Ha... back online again

Yes.. I am finally changing the skin of my blog. I hate the old one...

and I will start blogging again...

my hOng kOng gastronOmy inDulgence - Day 1

Long time since I blogged... well nothing new. As usual.. busy at work. It's the year end madness.. month of October had been horribly tight schedules. In any case, it's over and ended with a business trip to Hong Kong. And I extended for the weekend for a couple of days rest and gastronomy indulgence...

Tres arrived on Thursday but I had to leave her alone for the whole day as that's the day of the event... the gala dinner only ends at 10pm and by the time I joined her at the Ramada Kowloon was already midnight. I was rather shocked by the space in Ramada Kowloon. Guess it was the luxury of staying at 5-star Conrad HK... erhmmm ... the spacious room, the nice fluffy quilt and roomy super super single bed. Well I expected the difference and didnt really matter as we spent very little time in that small room.

Day 1 - Macau and Mong Kok
We started the day at about 9 plus with breakfast at one of the cafe or 'Chai Cang Tang' in cantonese. I had wanton noodles and Tres had egg tart and pineapple topped bun (polou bao). Both of us had the 'Yuan Yeung' - their version of tea and coffee mixed together. Breakfast was not too bad...
price... about HKD 50 plus for both of us. (think so... I dont think was that an expensive breakfast!!)

After breakfast, we made our way by foot to the China Ferry Terminal to take the Fast Ferry to Macau. We took the 11.30am ferry and arrived at 12.30pm... didnt realise that it was an hour journey. Well, after breakfast and still recovering from post event exhaustion, I took every opportunity to nap....hahhhah... probably took a 10 - 15 min nap.

Ticket price:
From Kowloon To Macau - HKD 137
From Macau to Kowloon - HKD 140
Total cost - HKD 277 per person.








Like all tourist destinations, the minute we exited the immigration, we were approached by taxi drivers offering us transportation at special price. Thankfully Tres and I prefer to find our ways around. We flashed out our maps and the book from Michelle, identifying the destination that we want to go and the various bus numbers that will bring us there. We didn't have much problems with the bus ride... we arrived at the famous Macau landmark...
Ruins of St. Paul's and the Museum. We also took a walk to the fortress nearby the Ruins. Was a bit of climbing of stairs in a hot day.

Ruins of St. Paul's
All that remains of the greatest of Macau's churches is its magnificent stone facade and grand staircase. The church was built in 1602 adjoining the Jesuit College of St. Paul's, the first Western college in the Far East where missionaries such as Matteo Ricci and Adam Schall studied Chinese before serving at the Ming Court in Beijing as astronomers and mathematicians. The church, made of taipa and wood, was brilliantly decorated and furnished, according to early travelers.

The ruins are regarded as the symbol of Macau and now offer visitors a new site where they can view the remains of the former Church of the Mother of God, visit a Crypt where the relics of the Martyrs of Japan and Vietnam rest, and a museum of Sacred Art where there are exhibits of paintings, sculptures and liturgical objects from churches and monasteries in the City.


Mount Fortress
Mount Fortress, built in 1617-26, occupies a hilltop to
the east of the ruins of St. Paul′ s. It was constructed
by the Jesuits as part of a complex which also included
the college and church of St. Paul′ s. The canons were
used only once, when the Dutch invaded Macau in 1622. This was also the first residence of the governors of Macau. Over the following decades trees grew from the platform of the fort, which was transformed into a public park where residents and visitors came to enjoy the views.


We walked through the Senado Square Area for food.... Senado Square is the main bustling area in central downtown on the northern side of Av. Almeida Ribeiro (New Road) where a great number of shops and food stalls line the street.



Food... that's our favourite agenda. As we walked along the streets, we tasted the Almond cookies. There were few shops selling all the famous almond cookies.. well I'm not a big fan of such traditional cookies and of course not knowing which is the famous brand there.

We decided on a Chinese restaurant for our tea cum lunch at 3 plus. What did we have??? Let me recall...ha ... we had liver and slice fish porridge, vegetables and fried noodles. The food was ok.. can't say it's fantastic. Total cost? less than 200HKD definitely.

