toodle pip

Farewelling London

2008-02-17T17:00:00.006Z

It's been a year and 9 months since I left Sydney for London, and now I'm packing to go home. It's been unfortunate that I haven't been able to keep this blog up to date, but anyone who knows me hopefully will say that I do reply to emails and endeavour to keep in touch with most people!

There are so many things I will miss about this city. Notably:

Not having to wait more than a few minutes for the next tube
It hardly rains here. It's true! Since I've been here, there have only been drizzles, and a couple of beautiful snowfalls
Heating everywhere during Winter
Having 2 or 3 different ways to get to your destination in London via public transport
Free and unlimited ATM withdrawals
Walking around London - discovering something interesting around every corner. I have been on a tonne of London Walks and it never ceases to amaze me how much there is to learn and see about Londinium
Using my credit card for the smallest of purchases. And restaurants allowing you to split the bill amongst a whole table of guests, each person paying with their cards.
Borough Markets - gastronomical heaven
English parks and gardens. Some of my favourites:

Richmond Park - packs of deers and antelopes roam freely

Victoria Park - jogging along the canal next to the park on a crisp cool morning with an eery fog over the water.. then entering the lovely green space of the park after surviving the streets of Hackney to get there

Hyde Park - rambling, leafy, serene, beautiful, huge park. Hyde Park was my introduction to English parks when I first stayed in Bayswater

The awesome friends I've made here and people I've met. They have all been my family away from home.
Spending hours in the museums.. I have never been interested in museums until I came to London. My fave is the V&A, with the magnificent Morris & Gambler dining rooms. 2nd on my list is of course the ol' Brit Museum.
Just walking.. anytime.. anywhere
The Bagel Shop on Brick Lane - open 24hrs, it's better than the Beigel Bakery IMHO!
GAP, Uniqlo, Muji

Ok.. this list is getting too long...

I am having farewell drinks, however, not looking forward to being the centre of attention, I'm pleased to be also sharing the event farewelling Gareth who is leaving for Afghanistan with the Brit army. Another friend, Jules is also turning 30, so we'll be celebrating with her too! It's going to be a big one! Luckily I have chosen the venue to be within stumbling distance of home :)

Traumatised

2007-12-10T17:03:00.000Z

Lucky no one had a video camera.. and lucky it was my very last visit to the Tiller Leisure Centre gym. This happened about 3 weeks ago, just before my Egypt trip. I left half my skin on the treadmill when I dazed out during 15min of intense running and accidentally stepped on the side of the machine whilst pounding at 11.6km/hr. What happened next can only be described as hilarious by anyone watching, and grimacing to anyone watching who knew me and felt the pain I was going through. For some reason there was no emergency stop cord on the machine, but I basically fell and spent the longest 10 seconds of my life trying to regain composure whilst the machine was rubbing the skin off my left knee, shin, and forearm.. and then ungraciously dumped me at the foot of the track. The worse thing was the pain afterwards (grazes hurt like hell!), and the time it took for the huge things to heal! (Big bandages are expensive in the UK!)

Well.. the scabs have finally fallen off.. and I went back to the gym for the first time today. I went on the treadmill for about 8 min, then gave up from post-traumatic stress, and dizziness from not allowing my eyes to leave my feet. It's going to be a long process of healing before I trust myself on this machine again.. but I think if I take it one step at a time I'll get there. *sigh*

Relic from WWII

2007-07-30T22:09:00.000+01:00

Something unusual happened on Sat when I was leaving the house. The whole area was cordoned off just outside our apartments and I had to do a detour around the docks to get to the station, they'd also stopped the Docklands Light Rail. Apparently an old torpedo, a relic from WWII was found whilst excavating one of the industrial blocks opposite us (to build more new apartments), and they had to block off the area while they examined it!

I haven't been able to find any more news about this, but this goes to show you never know what you can find when you go digging about in London...

Ok OK!

