OMG K I M is in PUDONG, SHANGHAI! :O

2008-02-05T15:00:00.000+08:00

Today’s the day where I fly back to Singapore.

The morning started off crazy because Joanne woke up late resulting in me having less time to do the things I needed to do.

After bathing, YJ and I sent Joanne off in the cab cuz she went to meet Victor first. YJ and I then went over to the printer shop to get our reports printed.

The whole thing took about an hour so we went back up first and asked them to give us a call when they are done.

In the mean time, we went upstairs so I could finish packing my last minute stuff and also change and put make-up.

After that, our landlord came over with his parents to look at the house. BUT, we didn’t take back our deposit. Instead, he asked for our SG account number and contact and he said he’ll transfer the money over. Yeah right, who knows man.

He even said he’ll pay us for the DVD player and what not we bought for the house but we shall see.

After they left, it was also time to collect our printed stuff and bind it. When we were at the printer shop, Jia Wei arrived with his luggage ready to move in to our apartment. But we were all downstairs so he waited for us in the rain.

After we were done, it was about time for CF and I to leave. I rushed up to zip my luggage and gather all my stuff. Thank goodness Jia Wei helped me with my luggage otherwise I think I’d die.

YH was also downstairs with his luggage prepared to move into our apartment so he helped with the luggages as well.

CF and I called the “mian bao che” and it cost RMB150 to the airport but it was better than a cab cuz of all our stuff.

Good thing we reached early cuz there was already a queue at the check-in counter at like 1pm.

And by 1.30pm, we could check-in our luggage. Thank god my luggage weighed 32KG so I didn’t have to pay excess baggage.

It was a hectic day until the moment I stepped into the plane to depart. The flight was delayed for half an hour.

I was literally un-contactable cuz my china line had no more value and my local sim card couldn’t be read by my phone so I had no clue what to expect when I reached Changi.

The flight was so much better than the one we took to go to Shanghai. I could even put crystals on my nails (:

It was like 27degs when we touched down. HOT.

Joanne and I took our own sweet time to go to the toilet to change. We also used the free payphone to call and I had like a list of alcohols to buy for JW.

In the end, when we reached the conveyer belt to claim our luggage, it was already taken down and stacked nicely on the floor. I also saw Ah Ma, Aunty Irene, Morgan, Mummy and Daddy! So exciting!

I was like struggling with my luggage can omg how embarrassing!

Came out, hugged everyone (: it felt real good to be back in Singapore, but I miss Shanghai!

I also saw JW and his Godma came as well! How nice of them.

In the end, all my family members went home while I went out for supper with JW and his Godma.

We ate at this hawker centre at Bedok. 6 months w/o hawker centre food! Yummy sambal stingray, ba chor mee and sugarcane juice! :D

In the end, they sent me home and helped me lug my luggage up to my home. HOME (:

Suddeny, my home feels so big as compared to what I’ve been living in for the past 6 months.

I can’t believe it’s over just like that. There a part of me that wished I didn’t come back but seeing my family after so long made me super happy.

2008-02-04T15:00:00.000+08:00

Qi Pu Lu at 8am today! :D

We used the train because there were 5 of us cuz JY followed us.

Did all our last minute shopping until like 2pm and we busted all our cash!

It’s like the very last time shopping at QPL omg! I’m so gonna miss shopping there and bargaining!

After that, we cabbed home and all of us were starving so we ordered “wai mai” from downstairs (:

It was then packing luggage and throwing rubbish for the whole night until it was time to go over to Kelvin’s house.

Guess what we were gonna do there?

PLAY FIREWORKS AND FIRECRACKERS!!!!!!

Kelvin bought like RMB1000 worth of fireworks and firecrackers and he brought half of it down for us to play!

It was still illegal now cuz it wasn’t CNY yet but who cares!

We went to the park opposite his condo and played! We had to leave after putting out 1 bunch to go to another place to light another bunch of fireworks!

It’s so fun to experience such stuff because you’ll never get to do it in Singapore!

After playing with it, we cabbed back home and ordered Ma La Tang and Shao Kao for the very last time!!!

We ordered LOTS and ended up not finishing. Sigh. Those will be the food that I’ll miss in Shanghai the most man!

2008-02-03T14:59:00.000+08:00

Lunch today was at Super Brand Mall’s Tang Gong (: Finally, Ehui had the time to treat us to lunch cuz he wasn’t working today!

Kelvin, Maxim and Angeline joined us as well :D

It was like our very last time at Super Brand Mall and also walking down the staff entrance and exit cuz we went to F&B office to get some name card.

After that, we cabbed down to Cheng Huang Miao but we dropped Joanne off cuz she wanted to do her report and picked Jia Wei up.

I only wanted to buy my cherries and carve the names over there so we didn’t spend a lot of time at that place.

In the end I only bought 6 packets of cherries that cost RMB40 each. I don’t know how heavy that was though.

After CHM, we took a cab down to D Mall cuz I wanted to get my nails done.

I asked YJ to go home first with her friend but in the end they stayed at accompanied me (: I got crystal fake nails and hopefully it’ll last cuz it cost RMB200. I didn’t wanna put diamonds on it cuz its RMB5 per piece and I planned to buy them from Qi Pu Lu and stick them on myself :P

After D Mall, we took the train home and I went to visit the hairdresser (yet again).

I wanted my hair to look nice so I redid my hair dye. This time round, I was there alone cuz I didn’t wanna waste anyone’s time accompanying me :P

I was done at around 2am omg. But my hair turned out just the way I wanted it to and that’s the most important thing (:

2008-02-02T14:59:00.000+08:00

All of us woke up in time to help Angela bring all her luggage down and said goodbye.

Edison sent her to the airport so she was lucky she didn’t have to flag for a cab cuz it was snowing like crazy and the floor was damn wet.

After sending her off, we went to get ready and went down to SLPU (again) to meet Raymond and Denis for lunch at Gui Hua Lou.

Lunch lasted till about 3pm and then the 3 girls + YH cabbed down to the place where Kelvin made his specs.

We stayed there until 7pm and YJ and Joanne got their specs done and all. I also went to make 1 just for fun (without any degree obviously) cuz it’s cheap. RMB180 (:

After that we cabbed home and I went to the hair dresser to ask how much it’ll cost if I wanted to straighten my hair. RMB200 (after painstakingly bargaining).

They were quite busy so they asked me to go down a bit later so we went upstairs.

We were waiting for YJ to come back from BBB with our KFC dinner so Joanne and I started GOSSIPING about JY. Haha.

I didn’t realize that someone felt the same way as me. It feels damn good man. :D

Oh anws, the joke of the day would have been the “snail saga”.

YJ was going to her plastic bag to show Joanne her suit she collected for LJB and I (sitting near my bed) suddenly screamed “omg there’s a snail on the plastic bag!!”

We started screaming and thinking how in the world the snail got up here. We eliminated the possibility of it climbing up on its own cuz we’re on the 5th floor and it’ll take YEARS so it must have been someone’s plastic bag it got stuck on.

Joanne who was the least afraid of snails decided to catch it with a plastic bag and throw it out of the window.

The moment she went near it, she burst out in laughter!

It wasn’t a snail but the sharp end of Joanne’s elephant thingy. Stupid YJ standing the nearest to it didn’t realize that! We laughed so hard until I almost teared.

At like 10pm, YJ and I went down to the hair salon again.

I got my hair straightened while she had her hair cut.

The worst thing happened. After straightening my hair, all my red highlights disappeared!

At first the boss didn’t wanna help me redo it for free, but the guy that was doing my hair was willing to help. It was already 1am at that time.

So, the both of them started highlighting my hair again and after that the boss went back home. The guy then went to take a better dye to highlight my hair. He’s really very nice.

I’m like seeing the other side of China people now. He did my hair until about 3.30am and didn’t complain at all. They didn’t even start to sweep and mop the floor cuz we were still around.

I sort of regret straightening my hair and letting all the colour disappear. Now, it’s highlighted but it’s not as nice as the first time. Sigh.

2008-02-01T14:58:00.000+08:00

It snowed like DAMN heavily today.

Finally we went down to Lu Jia Bang to collect our stuff and then went home to chuck all our stuff before going down to SPLU.

There were quite a lot admin stuff to settle and all of us were lost and it made us pissed.

We were all actually very happy to return on the last day to say goodbye and all but the HR dept had to make things difficult.

First, we were given this form and we had to go gather signatures from departments such as housekeeping, security, IT etc. We were rather pressed for time because in the end we needed to go to the finance office to claim our “red packet” and it closes at 5.30pm.

The HR dept didn’t help much and we were pretty much on our own. I didn’t have my January’s attendance sheet and I had to write one out immediately for them. Ugh.

In the end, all of us went to collect our “red packet” and each of us got an extra RMB625 (:

BUT, I don’t know how they calculated and I had to pay back RMB144 because I didn’t work for 8 hours. Whatever.

We were so pissed after we were done but we still went to say goodbye to the people we met.

It was already 7pm when we were done and we crossed over to Super Brand Mall to eat Macs for dinner.

I swear the snow was like DAMN heavy outside man. It’s like the heaviest snow in Shanghai ever.

We took some photos outside before taking a train back home cuz we couldn’t get a cab.

We then went opposite our house to get our hair done!

All 4 of us highlighted our hair red (:

I dyed my hair jet black and highlighted it red :D I also went to cut my hair. It’s like SHORT now. Haha.

Joanne went to perm her hair too (:

In total, I spent like RMB338. Super cheap compared to Singapore. And guess what time we left the salon. 3.30am.

2008-01-31T14:57:00.000+08:00

Joanne, Angela and I planned to wake up super early today because it’s PAY DAY!!

Angela woke up late and in the end we left the house at around 10.15am to go to Qi Pu Lu.

But first we headed to the bank to withdraw money because all of us were penniless!!

I checked my ATM card first and to my horror, the pay wasn’t in yet! OMG.

We were deciding to head back home to write our report or to go to SLPU. After contemplating for 15mins at the ATM machine, Angela decided to try again.

This time round, her pay was in! And her ID number was 1543 so obviously I’ll be next cuz mine was 1454!

And yup, after that all of us withdrew money and cabbed to Qi Pu Lu.

Angela didn’t join us for long cuz she needed to meet her aunt for lunch. So it was just Joanne and I shopping the whole day!

We bought A LOT of stuff! I spent like RMB800 in total (:

After Qi Pu Lu, we came back home to drop our stuff.

The plan was to go to Lu Jia Bang to collect our suites but there wasn’t enough time. Angela came home and she was really sick so she slept. We were waiting for YJ to come home so Joanne and I went down to buy DVDs.

I bought like close to RMB200 worth of DVDs to bring home and I found GOSSIP GIRL and PROJECT RUNWAY! :D

After that we met YJ and we went to meet her friend and went to Lan Zhou to eat because I only ate 1 pear the whole day!

We then headed to Jia De Li to buy soft drinks and cabbed down to Kelvin’s house.

He cooked lots of stuff for dinner! There was curry, ba kut the steam boat and a whole lot of meat!

We also found new year goodies because he just came back from Singapore in the morning. We were opening his pineapple tarts, tapioca chips etc etc to eat :D

A lot of people turned up- Ehui, Maxim, Tracy, Gabriel, Yu Hong… …

In the end we went home at around 1am and Ehui sent me back (:

2008-01-30T14:56:00.000+08:00

The whole day was spent at home writing the final report.

Good thing I wasn’t alone because Angela and Joanne were off too. YJ came back at around 2pm and all of us started writing.

In the end, we spent some time laughing, gossiping and thinking back about this whole attachment.

Time really flies and all of us are going home soon. I’m gonna miss the company of the 3 girls in our apartment and the coziness of sharing 1 small room for 4 of us.

I had like RMB11 left to spend so I asked YJ and Joanne to help me buy RMB5 worth of Ma La Tang when they went down to eat dinner.

After that at around 10pm, Angela and I went down to buy Shao Kao (: We were their first customer and I could only buy 6 sticks cuz I had RMB6 left.

I’m like left with RMB0.40 left in my wallet and RMB4 in my ATM card. Thank god pay day is tomorrow!

I’m now left with the conclusion part of the final report. I hope I didn’t go out of point or whatever. It’s like the last report I’m gonna write for NP.

And writing this report reminds me of Mr. Tham cuz he was so particular about all the little details- alignment, spacing, headers and footers. Sigh.

2008-01-29T21:34:00.001+08:00

I wanted to wake up in the morning to do my report but my body refused to do so.

In the end, I woke up at around 12pm and went over to JY’s place.

I haven’t got connected to the internet for WEEKS so the moment I was on, I couldn’t stop. I used the internet until about 6.30pm when YJ came back.

She came over, downloaded some stuff for our reports and both of us were like discussing how to write the biz environment part. Seemed more like a group project now :P

After that she got hungry so I accompanied her downstairs to eat Ma La Tang but before that I started counting my cash.

I’m left with RMB18 to last me for today and tomorrow. So I divided it into 2 and I can buy 9 sticks of Shao Kao today and 9 sticks tmr (:

After YJ ate her Ma La Tang, Angela came to look for us and we walked to Jia De Li to buy water. It was freezing cold I swear! Snow was piled up on the sides of the road and turned into ice.

Since we found RMB3.50 while cleaning the house, we used it to buy biscuits to share. I think the 4 of us are really lucky to live together in 1 room because we don’t take things that don’t belong to us.

We can just leave money lying around anywhere and if it’s not yours, you won’t take it.

After visiting the supermarket, we walked home and I prayed so hard that there was Shao Kao but the stall hasn’t set up yet :(

So I went up and used the internet again until it was time to go down for supper.

And my whole night was spent trying to complete the stupid final report.

2008-01-28T14:41:00.000+08:00

Because I slept at like 5am, I woke up at 1pm today. The initial plan was to go back to SLPU to look for Sharon or Nancy for information but since YJ was there, it was quite pointless for me to go back.

So Angela and I got ready and headed for Lu Jia Bang instead.

We were so pleasantly surprised when we opened the curtains- WHITE SNOW ON THE FLOORS AND ROOF TOPS!!!

I’m sure it would have looked much nicer in the morning because a lot of the snow had already turned into water but we still could see layers of white snow on the ground and everywhere! :D :D

Obviously we’ll start snapping photos! We did that all the way from our apartment until trying to get a cab. For some reason, there were no cabs in sight! But we were still happy because we were still snapping photos along the way (:

The only bad thing is that our boots were soaked in water and our feet were really wet and cold.

Since there were no cabs, we decided to go to the MRT station to ask if we could get there by train. BUT, the booth was empty so we ate egg tarts instead before deciding to go up to another exit to see if we could get a cab there or not.

Again, we were greeted by this little park that was filled with snow!! You could have imagined how happy the both of us were.

After taking more photos, we walked towards the main road and tried to hail for a cab. From the distance, I saw someone familiar walking towards my direction and guess who it was!

Fiona! She was off today but was going back to the hotel to collect her pay slip. Since we needed to collect our pay slip either today or tomorrow, we decided to go with her (and it will definitely be easier to get a cab at SLPU).

Fiona showed us where was the bus-stop to take a bus to SLPU. Omg it was like directly opposite our house and we didn’t realize there was a bus stop (we’re not blind, bus-stops here don’t have shelters and seats!)

The bus ride was RMB2 and it was exactly the same route as when we take a cab down. It dropped us off directly opposite SLPU.

And we discovered it when our attachment had just ended. How wonderful.

After collecting our pay slip, Angela and I cabbed down to Lu Jia Bang and she went to get her measurements done for her suit.

It was already dark when we came out and we cabbed back home.

I went up our apartment first while Angela went to get her dinner and seeing how messy our apartment was made me in the mood to pack!

We’re left with only one week here but still, it’s nicer when the house is neater and cleaner.

Angela and I are planning to hibernate at home for the next 2 days to do the final report and rest (and because we can’t go out to spend money cuz our pay isn’t in yet) so I’m left with 3 packets of Maggie Mee and it’ll be my only source of food for today and the following 2 days.

2008-01-27T14:41:00.000+08:00

Today is the last day at work for this whole attachment.

Despite the snow we saw at the wee hours of the morning yesterday, we woke up to have found it all melted :(

There were only about 20+ covers for tonight so it was relaxed and all. The only VIP table was Fabian bringing his girlfriend for dinner. I swear all the kay poh people were standing outside the lift to get a peak of how the girl looks like. :P

We could have ended work at 10.30pm but we had 2 walk-in tables at like 9.45pm and one of them was so rude!

But overall we ended at around midnight and because it was Angela and my last day, Christian organized a farewell outing after work.

Let’s see if I could recall who went… Christian, Ken, Jackie, Raymondo, Bryan, Fiona, Becky, Mabel, Judy, Edison, Angela and myself. Yup!

We went to Party World (yes, they have this in Shanghai too) and the cool thing about it is that they have this buffet spread of food (a la staff canteen style) where you can eat all you want and bring it into the KTV room.

Not only did all of us sang, we started playing games too. I think we ordered like 30 cans of beer or more!

It was really nice of the Jade people to organize this farewell for us because Angela and I have only gotten to know them for less than a month. But we really enjoyed ourselves up there and I almost cried because it was so touching when we were all about to call it a night (at like 4.30am again).

Edison sent Fiona, Angela and I home and yup, it was snowing outside again (:

2008-01-26T14:40:00.000+08:00

I was woken up by Joanne and YJ today cuz they said there was no water flowing out of our taps and our toilet was stuck (again).

The water didn’t flow out of the taps yesterday too and I think it’s because of the weather. It’s too cold so the water in the taps turned into ice. After turning on our taps at the hottest temperature, the water slowly flowed back.

I think we would need to turn on our taps to get the water flowing tonight so the same problem wouldn’t happen again tomorrow.

As for our stuck toilet bowl, we called the repair guy to help us pump it but when he came, he said it was too serious and needed some other guy to come to use some machine to solve our problem and it’ll cost about RMB100.

SIGH. We’re left with 2 weeks staying in this apartment and this had to happen.

Lets talk about happier things, Angela went to open the curtains and guess what. Yes, it was snowing outside!!!

It snowed and snowed the whole day long and I walked to work :D :D I brought an umbrella with me because I saw other people doing it too. But my clothes still turned white cuz of the snow.

There was supposed to be training by Fabian at 4pm today but I think he forgot so it was cancelled.

70 covers for the night kept us real busy! I saw a group of handsome guys dine in the restaurant today and there were like 5 of them. BUT, Amy told me they were gay. SIGHHHH.

And yeah, I saw 2 of them going into the men’s toilet and locked the door and stayed there for like 10mins?

I was supposed to end work at 11pm today cuz I started at 3pm but I wanted to stay until the restaurant ended because it was my second last day and also Christian wanted to go for supper.

So we waited for everyone to knock off and in the end, 10 of us went down to eat Ji Gong Bao at the same place they brought me to last time (:

Those that went were Amy, Fiona, Bryan, Christian, Foster, Raymondo, Edison, Angela, Becky and me!

We ordered 4 pots and started eating and chatting. Edison was the most talkative tonight for I don’t know what reason.

It was Christian’s treat tonight and it was sort of like a farewell supper for Angela and me. Although we’ve only known them for less than a month, I must say they are all very nice people and I’m so gonna miss them when I get back to Singapore.

We ate until about 3.30am and after grabbing our stuff, we went out of the place and guess what.

THE WHOLE STREET WAS COVERED IN SNOW!!!!!!!!! (and it was STILL snowing!)

All 10 of us got so high lah! We started taking out our cameras and snapping photos and also played with snow!

I think we’re seriously very very lucky to have seen snow in Shanghai cuz it hasn’t snowed that heavily for like 4 years?

Foster, Raymondo, Angela and I decided to walk home instead of cabbing so we could enjoy the snow :D

And when Angela and I got home (at like 4.30am), we woke YJ up to tell her it was snowing!

2008-01-25T14:40:00.000+08:00

I reached SLPU at like 1pm today cuz YJ was working alone and needed someone to accompany her for lunch.

Our plan was to go up to level 5 and 6 to look for Sharon and Denis to see if they could provide us with some information for our final report but when we reached, their doors were locked so we assumed they were out for lunch.

Headed down to Event’s Concierge to look for Cherry and we’ve also gotten some information regarding Banquet and then we tried looking for Ehui cuz he said most prolly he could join us for lunch.

But he was in a meeting when we called him at 2pm so YJ and I went to lunch ourselves :(

We ate at Saizeriya- the RMB9 pasta place. I swear I’m so dead broke that RMB9 seems expensive now.

After that I went to work and YJ was up at Jade with me until her break ended.

Soon enough it was dinner time, but I wasn’t hungry so I went to look for YJ instead. We tried going up to level 5 and 6 but the doors were locked. Called Denis and he said he’ll be going up to his office soon so we met him upstairs.

Sharon was on annual leave so we didn’t manage to see her. I only stayed at Denis’s office for like 10mins before I had to go back up to Jade for the meeting.

The new schedule was out and I went to check my schedule for my very last week of work. BUT… I didn’t see my name in the schedule!

Okay, there was grooming check by Fabian today and finally I had every thing in place.

So back to the schedule thingy. After the meeting I went to ask Danny (cuz he was the one that arranged the schedule this time round) and he said my last day of work will be this Sunday!

That means, I get an extra 3 days off!! Woohoo! I didn’t expect to be left with so little working days at SLPU man. Angela and Gabriel’s last day will be this Sunday too.

Although I’m like damn happy about the 3 extra days off, I’m so gonna miss working at SLPU and the routines I go through everyday. I’ll miss working at Jade except for the fact that Fabian keeps me on my toes constantly.

But I doubt I’ll be going out shopping during those 3 days because I haven’t gotten my pay yet! Sigh.

Today was a busy day at the restaurant. In total, we had like 73 covers and the last guest came in at 10pm.

There was also heavy snow outside at around 10.30pm and the view from 36th floor was so beautiful. Too bad we couldn’t go out to experience it.

Angela and I ended work at about 11pm and when we went out of the hotel, there was snow + rain!!! :D :D :D

I think we’re really very lucky to see snow in Shanghai cuz the last time it snowed here was 4 years ago!

And it snowed like 4 times this year! Woohoo!!

I went to buy Ma La Tang again cuz I’m like totally addicted to it :P

I so need to diet when I get back to Singapore man.

2008-01-24T14:40:00.000+08:00

Angela and I walked to work today and it was freezing! It was like zero degrees out there and thank goodness YJ lent me her down jacket cuz she wasn’t going out of the house.

We reached at 3pm and I went up to find no one there so I just sat and waited cuz the cloak room was still not opened. In the end, the missing keys just appeared back in the drawers.

There was a photo shoot for GLH’s dishes up at Jade so Angela and I were watching and cleaning wine glasses and menu’s at the same time :P

Today was super weird because it’s a weekday but there were 53 covers!

The highlight of the night was when it was about 10pm and I was standing in the middle of the lifts while Dorathy was at the hostess table. 1 guest went to ask her to double confirm his reservation for Saturday and after helping him to do that, he gave her a tip. Not just any ordinary tip, but a tip of RMB500. OMGWTH right.

Damn it seriously. That money could have been mine! And I’m so in need of money now lah. Haha. But it’s okay, it’s just SGD100. Yeah, right. Sigh!

I could have done so much with that amount of money lah. Pissed pissed.

I ended work quite early despite the many guests in the restaurant. Cici said I could leave at like 11pm. I was going to meet YJ downstairs our place to eat Ma La Tang so I changed and walked towards the staff exit.