Nexyt agenda after lunch was to rush to the Sandz Casino... but the bus that we took will not bring us directly to Sandz. We only had about an hour to make our way to Sandz and make our way back to Harbour to catch our ferry back to Kowloon at 5.30pm. So we decided not go rush and made our way to the harbour.

Well the reason for coming back to Kowloon early was because we wanted to have our seafood dinner in Sai Kung. The sad thing was giving up the idea of not going to Sandz, we didnt manage to find our way to Sai Kung. I had instructions from my local friend to take the mini bus from bus stop in front of Golden ERA Plaza at Mong Kok but no one seem to know where Golden ERA Plaza is... so we gave up after an hour of searching of that bus stop. In the end we went to Temple St. for dinner. But before we reached Temple St. we found our most important shop along Nathan Road. Well, how can I retun to Singapore without Hang Heung 'Lo Po Beng' aka old wives biscuit?? We didnt buy most of the items yet but at least we know the location so that we can quickly come to the shop on Sunday before we fly off... buy the fresh biscuilts home.

Hmmm... talk about dinner at Temple St. My sister Joanna told me that along Temple St there is a very yummy claypot or in Hong Kong they call mini-pot rice. We found the stall without any problem... it's a cramp place and small tables by the roadside. We shared the small table with a local couple who constantly looked at Tres and myself. We had salted fish with chicken cubes claypot rice, prawns and clams. The name of these prawns... in literal translation as prawns that cant control their bladder??? hahha I know Tres gave a better name but I cant remember... I just wondered why these prawns are called " Lai Lew Ha" in cantonese.

These prawns wont easy to peel... very thankful to Tres who peeled all the 8 - 10 prawns.

In the midst of our dinner, we experienced a sudden light rain. Luckily its not the Singapore way of downpour. Few large drops came down and we just continued with our food. We panic for a while but the shop didnt look like they are able to move us into shelter. So we figured we should just quickly eat and leave...hahahh who knows by leaving in a hurry we could forget to pay. Oh...no we didnt do that of course!!!!









Total price - approximately HKD90.

End of Day 1... we ended the evening with yummy dinner... hmmm very contented and we took a very long walk back to hotel and did some shopping at the same time cos it's walking along the entire stretch of Nathan Road. Think we burned off quite a bit of calories.

catching up of the clipper crew with skipper

we had a good time catching up as a team and meeting our skipper too. For those like me who completed our journey earlier and had been back in Singapore for so long that it didnt feel like that we sailed across any oceans at all.

All thanks for Sentosa Development Corp for sponsoring dinner and venue at Island Deckers... nice chill place. And here are photos for remembrance...

That's me and my Skipper, Richard Falk

And here's the small part of the big family - Singapore Crew and Skipper

and pretty gals and a bear!!!

The best part of the whole adventure is meeting this bunch of my new sailing friends and now we sail together as often as we could. Well, the whole journey is an experience that will always be part of my memories of my life.... No regrets even though that journey had been a tough one!

I should work less

i am pretty close to giving up... it's too much on my plate that i really cant take it any more...

I am losing my cool at myself, at clients and my boss... absolutely unlike me... it's been so bad that I am just about to give up... so so tired... sigh!!! shall i bear with it till the end of the year or shall I just give up? however I do feel bad about leaving them in a lurch...

well my friends, you know what i mean...

I hate the coming months

arghh.... my life will be really miserable for the next few months... and pls pray for my sanity. Think will be losing it soon...

Not sure if I really did give up a good opportunity but I did give up one recently.

Well well... I just hope that the next good one, I won't repeat history.

been sailing.... what else...

sail sail sailway... I've been busy sailing at the annual Western Circuit for the past 3 weekends... I've been sailing on a boat called "Rainbow Dream". Ah.. as name says... our spinnaker is rainbow colour too.


