Time check for 3rd day of closing: 10pm.

I'm almost through with my first closing and I think I have a feel of how things run now.
Well as usual, things were not done properly in the way they should be done and since there are different people handling the process in other regions, it can be a bit messy at times.
Moving forward, things should slowly fall in place.

Couldn't have done it without help from Lina and Yuko, and of course, the gurus from London.

Done for Tokyo, left with Seoul, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Ok one more day to go before life goes back to normal. Gambate!

Day 2 of mth end closing... Time check: 9.30pm... Slight improvement

I remember when I was a kid, Dad was down on his luck and his company folded. He had no choice but to sell of his car to pay debts and since then we spent the rest of our childhood taking public transport and I used to envy my friends who own a family car. I then told myself that I'll eventually own a car before I hit 30, at least that seems to be a realistic goal. At that time, we were rather poor and sometimes, we even had to go hungry. Me and my bros started supporting ourselves thru school at a young age, taking on part time jobs in between classes and weekends were spent waiting tables at hotels.

For a while, we even began to doubt that we can ever get out of poverty...

Years later, we managed to put ourselves thru to poly and then uni and now, Dad got a stable job and his boss lets him drive the company van. Me, I realised my goal of owning a car before the big 3-O, even though its an off peak car but still a car nonetheless. And today, my bro collected his Nissan Latio and so it seems that we have restored some family honour... heheh

My youngest bro just started working so he has to wait for his turn...

We are not filthy rich, you know, but compared to the life that we had, I'd say we had braved thru the worse and now, life is looking good again, and although to some people, it would seem pretty dumb to be owning so many vehicles in a household, but to us, its just a way to show that we have successfully walked out of the darkest days and we now have the trophy to show for it... So there...

What will you do if you are invited to a wedding across the causeway and the host offered to put you up on free accomodation for the night, so that you can maybe go tour around a bit before returning home the next day and get ready for another work week?
And what would you do, if someone among the friends whom were invited, offered to source for transport so that everyone can just get on the mini-bus and travel together? Sound good rite? However, I cannot understand why things turn out to be less than ideal. Ok, since I can't attend the wedding in the first place and I'm not the organiser, I probably should not kick up a fuss but hey, I had organised events/ trips before and I know how it feels like when people do not appreciate and directly/ indirectly make things difficult.

So now first of all, the host had graciously booked hotel rooms for the guests and transport had been arranged, so I heard an itinery was even planned for the half day after the wedding night so that all can have a good time.

Then came the problem. Some could not stay for the night and need to return to Singapore on the same night. And now there is this problem of transport. Those who wish to come back early need to find their own transport and those remaining will have to fork out extra in order to make up the difference. And of course there are yet others who then feel that since not everyone is staying, they are also thinking of returning home after the dinner.

Sigh... althought to each his own but then, have these people consider the fact that the host is trying his best to make things as comfortable for the guests as possible har? Shouldn't you guys spare a thought and not make things difficult for him? Its his wedding lor, and I'm sure he has enuf on his plate than to keep asking you guys to stay. I mean you people are arguing about forking that extra $10, $20 for the transport but he has already booked 3 hotel rooms for you people lor!

And of course, there are always those who dun contribute to the planning or the logistics but once the organiser(s) came up with the plan, then they suddenly have much to comment and suggest... This is the group that kills the fun out of any outings...

Ok lah, like I said, since I'm not attending and I'm not the part of the organising comm this time round, I should not make further comments but I urge those who are involved to 以大局为重, please make it a memorable wedding for the groom but not memorable for the wrong reasons ok?

Time check for Day 1 of mth end closing. 10.30pm and still in office.
Tummy growling...

Back to my beloved Little Red Dot. The flight back was one hour shorter but it was a bumpy ride. We went thru a few turbulences and the plane kept dipping and climbing. Contrary to what boss said, ANA does have in flight entertainment but then the movie selection was quite limited.
Lucky I have a novel and read throughout the flight, in between naps, so the 6hr was bearable.

The first thing that greeted me when I got out from the airport was a blast of warm breeze. Its nice to be home but I have already started to miss Tokyo's cool weather.

Ok, time to get serious and back to work =(

Day　４
This is it. Last day in the land of the rising sun.
Due the late nite out, we were for the most part of the day, feeling lethargic and almost everyone is on life support, relying on strong doses of coffee to get by. J got some was suffering from hangover but the rest of us were just tired.

As we wanna make sure Yuko really understands what we were teaching her, we decided to lunch in and we had some Jap KFC. I still prefer the SG version though. Val was rite, Jap KFC really cannot make it.

