Away Day

After all the complaints on last year's Away Day, this year we had choices on what we would like to do on the day. The choices include Golf, Multi-activities, Polo and the Spa. I was torn between choosing the Polo or the Spa. I mean it's not very often that you get to learn how to play Polo (to just rent a horse will probably burn a hole in my pockets!) but in the end, I opted for the lazy option of relaxing at the Spa.

We travelled to Sunningdale (which is nearby to Ascott and since it's the Ascott weekend, there were numerous ladies in their dresses and hats travelling to Ascott... I was supposed to go but that's another story...) Anyway, the Spa that they booked for us was supposed to be officially awarded the UK's Most Excellent Spa!

The Spa Resort grounds which is also a hotel at the Pennyhill Park. Feels like I've turned back time and stepped into the 18th century British aristocrats world!

Quaint little cottages with green lush to help you relax, cosset your soul and lift your spirits. I guess it's a nice change to be in the countryside on a weekday instead of working! The air definitely feels a lot fresher and cleaner...

They have two large swimming pools, one indoor and another heated pool outside. The indoor pool even have underwater music to give you the ultimate mental and physical workout!

The hydro pool complete with jacuzzi treatment using water therapeutically to aid relaxation and for a water massage experience.

The Tepidarium which is supposed to be a warm relaxation room, designed for you to while away the hours on the gently heated ceramic couches, which are shaped to the contours of your body. It sounds better than it really is because after 20 mins on the chair, my back felt sore because the chairs were hard! Had to go for a massage on the massage chairs to relieve the sore back in the end...

Heehee... secretly took a picture in the ladies changing room when no one is looking. If only I have a house with such a nice and large toilet! hehehe...

One of the many saunas and steam rooms available at the Spa. The Aromatic Grotto Steam Room operate at a high temperature to allow perspiration and relaxation which supposedly has a therapeutic effect on the hair and skin. It also stimulates detoxification. Then there is also the Herbal Sauna with a herbal oven dispensing steam with three different essences for purification of the body.

And after the high temperature (you should only do it for a maximum of 20 mins!), you should bring your temperature back down by going into the above Ice Cave. By rubbing the body with fresh crushed ice from the ice fountain or against the ice walls, the circulation is stimulated and the body cooled. Alternatively, you can jump into the Plunge Pool to close up those pores and cleanse the body. The Plunge Pool was absolutely freezing! Brrrrr....

I like this, the Reflexology Thrones - these warmed ceramic thrones are designed for relaxation while your feet are gently massaged by jets and pebbles in a warm pool of water. Especially good for those who always wear high heels!

And to complete the Spa, we were offered two treatments! I got a tonic facial and head massage... hehe... I only took a picture of the room after the lady left the room. Didn't want to look so "sua gu"... hehehe... but it was so relaxing that I almost fell asleep during the massage!


And I also got a pedicure! Hehehehe... pink little toes... especially now that summer is coming and everyone is wearing flip flops...

At the end of the Spa day, everyone else from other activities came together for a barbeque dinner before we headed back to London. I must say for once, I really did enjoy the Away Day! (Last year, we went to Brighton and did various water sports... the next day I could barely move after the strenuous exercise!) But, next year I'll probably go for the Polo. It really did look very fun and everyone who went for that said that it was absolutely fantastic. Well, at least I'm being pampered for the day... so I can't complain much! :)

The Gherkin

Had a corporate black tie reception evening at 30 St Mary Axe (also affectionately known as the Gherkin) yesterday night. The Gherkin is probably one of the most prominent building in London's skyline and is not usually opened to the public, so it was a real treat to be wined and dined at the top floor deck while enjoying the view of London! :)

Some pictures that I snapped secretly with my phone (well, I don't want to look like a little kid snapping throughout the night when I'm supposed to be networking with clients and marketing our services! hehehe... :P)

The building was built by the world renowed architect Norman Foster who won numerous awards for the building. Some interesting facts about the building:

At any one time, 378 people can be vertically transported through the Gherkin at a speed of 6m per second

It has 24,000 sq m of external glass which is equivalent to 5 football pitches

At 180m, it is over 3 times the height of Niagara Falls

Each floor rotates 5 degrees from the one below

The one and only one piece of curved glass in the building - the lens at the top of the building

And with good weather like this, you can see far far away! At the left hand corner just around the curve of the river, I'm convinced that I can see my flat! (And my colleague who stays on the same street said the same thing... hehehe)

Another angle at the top, where you can see Tower Bridge... and Tower of London

Well, I didn't achieved much at the reception and some of the people were really boring (I guess I can't expect much from actuaries... sigh...) but at least the views more than made up for it!

Finally...