We came in overalll second place in the Pleasure Yachts division. The race ended last evening wtih results and prize giving. But the only disappointment this year was no more free flow of wine and beer... organisers and sponsors have probably realised that sailors drink like fishes and more is never enough...hahahha

any how, I went down to the team's favourite hangout place at Boat Quay for post celebrations. Some of the crew took loads of photos while we were in action sailing.... will post them up in the next blog.



And I've decided to sail for Phuket King's Cup in Decemeber. That should be good fun with lots of drink parties...ooohhh hoooo... hhehehhe. But before December I have to live through busy and exhausting months - September, October and November.

I need a string to tie my HP around my neck...

Great... I dropped my handphone yet again.. this time, the screen on the front is blurred out. And I am so busy now to send my phone for repair. .... just great....!!!

arghh.... HP and I dont go very well this year!!! sucks big time...

Pulau Perhentian - Diving Trip

Where is Pulau Perhentian? That's the reaction which I got from my colleagues and some other friends. I think Pulau Redang is probably more popular than Pulau Perhentian who is a close neighbour to Redang. But it was a long journey from Singapore to Terengganu. Thankfully on the way to Merang Jetty, we took Konsortium. The seats were pretty comfortable and I could sleep for about a good 8 hours. I must say I was lucky to be able to sleep well compared to my friends... Well Tres had to climb over me to get out in order to get out..ahhaha



Thats Cheryl and I on our way to Pulau Pehentian on a speed boat. The speed boat ride took about 30 min. I'm sure the boat could go faster if not for the number of people we had onboard






oooo... can see the clear blue water!!!








My dive trips... I did a total of 5 dives instead of the paid 6 (erhmm was too lazy to do 3 dives in a day!!!) Refresher dive was pretty fun and a good recap for me. Much needed since the last dive I had was in March 2000.

here's a map of the Perhentian islands - Kecil (small) and Besar (big). We stayed at New Cocohut Chalets which is located on the big island.






This is the Scubaholic dive sites board and the daily dives. So every morning, we will come here to check out our dive sites, dive masters and dive mates... or at least for me. Cheryl and Tres did their Open Water together so it was always just both of them and their dive instructor, Mikiko Ando







Here's the Instructor signing off in our log books.









Dive 1 - Puah Reef which is located about 5 minutes away from Cocohut. Maximum depth was 16.3m. Not that fantastic corals and fishes. We didn't see any exciting marine life such as sting rays, sharks, giant turtles etc. I only saw the usual red sponge corals, algae spikeweeds, the typical tropical fishes. I did this dive with a british couple and my dive buddy is the dive master.

Dive 2 - D'Lagoon. Shallow place with pretty nice marine live. The maximum depth we went was 13.5m. I did this dive again with the british couple and dive master.

Dive 3 - Romantic Reef. Pretty shallow place but not all that romantic as the name. Our Dive master picked up seacows from the seabed... which looked like worms. Again I saw nothing exciting at all.. At almost every reef, we saw the clown anemonefish (it's nemo!!!)... but we saw the various colours of anemonefish. There are actually various colours of the anemonefish and they normally blend in with the reefs that they hide in.

Dive 4 - D'Lagoon. Was getting bored diving with the British couple so I decided to dive with my dearest friends at the reef which I had been to on the first day. Any how, it was fun seeing my friends diving. Guess that's when I found out Cheryl is a sucker for oxygen... she can finish tank of oxygen in 30 odd minutes considering most of us would have at least a third left... and our dearest Tres swims like a seahorse...aahahhah ooops.

Dive 5 - Tokong Laut. Located 30 minutes away from Besar. This had been an exciting dive. It was full moon that day and the current was really strong. I felt like a 5-10 knots in sailing terms. Descending and ascending requires the anchorline. We definitely held on to that line for our lives too. Through my mask I could see clearly how fast the current is sweeping the plankton away.

As we are all only open water divers, the maximum depth that we could go was 18 m. So we hovered around that depth. There were lots more to see at this site. We saw 2 box fishes - shaped like a box as the name says, big trigger fish, big star puffer, bluering angelfish, spotted porcupine fish, lots of clown fishes, yellowback fusilier (think was the kind that nimbled at tres twice and left love bites on her..hehhee)

We could have stayed longer under water but all thanks to our oxygen sucker... had to 'borrow' oxygen from our instructor.... but nothing lost... we manage to catch glimpse of beautiful marine life in this site.