2007-07-29T22:58:00.001+01:00

Thanks chilli chocolate-eater and other fans.. you will be surprised that it's late on a Sunday evening and I've remembered to log in and update the blog! (BTW why anyone would eat anything like chocolate with chilli just baffles me.. :P )

So, surprise surprise I've been busy paddling. You didn't even have to guess, it's Summer, what else would I be doing?? Travelling? Getting into some new sport? Meeting people? Finding someone to have babies with? No! Paddling!

(don't worry Mum, I am still doing all of the doing the above .. (just whilst paddling))...

On Wednesday I fly to St Petersburg for the European Club Crew Dragonboat Championships! I get a Great Britain race top, and will get to wear my GB shorts and the GB spray jacket that I swapped with this little unsuspecting junior paddler back in Berlin '05. I even organised the girls' party tops. Whaddya think? (£5 special from Camden Markets!)

I've also been doing outrigging with OCUK a couple of times, but it's a little difficult with the mega-long paddles they have. The Thames at Chiswick is totally flat, but there are some very strong currents!

There are quite a few big races coming up. Notably my coach at Thames is organising a paddle across the English Channel.. (aherm yes.. in a dragonboat.. I'm going to invest in a lifejacket methinks!!) We will be racing against the Sisterhood team who apparently Kate Middleton will be paddling with.. That will happen on the August long weekend (25-27th). I'll also be doing the Great River Race again with Thames at the end of September.

Dear Frustrated...

2007-07-02T22:29:00.000+01:00

To my dear frustrated blog reader, I am very flattered that you are still visiting this website.. I would probably have given up if I were you. I'm still trying to get used to posting my personal life on a public blog but hopefully will write something interesting up soon. Thanks again!! (PS. I have new photos up at photos.all.id.au/michelle - not much but it's something!)

Pics from Morocco

2007-02-21T22:45:00.000Z

Have been very lazy in putting pics up on my photo website, however have put some favourites from Morocco up on Flickr to share with tour mates.

Oi oi oi!

2007-01-24T21:21:00.000Z

It's Australia Day on Friday, and all the Aussies at work are already planning on how to deck the office out with a huge Aussie flag and the wearing of THONGS in the office. Now the reason you can't say the word thong here in the UK is that people think you're referring to a G.. so you must say "flip flops". Similarly when you are frustrated you can't say you've "got the sh!ts with _whatever_ or _whoever_" because people will think you have the runs and look at your rather strangely. On the other hand, if someone here greets you with "Hi, you right??".. you must put your fists away because they are somehow actually greeting you with a meaning similar to our customary "Hi how's it goin' Mate?"... and they're not actually trying to start a fight. (Took me a while to get used to that one.. in fact am not sure I still am yet..)

White Winter..

2007-01-24T16:59:00.000Z

After I took the photo below and left my building I was confronted with streets, trees, houses, cars, all covered in inches of snow!! I'd never seen this before in a big city and it was so pretty and brightened up a normally dull Winter day!

It's now 2pm at work and the sun has come out to warm us up in our frigid air-conditioned office.. I can handle this weather :)

Snow!

2007-01-24T07:45:00.000Z

The view from my apartment this morning!

Good food in London?

2007-01-21T08:41:00.000Z

Yesterday I went to Sophie's Steakhouse on Fulham Rd for "the BEST steak in London!".. so my friend Greg tells us. So the 6 of us all ordered big steaks for lunch on a Saturday... I have to agree it was the best steak I've had in London. Apparently it's as good as Gaucho Grill, but is far more worth the money as you get chips or mash with your meat as well. We all agree though, that since coming to London from gastro-fabulous Sydney, our tastebuds have considerably dulled..

I went to Covent Garden afterwards to do some shopping and found a fantastic travel bookstore called Stanfords. They have 3 floors of travel guides, maps, and travel literature. I'm currently reading "Tales from Nowhere" from Lonely Planet Journeys.

Last weekend I went to 2 30th birthday parties..one of which was my flatmate Alex's. 2007 is the year where my household (my 2 flatmates and me) turns officially 'crusty' (so I'm told by all my younger colleagues at work)..at least I look younger than all of them!!