After work, J and I decided to try the mall nearest to office so that we can get some stuff back home, but the mall was seriously a big disappointment. Its a regular entertainment centre like Jurong Point with some regular shops, not a place for tourists.
And we spent about 6,000 yen （1,000 is roughly about SGD$12) on cab fare cuz the train map was impossible to read. There are different operators for different train lines and so all the 6 lines or so was criss crossing all over the place. Lucky can claim transport so I can save some trouble converting unused yen back to SGD anyway.

Tomorrow's flight back is via ANA, and my boss was like complaining that its a bloody nightmare to cramp on something small, with no flight entertainment for 7 hrs. Seriously, all these brokers are damn spoilt lor, but who am I to complain? For one, I have not yet travelled on a non SQ flight (except internal flights la, which doesn't count). Speaking of which, its quite amusing to see my boss singing karaoke on stage... hahah (think Rainbow will know wat I mean)
Btw, the KTV pubs in Tokyo are like those KTV pubs in Boat Quay, except that you have to go onto a small platform to sing, like a mini stage like that... The japs ans the angmoh all sioa one, think they are some superstars or something, but some really can sing, but others...tsk tsk... Well at least they provided some visual entertainment although they were my ear drums..

Took a few clips with my lousy hp, not very clear though but you can still make out the outlines, wil load them once I load them onto youtube. Ok gotta koon liaoz, there's a plane to catch...

p.s. The date/time stamp of the past few entries is not indicative since Tokyo is one hour ahead of Singapore, not that any of you care, but anyways =p

Day 3 (part 2)
Ok so we went for the much anticipated so called Japanese entertainment. Dinner was at this teppan yaki restaurant in ANA Intercontinental Hotel (not sure of the station name though). Since it's gonna be put on the company's tab and as Ken-san put it, they have big wallets, so we basically ordered whatever exotic food that can be bbq-ed on the stainless steel plate.

We ordered things like premium kobe beef, something liverish, think its duck liver or something, and lobster. Erm, the lobsters were really fresh cuz they were were still moving althought they were already cut in half!!! Their will to survive was so strong that they were basically still moving as they were being teppan-yakied... Geez, talk about cruelty to animals but they tasted so good... hahah... So well, exotic food and beers and wines later, our host suggested karaoke.

My ang moh boss and the American APMgr were like so thrilled but I was like omfg... kauz, a KTV pub with 100% English songs and I dun dig English songs at KTV lor... So this part of Jap entertainment was boring as hell, of cuz I can't say this to them, so pretended to enjoy myself and sang 2 songs... Can't wait for it to end but they were like going on and on...

Finally they decided to call it quits and here I am, finally back at 3am. Its gonna be work in like 5 hours' time...yawnzzzzz

Day 3 (part 1)
Got some spare time before my Japan counterpart finishes her operational work so that we can begin training her, so here I am blogging again... hahah, there really isn't much to do around here and I'm getting a little bit tired of Jap food... eww, but I can't get enuf of the cool weather though...

Some interesting stuff...
1) The cabs here all have GPS installed but the farnie thing is, the cabbies dun always use them. We took a cab back to the hotel last nite after dinner and the cabbie was trying to figure out how to get us back. So, boss passed him a card that the hotel front desk staff gave us, and he was like flipping the card back and forth. We were starting to wonder if the guy knows how to read when he said 'Ahhh'... Then he thought for a moment before driving off... Geez, we were ready to spend the rest of the night touring around Tokyo but it turned out that the guy knew where he was going and we were back in 10min. Cab fare? 1050 yen so that turns out to be about like almost SGD$12. Not too ex I guess for a 10min ride, considering the horror stories that I hear about cab fares...

2) All the toilet seats are fitted with those electronic gadgets that warms up the seat and sprays water to wash you up after you finished watever you were doing. Its cool but needs some getting used to... hahah

Alritey... back to work...

For those who think that I'm having fun here, well not really. I'm staying and working in the biz district of Tokyo, so there' really nothing much to do after work except going to dinner and drinks with the office people, so dun blame me if I did not manage to get you guys stuff from here.
The TV channels sux cuz almost 90% of them are in jap. Lucky thing is I still have free internet in my hotel room but it's not exactly easy using a jap keyboard, so its taking me much longer than wat I would have liked to blog this entry. so pardon me for the typos. So, some brief updates on my adventure so far...