Besides diving, there was nothing much for us to do in the evenings... as usual, we had our entertainment - card games and DVD player / TV (with courtesy from Tres - brought in from Singapore!!!!)








and that's us at breakfast time....




We checked out of CocoHut @ 2pm and hang out at Tuna Bay for our drinks.. the only 2 beer that we had in this whole holidays. Diving has definitely controlled our alcohol content...ahaha. Our bus back to Singapore was @ 9.10pm. So we had lots of time to kill... and thankfully the owner of Cocohut brought us to her house and offered dinner to us too.

Bus ride back was horrible... No more Transnasional buses for me ever again!!

For whatever reasons, I didn't feel rested at all. In fact, I had some infection and subseuqently become kidney infection by today. o well... it's back to reality again!!!

down on luck

yesterday was just not my day...

first... I left my HP at home and was so miserable without my phone. Wanted to have dinner with friends but no numbers in my head to contact them.

second... I made mistake in billing... arghh..which never happened before. And it took us a month to find that out. I thought I was gonna be nagged by my finance... but thankfully, we found out that they never received our original invoice. phew...

third... well the clumsy me... as always... fell off the escalator and ended with a twisted ankle and bruised shin...arghhh... was so embarressing when I fell.... the lady beside me had such a shock when she saw me toppling over. Luckily it was the last 5 steps...hahahhah

oh well... it's me.

the little boy.... my new friend is going to be a year old

Little josh is 11 months and 6 days old now... and counting down to his one year old party. He was in town recently for his uncle Jan's party.... and we had the opportunity to baby sit him so that his mum can have some time to enjoy the dinner. The las time he was here in Singapore was 3 months ago and he was only about 6 months old.

I've decided to blog some of his photos between 6 months to now... see how much he has grown!!!





















































































As usual, he has the company of all the pretty gals whenever he is in town. Now he's back home in Melbourne again.. and he will celebrate one year old in 25 days.

Ooooo... I will miss his birthday celebration and yet again his mummy's birthday too. Well, there's always next year... my excuse... arghhh...

my 'virginal' shisha experience

hahaha.. finally I had a chance to try out shisha... tho I must say I am not good with this... perhaps I smoke cigars better than this!!!

We were at Villa Bali after a Teochew dinner at Tiong Bahru... But I must say that I din enjoy the wine after smoking shisha. Just doesn't go...




photos say it all for me...

a sense of nostalgia

The round the world race has officially ended on Saturday 29 July 2006 at 1230 hrs as they were scheduled to pass in front of the Duke's Mast and will then steam in past in formation surrounded by a flotilla of local yachts before entering Canning Half Tide Dock and Albert Dock where they will moor up in the same spots they left last September before they embark on the race around the world. The race ended with a bang... and I was sad that I could not be there to see the finish and welcome them.

Well I'm sure it will be a little red welcome as the round the worlders return home... good question.. We all do not know when as they all embark on their shore holidays before heading home.

A glance into our shore prize giving parties:

0900 1900 CLIPPER PAVILION OPENS (Next to Pan American Bar)
0900 1000 RACE 13 – FINAL CLIPPER RACE (HOLYHEAD TO LIVERPOOL BAR)

1140 1150 LIVERPOOL 08 DASH
1230 LIVERPOOL 08 DASH FINISH - DUKES MAST
1240 1300 SALUTE TO CLIPPER FLEET
1300 1310 AIR DISPLAY BY GOLD WING
1318 FORMATION STEAM PAST DUKE’S MAST
1330 SUPPORTING FLOTILLA PASSES DUKE’ MAST
1400 1418 CLIPPER YACHTS ENTER CANNING HALF TIDE DOCK
1418 1425 LIVERPOOL 08 ENTERS CANNING HALF TIDE DOCK
1420 AIR DISPLAY BY GOLD WING
1452 CLIPPERS BERTHS IN ALBERT DOCK
1600 1730 PRIZE GIVING ON FLOATING STAGE IN SALT HOUSE DOCK
1830 CREW PARTY COMMENCES IN PAN AMERICAN CLUB – Ticket Holders only
1900 CLIPPER PAVILLION CLOSES