Missing Morocco...

2007-01-14T21:45:00.000Z

Today is the end of my holidays.. the past month has been hectic but amazing. Before Christmas there were parties, things to organise and friends to meet up with before I went away.

Alex, Mich and I went to Cologne for the Xmas markets the weekend before Xmas. We had a fantastic time browsing all the market stalls, trying out all the good food.. mulled wines, seafood, German pizza.. and doing lots of shopping (things in London are expensive!). We had a nice relaxing time and soaked up the Chrissy atmostphere. Glad I did it as I'm not sure I'll still be in this neck of the woods next year!

On Christmas Eve I went to Morocco with my parents on a 15 day tour with Explore Holidays. Had the most amazing time.. it was one of the best trips of my life and I hope to return soon... Took tonnes of photos (hopefully will put up soon!) and have lots of good memories. I thoroughly recommend going with a tour to get the most out of the trip especially if you don't speak Arabic or French. We visited the beaches and sea-side port of Essaouira, to dusty bustle of the medinas in Fes and Marrakech, trekked in the High Atlas Mountains and rode camels to watch the sunset in the Sahara Desert. We had fantastic local guides in all places who gave us a great insite into how the local people lived and the sentiments they have towards the government and the King. I loved the dusty villages, the nomadic tribes we met, the poor mules and donkeys with their life of hardship transporting loads of goods up and down mountain paths.

Every young man wants to be a tour guide in Morocco. Our tour leader came from a poor Berber family of 9 children and is lucky enough to be working for an English tour company now. Everywhere we went it felt like we were getting hassled to either buy something or asked if we needed a guide. Despite this I loved the Moroccan humour, they joke about everything and always have a smile on their face.

After Morocco I had another week off spending time with my parents. We hired a car and drove to Bath (visiting Avebury on the way), Stonehenge and Salisbury. We couldn't have asked for more lovely English weather - grey, wet, windy and cold. Needless to say we kept indoors as much as we could. Saw 2 musicals - Evita and Chicago.. watched Casino Royale at the cinemas.. enjoyed some Venezuelan music from enseble Ensamble Criollo at the Royal Albert Hall.. and patted a real life camel from the Gobi Desert whilst visiting in the Salisbury Cathedral!

I am back to work tomorrow.. am savouring this last day of my holidays.. however am already wondering when I can go back to Morocco and Africa...

What would I do without it...

2006-11-07T14:55:00.000Z

My dear friends,

The Macpac puffy goose-down jacket you all bought me has been a
saviour. If it wasn't for it I'd be on a plane back to Aus now
(maybe..) It's pretty cold these days, temps get down to 0d Celsius,
but I don't feel the cold because of all the goose feathers I'm
wearing. It's amazing stuff.. I worry about how much I'm going to
wear it, and the laborious washing instructions (hand-wash, no
dryclean, put in the dryer 3 times whilst puffing out the goose down
in between each drying.... something like that..) Nicole my Aussie
colleague says don't bother washing it, just buy a new one. I go
"NOO!!!" this one's way too special - I'm going to wear it till all
the feathers fall out of it! I found quite a few had come out
yesterday onto my cardigan. I wonder how long it'll take before all
the feathers fall out. I'll still wear it even then though - my
Macpac windproof, waterproof, featherless goose-down jacket haha.
Ridiculous.

Needless to say, I haven't been out on the water paddling... I'm lucky
to get myself to the gym and go for a jog once a week.

Barcelona

2006-11-03T17:43:00.000Z

Went to Barcelona this past weekend with Alex, Mich, Jo and Pedro. Had an awesome time, despite our flight landing late and in the wrong country (Perpignan, south of France due to fog!)! I have to at least thank Ryanair for giving us an interesting story to tell. We were up at 3am on Saturday, and didn't arrive in Barcelona till 3pm.. that's what you get for £1 flights!

