I hate audit.

That's it.

Con-man sense

Once again it's holiday mood in sydney office. The only people around are "too busy" with goodness knows what (probably listening to the radio). So i've decided to waste my morning blogging instead of working. Not my fault!

The time has come for me to change my hp again. Still, none of the hp in the market so far impresses me. I'm now thinking if i should get a pda phone, which sounds like a good idea all of a sudden. Despite heavy protests n complaints from various people against the Windows-based palm (n i personally favour Palm OS), i might actually get it. Not that it's good, but simply because of the productivity software it supports. At least those that i'm interested in. But using a pda phone to talk may look a bit un-glam..

Speaking of which, i've visited a few fashion boutiques recently. Just to get in touch with the common sense that everyone speaks of. I saw a pair of LV slippers that cost.. $400??? It seems like the shops i visited were well-overpriced, yet the Jap students (read STUDENTS) were buying them like crazy as if they were at the market. Amongst all, i think gucci looks the nicest (not the price). Was just looking at the denim skirt on sale n told my younger sis "hey, the skirt's so cheap man! Instead of $1,000, it's only $800 now!".... I wonder abt the fashion common sense that people have ingrained into them subconsciously since young. Is it really fashion? Or flash-ion? I believe i'm definitely missing something n i'll probably discover that when i start on my fashion research trips 2 weeks later.

One after another

Met up with a couple of my ex-PwC colleagues in sydney on thursday nite. Had dinner at Superbowl (HK food), which was by far the best food we had so far.

Peiqi left on Saturday morning and 2 hours later, my younger sis arrived in Sydney to join me. Talk about high turnover rate. On Fri, it was confirmed that my stay in sydney would be extended as we can't finish our work for some reason.. So within a day (or less than), my younger sis got her air tickets for the midnite flight, applied for australian visa, packed her luggage (including her Incredibles water-bottle..) n flew over. It feels like we take planes as easily as buses.

Farewell evening on Friday for Peiqi was spent at Bondi beach, then having dinner in Benjarong. The food was good (special thanks to a friend who introduced it)! Wanted to have a couple of drinks at the Rocks, but we couldn't find any place to park. So we changed our venue to the hotel room.

On Saturday morning, after sending peiqi to the airport n picking my younger sister up, we went to the fish market n bought LOTS of seafood! All the seafood really looks SO GOOD and fresh. Dashed down to coogee beach n had our picnic there. The sun was out and the beach was infested with heaps of people sunbathing. Guys n gals. We had our seafood n wine (i packed that from the hotel).

In the evening, we drove to sydney opera house without realising that the parking costs $25! Ridiculous pricing.. Anyhow, we got a pair of tickets to the ballet that costed me more than $200. Apparently there were 4 different sets of performances. Maybe my expectations were too high, but i was a little disappointed with the australian ballet's standard. The 3rd performance was the best. Maybe cos the music was good (by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, what can go wrong?). Generally I feel that they focused more on the choreography than the actual ballet techniques. And for some reason, i feel that the bollywood influence had somewhat infiltrated into ballet as well! No kidding!! The way they move their heads n look at each other.. go figure. After the ballet performance, we spent some moments in opera bar and left soon after cos it was too crowded.

Fool-hardy

I enjoy talking to intelligent people. Not that i like to feel stupid, but they just get you thinking with the other paths of your brain that you never realised existed. There are different types of intelligence. Specialisations in a particular field, analytical thinking of human behaviour, theories of the world, or just simple deductions of the surrounding kinetics. They call that street-smart.

Same words, different interpretation. Same person, different opinions. Same accessory, different perception. It's all in the presentation. It's fake yet important. Even blogs are now part of the marketing tool. And all because we live in a world filled with other people. A good heart is not enough. U gotta be immoral to fit in. It's not just me n myself.

Oh, they just held sydney's first illegal gay wedding this morning at circular quay. Heard it all through the radio on the way to work since 1 of the grooms is a newscaster of the radio station. Hopefully peiqi get the pictures..

Food n men

I'm getting fatter. Or so peiqi says. The food I eat everyday is just.. too much. N my hotel room is stocked up with loads of snacks too! All peiqi's fault..

I've just decided to spend my weekend in Sydney instead of finding my grandma in gold coast. Will go to the fish market n check out some factory outlets. Make up for the Sitex sale. Not sure if i should go down to the beaches. Maybe just coogee beach since everyone's saying bondi beach isn't nice.