Sunday 30 July

1000 CLIPPER PAVILLION OPENS
1700 CLIPPER PAVILLION CLOSES

new adventures

I am getting bored with just working day in day out... I need a new adventure to look forward and work towards. Working and career seem almost secondary now... accomplishing non-career related stuff seem more satisfying for me.

Does any one have any suggestions.. or should I hop onboard another sail boat again... ??? hahah but one thing I do know is I volunteered to sail for regional races too. My sailing friends invited myself and another US-clipper gal to sail with them on the regional regattas such as the HK-Macau Regattas... hmmmm this sounds like a short term adventure for me.

any how... I need new adventures... perhaps it's time to move on too...hahahahha

am glad to be back sailing ....

oooo... finally I found time to do some sailing again!!! was sailing for the RSYC regatta with a bunch of 'gates' bunch and they are really fun bunch of guys.

we also managed to take some photos.. and as usual parties after sails are horrendous. I probably had overdose of alcohol that I should be banned from them soon...hhahahahah

how time flies.... the round the world race is almost ending

Yeah... it definitely didn't feel like 10 months flew by. Uniquely Singapore came into Jersey 7th having crossed the North Atlantic Ocean again. Arriving into Jersey pretty much marked the end of the round the world race. Our round the worlders are penning their final moments on our diaries now.. and decided to take some interesting excerpts out. They wrote about incidents onboard and how we had to live with those problems... here goes...

Just some excerpts from the diaries...................


Boy Meng (the most courageous man onboard)

If you have been a loyal fan of the Uniquely Singapore diary, you would know that most of our conversations of late have revolved around each others' plans for "after the race". No longer. The hot new topic aboard is..."HEADS". No, not Zidane butting Materazzi with his head, but how the port heads are choked up, and how the starboard head's handle was ripped off shortly afterwards.

Having had to resort to the good old bucket method, yours truly decided to stick my head in and attempt to service the port heads.

Troubleshooting the blockage took only a mere 15 minutes. The outlet hose connecting the toilet bowl out to sea was choked with what looked like solidified concrete. Vincent (who was on mother watch) kindly volunteered to assist in unblocking the pipe. However, when we did a test run, (after ostensibly having cleared all blockages), I was blessed with a jet of remnant excrement, now fluid, via a leaking gasket. Horror of horrors, the "red plastic pieces" I had seen earlier turned out to be undigested chilly flakes! GROSS!

Five hours later, skunk-like, I started working on the port's heads (What did I have to lose? How much more could I reek?). This time lady luck, in the form of Rachel, kindly lent a hand, and all repairs were completed. You can imagine the relief (in more ways than one) when we received Richard's seal of approval after a "sea trial".

Return of morale was short-lived - our one and only working head was soon obstructed again - and we soon went back to passing out buckets of waste products and dumping them overboard. Picture this - guys clinging on for dear life, with one hand on the back stay trying to do their small business over the push pit, ignoring the bright yellow triangular warning on the Sat C antenna - DANGER MICROWAVE RADIATION MIN. Distance of 0.61 metres. Imagine also the looks of revulsion on the faces of our crew, faces red from embarrassment and blue from hypoxia (from not being able to breathe), whilst the more fortunate crew members sit back, commenting on the dietary and health status of those attempting to discreetly dispose of their cargo. All this whilst the more "experienced" crew direct operations, giving first-hand tips on our new heads system.

Girl Meng (the most romantic story that could happen... hahah)

As the Clipper fleet crosses the North Atlantic on the final leg of this Round The World, the thoughts of the crew and conversations on deck began to revolve around post race plans – what will you go back to? Alongside with it, came the anxieties of how we might have changed, how relationships would be affected and how the outside worlds have moved on – after all it has been a good nine months since we left Liverpool on 18 September 2005.