So after a disastrous start, we packed in as much as we could into the 3 days we had (more like 2!). One of Barcelona's main attractions is Antoni Gaudi's architecture. The most famous is the Sagrada Familia cathedral, which was started 100 years ago and is still being built, to be finished in 2020! There are parts on the outside of the church which look as if cement has been poured from the top and just left to drip. Other interesting features include offerings of fruit on the tops of spires, and curves and waves throughout the structure. We couldn't enter the main part of the church due to renovations, but we went up to one of the tallest towers and had a great view of the city.

The Park Guell was another major work by Gaudi and it was an amazing park built in the early 1900's to emulate the English gardens. It was huge, and everywhere we turned there was something to surprise us, be it a corridor in the side of a mountain with slanted pillars, or a majestic cross on top of a mound. We wandered around there for about 2 hours, taking lots of pics and enjoying the warm weather.

At night we went to see a flamenco show, it was fantastic! We had a buffet dinner beforehand, stuffed ourselves silly, drank all the sangria we could, then sat down for an awesome show.

On the last day we visited casa Batlo, another Gaudi designed building, with forms and elements taken from nature - spirals of seashells, sand dunes and waveforms..

My pics will be up soon! In the meantime check out these other pics by Alex, Pedro and Jo.

Star-spotting

2006-10-06T15:53:00.000+01:00

YAY it's FRIIday!! And it's pub day! No no... Although I am in London now I haven't turned into a big drinker. It's just that it's the only day my colleagues and I go out to lunch. So it's a welcome change to cold Tesco sandwiches.

Last Saturday I went rock-climbing at the Castle Climbing Centre. It's literally in a castle and is quite big, lots of rooms and properly-graded climbs (they have UK and France gradings - hardcore!) My friend Jane said she climbed next to Jude Law the other week. I'll be back.

obsession with weather

2006-10-05T17:20:00.000+01:00

This week it's gone cooold.. Starting with Monday when I walked from Syon Lane station to work in mid-Sydney-Winter temperatures. My colleagues laughed and said this was only the start .. O..M..G.. Eck.. I better get used to it. I carry a scarf and umbrella with me everywhere now..

ah Chinese..!

2006-10-04T21:49:00.000+01:00

Met up with an old friend Mary for dinner tonight in Chinatown. We went to a Malaysian/Chinese/Singaporean restaurant called C&R Cafe.. it has great food and I went for the Char Kwai Diu YUM!! I have been really missing Asian food lately as it's rare that I can get to Chinatown to buy Chinese groceries. I devoured the whole plate and was so stuffed I decided to walk 50min from Leicester Square to Bank to catch the DLR home. It was a perfect cool evening for me to walk the distance carrying my shopping bag of Chinese goodies (including pineapple buns yuum!!!).

Olga, a Russian colleague at work, has been lamenting to me about how she misses this seaweed-in-a-can stuff that she used to get at home. I said HEY! the Chinese have something similar! So I bought her a couple of packets of this green jelly-like, kinda crunchy seaweed and can't wait to see if she likes them!

On the other hand, Shoaib, my Pakistani colleague who sits opposite me is fasting for a month. He looks like total crap during the 8hrs at work and I feel so guilty eating and drinking as I sit right facing him. The office is open-plan.. so I try and hide behind my flat screen monitor when i put things in my mouth. Then pretend/try to chew or swallow without moving my face.

It's the mid-Autumn Moon Festival on Friday! We'd like to get some lanterns for the flat, but they were like £8 for a basic one that I saw in Chinatown - wotta ripoff!!! Actually I bet ebay would have some... Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!!

12 months of Summer...

2006-07-26T22:31:00.000+01:00

It's been almost 12 months of Summer for me.. beginning with my trip to Europe for the Berlin DB World Champs last year in July/August, and then moving to London at the end of April for the start of Summer here. It's been a scorcher here - not much different to summer back home except that anywhere indoors is HOT, especially public transport where temps can reach up to 40+ degrees C! The worst is when you're on the tube with no ventilation, the guy next to you with his arm up holding onto the railing, and your face stuck inches in front of his armpit... you can barely breathe and you pray that the train doesn't suddenly halt coz there is only one place you'll land!!

