This week has been a little strange so far. It's Thursday, and I feel like a fish out of water. I mean, I've been at home in HK all week. Something is terribly wrong! And it's getting worse - it looks like I will probably be in HK next week as well. My trip to Seoul will be rescheduled to some future date (to be determined) because the other people are not ready for the meetings.
Oh dear - will have to invent some reason to travel. It has been a while since I spent time with the team in Malaysia, so maybe that's where I need to go - and Thailand at the same time.
Anyway, just stopped for 5 minutes at Pacific Coffee as I collect my coffee and breakfast ("everything bagel", toasted, grande americano with milk). Better get moving and get to work now.
Oh - almost forgot - got Sharon's birthday present sent off - wonder if she will "get it"?
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Another go
We had another go at The Brunch Club yesterday. Very disappointing. We went thinking that maybe last weekend was not their best. Well that's probably true. But it wasn't their worst either.
Slow service, meals coming out separately, coffee coming out one cup at a time (with about 5 minutes in between - how hard is it to make two lattes at once?), no knives and forks until we asked for them. And the food was just average. Once again, the only redeeming factor was the chocolate milkshake. I don't think we will be going back for breakfast by choice. I did go one night for dinner with one of the guys from work - that was reasonable and the service was ok.
Last night was dinner at Harlan's in order to have a serious discussion about careers and future countries. Not sure whether we came to any decisions, but the giant fries with truffle mayo were great as usual. And the slow-cooked beef cheek was excellent (again). I ordered linguine with red crab in champagne sauce as a main, but when it arrived, Sonia decided that she liked it better than the beef cheek (which has quite a bit of gravy), so we ended up swapping. No complaints after that.
Anyway, we're at Pacific Coffee for breakfast and the bagels have just been served. Got to go!
Slow service, meals coming out separately, coffee coming out one cup at a time (with about 5 minutes in between - how hard is it to make two lattes at once?), no knives and forks until we asked for them. And the food was just average. Once again, the only redeeming factor was the chocolate milkshake. I don't think we will be going back for breakfast by choice. I did go one night for dinner with one of the guys from work - that was reasonable and the service was ok.
Last night was dinner at Harlan's in order to have a serious discussion about careers and future countries. Not sure whether we came to any decisions, but the giant fries with truffle mayo were great as usual. And the slow-cooked beef cheek was excellent (again). I ordered linguine with red crab in champagne sauce as a main, but when it arrived, Sonia decided that she liked it better than the beef cheek (which has quite a bit of gravy), so we ended up swapping. No complaints after that.
Anyway, we're at Pacific Coffee for breakfast and the bagels have just been served. Got to go!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Plans
Well, we're starting to think about what we need to plan for Mum and Dad when they're here.
First things first - getting from the airport to the apartment. I'm going to be in Seoul, returning late in the day. Conveniently, M&D have selected a flight that arrives early in the day - landing (if on time) at 06:45 in the morning. They will need to get the Airport Express to town, where Sonia will meet them.
Having been on a long (10-11 hours?) and being somewhat advanced in years, they will of course need to recuperate (sleep) for most of the rest of the day.
I arrive back in the evening, just in time for dinner. If they haven't managed to make it to town on the train, then I guess I will collect them somewhere between the arrival gate at the airport and the apartment!
First things first - getting from the airport to the apartment. I'm going to be in Seoul, returning late in the day. Conveniently, M&D have selected a flight that arrives early in the day - landing (if on time) at 06:45 in the morning. They will need to get the Airport Express to town, where Sonia will meet them.
Having been on a long (10-11 hours?) and being somewhat advanced in years, they will of course need to recuperate (sleep) for most of the rest of the day.
I arrive back in the evening, just in time for dinner. If they haven't managed to make it to town on the train, then I guess I will collect them somewhere between the arrival gate at the airport and the apartment!
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Brunch Club
Not great - good milkshakes and the coffee was fine. But the Eggs Benedict was on the disappointing side. Sonia's omlette (with bacon and parmesan) was good as well - except that she originally ordered Belgian Waffles. They'd run out, and only worked this out after I'd almost finished mine.
Enough said.
Enough said.
Getting slack
We do seem to have been getting particularly slack at keeping the blog updated. Sometimes it feels like there is not really much happening that is worth writing about.