We all joined the Clipper race for different reasons – I have always given the reason that it was a ‘bloody good excuse to leave my job’ (pardon the language) – a stable, rewarding and interesting job at a non-profit organisation, The Singapore International Foundation – where I was feeling that I was becoming too comfortable and losing my edge. So I decided to make sailing around the world a personal odyssey. What did I find?

It has been an over 35,000 mile race, across wide oceans and big seas, landing on six continents and arriving in more than 12 cities. I met with people from diverse backgrounds and different walks of life and listened with humility about their life experiences and shared dreams that I would not imagined before. It has definitely allowed me to explore different worlds - and not just the maritime world; there is the inner world of the self and a close encounter with the globalized world of food. It has not been just plain sailing.

The boats themselves is another story for another time, the tales of high sea and close quartered living with 15 other people on a 68 feet yacht will remain as highlights of an epic adventure with its fair share of highs and lows. But I have enjoyed it enough to want to complete a yacht master training programme with a group of other Clipper sailors in Australia under the instruction of my skipper Richard Falks later in the year.

I fell in love. His name is Stephen Remiens, a kiwi who is sailing on the Durban Clipper. The romance began early in the race - Leg 2 stopover in Salvador, Brazil and it was laced with the usual notes, cards, emails, bouquets of flowers and chocolates. The exception being that the notes and chocolates was always neatly laid out on my bunk by an anonymous crew conspirator while we are out at sea. The emails flowed via seawave.net, a satellite based Internet system. The bouquet of carnations I received in Jamaica were ordered via internet and flown in from Colombia. The chocolates from goodie parcels received from home in New Zealand.

The relationship was strengthened with the long periods of absence at sea when we are racing and short days together exploring new places when we are on shore. It was an extraordinary time for both of us and so I was initially hesitant about our relationship. But at the finish of the race 8 from Victoria to Panama and whilst we were motor sailing after the race to the next port, Stephen jumped ship and proposed at the bow of Singapore Clipper at sunrise along the coast of Mexico. So we are now headed for new destinations after the race.

For me, it will be almost a year to date when the race finishes in Liverpool on 29 July 2006. I left Singapore on 10 August 2005 to join the Uniquely Singapore Clipper at Cardiff for my part C training and subsequently, the start of the race.

David Beevers

Life on board is perhaps a little different than previous legs. The daily routine is the same with the two watches going on and coming off watch. Short periods of sleep and then back to the deck for a further few hours etc,etc. However, this time around, the conversations seem different... the most common topic of discussion is… “What are we going to do once the race is over?”

For the round-the-worlders who have made the Yacht Uniquely Singapore their home for the past year, perhaps the question of what next is perhaps a little difficult to answer.

Certainly taking part in Clipper Round the World Yacht Race aboard Uniquely Singapore has been a fantastic adventure. It is difficult to put in words but for this past year , this race has become 'our life '. Not only for us personally, but also for our families at home who have been out of touch and only know where are and how we are by following the race website. It gets into your heart and soul and is difficult to put down. I have promised my mum and dad, and girlfriend that my next adventure will be somewhat more conventional and safer and will not take me away from home for so long. My love to you all for putting up with me!

James Lim aka Chef

A misfortune befell us yesterday early morning. At about 2am, one hour before watch change, we had an all-hands-on-deck call, because we ripped our 1.5oz spinnaker (a big sail used for downwind sailing usually) into two pieces. It was ripped along the old 'injury' line which was torn in Leg 5.

Within ten minutes, the bigger main portion that was dragging in the water was recovered, and the Yankee 1 (foresail which is similar in size to the main sail) was hoisted.

While we were reorganising the ropes, "Boy Meng" (one of the watch leaders) was sent up the 25m high mast to recover the smaller portion consisting the head of the spinnaker which was still stuck up there. It was no mean feat! The boat was travelling at 10 knots and heeling at about 10 to 15 degrees to one side which was common with foresail.

