Familiar stranger's thoughts

Hmmm, perhaps this museum is more interesting.

Musée de l’Orangerie
Jardin des Tuileries
75001 Paris.

Paintings by Renoir, Monet etc are on exhibit in this museum. :P More value for $.

Since one has to go to different museums to view the different paintings that one likes, decide to have a list of museums to visit for my own record.

Claude Monet
Coquelicots
en 1873
huile sur toile
H. 0.5 ; L. 0.65
musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

Claude Monet
Londres, le Parlement. Trouée de soleil dans le brouillard
en 1904
huile sur toile
H. 0.81 ; L. 0.92
musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

When I got "The Bedroom", I thought that it would look nice in a red frame. However, the frames a the Puzzle Shop were quite expensive, so I decided to get from IKEA instead. Finally found the chance to go IKEA and got my frame. :P Albeit a silver one, but better than the black frame that i have at home.

Didn't manage to find the "Cafe @ night" at the Van Gogh museum at Amsterdam. I like this painting because it is the one on my Starbucks mug. It was a present from a long time ago... It seems funny that the pictures of the Cafe was also not available at the Museum Shop. After doing some research, I think it is exhibited at another museum in The Netherlands, the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo...Too bad I didn't know the existence of this museum during or before my trip.

Guess to someone who does not know anything about museums, I just thought that all or at least the most famous Van Gogh paintings would be displayed at the Van Gogh Museum. But it seems that there are many museums exhibiting Van Gogh paintings in The Netherlands and even France. Ah, a lesson to learn for this person from the Little Red Dot.

It seems difficult to choose from the range of movies available on Krisworld for my flight to Tokyo...since there is not much to choose from and I've already watched 2 of the interesting movies and all the CSI series. A 7 hour flight...and have to start work almost immediately... Hence, I only watched a movie and have to try and get some rest.

I chose to watch 27 dresses. Main female lead is someone who likes to take care of others. Hence, many of her friends requested for her to be a bridesmaid and she was always very good at wedding planning etc. She has held the torch for her boss but just went she wanted to profess to him. Along comes her younger sister and captured his attention.

Comes 2nd male lead who is always by her side, but not "seen" by the female lead because she only has eyes for her boss. However, somehow she realised that the 2nd male lead was the one for her.

Predictable storyline...just a chick flick.

Have always being amazed by the way that dancers can dance so gracefully and with such ease...and the thought of learning some street dance has always been on my mind. Hence chose to watch Step up 2. Their dance moves are really amazing! I wonder whether I would be able to dance like that one day if I start now. :P

It's good that air travelling allows me time to watch movies that I normally won't pay to watch. This is the movie I chose on my return flight from Hong Kong.

This was a movie that I've wanted to watch for the longest time, can't remember where I got to know of this movie, but whenever it was shown on TV, I didn't manage to watch it.

While flying into Hong Kong, I was quite disappointed to find out that the new releases on Krisword was not very interesting, hence decided to watch Before Sunset.

The story goes that Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) met on the Eurorail. As they had a connection, they decided to spend an evening in Vienna together (where the train was passing by).

Vienna was one of the places that I visited in April this year, hence it was quite refreshing to watch the Vienna street scenes.

As the movie was quite an old one, the only pull was the story line...and I find it quite interesting to see the interaction between the 2 leads as it was their only evening together.

My problem right now is that I want the best of all worlds. Although I am busy at work, I'm unwilling to forgo my social life. Hence, I get upset when I don't have enough time for everything.

Nevertheless, sometimes, it is good to take a break. Breathe in fresh air...do some exercise...I never knew that it was that easy to walk up Mount Faber. But we did it! :P

For this walk, we had a chance to meet some trekkers with their family. Uncle Low also shown us the Malay Regiment Museum...didn't even know that such a museum exist in Singapore. Guess I am really very ignorant.

There is an entrance fee of S$1 for this museum. However, we just explored the gardens and found these statues...

Time is a precious commodity...all of us have 24 hours everyday...and if we don't make good use of it, there is no way of us getting it back.

I really feel so hardpressed for time. Work, friends, family are all fighting for my time...Normally, I only feel depressed Sunday evening when I think about going to work on Monday. But this time, I started to feel upset on Saturday...because I know that there are so many things to be done...brought back so many things to be done from the office...although I have still not started...it is constantly gnawing at me...cause I HAVE to send it to my boss by SUNDAY evening.

I really want to rest over the weekends, not think about Monday to Friday....

This past week have OT'd 2 evenings and brought work home 1 day...I think I may have to continue this for a few more weeks before my life gets normal again. I really don't know how others can bear to work everyday from Mondays to Sundays....

I've always felt that I am not equipped with the skills to do my work...all the software that I supposed to know...I was not properly trained in the use of them, neither were there proper user manuals to turn to.

This has been my frustration from some time back...however, somehow I managed to overcome this...however, somehow, this week, I had to use a software in my course of work and the deadline was by 27 June 2008.

I can't really complain about me having to use this software as this was one of the software where I had at least 2 days of training. However, I've always felt that the days of training were not very useful as I still do not know how useful this software was for my work.

With this urgent deadline, I had no choice but to jump into the deep end of this software....luckily for me, I had very helpful colleagues who helped me in their own way so that at least I could a) make sense of this POWERFUL software b) use it to retrieve the information that I need.

Really want to say a BIG THANKFUL to all those who spared me the time to give me some instructions...It is amazing that when at first, they all seem so unhelpful and even said harsh words to me, but now patiently gave me step-by-step instructions.

Well, don't know whether we can blame it to the weather...because of the heavy rain...I couldn't get back to the office on time after lunch...which led to me being asked when I can complete my project.

