunch, mostly in traditional western way, some in modern fusion styles. Although nothing replaces the loves of my life, like Katong laksa! East Coast satay bee hoon! Loy Kee chicken rice! No signboard chilli crabs! and any piping hot char kway teow, but a Singaporean girl in a foreign land has to make the best of what she has, right?

In all honesty, I really enjoy my weekly brunches, with gourmet salads and incredibly sinful yet divine deserts; sipping a cup of hot chocolate or the occasional flat white (I hyperventilate if I drink too much coffee. Strange I know), and picture perfect scenery as the backdrop. I guess in moments like these, it does make sense why we took the road less travelled and came to New Zealand.

After the Saturday brunch we took a walk along the Eastbourne beach, located at the opposite end of Wellington city, where some residents commute to work via ferry (I think??) Judging by the distance we drove (more than 25km I reckon) it seems so much nearer to travel through the harbour than to drive through the highway to reach Eastbourne.

On Sunday we reckon record high petrol prices does not gel with long distance driving, hence staying within the city for brunch after church sounds like a good idea. We went to Oriental Bay with its numerous waterfront cafes and harbour view looking pretty with sailboats in the background.

One day I want to learn sailing, because my colleague took a 9 weeks holidays (!!!) to sail to Antigo and I am just so fascinated with his tales retold through his random emails. I am also equally fascinated with the patience of his clients who hold millions of investments with our company and calmly waits for his return in the midst of the financial turmoil apparent in the market now. I am living in a strange part of the world indeed.

A series of unfortunate events

2008-04-10T22:15:00.004+12:00

On the rare occasion when I have to drive to work by myself, I have to go through a series of mishap which officially confirms the Polar Bear should be my chauffeur for life.

So the Polar Bear flew to Auckland for work this morning, and whilst driving to work I realised I had lost an unique and very useful skill of mine-- doing make up with one hand and driving with the other hand.

I used to have this wonderful skill of multi-tasking on the road when I was a mortgage banker in my early working days. Being perpetually on the go, I used to be able to do all sorts of wonderful and near impossible feats in the car. Doing my make up, having my meals, taking phone calls, writing down client's details, and even calculating with the financial calculator and closing deals while driving. Today I find myself late for work because I find the balancing act of applying the mascara and maneuvering the steering wheel too much of a challenge in the morning traffic.

Late for work, never mind. When I finally knocked off from work, I could not find the stupid car keys. I practically had to invert my whole bag of rubbish and still couldn't find it. What I found instead were an assorted range of rubbish, such as expired vouchers, shopping receipts stashed away (from the sight of the Bear), name cards of people whom I can barely remember, muesli bars, chocolates, vitamins... I think Doreamo (小叮当) will be put to shame with that bag of mine, because the treasures I can find in my bag probably far exceeds that of his infamous pouch.

So I spend the next half an hour searching for my keys, and having to walk through and forth the carpark and the office multiple times. In the end, I accidentally lost my balance on the uneven grounds and fell on my knees, before I found the darn keys hidden by the side compartment. So I ended up driving through the very heavy traffic with my half limping leg.

Next time the Polar Bear can't drive me to work, I should just take the taxi and charge the $50 bill to him.

Oh yes, for the benefit of those who are considering travelling to New Zealand for a holiday, taxi drivers here takes you for a ride, literally. A 15mins' distance drive from the city to home would cost me more than NZD50 if the traffic is smooth. They must be using special oxygen in the cabs where you can inhale it in and exhale out hard cash, not carbon dioxide.

Balloon Fiesta

2008-04-04T22:46:00.006+13:00

With my term papers due, and a mid term online test on Sunday (of all days!! However that's the only day any normal, working professionals will be free to take a test for their post grad studies), I find myself blogging news long overdue.

Despite pending tests and assignments and a truck load of readings to catch up, I bravely ignored them and went to the Balloon Fiesta held annually at Wairarapa. We missed it last year and therefore I was rather determined to catch it this year.

