Home for the Chinese New Year holidays

I thought I was prepared this time around. I shopped early, got my gifts for family early, dragged luggage out and put stuff inside early...

Then life threw me a spanner, at our year end party at the Sheraton Taipei no less, my handbag was stolen from my chair. All of us had our bags on our chairs. My bag was still there as I was snapping pictures of my colleagues. Last I saw my bag, I'd put my camera back into my bag just before going on stage to pick up our prize (marketing team performed a little song+skit as part of the celebrations). And during that half hour of madness when we were celebrating our win, my bag was snitched. Within it, my wallet, digital camera, mobile phone and house keys.

Thankfully it was Emily again (from the Citibank/Alexander gym fiasco) who started demanding/yelling at the hotel staff before an official search was done. We did everything we could, searched the ballroom, searched employee lockers, reviewed their very poor quality grainy security surveilance cameras, finally lodging a police report at close to midnight. Finally calling a 24hour locksmith to break into my home and to change my locks.

Grateful to Emily for taking charge, GH for being with me through it all until almost 2am after the locksmith changed my locks, Jason my realtor who drove by at midnight to see if he had backup keys to my building main door (he did!), Rae (furiously surfed the web for 24hr locksmiths), & the EWC committee who were most sympathetic and kept checking back for news from Sheraton.

Actually the whole department sympathetic. People see me and ask me with concern in their tone if I've recovered my bag yet. Senior management came by to express their regrets etc. Taipei is really safe, where everyone leaves their bags unattended (not the wisest perhaps, but it's done all the time), perhaps there's still hope. Please pray with me.

Yeah, my current team is making a lot of difference - everyone's nice. Guess that's the silver lining in this whole icky mess.

I'll be home later tonight and it's going to be 2 weeks of fun & games. As a friend once told me, it's going to be 'sports day' everyday! Yay1