Just when I finished climbing the first flight of stairs, I saw Ehui! He just ended work and was going home too. He tompanged me in his cab so I didn’t have to walk home in the cold (:

In the end I took away my order cuz YJ was shivering cold so I went up to our apartment to eat. Omg I’m in love with Ma La Tang! Yummy stuff man.

I think I’m gonna eat either Shao Kao or Ma La Tang every day after work now.

6 more working days left!

2008-01-23T14:39:00.000+08:00

It’s like my last off day for this whole attachment!!

Next week doesn’t count cuz I’m planning to take Thursday and Friday off so my last day of work would be like Wednesday (I hope!)

I woke up at around noon time and went over to JY’s place to use the internet. Our clothes rack was there cuz we used their heater to dry our washed clothes cuz they went to Hang Zhou on Tuesday morning.

My plan was to finish using the internet by 3pm, bring the clothes and my lappy back and start writing my final report. But at like 2pm I heard the door open. SHIT man. Our clothes rack was still there and the heater was on. Thank goodness I was over there so I said I just turned on their heater. Oops!

They don’t even need to pay for their bills anws so I don’t think it really matters lah. JY also gave us her key so we could go over to use the internet. Haha.

So I spent the rest of the day writing the damn final report.

I’ve already finished the “departments” part by 8pm so went I to cooke Maggie Mee for dinner and watched more ANTM (:

After that I continued writing the “recommendations” part and chatted with YJ from 11pm until 2am. Joanne also came back at around 1.30am and bought Mac back for us (:

I love today because I spent $0. I seriously can’t imagine how I’m gonna survive with RMB75!

2008-01-22T14:39:00.000+08:00

I had to go to work today at 4pm. When I stepped out of the house to walk to work, guess what. I SAW SNOW! :D

The snow was super light lah and it stopped after awhile :(

When I went up to 36, Cici asked Dorathy and me to go down to the general store room (B1 of old tower. We were at level 36 of the new tower) to collect stuff.

The staff lift is forever super slow so by the time we went to collect the stuff and came back up to 36, it was dinner time!

I didn’t see Fabian the whole day so I thought he was off but NO he wasn’t.

Before the restaurant opened, I was sitting inside the hostess room looking for gloves to wrap the chocolate cake. He came in, stared at me, went out and came in again.

He was like “who went to stick that piece of email up on the wall? You’re gonna ruin the paint if it’s taken out. All of you have no respect for the hotel’s property. #@#!$#%@#” (don’t know what rubbish he was muttering in French but I heard the word ‘Putant’ which is the F word in French)

The thing I hate is he was telling me all these as if it was my fault. Like hello, I was off yesterday and when I went to the room it was already nicely stuck there. In the end he ripped the email off and said to remove the scotch tape marks.

Super angry can! I didn’t do anything wrong and got scolded! I went out and started complaining to Cici. Danny was there and he was shaking his head too. He even asked me why I didn’t scold in Hokkien when he was blabbering in French. Haha.

Anws, it wasn’t a busy night tonight and the last reservation was at 7.30pm (:

But because there was this UBS thingy going on in our hotel, Mabel, Michelle, Theresa and I had to go down to Grand Ballroom to promote Jade Bar and BATS to the guests.

The event was supposed to end at 9pm so all of us reached at 8.30pm to find an almost empty ballroom. I saw Goh and he said by 8pm all the guests started leaving already.

Since there were still some guests left in the Ballroom I volunteered to stay behind (because I knew the BQT people and it was less cold up there) to promote Jade Bar while the rest went to the lobby to do the same thing.

After half an hour Theresa came up and asked me to go down to the lobby. We stood there for another half an hour before we could go back up. I swear it was freezing cold cuz the doors were opening and closing! Ugh.

The last table ended by 11.30pm but we couldn’t leave yet cuz they had to set-up the tables for tomorrow’s dinner. Some company booked the entire restaurant (it costs RMB120,000 to do that) for a 25pax cocktail and dinner.

And, the issue of the missing key is still not solved. So, it wasn’t Fabian that took the key on Sunday. Haha.

I had to go down to Concierge to borrow the key to lock the express lift and go back down to return it to them and come back up. Troublesome!

Having nothing to do and waiting for them to set-up the table, I found crossword puzzles and entertained myself with it.

And finally at like 12.30am Mabel and I could leave! :D

I only bought 5 sticks of Shao Kao today because I’m like dead broke. RMB75 left for the month now.

2008-01-21T14:38:00.000+08:00

Off day again! :D

YJ and I left the house at noon time and walked to SLPU to meet Joanne for lunch. YJ was off today and so was I (:

We went to Super Brand Mall and ate Jap food then YJ and I cabbed down to Lu Jia Bang (like, FINALLY!)

I went to look for Nadia’s shop first to help them collect their suites and then we went to search for the shop Ehui brought us to last time cuz we wanted to tailor make clothes too.

When we saw the shop, guess what. Chang Fang and JY were there too! I think Shanghai is too small sometimes.

They were tailor making clothes as well so after them, we did ours. I made a blazer, skirt and pants for RMB480. Thank goodness I only had to pay RMB200 first and the rest when I collect them otherwise I’m BROKE.

After the suites, we went to tailor make blouses. I did 2 blouses for RMB80 each and only paid RMB60 today. Haha.

The 4 of us cabbed back after that and I dropped at SLPU cuz I was suppose to attend a briefing at 5pm.

I was early so I went to look for Joanne. The hotel was super busy today because of UBS. They sort of booked the whole hotel lah.

I went for the briefing and it was so stupid I swear. But thank goodness I didn’t go down the hotel for nothing cuz I waited for Joanne to end work at 7pm and both of us headed to D Mall.

When we went out of the hotel, we thought we saw snow but we didn’t know if it was snow or rain! So whatever, we ran to the MRT station cuz we were freezing.

I had to borrow RMB200 from Joanne and I spent it all at D Mall. I got like 4 bangles, 2 caps and a bag.

We shopped until they closed and then we took the train home. Settled money on the spot and I am left with only RMB80 to last me until pay day. Bless me.

2008-01-20T14:38:00.000+08:00

Starting work at 3pm isn’t fantastic because I have to get up earlier.

It was raining again so Angela and I had to use an umbrella to work. Rainy days are damn troublesome cuz my boots were wet and the wind made me wet too despite the umbrella.

Angela and I were already late but before going up, I saw Cici at the locker so I took my own sweet time. It was only the both of us starting work at 3pm so I wasn’t THAT late :P

When I went up, the hostess room wasn’t opened like it used to be. Usually, the earliest person would unlock the room and turn on the lights but not today.

I thought Cici had the key so I just sat there and waited for her. The laundry dept also delivered our napkins up so I just started folding them. When Cici came up she didn’t have the key as well so I went into the restaurant to ask the service staff and they said they couldn’t find the key.

Usually, the key would be kept at the drawer of the hostess table. So, Cici called up Fiona (because she was on B shift yesterday) to ask her where she placed the key after locking the hostess room. She said she left it in the drawer but she wasn’t the last one to leave.

Fabian was the last to leave the restaurant yesterday and he was off today and when Danny called him, he turned off his phone. Cici suspected that Fabian took the key and forgot to return it because it happened before, twice.

So we had to go down to Concierge to borrow a spare key to unlock the hostess room, turn on the express lift and open up the private dining room.

And we had to go for dinner early cuz Fabian told us the briefing for UBS was today at 5pm at F&B meeting room. So we reached at 4.50pm and no one was in sight. I saw Ehui at the BQT office so I just started chatting with him until 5.10pm and there was still no one that came for the meeting. Fabian made a mistake, the meeting was supposed to be tomorrow!

Work today was good because Fabian was off :D

By 10pm, Cici said I could leave already but I told her I was waiting for Angela so she asked Fiona to end work instead.

And after 5mins, Angela came out to tell me she ended work already! Sigh.

Time passed real fast though. Especially when I was standing downstairs cuz one of the door girls was stationed there too so we just chatted and chatted.

By 11pm all the guests left already and we could knock off from work (: This time round, I bought my 10 sticks of Shao Kao before coming back up.

2008-01-19T14:37:00.000+08:00

Thank goodness I started work at 3pm today. Although it was raining, I didn’t cab but used an umbrella and walked to work just to save money.

There was another trainee training at 4pm by Fabian but he was late and I think he forgot until Dorothy called him up. For the last 20mins of the training, he was teaching us basic French words -.-

So at 5pm we rushed down for dinner and came up just in time for the meeting. And Fabian made me repeat the information about the Rice Cakes again (this time I didn’t have any notes with me so I had to like tell them off hand) and thankfully I could still remember the details.

There were about 44 covers for the night but it didn’t seem as busy as yesterday’s. Time passed quite fast too and I chatted with Dorothy most of the time and found out more gossips!

I only got pissed at night when I knocked off from work. Cici said we could leave at 11.10pm (we were both morning shift) so she left first but I needed to look for Gabriel cuz Kelvin’s thumb drive is with him and I needed to borrow it.

And why thank goodness I’m working A shift? Because Fabian said the hostess room needed “deep deep deep cleaning” after work tonight.

So I went into the hostess room, grabbed my stuff and called him. Fabian then walked inside, looked at me, and without a question he took my phone and cut the call. HOW FREAKING RUDE CAN YOU GET MAN.

I stared at him and he was like “what are you doing?” I replied “Cici said I could knock off from work already.” But I saw guests outside preparing to leave so I went out and gave them their chocolate cake and pressed the lift for them before going back to the hostess room.

I grabbed my stuff again, stared at Fabian and explained to him why I was on the phone (I think the explanation was totally unnecessary because I don’t need to report whatever I do to him), stared at him with a damn pissed off face until he had to ask me if I was ok and then I rolled my eyes and stomped off to look for Gabriel.

He was alone at the F&B office so I got him to take the organizational chart and some other stuff that I might be able to use for the report.

Angela ended late so I walked home first and it was still raining. I was contemplating to buy Shao Kao or not but I decided not to and walked up to my apartment.

Washed my face, ate half a pear and decided that I wanted to get Shao Kao so down I went again and bought 10 sticks worth of it :P

2008-01-18T14:37:00.000+08:00

I was so sleepy that I woke up just in time to reach work at 4pm.

Angela was working at 5.30pm so she bought Subway for us!

She was late and just in time for the meeting so we could only eat after the meeting. I also did my presentation on the Platinum Card during the meeting. Hopefully Fabian wouldn’t ask me to do anymore of these stuff.

After the meeting, Fiona, Angela and I went down to the staff canteen. I think we’re the first people to bring outside food inside the canteen to eat but who cares.

Today was busy like crazy. After being up there for about 2 weeks, this is my first time seeing all the 18 tables being filled up! The bar was also full by 9.30pm.

We were busy wrapping up the chocolate cakes, folding napkins, bringing guests into the restaurant and bar and we didn’t have time to sit down to rest.

All the hostesses and Theresa were told off by Danny cuz 2 guests walked into the restaurant without a hostess and sat themselves down at 11pm and he had to tell them that the restaurant is already closed. Like hello, not my fault. I was bringing guests into the bar at that point of time. I don’t think it was anyone elses fault cuz everyone was busy because there were so many guests outside and the phone was ringing non-stop.

In total there were around 70 covers tonight and the last guest left at like 1.30am?

And my feet really hurt for the first time after working for so long but Angela and I still walked home cuz we are already SO BROKE.

Finally the Shao Kao stall was opened today so I bought like 10 sticks! Yummy. I think I’ll miss that the most when I get back to Singapore so I better eat more now :P

2008-01-17T14:37:00.000+08:00

Another off day today! But I needed to go back to SLPU for hostess training so it was kind of a spoiler.

YJ and I woke up early today though to head down to Qi Pu Lu for shopping!! :D :D

We reached at around 10.30am and started to shop for bags! I bought 2 bags for myself and also bags for the people back home in Singapore.

We were going from one building to another and back again the whole time cuz we know where to get the stuff we want and the store wasn’t opened.

In the midst of shopping, YH called YJ telling her that it was snowing and SLPU was covered in white snow! We were like OMG and after paying for our purchase we headed straight to the exit!

And yes, it snowed again!! It wasn’t as heavy as the previous time but this time I was outside and I could feel it! :D :D :D

It didn’t last more than 15mins though but it’s better than nothing! Everyone was telling us not to pin our hopes up for snow in Shanghai cuz it rarely snows but hey! it snowed TWICE when I’m here :D

Besides buying bags and more bags, I also bought another top and some make-up. Squandered all my cash and then we cabbed back home to chuck the stuff.

YJ and I then settled money and I realized that I overspent on my budget of RMB400 of shopping today omg.

After that, I walked down to SLPU to meet Becky and we headed to BATS for the hostess training.

The training was done by Mr. Hubert and it lasted for 2 hours. I swear I would have fallen asleep if he wasn’t sitting directly opposite me.

Basically what we did today was an introduction to the various F&B outlets in SLPU and a hostess would represent their outlet and tell us about it. After that, Mr. Hubert would add on so in the end there were still 4 outlets that were undone and it’ll be left for next week!

After the 2 hour training, I walked over to Super Brand Mall and went to change my SGD20 because I’m so desperately in need of money already!

I’m like left with RMB600 to last me for the rest of the month! I sure suck at managing my finances here.

Exactly 2 more weeks to pay day. I’m so in need of cash.

Oh, we tried calling our landlord for the past few days but we just couldn’t contact him. His female friend would pick up the phone and say “he’s out to the market”, “he went out without bringing his phone”, “he’s gone on a business trip”.

Wth seriously. Who is she trying to kid. It doesn’t take a smart person to realize that he’s trying to avoid us. We still have like 1 month’s worth of deposit with him and our damn internet is still not working!

Anws, I don’t know why I couldn’t get to sleep last night (maybe it’s because of the Teh Tarek) and I eventually slept at around 5.30am and got up at 8.30am.

So I spent the rest of the evening in darkness (because her room light is spoilt) at JY’s room using the internet for awhile before going to bed!

2008-01-16T14:36:00.000+08:00

I woke up at 2pm today (:

The initial plan go going to Lu Jia Bang was cancelled so we just took our own sweet time to get ready cuz 4 of us were off today and had to take turns to use the toilet.

Since we were quite early, we decided to make a trip down to Jia De Li to buy water before heading out.

We were supposed to meet Maxim, his girlfriend Linda, Kelvin, Angeline, Ehui, Yu Hong and Gabriel for dinner at Food Fusion (the Penang food place we ate last time) at 8.30pm.

But the 4 girls were early and reached at 8pm so we ordered drinks and food first.

In the end Ehui couldn’t make it cuz he was stuck at SLPU :( so the 10 of us savored the delicious food! We had Fried Carrot Cake, Spring Rolls, Nasi Lemak, Prawn Noodles, Mee Goreng etc etc!

This time round, we decided to treat our managers instead so the 6 of us interns foot the bill. It was also a way to say thank you to them for being so nice to us.

After dinner, Angeline headed back home while the rest of us took a train down to Club 88 (yes, again).

The crowd wasn’t as high as the previous time I went but it was still okay. Some performances were repeated though, so it was quite boring.

We were there until most of the crowd left and we started randomly cheering for the singer onstage and she dedicated a song to us. Haha.

In the end we all left at around 1am for home (:

2008-01-15T14:36:00.000+08:00

The weather was bad today, it rained.

I looked out the window and didn’t see anyone carrying an umbrella so I went out of the house without one too. What a mistake. It was actually drizzling really fine rain and by the time I got to the hotel, I was quite wet. And it was cold too because of the strong winds!

Work started at 4pm and I didn’t really do anything. I pretty much slacked and chatted with Tracy because it’ll be the last day I’m gonna see her cuz she’s going for her annual leave and by the time she comes back I’m in Singapore already.

Angela started work at 5.30pm so she bought Subway up for our dinner before the meeting (: We ate in the hostess room.

It was a really busy night. We had like close to 60 covers and time was spent wrapping the chocolate cake, folding napkins and bringing guests inside.

We also met the VVIP guest and he’s damn fussy. All the F&B heads went to meet him upstairs cuz he was choosing his menu for tomorrow’s dinner.

Apparently, we need to address him as “Lord” but when I did, he told me “just Baron will do”. But when Tracy addressed him as “Mr. Baron”, he said “it’s not Mr.” Okay, so what does he want?

And Fabian gave me another job to do. Now I gotta research on the Platinum card and give a presentation to the staff again. Sigh.

He also asked me to go for some hostess training every Thursday for 3 weeks. And immediately when the training ends, my attachment ends too!

There was no way we could leave early tonight. There was a reservation at 10.15pm and our last guest left at around 12.30am?

We still had to clean the hostess room after that because F1 asked F2 to do it by tonight. So Mabel, Becky and I had to stay and clear the stuff because we were on B shift.

Thank goodness we were done by 1.45am! Angela waited for me and we didn’t go look for YJ and Joanne at Hao Le Di because we were so tired so we walked home instead.

2008-01-14T14:35:00.000+08:00

Angela and I headed for work earlier today. We were supposed to meet YJ and Joanne at 1.30pm to gather information from different departments but we decided to have lunch instead.

In the end, we met them at 2pm at Macs and ate there until about 3.30pm then we went back to the hotel.

YJ and I went down to Rooms Reservations to get their organizational chart and also down to Banquet to get the organizational chart. All I lack of now is information from Jade on 36 and brochures from Banquet.

I’m on B shift today so I went up at 4pm and did practically nothing much for half an hour and then we could go for dinner. Since Angela and I were not hungry, we went to look for YJ and Joanne at Event’s Concierge instead. We slacked until it was time to go up for our 5.30pm meeting.

There were only 11 covers when we went for the meeting so Danny decided to send those that didn’t go for the staff party down because of the little amount of reservations.

I didn’t have a ticket because they ran out of it so no chance of lucky draw. But there was a buffet spread and lots of performances by various departments for the staff party.

It was really interesting to see different departments perform and I really applaud their courage. Even all the Excom members performed!

Before the staff party ended, some of the service staff received a phone call from upstairs and asked us to go back up.

In total, there were 39 covers! All walk-in guests. Super busy for a Monday night and it was unexpected.

But the good thing was that the last guest came in at 8.30pm so by 11pm everyone left already and all of us could leave at 11.30pm (:

Angela and I walked home and it was COLD COLD COLD. Didn’t snow today though :(

2008-01-13T14:34:00.000+08:00

It freaking snowed today! :D :D :D :D

I had a hair appointment at Toni & Guy Academy at 1.30pm. Yup, I went to cut my hair again (for free).

This time round, it’s short. Like, short. Haha. Can’t tie it anymore.

After cutting my hair, I went to meet YJ and Joanne cuz they were having lunch at Super Brand Mall too but after that I had to leave for work at 3pm while they headed to Toni & Guy cuz Joanne had an appointment.

It was super busy at work and to make things worse, there were only 3 hostesses at work today. Omg.

In total, we had like 50 over covers to do tonight and there were so many walk-in guests!

Oh, and finally I did my briefing for the Rice Cakes thingy already. I sort of redeemed myself from the grooming check earlier because I didn’t have any ear-rings on. Like hello, I’m left with less than 3 weeks of work and you want me to buy a pair of pearl ear-rings which can’t be seen at all because my hair is forever covering my ear -.-

But whatever, Fabian gave me the cash to go get a pair so I’ll just have to find places that sell it!

So anws, there were rumors that it was gonna snow today and by around 8pm we looked out the window and we saw fine bits of snow falling from the sky. But because the weather wasn’t cold enough, the snow turned into water the moment it hit the ground.

But up above at Jade, I could see the snow visibly and there was a point of time when it got quite heavy.

I think I’m damn lucky to see snow in Shanghai cuz it rarely happens! Too bad I was working and I didn’t get the chance to go out to “feel” the snow. Sigh.

Work ended at around 11.30pm for Fiona and I and we headed to the staff canteen for supper because we were so tired and hungry!

After that the both of us walked home together cuz she lives real near me. The weather was damn cold though but kudos to saving money on cab! :D

2008-01-12T14:34:00.000+08:00

I thought I was gonna go to work alone today but Angela decided to go too despite her eye.

My shift starts at 4pm and thank goodness we reached right on time because there was a trainee training done by Fabian at 4pm!

The moment we went inside the private room and sat down, Fabian came in.

He introduced us the whole concept of what Jade is and everything about Jade from the food to the chef to the interior décor.

Training lasted for an hour and will continue again next week. We decided to skip dinner because there won’t be enough time to make it for the 5.30pm meeting if we went down.

I thought that I was supposed to do the Rice Cake briefing today but it seems like Fabian forgot about it so I didn’t mention anything too (:

But when I saw him in the later part of the night, I decided to remind him about it because I’ve already gathered all the information and I didn’t want to make him feel that I’m not responsible.

Somehow, Fabian seemed a little nicer today. But at the end of the day he flared up because Tracy printed the wrong menu for the guest :/

Anws, the staff today told me that it MIGHT snow tomorrow! It got me SO excited!! Hahaha.

And the weather was really good despite the cold winds because the sky was crystal clear.

After working for (I think) a week, today’s the first day that I witnessed so many reservations. We were quite busy and time passed faster.

I’ve also mastered the skill of wrapping the chocolate cake already (although I’m wasting a lot of gold ribbon :P)

Since I was on B shift, I needed to wait till all the guests leave before I could knock off. Fiona and I were the last ones standing and we were praying so hard that the guests leave ASAP and because they were French, Fabian started chatting with them for like 20 mins!

Omg in the end we left at around 12.45am and on our way down we met Amy, Gabriel, Ken and Alex. They were on their way for supper so Fiona and I joined them.

The weather was too cold to walk because the wind was so strong so we cabbed down.

The place was very near my house and we ate this thing called “Ji Gong Bao” It’s somewhat like steamboat/hotpot.

We were first served all the chicken bits inside this clay pot placed on top of fire and the sauce was kinda like soya sauce.

After finishing the chicken, the service staff would add more sauce (soup? Or is it stock?) and then we could add in the ingredients we ordered to cook (a la steam boat style).

We put in mushrooms, vegetables, sausages, luncheon meat etc etc.

I’ve also found out hot gossip about certain staff working at Jade and it’s quite shocking.

The night was damn fun because we started playing lame games. There were 4 girls sitting behind our table and we just decided to start talking to them and in the end they were in the same line as us! They work for Hyatt at Jin Mao.

We bet on the silliest things. For example, the girls would drink a certain amount of rice wine if all the guys had the guts to walk up to the 4 girls (we didn’t talk to them yet) and offer them a piece of chicken each.

The night ended off with us going outside to watch the guys play with beer. They did the “submarine” and all of them ended up puking. We also put salt in coke and asked Alex to put it inside his mouth to see what happens.

It was already 4am by the time we decided to leave. I know I was somewhere nearby my place but I didn’t know which direction to walk so I wanted to take a cab.

But in the end Ken told me he knew the way and offered to walk me home so I could save on cab fare! Yay (:

In the end I slept at like 5am omg.

2008-01-11T18:35:00.001+08:00

It’s my off day again! 3 working days just passed by in a flash!

I woke up at around 12pm and Angela was supposed to work today but she had a swollen eye so she went to Shangri-la to see the doctor and took an MC instead.

I spent the afternoon over at JY’s place using the internet to do my Periodic Report 3 (which is like due today) and also organizing the Rice Cake information so I will be prepared for tomorrow’s “presentation”.

I think I’m feeling the urgency of the final report that’s gonna be due on 4 Feb! I so need to go gather all the necessary information I need next week so I can complete the report and not have to worry about it.

Okay, so lets not talk about my life for the moment. Angela had a swollen eye right. All of us including herself didn’t think it was that serious until she went to the company doctor cuz he referred her to the hospital!