Somehow the event seemed to be susceptible to bad weather. It had been sunny all week, but come Saturday when people should be out having fun, it poured so heavily I could hardly see where the car was heading.

I was beginning to suspect this balloon fiesta had a curse on the weather like how I had a curse on all flora nature where nothing survives under my not-so-green ~~clutches~~ fingers. Oh, did I mention my coriander plant died after barely a week despite being placed in the sunniest spot in the kitchen? I spent NZD2.50 on that pot of hopeless plant, thinking I will have a never ending supply of coriander to garnish my food, but ended up with only a few coriander leaves sprinkled on my pasta for that week.

Anyway, I digress. So despite the downpour, we stormed towards Masterton to watch these hot air balloons because that is a good 100km away from Wellington and I strongly believe, with all of my heart, that we can travel faster than the dark heavy clouds. And I was right! It was overcast, but not raining, when we reached the event site.

It was quite interesting to see how they set up the hot air balloons and lighting them against the evening skyline. The spectacular fireworks at the end of the event wrapped the event up rather nicely, but my very cheap, very amateur camera was not capable of capturing it in the best angle possible.

If leopard is a zodiac sign, that will be my horoscope

2008-03-26T22:47:00.003+13:00

On Good Friday, I thought to myself I've got 4 days of holidays ahead of me, so I thought nothing of the term paper due soon for my post grad studies.

On Saturday, I was in self denial mode as I played the DS lite for a full hour for every 5 mins spent on researching for the term paper. Then I told myself the 2 liner brain storming ideas was miraculous and brilliant enough for me to have an early night's sleep and slept like a log through the night.

On Sunday, I happily skipped to church and happily skipped to a friend's house for steamboat dinner with the usual suspects. So we ate and drank and laughed and talked and the last thing on my mind was my impending term paper. Eating is obviously way more important than a term paper.

So I spent 3 days procrastinating over the Easter weekends and I finally got down to type frantically away on Easter Monday to gave birth to my paper there and then. Almost fainted from exhaustion from the speed my ideas from the brain had to make their way to that word document.

They say a leopard never changes its spots. Now I am reminded how I acquired lightning speed in typing out word documents. They were born during my varsity days 1 day before my term papers were due.

Easter, is to type frantically away for some poor soul who take on further studies

2008-03-21T22:24:00.009+13:00

Happy Easter everybody!

In New Zealand, Easter is dominated by Easter chocolate eggs and hot cross buns. There were Easter eggs floating around in my office almost everyday for the past 1 week. My colleague even jokingly teased me that she is going to teach me the 'standard Kiwi way' of slurping up a creme egg, which was politely declined so I can preserve my image in the office.

This Easter holidays, I am holed up in Wellington because I am going to Auckland for holidays in June, and back to Singapore for 5 weeks in July. 4 days of break and I am going nowhere.. sob!

The Polar Bear promptly reminded me, that my full time job is a Trust Manager and by the way, I am also studying for my post grad at the company's expense now. SO.. maybe, perhaps, possibly, I should really consider doing some serious work and stop thinking about where to holiday next! And he also ~~nagged incessantly~~ gently reminded me that my term papers are due soon and I should really get down to it and Stop! Playing! the Nintendo DS lite.

I almost broke out in cold sweat when I realised I need to retrieve from my 10 years' rather rusty and distant varsity memory on the format of quoting bibliography for standard papers and thesis. Maybe I should take that Bear's advice and start getting down to serious work. I will start tomorrow. But how many of us know that tomorrow is always... tomorrow... there is always a tomorrow!

The reason why Japanese Yen is so strong now

2008-03-15T23:04:00.004+13:00

The week that my mum flies to Japan for her holidays see USDJPY hitting a 13 year low and broke the 100 level mark.

As the saying goes, like mother, like daughter. Wherever the mother and daughter duo goes, the currency of that country invariably appreciate. Maybe next time I should simply inform my friends and ex colleagues in Treasury and FX trading on our travel plans, that might prove to be more accurate than their technical analysis on the Bloomberg charts.

