Krabiiiiii

A post that should have been up a long long time ago, about my Krabi trip from 11-14 Dec 2008!

Just a brief introduction to Krabi.. it is situated on the emerald green waters of the Andaman Sea in the middle southern part of Thailand, near Phuket. Various popular beaches on the coasts of Krabi include Ao Nang, Nopparat Thara, Railay Bay East and Railay Bay West, where you can find plenty of causasians tanning their bodies to a golden bronze hue. However, if you are in search of crystal blue waters and fine white sand, you will have to venture out to the islands.

On the first morning after we arrived in Krabi, we went for a full day island hopping trip which lasted from 9am-4pm.
(1300 baht, ~S$55)

Aboard the speedboat.
Though the trip was a full 7 hours, quite some time was spent on the speedboat travelling from island to island. So, plenty of chances for camwhoring.

Our first stop was Bamboo Island, just see how clear the water is!

Then we headed to Lohsamah Bay, our first snorkelling destination, in clear, calm, shallow waters just off a small quiet beach.

Lunch was at Tonsai Island. The package included a buffet lunch, which was not fantastic. But we were famished and ate quite a bit.

After lunch, they brought us to Monkey Bay.. its called Monkey Bay cos... there are alot alot of monkeys! Hungry ones.

Destination of the day - Maya Bay, where the movie which Leonardo Dicarprio casted in, The Beach, was shot.

The last stop of the day was our also our second and final snorkelling trip for the day, at Hin Klarng, Phi Phi's no. 1 snorkelling reef in the open sea.

Island hopping was so tiring... we had to pamper ourselves.

Thai massage was cheap and good, just 200baht (~S$9) an hour. It was so good I fell asleep and only woke up when the therapist tapped on me a couple of times..
Do not try the manicure though. Limited service, limited colours and poor quality nail polish...

Both nights were pretty fun spent browsing around at the night markets for sun dresses, accessories and sipping colourful cocktails at a local pub..

Toyinging with Yingni's new purchase...

Jenga time

Colourful cocktails. Pina Colada, Pink Lady, dunno-what and Mojito.

And we made friends with the cute Thai waitresses

and bartenders (not so cute =P)

And coincidentally it was Lisa the 'actually ok only lah' queen's birthday, so all of us awarded her with a kiss.

The last morning we went for a half-fay kayak excursion at Talen's "Mangrove Maze" - a chain of rock gardens, limestone canyon and semi-Hong's filled with mangrove and plenty of wildlife (hungry monkeys especially).

Meals consisted of the usual Thai fare - Phad Thai, Tom Yam soup, Pineapple rice, papaya salad, seafood glass noodles salad, green curry, thai-style omelette etc etc. Prices differ from where u have them at. But for anyone going there in the future, avoid the row of seafood restaurants at the end of Ao Nang(near the ferry point), where things are pretty overcharged for the standard. Do try Ao Nang Cuisine though, where the food is tasty and priced reasonably.

Nevertheless, the most unforgettable item would be the mango sticky rice (from Aonang Cuisine as well)!

A place dominated by causasians and local Thais (almost 90% while I was there). It is a piece of heaven still waiting for many others to discover.

My recent posts have been truly all about my life.
They are no longer just about the new places I have dined at,
the new places I have visited,
new things I have tried and
how i have spent my weekends etc anymore.

Partly because I havent tried being going out much or trying new places or things.
(But I realised i am as happy with things this way cos I am satisfied with just going back to the same places which I have gone and loved.)
Partly because I have been thinking alot lately and is penning down these thoughts on this space.

My personal thoughts may be boring or might not be of interest to you, so feel free to close this browser and proceed to other more interesting pages.

Why are we living in this world
Why do we live the way we live
And ultimately, how I want myself to live.
There is so much time u have in this world.
Is it simply for us to get a degree, get a job but ever stop complaining about it? spend ur salary on good food and shopping simply to compensate urself for working so hard? get married and have kids, give your kids education, watch them grow up and then worry about whether they will eventually take care of you when u grow old?

Is it impossible to find a job which u love? Is it not possible to find joy in ur work?
Sure, every job has its pros and cons - it may be enjoyable, yet it may take up so much of ur time, it may be tiring, it may involve having to handle unreasonable people, be it your superior or your customer. But i guess when you enjoy what you are doing, these can be easily overcome. So the only problem is when you don't love your job.