I suddenly feel like i dun wanna work anymore. Just bum around all day like peiqi. Life's good man.. Quick, someone find me a rich guy! CEO, CIO, CFO, anything oso can!! :)

Weekend blues

Mixed feelings about last weekend. Actually all went well until the stupid speeding ticket I got. The NSW police was quite unhappy that I drove at 154km/h n slapped me with an almost AUD600 fine! Wonder if i should just not pay n hide in singapore.. As it is, I'm already quite upset that I missed the WCG that weekend n haven't gotten over it. I'm oso missing SITEX during the next weekend! :(

Blue Mountains was nice, except that there's no snow. We took all the rides they had (cable car, train, skyway). Could have done it cheaper since the lady thought peiqi was a kid (under 13 yrs old) n we could hv gotten the family package instead! But peiqi had to declare with pride that she was 23.

After some dare-devil acts like climbing the fence to lean over the cliff (that was really high) for picture-taking n eating rabbits for dinner, we went to canberra. That place was seriously INFESTED with flies! Met a bigger version of kokok there too. Wanted to go strawberry picking but the hordes of flies denied us entry. Can u believe it??

We decided to take shelter in the car n drove around canberra for a couple of hours. Not that there's a lot to do there in the evening, but the roads were just going in circles n so were we. Fortunately, we found a place for dinner as we were absolutely famished n could just settle for hungry jacks. Ate viet food then headed back to the farm in the dark. For graphical representations of the weekend, you can refer to qixsaliva.blogspot.com n check out the pix.

Finally went back to sydney from canberra. It was a tiring 3-hour drive with My Humps by black eyed peas playing every 5 minutes. Russ was simply obsessed with the song and he got us addicted too. Finally back to sheraton on the park where there're no flies in the room. Had korean food for dinner then went back for a good nite sleep.

Started work again yesterday morning. Most people in the office were still in holiday mood. By after lunch, there was literally no one in the office so we decided to head back to the hotel too. Russ went to the gym, while i brought peiqi to The Rocks. Heard people screaming from the opera house across the river since it was the finals of australian idol. Of cos, there was no ticket left in the entire country for the event so we couldn't go watch. Went Nicks seafood for dinner in the evening n had seafood platter for 2. Missed the fireworks (for the idol) by a few seconds... :(

JC's coming tonight. Hope he doesn't get too uptight by the huge amount we spent on food here. We do need a break after working so hard right??

Friday mood

It's 9am in sydney n i'm oredi in office. Apparently, there's no one else here. The only people i saw this morning had just taken their bags n left??!?! Should I follow them? Maybe i might end up at some breakfast place? All I can think of now is whether peiqi can find her way back to my office during lunch. Speaking of which, i'm actually hungry now, so she better not be late! Just picked peiqi up from the airport on my way to office, that's why i'm early. This time, we didn't lose our way as we had anticipated. I'm getting quite used to going in circles anyway.

Thinking about blue mountain.... farms.... canberra.... vineyards.... weekend!

Last night, Russ n i decided to walk to cockle bay wharf for dinner. It's less than 10 min away from the hotel! I should have walked instead of driven if i had known.. We went to Nick's as recommended by my friend again. For the 1st time, i had GOOD dessert in sydney! Bill was like AUD120+ for 2 of us. But we're intending to go back there again to get the seafood platter for 2. It looked so good on the table next to us, with the tower of lobsters, oysters, etc. So near yet so far...

Food food food food food.....

Soccer night-out

Last night was soccer frenzy for the aussies as they challenge uruguay for the eligibility to the world cup. And guess what? The socceroos won! While the 90,000 people were cheering at the stadium, and another 10 million people squinting at the tv screens, watching the ball being kicked around and people spitting on the field, i was looking for cockle bay wharf. Just when I was about to give up the hunt after an hour of circular driving, I saw a TINY sign that said "Cockle Bay Wharf" hidden on some junction. N there was no more direction help apart from the up arrow. Why can't the aussies just make their signs more prominent?? After going straight n making many turns to prevent crashing into buildings, I finally ended up there. The place is definitely breath-taking, although i wasn't in a mood for such fascination by then. Took a few photos that turned out totally blur. After all the effort!

Decided to head down to pancakes on the rocks. Never expected it to be another challenge. After asking a few people here n there n spending half an hour driving again, i got there. Thanks for putting the signboard on a postercard-sized blackboard on the floor instead of having a huge sign on the roof or something. And when I thought I got to the place, the sign on the main door said I had to climb the stairs for the OTHER main door! Geez.. But I just had to go there since it was highly recommended by a trusted friend. Fortunately I only ordered blueberry pancakes instead of blueberry AND strawberry. I couldn't even finish them! Nevertheless, I thought that my completion of 1 and 3/4 pancakes was an accomplishment in itself already.

And so I headed back to the hotel for prunes.. aka fibre.

U spin me round round...