To help to boost Japan's retail numbers and inflation, I assigned mum the role of my personal shopper and gave her an incredibly long shopping list of Japan cosmetics and skincare products. I wanted to get her to buy me flower motifs and diamante for my mobile phone, ipod and DS lite too but realised mum is actually there to tour, not on a shopping mission impossible for her daughter trapped in the faraway land.

I can literally hear my sister's exasperated sigh when I called her and ask her to check her email now! Print out the email now! Give it to mum asap! Tell mum to show it to the Japanese cosmetics sales girl! Must remember! Remember!! MUST. NOT. FORGET!!! I finally stopped repeating myself after sis said I sounded like a broken down record.. and commented something along the line of 'the youngest is always the most troublesome in the family!!'

My incorrigible shopping addiction was manifested at a recent informal function held in a shop selling an exclusive New Zealand skin and bodycare range of products. Then I have to resort to telling Polar Bear the bagful of products I brought home were all door gifts, in a very desperate attempt to explain why I need to buy more toiletries when what I have at home will probably last me the next 5 years.

My plot failed miserably because the Bear was not convinced that any small little informal function will have a whole row of door gifts like these:

On the way to (pretending to) be a chic gaming techie

2008-03-11T23:00:00.007+13:00

The Polar Bear just placed an order on the internet for my Nintendo PINK DS Lite. *beams*

The nice thing is, it's a gift for no special occasion, but a mere response from the Polar Bear to my (very loudly) declaration of how wonderful it would be to play games on my long haul flights back to Singapore! How pretty a pink console will look in those pretty hands of mine! (declaration: I am normally NOT this bimbotic... but a weakness for most things pink is something I didn't manage shake off since childhood.)

The mean thing is, when I kept asking him, in an admittedly irritating tone, to name one occasion to mark the gift, he replied, in an equally irritating tone, 'This is Bumper-Damage Gift'. Some people just can't get over the fact that some wives bang cars inevitably.

I told the Polar Bear I want to make my DS Lite look like this:

I think he is starting to foam in the mouth now. Some men are just so sensitive to all things bling. They are just a few pieces of stones what.

Wrong ingredients in all the wrong places

2008-03-06T19:22:00.004+13:00

I would say my non existent culinary skills is born ever since I moved to this part of the world. However that skill set of mine has a pretty narrow range, which is restricted within the realm of stewing and boiling and certainly nothing that involves oil or frying of any sorts.

However, this afternoon I had this sudden craving and inspiration for fried noodles. In my highly imaginative mind, I already had the procedures and steps on how to achieve the fried noodles flashing repetitively in my mind since lunch time. Therefore when we reached home, I told the Polar Bear that I will cook dinner tonight! I have plans in my head on how to make that happen!

So my first step was to sauté the crushed garlic. That is the basic step to achieve the aroma and taste, right? I know how to cook after all! After which I poured in the rest of the ingredients and mixture of sauce which produced an end product that sadly looked rather unappealing. And somehow the garlic didn't give off that usual appealing smell which the Polar Bear normally achieves. I thought I must had used the wrong level of heat, and made a mental note to self to turn up heat next time when I sauté garlic.

Then the Polar Bear told me to pass him the crushed garlic from the fridge for preparation of another dish. I passed that to him and he told me... Baby, that is ginger.

...
...
...

So, I had sautéed the ginger instead of garlic in my fried noodles. No wonder there was no garlic smell! And, I poured in way too much water, with soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, and all the rest of the sauces I can find in the condiments compartment. My fried noodles then looked like a cross between hokkien mee and mee siam.

I think there is no suitable English word to describe the taste of that weird looking dish I had created. It just taste... weird. Strange. Horrid. Yaks.

Yet, the Polar Bear finished everything in that humongous plate of his. I think his taste bud has been officially spoilt by my cooking.

Simple Pleasures

2008-03-02T22:35:00.015+13:00

The start of March signals the beginning of Autumn in New Zealand. As a form of self denial that my favourite season of the year is slowly but surely coming to an end, I was still pretty much travelling out over the weekends and engaging in the usual summer activities.