With 2 weeks travelling and working on other projects, all the existing projects were put on hold...hence they came back to haunt me...although I kept on chasing the service provider...even when I was travelling...they got back to me on the additional information that they needed ONLY on my deadline. Of course I couldn't meet the deadline!!!

Perhaps it was due to the rain that I was in a bad mood...plus the question on meeting the deadline was the spark and my temper sorta blew up. I guess my attitude wasn't very good after that. But then, I feel that I shouldn't be penalised for the bad performance of the service provider. Perhaps we should be more vigilant next time when we choose a service provider...

Anyway, with all these pent-up tension inside, it was a good thing that I could hit the walls as hard as I want...SQUASH really is good at times like this and nobody can blame u. :P

For breakfast this morning, we chanced upon a noodle store in Shinagawa Station and decided to try it. I ordered a soba that costed 480 yen (S$6). This is a shop with no seats and everyone ate standing. The soba was great but the "fried cakes" seems not very well cooked, and I could taste abit of flour.

For lunch, we went to a restaurant near the office (along the same road). I chose the sashimi set and it costs 1,500 yen (S$20). The sashimi was so fresh and tasty! I could really taste the flavour of the fish, scallop and octopus. The set also included tempura, miso soup, chawamushi and ice-cream. I chose the melon flavour. It was heavenly!

Yakitori restaurant for dinner. Didn’t realize that yakitori means BBQ chicken in Japanese. So we were wondering why we kept on getting all kinds of chicken...including chicken liver (urgh!), chicken heart!!!

Finally reached Tokyo after the 7 hours long flight…too bad I couldn’t really sleep this time…although I know I really should cause would need to start work when we reach Tokyo.

We paid 3,000 yen (S$39) for the airport transfer to Hotel Prince Takanawa, although the hotel is abit inconvenient being so high up on the hill, it really has quite a nice garden and big rooms. As we were both quite hungry, we decided to find food at the hotel since it was quite far away from the train station and where we could find food.
We had brunch at the hotel which costs us 2,200 yen (S$30)! It was the only food available since all other restaurants were closed as it was only 11:30am.

After that, we started work at the office. Time passed quickly and soon it was time to go off, as this was the only free night for us @ Tokyo, we went to the store nearest the office and shopped like there was no tomorrow. Finally had a chance to take taxi @ Tokyo! It wasn’t that bad, costs us 1,970 yen (S$25) to reach the hotel.

It really is a fresh experience blogging at the airport....and also taking A380 for the first time. Brain seems to be abit blank...don't know what to blog about. I juz know that I still miss my bed...having been away from it for one week...and then have to leave it again for another week...hopefully I would sleep better this week...and not wake up at 6am every morning...

This time in Hong Kong, I stayed at Renaissance Hotel. Since the hotel is very near Victoria Harbour, I have been walking past the harbor almost everyday. However, the weather hasn’t been good and the scenery is always of a very hazy Hong Kong business district. 

The internal audit is almost over, so hopefully I would have an opportunity to go over to Hong Kong Island for more shopping. Everyone’s amazed by the speed I managed to buy things in Hong Kong. But it seems like in Hong Kong, there are always things to buy…still remember my trip many years ago where I spent half my $ on my first day in HK and had to watch my spending for the rest of the one and a half weeks of my stay there.

Have been having mango almost everyday whilst in Hong Kong. Yummy!

Although I thought it would be a very relaxing work week, somehow, still feel very exhausted at the end of the day. Staring at my computer screen the whole day…and somehow waking up before the alarm rings each morning…hopefully with the coming of an end of the assignment, I would be able to sleep well tonight!

2 June 2008 (Monday): Met the audit team and introduced them to the Greater China Team who were also staying at the hotel..then we quickly jumped into 2 cabs and were on our way to the airport. It is amazing that Taxis in Hong Kong allow 5 people in a cab, which means 4 passengers behind. It really is a tight squeeze.

Since it was our first day of working in Hong Kong, we took it slowly...for lunch, we were brought to a Vietnamese restaurant at the Ocean Building...We left the office at around 6pm...
After dropping our things at the hotel, we walked to the nearby Lock Road and found a Cha Chan Teng for dinner...and I found out that we were so near to Chung King Mansion of Days of being Wild fame.

As it was around 8pm, we were in time to watch the Panaroma of Lights. I was abit disappointed cause I guess I expected more...but nevertheless, guess most were quite impressed...

1 June 2008 (Sunday): We went to Lanma Island..a little island nearby. My colleagues from Taiwan invited me to join them for the "mountaineering" trip, hence I flew into HK one day earlier than I was supposed to...I thought it was a real climb which would take a few hours and involve some very vertical climbing. I brought my hiking boots and backpack. However, all of them were dressed as if they were going for a walk. So no prizes for guessing how easy the "climb" was. It was not technically a climb cause we just followed the path uphill, sorta like walking up a slope. There were some people on the ferry who were dressed like they were going for some serious climbing. However, we took the leisurely route instead of the "expert" route.

It was good that the weather was fine although the weather report had predicted rain the whole week.

Sunday morning after breakfast, we walked to Victoria Harbour and took the Star Ferry from TST to Central, there was abit of a delay and we rushed to Pier 3 to get onto the ferry to Lanma Island from Central. There are 2 piers at Lanma Island, one at Sok Kwu Wan and another at Yung Shue Wan. That day, we took the ferry to Sok Kwu Wan and walked to Yung Shue Wan to return to Hong Kong Island.

I enjoyed myself tremendously that day. It was relaxing to be out doing something physical. And I enjoyed the company that day.