Day 1
Off to the airport from home. It took me nearly 30min to get a cab on a bloody Sunday and when I finally got on one, the receipt issuing machine on the cab was spoilt and the cabby dun issue hand written ones, so I can't claim transport on that trip. Wat's worse, the idiot decided to drive off the moment I gof off the cab, with my luggage still in the boot! And I have to chase after the fucking cab and pound on the boot to make it stop. Wat a way to start the day huh?

The flight was ok, it was 7 hours long so I spent most of the time watching movies, ah the beauty of SQ flights. So I caught 'Evans Almighty' and 'License to Wed', pretty good shows and they bring me a little bit closer to the big guy above. Hahaha I'm not converting but I'm able to appreciate him a little better. Not sure why I had that feeling after watching 2 rather crappy shows... Is it enlightenment? You tell me... anyways...

After we landed, took a one hr journey to the hotel by coach. I heard that the cab fare here is ridiculous. The same journey by cab will set you back by abt US$300. Yup, I'm not kidding. So by the time we checked in, it was like 8pm so we just decided to dine in one of the hotel restuarants. We had French food, complete with entree, main course, desert, wine and cheese, all on company's tab. That's abt the only perk I have, eat and drink till I can eat and drink no more and its all paid for.

Well, the dinner lasted for like 2 and a half hrs though, and I'm having a rough time making conversations cuz well, my boss is a Brit and my other colleague is a black American, so half the time, I was trying to make out wat the hell they are talking about (the topics as well as their accent)... My command of the English language was ok but its another thing trying to filter thru their hometown topics and their accents. My boss worked in New York office before he got posted to Singapore and yeah so, the 2 were yakking most of the time. But it was not that bad, we did break the ice by the end of the dinner, got to know many interesting things about life as a broker, especially those in New York City.

Day 2
Which is today, went to Tokyo office which is like 2 train stations away, took us less than 15min to get there. The office here is more spacious cuz they dun really have many people there. Surprising, most of the jap counterparts here speak good English, better than me in fact, some of them either worked or studied in the US or Austrailia, so they acquired the accent.

So there, we went to work, and erm, I always thought my designation is Accounts Payable Manager but today, I realised my full designation is Accounts Payable Manager, Asia. And I'm supposed to oversee the operations in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul and Singapore... Bloody hell, I'm　underpaid. They better do some revision after my probation... TMD...

Again, nothing much interesting happened after work, except eating. We had tempura for lunch and shushi/ sashimi for dinner, with jap beer and sake. It was so much better than those in Singapore. So a few sake and beer later, I'm here blogging.

Think there's gonna be more eating and drinking after work, cuz the jap office people is planning a happy hour for us, its gonna be teppan yaki this time and more sake (I seriously dub really fancy sake), so I gotta make sure my cup dun reach that half cup mark (the japs have this bad habit of topping up your drinking cups/ glass to the brim whenever they reach that 50% mark)

One interesting thing I found out today. No one knows what GFI stands for, and some years ago, the big boss man actually offered a 10k reward for anyone who can get it rite. Some smart alec came up with 'Great Fucking Idea'. Its not the correct answer but he got the dough cuz the big boss like the sound of it. Till today, it is still a myth...

Off to the Land of the Rising Sun in a few hours.
Will be back on Thursday so in the mean time, you guys take care and have fun.
Dun miss me too much ar... muuuhahahah =p

3rd day at work, so far so good but then hor, starting to get a bit stressed le. My exisiting colleague is leaving on Friday and my temp gal is thinking of resigning as well cuz she has been offered a perm position. I think she would like to stay but then job security is of a higher priority.

Jia lat leh, if she goes then I last man standing le leh, still not very familiar with all the procedures yet, how to teach new staff? What's worse, I'm supposed to be on a 3 day overseas trip next week, where got time to do operations?

Tried to psycho the temp gal to stay by helping her to analyse her options. Though for personal reasons, I'll not want her to leave, but at the end of the day, the decision is still hers to make. Maybe, I'll try to talk to boss about putting her on perm payroll but under probation. At least then it gives her some reassurance of job security. See how bah...

Sigh... thinking on the positive side, I'll be able to learn more if I'm left to swim thru the shit. I'll rather be a hands-on mgr than a theory-and-talk only kind, though that's gonna be the tougher route, heheh

Now I can only hope to learn and absorb as much as possible before I'm left on my own. Been so tired that I can't be bothered to bring my vampire for a spin =(
Good thing is that most of my colleagues leave by 6pm so I suppose not much OT is required, except during month end closing or when payments have to be made, a far cry from Ah Geok's Dept. People here actually leaves ON THE DOT... How cool is that? Hahaha

On the down side, dun like to lunch in Raffles Place though, the crowd is terrible. Here, people go out at 12pm sharp but these few days, I prefer to go out later buy back and eat at my desk, its more relaxing. And oh, colleagues wise, they are not as warm or friendly as those in Ah Geok's Dept but they are still nice lah... Takes me 3 days to know the people in my Finance Dept, not too bad I guess...