I have a dream. I may not be able to realise it now because of practical circumstances. But I am working on it and I am just glad I am doing that.

Stay positive!

These are my fellow secondees / associates from Assurance to IA! All PRETTY girls! hurHurhur.



Only W is not around... because of the stupid monster/devil/irritating/ultimately subzeroEQ manager who made her work OT ON AN L&E DAY. Anyone who kena his job is SUAY SUAY SUAY. He is truely 100% hateful i tell u!

Anyway its really great to be able to spend last thursday with them after work. After our individual jobs, it was great to get together to share our thoughts on IA and the whole secondment thing and complain to each other about the TERRIBLE PEOPLE who we have to work with. Afterall, we know each others' 'tong ku' best.

We headed to Canele for dinner and then went to Thumper for Ladies' Night. It was quite an adventure because we arrived at Goodwood Park Hotel at 9pm and realised that there was a private event going on and we could only enter at 10.30pm. Refusing to wait, we cabbed down to Clarke Quay to try out Arena, which had Ladies Night too. BUT.... it was damn boring!!!! It was almost empty, their staff attitude sucked and the free Sex on the Beach was so diluted. We stayed there for about half an hour and decided to cab back to Thumper at around 10pm.

Thumper was not fantastic but it was much better than Arena - the service was MUCH better, the snacks were good and each of us get two free quality housepour. Tried Cranberry Gin for the first time and think it tastes not bad! There was also a live band playing. We were joking that the lead singer was very poser and that his singing is so-so. Then a few days later he was featured on the newspaper and I realised that he is a shareholder of Thumper! Haha totally cannot tell =P

Work has been very depressing the past 1.5months. After the last job with devil benny, I was thrown to another job ALONE, when there is another AM available, who was supposed to be on the job with me, and the TIC, who is super disorganised and blur, decided to let me, an associate who just got seconded over with 1.5months of IA experience, to do the job alone, and let the AM go on leave?!?!(ok, thats a long sentence) Wah it totally sucks man. Though I know I am not alone in that situation - everyone is complaining about how disorganised she is.

For the past week, everyday I just wanna go home and stone. because my brain was totally drained from all the thinking in the day. I have never hated my work so much before!

Though I haven't being meeting up or going out alot these few weeks, I am quite happy with the way it is. Just spend time resting at home, relax, allowing time to pass as slowly as possible so that my weekend seems longer. Today my mum cooked chilli crab which I ahve been craving for - YUM! and I played my role of a good daughter by helping her wash the dishes and vacuuming and mopping the floor of the whole house. Weekends should be spent like this more often man!

Work has been depressing, nevertheless, I am glad that hell is over for the time being. Next week I am going to help out in the recruitment event i.e. slack. Mainly its to guide the interviewees for their interview and bring them around the office. And the following week I am going on my Krabi trip~~~ YEAH... i hope the protestors in Bangkok dun come over to Phuket/Krabi laaaaaa.

Then... Ah C will be back!!!

Then i will be going back to assurance to serve peak for one month...

Then prob I will be doing IA for NTU (back to school!)

and then.....

I hope I get taken out of the job under benny.

And then its April (fate still undecided)

then i am going to the US!!!!

then its June...

and BONUS time!!!

then... maybe I will be gone.

Now
i dun like shopping in singapore because things are so overpriced, so no more weekend shopping in the next few weeks/months.
i like weekend time to myself, spent reading a book and watching hk drama and taking naps whenever i feel like it.
i should really spend money more wisely.

do what i like and should cos 'life is meant to be happy'.

Which girl doesn't like shopping? I love shopping too.
But not when I have to walk and walk the whole day and can't find anything to buy because they are either not suitable for me, or they are nice but overpriced.
When shopping, the greatest satisfaction i get is when i buy things i like at relatively low prices, like:
- four cardigans for less than S$30
- three leather bags for less than S$100
- white jacket for work for less than S$10
- flats at S$6-S$10
all in HK and Guangzhou.
-3 belts, 2 scarves, a pair of heels, a pair of flats at US$70 from Forever21 website. (purchases which I just made 10mins ago)
- good quality vests from Bebe at S$30-$50 during the Summer sale in US
- US$3-5 t-shirts from aeropostale
etc, etc, etc.