And she had to undergo an eye surgery cuz there was bacteria infection and pus inside her eye. They could only take a bit of the pus out cuz it hardened already and she came home with an eye patch. Poor girl. I’d freak out if I were her man. Surgery in CHINA?! Hoho.

Hopefully she’ll be able to get an MC tomorrow to rest at home. And if the swelling doesn’t go away most prolly she’ll be back in Singapore.

After this incident I realized how vulnerable we are. I thought OIAP would be a breeze and nothing major would happen. But I’ve heard of stories of people not being able to complete their attachment due to certain reasons and I’m glad to say nothing major has happened to me so far and I’m really thankful for that.

The only time I got sick was food poisoning and it ain’t THAT serious. Hopefully my last few weeks in Shanghai would be a breeze and I hope that Angela recovers real quick because I know she wants to stay in Shanghai until the very last day of attachment.

2008-01-10T23:35:00.000+08:00

I woke up at like 1pm today and was still damn tired!

I had to work today omg. Angela was working too so we walked to work (:

Our initial plan was to go to Super Brand Mall for lunch first because I was so sick of canteen food but we didn’t go because I wanted to sleep in :P

So the only thing I ate was a packet of Pocky on the way to work.

The standard routine for work if I’m working on shift A is to bring out all the displays, call to confirm reservations for the day, check menus and fold napkins.

And because Fiona was working with me, I just helped her because she’s way more experienced than I am.

Angela and I went down for lunch at like 4.15pm and all of us would come up just in time for the 5.30pm meeting.

Fabian was off again today! :D

I was like so tired I was stoning most of the time at work. Oh, we also have to wrap chocolate cakes because it’s a gift for each guest that dines with us and everyday without fail all of us would eat the remaining chocolate cake. It’s damn yummy because it isn’t sweet and it’s dark chocolate (but I think its damn fattening omg).

And at like 8.30pm Angela came out and she told me Danny said that she and I could knock off from work already. I was like “huh are you for real?!”

I then saw Danny walk out so I went to double confirm with him. He’s such a joker; pretended that no one said I could go off.

But yeah, in the end we could really go off because they had enough staff. Kelvin was there when we knew we could go so he asked if we wanted to go out or not so after we changed we went to the F&B office to wait for him.

Yu Hong and Gabriel also ended work already so they joined us too.

We went to this place called Club 88. It’s a super old school type of place that brings you back to the olden times.

There are sofa seats and you get to watch people perform on the stage. There was comedy, singing, cabaret dancing and all.

I think my mum and grandma would enjoy it because they sang all the oldies and I think we were the youngest audience they had!

You can never get to experience this kinda place in Singapore and the club is a historic place which hasn’t been renovated or torn down since the 1970s.

It was about 11pm when we decided to leave and go for supper. Kelvin called up his Thai friend from Thai House and we cabbed there for supper!

Yummy food! We had Pad Thai, Tom Yum Soup, Papaya Salad, Green Curry, Pineapple Fried Rice etc etc etc.

I don’t know why all of us ate damn fast! The food was so good man and finally I ate a proper meal after I-don’t-know-how-many days!

Dinner ended at around 1am and Kelvin sent us home (: So yes, we didn’t spend a single cent. Haha.

I was super tired man. 2 days in a row I came home late. Thank goodness I’m off tomorrow!

2008-01-09T23:34:00.000+08:00

I had company for work today! :D Angela was also working at 3pm so we walked to work together.

The weather sure sucked though. Although it wasn’t cold, the fog was terrible!

I like going to work when I know Fabian is off (:

Nothing special during work today though. It’s really quite boring because the restaurant isn’t busy.

I’ve already somewhat memorized the 18 table numbers the restaurant has and also learnt how to use the TMS (table management system) already. Didn’t get a chance to receive calls yet because when I work everyday, there’ll be enough hostesses to do it.

Angela could knock off at like 9pm so I stayed on by myself until about 11pm. Joanne and YJ were waiting for me at Super Brand Mall cuz we were planning to go clubbing after I ended work.

We wanted to go to Attica cuz we heard it was good so we cabbed down. Joanne and YJ got to know these 2 guys when they were shopping at Qi Pu Lu earlier (one’s from USA and is an English teacher here and the other is a student studying Chinese. He’s from Sri Lanka but lived in Sweden when he was a kid)

Awkwardness I tell you.

Firstly the 3 of us got lost because were told that Attica was at No. 15 on The Bund. But when the cab driver dropped us there all we saw was No. 18 on The Bund (Bar Rouge) and no Attica was insight.

We asked around and people told us that Attica was at No. 3 on The Bund so we walked all the way down and from there someone told us it was No. 15 on The Bund (thinking we missed it previously we stupidly walked back).

So we practically walked along The Bund to and fro until we decided to take a cab!

In the end, Attica was not at The Bund but NEXT to The Bund! Ugh.

Okay, so we finally reached and met the 2 guys. The design of the club was pretty cool BUT because it was a Wednesday, the club was like a ghost town. There was more service staff than customers!

We only used their toilet before deciding to go somewhere else. Christian (the guy from USA) suggested a Mexican Bar so we cabbed there.

We didn’t really like the music although the bar was packed with foreigners so our final destination was Baby Face because Victor (the Sri Lankan guy) wanted to go there too.

And no matter what day it is, Baby Face would be packed with people!

At first we didn’t wanna get a table so we just went to the dance floor but in the end Christian wanted to drink so we got a table for RMB600 that includes a bottle of Chivas and 2 bottles of Green Tea.

The whole atmosphere was quite awkward so the girls just decided to go to the dance floor.

I think it was a mistake going out with the 2 guys because of the awkwardness!

In the end we left the club at around 4am and headed next door for supper at Xing Wang (:

After supper they sent us back home and I slept at like 5.30am! Omgwth.

2008-01-08T23:34:00.000+08:00

I worked alone today because Angela was off.

It’s my first time starting A shift (3pm-11.30pm). I was like on time, but I reached upstairs late because of the stupid lift. I waited like 5 mins for the damn lift. But on my way up I met this service staff called Raymond and he’s from Philippines! Finally, someone that I can converse in English up there besides the managers.

Although I was late, there weren’t any hostesses there yet so I just sat inside the room stoning because I didn’t know what to do. Tracy came shortly after and taught me what to do when we first arrive and I realized that today there’d only be 4 hostesses working (2 A shift and 2 B shift).

Dinner was a little awkward because I didn’t have anyone to eat with. But when I went down I saw Andy so I sat with him but he was almost done with his dinner. When he left, a whole group of male service staff came and just sat around me. I had quite a hard time conversing with them because they speak so fast!

And today’s the first time I met Danny (another manager. He’s from Holland) because he just came back from his annual leave. Although I didn’t really get the chance to speak to him, he seems so much nicer than Fabian!

There was a VIP table for tonight- the VP of SLIM Mr. James Jin was coming over for dinner and it made everyone on their toes. His reservation was at 7pm but he was like late for 45 mins!

The whole night I was stationed at level 1’s lift together with Dorothy. We’d rotate every half an hour and when it wasn’t my turn to stand, I’d be sitting and slacking in the hostess room and pretended to fold napkins just in case Fabian walks in.

Anws, Fabian seemed to be in quite a cherry mood today. He popped by the hostess room after work and saw me and reminded me about the Rice Cake thingy he asked me to do. This time, he spoke to me properly and not in the “I am ordering you to do this” tone.

I’ve gotta gather like all the Rice Cake promo stuff and present it to all the Jade staff this Saturday! Omg.

I ended work thinking that Joanne and YJ were home already cuz it was like 11pm but when I almost reached, YJ called and said they were still at the hotel chatting with Ehui! I took the opportunity to ask her to help me print out the Rice Cake email sent by David Dai so I’d have all the necessary info (:

2008-01-07T19:44:00.001+08:00

It’s my off day again today (: Yeah, because it’s the new week I’m getting Monday and Friday off that’s why I got consecutively 3 days off.

The whole day was spent at home again just watching TV. JY bought ANTM cycle 1-8 and I completed cycle 8 and started on cycle 3.

I woke up rather early despite sleeping at like 5am because of YJ. She woke up to cook her instant Laksa and didn’t know how to cook so I got up to help her. (not like I know how to cook but 2 bimbos are better than 1)

Periodic report is supposed to be due today but I just read MeL and most prolly I’m gonna post my submission on Friday when I’m off.

Not quite looking forward to work anymore now though. It’s boring and time passes slowly. I’m actually quite sick and tired of attachment already. I know it’s the last leg and maybe that’s the reason why I want it to end so badly. It’s so near yet so far!

I’ve got like 18 more days at work only and I’m happy to say that. I just hope that the remaining 4 weeks won’t be the longest 4 weeks out of my 22 weeks here for OIAP.

I shall also try not to shop until maybe the third week of the month because I’m only left with like half of my pay.

2008-01-06T18:46:00.001+08:00

Off day again! :D

I already planned to slack the whole day at home because I’m so tired.

Woke up and took a leisure bath (took my own sweet time and all you know) and then did some chores.

I think my body system is a little messed up because I just got my period after only a week. It’s madness and it’s A LOT lah omg I actually freaked out a bit. Okay, too much information.

Anyhoo, Angela and I went downstairs in the afternoon to draw money, buy DVDs and water because she starts work in the evening.

I then spent the night at JY’s place borrowing the internet connection from her room.

Oh what a slack day it is (:

2008-01-05T23:45:00.000+08:00

It’s my off day again! I don’t know why I’m forever getting off days so often. Haha.

Just as I mentioned yesterday, I had a date with the Singaporean ladies I met at Jade yesterday night. Angela and YJ were supposed to go with me but they were lazy and tired so in the end I went alone.

The initial plan was to meet them at Nan Jing MRT station at 12pm. I didn’t know Angela didn’t take down their numbers yesterday when they were asking for our numbers because I was busy speaking to other guests.

So yeah, they could contact me but I couldn’t contact them. I waited for like half an hour and still no sight of them. Shortly after that I received an sms from Sally saying that they’ll reach only at like 1.30pm.

I went to lunch at Macs and walked around. Sat myself in the middle of Bu Xing Jie and just people watched. I know its weird to say this, but I sort of like sitting alone in the busy streets watching people go by. Especially in the cold weather because you wouldn’t get frustrated by the heat. I think it’d be much better if I wasn’t in China but in some European or American country.

In the end I met them at some shopping mall and it was already 3pm. They were like damn late and I waited for 3 hours.

Since there were like 300 odd of Singaporeans from Prudential at Bu Xing Jie, I bumped into so many of them and I also met the CEO (with his wife and son) of Prudential!

There were more familiar faces I met because they went up to Jade yesterday.

In the end I brought Sally, Dorine, Esther and Catherine down to Qi Pu Lu to shop. It was a little weird at first trying to help them get used to that kind of shopping experience but after awhile all was fine.

They decided to follow the people that kept pestering us and it turned out that they were pretty nice. They looked out for us because we were in different shops and they helped them to bargain for the things they wanted. I don’t know if it’s the lowest prices they got their stuff for but they seemed happy with their purchases.

They were done shopping by like 6.30pm and had to go back to Shangri-la because they had a banquet dinner. And because we had 5 of us, we couldn’t take 1 cab so we took the illegal van instead!

I followed them back to the hotel and wanted to bid farewell but they said they wanted to treat me to drinks after their dinner so I thought I’d go home first and then meet them. But they needed to go up to their room to chuck their stuff and change so they invited me up for a rest as well.

I took the opportunity to have a look at their room and they were so sweet they made Milo for me. I haven’t drunk Milo since the day I came here lah! Haha.

I called Joanne cuz I knew she was working and she came up to their room to have a look too.

Then we followed them down to Chang An Hall (where their dinner was at) and Esther wanted me to join them for dinner! She asked me to wait outside first and then I saw Goh at the bar counter alone so I offered to help him open drinks to give to the Banquet staff.

After doing that for awhile, Esther came out again and dragged me into the room and she said I could join them for dinner!

I felt super out of place at first because this dinner was for all Prudential staff that met their quota and I was neither a Prudential staff nor someone that sells insurance to hit their target.

Dinner was an 11 course Chinese set. I was praying so hard that none of the banquet staff could recognize me or seeing Goh around when I was sitting down eating.

But overall I enjoyed the dinner because the people I sat with are really nice. Imagine sitting inside a hall filled with Singaporeans! Suddenly it felt like I was back in Singapore.

There were also performances during the dinner and what I enjoyed most was the informality of the whole event. After the dinner, people just stood around chatting with one another and I bumped into these 2 guys I met at Jade last night.

So I started chatting with them too and after the whole night I got quite a number of name cards from them so I think if I wanna buy insurance in the future I’ll have a lot of people to look for. Haha.

I was also introduced to the second biggest guy of the company and we chatted up a bit. It somehow felt like networking but I don’t think so. I was just telling them about my experience here, what I do, what I study back in Singapore etc etc.

We went up to the hotel room again because they wanted to change and then we cabbed down to Xin Tian Di. And yes, a lot of Singaporeans were there too.

In the end we sat at Luna and ordered drinks and Nachos and just chatted. We left the place at around 12.30am. Esther and Catherine went back to the hotel so I bid farewell to them because they were going to go to Hang Zhou and Su Zhou the next day.

Dorine and Sally wanted foot massage so 3 of us cabbed to my place and we did our foot massage (: And again, we bumped into more Singaporeans at the massage parlor!

Dorine was real sweet she treated me to my massage and also bought a jacket for me at Qi Pu Lu. She bought herself the exact same jacket in a different colour.

I really enjoyed their company and it’s so weird because I usually don’t open up to people that easily.

The 300+ of them will be leaving back for Singapore tomorrow and I heard that another 300+ are coming in again.

Meeting them really made me miss home a bit because they are all so similar to my aunties. But its okay, I have less than a month before it’s my turn to take the plane back home (:

2008-01-04T23:45:00.000+08:00

I went to work early again today. Joanne was working alone so YJ, Angela and I cabbed down to Super Brand Mall to meet her for lunch at 2pm.

In the end we ate at Macs then we walked around for a bit. I bought another tee shirt and also a pair of shorts from Zara! (:

I was so happy shopping until I went to the bank to check how much money I’ve left for the month and I got a shock of my life.

I swear I will not use my ATM card for anymore shopping otherwise I will DIE. It’s not even the first week of the month and I’m left with half of my pay only. Yes, I feel I’m quite screwed.

Angela and I then left for work to attend this rice cake briefing at 3.30pm. I should have just not went because less than 10 people turned up and it lasted for 10mins and the speaker was so fast I couldn’t catch anything he was saying.

Work was alright today but I was happy because Fabian was on off! So Kelvin Tay came up because Danny was off too.

The highlight of the night was meeting fellow Singaporeans! We were waiting for our last 2 customers to finish their dinner and I was inside the hostesses’ room resting and using the internet (because Kelvin brought his laptop and he got it connected to the internet) and then I heard Singaporeans outside.

So I went outside and the other hostesses asked me to bring them around the restaurant because they wanted to take a look. I chatted with them and they are very friendly!

I also learnt that there are 700 Singaporeans from Prudential that are staying in the hotel for 3 nights! How cool is that man. Angela and I chatted with them for quite some time and all of them seem really nice.

So somehow they wanted to go for foot reflexology so after we ended work we went to meet them and brought them to the place opposite our apartment.

Some of them did body massage while some did foot massage. We also agreed to meet them again tomorrow afternoon to bring them shopping at Qi Pu Lu because they had free time (:

It feels so homely when I’m around with them. The weird thing is that I don’t even know them at all but I feel very comfortable with all of them that’s why I didn’t mind agreeing to bring them out because I’m also off tomorrow.

2008-01-03T23:45:00.000+08:00

I was woken up at 11am today cuz the internet guy came over and he was supposedly here to fix our internet problem. All the internet stuff is over at JY’s place so the guy went to check this and that and then he connected my lappy directly to the main port and there was internet.

But when I came over to test out the connection at our apartment, it didn’t work! Then the stupid guy said that it was the problem of the linking thingy from their apartment to ours and it wasn’t his problem because he was only in-charge of the main internet connection and that one didn’t have any problem. And before I could say anything else, he just left! Wth. So now we’re still without an internet connection and it’s so darn irritating!

I went to work early today cuz YJ was working alone. Angela and I joined her for lunch at 2pm and we ate pasta! Seems like a damn long time since we ate at that RMB9 pasta place (:

After eating, we went shopping!! I bought like 4 tee-shirts from Zara cuz they were on sale and I also bought another winter coat from C&A. I’ve already lost track of how much money I’m left with to spend for this month. Let’s just pray I don’t go broke by the second or third week of January.

Finally I wasn’t alone working at Jade today cuz Gabriel and Angela was working too (although they are the service staff and I don’t really get to see them). I went up for awhile and then it was down for dinner but I was still super full from the pasta.

Today was busier than yesterday but I still spent a lot of time doing nothing. YJ came up to look for me a couple of times and I also went down to level 1 to stand by the lift 3 times tonight.

I think Fabian has a problem. He seems to be in a bad mood most of the time and likes to scold people. He’s like super fussy and picky about every single thing. I got scolded by him today for not standing in the middle of the lift area because there were like 4 people standing at the hostess table when he came. I swear that totally spoilt my night but I’m so not gonna bother about him because I counted and I’m left with like 18 working days! Woohoo!

I had company going home today cuz Angela and I ended at about the same time. We left at around 12am and walked home (:

2008-01-02T23:44:00.000+08:00

It’s my first day of work again after like taking almost 2 weeks off? :D

I met up with Joanne and YJ at Super Brand Mall for lunch at 2pm first cuz it was their break time. We ate Dim Sum and then walked around until about 3.30pm then all of us headed back to the hotel.

I had to change into my new uniform and thank goodness the both of them accompanied me! A jade hostess wears this sleeveless black dress and I swear I’m so gonna freeze up there.

So after getting my uniform and changing into it, the both of them accompanied me all the way up to Jade (:

I was then toured around the area (for the n-th time) and then they asked me to go for dinner -.-

There’d be a meeting for everybody at 5.30pm daily and the restaurant was pretty quiet today.

The only important ones was 2 birthdays and 1 celebrity (Olympic 400m runner) that had made reservations.

In total, we only had like 24 covers for the night.

There was nothing much to do though. I helped them fold napkins, pack chocolate cake and every half an hour, we need to rotate to go downstairs to receive guests coming up to the restaurant via the express lift.

Thank goodness each of us had a scarf! I think I’d die if I was only wearing that black dress. Haha.

By right if I start work at 4pm, I’ll have to end when the restaurant closes. But today, our last customer left at around 11pm so we could all leave at 11.30pm (:

And despite how cold the weather was, I walked to work and walked back. I so do not want to spend money on cab especially if I’m taking it alone (no one to split the cost with!).

Work wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. I think for the whole of January the restaurant won’t be busy. The hostesses I met working there seem quite nice too. I’ll just have to get used to the non-Singaporean environment there!

2008-01-01T23:44:00.000+08:00

First day of 2008! (:

To sum it up, we slacked the whole day at Angela’s aunt place.

We called take away for lunch and it was Subway again :D

There was also internet connection at her aunt’s place so finally I could get access to the internet after almost 2 weeks!

After using the internet, we watched loads of DVDs and also tv!

There was HBO, T&L, Star Movies, Star World, Animal Planet etc etc etc!!! Omg heaven can.

Sadly, we had to leave at like 11pm because we’ve got work tomorrow :(

2007-12-31T23:43:00.000+08:00

Oh my. Today’s the last day of 2007!!

It’s also the day Harris and Michelle fly back to Singapore. And, I’m off again today I don’t know why (:

We met the both of them at Super Brand Mall’s Mac at 10.30am in hopes of eating Macs breakfast but there wasn’t any! :(

Angela also joined us for breakfast because YJ and she were working today. Yup, YJ changed departments already and I’m not gonna work with her for the last month of OIAP. We’ve been together in every department for like 4 months with the same off days and working hours!

After breakfast the 2 of them went to work and I accompanied Harris and Michelle back to their hotel so they could pack up and check-out. They dumped their luggage at the Front Desk and then we walked back to Shangri-la.

Like what we always do when people from Singapore come to visit, we toured them around the hotel! We also met up with Angela and YJ and we were walking around the hotel together.

Since there was still time after the tour, the 3 of us went to Coffee Bean to slack for a bit before they went back to their hotel to claim their luggage and cabbed down to take the Maglev train to PVG.

This marks the last visit by our friends and relatives from Singapore here. Just another 1 more month and we’ll be back in Singapore.

After they left, I met Angela and YJ for their lunch. They had a 2 hour break and because we were so full from breakfast, we spent the 2 hours shopping! Yup, our pay is like finally in and I have money to spend :D I can’t believe I could actually survive through the last 2 weeks of December with less than RMB200.

I didn’t buy much; only a jacket from H&M for Shawn and also 3 belts that were on sale at C&A.

It was super crowded at the mall today. I think it’s because it’s the last day of the year and everyone took leave. Never mind, I’ll have more opportunities to shop when there’s no crowd because I’ll be having off days on weekdays (:

The both of them had to go back to work at 4pm so I took the train to Dong Chang MRT station to visit the Post Office to get a parcel before heading home and I slacked until it was night time.

The initial plan was to go to some place to countdown (bund, nan jing, xin tian di etc) so I walked to Shangri-la to meet Angela and YJ after they ended work.

Our first stop was Pearl Tower’s Subway for dinner and then we decided the weather was way too cold to stay out and we didn’t wanna squeeze with the crowd (especially when you have to put on layers of clothes. It’s not fun) so we ran all the way to Super Brand Mall in hopes of the grocery store to be open so we could buy junk food.

In the end, only the bakery was open so we bought a cake instead (for Angela’s belated birthday and also a reason to binge on cake).

It was like too cold to walk all the way back so we cabbed back to our apartment.

Angela’s aunt was away on holiday in Australia so her whole apartment was empty and we planned to spend New Year there. We collected our stuff at home, went down to Ke Di to buy potato chips, met JY and walked all the way to her aunt’s condo.

The weather was FREEZING. Like, -1 degs.

By the time we reached the apartment it was already 11.30pm. We made ourselves comfortable and prepared the cake (you know, put candles and light them and all)

And at the stroke of 12am we sang Angela her birthday song (:

Did I mention that her aunt’s place is heaven? Yeah, well-furnished big condo for 2 people. Their living room is bigger than our apartment!

The best part, they have cable tv!! OMG!

So yeah, we spent the night watching some tv and DVDs before going to bed in to cold because we couldn’t figure out how to turn on the heater :/

2007-12-30T23:43:00.000+08:00

Today was another day spent with Harris and Michelle. We met them at Dong Chang MRT station at 11am and cabbed down to Cheng Huang Miao to sight see.

And because it’s a Sunday, it was like damn crowded! The famous Xiao Long Bao had an even longer queue than the last time I went so we decided to give it a pass.

Both of them bought souvenirs and in the end we ended up having lunch at Pizza Hut because we didn’t know what else to eat already.

In the end, most of the stuff they bought was snacks and food. I also bought my dried cherries and I swear I’m so gonna get like at least 3kg of it before I fly back home (:

After Cheng Huang Miao they went back to their hotel while YJ and I went back to our apartment to pack our shoes and bags so Harris could help us bring them home. We also completed Prison Break 2 before cabbing to their hotel to meet them again.

And did I mention that the weather was freezing cold today? -1 to 5 degs! It’s madness.

The night was spent at Nan Jing Lu’s Bu Xing Jie then walking to The Bund and then cabbing to Xin Tian Di.