My tan hasn't been better.. for you pale people back home in Sydney (you know who you are.. whitest of whities), not only has my tan gotten darker, but it's lasted longer than 3 weeks! haha!!

So.. with this fantastic weather what have I been doing but.... go paddling of course!! Here's a pic of my team, Thames Dragons at our 'home regatta' where we train (the London Regatta Centre). All the top teams were there, Amathus, Batchworth etc.. and we won all the races we entered!! There were 100m, 200m and 500m races. 100m races are really quite interesting.. with a lot of pfaffing around to line up the boats, then a 22 second race.. well, race start pretty much! It's been my 3rd regatta since I started, and the first time we beat the other top teams!

Hopefully more pics will follow of what else I've been up to.. (no, not JUST paddling!)

I'm still alive!!

2006-06-06T13:14:00.000+01:00

Apologies for not having posted in aaages.. there are a few good reasons for this:

I got a job - started a 3 month contract down in Syon Lane, south-west London
At the same time I moved into a flat in Canary Wharf - still adjusting to the new flatties and new place.. but I have my own room!! For the first time in my life! :)
Travel to and from work takes 1hr 15m - it's quite a hike but I get some time to sleep on the train..hence have been very tired lately!
We don't have internet access at home yet. It took 2 weeks to get a working phone line.. and broadband will take another 7-10 days. Hence I am having a nice break from doing websites :)

Other than that, things are happening.. I've been dragonboating with Thames DB. It doesn't seem a chore to turn up to training just twice a week, compared to the many more sessions I'd do back in Oz.. and it's great to keep active and meet new people.

Anyhow, my lunch break is over. Will hopefully to reply to everyone's emails soon!

Winners eat Frosties

2006-05-10T18:38:00.000+01:00

I've been applying for jobs, and had a couple of interviews. However, everytime the interviewer says "rooting protocol" or "rooter", it just totally distracts the hell out of me. I wonder if they'll expect me to start saying "rooter and rooting", instead of router and routing protocol. Maybe I'll just feel obliged to start saying it their way. But I think in the meantime I'm going to say it my way until it just gets practically inconvenient...

Played squash last night with some of Ken's friends. I hadn' t played in years and years.. I wasn't going to go, my excuse was that it would 'stuff up my tennis'.. to which Ken replied, "But you don't even play tennis!!" - and well, he had a point, so I went. It turned out to be quite fun.. all the players there were way better than me, but they were very nice and took it easy on me. There was one guy there who I named Bruce Lee... he'd hit the ball so fast you wouldn't even see it happening. He had this cool shirt that said "Winners eat Frosties" - no wonder he was so good. Afterwards I found out his name IS Lee!

My legs and butt are SO sore today.. but sore is good...

The Sultan's Elephant

2006-05-09T10:42:00.000+01:00

Over 4 days, free street theatre played out in London in the form of a 42-tonne mechanical elephant and other 3-storey high characters. This was a French production called The Sultan's Elephant, and we went to see it on the last day for the finale at St James Park.

There were thousands of people out, some main streets of London were closed for the play. The crowd was in awe when we saw the elephant. It is so cool it's kind of moving as it ambles down the street, and there are people in red frocks controlling it, lifting its feet, trunk, spraying the crowd and blinking its eyelids! What an amazing experience, I am so lucky to have been here to see it!

First paddle on the thames

2006-05-07T12:05:00.000+01:00

Well well.. it's only been 6 days and I went for my first paddle yesterday.

I emailed OCUK who Romy trains with, and asked them if I could come to their Saturday morning session. They said they were doing time trials and if I'd like to have a go, I thought, what the hell, ok!

