Record breaking system team meeting

System team meeting ended at 9.26am this morning. I was on the phone for almost 2 hours. A record!

A little hike with colleagues

Kalpana & I been talking abt visiting the Treetop Walk (Macritchie Reservoir) for over a year. Took a long time to get it onto our calendars, postpone a few times, added Steph & Jenn before we did it last Friday.

There we were happily yakking and walking when Jenn suddenly stops talking mid-sentence, screams and grab me. Neon blue snake right under her foot - fully stretched out across the path. Turns out the Malayan Coral Snake is highly venomous. It didn't even move amidst the screaming, eventually it got bored and slowly slittered back into the jungle. Creepy.

Rest of walk went uneventfully. So who says there are no more wildlife in Singapore?

Sanity Break Today

Starting to feel a little under the weather and decided to take a mid-week break. It was nice to sleep in - until my mobile rang at 11am and I had to drag myself out of bed to login email to resolve an issue. *Groan*

Too late to make it to mid day mass, decided to go buy a dress for Ian's wedding. Very decadent to go shopping in the day! There's absolutely nobody around. Saw a blue dress - pretty wedding like in Warehouse. It's $239... maybe I should look around more. Question : why do shops sell winter clothing in sunny Singapore? Ok, so it is Autumn elsewhere, but who's gonna buy furry jackets here, regardless of fashion season!

Still feeling fluey.. , torn between a nap & a nice massage. Decided to do both - might as well max out my leave). Eunice at Strong Massage is different from the China masseurs I'm used to. Firstly, it's called a sports massage, and she's a trained physiotherapist. So she gets to the sore muscles spot on. Heaven...

300km to climb plastic...

Against the grain, I woke up early on a Saturday - the only day in the week I get to sleep in. Jumped on a bus, hurtle down the NE Highway into KL to climb in a plastic gym. I know I know... how desperate does one get for a holiday?

Everyone was eager to go straight to climb, so we went complete with luggage to Camp 5 - in One Ultama shopping mall.

At 3pm, a huge lightning/thunder-white-out kind of storm started. At that point, I felt a little comforted that I didn't insist on climbing Nyamuk. Probably need to swim out...

There were so many climbs, and traffic was stucked up (from the huge sky windows of the gym), we decided we'll leave at 8pm when the gym closes. Ok ok, Paul and Derek needed to climb til they can't wave. Some 12 climbs later (Paul & Derek of cos), rest of us mustered perhaps 6 climbs.

Paul was so pleased with his last climb (6b+ scary sloper galore route on lead), he bought us all dinner in a Chinese restaurant - complete with suckling pig.

After checking into our 3bedroom apartment, we ventured out at 12.30am for some foot massage. The foot massage was passable - but the shoulder rub made up for it. Heaven.

Then it was 300km, 5hours home.

Strangely good weekend.

Beijing 27 Aug to 2 Sep

My first trip to China. Thanks again to HP!

The leadup to BB5 was a little stressful. But once there, setup went smooth, and the event went uneventfully.

I took 2 days off to view the sights of BJ and I listed my likes and dislikes of BJ.



Top 5 Likes
1. Massage service (esp the guys at Wangfujing Street - boy do they live up to their 'Magic Hands' shop name)
2. Rich history and culture. I really enjoyed our tour of the Forbidden City
3. Catching up with Nee Ching. Nice to see me old teammate, visit her home and a great dinner together.
4. Climbing the Great Wall. I never knew it was built into mountains! How'd they build it without cranes and power tools?!
5. Hanging out with colleagues. Steph, Karine, NC, Joan, Terence, CK, Sunil... were great people. I remember almost toppling over the huge steps of the Great Wall as I was laughing so hard.

Top 3 Dislikes
1. Having to speak Mandarin everywhere. I need to brush up my spoken Mandarin - had 1 too many gaffes as a results.
2. Polluted air, dirty everywhere.
3. Food - Must it always be either too salty, oily or fire-hot, often all at the same time!

Do I think I can survive working in Beijing? Hmm...

1st Race of 2006

My opener race of 2006 - Army Half Marathon. Did a decent time of 2.57. Everyone clocked slower times as the race takes us thru Orchard Road and we had to constantly stop for traffic. Which was good for me as my ITB started to ache again around the 10k mark.

After race, went home, showered, packed and flew to Beijing for a work trip. Thank goodness for the excellent masseurs in BJ! Managed to setup and do the show pretty smoothly and then climbed the Great Wall on Day 3. I am now officially a hao han! Applied leave to extend out with my colleagues so we managed to see the numerous palaces and immerse a little in China's very rich and historical culture. I am now a little more motivated to improve on my spoken Chinese!