We were lost n driving in circles. Instead of heading to our office in the east, we ended up down south in some port. The worst thing was, no one's heard of minto nor knew where it was. Russ, my colleague cum make-shift navigator, bought many maps n all gave different directions. Fortunately, the executives in Australia don't seem to start too early n we ended up being early although we spent 1 hour touring the suburbs of sydney. We got there at almost 10am, while the executives 11+am...N our meeting was 10am. In fact, they were impressed that we found the placce! Nice culture.

Had buffet in the hotel last nite, and thai food the night before. The buffet in the hotel wasn't fantastic and costs a ridiculous 72 bucks per person! Someone really should complain about the food's lack of quality, no matter how nice it may look. Maybe i will.. Oh, apparently Russ loves spicy food. Now i feel slightly ashamed of myself. But i'm already on level 3 now (on my scale to 10). Will probably be level 4 soon? Hee..

Visited the hotel pool n jacuzzi area last night. It was beautiful. Pity i didn't bring my swimsuit. Then again, i can't swim so.. whatever. Have to think about dinner tonight. What should we eat?

First impression

I'm so sleepy waking up at 6.30am this morning. Sydney's 3 hours ahead of Singapore n i simply couldn't sleep last nite at 10pm. In fact, i was so full from my dim sum lunch (east ocean) n seafood dinner (doyles) that i had to jump on my bed n run around my room to digest. Intended to go "yum cha" for lunch, but simply couldn't find the place.

Got lost while driving to minto from sydney. Let's hope we can do it within 45 min tomorrow. N there's really nothing to eat here. Looks like i've gotta pack lunch or skip it. Or maybe drive somewhere far out. N get lost again.

Sheraton is nice. The room's decent n big. Drove around sydney yesterday n visited all the tourist attractions. Haven't gone to the fish mkt though. Leaving that for maybe next weekend. The next big challenge in my head rite now is getting back to the hotel from minto. N dinner.

Before the flight

For my very concerned friends who ponder endlessly if i'm taking a bath at the airport since i rushed here after tkd class, the answer is ...... YES! They are so well-equiped with towels n amenities like hair dryer. Only problem is that the water's freaking HOT.

Was pretty much pissed off by a couple of people today. U help them, u get all the shit + blame. Bloody hell, they can go screw themselves. I really have enough.

Last nite was eudon's farewell cum wendy's "be-earlied" birthday. Celebrated them with drinks n chocolate cake. The cake rocks man! Then went down cell group at 10pm with my sisters n nieces by some freak coincidence for more choc cake (my cell group was trying to celebrate my birthday but my sisters wanna eat the cake n blame my nieces...). And so my cell group met my sisters for the 1st time. It was bizarre.

Just had some food at the lounge to last me for the night of movies in the plane. I've asked my US colleague to queue at some recommended restaurants in chinatown while waiting for me in sydney (kudos to all who contributed to my list of sydney top food places!). I'll only get there at 11am. Or hopefully earlier.

Twist of nature

Was woken up from a spate of dreams by a call at 6.45am. My younger sis just met with a car accident. It wasn't very bad, but of all vehicles, she had to knock a cab. Which means the compensation runs beyond car repairs n into revenue losses for the cab driver. This also means the vaporisation of my insurance NCD.

So much for the bad news. Had dinner with my ex-senior manager last nite at molly malones. I really haven't been drinking for a while. Anyway, he went on n on abt politics, people, management... N when he realised i wasn't listening to him, he decided to ask me abt the type i'm looking for. I was a little shocked, but he determined that i was attracting the wrong type of people. He figured that i attracted "guai" (or good-natured) people whom i'm not interested in. So conclusion was that i had to hang out with a different crowd of people n change my image. Then he said i should have at least 7 relationships before settling down. Well, he had 13 past relationships before he got married. Maybe i should start being havoc huh?

Pot n kettle black

I just found out that...... elinn's full of shit too! Hahahahah.. she just confessed that she's got a similiar problem as me. So much for laughing at me man.. Now i feel less guilty abt my lunch-time rocky road brownie.

Flightplan, well, has an interesting concept. Just when i was expecting a 6th sense styled movie, it turned out to be some hijack with way too many coincidences that can only happen in movies. Ok, it's a movie.

Woke up this morning n realised that there was a power trip during the night, causing my pc to shut down. My downloads!!! :( Fortunately, my movie download was completed, as well as the latest epi for yakitate. Continuing my downloads for bleach n my game. Seems like i may not be able to complete them in time after all. If so, i'll just add Ghost in the Shell to the download list n let it run for the next 2.5 weeks.

I've come to a compromise abt my airplane food. I'll go there with high fibre food, n come back with seafood. Now life isn't that bad is it?