PD's trial at Narrabeen, 4km. This was 3km on the Thames - should be a breeze! Well well.. I ended pulling a time slower than my normal trial on Narrabeen Lake.. turns out the course is around 3.8km, I suspect the oc1's weigh more than my surfski, and I squeaked all the way along the 3.8km on the foam seat which wasn't attached to the canoe at all. I also wish I had a GPS to record the zigzag of extra distance I paddled due to not being able to get the rudder straight. However! Despite the challenging craft, I had a fantastic time.. managed to do some sightseeing along the course too. It felt just like a PD trial when everyone was cheering you on at the finish. Met some great people and it was great to see Romy again. She hasn't changed much except her accent has gone British!

A week in..

2006-05-02T22:52:00.000+01:00

This is an email I wrote everyone, so this is a cheat blog entry, but it sums up the past few weeks...

I was just about to write, "Here I am, sitting in the shade of a lovely tree in Hyde Park, the temperature has been 20+ today and yesterday and I'm thoroughly enjoying the sunshine while writing you this email..".. when in an instant, I got poo'd on – my head, sunnies, laptop, pants and jacket. OKAY!! So now I'm back in the shelter of my friend's apartment in Bayswater where I've been staying since arriving on Sunday. The poo better give me good luck.

The last few weeks had been hectic, and very emotional. Saying goodbye was one of the hardest things for me, and I'd never expected to go through so many emotions since I made the decision to move. I had a wonderful time catching up with friends, and thank everyone for the amazing cards and gifts.. they mean so much to me. I felt so warm and fuzzy on my first cold day here when I slipped on my puffy jacket and walked outside ready for anything! (hit me! Hit me!) I also took photos of all the cards so I could read them on my laptop.

I spent a few days in HK visiting my brother and relos before coming to the UK. Some pics are up here. HK was really warm and humid already at this time of the year. I just wanted to stay and go paddling.

After a few days of shopping and eating 5 meals a day, I had to make my journey to the UK. In a way I wanted to stay in HK, where it was warm and familiar. The 12.5hr plane journey was made worse by my non-reclining seat. In the hope of being upgraded to Business or First class, I asked the stewardess to look into fixing it for me. They came and fiddled with it.. 3 times.. and couldn't fix it (yeh!!). There were clearly no seats in economy free… but there must be in 1st or business class right?!! Well.. apparently NOT.. they offered me a crew seat, with no tv. I declined and just put up with my broken one. At least they kept apologizing, and later gave me a $50 duty free gift voucher – but which I think is still not worth someone having to sit 12.5hrs in a straight-backed chair. Well lucky for them it was me who didn't complain further, and can sleep anywhere (literally).. plus I had my mind on other things, namely landing in a new place and having to go to job interviews which I hadn't done in 6 yrs.

So I've been here in London for about 5 days now. I'm staying in a flat with a friend, and there are 3 other flatmates here. They're taking wonderful care of me, and I've already made friends from their friends, and caught up with other friends I knew were here. There is so much to see and so much to do, however for me it doesn't feel right until I get a job and start earning pounds. The weather has been incredible. It's totally unlike what people have told me. It's been sunny a lot of the time, yesterday and today it was 20+ degrees… it hasn't rained… the people are friendly… I feel like I'm in Aus a little, because things are so easy (mainly coz I speak English too). On the other hand, the city is so much bigger, and everywhere I go there are interesting things to see, whether it's a perfect row of white terraces, or beautiful leafy shaded streets, and the amazing amazing parks…(if u minus the pooing birds).

I'm going for a paddle in an oc1 tomorrow with a friend (Romy)'s club OCUK! It'll be on the Thames and there is rain forecasted but I'm still looking forward to it.

2006-04-12T22:26:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was my last day at work.. Man oh Man.. the emotions are really kicking in. I managed not to cry the whole day which was amazing. It wasn't that I didn't feel like it.. but that I wanted to keep myself together and make a decent speech!

My work friends all chipped in and bought me a beautiful Swarovski bracelet. Everytime I look at it I will think of them.

It all happened so fast. I packed in a rush, then we had the presentation, then I had to hand over my passes and that was it.. I had Left The Building. We went to the Chelsea for drinks, it was really special having all these colleagues around me who were really friends more than colleagues, and Pear came up too later which was great. I'm so glad she was there, and also to accompany me home on the long train ride (well.. long wait for connecting train at Central)..otherwise it would've been a hard journey to make myself.