The Polar Bear and I, together with my colleague and her husband, arranged to have Sunday Brunch at Alana Estate, a vineyard offering fine dining in the Martinborough region. Though it is rather unimaginable to drive over 1 hour just for a Sunday Brunch, but the winery region never fails to allure me with their great wine and food, scenery along the way and the pure atmosphere of sipping quality wine whilst dining in the al fresco restuarants set within the vineyards.

These are the things I love about staying in New Zealand, for such simple pleasures of life are not easily accessible from the other side of the planet where I came from.

En route, we went to a mushroom farm selling gourmet flat mushrooms that looked distinctively like Portobella mushrooms. I've never really seen such pretty and fresh mushroom with near perfect shape and colour. You really need to go right to the farms to source for the freshest produce, because they look so different from the ones in supermarkets.

I thought nothing much of the incredibly strong wind that day, until we reached Alana Estate and the waitress told us the power supply was disrupted by the strong wind(!!!) Now, this is bad because when you drive for over 1.5 hrs for food, power cuts doesn't go down too well as a reason for denial of the anticipated enjoyment.

Seeing our very distressed and hungry faces, the waitress then called a nearby cafe and sent us over for our first meal of the day. To cut a long tragic story short, let's just say even 3 yrs ago, when I didn't know how to operate a rice cooker, I think I would be able to cook better than that.

We then explore the other vineyards for more drinks and food because we certainly couldn't be heading home after that pathetic meal. God must had given in to my prayers ringing nonstop in His ears, because we stumbled upon this quaint, pretty vineyard, Vynfields, hidden somewhere within the area.

I would recommend this vineyard to anyone travelling near Martinborough as we simply love the place, with its European inspired Villa and dining area, great wine and atmosphere. They serve a flight of wine which cost only NZD15 for 5 half glasses, and great cheese and dips with bread to go with it. The range of cheese in New Zealand is amazing.. Brie, Camembert, Blue, Feta, etc. I guess this is what you can expect in a land where the population of cows and human beings are almost on par.

I had always enjoy going to the Martinborough region and I think we will drive 1.5 hrs to Alana Estate again. We just need to assess the wind direction the next time and make sure the power is up and running.

If there is no power again, I am going to ask the chef to cook with the heat emitting from the car engine.

The fate I suffered

2008-02-29T20:41:00.007+13:00

SO. I knocked my car again. Well, it's not something new, except that this time it is so bad that it broke my personal record in terms of repair cost. Oh, discounting that record when half of the car was smashed at the junction in Singapore which I actually emerged unscathed and jumping off the car instantaneously, scolding the blind bat who crashed onto my beloved little car. That record doesn't count because it was covered by the blind bat's insurance... So, I still set a new record after all.

And this morning I text my boss, that I banged the car and need to fix it urgently, so I'll be in late. When I finally arrived in the office after dumping that car in the workshop, I began to suffer the consequence of widespread broadcasting of my half baked driving skills by my dear boss. He showed my text (which he thought was pretty hilarious) to the whole office, including the National Manager, who is essentially my 'big big' boss.

The consequences I suffered, in no particular order:
1) My colleague sticking a huge 'L' plate behind my chair.
2) Another colleague pretending to steer clear from me, and in his own words: " Don't bang onto me.. doooonnnn't!!!" He went on to maintain a radius of at least 50metres away from me throughout the day.
3) Said colleague went on to hum something along the line and tune of 'chitty bang bang chitty bang bang...'
4) People asking me 'how bad is my car', everywhere I go. At my desk. In the pantry. In the toilet. I was afraid if I see the toilet cleaner, she may ask me that million dollar question too.
5) I earned a new nickname-- 'Bang Bang'.

I discovered my boss's new found skills. He is more effective than the radio or classified ad. His broadcasting skills really does seemed more effective than the traditional mode of media.

My colleagues couldn't stop laughing the whole day. So I paid 2 days' wages to the repair man for a day of laughter for my colleagues. Well done.