And the only thing we drank at Xin Tian Di was hot chocolate at Starbucks!

It was already like 11pm when we were done with Xin Tian Di and Harris and Michelle were addicted to the foot massage so they went there again while YJ and I accompanied them.

Yes, the foot massage place opposite my apartment closes at like 2am. Haha.

I don’t know why, but I was super duper tired after the whole day. Maybe because it’s the weather. Now I don’t like winters. But I think I’m not gonna get used to the hot and humid weather in Singapore when I go back.

2007-12-29T23:42:00.000+08:00

YJ and I went to Lu Jia Zui MRT station to meet Harris and his cousin, Michelle at like 11am (:

We brought them to eat Jia Jia Tang Bao for lunch but we waited for like 1 hour because of the queue.

Then we cabbed down to Qi Pu Lu to let them shop for a bit. We spent almost the whole afternoon there and then decided to cab back to Harris’s hotel to chuck the stuff they bought and slack for awhile.

We then made our way to Super Brand Mall for dinner. Our initial plan was to eat Jap food but there was a queue so we went to eat Korean food instead.

And since we were so full after the meal, we walked to the Bund to have a look before walking all the way back to our apartment.

Yup, they followed us back and we brought them for foot massage and introduced them shao kao (:

YJ and I then bought 881 from the DVD stall and went upstairs to watch while Harris and his cousin went back to their hotel.

Gonna meet them again tomorrow and be a tour guide again (:

2007-12-28T23:42:00.000+08:00

Another day was spent at home; this time I wasn’t alone cuz YJ came home in the afternoon after sending her parents off to the airport.

I finished the whole season 1 of Ugly Betty and we started watching Prison Break 2 from like 5pm all the way till 2am (:

Harris also arrived at like 11pm today but we didn’t meet him cuz it was so late. Finally, I’ll be out of the house the next 2 days. Haha.

2007-12-27T23:41:00.000+08:00

It’s been a very long time since I had time to stay at home the whole day (:

More DVD watching because the stupid internet is still down.

And that was what I did the whole day (:

2007-12-26T23:41:00.000+08:00

Today’s the day where my bestie’s going back to Singapore :(

We went downstairs to have breakfast before coming up and they did their last minute packing.

Nad and I also cam-whored like crazy until 11am where they had their minivan pick them up to go to the airport. They got the driver to drop me off at my place so I could save on cab fare :D

How I wish it was my time to go back to Singapore. I’ve got like 6 more weeks left!

I can’t wait to start packing all my stuff. It seems so fun to be packing up and heading for the airport. Can’t wait!

I spent the rest of the day at home doing the laundry and trying to get the internet to work.

The stupid internet was so not working for the whole afternoon! Ugh.

Lunch was Kueh Lapis brought all the way from Singapore from Nadia!

The stomach’s still not feeling very well, I can still hear it churn from time to time and I still visit the toilet.

I think I’m gonna like spend the rest of my off days slacking at home. I’ve got no more money to shop so the best way to save what’s remaining is to stay at home until Harris arrives!

Yup, I’ll have one more visit from Singapore before I head home. Too bad he’s only staying for the weekend.

So I watched like a lot of movies for the rest of the night. YJ came home and I went downstairs with her to buy shao kao and DVDs.

I started on Ugly Betty and finished like half of it within 1 night.

2007-12-25T23:40:00.000+08:00

It’s Christmas today but in Shanghai, there’s no atmosphere because majority of the people don’t celebrate and it’s not a Public Holiday.

I had to wake up early today. I walked all the way to the hotel to collect my pay-slip before cabbing down to Somerset to meet Nadia and her family for breakfast.

After breakfast I brought them to Qi Pu Lu for shopping! That place was quite empty today but a lot of people were hogging us to follow them to look at their stuff. It was so irritating I swear!

I didn’t buy anything though. I’m waiting to get my pay and it’ll be like the last month I’m gonna shop here!

After getting all their stuff we cabbed back to their hotel to dump it. In the end, all of us ate Maggie Mee for lunch/dinner because it was like 5pm already.

Slacked for a bit and watched movies on cable. I so miss cable tv! They had like HBO, Star Movies and Cinimax. Ugh. I could spend the whole day watching movies on those channels.

We left the hotel at around 7pm and cabbed down to Nan Jing Lu’s Bu Xing Jie to sightsee. Took lots of photos and we bought funny headbands!

After combing the whole stretch of Bu Xing Jie we headed down to the Bund for more sightseeing. Good thing it wasn’t as hazy and misty as the previous days so we could still see the view.

It was already close to 10pm when we were done so we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel because they had to pack all their stuff into their luggage.

I stayed over at their place because I was so lazy to take a cab home and I also wanted to spend more time with my bestie (:

Time passed so fast during their stay here! How I wish they could stay for a few more days because I’ve got leave! Haha.

2007-12-24T23:39:00.000+08:00

It sucks to wake up at 3am to puke. And the moment my puke came out, it was already bitter. I had like nothing left in my stomach to puke already and everything that came out was bitter water. Yucks.

Visited the toilet again, popped the remaining 4 pills the nurse gave me and went back to sleep.

I was feeling better in the morning when I woke up so I decided to go to work.

Met YJ at 3pm at the locker and we went up to Reservations first to give them key chains we brought from Singapore before looking for Ehui.

There was only 1 event going on tonight- Christmas Eve with Gigi Leung.

Since it was a buffet dinner, we didn’t need to serve anything. Thank goodness we didn’t have to wear the Santerina uniform the BQT staff were wearing cuz the skirt was so damn short!

In the end, Ehui assigned YJ to take care of the lucky draws while I was given a walkie-talkie to help him make sure that all the performers were on standby before they performed.

There was more food at the staff canteen today. They were giving out free bottled juices and cakes. Too bad for my stupid stomach, I didn’t eat much.

The whole event started at 6pm where guests started flowing in. I was kept busy the whole evening listening to conversations over the walkie-talkie and making sure that the whole event didn’t have any hiccups.

On the surface, everything seemed fine, but there were a few hiccups here and there.

The performances were quite boring for the night. There were children choir, acrobatic performance, comedians and dancers. Obviously the highlight of the night was Gigi Leung singing 7 songs at the last part of the event.

I’m not a fan, so I couldn’t really be bothered about it.

The event ended a bit later than scheduled. And since it was a buffet, all the chefs brought the remaining food to Nan Jing room and all staff was invited to eat there.

What a bad time to have no appetite. There was so much meat and turkey to eat!

Anws, we left at around 10.30pm and changed to go down to BATS because Angela, Gabriel and Joanne were there. There was a Christmas party going on there.

The bar turned out to be quite quiet and empty though. And I think almost half the people were hotel staff- mainly chefs.

The good thing was that we always have free food and drinks. We stayed for a little bit, played a little foosball and left immediately after the countdown (:

We heard the noise of fireworks when we were at level 1 so we ran all the way to the foyer where we could see the bund.

Fireworks right in front of your eyes for a full 10 mins is what you’ll never get in Singapore.

Joanne, YJ and YT wanted to go clubbing so they left in a cab while Angela and I walked home.

2007-12-23T22:22:00.000+08:00

We got woken up at like 8+am today.

After having breakfast at their hotel, we arranged for transport to go to Zhou Zhuang.

So the driver came early and we had a minibus to bring us there. It was about more than an hour journey drive to Zhou Zhuang so we cam-whored and slept!

The admission ticket into Zhou Zhuang was RMB100 per person. I think its so expensive! Because, the last time I went, we took a coach and it only cost RMB140 per person inclusive of the admission ticket and transportation.

Nad's family shopped a bit over there and took some photos. We also took a boat ride which went 1 round the area.

We spent like 3 hours at the place itself and after that we called the driver at around 3pm to bring us back to their hotel.

I was already having no appetite since morning but I was still okay until we reached the hotel and I used the toilet.

I think I got food poisoning. I'm like super bloated inside and when I go to the toilet, nothing but LIQUID comes out!

Most prolly it's the sashimi I had at Yi Cafe; but I'm not sure cuz the rest had no problems.

This is like my first time having food poisoning in my life can! And it has to be now in Shanghai and when Nadia is here! What a bummer :(

We were planning to go for dinner at Ba Bai Ban then shop along the streets but having gone to the toilet like 4 times in less than an hour, I decided to go home to rest while they went to Xin Tian Di for dinner.

I called up Angela and she was working so I asked her to help me see if the staff clinic was still opened. It was so I told the cab driver to take me to the hotel instead. But when I got there, the doctor already left so the nurse gave me some pills.

I had to eat like 4 pills at one go can! Omgwth.

After that I cabbed home, already half dead and I felt like puking. I used the toilet a gazillion times after that and yes, it was nothing but liquid. Yucks. The worst part- I've got my period too. Okay okay, too much information. Haha.

And the nurse told me not to eat anything. Wth I haven't ate a proper meal for the whole day! But whatever, I have no appetite anws.

2007-12-22T23:57:00.000+08:00

Finally, today's the day I've been looking forward to since forever!

NADIA CHAN IS IN SHANGHAI! And so is her whole family!! :D

They arrived last night at around 11pm so I didn't meet them and had to wait till today.

I booked Yi Cafe buffet lunch for them so I met them at Shangri-la at 11.30am! It felt so nice seeing my best friend after not meeting for 4 months!

Hans was nice enough to give us a private room w/o minimum charge and also free Long Jing tea (:

The buffet spread was really good and I was so looking forward to eating there. I think the best part is still the pastry. Yummy cakes!

After lunch at the hotel, I brought them to Di Mei because it was underground. Yes, the weather was such a spoiler today; it rained non-stop and it was super misty.

They shopped for a little and then all of us cabbed back to their hotel. They are staying at Somerset, just next to Xin Tian Di so it's not that far away from where I live.

After slacking at their service apartment for a bit, we cabbed back to my place. Dinner was simple and we ate at Lan Zhou. They wanted to go for foot massage but it was full so in the end they decided to pass. I then brought Nad and Sophia up to my apartment while her brother and parents went back to the hotel.

They waited for me to shower and get my stuff because I was going to sleep over at their place (:

I so miss my BFF. We were talking and bitching for so long before we were so tired and fell asleep! Haha.

Not forgetting to mention, we cam-whored A LOT too! (:

2007-12-21T23:52:00.000+08:00

Today's my last day in Reservations!

I've been looking forward to getting out of the office since the day I stepped in but today I sort of couldn't bear to leave the place because I could freely use the internet and phone.

And since it was out last day, YJ and I decided to go out for lunch (: The weather wasn't cold today although it rained so the more we wanted to head out.

Didn't have a craving for pasta so we had Mac instead.

There were quite a number of trainings planned for us today. In the morning, we went to look for Kristy who's in-charge of Events and she explained to us how the hotel handles big groups and all.

After lunch, Rose gave us training on how to book groups and block rooms.

We then had to meet Hubert because all of us are supposed to change departments in the beginning of next year. We were free to choose which outlet we wanted to go to but it was a tough choice.

In the end, Angela and I decided to try Jade on 36 Restaurant because it's so unique. Nothings final yet though; cuz Hubert actually didn't want 2 people going to the same outlet. But hopefully the restaurant will be willing to take in 2 more staff. *cross fingers*

After meeting up with Hubert, we had another round of wine training by Kelvin Tay. It wasn't as interesting today because there wasn't any tasting!

And after wine training, we went up to RSVN and Bonnie brought us to view the different rooms the hotel has.

We went to both the old tower and new tower to look at different rooms.

There was supposed to be a nice view of The Bund or Pearl Tower in some rooms but because of the mist today, we couldn't see a thing! The mist today was real bad.

We also went to look at the Presidential Suite in the old tower- 2828. That's where PM Goh stayed when he was here for Singapore Evening and omg the room is like an apartment!!

It has a kitchen, dining area, 2 sets of sofas in the living room, 1 office, 1 huge ass toilet with Jacuzzi tub and sauna and obviously a bed. 1 night there cost SGD7000.

We also went to look at the other 2 Presidential Suites in the new tower but when we went to the first one, we saw luggage’s inside! Oops!

But I've already seen that room type on the first day I came here; it was the room Yao Ming booked when he got married then.

I met Joanne and Angela on the way when we were viewing rooms so they came along too (:

After work, I went to Yi Cafe to look for them and waited for them to knock off so we could head to Super Brand Mall.

Oh, the RSVN staff gave both YJ and I a box each of chocolates/biscuits as a farewell gift. It's so sweet of them and I sort of regret not trying to get close to them.

Our day ended off by going to Lotus to grab some necessities and we wanted to cab home. BUT, there was no damn cab in sight! We waited for quite some time and also walked down all the way to Citi Tower but there were still no cabs.

There were some empty cabs we saw but they just didn't wanna stop for us. Ugh. So in the end we had no choice but to walk home carrying all our heavy groceries. Sigh.

I used all my energy walking back I got hungry so I bought shao kao home! I think I'll miss shao kao when I get back to Singapore! Hahaha.

2007-12-20T23:51:00.000+08:00

Work was seriously boring today. I had nothing to do for the whole time.

And I've also finished my last bit of Ribena I've gotten from SG some time ago :(

There was supposed to be training by Michael from Events at 10.30am but it got cancelled cuz he was caught up with something.

Staff canteen lunch was a disappointment. I only had miso soup and 5 sausages. Thank goodness there was pastry otherwise I'd be starving!

Oh, I know it's a PH back in SG today- Hari Raya! Sigh. No public holiday here.

So I dialed back to Singapore to my grandma's place and ended up speaking to her, my mum and 2 aunts because all of them were there. I think the next time I speak to them will be when I get back because I can't call overseas with my China SIM card.

After work, YJ and I went over to Super Brand Mall to look for Angela and Joanne. We headed to Toni & Guy cuz Angela was having her hair cut there. I want a hair cut too!

We then met Yu Hong after he ended work and the 5 of us headed to this place for Penang Buffet! Dinner tonight was to celebrate Angela's birthday early.

However, when we reached the place, there was no buffet because we had to notify them in advance for them to prepare the buffet spread :(

But we ate there anws. The guy that served us was so nice. He gave us set dinners when that promo was supposed to end at 2pm. We had Curry Chicken Rice, Minced Meat Noodles, Prawn Noodles, Char Kway Tiao, Mee Goreng, Curry Puff, Sambal Kang Kong and Teh Tarek!

Omg feels so much like home food man. And it's so much better than Crossroad. Our total bill for 5 pax came to RMB200 which was quite cheap for such a wide spread of food in huge portions (:

After dinner, the guy that served us showed us the second level of the restaurant. They just converted it into a pub/bar kinda style and it looked super cozy. But most prolly we won't be going back there anytime soon because we're just left with one month! Damn, we should have found that restaurant earlier.

And because we were so damn full after dinner, we decided to walk along the streets do digest first. The x'mas decorations are up already and we took some photos because YH brought his SLR (:

We covered a total distance of 1 MRT station and ended up taking the train at the interchange instead of the one that we alighted when we arrived.

Since the DVD stall was still open at 11pm when we reached our place, I went over to buy Prison Break 2 :D

Finally, tonight we swapped beds. And I'm gonna get to sleep on the comfy sofa bed until I go home! Hello comfortable sleeping nights (:

2007-12-19T22:05:00.000+08:00

I so didn't want to bathe today morning because the shower head is not usable anymore! And if we are desperate to get a bath, we have to squat down and use that other thing to bathe (you know, the one where water comes out like its from a sink. The one where you go into the bathroom and turn on to wash your feet with) and that is like super uncomfortable because of the position you have to be in and you'll be shivering because you wouldn't be able to get water on all parts of your body at the same time.

Breakfast was super filling today though. I ate my chocolate orange muffin and Gourmet is famous for its oversized pastry! My muffin was gigantic but I ate it all because I know today's lunch at the staff canteen would be quite terrible (read the menu yesterday and only understood half of it because it was in Chinese).

For the whole morning before lunch, I still haden't logged into Opera. Okay, I got logged in and after I finished printing out the report, I accidentally closed it so I didn't bother asking anyone to log in for me again.

Dr. Chiam also came to our hotel today to meet up with Denis and Raymond so we met him after that to get back YJ's thumb drive cuz Ms. Ho already received our CD. We also toured him around the hotel for a bit before he left to meet his family.

Lunch at the canteen today sort of sucked. Salad was my main course and the dishes were not nice :( We waited for pastry but to no avail.

There was also a training for us on group reservations by Rose today. She took about half an hour explaining to us how a group books rooms and how they work with the sales dept on it.

After that we went down to Gourmet to look for JY's dad and cousin to pass them her house keys. We sure do have quite a number of visitors at the hotel today (:

Having nothing to do, I started surfing the internet and I've decided to buy a new digi camera when I get back to Singapore. I've also made up my mind which to get- Sony Cyber-shot T2 in pink!! :D :D

And clumsy me just had to puncture a hole into my stockings when I visited the toilet. Sigh.

After work, we headed to Lotus before missing the shuttle bus by a minute so we had to walk back home.

I couldn't stand how dirty the house was so I started sweeping the floor and omg I can't believe the amount of dust and hair I swept! Yuck.

Maggie Mee-d for dinner again and FINALLY, our landlord's dad came over to fix our shower head!

After like how many days, we can finally bathe comfortably now (:

And, YJ and I finished watching Prison Break! Gonna buy season 2 tomorrow!!!

2007-12-18T23:03:00.000+08:00

I woke up earlier than usual today because I wanted to go to China Eastern's branch at Citibank before heading to work. But, no matter what time we wake up, we'll always end up leaving our house at like 8.30am .

So I decided to go there during lunch time and we walked to work (: (:

The weather wasn't THAT cold in the morning and it stopped raining already.

And during lunch, we headed out to Citibank first. We grabbed our coats from the changing room and walked there. IT WAS FREEZING!

We only had our coats and our uniform isn't that thick. Our legs were freezing cold because we only wore stockings!

So I had to pay another RMB100 to change my flight to 5 Feb cuz there were no more seats for the type of seat I booked last time.

And since I had to pay that extra RMB100, it's like confirmed I won't be changing my flight anymore.

5 Feb, 9pm @ Changi Airport. I'm coming home (:

After changing the departure date, we had to walk all the way back to the hotel in the freezing cold weather and then we headed straight to the canteen for lunch!

Good choice to pass buying Subway (it was just next to the airline place) because canteen food was good today. There was like chicken nuggets and tomato egg (: We even had the luck of getting some pastry! :D :D

The stupid internet at the office can't access to blogspot.com. Sigh. And my computer doesn't have macro media flash player which means I can't play games online!

I was practically stoning away for the rest of the time at work.

Since we knocked off at around 6pm, we decided to go to Gourmet to get muffins and pastry since it was going at half price. That sort of settled my breakfast for the next day (:

We then walked to Jia De Li to get water before heading home and I cooked my tom yum maggie and watched more Prison Break. I think I'm gonna finish the whole of season 1 by tomorrow haha.

2007-12-17T23:53:00.000+08:00

I can't believe it rained the whole bloody night. It's FREEZING!

And despite how broke I am, we had no choice but to cab. Hmmm, what if it gets too cold to walk to work for the coming weeks? I so do not wanna spend money on cab fare!

There was so much shop calling to do today. We forgot to call last Friday so the first thing we did was to call them today. 5 different timings; 6 different hotels. Wonderful.

After we were done, there was today's list to call. Same thing. Imagine us having to repeat ourselves countless of times. Sigh.

But, I didn't have any call arrivals to do today! :D I totaled up and it was already below 35% (: (: (:

And so, I've decided to change my flight again because of some reasons. 3 Feb is too early and since Joanne and CF are going back on 5th (by paying RMB100 more), I've decided to join them.

Too bad the airline place closes at 5pm so I'll just pray hard there are still seats left when I book them tomorrow.

After work, YJ and I took a train down to Jing An Shi cuz she wanted to get boots. At first, our plan was to head to People's Square- the place where Joanne brought me on Saturday but since JY told her Jing An Shi sells boots and it's cheap too, we went there instead.

The place turned out small and there wasn't much stuff to shop for. In the end, we left with only 1 pair of boots that YJ bought. I couldn't be bothered to look at anything cuz I am already so freaking broke.

Headed home and we watched more Prison Break and slept again without our bedsheets.

The stupid shower head is still not working. Sigh.

2007-12-16T23:34:00.000+08:00

I woke up late today. Instead of 4.30am, I got up at 5.30am!

It was kind of a rushed morning because I couldn't bathe any quicker! The stupid shower head our our bathroom is leaking! It's not a small leak, it's a water fountain! Ugh.

And the weather was like so cold! Bad morning. We even had to strip our bedsheets to put them in the laundry before we left the house because they are due for washing.

And when we got downstairs at like 6.20am, there was no cab in sight along our road!
We had to walk all the way to the main road and when we spotted a cab there, we RAN for it!

And my feet still hurt from yesterday's high heels and massive walking and dancing.

We were on time despite waking up late (: Found our coach bus and went up to wait for it to set off.

It was sleep time on the bus! After travelling for like an hour and a half, the first stop was Ting Ling Garden. I think its some place in Su Zhou.

We were greeted by the cold weather and empty grass patch with the hotel's big banner on one side.

All of us that attended the outing gathered and were divided into 4 groups. The they distributed scarfs for us and it came in 4 different colours to identify the groupings. They had pink, red, grey and dark blue. My group was blue :(

We then learnt how to do the "Rabbit Dance" and after jumping here and there we got ourselves warmed up.

At first, I was so not interested to play their bonding games but in the end it turned out quite okay. Everyone participated and it felt like I was back in primary school doing P.E!

After the games, we were given free time to walk around the area so YJ and I went to snap photos!

Soon, it was going on the coach again so that we could go for lunch.

The place they brought us to was at Yu Cheng Lake. The main purpose of going there was for Hairy Crabs.

Many restaurants situated side by side were selling hairy crabs and along the streets next to it were stalls selling live hairy crabs so people could buy them home to cook.

Lunch wasn't filling at all and the last dish was hairy crab. Each of us were given a pair- male and female.

I so did not know how to eat lah! In the end, the RSVN people had to teach us how to open the crab, take out which parts, eat which parts etc. Well, at least I learnt something!

But YJ and I were the slowest to complete our crabs. It's such a chore to dig for meat and what other "good stuff" the crab has.

And after lunch, it was a 2 hour ride back to the hotel (:

And because it was drizzling, we had to take a cab back home!

Our laundry also failed to dry cuz we couldn't hang it outside. Damn.

We watched Prison Break until 10pm when I couldn't take it anymore and went to bed. We had no choice but to sleep without our bedsheets and quilt cover and pillow cases. Sigh.

2007-12-15T23:59:00.000+08:00

Who in the world would be so crazy to eat 2 buffets in a day?

The initial plan of going down to Qi Pu Lu was cancelled cuz Mrs. Tan and Mdm. Ler asked us out for lunch (:

Guess where? Shangri-la's Gui Hua Lou! -for buffet Chinese Dim Sum

Those that went were CF, JY, YH, Joanne, myself, the 2 lecturer's and Mrs. Tan's friend.

Since it was a buffet, we ordered A LOT and obviously stuffed ourselves! GLH's food is really great and it somewhat feels like you're dining in a good restaurant back in Singapore (:

After lunch, Joanne and I toured Mdm. Ler around our hotel before bidding goodbye (because they were going back to SG at night) and then we decided to head to Di Mei- SHOPPING!

This place is somewhat like Qi Pu Lu; but it's more organized and less chaotic. It's also situated underground and near the MRT station.