I think branded goods are nice. I love the burberry leather and print. I love the shape of the LV Speedy bag. But I don't buy them partly cos I dun think i can carry it off. Whats the point of carrying them when i dun dress up and rather go out in shorts, berms and flats.. so off man. Plus I guess I am more indulgent when it comes to food and holidays.

I don't necessary go for really expensive food, cos seriously i am not a fan of fine dining. Tried Aqua at Hong Kong and The Cliff in Singapore, where a meal for two goes up to >S$200. I just think its not really worth the money. I rather spend S$50 on good chilli crab or salmon sashimi (or anything Japanese). Ok, maybe I am just not that a big lover of French cuisine, where food are served in small portions and you have to eat with grace and pace.. i think i prefer a hearty wholesome meal. And I am already happy that I get to eat my favourite Jap food every week, hehe.

I splurge too when it comes to holidays. Spa retreats, beach holidays, city getaway, or a nature tour, in Singapore or overseas. After having tried staying in hostels, I think travel should be a luxurious. Unless you are going for a backpacking trip in SEA la. Yea! Going away soon with several girlfriends come December. And Ah C and me booked a spa getaway at the Sentosa Spa and Resort, again! It is not cheap but I think its worth it for the kind of services and facilities they provide.

Anyway, things are not going very smoothly in my job. I guess it was nv what i wanted - to be doing finance. I had wanted to go to Shatec to study culinary after my 'A' levels, but i stupidly decided to follow what everyone was going - get a degree. Now I regret. Because I have wasted 4 years going for something that I wasn't passionate about. That I did not realise a career is what makes up a big part of your life (because you spend 5 out of 7 days, or maybe more, at it) and if you don't love your job, everything is going to suck, because its going to affect your mood, its going to affect your daily life.

I am going to make a change, probably. But it won't be on impulse, it won't be out of rashness. I am going to think properly, plan properly. I am not in the position to just quit my job and earn a income of 1.5k at another job. But I will be working my way to do what I want... Le Cordon Bleu, wait for me!

today is slack day! cos seniors not around. i shall finish my testing quickly and go home!

anyway.. my current client is at yishun. so my dad sent me and we had breakfast at chong pang food market before i come to work. i had very good ban mian there so before i forget, i wanna recommend it to people who loves ban mian!

i had the bee hoon kway (the thicker and bigger pieces version). The noodles was cooked to perfection - not overcooked till its too soft but just solid enough to be chewy yet not undercooked. According to my dad, the noodles are handmade i.e. sliced/peeled by hand from balls of dough into the cooking pot, not sliced by machine, which is why its so Q. For $3, there was much ingredients - big slices of mushroom, minced pork and 2 pieces of peeled prawns (so u dun have to peel it yourself). The soup was so sweet that my teh-c tasted blend.. i finished all the soup by the way!

For those interested, the stall number is #01-154. Give it a try if you are nearby!

Regarding my China trip, I have complained to several people and repeated the story numerous times. So i will not talk about it anymore.. and its time to look forward. That being said, I think the amount of stress I am getting from work has reached a new level.

In the midst of the most busy period I have experienced since I started working, I realised
that i am more emotionally unstable than i thought i was,
that i cannot handle stress well,
that i do not belong to the corporate world and i am totally not interested in climbing up the corporate ladder.

Nowadays, I can't get to sleep because I can't stop thinking about work.
About what I have to do the next day.
How i am going to do it.
What if i cannot finish doing my work.
what if i do my work wrongly.

Last night,
I had this strange worry.
that I would work on my Teammate file (some work paper program) after I have created a local replica, and there will be conflicts and all my work will be gone . k, u dun know what i am talking about. it simply means i would commit a fault and lose all my work.
as a result, i fought hard to sleep.

i wish i can go travel.
i wish i can pursue my dreams.
i wish i can do what i want.

but sometimes, its just so diffcult to get out of that status quo. and it takes more courage than u have.

I am back. And I am SO glad to be back. This trip was one of mixed emotions. There were really fun, happy times - when we went to Hong Kong over the first weekend and ate a lot and bought a lot, or evenjust having a good wasabi salmon pizza at pizza hut after work. And then I also probably experienced the worst moments of my career to date - all because of one CRAP person.