Ok, so today marks the end of my retiree life and a beginning to a new chapter of my worklife.
Things are picking up even on the first day and I'm already expected to fly off to Tokyo this Sunday for a 3 day business trip.
They have flown in my US counterpart to train me on the know-hows and we are suppose to go for the Tokyo trip together with my boss, and start reviewing the payment process there. Looks like its gonna be a roller coaster ride from here on.

So far so good for first day. Gonna plunge into operations from tomorrow onwards though =x

Okies, that's all for now, gonna rush off for a wedding dinner =)

2nd straight week at ECP and the 2nd straight week it rained while we were there. Actually this time round, it rained while we were on our way there. We had a pot luck style picnic and everyone bought some food.

After eating, we decided to go cycling, for a change, instead of the usual rollerblading cuz Little Imp and Xiao Mei refused to put on rollerblades =x
Evan decided to go skinny dip on his own, so we abandon him to be at one with the sea and to jagar our stuff, while the rest of us went cycling. We felt guilty afterwards and went back for him.

The grp pix was taken by a pretty angmoh chick at the Bedok Jetty

Xiao Mei was complaining that I never take pictures with her, so here's our 101 solo pic together. Hmm think we were all sunburnt by then, notice how red our arms are becoming?

Had a BBQ with the TCSCBG at Hillview later on in the evening, kauz, really travelled from one end to the other end of the island. Dead beat now... sigh, still gotta go for Central Comm Meeting tmr morning =(

Its interesting to hear that most of my friends are looking for jobs. Met some ex colleagues from SEAB for lunch and they are all looking for better prospects. Of cuz lah, how can anyone stay if the organisation gives pathetic increments and no promotions but expect staff to assume higher responsibilities??? Or is this the general trend in the public service? I have friends from other ministries facing the same issues. To me, this does not make sense at all, no matter how well they wanna sugar coat it. Whatever the PSD is reviewing, they better review properly and fast, if they wanna stop this outflow of manpower.

Take, for instance, the organisation has a vacancy. Instead of promoting from within, the organisation prefers to recruit someone new, bearing in mind that the organisation does not even know if the incumbent can perform or not whereas the exisitng staff has already proven himself/ herself.

Most absurdly, in my friend's case, they actually had the cheek to ask her to assume the position of a Head of Dept for one year on trial, before they assess her for promotion. Simi lan??? Drawing the pay of an exec but the workload of a head, and on probation lor, no guarantee one leh...

If they were to recruit someone from outside the organisation, the fella will also be on probation but drawing the pay fit for the position lor!!! Can someone pls enlighten me??? This is also one of the reason why I decide to leave Ah Geok in the first place.

And then I heard that there is one resignation from Ah Geok's Dept which doesn't come as a surprise. Just that this person joined for barely 3 mths.

In the evening, met up with Huaying and Betsy for dinner and it seems that Huaying is also desperate to leave her current organisation, and she's there for like 2 mths... Hmmm, hope all of you manage to find your dream job soon wor...

Speaking of which, I'm starting mine on Monday. Hope everything works out fine.

Anywayz... Oh this is my 200th blog post... started off blogging just to kill time (that time in Ah Geok's Dept, waiting for posting so got loads of time) but din expect I actually continued till now...

Moving on to another aspect of my random topics... Recently feeling a sense of deja vu, not sure if I had made the correct choice... Like I mentioned before in a previous post, sometimes, its harder to be objective when I'm trapped in the situation. Can't really see things as clearly as an onlooker. Well, hope things turn out ok..

[Wrote this entry before I watched the news regarding this phenomenon. Its actually a water spout without the 'r' so ya, Bernice was correct... heheh, so most of them is non tornadic in nature, meaning they are quite harmless.. This time round, I managed to find some info from Wikipedia]

Had quite an adventure at ECP today. Went for rollerblading and came across this phenomenon. Think its called a water sprout, according to Bernice but I cannot find in Wikipedia leh... You sure its called a water sprout or not???

I remembered seeing something similiar during my BMT days in Tekong Camp but it was far out at sea, this one is really up close de, can even see the base. Its as if the sky is sucking up water from the sea and as we watched in awe, it came nearer and nearer to shore...