I didn't buy much though- I'm so broke! But I did get a pair of boots (necessity) and a few other nonsensical stuff :/

After shopping, we headed back home to chuck our stuff before heading out to Nanjing to meet the rest for dinner. We had a date with Maxim and his girlfriend for Japanese Tepanyaki (BUFFET TOO!)

JY, Joanne and I were like DAMN full while still trying to locate the restaurant BUT when we sat down and ate the first dish, we realized we could stuff more food into our stomachs!

The beef they had was so good I ordered like 4 servings!

At the end of the day, something bad happened. EVERYONE thought that this dinner would be Maxim's treat but it turned out otherwise. So yes, each person paid RMB180 for the dinner and I swear I was going to cry out loud because I AM SO FREAKING BROKE.

After dinner, it was already 11pm. JY, YJ, Joanne and I cabbed down to Baby Face while the rest went home.

We wanted to claim out half bottle of Chivas from the night we went with Raymond but that couldn't be done on a weekend. So, we just danced the whole night without ordering any drinks cuz no one had money (all our stuff was in the baggage area and the queue to get something was crazy).

2am and we left the place- it is already considered late when you have early morning plans the next day!

We reached home at about 3am and I had to wake up at 4.30am. OMG.

2007-12-14T23:07:00.000+08:00

2 degrees and we walked to work in the morning!

I hate heaters because they make you dehydrated- dry skin and costantly thirsty.

Lunched at the staff canteen was surprisingly good today because of fish nuggets and lemon chicken! :D

The day at the office was spent doing call arrivals, entering data into excel and printing out faxes. How boring.

But it's okay! Because I actually survived this routined office job and next week can be considered my last week in the office! :D

Yup, we're gonna return to F&B come 3 Jan. Don't know which outlet we'll go to though. (let me go up to Jade restaurant so I get more chances to see the hot and cute chef!)

And we were supposed to go look at room types today but it just didn't happen :(

After work, YJ and I squeezed into the train to head to Nan Jing.

It was like peak hour and the crowd is MADNESS I tell you. Thank goodness it's like 1 stop away only.

So we stopped at Nanjing and we were at the famous Bu Xing Jie again. Walked around and met Yu Hong and hanged around outside while waiting for the rest to come.

We were quite hungry, so we went to buy Sheng Jian Bao first. Each of us had 1 to fill our stomachs (:

We went up the reastaurant first and soon, we saw Dr. Chiam and his family! :D :D

Chatted and catched up for a bit before Mrs. Sue Tan and Mdm. Sylvia Ler came to join us. There were a few other OIAP students that came too (:

In the end, we had to have 2 tables cuz there was a total of 18 pax. Chinese food- not bad!

Peking Duck was the highlight dish and I loved the dessert- caramel apple.

After dinner, we wanted to go clubbing but in the end we didn't so we went home instead.

2007-12-13T20:44:00.000+08:00

Today was such a boring day.

It was 5 degrees when we were walking to work today! Freezing.

And because it was so cold, lunch was at the staff canteen :(

I had no choice but to eat salad and mushrooms from the noodles. The only nice edible thing was some kinda fish.

I spent the remaining hours of work googling on prices to go to Beijing, Huangshan etc etc with YJ.

Most prolly I'll be changing my flight and coming back on 10th Feb instead.

Although we left work at 5pm today, we saw Tracy in the changing room and she said Ehui came back from Malaysia and brought food back!

So after changing, we headed to BQT office hoping to eat Tau Sa Pia but it was all gone already! :(

In the end, we just munched on some snacks and crapped with Tracy & YH. We left the hotel at like 6.45pm lah!

Walked home and I finally remembered to collect my 2 coats from the laundry. I also bought Prison Break but I don't know when I'll start watching it! Haha.

2007-12-12T22:59:00.000+08:00

It rained last night and it was freezing cold today morning.

But we still walked to work despite the 9 deg weather.

While walking to work, YJ and I decided to eat in the staff canteen cuz it was so cold! BUT, when we were on our way to the office (we would pass by the staff canteen and they will put up the menu of what they are serving today and tmr) we saw the menu for today's lunch and went "omg forget it let's just go eat RMB9 pasta".

And when it was 11.45am, I checked my Facebook and saw Denis's message asking if we wanted to have lunch together. So we met him at 12pm outside Super Brand Mall's Zara.

Since he knew about our RMB9 pasta, he decided to give it a try as well. We went up to order first and we ordered 3 pizzas, 1 pasta and 1 plate of meat. Raymond, Sharon, Mr. Pau and another 2 ladies joined us shortly and then Raymond started ordering A LOT!

Our total bill came up to RMB248; it's considered cheap for 8 people and so much food. They even took away a plate of chicken wings and pasta for us cuz we couldn't finish.

We were half an hour late coming back from lunch and Raymond and Denis followed us back to our office? Super weird lah omg.

The internet was a lil cranky at work so I had no choice but to key in data into excel because I had nothing else to do already.

We left the office at 5.15pm though (: Walked back home despite the fine drizzle.

Our initial plan of going to Ba Bai Ban is scrapped cuz of the rain and also because I don't (and I can't) wanna spend anymore money.

I think I'm so screwed at managing my finances. Let's just pray hard I'll have enough money until the end of this month.

I shall not withdraw or use my ATM card from now onwards. This means, I've only got RMB400 left to spend. No more shopping sprees :(

2007-12-11T23:58:00.000+08:00

I spent the whole (well, almost) morning at work using the internet cuz I finished calling what I was supposed to call for the day already.

It was BK for lunch cuz it's Tuesday and they are having buy 1 get 1 free Mushroom Swiss promo (: We also tried their brownie with ice-cream :D

I'm having a sudden craving for chocolate. I don't know why :/

After lunch, an hour was spent in the office before it was 3pm and we had to go down to F&B office for training.

We waited for like an hour for an available room so it started at 4pm. Today's training was by Maxim and he told us all about the financial side of the F&B dept. We were looking at the P&L statements, budget plan and forecasts. Figures everywhere!

Imagine the hotel has like more than 10 F&B outlets and each outlet has to produce all these documents every month. I can't imagine myself analysing those figures and coming out with reasons to justify this and that.

We ended at like 4.45pm? Slacked around for a bit before the 4 of us headed up to Yi Cafe and I sort of satisfied my craving for chocolate for that moment (:

Joanne and Angela then showed us their "office" and we stayed there for abit before going up at 5.30pm.

Soon it was time to knock off from work and YJ and I headed over to Super Brand Mall to shop (:

Because during lunch we went to C&A to check out the clothes, we headed back to get what we wanted. I bought a knitted top for like RMB150. Sigh.

If that wasn't enough, we went to H&M after that cuz YJ wanted to buy the bag I'm carrying now (but she got the blue one instead). I bought a top, a pair of ear rings, a waist belt and 3 hair clips over there. Busted like RMB300?

After doing so much damage to my wallet, we walked home and bought SUBWAY for dinner! :D

We helped JY take away jiao zi from downstairs our house and while waiting, we started chatting with the fruit stall uncle! We were totally crapping with them and hopefully we'll get discounts next time we buy fruits from him. Haha.

Dinner was sitting on the floor and just having girl talks for an hour. I'm now thinking if I should extend my stay in Shanghai after attachment to travel to Beijing and where ever with YH, JY and YJ. Sounds super tempting but we shall see.

YJ and I then left our apartment at 9.30pm to head to Ba Bai Ban for more shopping!

I think the way we tried bargaining was damn funny today. We acted pitiful, used some tactics stall owners used on us etc.

We didn't buy much though cuz by the time we were 1/2 way thru almost all the stalls were closed already :(

My last purchase was 2 wallets and the stupid guy that tried to sell it to me at a super high price. 1 wallet for RMB180. What a joke. But in the end I got 2 wallets at RMB60 (:

I bought random stuff today along the streets. More ear-rings and necklaces, a bag and yeah, the wallets. Haha.

In total, I spent RMB566 on shopping. I think I'm so dead because I'm now left with less than RMB1000 to get thru the month. OMG.

2007-12-10T22:10:00.000+08:00

It was drizzling today morning, so we took a cab :(

And we got our new uniform already!! Like, finally right. But whats the point when we're gonna change department (to I don't know where) in January.

The new uniform feels so... new (?) Yeah, like hard and all cuz it's not washed and seasoned yet.

But it fits perfectly (with the exception that I feel the blouse and blazer is a bit too big).

And today is... MY MUMMY'S BIRTHDAY!!

Bro also flew to BKK for some school thingy today and I hope he knows how to shop and bargain (which I personally think he'll fail miserably :P)

And this week, it's my turn to do call arrivals again. I finished calling way before lunch time so I had time to play Facebook, update my blog and surf the net (:

I also tried calling my mum but I couldn't get her :(

Soon it was 12.20pm so YJ and I decided to go for lunch. Since the weather got warmer, we decided to head out for pasta.

When we reached the first floor, the lift opposite ours opened up and guess who we saw.

Raymond Teo, his boss and Sunny Pau. They were going out for lunch also. Since they were still waiting for someone else, we told them we wern't going to join them and trotted off to Super Brand Mall.

On one hand, we wanted to eat with them cuz we don't have to pay but on the other hand, it'll be so awkward. We decided just to eat our RMB9 pasta to eliminate the awkward situation.

BUT, while waiting for the lift to go up to Saizeriya, we saw them heading towards our direction. And they were like "come on, join us for lunch." It was unavoidable I guess.

We went to this Hong Kong restaurant for lunch. There were 7 people in total cuz 2 other ladies joined us. 2 pots of soup, 1 pot of claypot rice, 1 plate of veg, 1 bowl of carrot cake, 1 plate of spring rolls and 1 plate of fried chicken.

Sounds like a lot of food right. But, we wern't that full by the end of lunch. And because our lunch was supposedly to be only 1 hour, Sunny Pau went to call my RSVN manager's BOSS to tell her we'll come back late. Yeah, you know how big shot Sunny Pau is now :/

After lunch, I thought I had nothing to do already but Estella gave me a stack of super overdue stuff to update. It's like Dec now and that thing hasn't been updated since June!

So I spent my time keying in figures into excel while trying to get hold of my mum in SG.

Finally I called my grandma and she picked up the phone and I ended up chatting with her for a very long time. I miss her LOADS!

And finally when I called home after talking to my grandma, my mum picked up! Chatted for only a bit though.

Work ended and we walked to Jia De Li to get some stuff before heading home.

I then packed my stuff for Nad to help me bring back to SG! I threw away quite a number of clothes though. Sigh.

2007-12-09T23:56:00.000+08:00

My day started off at 2pm where we were supposed to meet Joanne and Angela for Dim Sum lunch.

We reached on time, but there was a super long queue at the restaurant. We were like waiting for 20 tables. In the end we decided to just wait since Joanne and Angela weren't here yet and we didn't know what else to eat.

We started taking the order list and ticking which dishes to order even before we had our seats. So, the moment we had a table, we gave them the order list and asked them to serve those dishes first.

Joanne and Angela came and ordered some more. There was like loads of food on the table! We ate until we were so full and the total bill for 5 people came up to RMB308. It's considered quite cheap for Dim Sum (:

Since the 2 had 2 hours break, we slacked at the restaurant to digest our food before deciding to go up to Toni & Guy to register for another hair cut. But when we got there, there was no one :( We'll go visit that place again.

And yes, I wanna cut my hair again (:

Joanne and Angela left back for work after that while YJ, JY and me walked all the way to Ba Bai Ban cuz YJ wanted to find the place that sells computer stuff cuz she wanted to check out the prices for a hard disk.

That place is like a foreign country to me! We went to this level where many stalls sold hard disks. We so didn't know the prices for hard disks and how much we could bargain it for so we were like blindly shopping.

And I didn't know that you need to buy a casing with the hard disk. I thought it came together?

So anws, a lot of shops quoted us RMB540 for a 120G hard disk. We tried asking for RMB480-500 but no one called us back. Why? Hahaha.

And in the end we found out that Sim Lim sells them at a cheaper price. Eh, I thought China should be cheaper.

But I was like super tempted to get a hard disk I saw there because the cover was HOT PINK! I didn't in the end cuz I wanted to use that money for shopping. My hard disk can wait cuz I still have space in my lappy (:

After spending about an hour at the IT place, we gave up and left. Walked along the streets and shopped!

It's been quite some time since I last shopped along the streets. And the weather wasn't cold today, it was perfect.

I think I need to like, make a list of people I wanna buy stuff for and list what I should buy for them because I'm coming home soon! Hahaha.

But, I did already buy some stuff for some people already (: I just need to get more organized.

We spent like 2 hours along the streets and reached home at 8.45pm. Joanne and Angela wanted to go there after work so in like half an hour, they were in a cab downstairs so I hopped on and went shopping with them (again).

And yes, I bought more stuff! My best buy was this hand carry bag I'm gonna use when I go back home for like RMB40!

I also bought cute Garfield bedroom slippers, ear rings etc.

In total, I busted RMB380 along the streets. I need more retail therapy.

2007-12-08T22:51:00.000+08:00

Oh my gosh, it's day 100 today!!

No sleeping in late today; I woke up at 10.30am.

Our landlord came over to collect our rent this morning. And we had quite a long talk/discussion with him about our rental. By right, we gotta pay him another 3 months rent according to the contract but we know we’ll be out of the apartment by 4 Feb 08 (and 2 months of rent is until 11 Feb 08).

So we tried asking him if we could only pay him 2 months. Then he brought up the internet issue (which he said he’ll provide us with it for free in the first place) and asked us to pay for the monthly broadband fees.

It was a long talk, but in the end we only paid him 2 months worth of rent and before we leave Shanghai, we’ll need to discuss these issues again. Hopefully he’ll find another tenant to come in right after we leave.

After he left, we decided to clean the house. I can’t stand how dusty it gets so frequently!

There’s like rolls and rolls of dust under the beds when we don’t even open our windows. I wonder where that comes from.

We swept the place twice and mopped it twice. Finally it’s somewhat clean already but I’m sure there’ll still be dust and hair lying around somewhere.

And then we continued to watch Heroes. We finished the whole of season 1 by 3pm (:

JY went to buy season 2 but we didn’t get started immediately! We wanted to get our photos sorted out.

BUT, I can’t get connected to the internet the whole afternoon because JY’s apartment had no electricity :(

So I spent the afternoon deleting and resizing photos from Pirelli and Zhou Zhuang. It’s like long overdue man; I’ve received the photos days ago and just left the hard drive on the table because everyday we’d come home and watch Heroes until it was bed time.

I didn’t even bother to turn on my computer those few days. Hahaha.

And at like 6pm, the internet was working again cuz the guy went to JY’s place to fix the electricity.

AND, we started watching Heroes season 2!!

At like 10pm, JY and I went downstairs to buy shao kao!! Haven’t ate that in a super long time. We practically grabbed our coats and ran down cuz we thought it was gonna be freezing cold.

It turns out that it wasn’t that cold after all and they even built a tentage for the shao kao place (:

The night, of course, ended by watching more tv (:

2007-12-07T23:34:00.000+08:00

The weather was much colder than previous days today.

I think it was like 8 degrees with constand winds when we were walking to work.

Mist is already coming out of our mouths when we talk or breathe and YJ and I got excited over it today (:

I had more to do than just GDS today. Firstly, Joanne asked me to help her highlight out days which the RSVN staff were late for work by looking at what time they tapped their card at the staff entrence. It's not only just for 1 month, but THREE. And they have like 15 staff? I swear I almost went crossed-eyed after doing it.

And I was thinking to myself "if our names were in that list, I'd be highlighting almost every day."

Estella also asked me to search for different room types to fix the room rates and also gave me a list of guests and asked me to write down all their contact info on a piece of paper. -.-

Okay, and after a very very long time, YJ and I FINALLY made our way to the staff canteen and ate there without going out!

Thank god they had fish nuggets today so the meal ain't that bad.

Oh, I bought a bag from Ebay! Okay, I didn't actually buy it. I went surfing on Ebay and found this white Baby Phat bag and I asked Han Loon to help me with the processes. And in the end, I got the bag! It's like, $80. But whatever, they don't have Baby Phat in Singapore and not even imitation goods in China.

I thought we could leave at 5pm today because we didn't have much to do but no. Angeline insisted that we find the error on the No Show report we did in Oct.

And that was such a tedious task because the whole excel sheet was filled with numbers and figures! But in the end, with a little bit of luck, we found the mistake and everything tallied! :D

We headed to Lotus to meet Joanne and we ended up buying junk food! Seriously, our whole basket was filled with junk food except for 1 packet of crabmeat.

I bought like 10 more boxes of Pocky! :D :D Call me crazy and not afraid to get fat. Whatever.

We then left and wanted to walk home. But when we were at the entrence, I suddenly remembered I wanted to look at long johns so we walked back. Joanne then wanted to get a drink so we headed back to Lotus again!

We reached homat at about 9pm. And yes, we continued watching HEROES!! We wanted to finish the whole season but when episode 21 ended, ALL of us were lying on the bed half asleep.

2007-12-06T23:55:00.000+08:00

Did I mention we've already started to turn on our heater in our room already? Yup, it's super comfy to sleep with the heater on so from now on I won't wake up in the middle of the night because I feel cold (:

Walked to work again today! :D

We were supposed to go collect our new uniform but we got so lazy (and we were already ON TIME for work) so we decided to just collect it on Monday because we're gonna send the suits we're wearing now for washing on Friday.

The stupid Internet in the office disallows me to go into Blogger.com and schoolfreedom.info ! :( :( :(

There goes my source of entertainment from Trent, Xiaxue, CW's blog and whoever's blog I hop when I have nothing to do. And that's another reason why I'm exploring Facebook.

Lunch was supposedly planned to be in the staff canteen but somehow we decided to just head to Super Brand Mall despite the cold weather and rain.

We wanted to eat congee at the Dim Sum place but when we got there, there was a long queue! Not wanting any fast food, we decided to go to Saizeriya again.

However, we walked past Ajisan and it wasn't crowded. So we dined there instead and forgo-ed our RMB9 pasta for a RMB23 bowl of Sour and Spicy Noodles which turned out not sour and spicy enough. We had to like add loads of chili and vinegar to make it what we wanted it to taste like.

We've also gotten the long awaited photos of Pirelli and Zhou Zhuang from YH today. Shall edit them and chuck them in my Friendster. Speaking of which, some issue made me damn pissed today.

Been there, done that. You don't have to get so paranoid. I know I'm not doing anything wrong. I shan't say anything more in case I might just get myself into trouble (again).

So anws, we left half an hour early cuz there was nothing to do already. Hey, our boss said we could leave when we were free! Hahaha.

We trotted down to Lotus- wanting to get Oolong Rose Tea cuz JY went there yesterday and they were selling it at RMB1.50 instead of the usual RMB2.60. If you could recall, some time ago, we grabbed like 30 bottles of Rose Tea when it was on promotion at RMB1.90.

But when we got there, not a single bottle of Oolong Rose Tea was found! Sigh.

In the end, we bought more chocolate pie and also saw Pocky on offer. It's not the normal Pocky; it's the super thick kind. And it was going at RMB4.90 per packet (12 sticks inside). They had Green Tea, Chocolate, Milk and Mango flavour.

YJ got herself 1 box of Green Tea while I got myself 1 box of Chocolate and Mango. We paid at the cashier, walked to the Mall's exit and YJ started opening her Pocky to munch on.

It tasted great and we were like "okay we're coming back tmr to get somemore."

Then I said, "why not just go back and grab more now?"

And so, we made a u-turn back to Lotus and grabbed like 8 more boxes (each) of Pocky. (: (:

Finally we settled money for the entire week before continuing to watch Heroes. This time round, we slept at like 12am. Hahaha.

2007-12-05T23:15:00.000+08:00

Although I slept at like 9pm last night, I'm still very very sleepy.

Finally, we walked to work today! :D

And I spent the first half of the day doing GDS, sorting out documents and reading gossip blogs while my eyes were half closed.

We dragged lunch time until 1pm where we ran out to Super Brand Mall cuz it was FREEZING outside. Up to level 8 to eat pasta (:

I think the serving increased today because we were so full after our meal. Maybe too full for our own good.

And the sleepiness didn't go away. I was constantly yawning after lunch and if I were to close my eyes, I could have fell asleep within 5 mins or less.

To make things worse, the temperature in the office was extremely cold today. My fingers were numb until I couldn't count the number of GDSes given to me.

After work, YJ and I got lazy to go to Super Brand Mall (we wanted to go back because some shop was having buy 1 get 1 free promotion) so we walked straight home instead.

When we were going out the door of the basement, the lady from the laundry room (also on her way home) was like "huang yi juan and huang wei qian, ni men de yi fu hao le. Ming tian ke yi lai na." So apparently the suits we took measurements for are done already?!

I was so not expecting it to be done because we're left with less than 2 months here and maybe in Jan we'll be changing departments so maybe we'll wear another uniform (?). They also said that a lot of people had to sign to approve to make new suits so we though it'll take ages or it'll never be done.

But hey, we're lucky enough to get our own suits now (:

When we got home, Angela was watching Heroes. She went out shortly after that so YJ, JY and I started watching it from episode 1! We watched like 8 episodes and slept at 1am. Gonna continue tomorrow! :D

2007-12-04T19:45:00.001+08:00

It was planned to wake up later than usual and cab to work today because we were just too tired from yesterday's outing.

Hopefully we'll walk to work the next 3 days.

I was again, stoning during work. I sat at Patrick's desk today because he needed my computer to do the No Show reports using Excel and his computer doesn't have that program. Thankfully Rainbow came to work and the phone at Patrick's desk wasn't working (: That meant I didn't have to answer calls.

Lunch outside the hotel might come to a stop a few weeks later because of the weather. It's just too cold to cross over to Super Brand Mall when its like 7 degrees outside with strong winds!

We had Mac today. It’s satisfying chowing down a double cheeseburger, fries and pineapple pie when you feel cold. But super sinful and fattening omg.

I brought along our air tickets today to re-book our flight back home. Our initial plan was to fly back on 5 Feb at 4pm BUT all seats were full already!

3 flights to SIN on 5 Feb were full and even the 3 flights on 4 Feb were full! Blame Chinese New Year :(

So we had no choice but to book our flight on 3 Feb at 4pm and we'll reach SIN at 8.50pm.

It’s like so rush because our last day of work is on 1 Feb. So, we only have like ONE day to shop like mad before packing and heading home.

Okay, so we walked home today like finally. It was freezing cold though but I still haven’t worn my long john.

I went to collect my coat and also bought pears from the uncle we got to know downstairs about a week ago.

We used to be afraid to buy fruits from these pushcarts but it turns out that the fruits are much fresher than those at the supermarkets. And it’s cheaper as well!

Yes, eat fruits for breakfast and dinner. Lunch will be the only time I get a proper meal.

2007-12-03T23:59:00.000+08:00

We left our house at like 8.30am but we failed to walk to work. Why?

Because we first had to go to the Post Office to send the CD that contained our multi-media video. How long would that take, you ask.

The lady at the counter was unfriendly and when she asked "express or normal posting?", I replied "how much will the express one cost?" And she proceeded to seal our CD in the express posting envelop. We then had to fill in the address and everything and then she weighted the package.

"RMB128", she said. I was like "WHAT?! Then how much is the normal posting?" "RMB24"

Fine, so obviously we'd want the normal posting which will take 15 days to reach our sunny island so we told her to change it and then she grumbled saying why we didn't tell her in the first place.

While waiting at the counter, 2 China guys were behind us. There were also boxes of stuff that looked like it was gonna be sent out too. Suddenly, they started quarreling (I have no clue about what because they were blabbering in Shanghainese). It got louder and louder until I turned to YJ and rolled my eyes.