Furthermore, it was dark and windy - wind speed at about 22 knots. So everyone was very glad that he managed to bring the remaining sail down safely, and praised him for a job well done.

With the halyards free, we could then hoist the 2.5oz heavy weight spinnaker and brought the Yankee 1 down, all in just 8 minutes. As expected, the boat speed was not as good as before. Thus, the next job on hand would be to repair the torn kite.

Round the clock in the salon, the repair team consisting girl Meng and three other crew, started cleaning the torn edges with alcohol. Then the edges were trimmed and joined together using the sail repair tape. Last but not least, sewing machine was used to reinforce the repaired portion. To me the workmanship was comparable to the sail repair professionals. That was why everyone from the skipper, watch leaders to the crew said it was a job well done.

To win a race, other than good tactics, team work, sea state and boat condition (well maintained equipment) play a part too. However, the most important factor is the weather. It is the element that makes a boat move.

Susan Tai aka Dentist

It was during the North Pacific Leg when my fingers and toes were practically numb most of the time due to the extreme temperature of about -25 degrees Celsius with wind chill factor.

That was an unforgettably tough leg. Firstly, we were short of crew. Instead of 18, we had only 12. In addition, half the crew were down either because of broken ribs, broken vertebrae, torn ligaments and other injuries or sick or other excuses. Some just refused to go on deck for watches as they were exhausted or afraid of the conditions on deck.

The bad weather and the coldness didn't help. We had splashes and waves coming onto the boat almost all the time. Everything was wet, we were drenched on deck and below deck damp due to leakages and condensation. Even my little hiding place, my bunk, which was supposed to be the coziest place on board to me, was wet and uncomfortable.

I resorted to my sleeping bag, fully zipped, liked a larva in a cocoon. The moment it was unzipped, cold gusts of wind set in and you would have to brace yourself to face the cold, cold world outside. So it was no wonder that the wake up call for watch change was the most dreaded moment that leg. To me, it was a matter of mind over body. One really had to be mentally strong to be able to push oneself to go on watch, or would end up hiding in the bunk most of the time like some did.

my stomach is twisting...

oh gosh... stomach twisting before my events are getting rare these days...not that I have become an expert in this area but being prepared and knowing clients' expectations had helped me manage my stress level but for the first time in long time that I am experiencing this again.

I am helping a friendly competitor to manage onsite for a 4 day conference. I took on the project about 3 weeks ago and most of the work set in this week, preparing for next week. But when I finally met the client, I realised that they are a bunch of tough nuts. So many people involved in this whole conference and varied expectations to manage.

Gosh... the hard work of logistics is not the issue... managing these bunch of people is causing me the stress. One - I never dealt with them directly and now I am put in charge to run the whole conference. Two - Japanese clients are too fussy... but not true.... I had Japanese client before and they were very nice bunch of people to work with.

Any how... i am so stressed in the last week that pimples are popping out in large sizes....damn those people who cause the stress!!! hahhaha

something has also been bothering me for a week... i haven found the right opportunity to talk to any one yet... i guess it's either I will leave it and let time pass and wounds will heal. sigh...

Go GO Singapore...

Yippee.... Singas came into New York first ... our second podium finish and clinching first position...

I can't believe that in just a month's time, the whole round the world race will soon end. I'm the RTW are looking forward to staying on land for a longer period of time.

It's a pity that I cant make it for the race finish but I am looking forward to their return...

End of eventful week

oooo... finally one week long of meeting is finally over. I must say that 7 days away from my normal life was getting to be quite unbearable. Despite minor glitches here and there, the meeting went very well and at least client is happy. I must thank the gals who helped out at the meeting... they worked hard and also created lots of fun moment from the work.

I will let the photos do the talking.... we had a crazy girl called Rain with us and she brought a lot of laugther to the monotony of work....




































































Here the girls at the junk cruise before the night turned dark...


















































And here is last day of the meeting as we pack up to leave.... that's the photos of Sparkies with our boss who was disturbing me...

































last but not least... a photo with clients...