I hope to stay with as many of them as possible. I'm still coping with the idea that I don't work there anymore! It's a strange feeling to disconnect yourself from things that have always been there, eg. your job, your car, possessions, home.. I never expected to feel this way when I planned to go away a couple of months ago.

Today I'm off to Melbourne and Nagambie for the Dragonboat National Championships. I think it'll be a good break away with and being amongst friends. I'm really looking forward to the racing too. It'll be the first time I race dragonboat with the PD's and I'm ready to WIN!!!

Saying goodbye

2006-04-03T12:57:00.000+01:00

It just occurred to me that I spent Friday night with mostly guys (my uni friends), and Sunday night with a whole bunch of girls (my high school friends).. well duhh... I DID go to an all girls' HS, then somehow transitioned into Engineering at uni, thrown amongst a heap of boys on my first day and wondering what I'd gotten myself into.

Anyway.. so on Friday night caught up with Chris, Mike, Conrad and Yoon.. and Chris brought along his gf Joyce. They are such a cute couple (keke).. We had drinks briefly at the Equilibrium Bar after which we left as Chris got tired of standing, so Yoon suggested the Golden Palace in Chinatown because there are always seats there, plus he missed his CYL pals of course after not seeing them for 24hrs. Afterwards we dined at Wagamama.. which I have to say was quite disappointing (if I'm still hungry after a meal that's saying something!!).. then karaoke at Karaoke World! Chris wowed (and woo'ed??) Joyce with his vocals, we finally got Conrad to sing something.. and Mike entertained us most of the time with his master of weird rap songs, very impressive!

On Sat night Donny, Clem and I dined at Haberfield (of course I bumped into the Maks).. then gorged on huge ice creams at Passionflower in the city - I felt like a uni student again.

Last night my high school pals and I went to Karaoke World (again!).. then we gorged on a 3 course meal at the Menzies Hotel. We stepped into the restaurant area and I felt like I'd gone back in time..the place was so 1920's old style, with leather armchairs.. dim lighting.. tropical plants..wooden arches and panels.. Elaine told us about her training for the Oxfam Trailwalker - I am mighty impressed that she is doing it, AND training so hard for it (it's not till August). I gave her the 'wear stockings' tip that I remember Kait talking about once. (If you're wondering what that is, basically if u wear stockings under your socks you will minimise/delay the onset of blisters). 100km of rugged walking.. Elaine estimates it'll take her team around 30hrs to do it. That is way harder than paddling the Hawkesbury, hence I must give it a go sometime!!

I drove Kinuyo home, we stayed in the car afterwards and chatted for around 2hrs (or something like that!) I'm really grateful that I'm still so close to my HS pals.. and I hope it stays that way! :)

Here is where it begins..

2006-03-02T12:41:00.000Z

So..it's late but I feel I must write down this momentous occasion. I had gave in my resignation letter last week and filled in all the 'Employee Connect' online forms for Termination notice yesterday. But it wasn't till today at our group meeting that Adam told the team that I had resigned. Dave & Zhi sat there knowingly, whilst Sudheera and Mark both let out a "WHAT?!!" - both probably wondering how they were now going to finish the project (the 3 of us were working on) now that I was leaving - hehehe sorry guys!

Later the rest of the team filed in, Wendy, Jacquie, Steve, Pushpa... they asked me about the leave.. giving me all this advice.. saying they'd miss me.. I was quite amazed at the attention. Later after the meeting I had about 10 people crowded around my cubicle chatting about my leave. I felt as if it was my last day already.. so many people were giving me advice, Pushpa was telling me to go to Ireland instead.. (I'll look into it!), Jacquie said she guessed it was coming.. I said we must all keep in touch!