I went "OMG!!!" after that because they started fighting and accidentally shoved us. YJ and I then quickly tried to find a corner to 'hide' (because there was like nowhere we could stand) and continued watching them fight and punch each other until their glasses flew and both of them landed on the floor.

The 2 security guards there were practically useless. They tried stopping them but it wasn't of much use. Obviously at that point of time, no one bothered to help me settle my post.

By the time the lady at the counter asked me to pay, it was already 8.50am so what choice did we have but to take a cab down?

Fights occurring at Post Offices- only in China baby.

I was even lazy to surf the internet (which I totally regretted and I'll explain that later) so I just stared at the screen and stonned for like 2 hours because I was still tired from the Zhou Zhuang trip.

Soon it was 11am, the time where Estella and whoever reports to work. Estella then told me "oh, today you're gonna receive calls." I was like, "omg I don't even know anything!"

They had to put me sitting in-between Joanne and Estella because if I were to have any questions, I could ask either one of them.

So, I sat at Rainbow's desk because she was off. And guess what.

HER COMPUTER DOESN'T HAVE INTERNET ACCESS.

Wa lau eh. That meant I had NOTHING to do can. I was also given some GDS to do and I swore I did it so slowly because I didn't wanna be free.

And I didn't receive a single call at all. Maybe because it wasn't so busy today and all calls will be diverted to other people first instead of my line.

I ended up entertaining myself with Solitaire, Minesweeper and Pinball. -.-

Lunch was at Saizeriya and we chomped down pasta to fill our stomachs because we knew we were gonna have late dinner.

I spent most of my time after lunch at YJ's desk and we were surfing Friendster and laughing at some random stuff. Friendster can be so entertaining at times (who needs Facebook haha).

We dilly dally-ed until 6.30pm and left for Super Brand Mall.

We were supposed to meet the rest at 9pm at F&B office to have dinner with Kelvin Tay at some Thai restaurant.

There was so much time to kill we didn't know what to do!

But being happy that our pay is already in our bank, we had our virgin neo-print experience in Shanghai! :D

The shop only had 3 machines, similar (or exactly the same) as Singapore machines. However, the staff there is trained to guide you along the neo-print experience.

They helped us put our cash in, select all the things for us etc. Our only job was to pose for the camera and doodle on our photos (:

And no, neo-prints arn't cheaper here. Ours cost RMB48.

But, they gave us 2 free furry pens (that we'll never use) and also scanned our photo into the computer so they could email us the soft copy. They even helped us cut our neo-prints lah.

We wanted to head to H&M after that but we ended up at B1's manicure shop!

Yup, we decided to get our nails done instead. I did french nails while Yj just did a soild colour.

That was enough to help us kill time until 9pm. And I'm so happy with my nails now! :D

It's been 3 months w/o any nail polish on my nails and I'm so not used to it. But my manicure cost me RMB96 :(

I shall go back there to do fake nails before I fly back to Singapore.

9pm at F&B office- only Maxim was there. We had to wait for Joanne, Angela and YH to come. In the end, we left the hotel at like 9.45pm.

Cabbed down to the restaurant and reached at like 10.30pm because there was a jam. The last meal I ate was at 12pm and I was STARVING!

Dinner was super satisfying though; worth the wait! Because we ate A LOT.

6 of us (excluding Kelvin because he didn't eat much) had like 3 plates of Pineapple Rice, 2 plates of sour fish, 1 big pot of Tom Yum Soup, 1 pot of another kind of soup, 2 bowls of Green Curry, 2 plates of chicken and 2 plates of Papaya Salad.

I think this was the best meal I've ate in Shanghai. I miss Thai food man! It might also be the most amount of rice I consumed in a very very long time. (omg what happened to diet plans)

The restaurant is located at some ulu area though, but opened by Thais. They close at 12am thats why Kelvin brought us there. And our total bill amounted to like RMB660 (:

We were super full after the meal (or shall I say feast :P) and also very very tired. But, Kelvin suggested foot massage so we all cabbed there instead of heading home!

It felt so good to get a massage after a hearty meal (: And by the time we were done it was already 1.30am.

Cabbed back home and slept at 2am?

2007-12-02T23:04:00.000+08:00

For the first time in Shanghai, I woke up late today!

I was supposed to wake up at 7am but maybe I forgot to set my alarm clock or didn’t hear it ring so I woke up when YJ’s alarm clock rang which was at like 7.40pm.

Rushed like mad and in the end we left our house at like 8.30am and didn’t head to the MRT station straight. Instead, YJ went to collect her coat from the laundry first.

The actual plan was to meet YH at Shanghai Stadium MRT station at 9am.

That train station was super duper complicated because there were 2 stations- Shanghai Indoor Stadium and Shanghai Stadium. And both stations are at different MRT lines!

We had a hard time figuring out which station it was but in the end we alighted at Shanghai Indoor Stadium and went out.

We were supposed to head to this place beside Shanghai Stadium to buy tickets for a coach to Tong Li. In the end, we found out that Shanghai Indoor Stadium is just next to Shanghai Stadium so we walked all the way and found the place.

However, we reached at 9.30am and there were no more coaches to Tong Li already.

Wasted trip? Nah. Instead, we bought tickets to go to Zhou Zhuang and the coach was to leave at 9.40am. Perfect timing (:

A 2 way coach trip and admission fee into Zhou Zhuang cost RMB140 per person. Quite reasonable I guess, for traveling out of Shanghai.

The bus ride took about 1 hour 45 mins.

When we reached, it was free and easy so we bought a map to navigate ourselves.

The first thing we did was to look for a toilet because we were so urgent! BUT, the female toilet stank like nobody’s business and we couldn’t take it. Left with no choice, the 3 of us went to the MALE toilet instead and YH locked the main door. Yeah, it was my first time going into a Male toilet that openly. Hahaha.

The weather was FREEZING but still bearable if there wasn’t any wind.

We were told that it was gonna be crowded because it was a Sunday but the streets were empty when we reached! It was like we were in the wrong place of Zhou Zhuang.

Since it was already near lunchtime, we decided to find food instead! We just followed a signboard which led us to this restaurant.

We ordered Mapo Toufu, Gong Bao Chicken, Noodles and 2 plates of Fried Rice. The servings were just enough for 4 of us and the total bill came up to RMB80.

After eating, we tried navigating ourselves to where the crowd was. I think we were at the newly renovated area and some places were still under construction and there were no shops.

In the end, we had to walk back to where the coach dropped us off and headed the other direction and finally found the entrance into Zhou Zhuang.

We were like rushing for time because we had to gather back at the coach at 4.20pm.

So, armed with YH’s DSLR, tripod and remote, we went around snapping photos everywhere we went!

Being a tourist is super tiring. Haha. But taking photos was such a breeze today (:

We also had time to stop and buy snacks like Malt Candy, Dragon Beard Candy and some other stuff.

While walking into some ally, we heard familiar voices- the Singaporean accent. We were like “I hear Singaporeans!” and there was this whole bunch of Singaporeans that was on tour there.

Despite the weather being so damn cold, the 4 of us were crazy enough to buy ICE CREAM and ate it in the cold weather. :D

And just when we got to our peak of cam-whoring, YH’s camera battery DIED. Yes, both batteries died. Wonderful. Good thing it was already the end of the day.

We waited for the coach to set off and slept on the ride back. It was so cold outside that the windows had mist.

We reached Shanghai Stadium at around 6.30pm. DINNER TIME! On our way there, I saw “Hao Xiang Lai”, this place where I ate when I went to YH’s house the other time.

So we decided to dine there. I had steak + pasta for RMB20 (:

After filling our stomachs, it was still early and we didn’t wanna go home.

Guess what we saw. That familiar blue and yellow sign- IKEA!!

It was walking distance from where we were so we decided to head there!

Upon arriving, we were greeted by the usual IKEA smell and sight. Everything was exactly the same as Singapore’s.

The first stop was to the food section where YJ and JY went to grab hotdogs and a drink for RMB5.

We then started roaming around the whole place (2 levels full of stuff) and threw some stuff into our shopping cart.

In the end, we bought a new toilet rug and warm blankets.

And, I also found my WEIGHING SCALE! Stepped on it without missing a beat and *phew I still weigh the same! But seriously, I looked like I gained weight? Hmmm.

Too bad I was already full from Hao Xiang Lai otherwise I’d eat at Ikea! I miss the food there. Even the café’s similar to Singapore’s!

We were so lazy to take the MRT home because we had to change lines so since there were 4 people, we CABBED.

Reached home at like 10pm. Settled money and headed to bed.

The loads of photos will be up on Friendster soon; once I get hold of them from YH!

2007-12-01T23:54:00.000+08:00

Oh what a way to kick start December.

I woke up at like 3pm.

Switched on my laptop and used the internet for the whole damn day.

Purely slacking at home can be a good thing once in awhile. But I’ve already read all my gossip blogs, updated myself with people on Friendster and still refuse to explore Facebook.

And if JY didn’t go down to buy yang zhou friend rice, I would have eaten Maggie Mee again.

That was the only thing I ate- 1 bowl of fried rice. Dinner was just a pear with a slice of bread with stolen apricot jam. Haha.

That’s not considered dieting because my energy used today was minimal therefore the food I consume should be lesser too.

Alright, I think I should stop on my weight and dieting issues. But seriously, I think I need to lose weight and I’m quite determined to shed those fats.

If you’re like super free, you can go to my Friendster to look at my latest photos and tell me if I’ve gotten fat or not because I have no damn weighing scale here to weigh myself.

I hate the feeling of feeling (or being?) fat :(

2007-11-30T22:47:00.000+08:00

I woke up in the middle of the night suffering from leg cramps (omg that sounds so much like what a pregnant woman would say).

Although YJ and I could report to work at 2pm, I was still super tired waking up at 11.15am. Super lack of sleep and rest can.

And I was HUNGRY too! Didn't eat anything at all for dinner last night lah (minus the fact that we binged on some chocolates and orange juice at the bar counter).

I can't believe I ate curry flavoured maggie + chili flakes (super spicy) accompanied by diet coke as my beverage first thing when I woke up. I know I'm mad (:

We planned to walk to work today, BUT we dilly dally-ed around and ended up leaving our apartment at 1.40pm. I had to visit the post office too, so there was no way we could walk (and we were tired and a bit lazy too lah) so we CABBED.

We swore not to cab for the next whole week.

Reported to work at 2pm. Did a few GDS with my brain half asleep.

The plan for the night was to have dinner with the Director of Wine- Kelvin Tay at a Singaporean Restaurant.

But, Angela and Joanne ended work at 9.30pm. Such a late dinner. And after discussing and deciding, dinner was canceled and pushed back to this coming Monday night instead.

It was already 8pm after deciding not to go. YJ and I headed to Lotus to grab some stuff before running to catch the 8.30pm shuttle bus home.

I didn't know it was such a chore to think of what to eat for dinner. Every day after work, I'll be bombarded by this qn of what to eat for dinner. I miss home because if I don't know what to eat outside, there'll be food at home for dinner during weekdays.

For now, if I can't think of anything to eat, I'll just eat pears for dinner. Omg.

2007-11-29T23:18:00.000+08:00

Pirelli.

There was a launch of Pirelli Calendar 2008 @ China Hall today so Ehui asked YJ and I to support.

We reported to work at 10am and didn't need to go to RSVN office.

When we reached the back area of China Hall, there was already a row call going on and when we saw Goh, he asked the both of us to go down to the laundry to change into the black BQT shirt and black pants.

After finding the ~~right~~ best size for our uniform for the day, we changed and went back up to China Hall. We were given this hot pink hair band to wear and clips for our sleeves but YJ and I refused to wear the hair band because we thought it looked so ugly on us :( We wore it the ah-lian way instead- around our neck.

After a while, and during that whole time YJ and I was looking at the mirror trying our best to work the new uniform, Goh asked us to change back to our old uniform because he said there might not be enough stuff for all the staff working for the event -.-

So we went down again to change and came back up. By this time, the reception at the foyer had already started and we were stationed to help serve coffee and tea because the other staff had to change uniforms as well.

In total, we spent the first 2 hours changing uniforms. And after the reception ended and the guests went into China Hall for a meeting, we were free for lunch.

We were supposed to lunch with Kelvin and Ehui but we couldn't find them so we went to Saizeriya instead. YJ and I shared a pizza and that was our only meal for the whole day.

After we came back from lunch, we had to help them turnaround China Hall for the dinner at night.

I LOVE the whole set-up for this event because of the colours the organizer chose- Pink, Purple, Green and Orange. However, setting up the tables for dinner was more troublesome than usual because of the colours. Different tablecloths for different tables had to be used. The colour of the chairs, napkin, menu and floral arrangement had to match with the tablecloth.

And did I mention that the organizer for this event is a perfectionist? He's this really famous event planner from France (?) but sorry I forgot his name :x

After setting-up the function room, Ehui asked YJ and I to change into the BQT uniform because he wanted us to serve the VIP table.

So we had to go down and change and also slab on green eye shadow.

The organizer requested the pink hair bands and green eye shadow for the girls. The guys also had to wear this green waist thingy. No accessories were allowed- not even earrings and watches!

Overall, everyone looked the same and it was rather standardized so it looked quite okay.

At like 6pm, there was a final row call- by the organizer himself. All service staff was in China Hall. First, he asked all the hostesses and performers to go on stage and he checked their attire ONE BY ONE. If that wasn't enough, he proceeded to ask all service staff (more than 100 of us or maybe 200) to go up and he checked our attire ONE BY ONE too. Perfectionist aye?

7pm soon arrived and the foyer turned into a cocktail reception area while the function room was having last minute changes. A few tables had to be re-set-up because there was an increase in people. The organizer also wanted to make sure that all cutleries were placed in the right position.

7.45pm and it was time to open the doors so guests could come in. Suddenly, the organizer said he needed to add 5 more people in the VIP table. That meant we had to extend the table, find more table cloths, cutlery, menus, flowers, candles and napkins (in the right colour mind you) and set the table while guests were slowly coming in.

A group of us was in-charge of serving the VIP table dinner. It was a 4 course western dinner with appetizer, soup, main course and dessert. Each staff was to serve 2 guests and we were already pre-assigned which one to serve during the earlier briefings. But since there was an increase in people in the VIP room, we had to change our plans as well.

Firstly, we started serving bread, pouring water and white wine. When it was time to serve the first dish, we had to walk all the way to the kitchen, line up, and take the food from the kitchen chefs and walk back to China Hall. Since I was serving the VIP table, we were always the first ones to take the food.

The plates were SO HEAVY omg! And after serving food to them, we had to clear their plates when they were done. The main course was a killer because we had to clear the show plate as well.

We saw lots of hot and cute guys as well as tall and skinny girls. There were a lot of European guests. Nora Sun (Sun Yat Sen's grand daughter) was at the event, and supermodels Gemma Ward, Du Juan and Mo Wandan attended the event too.

A performance by dancers and this famous Chinese trans was lined up after dinner.

Security was super tight because guests could take home the 2008 calendar (which cost like a few hundred EUROS) and they were afraid people would steal them.

Amongst our busy schedule, we still managed to find time to snap photos of our attire and the set-up. I'll kill myself if we didn't manage to take photos!

Dinner ended at 10.30pm, but work hasn't ended yet. There was an after party at the foyer and we were stationed at the bar counters.

The whole foyer sort of turned into a pub/club because of the music and lightings.

Champaign was the hot favouite drink for the night but there were guests that wanted Whisky, Vodka, wine etc.

There were heavy smokers around as well. During the whole time at the bar, I think 4 guests asked us to go down to help them buy cigarettes.

Soon enough, people started dancing and this group of people infront of us entertained YJ and me. The set-up had a bed as a sofa right in front of the bar counter we were at; this particular group of people (1 Italian guy that asked me for 4 glasses of whisky + coke, 1 French lady which took like countless glasses of champagne, 1 Chinese lady and another random guy) were super high.

The girl started dancing and the Italian guy joined her and they were dirty dancing and french kissing right in front of us. They went on the bed, started making out, the guy started dry humping himself and a lot of people were looking and taking photos!

The girl was also making out and dirty dancing with other guys but she's actually a lesbian and has a gf.

The organizer came and asked the Italian guy to leave because he was going overboard.

The whole scene was an eye opener and it was so much fun working for the event although it was long hours and we were super tired.

The clubbing music ended off at 1.45am but guests still didn't leave until 2.15am when they switched on the lights and the organizer "chased" his guests’ home.

YJ and I knocked off at 2.30am and duh, we cabbed home because our feet hurt and we were so damn tired.

2007-11-28T21:37:00.000+08:00

OMG 90th DAY IN SHANGHAI ALREADY!

I woke up today feeling even sleepier than usual. And I got up at 7.20am.

The weather was freezing cold so when I came out of the shower I went to turn on the heater.

Oh, and since YJ and I brought back a few small bottles of jam and bought bread at Lotus yesterday, we had that for our breakfast (: A pity we didn't have a toaster otherwise it'll taste so much better.

The weather was too cold to walk because we haven't sent our smelly (smoked) jackets for dry-cleaning. Yeah, we've been procrastinating since the day we went out with Raymond and Denis. SO WE CABBED.

I had like nothing to do for the first half day of work and only went to file the GDS forms that I was supposed to file yesterday.

I was like Friendster surfing (yes, I refuse to learn how to use Facebook) the whole time until lunch!

No pasta today; we went to KFC instead and didn't feel full after our meal so we hopped over to Mac for Pineapple Pie. I hate fast-food hopping :(

And I received my first thin stack of GDS forms at like 2.30pm. Omgzxz.

Oh, I've also went to take my pay slip for Nov today. I am so not happy because it's RMB2980 instead of the usual RMB3000. Becauseeeee I forgot to bring my locker key :(

But since I was bored to tears today, I finally went into Facebook to TRY to explore. I know. I'm fickle minded. That thing is so messy and full of nonsensical stuff omg.

I also, went to Ebay and asked Han Loon to like help me get 3 tops and a Baby Phat tote. I don't know if I'll get those items though, but whatever.

After work, YJ and I made our way slowly to Lotus to pick up some stuff and just strolled around to kill time because we wanted to take the 7pm shuttle bus home (it's like, just TOO cold to walk luh).

We then finished up our multi-media video and then did the big move of the sofa bed from CF's room to our apartment.

2007-11-27T23:09:00.000+08:00

I am so sleepy :(

The weather forecast said it'll be freezing cold today (6-13 degs) so I left my house with gloves, scarf and a thicker jacket.

And it was like TEN degrees when we were walking to work! If there wasn't any wind, it'll still be okay. But when the wind blows, it's super duper cold! And the only part you can't cover to keep warm is your face.

So, my face was like numb from the cold winds that blew constantly. I wonder how we're gonna survive walking in the streets for the next 2 months!

I was super stoned at work; my eyes could close any moment. I was given like 30+ GDS to complete in the morning and I took my own sweet time because if I finish it fast, I'll be left with nothing to do.

We decided to head out for lunch at 12pm instead of the usual drag till 1pm because we skipped breakfast and felt hungry.

We so did not want to go back to the pasta place (okay fine, the restaurant is called Saizeriya (I think that’s how you spell it. Omg its a mouthful)) because we've been going there TOO often.

Walking around the fast-food outlets didn't help a bit because it was expensive (as compared to the RMB9 pasta) and in the end we just went up to level 8. Haha.

We had the usual; 2 plates of pasta. And feeling a little more greedy today, we ordered a plate of sausages and wedges :P

Can you believe that we tried almost ALL the different pastas on their menu already? Soon enough, we'll be switching to eating baked rice or gratin and then pizza (:

Lunches there are always satisfying (: We sat at the window seat today where we had the view of the Huangpu River and the Pearl Tower.

And yes, making our way to the mall and back again was a killer. It's like 10 degs out there with strong winds and we're not covered in thick jackets.

When we came back, we immediately went to print our long overdue ACD report. Headed back up to RSVN office and the internet couldn't work! Omg that's like my ONLY source of entertainment in the office.

Left with nothing to do, I slept for awhile (like for only 5mins before I heard that the internet was working again)

And because like 2 weeks ago, Mr. Hubert said there’d be different types of trainings for us, today was such a day.

At 3pm, we gathered at Yi Cafe's private room for wine training by the Director of Wine, Mr. Kelvin Tay (Singaporean!)

It was only a small group- 5 of us because Gabriel and Angela were off.

The first half was about drinking alcohol- more like life skills rather than boring theory on wine. He also went into the more scientific aspects for a while before going on to how they store wine in barrels and how corks and barrels are made.

After saying so much, then came the practical part. Kelvin brought in 3 bottles of wine- 1 white, 2 red for us to taste.

First up was white wine.

Sight- the lighter coloured the wine is, the younger it is.

Smell- to get a stronger aroma of the wine, it is best to swirl it in the wine glass and then put your nose right into the glass. (we could pick out smells such as citrus and even a hint of medicated oil)

Taste- We first tasted the wine without eating anything to get its original taste. Then, he showed us how he tastes wine to check for quality and get the whole taste in your mouth. It was super funny taking in a big gulp, sucking in air in your mouth and then spitting it out in the bucket.

After that, Kelvin made us suck on a piece of lemon and then taste the white wine again. This time round, the wine tasted sweeter because of the acid in our mouths. He then asked us to chew on a piece of apple and taste the wine again and the wine became dryer than before because apples are sweet.

He touched a little on paring the right food with the right wine before proceeding to try the first bottle of red wine.

We smelled it first- it was superbly strong. No one tasted it yet (thankfully) and when Kelvin asked us "what smell do you get?" we were all like "omg super strong!" and he said "because the wine is about to spoil already"

So, no one tasted that wine except for Kelvin. The wine was desecrating because it had already been opened for 2 days and I think the staff at Yi Cafe didn’t keep it properly.

We went on to the last bottle of red wine. We did the same with the red wine as what we did previously to the white wine.

Oh did I mention that the whole training was like 2 and a half hours and Kelvin smoked a total of 5 cigs while speaking to us?

The whole training was interesting and I didn't feel sleepy at all! Maybe it's because the atmosphere was super informal (speaking with SINGAPOREAN ENGLISH). There will be like 2 more wine trainings before we leave. Yay!

It was 5.30pm when we were done so we went back up to office where I was greeted with a thin stack of GDS forms that I completed by 6pm but didn't file them.

We met Joanne at the staff canteen to accompany her for dinner before going over to Super Brand Mall to wait for JY to come over so she could take-away pasta for dinner.

The 3 of us WALKED home in the freezing cold weather omg.

Since Angela was off today, she started putting in the photos for our multi-media video. We came home to continue from where she stopped at until like 12.30am.

Everything's done- except inserting music into the clip. Ugh.

Although we could borrow CF's sofa bed tonight, we didn't bother because we were too tired to move it back and our house is still super messy. So, we shared the queen-sized bed again. This time round, it was Angela, Joanne and I, while YJ took the sofa bed.

2007-11-26T23:22:00.000+08:00

Omg today is such a gloomy day.

Somehow, when the sun's not out, you'll just feel so lazy and wish to cuddle up at home tucked inside your comforter and sleep.

But I had to crawl out of bed today at like 7.15am to prepare to go to work.

Since Angela spent her night at her aunt's place, we had sufficient sleeping space for the 3 of us. This time round, Joanne took the sofa bed because she was still doing her report at like 2am while YJ and I slept in our original positions.

The weather forecast said it'll rain today and yeah, it's pretty accurate.