Stomach blues

Recently, I'm starting to feel occassional pains in the stomach. Problem is I always don't know if it's due to my rolls royce laxatives or gastrics. Catching flightplan later, starring jodie foster. Not sure who she is, but will probably find out soon. Just hope the movie's nice.

My US colleague intends to join peiqi and me in our exciting adventures to Blue Mountains n Canberra. Let's hope they get along. I'm downloading a game n a movie now. Both are pretty big (2.8 GB in total). They better complete before I go. Although I've got 6-8 fans in my computer (with antec power supply, thermaltake arctic paste, cooler master everything else) n a couple of temperature cum fan-speed monitoring utilities that shut down my pc if it's overheated (ok, that's enough tech-talk), there's still the depreciation of hardware to think about.

Now, should I change my airplane food back to lobsters? The thought of high-fibre food is really killing me. After all, i've got rolls royce laxatives rite?? ...

Looking good

Spent half my working time yesterday planning for the sydney weekend. Made all the decisions of where to stay (peiqi is just TOO fussy), where to go, how to drive, etc. Friday evening would be spent in Blue Mountains. I'm so happy that peiqi had finally given in to country-styled bedsheets and curtains! Made the reservation for a room with beautiful valley view at Mountain Heritage, then we'll head to Canberra on Saturday for farm-stay. The farm's next to so many vineyards and meets peiqi's silly expectations (like jacuzzi?? Come on man, it's a farm!). Hopefully we'll have some time to look at something in the main city (like the exciting parliament house...uh-huh) before going back to sydney sheraton on sunday evening.

And i've requested for high-fibre food in the plane n i'm so NOT looking forward to airplane food once more. Stupid shit.

Patience Watson, patience!

I realise that I'm no longer as upset when I drive these days. 2 days ago in JB, this singapore car dented my car side while trying to cut into my lane. Usually, I would stare at the guy, scold him quite a fair bit and think up 10 ways to puncture his car bumper. But this time, I didn't even look at the driver nor say a word. I simply swerved n continued my way. I didn't even feel anything abt it! Unbelievable rite?

I'm so sleepy after watching almost 15 episodes of bleach last nite. It is getting very exciting after all. So i started talking to myself in the train on the way to office this morning. I realised i was talking aloud when the girl next to me stared at me. Yes, she had to turn her face n stare to prove the point that she heard me. I think she changed her seat after a minute..

Oh, and i went scotts isetan for half-an-hour shopping yesterday evening. My $50 voucher was expiring n i tot they might just sell mattresses there. Apparently not. In the end, under the negative influence of fae, I got myself another set of clothes for $100! :(

Stars - Are they silent combustions?

Ok, so i couldn't sleep last nite n started bleach. I'm such a terrible addict. I can't remember my students' names, yet i remember the names from the animes! Spent the entire afternoon in funan today. I'm so tempted to get age of empires 3! Pity my cashflow isn't allowing it at the moment (55 bucks!). Maybe i should consider downloading or other alternatives..........

Am I a reflection of scorpios after all? People enjoy searching for my blog to find me out as scorpios are supposedly secretive. N i just realised that. Someone once told me (ok, it's peiqi) that u usually write wat pple wanna read on blogs, making them biased. That's why i dun reveal my blog add to anyone, except for those i dun mind sharing with (actually jus peiqi n elinn. N 1 other person.). Sighz...

Ramblings

I've completed yet another anime - Chobits. It's not fantastic, but the concept is really interesting. I wonder if we'll ever get to the stage of persocoms (personal computer in human form). I'll start bleach soon, but not tonite. I need sleep!

Yesterday flew quickly enough. The nurse called for help during my health screening n an expert came to draw blood from me. They quickly gave me milo n food after the blood-sucking process. Headed for dinner at parkway after n sang karaoke for a couple of hours at kbox.

The bird flu isn't good news for my kokok n gei. With the constant paranoia, my dad keeps thinking that we'd have to kill the chickens soon, although he had said it for more than a year oredi. I think everyone just wanna taste kokok gei. I'll probably give them a burial instead.

Trim and Fit

Got my hair cut at bugis last night under the guidance of advisor fae. They kept asking me to colour my hair again, but i decided to put it as part of 2006 plan. I enjoy doing long-term planning.

I've been eating loads of fruits n prunes lately for some reason. Think i'm almost completely de-toxed. Of cos, i never gave up my regular meals, like having 4 char siew buns for breakfast, huge bowl of prawn noodles for lunch, hamburger steak for dinner, n some desserts for supper.

Waiting for my animes to download now. Yakitate, naruto, bleach. Think i'll try n finish chobits while waiting.. Animes anyone? :)