All in all... on the train home that night.. i couldn't stop thinking about all my colleagues and how much I'll miss them. Optus has been a great place to work.. I am dreading my last day and saying my farewells. I think career and ambition is one thing, but you can never replace the comraderie and friendships I've made at Optus. I'll miss everyone, including (forgive me for using a list, i'm an engineer is my excuse),

Adam - the best boss anyone would want, always supportive, understanding, encouraging, honest, easy-going, mild-mannered. I wouldn't want to work for anyone else.. and I hope I stay in touch with him for a long time to come.
Dave - quiet achiever, funny man, understanding, heart of gold.. he's always there to help me with work, and we've shared a lot together .. I will miss chats with him, and wish him the best with his family and little daughter Louise.
Phil - the life of the office.. one of the best PEI's in the whole company and the most easy-going guy around. I apologise if I've been uptight at work.. but I have to thank him for always trying to get me drunk.
Man ok this is sounding like a farewell and I'm not even leaving yet for 6 weeks.
I need to get to bed so i can get enough rest to keep working for another 6 weeks.

Will complete this later..!

Canadian Christmas

2006-01-07T23:33:00.000Z

A friend sent me this pic of the view from his bedroom in Ottawa.. I've never seen so much snow in my life.. it looks as though you'd just sink if you tried to step out of there!

New Year's was Hotter!!

2006-01-05T12:30:00.000Z

It's a few days past New Year's, and it's almost midnight on a weekday but I feel I must write this before I forget and get on with the rest of 2006!

Basically this was the first day of 2006 for me. Was up at Lake Macquarie at Zeus' place with friends. Notable events:
1. Cut my left foot in 6 places when stepped on a huge pile or just one huge oyster.
2. Got seasick being out on the ski in chop for 2hrs. Came back to house and threw up - then was fine.
3. Walked into a door at night - banged my head but that was fine. Worse was busting the 2nd toenail on my left foot. Consequence is that cleaning the left foot and bandaging it with 8 bandages takes me around 15min twice a day.
4. Didn't win any of the $32mil NYE Lotto.

Great, got that off my chest - now bring on the good luck for 2006!

Sweltering on Christmas Eve

2005-12-24T03:39:00.000Z

Shikes how can it be this hot??? It's around 38d today, but there's not sun. It's incredibly hot, I tried to sleep in this morning while attempting to ignore the fact that I was just lying there not doing anything and sweating.

It's a quiet day, quiet as in there's not much to do - nothing on.. I did my last minute Xmas day grocery shopping last night at 2am at Broadway shopping centre. It was cool! Hardly anyone went, I wonder if it was worth the shopping centre opening. The Coles staff were bored you could tell. One chubby Asian dude was trying to pick me up at the checkout aisle. The had boxes of stock all over the place - no doubt stocking up for today's crazy last minute panick shopping. I went to 2 diff Coles trying to find sponge fingers for tiramisu.. lucky found it today at a deli in Kogarah.

My cuz (technically Aunt) Cindy and her hubby Cameron had a baby boy!! 4kg and apparently that is one huge bub!! YAY! Finally a baby for me to play with! Hehehehhee.. no.. that does not necessarily mean I am dead keen to be a mother and settle down etc. (!)

Am still working on our Ng Family Photo Gallery (I've decided to edit out the URL as there's too many embarassing family pics). It's taking a while to tweak Gallery2 to look how I want it to look... but apparently it is more customisable than Gallery1. Am now coming to the conclusion that it might be a bit more complicated for my family members to learn how to use as I think... So in a way I think I liked the simplicity of Gallery1 better. Anyway, so yeh, just decided to add another webpage to the 3 that I already administer. Man I am a control-freak.

Gotta go finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.. only a few pages to go! YEH I can imagine the movie being scary. I want to watch it tonight but no one to go with, everyone's seen it?!

Birth of my Blog

2005-06-06T23:06:00.000+01:00

Well well.. here we are.. I'm tapping out on my new keyboard and just created a blog for myself..

Right now i'm trying to recover from a cold.. eyes getting sore from looking at this tiny screen (although it is a beautifully cute new laptop).. so i might give it a rest soon..