And then suddenly, there was this strongest gust of wind and an extremely heavy downpour. And due to the velocity of the wind, we were actually stung by the sand particles swept from the beach. For a moment, I can actually relate to the tsunami victims (may they rest in peace).

We were all busy taking pix and videos and only ran for cover when it hit us. Evan said the rain tasted salty... hahah of cuz lah, wat goes up (the sea water) must come down mah...

Here's the pix and a short video clip taken with my lau ya nokia phone, the loud horn heard in the clip was from the ships out at sea...

Heard something ridiculous that's happening in Ah Geok's Dept today... And that is, no one is allowed to have dustbins at their workstations! WTH??? Got such things one meh? Apparently, Ah Geok thinks that by having individual dustbins is unsightly and will 'dirty' the newly renovated office and so, by her royal decree, all dustbins were to be confiscated...

What about the rubbish then? Well, looks like designated rubbish collection point are being set up... So having 2 big dustbins in the office will somehow make the office cleaner and more sightly?

I wonder, does she still have her own dustbin in her office?

This is a belated post but anyways... It was Estee's bdae and the gang decided to get her the same prezzie that we got for Val, a DIY bear at Build-A-Bear, the one in Suntec, and as the bdae gal is there to witness the birth of the bear, we managed to capture the whole process in frozen memory...

After selecting the bear that you want, the friendly staff will help you stuff the bear with cotton, and you get to select soft, medium or hard, depending on how you wanna hug ur bear

Can't believe the 4 of us crooned till 3am... Xiao mei left halfway though cuz her beau-to-be came to pick her up... All in all everyone had a fun time =)

Finally got my 小疆尸 liaoz...
Still needs some getting used to though, been driving too much auto cars le...
On the whole I'm starting to get the hang of it but still cannot conquer slopes based on half clutch alone without pulling hand brake... If I kanna stuck at taka carpark the slope then chiam liaoz... But with practice, think I'll conquer all slopes eventually... muhahahhah

Saw the last Friday's episode of 前线追踪, the one where they say Geylang got illegal barbers and Jurong got dunno simi 灵树. Seems like the tree got faces of animals and then people come from all over the place to pray to these sprited trees...

First of all, I cannot stand the sight of some of these foreign workers. Call me racists or whatever but really mah, I think most of you have to agree they do pose some social inconvenience to the masses, like how some of the ah neks stink up the MRTs or the way they oogle at and grope our gals at foam parties or during xmas celebrations down in Orchard Roads and such. Nevermind that the illegal barbers in question are plying their trade in a red light district and not in the heartlands but then, they are still causing inconvience to the people living and operating legalised hairdressing services in the vicinity.

What bothers me is that in the program, it was stated that the police patrolling the area did nothing to stop the operations, unless residents complain... WTF??? Must complain then will take action ar?
And it seems that none of the gahmen agencies will take ownership of the situation. The people in charge of labour regulations will take action if people complain cuz the work permit of these foreign workers are for working at construction sites only. Simi lan??? You mean the China man and the Ah Neks can get work permit for other trade de meh??? Isn't it obvious that the sight of foreign workers cutting hair in the alleyways using sub standard equipment shouts 'ILLEGAL'?
The people in charge of the environment will issue summons if people complain that got people litter the place... Hello, hair flying all over the place liao lor... They dun have people on patrol de meh? Or the so called inspectors only check for mosquitoes and that's it? What ever happen to no wrong door policy?
I wonder what will happen if after the program, someone complains to all 3 agencies, will they spend a few more months trying to decide if the summons should be served first before the police eradicate the illegal businesses, followed by more fines for violating the terms and conditions of the work permit before they are being deported back to their respective countries? Yeah, most probably things will be sorted out in the manner I just described.

The next segment is even more ridiculous. People are praying to the trees at the roadside becuz the bark formation happens to have images of monkeys, bulls and elephants. And obviously, it creates inconvenience to the residents and pose a safety hazard to people cuz they will no doubt be standing by the roadside where there are incoming traffic... In this case, the gahmen decides to erect barricades... How thoughtful! Oh wait, they have police patrol oso to ensure that there's law and order... I can't seriously say I'm faulting the authorities in this case lah, unless there's some agencies dealing with superstitious beliefs which cause public unrest and they are also waiting for people to complain first.

Actually I think they will soon set up such an agency if they dun have it oredi, now is people worshipping trees in Jurong, imagine people start worshipping trees in Orchard Road or later in the IRs, then how? Cannot mah cuz we must uphold our image of a developed nation to the rest of the world, how can allow people anyhow worship walls or trees where there are ang mohs around??? We dun want to be seen as superstitious, not when we just allow people to dance on bar tops