We left our house at like 8.40am (we usually try to leave at 8.25am or latest 8.30am if we are walking) but we still decided to WALK to work and not spend money on cab fares because we'd rather spend money on lunch outside!

So, we walked like super duper fast and reached the hotel at 9.01am (: Not that late; just our normal time arriving :P

And yay! No more doing phone calls for arrival timings already! :D It's back to GDS for me now.

And when I'm doing GDS, I don't have anything to do unless Joanne or whoever gives me the stack of paper to do once they've printed it out.

So from the moment I came into the office, I did nothing but slack around until my first (super thin- I think no more than15 sheets) stack of GDS came at 11am. I finished it in like 15mins and did nothing until 1pm where we headed out for lunch.

It was straight to the Pasta restaurant and we ordered pasta! Yummy (:

The weather was like freezing cold and we practically ran from the hotel to Super Brand Mall and back again.

After lunch, we slacked some more at the office while waiting for YH to come up to lend us his camera. We then started taking photos for our project and also retarded photos because we were so bored.

We took photos with Nancy, and then we went down to Event's Concierge to take photos with Cherry, then to BQT office with Ehui and then up to level 6 with Denis and Raymond.

It was then time to knock off from work! (We totally forgot to do shop call today)

We had to go look for Angela to pass her YJ's thumb drive cuz Joanne wanted some documents for her project. In the end, we left the hotel at like 7pm and instead of walking home, we went to Jia De Li to get some stuff before going to the laundry to collect our coats.

The night was spent editing photos for our video. It wasn't a long night because we started at like 10pm and slept at around 12am?

We had to share the queen-sized bed again. And because Angela is sick, we asked her to sleep on the sofa bed instead of rotating. So, it was like how we slept 2 days ago. YJ was at the side, I was in the middle and Joanne was at the other side.

And during the whole night, the 2 girls were snatching the blanket and pulling it to their sides constantly. Wonderful (:

2007-11-25T23:34:00.000+08:00

The day started off in the evening today :P

Oh, yesterday we had our first experience of squeezing 3 girls on the queen sized bed because we sent the sofa bed back to Chang Fang’s apartment.

The 3 that slept on the queen-sized bed were Joanne, YJ and I. Angela took the remaining sofa bed and the next few days we would take turns to sleep on the sofa bed.

We couldn’t sleep the normal way we slept when we had 2 people because it was too narrow so we switched positions where our heads were on the longer side of the bed so 3 of us would have enough space. But, it wasn’t long enough for us to stretch our legs fully!

So all of us woke up with our body’s aching like old women :(

YJ and I went out to Xu Jia Hui at like 5pm while Joanne and JY stayed at home to complete their interim report.

That MRT station has like 14 different exits can you imagine?!

That whole area is somewhat like Singapore’s Orchard Road. There are lots of departmental store buildings around the whole area.

YJ and I walked everywhere! We didn’t buy much though because most of the shops were branded goods.

The funny thing was that there was one side that had all the different departmental stores and when we were combing that area we got hungry. So, we went to a random department store to look for food and we found NONE.

In the end, we walked somewhere else and realized that that whole stretch was selling FOOD!

We saw this Chinese fast-food place and decided to go there to eat because we were so lazy to look for other outlets.

I ordered a bowl of dry noodles while YJ ordered some fried rice thingy. Each cost RMB19.

It turned out tasting not bad! At least it wasn’t super oily and salty! And we wished they had that outlet at Super Brand Mall so we could eat it for lunch occasionally.

Oh, we also found a shopping area in the midst of all the high-end outlets that resembled Far East Plaza.

I bought a jacket from there which cost me like RMB179. But I love the shop, they sell really cool jacket lah! I’d buy more if I had more money.

We also went to this other shop and I bought 2 dresses (RMB250 in total. Not considered cheap compared to Qi Pu Lu prices). Dresses are like so convenient because I’d pair them with tights and boots and out of the house I go. Stuffing your jeans into your boots can be such a chore at times.

YJ and I headed over to this building called Metro and it was so Singaporean! The basement was a FOOD COURT (super rare in shopping malls in Shanghai) and there was a stall selling Singaporean food- Oyster omelet, Hokkien Mee etc.

There was also TOAST BOX selling half boiled eggs and kaya toast! I swear if we didn’t have dinner already we would so be eating there!

We left the place at around 10pm after walking along every lighted corner of Xu Jia Hui.

It was a super funny scene at the MRT when we were at People’s Square Interchange.

YJ and I rushed into the last cabin because the door was closing and there were quite a number of people in the train.

So, we started speaking in our Singaporean English and the guys near us stared at us. I heard them speak, it was Singaporean English too! So I started back at them and YJ was like “eh, Singaporeans.”

Then the guy just said super loudly, “From NTU is it?” I turned and replied “Ngee Ann Poly!”

We then kicked start out conversation and YJ and I realized that surrounding us were all Singaporeans from NTU! Like, 15+ of them?! OMG!!

Turns out that they are here on attachment and studies for 6 moths too! But they’ll be returning to SG by the end of this year.

And when we were going up the escalator at our MRT station, we heard another 2 girls speaking in Singaporean English.

Seriously, I didn’t know our accent was that distinct until I came here. It’s like; super obvious that you’re Singaporean once you open your mouth.

What Denis said was true- you’ll be surprised by the amount of Singaporeans you meet when you’re here. They are everywhere!

2007-11-24T22:16:00.001+08:00

I slept at like 4.30am last night after coming home and taking turns to use the toilet to bathe and blow dry my hair.

And I woke up at like 9.40am today because the guy came to deliver our stove.

We also had to move one of the sofa bed’s back to CF’s room because her family was coming to live with her for a few days.

Oh what a morning. And after the move of the sofa bed, we realized how dirty and dusty our room was so I started sweeping the floor while YJ went down to find our security guard to call for the plumber because our toilet bowl is STILL unusable.

The house suddenly felt so spacious after getting rid of that one sofa bed! Soon enough, the plumber came and fixed our toilet bowl problem.

Finally, all our household matters have been solved! Our water heater is back in place, the stove is finally covering our shoes in the cupboard and our toilet can be used again (:

However, we still don’t know how to use our stove because it doesn’t give out fire when we turn it on! Ugh, we’ll figure it out somehow when someone wants to cook Maggie Mee.

And guess what, the first person that wanted to cook Maggie for dinner was none other than yours truly. You think I’d try to figure out how to use the new stove? I chose the easy way out. I went over to Chang Fang’s place to borrow her stove instead! :D

The whole afternoon was spent trying to get our multimedia video done. YJ and I chose the photos and started to caption them.

But, we got quite sian of doing it by 5pm so we just started to slack around instead. At least, we’ve started! And we’ve got until 30 Nov to complete it, unlike other interim reports that are due coming Monday.

2007-11-23T23:14:00.000+08:00

Finally it’s Friday and this marks the end of my 2 weeks of calling for call arrivals! :D

2 weeks flew past just like that; it’s freaky how time flies but at the same time I’m glad it’s zooming by so fast because it means I’m gonna go home soon (:

Since we had to let our supervisors grade us for their interim report, we gave both Nancy and Ehui a set to do because they were our supervisors for the time we spent here so far (because we changed departments).

Nancy sat down with us to tell us how she felt blah blah blah and most prolly we’ll be able to get out of RSVN at the end of December because 3 new staff will be coming in! *cross fingers*

We also went down to look for Ehui to ask him to fill up the written part of the report and crapped with him for like an hour and a half before going back upstairs.

Oh, lunch wasn’t at the pasta place today :P We had KFC instead. It’s like our first time eating KFC at Super Brand Mall.

Soon, work finally ended and we were meeting Denis and Raymond (SLIM people and also Singaporeans) for dinner.

Turns out that they live 1 street away from us!

Dinner was at this restaurant which served Hunan cuisine. Those that went were Raymond, Denis, Sunny Pao (VP of Marketing in Shangri-la China), the EAM of F&B at Ascott, Jane (the only Shanghainese), Yu Hong, Angela, YJ and I. Yes, all of us were Singaporeans.

They ordered SO MUCH food because they re-ordered and re-ordered. But 90% of the food was spicy but overall dinner was great despite the fact that they ordered rice wine and forced us to drink. That freaking thing contains like 48% alcohol can.

They also brought along 2 bottles of white wine and made us drink. Omg by the end of the dinner we were already quite gone because of the rice wine.

We then went over to Shangri-la to pick Joanne up cuz she just ended work and then proceeded to The Bund.

Raymond took YJ, Joanne and I to 3 on The Bund to look at the beautiful view but in the end I couldn’t take it and headed straight to the toilet to puke my whole dinner out :/

And then we went on 5 on The Bund- Glamour Bar to look for the rest of the people.

Kelvin Tay joined us later and we stayed for awhile there before deciding to go to 18 on The Bund- Rouge Bar (the most popular bar along The Bund).

It was 11pm by then and by the time we walked there; there was a queue to go up to the lift! We decided to give it a pass and in the end Denis, Raymond, YJ, Joanne and I cabbed down to Baby Face while the rest decided to call it a night.

The music was disappointing though. Denis and Raymond went to buy drinks (again) and we tried to siam by going to the dance floor to dance but the music was like terrible -.-

In the end we left the club at around 2.30am and headed next door for SUPPER! :D

We ordered Congee and Cha Siew Bao. The Char Siew Bao was super yummy lah!

After eating, Denis sent the 3 of us home first while Raymond took a cab back himself. He even took-away 4 Char Siew Bao’s for us for tomorrow’s breakfast! How nice of him (:

And the best part of the night- we didn’t pay a single cent. Omg I wouldn’t wanna know how much money they spent in total for the dinner and drinks.

I think we were really lucky to go out with Denis and Raymond to get exposed to those expensive bars because we will never go there ourselves because we are such poor people. Haha.

2007-11-22T23:41:00.000+08:00

Breakfast and dinner today was leftover cake from YJ’s birthday. Hahaha. The both of us wiped out all the cake (:

Work was as routined as usual.

I’m already very very sick of calling for call arrivals and these few days I’ve been calling twice of what I am supposed to call. Ugh.

Since we had stuff to do, time passed quite quickly and soon enough, it was time for lunch (:

I think we went out at around 12.45pm and we headed straight to the same café we went to yesterday!

We ordered a plate of baked rice and a plate of omelet. Total cost = RMB19.

After eating, it was like 1.30pm and we thought that we left the office at 1pm. We thought we ate quicker this time round and decided to go down to Macs for pineapple pie (:

When we reached Macs I was like “omg its 1.45pm are we late?” “what time did we come out huh?”

But whatever, we didn’t bother and still sat down to finish our pie and headed back to the office reaching at 2pm (:

I think no one bothers about us. So long as we get our work done, all is well.

Since we couldn’t get Ehui yesterday because he was off, we went down to BQT office to look for him today because he has an assignment to do!

We passed him the interim report that our RO’s needed to fill up and chatted with him for almost an hour. I miss crapping and talking nonsense with him to kill time!

He said that on 29 Nov, there’s an event going on so we quickly volunteered to support! Yay.

We went back up at 5.30pm and waited for another half an hour before knocking off from work.

We walked back home to chuck our stuff first before heading out again. We took along our fur coats we bought from Qi Pu Lu last time because we wanted to dry-wash it before wearing it.

Headed over to the laundry where I collected my coat (yay! It doesn’t smell of smoke anymore!) and we then sent our 2 coats for washing. The lady there quoted us the wrong price- she told us it was RMB18 for 1 coat but it was supposed to be RMB20 because it was longer.

But she was nice enough to charge us RMB18 and told us next time it would be RMB20 because it was longer.

We then walked all the way to Motel 168 because YJ wanted to make a reservation for 2 rooms in Dec cuz her parents are coming over.

We were actually supposed to move CF’s sofa bed back to her room tonight, but since her parents will only be coming tomorrow, we decided to do it tomorrow so that we’ll have 4 beds for us to sleep comfortably for 1 more night (:

And did I mention that our toilet bowl is stuck (again)? Yup, it’s the second time and I think its because we throw toilet paper inside the toilet bowl.

The practice of people in China is to throw away toilet paper in a separate bin because the flushing system ain’t that great yet. So, maybe because we refuse to follow their norm, that's why our toilet bowl is stuck.

Thank goodness for our neighbours JY and CF otherwise we won’t be able to use the toilet for I-don’t-know-how-many days!

Replies

Nana & Fara: I MISS YOU GUYS!! And I'll be home in 10 weeks! Go plan an outing or whatever okayyyy! :D :D

2007-11-21T23:59:00.000+08:00

Although we cabbed to work, we weren’t on time :P

There was so much to do at work today. Firstly, the printer jammed so I couldn't print out my call arrival report therefore I was idling around for the first 1 hour.

I tried doing a few pages of the TA's list though and then started calling.

There was this stupid bitch I called today. She helped 9 clients to book 9 rooms. I asked her for the arrival time of her clients and she told me 5pm. And because she didn't guarantee their rooms, the hotel does not ensure rooms for guest who check in after 4pm. I tried asking her nicely if she would want to help her gust guarantee the rooms by Credit Card but she brushed it off saying "Credit Card number is such a private thing. How would my clients give it to me?"

I then said, "you can provide me with anyone's Credit Card number to help guarantee the rooms" and she said "no one has Credit Cards in the company" OMG LAH.

She kept insisting that her clients would definitely show up and wanted me to ensure that the 9 rooms were kept. I then tried another alternative by asking her to fax over a company guarantee but then she said "My boss is not in town today, no one can chop the company's stamp without his signature" Omg wth, EXCUSES!

She was already so rude on the phone that I decided not to give her face anymore. She even wanted to speak to the Sales Manager or any Manager. Ugh. In the end, I just told her "since you're so confident that all your clients will turn up, why not give me YOUR Credit Card number to help them guarantee their rooms because there'll be no charge to your account if they check into the hotel"

She hesitated for awhile, and then kept asking if any charge was going to be imposed on. I think she gave up in the end because I kept telling her if her clients were to reach after 4pm and the hotel has already sold the 9 rooms, she would be the one at fault because she's responsible for booking their rooms.

She then reluctantly gave me her own Credit Card number (I thought she said no one in the company has a credit card...) and was so worried she had to pay money!

Okay, that was like the worst person I've called so far. Previously, I've met really nice people who were willing to help their clients guarantee their room without further questions asked.

Lunch today was definitely OUTSIDE. We've gave up on canteen food.

Wanted to go eat Congee at the Dim Sum restaurant but there was a long queue! So guess where we went?!

All the way to level 8 for the pasta/pizza cafe! :D

It was almost full house too but thankfully there were still a few seats left.

Each of us ordered pasta that cost RMB9 a plate. That's like freaking cheap! Where in the world can you find pasta that costs less than SGD2 in Singapore! Not even in hawker centers.

And this place is like a cafe/restaurant.

The pasta was super nice!! It made me miss Pastamania!! They also sell pizza, ESCARGOTS, grilled meat, baked rice etc etc.

YJ and I swore that it's so gonna be our new dining place for lunch for the rest of our attachment! It's cheaper than a Mac meal!

Just when we were about to leave, we saw 3 staff from Shangri-la going in to dine there too. Super awkward because they are also working at level 5 and constantly comes into RSVN office.

I had a craving for DQ's smoothie and I bought it at RMB25 (omg so much more expensive than my lunch can) because it was just next to the place we had our lunch. I wouldn't go all the way up to the 8th floor just to get a cup of smoothie. Haha.

Oh, it's our manager, Nancy's birthday today. It's exactly the same day as YJ's! Omg such a coincidence.

They distributed cake and candy from Yi Cafe around and YJ and I were super full and trying our best to quickly digest the food inside our stomachs because we were planning to eat Meat Buffet later for YJ's birthday.

After wishing Nancy happy birthday, we gave her our Interim Report she's supposed to help us fill in to submit to our LO.

And then we went down to print our ACD report (overdue for like 7 days already. Oops.)

Finally work ended. YJ and I headed to Lu Jia Zhui MRT station to meet Joanne in the cabin. It was peak period and the crowd was CRAZY.

Thankfully a Caucasian guy pulled YJ and I us into the train otherwise we'd missed it (:

The meat buffet place was at Raffles City. It's somewhat like the place we ate at Sixth Avenue with Justin Pang. But, this was so much cheaper- RMB78 per person.

However, all of us (JY, YJ, Joanne and I) were disappointed. The buffet spread wasn't fantastic, some of the meat they served was hard and the service staff sucked. Oh, they even had imitation Tabasco sauce!

It wasn't worth the RMB78. I'd rather pay SGD40 to eat that in Singapore lah.

Since it was still early after dinner, we decided to walk around outside. We were near Nanjing Road so we walked around Bu Xing Jie and decided to go to Haagen-Dazs for ice cream (:

We sat outside in the cold weather and just slacked. But we were disturbed by beggars who just came in to beg us for money -.-

For the whole period of time we sat outside, a total of NINE beggars tried their luck on us.

The waiter there was really nice though. He'd come out to help us chase them away. He even stood outside in the cold weather with his thin uniform to help us keep a lookout.

We waited for Angela to come after work to cut the cake. And since JY already bought a cake before she met us, we didn't need to get one from Haagen-Dazs. The waiter was also nice enough to let us cut the cake there and gave us candles, napkins and a lighter.

And when we were eating the cake, the funniest thing happened. A beggar, dressed super weirdly (he was wearing this red traditional hat; those that women wear when they get married and also some other nonsense hanging here and there). He tried begging for money but we ignored. He then started singing HAPPY BIRTHDAY in Chinese! OMG. We couldn't help but laugh. The waiter that helped us chase him away also couldn't take it and burst out laughing.

That wasn't the end of the beggar issue we faced for the night.

We wanted to go to Baby Face for awhile but in the end we didn't because Angela wasn't feeling well, JY's shirt was too tight to dance and the rubber of my heel broke.

It was already 11pm so we decided to call it a night and cab home.

While walking to find a cab, YJ was holding the cake box in the bag because there was leftover. A mother, with a 4 year old (?) child tried begging for money from us.

She asked her son to say "jie jie can u give me some cake? I need to eat. Thank you jie jie". OMGWTH.

And when we ignored, the boy was chasing the cake like how a dog would chase a bone. The mother was also trying her best to get cake or money from us.

I can't stand it when parents ask their child to beg for money. It's just so wrong.

2007-11-20T22:32:00.001+08:00

It’s been such a long time since all 4 of us went to work together. Although Angela and Joanne were supposed to report to work at 10am, they left the house the same time as us because they needed to try on their new uniforms.

It was 10 degrees out there in the morning. Freezing cold and I didn’t wear anything thick. I wore like, 2 thin tops (those that I can wear in Singapore and still feel cold when it’s a rainy day), shorts, tights, boots and a jacket. Okay, I wrapped myself up in a thick scarf and also wore gloves but I was still cold when the wind blew!

Oh yes, we walked to work and we were super late. We reached the staff entrance at like 9.10am? Oops.

I had to do like 2 days worth of call arrivals today. Super SIAN. But the good thing is that it’s only like 15 pages a day and a lot of flight details are down already (:

It was soon lunch time and I swear YJ and I tried our best to eat in the canteen. But, yeah we failed.

YJ took a bowl of noodles while I took a bowl of pasta and miso soup. We sat down, stared at the food we took (super oily and full of MSG), ate a couple mouthfuls and gave up.

Not knowing what in the world to eat for lunch, we still headed over to Super Brand Mall.

We were quite sick of fast food and we wanted to eat Congee. But the stupid restaurant had a queue and we didn’t have time to wait to get a seat and wait for our food to be served. So yeah, we settled for Mac in the end :x

I had like 1 pineapple pie and YJ had a cheeseburger. Yes, that’s how appetite-less we were.

I was like stoning the whole day at work because I was so tired. My eyes were closing and when I was doing the data entry for the TA’s, I almost fell asleep!

Since we came a little late for work today, we left at 6.30pm :P

We met Joanne and Angela at the locker and they were supposed to end work at 7pm so we decided t o wait for them and walk home together.

So YJ and I headed to Super Brand Mall because they told us that at level 8 there’s this cheap and good café that sells pasta and pizza!

Indeed, the price range was cheap; RMB9-20 for like a plate of pasta or one pizza. BUT, there was a long queue! :(

Its okay, YJ and I will definitely go there to eat for one of our lunches in the future.

We then went down to Lotus cuz YJ wanted to buy bread. And after choosing for like 15mins, she decided not to buy any -.-

I went to buy yoghurt instead. We also bought more small pieces of cake to eat for breakfast.

It was like already 7.30pm when we were done but the other 2 still hadn’t called us. We couldn’t contact them cuz Joanne’s phone ran out of money and Angela forgot to bring her hp out. They could only use the hotel phone to call us.

We decided not to wait because it was already so cold so we walked home first.

Came home and I had to go over to JY’s to cook my Maggie Mee for dinner because we still don’t have our stove!

And finally, my parent’s called me on my mobile phone! I think it’s the SECOND time they called me after 11 weeks here!

2007-11-19T21:41:00.000+08:00

Yet another week flew by. 11 more weeks to go! I’m half way thru this whole experience already (:

Since Joanne and Angela aren't working at Yi Cafe anymore, most prolly their shifts will be similar to us. Today, Angela walked to work with YJ and I because she was told to report at 9am.

We took photos along the way to work- for our multi-media project (which we haven’t really sat down to start yet :x) but we’re trying our best to gather all the photos we need!

I can’t wait for this week to end because it’ll be my last week doing call arrivals but Nancy just threw a bomb at me. Seriously. I was supposed to finish calling until next Monday’s arrival but for this week, she wants me to call until next Wednesday’s! OMG. Thank goodness she asked YJ to help me for half a day. But I ain’t gonna bother so much, as long as its around 35% I’m gonna stop.

Surprisingly during lunchtime Neil and YH came up to our office. Too bad they wanted to eat at the staff canteen while Angela and Joanne wanted to go out. We went to the staff canteen to check out the food and it wasn’t really to our liking so the 4 girls went over to Super Brand Mall for lunch.

No fast food this time round, we had KOREAN FOOD. I know, we’re sort of crazy going to a restaurant to eat during lunchtime. But we just ordered a set meal that cost RMB30.

We took more than an hour for lunch though :P YJ and I went back 15mins later but on one said a thing. We just need to get our stuff done by the end of the day and I don't think anyone will make noise.

Since I’ve already finished the call arrivals for Tuesday, I started doing this super boring data entry thing Nancy gave us last week. It’s the Travel Agent’s profiles thingy where we have to change the currency to CNY. And we have to get it done by this Friday. So many pages can.

Since we were so full from the lunch we had, YJ and l walked home after work.

I couldn’t stand the smell from my brown jacket because I brought that to Muse on Saturday and it reeks of smoke. Yucks. I had no choice but to wear it today so I sprayed a lot of perfume hoping to cover the smell but it didn't quite work.

I needed to wash the coat badly and it can’t be normally washed because of the fur so I needed to send it to the laundry. I decided to try the back ally of our place because I saw quite a number of laundry stalls when I walked past last time.

The shop I chose looked rather decent and had a big signboard up. They had a lot of winter clothes hung up so it seemed quite trustworthy. The price they quoted to dry wash my coat? RMB16. Omg cheap or what?! It’s freaking SGD3+!

But it’ll take them 3 days. It doesn’t matter though, because I’m not in a hurry to use it. So I walked home without my coat. Cold? It was still bearable. And thankfully my apartment was like less than 2mins walk away from that laundry stall.

No dinner tonight because I was still full from lunch. We watched Die Hard 4 together and then had to settle money (yeah, forever settling money) before going to bed!