This week, I went back to Tokyo for three days, returning on Saturday morning. It was an incredibly busy time, and I left feeling like I did not achieve the underlying purpose of the trip. However, we did get lots of other "stuff" done. Next time....
The big discussion in Tokyo was around the timing of the Cherry Blossoms. For those who don't know, the observatories maintain a running forecast of the timing. They thought it might be next week, however we apparently had snow in Tokyo on Friday, so I guess that puts a big question mark on the date. It's a big deal for people there - they spend the day sitting on the ground having a picnic (traditionally supplemented with alcoholic beverages) underneath the blossoms. A real social occasion for family and friends.
Sonia spent the week in HK, suprisingly no travel plans either last week or this coming week. I'm in HK all this week, at a leadership conference for the first half of the week.
I overslept this morning, so no happy-clappy. Heading out shortly to find brunch - there is a place called "The Brunch Club". It specialises in breakfasts, including a variety of Eggs Benedict-based dishes. Will update here with a review later on.
We also need to find an air-bed for when M&D come - only two weeks away. Hope they like air-beds! Seriously, I guess we will give up our bedroom so that they can sleep in comfort while on holiday. Meanwhile we (the martyrs) will suffer on the air-bed in the lounge (it won't fit in the spare bedroom).
This week, I went back to Tokyo for three days, returning on Saturday morning. It was an incredibly busy time, and I left feeling like I did not achieve the underlying purpose of the trip. However, we did get lots of other "stuff" done. Next time....
The big discussion in Tokyo was around the timing of the Cherry Blossoms. For those who don't know, the observatories maintain a running forecast of the timing. They thought it might be next week, however we apparently had snow in Tokyo on Friday, so I guess that puts a big question mark on the date. It's a big deal for people there - they spend the day sitting on the ground having a picnic (traditionally supplemented with alcoholic beverages) underneath the blossoms. A real social occasion for family and friends.
Sonia spent the week in HK, suprisingly no travel plans either last week or this coming week. I'm in HK all this week, at a leadership conference for the first half of the week.
I overslept this morning, so no happy-clappy. Heading out shortly to find brunch - there is a place called "The Brunch Club". It specialises in breakfasts, including a variety of Eggs Benedict-based dishes. Will update here with a review later on.
We also need to find an air-bed for when M&D come - only two weeks away. Hope they like air-beds! Seriously, I guess we will give up our bedroom so that they can sleep in comfort while on holiday. Meanwhile we (the martyrs) will suffer on the air-bed in the lounge (it won't fit in the spare bedroom).
Monday, March 12, 2007
Macau - a little bit of Portugal in the middle of China...
It is Monday and we have just come back from the weekend in Macau. We were both working in Bangkok for the last couple of days of last week, so compared to the 40 degree temperatures there Macau felt very chilly at around 17. Andrew is out at a work dinner tonight so I am at home watching the silly comedies on tv - should be cleaning my messy house but I am not :-)
Macau is really interesting. I have no idea how many years it was ruled by Portugal, but it was only returned to China in 1999 and forms another SAR (Special Administrative Region) which is self ruling but part of China. Portugese influence is everywhere. Beautiful buildings and forts, stunning gardens and a strange mix of Chinese and Portugese food. The main island is reasonably small - if you don't mind a good bit of walking you can get to a lot of the sights on foot. We sure walked...
The casinos that Macau is becoming more and more famous for put on a spectacular light show, and the fountain synchronised to music outide the Wynns casino is definitely the most impressive I have ever seen.
We did of course find our fair share of eating establishments - fantastic Italian on Saturday night, and a funny little place called the Singing Coffee Bean for lunch on Sunday. The menu took great pains to point out that they 'play Mozart to the beans to ensure they are suitably nourished'. No idea if it was the Mozart or not but the coffee was not bad.
And a couple of Chinese New Year pictures - makes Christmas decoration look conservative!!
Macau is really interesting. I have no idea how many years it was ruled by Portugal, but it was only returned to China in 1999 and forms another SAR (Special Administrative Region) which is self ruling but part of China. Portugese influence is everywhere. Beautiful buildings and forts, stunning gardens and a strange mix of Chinese and Portugese food. The main island is reasonably small - if you don't mind a good bit of walking you can get to a lot of the sights on foot. We sure walked...
The casinos that Macau is becoming more and more famous for put on a spectacular light show, and the fountain synchronised to music outide the Wynns casino is definitely the most impressive I have ever seen.