I have talked about it much to Ah C and my parents, so let me begin with the happy things for now!

Hong Kong

As we had to be in China for more than 15 days without a visa (supposed to have but the application was screwed up) so we had to get out and go to Hong Kong over the first weekend. Our AM (Nic) had never been to Hong Kong before, so me and Yun han (another A2 secondee) brought this old man around for the two days!

The bus ride from Dongguan to Hong Kong via Shenzhen took about 3hours and we were all pretty excited about it. To take a break from work, to eat better food, to do some good shopping.. cos Dongguan is really boring! Going through Shenzhen custom to HK is really like going from JB to Singapore, with the addition of watching people carrying weird stuff over (not pirated DVDs). A woman in the queue next to us was carrying a bag and red drops of liquid of what seems like blood was dripping from her bag. She didn't realise it until quite some time when everyone started staring at her... then she took out a big pack of some sort of bloody red meat and began wiping the exterior. And we sure were rather amazed she even bothered to go back the way she came from and began cleaning up the floor...

Anyways, on the bus to Hong Kong:
Then reaching Hong Kong... k, my face is big, and even bigger next to super-slim yunhan.... dun compare la!
We were thinking whether to get the Octopus card, the one-day pass or the single-trip ticket... and we decided to get the single-trip one cos unused octopuc credit is non-refundable and we won't be taking many train rides. So... here's Nic having his first go at a Hong Kong train ticketing machine.
We were rather hungry when we arrived, and tried scouting for some nice place to eat.. and we walked really long before we settled in this small noodle stall. The stall was small and simple, but the dumpling mee was super good! and the soya bean milk was thick and smooth... a fulfilling meal at S$4.

Cheers!

Then we headed off to do some shopping. It was great that Yunhan was there because she brought us to Fa Yuen street (same street as Sportswear street but further down) where we bought really nice and cheap things - flats, cardigans, bags... i have never shopped like that in Hong Kong before lah! And Nic bought ALOT of Hello Kitty stuff for his wife... so sweet leh!

After shopping, we went to check in at our hotel, Stanford Hotel in Mongkok... decent room la, but nv take photo. So small, nothing to see also.

Then, we went for some lu bian tan food near our hotel...

The tako pachi was nice... crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Our guinea pig AM took the first bite and realised that it was too hot, and began struggling with the tako pachi in his mouth. We learned the lesson from him and took really small bites at a go... hahahaha.

Then we set off to Central area cos we were bringing the old man to The Peak at night. Walked and walked... nothing much to see though. Tried some hot and steamy egg tart and went into Tsui Wah Cha Chan Teng for a break...

After the break, we began walking towards the Peak Tram station and took some photos along the way.. here's one.

The tram station was quite crowded... and there was a mad rush to get up the tram..

Up the peak to enjoy the cool breeze and awesome view, finally!

Cold cold...

Before we went back to our hotel for a night's rest, we had our last treat... Hui Lou Shan mango desserts:

Next morning, we went down to Chao Inn in One Peking Building, Tsim Sha Tsui for dim sum. This is the same place I went with Ah C the last time. Despite knowing that we were going to Sweet Dynasty to have dessert later and we initally planned not to order too much, we ended up with a table full of food.

Walked over to Avenue of Stars to allow our stomach to digest the food before we dig into our dessert..

Then off to Sweet Dynasty, where we had Hot dou hua, cold dou hua, sesame paste and red bean paste soup...

Nic is definitely so satisfied with his cold dou hua pudding.

We went back to Fa Yuen street to do more shopping whereby yunhan and me got more bags and shoes, and Nic got more Hello Kitty for his wife.

Ok, finally the trip was ending.. with our bags of shopping, we settled down at Pacific Coffee near our bus stop to rest our legs, which we desperately needed.

Dongguan, Guangdong province, China

Hai... Dongguan is so boring, I can only blog about the food we ate.

Chinese food

Korean food

Pizza hut, which was quite good! Love the Wasabi Mayonnaise Salmon pizza! Wanted to go back to try their soft shell crab pizza, but unforunately, we didn't have time.. and u will know why during my next post bah... hai...

Those were the happy times...