I've signed the contract and will be moving to my new flat next Friday!

Woohooo.... Quite excited as this will be my first time living alone and having a place of my own!

Not sure why I'm so excited... perhaps I've developed a solidarity syndromme over the years of having multiple housemates at any point of time.

Or maybe, I've grown up and grown out of the need to seek companionship from my housemates. Or perhaps, I'm now into the stage whereby I can comfortably enjoy my own company and feel that it's rewarding to have solidarity space! :)

It all pays!

Yes, it pays to work hard!

Because... this time round, the tides have turned... my efforts have been recognised... I topped my peer group and I'm being promoted! Yipee... :)

Hopefully, it'll come with a good pay rise... hehehehehe....

For the good times...

Thanks to KT Yeo for putting this together! And thanks to everyone for being there and contributing to the good times! :)

Enjoying the warm weather...

The first sign that summer has arrived! The temperature rose to 24 degrees today and I could wear my bermudas and t-shirt out without a jacket... what other better way to enjoy the warm weather than to have a gathering on my balcony? :)

And so, I cooked a meal and invited a couple of friends over.

That's the dishes that I cooked - lotus chicken soup, steam black bean and garlic spare ribs, drunken chicken and sambal kangkung.

Cooking is really therapeutic to me, but seeing happy and satisfied faces after the meal is even more rewarding. (heeheeheee... didn't know that they actually consciously eat less for lunch because they look forward to the dinner! thank you people! :) aaawww... sweet)

Hmm... I'll miss the nice big balcony when I move out, heck... I'll probably even miss waving to the people on the boats and listening to their thumping music when they party and cruise pass my flat on River Thames!!

Tagged Again...

Aha... this time, I noticed it a lot earlier :P (Not one month after that... hehehe...)

And since this is the first in many weeks that I actually got off work early on Friday and stayed in on Saturday night, I've got time to procastinate (Even though I'm supposed to be reading up on the UK Financial Legislation for my tutorial next week, ironing my pile of crumpled shirts for work and working on some spreadsheet development...yes, I'm just giving myself an excuse to not do all the above things)

Here goes:

Rules & Regulations

Each player of this game starts out by listing 5 items in the categories specified. People who get tagged need to write in a blog of their own the 5 items in each list as well as state the rules clearly. In the end, you need to choose 5 people to be tagged and list their names. After you do that, leave them each a comment letting them know you tagged them and to read your blog!

5 things found in your bag:

1. My Sony Erricsson W800i Walkman Phone (I can't live w/o my handphone as I can't remember anyone's phone number. Heck, I don't even remember my own number)


2. My wallet of course, why things in life don't come free my dear


3. Oyster Card *Oyster Card user, please remember to tap in and tap out when travelling, or you'll be charged the maximum fare* bleh... forgot my Oyster Card a few times and I was charged an obsence amount of £3 for a single cash fare ride


4. Keys to my house, locker and postbox (I wish it was keys to anywhere I wanted instead!)


5. Umbrella (well, with the unpredictable British weather...)

5 things found in your purse / wallet:

1. Debit/Credit card (it's a plastic and cashless world after all)


2. A button that fell off my jacket which I meant to sow back but have not done yet


3. A folded heart shaped RM10 from my past life


4. An old MRT card which has a picture of a beautiful waterfall on it


5. Safety pin (for emergency uses...)

5 favourite things in your room (I'm going to move soon so this may change!):

1. My bed - you don't know how wonderful it is to be able to crawl underneath the bed and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep without annoying people waking you up! Plus, my bed is so comfy! :)


2. My desktop (I can't imagine how life would be without it, that means no internet, no blogging, no movies to watch and no music to listen to!!!!)


3. My F1 McLaren car model - it's a bit old and Mika Hakkinen/Kimi Raikkonen are both no longer at McLaren, but...


4. Various pictures taken from different phases of my life, well... A picture is worth a thousand words


5. My Winnie the Pooh soft toy which brings back a lot of good memories

You can see all the stuff that I've listed above in this shot. L to R: My desktop, McLaren car model, Winnie the Pooh soft toy, pictures in frames and my nice comfy bed! :)

5 things that you've always wanted to do:

1. Travel around the world and see all the wonders of the world including the northen lights, Niagara falls, Egyptian Pyramids, African Safaris etc. There's just so much to see!


2. Have my own flat/house/apartment


3. Drive a Mini Cooper


4. Make everyone that I love and care about happy


5. Share my dreams and life with someone who wants to do the same with me

5 things you are currently in to:

1. How can I not put poker and mahjong on the top of the list :P


2. Working hard - yes, I know it's sad but I'm a workaholic


3. Shopping (retail theraphy is always good... :P)


4. Wine tasting - influenced by someone who appreciates good wine and insist that there's always an occassion to open a bottle of wine. Bordeaux wine anyone?