We did of course find our fair share of eating establishments - fantastic Italian on Saturday night, and a funny little place called the Singing Coffee Bean for lunch on Sunday. The menu took great pains to point out that they 'play Mozart to the beans to ensure they are suitably nourished'. No idea if it was the Mozart or not but the coffee was not bad.
And a couple of Chinese New Year pictures - makes Christmas decoration look conservative!!
Monday, March 05, 2007
My Turn
Just checked the blog and so disappointed in Andrew – did he really not post anything between Feb 22 and Mar 4? He is definitely slacking!!!
This week sees me in Shanghai trying to make sense of the business requirements for the latest work project with our IT vendor. It is freezing. Everyone tells me that it was warm until yesterday, and will be warm again from Thursday. I leave on Wednesday, so not much good to me…
The end of the week (Thursday) Andrew and I are both going up to Bangkok. Definitely on the other end of the climate scale with ‘summer’ there seeing temperatures more like 35 – 37C. We are on leave on Monday so I’ve been trying to convince Andrew to stay over and make a long weekend of it – not having much luck though, he really just wants to go home. A definite disadvantage to traveling so much for work – airplanes and flash hotel rooms are not at all exciting any more.
Probably would be a good thing for us to spend the weekend in HK anyway. We are away so often on the weekend and still have not managed to find a real ‘home’ church. Whenever we are in town we have been going to the ‘happy clappy’ one that we first found. This week they waved hello to Jesus – that just might be it for us I think!! We keep saying that we will go and try the Baptist one once we get a car, but a car is proving hard to come upon. Andrew really wants to replace the SLK he left behind in England, but there just are not too many of them on the market so still no success there.
Really nothing exciting to tell – maybe why Andrew slacked off so badly in February. Be good and take care,
Sonia
This week sees me in Shanghai trying to make sense of the business requirements for the latest work project with our IT vendor. It is freezing. Everyone tells me that it was warm until yesterday, and will be warm again from Thursday. I leave on Wednesday, so not much good to me…
The end of the week (Thursday) Andrew and I are both going up to Bangkok. Definitely on the other end of the climate scale with ‘summer’ there seeing temperatures more like 35 – 37C. We are on leave on Monday so I’ve been trying to convince Andrew to stay over and make a long weekend of it – not having much luck though, he really just wants to go home. A definite disadvantage to traveling so much for work – airplanes and flash hotel rooms are not at all exciting any more.
Probably would be a good thing for us to spend the weekend in HK anyway. We are away so often on the weekend and still have not managed to find a real ‘home’ church. Whenever we are in town we have been going to the ‘happy clappy’ one that we first found. This week they waved hello to Jesus – that just might be it for us I think!! We keep saying that we will go and try the Baptist one once we get a car, but a car is proving hard to come upon. Andrew really wants to replace the SLK he left behind in England, but there just are not too many of them on the market so still no success there.
Really nothing exciting to tell – maybe why Andrew slacked off so badly in February. Be good and take care,
Sonia
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Another week goes by
Another week is officially over. The week started in Tokyo, having worked through from last week. On Wednesday I returned to HK, meeting Sonia at the airport. She was coming back from a visit to Bangkok. I got off the plane, walked out into the path towards immigration, and turned on the phone (as instructed by "she-who-must-be-obeyed"). While speaking to Sonia, I could hear the same noises in the background as were around me. It turned out she had just landed and was all of two gates ahead of me! Home to bed.
Thursday and Friday were spent in the office - up until this few days, I think I've managed about 1 day in the office out of each fortnight. Thursday night was a chance to catch up with friends who we used to work with.
Saturday was a fairly slow day, waking up late and going out in search of food. Then another "House" marathon.
Back to work tomorrow, me in HK and Sonia on the way back to Bangkok. Anyone who says it's me doing all the travelling does not understand the situation!
Happy Birthday to Sharon! We hope that Hotel du Vin was nice this weekend...
Thursday and Friday were spent in the office - up until this few days, I think I've managed about 1 day in the office out of each fortnight. Thursday night was a chance to catch up with friends who we used to work with.
Saturday was a fairly slow day, waking up late and going out in search of food. Then another "House" marathon.
Back to work tomorrow, me in HK and Sonia on the way back to Bangkok. Anyone who says it's me doing all the travelling does not understand the situation!
Happy Birthday to Sharon! We hope that Hotel du Vin was nice this weekend...
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