5. Fine dining (Now, don't get me wrong... I'm all for char keow teow at the hawker stall or prata at mamak but sometimes, it's an altogether different experience when you go for fine dining and a la carte food... I've not won the Euro million yet, so this is still only reserved for special occassions :) I want to try the Fat Duck (one of the three 3 Michellin stars restaurant in the UK) but not sure whether someone will still keep the promise...

5 people you tag:

1. No one


2. No one


3. No one


4. No one


5. No one

I think this is giving people a very biased view of who I am. Just scrolling up and reading what I've typed made me shudder because it seems to be telling me that I'm a materialistic-cum-forgetful-cum-cynical-cum-workaholic-cum-alcoholic-cum-addicted to gambling-cum-nolstalgic-cum-sentimental-cum-grumpy person.

Gosh.

Glimpses of your shadow

****

In the calm and silence of the night,

I felt a whiff of you,

the leaves stirred as if someone had passed by.

I smelt your scent strong and clear,

I heard what seemed like your steps.

Was that your face I saw amidst the darkness?

was it your shadow I caught around the corner?

Alas it wasn't so.

I thought I closed my mind to your shadow,

I thought I've redrawn the boundaries.

I guess that hasn't happened yet,

as I still see glimpses of your shadow.

****

Aaaarggghhh...

I've been so busy at work and working late everyday that I forgot to pay my council tax and credit card bill!!! Now I'm charged for late payment and will probably end up getting a bad credit rating.... Aaaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhh....

Why am I so forgetful? Why why why????????

Happy Birthday, Grace!

Can't believe that I've known you for 13 years already!! Thanks for being a wonderful friend to me all these years!! I'll definitely miss you when you move to Dublin...

Some pics from the birthday celebration last night...

We went to a Morrocan restaurant off Regent Street on Hendon Street... never realised that tucked away in this tiny street there are actually quite a few interesting restaurants including London's Ice Bar... The food, cocktail and even the jasmine tea was really good!

13 years of friendship with 4 clashing personalities!!

And we went clubbing at The Doon after dinner... Had a really good time after working so hard over the weekend plus it has been a long time since I last went clubbing!!

Road Trip

I love road trips! It's not so much of where we're going to but the journey itself makes up a great part of the fun... and without exception, our Cardiff + Snowdonia road trip over the May Bank Holiday was a great fun. We set off at 1am on Friday night armed with plenty of junk food and a GPS navigator to Wales...

After the long drive up north (with the Cardiff + Snowdonia Olympics Challenge kicking in full - read the next post and you'll know what I'm talking about!), we finally reached Snowdonia where we were being greeted with everything in Welsh. Can't pronounce most of their words as they don't even have a vowel in it!

Just look at the sign post and you'll see what I mean. The locals pronounced the name for us and it sounded nothing like what it is being spelled as! This small little town is one of the towns in the Snowdonia area where the UK National Park is situated.

Well, when I told others that I was going to Snowdonia over the Bank Holidays everyone assumed that we were going hiking in the mountains. We were too lazy for hiking and decided that we'll go cycling instead, thinking that it would be easier and more relaxing.

AND WE WERE WRONG. VERY VERY WRONG.

There's no leisure cycling here. It's all mountain biking on sloping trails! It was no easy job trying to pedal up the mountains!!

Up slope and curvy trails in the middle of nowhere!!

The two girls still in smilling non-sweaty faces at the start of the trail.

Hahahaha.... We stop for a rest barely 15 mins into the trail! Gosh, we were all useless city dwellers with no penchant for exercising. I blame it on the age... bleh...

Halfway through the trail in the mountains, we stopped again to catch our breaths for the 10th time? (I lost count!) There was no doubt that the air was fresher and it was probably good for all of us, away from dirty London!!

Yay! We reached our checkpoint - the beautiful lake surrounded by mountains! The view was really breathtaking... at least it made all the pedalling and pushing the bike up slope worth it!

And finally we made it back to the town and completed our journey ALIVE and UNBROKEN. Cheers!

After all the hard work, it's time to reward myself with some tea and sinful scones! (Hehehe.. everyone was disgusted with how much butter and cream I had with my scones... come on, after burning all those calories from biking... that's nothing!! :P)

Somehow, the guys still managed to find the energy to have a game of frisbee!

The next morning, we set off for Cardiff. Weather wasn't very friendly - gloomy and wet from the moment we woke up!

A picture in front of our hotel - we were trying to trick Drake (guy in red sweater) to do the eagle pose but somehow all the guys were stupid enough to actually do it!! Muahahaha....

We had English breakfast every morning during the trip! Think I'm quite sick of it now, no more English breakfast for me for the next 3 weeks!!

Welsh sign-post: Mermaid Quay is Cei'r For-Forwyn?? wtf?? I can't even pronounce any of these words... and I never knew that Roald Dahl was from Wales!! Goes to show how much I know about Wales or UK...

Don't ask me what building this is, cuz I don't know and I can't read it. Go figure it yourself.

The fabulous Welshcakes... yummy... it smelt so good and tasted equally good. They were freshly baked on a cast iron girddle using a traditional Welsh family recipe.. yummy...

By Cardiff pier, one whole big POKER family! :)

A big toast to our successful road trip! Cheers!

And of course, kudos to our two drivers who drove us there and brought us back safely. Thank you Naveen and Bin Bin. (And to KT and Chong who drove in intermediate intervals!)

Snowdonia + Cardiff Roadtrip Olympcis Challenge

A week before our roadtrip, Kar Teck had self-appointed himself as our trip's games IC and came up with the idea of organising an Olympics Challenge throughout the trip. Everyone would have to participate in 13 events and for each events, the winner will receive 5 points, runner-up 3 points and 3rd and 4th placing, 2 and 1 points each. The points would then be accumulated from competing in the 13 events played throughout the trip. And the final Gold, Silver and Bronze medallist of the Olympics will be the 3 participants with the highest accumulated points.

I really have to give it to him to think of such a game to make our trip more interesting! It's quite funny how everyone gave more emphasis on the Olympics Challenge than the actual trip itself!! I mean there were times when everyone was like "Er... let's not go a particular place so that we can go back to the hostel to continue our Olympics Challenge.." Why did we have to go to Wales if we just wanted to play games??????

Hahaha... but I must admit that it was actually fun and it made the long drive less boring as we could play games as we go along. AND, in this trip I've found out that there are so many variation of games that you can make up using scissors paper stone and poker cards!!!

Anyway.... (drum roll!!) the results of the Olympics is as below:

Hope you can read the results... that's the best I could do with the Excel spreadsheet.. yes, we're all geeks (or rather me... as I designed the spreadsheet... ) who use Excel to determine the winner... (mind you, the League Table changes automatically as you enter points in the individual games!!! :P)

First winner of the Games... Bin Bin at Scissors, Paper Stone!!

Chong, the winner of 5-10 (the "chai mui" drinking game you play especially in Hong Kong..)

The joint champions in Big 2 Dai Di... Can't believe I got kicked out of the qualifying round... grrrrr....

Nav... the individual bridge champion... (I lost to him in the qualifying round!! but at least I lost to the eventual champion!)

Yes, yes... finally me on the champion podium... I'm the winner for Black Jack... hehehehehe....

Winner of In-Between... And Chong insisted that he'll take his winning picture In-Between two girls... hahahaha

Chong again... winning at Chi Ko Ba... er... don't ask me what game this is... I've just learnt it in this trip... it's basically a variation of the scissors paper stone game...

Er... I forgot to take my winning picture for Blood Kings... so this is a random picture at the trip... it's the ultimate combination of all drinking games including fuzzy duck, Indian poker and 7up.... hahaha... me the drinking games champion... which tells you a lot about my drinking habit???? Shhhsssshhh....

Finally, Drake winning a game... he self-declared himself as the favourite for every game... especially all those Hong Kong games like 5-10, Big 2 Dai Di etc. The game that he won is Chi Chi Cha... supposingly EVERY single person in Hong Kong knows how to play it... you can even stop anyone on the road to play with them wor... let's see.. I'll try that out in July when I go to Hong Kong!!!

Nav again... winning at coin soccer... I suck real bad at this game... my aiming is super lousy!!

Oooooh... finally Kar Teck... the organiser of the Games winning a game (the first and the last!! hahahaha) He won the card game called 99 which I was the first casualty!!

The two gay partners winning at group bridge...

And unsurprisingly..... Naveen won at poker AGAIN!!! It's really disgusting!!! He wins at poker all the time during our Friday night poker games... By now, he has already hit the £100 mark (i.e. all of us has lost a combined of £100 to him!!!) bleh.... And I can't take him on 1-1 because I always lose to him!!!

Finally.... The overall Gold medallist for the game..... CHONG! Considering the number of individual games that he won throughout the trip... he is a well-derserving champion!! Congratulations Chong!

And Carrie... winner of the Olympian of the games for her good sports(wo)manship!

And the final group picture conclude our Snowdonia + Cardiff Roadtrip Olympics Challenge!