2007-11-18T23:32:00.000+08:00

I woke up at 1pm today (:

Dilly dallied around until Joanne, YJ, JY and I cabbed down to Super Brand Mall to have Dim Sum for tea (?) because it was already 4pm when we reached there.

The weather’s freezing cold! The wind was so strong and blowing in our faces all the time.

All of us ordered Congee to fill our empty stomachs because we drank so much yesterday. We also ordered egg tarts and the normal Dim Sum stuff you’ll order. I’ve never eaten Dim Sum with my friends before! Dim Sum is like meant to be eaten with your parents when in Singapore. Hahaha.

After eating, we used the MRT to this station called Ke Ji Guan (Science & Technology Museum). No, we didn’t go there to gain more knowledge about science and technology.

There was shopping areas right when you come out of the MRT. You don’t even need to go out of the underground station and all the shops are there.

It’s something like Qi Pu Lu, but a higher class place.

We walked around for quite sometime and in the end I bought myself a jacket for only RMB150 (:

Angela joined us shortly and we walked around for a while more before using the train to Shan Xi Nan Lu.

We were supposed to go to this Hong Kong restaurant for dinner because it was Joanne’s birthday but we alighted at the wrong stop and we were meeting YH and Gabriel there. So we changed plans and went to Crossroads for dinner instead. Singapore food! :D

We didn’t order much this time round because the 5 girls were super full. So we had like, Rojak (pre-made = not nice), 2 bowls of Laska (which sucked), Mee Goreng (yummy!), Cha Bee Hoon, Stir-fried broccoli and omelet.

The service there kinda sucked though, the waitresses weren’t attentive at all. Oh, we saw Lian He Zhao Bao and Straits Times there. Apparently they order it daily.

After dinner, we bought Joanne a cake from Bread Talk. We were the last customers to leave and it was already like 10pm.

We did the most random thing after that- we started cam-whoring right outside the restaurant because the place was empty already!

The rest headed down to G+ while Angela and I went home because I was super tired and I’m so not used to going out every single day.

2007-11-17T23:31:00.000+08:00

Today was such a lazy day.

Our initial plan was to go to Qi Pu Lu at like 2pm and then eat steamboat for dinner but all this didn’t happen.

Mainly, it was because of the rain and the weather. It was freezing cold today- about 12 degrees.

Our window was frosty and we could write our names on it! Omg.

So we stayed at home the whole day doing nothing but watching DVDs and using the internet.

The only time we went out was at around 7pm to go to the bank and Jia De Li. We were so lazy to change we just wore a jacket over our pullovers and slacks. We looked super unglam but who cares, we’re in China :P

The weather’s so cold that there was mist coming out of our mouths when we spoke! I think winter’s here already…

So we bought our stuff from the supermarket and walked back quickly because it was so cold. It’s super troublesome to even go out for awhile because you have to wear so many clothes.

I had to like, go over to JY’s place to cook Maggie for dinner because we still didn’t have our stove. Our stove area is now empty and we can see all of our boots we kept in the cupboard below!

But at like 10.30pm Joanne called and asked if we wanted to go clubbing. Since it was her birthday the next day, we decided to go.

We met Jason, Maxim, Jennifer and Angeline at the club itself. We went to Muse, a club owned by Liu Jia Ling.

Jason already reserved a table so we had seats when we reached. We then started playing dices and we drank quite a lot :/

However, the dance floor was really tiny. The first floor was where more of the older people were and the second floor was R&B. Both dance floors were equally small and it wasn’t as happening as Baby Face.

By the end of the night, YJ and I became Merlions and puked out everything we had in our stomachs :x

We reached home at like 4am? I so couldn’t be bothered to bathe despite having the smell of smoke in my hair so I just crashed after washing my face.

2007-11-16T23:04:00.000+08:00

Last night YJ and I waited for Angela to come home because she went out with her hostesses for dinner and she had stuff to tell us about the "stolen" stove and water heater.

Her shifu- Anglea (yeah same name luh) apparently called up our landlord and spoke to him and he agreed to get the stove and water heater back for us and we didn’t have to pay anything.

It's somewhat super duper weird and all of us think that our landlord or his dad is involved in this whole matter.

The whole story has so many loopholes.

Firstly, the 2 guys that came knew so much about us until the extent that he knew our washing machine was leaking last time.

They looked so familiar I think they were the cable guys that came to fix up the internet connection from JY's place!

And why would our landlord call us like 1 hour after the "robbery" to ask us if a group of people came to our house to maintain something or not if he didn't even know who they were.

Although he claimed that they called his dad, how in the world did the 2 guys get our landlord's number?

Our landlord said that all these information (landlord's name, number, where we come from etc) can be found ONLINE. Like, huh?

It's just too weird to believe.

So today I had to like wake up at 6.30am, go over to JY's place to turn on the heater, come back home to sleep and woke up at 7.15am to bathe at their place. Yup, their water heater is damn troublesome. You'll need to turn it on 1/2 hour or more before you can use hot water.

OH. The 2 guys that came were such assholes too. Before taking away the water heater, they told us to turn our taps and everything to the 'hot' side. And after they took out the water heater, he asked "no more water already right?" And yeah, it was weird that there was no more water.

So last night I was thinking about it and it seemed IMPOSSIBLE to not have ANY water just because our water heater was gone. It's not like he took away our water supply. So, I tried flushing the toilet- it worked.

And when I tured on the sink tap there was water. The more I shifted it towards the "cold" side, the more water came out. Damn those stupid guys that made us believe that we had NO water at all. Assholes.

It's raining today! There was only a slight drizzle when YJ and I went out so we decided to pass taking umbrellas and walking to work so we tried to flag for a cab.

We stood in the drizzle (which was getting heavier by the minute) and the wind was like damn strong. No cabs. Our hands were numb and we were freezing cold. We stood on the road for like 10mins before we finally got a cab to our hotel!

So, we reached the office way before 9am. Oh what an achievement (:

And I finished calling for arrivals for Sat & Sun before lunch time! :D

We didn’t even want to look at the food in the staff canteen today. I was craving for MCD so we went there straight.

But on our way to the exit, we met this lady who needed help because her stuff was at the staff entrance and she had to bring them to Beijing Room for their conference. There was a miscommunication between the people in-charge, the security guards etc.

They were so pissed so we tried to call BQT for help. In the end they had to move their goods from one exit to another. YJ and I were freezing cold because we were outside trying to help resolve their problem.

In the end the BQT security came and brought them to the correct place so they could bring their stuff up and we ran to Super Brand Mall because we were so cold!

When we came back from lunch, we had to do shop calls again and I had to call for arrivals for Monday. Estella gave me 3 thick stacks of travel agent’s data and asked me to change all their bank accounts.

Its like, 3 stacks of 20+ sheets. Thank goodness there are 3 of us- YJ, Patrick and I so we split the work. But, it’s still a lot!

We need to go into Opera, find the information by keying in this 8 digit IATA number, and change the bank account from USD or RMB to CNY.

Damn troublesome can. All the numbers are making me go crazy. We have until next Friday to finish all of it. Omg.

Work ended and we headed to Lotus to buy fruits! Then we walked to SUBWAY to take away for our dinner! :D

We also helped JY and Angela to take away and the 4 of us came home to eat accompanied by chicken wings bought by JY (:

I’ve survived yet another week! And most importantly, I’ve survived one week of doing call arrivals! Just ONE more week of that to go! :D

2007-11-15T21:31:00.000+08:00

Although we woke up on time and maybe even 5mins earlier than the time I usually woke up, we took a cab down to work today. Why?

The main reason was because at like 8.15am the doorbell rang and I thought it was JY who wanted to borrow our hair dryer. But I was greeted by 2 guys when I opened the door and they claimed that our landlord sent them here to do maintenance on our water heater and stove.

I was suspicious at first, but he went on saying that he knows we are from Singapore and he even told us the name of our landlord. He even said that he knows our neighbors (CF and JY) are from Singapore too.

So we opened the door and let them in. They took away the stove and heater and left us a written receipt with his hand phone number down. He asked us to call him when we end work so he can send the stuff back to our house.

The whole thing felt quite weird because our landlord didn't tell us (or rather YJ and I) that there were people coming to our place. I thought maybe he gave either Joanne or Angela a call but they didn't have time to tell us because when we reached home yesterday they were already sleeping.

And when we were walking to our office our landlord called us and said he didn't know those 2 guys were coming. He said not to open the doors to such people because they'll take the stuff and extort him by asking him to pay if not they won't return the stuff.

I, on the other hand think it’s damn dumb because he can just go buy a new one which will definitely cost less than the amt the people want. It's really amusing to see how people try to make money in China. Haha.

But, yeah it's super dangerous to open the doors to people that are complete strangers. Gees. Next time, we'll just call our landlord if such things happen again.

Okay, so today was quite a slack day because we only needed to work half day! :D

I practically did no work from 9am-12pm because I already called arrivals for today and tomorrow and they want me to do it again -.-

BUT, when I passed Nancy the paper for arrival timings, she gave me a whole list of people to call for TODAY to ask them to guarantee their bookings.

We left at 1pm and was still contemplating to go home to change or not because we weren’t quite appropriately dressed to go to Expo.

Oh yeah, there’s an event called FHC China at Shanghai New International Expo Centre and Denis & Raymond asked us to go there to explore a bit.

So we chose today afternoon to head down to take a look. Basically, it’s a kinda like a food fare- http://www.fhcchina.com/en/index1_10.html

But we were hungry so we went to eat at Super Brand Mall first.

Had Sushi and stuffed ourselves and it only cost RMB75 in total.

In the end we decided to heck care about our attire and cabbed down to Expo.

The good thing was that we were ushered in quickly and given passes without further questions asked (:

We were just in time for a talk about New Zealand’s wine and Kelvin Tay was there giving a speech. We sat in and displayed in front of us was 9 types of wine for us to taste.

In the end, I kept on eating the cheese they provided because it was so yummy!

The talk ended and we explored around ourselves. There was so much free food to take so YJ and I went around eating ice cream from different places!

In the end we saw a lot of chefs from our hotel because they were there for some event and they offered to go back together. We hopped onto their transportation and they brought us back to the hotel! Yay.

YJ and I walked back home and it was drama drama drama the moment we opened our door.

We quickly called the guy that came in the morning- quarreled with him for like 15mins but failed to make him bring back our heater.

Called our landlord and talked for another 15mins trying to reason out the cost and when he’ll get our heater and stove back.

And we found all our clean clothes ON THE FLOOR. Its super irritating I swear.
We have like NO water at our house now. Thank goodness we have JY and CF as our neighbor so we can go there to wash our face and bathe.

The drama of the “stolen” stove and heater will continue tomorrow…

2007-11-14T23:40:00.000+08:00

I saw the most disgusting thing when we were leaving the gate of our apartment today.

A young guy (late 20s?) dressed in a suit was standing against the concrete wall- PEEING in public. Ugh, what an ugly sight.

He saw us staring and acted like he did no wrong. He left before we reached the gate out, so we saw the pee stains on the wall. Yucks. What a way to start my day.

Our eyes were on him when we stepped out of the gate. I think he's a chauffer of some company because he was driving an Audi and he had a name tag on his suit.

I think it's damn disgusting to pee in public, especially in broad daylight. It ain't the fist time I'm seeing this in Shanghai.

I don't know why in the world they think its okay to do that becase I've seen numerous guys pee at different places in the day and in the night as well. Okay, thank goodness I haven't seen any females do it.

And I see parents allowing their kids to do it as well! Ahh, this peeing thing is just damn wrong.

Okay, enough about the freedom to pee anywhere in Shanghai. We reached work a minute earlier today- 8.58am (:

I cleared up all my call arrivals for tomorrow and the day after already so I was left with nothing to do but suft the net filling my life with gossips from the other side of the world.

We didn't head out for lunch today and stayed in the canteen. Surprisingly, the food was not only edible, but more towards the "nice" side. We had lemon chicken and fish nuggets (:

Since we usually take about half an hour to eat, we had spare time so we went down to Yi Cafe to look for Angela and Joanne to kill time. They asked us to come back down at like 3pm becuse that's when the Cafe closes and then we can start eating pastry :P

Headed back up to the office and Angela called up shortly after so we went back down again. We ate brownies, fruit tarts and chocolate pastries. Omgzxz how in the world am I gonna lose weight if I'm forever stealing pastry from Yi Cafe.

Anws, its not like we're MIA-ing from the office for no reason. We finally gotten thru the line to the Engineering room so after stealing food we went downstairs to print the 5 days overdue reports (:

And I spent the rest of my time in the office gossiping with Han Loon on msn!

We left the office at 6.30pm and decided to walk to BBB instead of going home first because we know we'll get lazy and not want to get out of our house later.

Met JY on the way and we walked all the way to Food Inn for dinner. They ate at Papa Jones but I decided to skip dinner because I was still so full from all the pastry. Yes, I decided to give pizza a pass omg!

After eating it was only 8.30pm and all the roadside stalls wern't open yet so we headed to another mall to buy a hair dryer (:

It was almost time and we saw stalls setting up slowly. Our aim was to get our pull-overs but in the end we bought JC slacks because we bargained until it cost RMB30 a pair (original price was RMB78).

The funny thing was after buying the slacks, there was some spot check going on and we saw all the stall owners grabbing their stuff and running!

We found the pull-over stall and followed the guy all the way because we NEEDED to get those pull-overs. Hahaha.

It wasn't any cheaper though; same price as the last time we bought it- RMB45.

Finally, after procrastinating for so long we finally got our pull-overs. And I also bought another belt for RMB20 on the way back (:

I miss shopping!!

Anws, I did the most stupid thing ever. I went to bed at like 11pm, and I woke up feeling hungry so I went to cook Maggie Mee to eat before going to sleep again. I still can't believe I did that.

2007-11-13T23:32:00.000+08:00

Somehow, we're forever reporting to work "on time". And what I mean by "on time" is that we tap our cards at the staff entrance at 8.59am (:

It takes us about 10mins to walk to the changing room and change and tie my hair and another 5mins to walk from the changing room up to RSVN's office so we'll reach the office at like 9.15am.

It doesn't make a difference though because I'll usually officially start work at 10am because I'll turn on the computer, visit the bathroom, get water and ask people to help me log on to Opera (:

I finished calling for arrivals for tomorrow before lunch but Nancy asked me to start calling for Thursday as well.

Had a call from YH and he said he bought food from Nan Jing so both of us headed down to BQT office. Oh boy, it's been a long time since we went down there. We ate Dragon Beard Candy and chatted with Tracy and June for like more than half an hour.

There was also chocolate cake from Gourmet so we ate that as well and it was so yummy!

After that we had no choice but to head upstairs because we just left w/o telling them where we went.

I had nothing to do already so I just surfed the net until lunch time (:

YH called to see if we wanted to join Goh and himself for lunch cuz they were going to BK. So, we went there for lunch w/o even looking at what was served in the canteen. After BK, Goh wanted a drink at Starbucks but because the seats outside were already full, we went for Haagen-Dazs instead (: Both meal and ice-cream was treated by Goh :D

We came back to the office at around 2.10pm and at 2.30pm Angela called us down to Yi Cafe's 400 for some meeting.

When we reached there, it wasn't regarding YJ and I because Hubert can't do anything about us :( The other 5 will get to rotate to other outlets coming next week.

So we just sat in the meeting until 3pm where all of us headed down to F&B office to look for Angeline because she was supposed to give us "training" for 1 hour.

Angeline's topic of the day was Marketing in the F&B sector for SLPU.

Come every Tuesday, we'll be having these little get-together sessions with different people of the hotel so that they can share with us what they do and give us more insights of how the whole hotel operates.

We went back to the office at 4pm and I did the callings for 15/11. The thought of not being able to switch departments and get rotated like the other 5 is really quite disheartening. I feel so "left out" just because it was Rice's instructions to send the both of us down to RSVN.

Work ended, Angela called- they were at Super Brand Mall so we met at Lotus for some grocery shopping (:

We bought like 20 small pears and other junk. Each of us also bought another pillow because it was like RMB12. And the 4 of us walked home- each carrying a pillow in our hands (:

We watched "Call for Love", it's something like Click but its the Chinese version (and it isn't as nice as Click).

Our plan of going down to BBB was pushed back again because JY wasn't home by the time we ended our movie and we were so lazy to go out.

Hopefully, we won't be lazy tmr because I so need to get one more sweater to sleep in.

2007-11-12T23:21:00.000+08:00

Its the start of a new week again :(

And yes, I'm finally feeling the "Monday Blues".

Work was boring as usual. Today we had to do more shop calls- it's like every Monday and Friday we have to call 6 other hotels to ask for their room rates!

We're so sick and tired of asking the same thing every week and we're always (well, almost) getting the same rates when we call. So yeah, we're slacking off the job a little and you can't blame us :P

I did all the call arrivals today. It's not the first time I'm calling though because in the earlier weeks YJ and I would split the job. But today, the whole list of arrivals on 13/11 had 24 pages! OMG.

But, I didn't have to call every single one because some arrival times were already stated.

I bet my chinese will improve after these 2 weeks because I'm speaking in chinese whenever I call (except when I call overseas). And yeah, I called back to Singapore 3 times to ask for arrival time :D

Staff canteen lunch was yucks so YJ and I headed out to hunt for more food. MCD is selling 2 Peach Pies for RMB6. Way cheap! And you don't get Peach Pies in SG. Haha. 2 McWings cost only RMB6 too.

Our plan after work was to head down to Ba Bai Ban (or BBB for short) but since it was early we went home first. Watched "Dan in Real Life" but the quality sucked so we changed DVDs after 10mins and started watching "The Groomsmaid" and it was quite boring too so we didn't finish the DVD.

In the end we didn't head down to BBB cuz we were all quite sian already. Joanne and Angela came back from shopping at Qi Pu Lu! Omg, looking at the things they bought I'm so tempted to go shopping!

I've already not shopped for quite some time already. I've been working on the "save money" plan but I need more warm clothes for winter! Hahaha.

2007-11-11T21:32:00.000+08:00

The day started off late today! I woke up at like 12pm?

Slacked around and we tried to do our multi-media project. Discussed for awhile, but in the end we ended up thinking of our overdue quotes for Mrs. Tan.

Oh, we also watched “Firehouse Dog”.

At around 4pm, JY, CF, YJ, Angela and I went out. Our initial plan was to go to Cheng Huang Miao to eat Xiao Long Bao for dinner.

Somehow, CF said Cheng Huang Miao was near Jing An Shi so we took the train to Jing An Shi MRT station.

We landed at Jing An Shi but the people said that Cheng Huang Miao was like about 1 hour away (walking distance).

So the 5 of us cabbed down to Cheng Huang Miao and when we reached there it was already dark.

We found the famous Xiao Long Bao place and the queue was freaking long! We queued for a total of 1 hour. But some of us walked around and we took turns queuing.

Since we were hungry, we went to buy snacks to eat. We bought Smelly Tou Fu, Takopachi and Sweet Potato!

Finally we had our Xiao Long Bao and ate along the streets. It’s nice to eat hot stuff out in the cold weather (:

We walked around for a bit and took photos! Too bad Angela’s camera had low batt so we had to use JY’s phone.

In the end we walked to the Bund to take the ferry home. Cheng Huang Miao is actually super duper near our place. Its like 1 straight road down from Cheng Huang Miao to the ferry place.

We took the RMB0.50 ferry back! Super duper cheap omg. And we walked home from Dong Chang Du Kou which was also super near our place.

The weather was freezing cold though. My coat and scarf wasn’t enough. My hands were freezing cold I regretted not bringing my gloves out!

Came home, settled money and watched “Shortcut to Happiness”.

2007-11-10T18:23:00.000+08:00

I woke up at like 4pm today (:

I couldn’t stand the smoke smell still on me after bathing last night so I bathed again.

And I ate Myojo Tom Yum Maggie!! Flown all the way from Singapore (:

I’m super tired and my legs ache so I slacked the whole day at home.

Oh well, I did go out for awhile in my sleeping clothes (pull over, slacks and flip flops) to join YJ, JY and CF for dinner but I didn’t eat.

Somehow I didn’t have the appetite to eat for the past few days. I don’t know why too. And today after eating my Maggie Mee, I felt like puking and I puked water out.

Okay back to the going out part. So we just walked to KFC where they had dinner and then we walked to Jia De Li for some grocery shopping before walking back home. We were freezing cold because we were all wearing the same attire!

The sky was already pitch dark at 5.30pm lah, so I saw daylight for like an hour and a half?

Replies

KC: I can pass you the DVD when I come back in Feb? :D

2007-11-09T23:59:00.000+08:00

Work was superbly boring today. It’s my last day doing GDS and entering the data into Opera.

I don’t know why Estella taught me how to enter the data into excel from the ACD reports we printed because ultimately she wanted Patrick to do the job.

So in the end I had to teach Patrick how to key in the data and that stupid excel file takes like 5 mins to open.

I’m so not looking forward to the next 2 weeks because I’ll be switching jobs with YJ. She’ll be doing the GDS data entry while I’ll be doing the callings for arrival time.

Oh, did I mention 2 days ago when I came home I found all our clothes we hanged on the clothes rack on the floor? Apparently the clothes rack gave way and broke! It must have been the weight of our coats and stuff.

So today after work YJ and I headed to Lotus for some grocery shopping. We bought another clothes rack (hopefully it’ll last us for the rest of our attachment), water and fruits.

And we missed the shuttle bus by 2 mins! Damn. In the end we had to cab home because the stuff we bought was way too heavy to carry and walk home.

We reached home at around 7pm; I napped for awhile until about 10pm before Joanne, YJ, JY and I headed out.

Our initial plan was to go to G+ at Xin Tian Di because we heard it was quite happening there. We took a train down, found the place and realized that we had to pay RMB50 for an admission ticket only.

Not wanting to pay, we decided to go somewhere else. All the other pubs along Xin Tian Di was so not our kind so they wanted to head back to Face Bar but it was already full and there were no more tables.

We heard that Baby Face was not bad a club so we cabbed down there instead. It was like 5 mins away from Xin Tian Di so the cab fare was only RMB14.

We reached at around 11.30pm and the club was packed. There was no admission fee and we could chuck our bags at the baggage area.

At first, it felt so wrong because the whole area was damn messy and we didn’t have a table. So we practically walked round and round. We went to the first dance floor and the music was so wrong but somehow the people there could still dance and get high.

The other dance floor was no better; techno. In the end we stood around and bumped into some Singaporeans and they treated us to drinks.

We left their table after awhile and went to the bar counter to get our own drinks (RMB40 per drink) and after that we headed to the techno dance floor and anyhow danced. Hahaha.

After that we headed back to the first dance floor and the music got better so we spent the whole night there dancing. We met more Singaporeans on the dance floor too.

In the end we left at around 3.30am and cabbed back. The cab fare was only RMB20, damn cheap can.

So in total each of us spent like around RMB50 for the whole night to club, way cheaper than Singapore because the cab fare home can easily cost SGD20.

We had to take turns to bathe so I ended up sleeping at 5.30am?

2007-11-08T21:19:00.000+08:00

Omg it’s my 70th day here in Shanghai already!!

Back to work today. It was boring as usual.

There wasn’t much to do so I did my GDS super duper slowly so that I wouldn’t have a lot of free time. But in the end, I could still read gossip blogs, play online games, check emails and all.

The weather was rather warm today, it sort of increased than decrease. But hopefully it’ll slowly decrease because it’s supposed to be winter!

Oh, 2 Singaporean’s working in the hotel wanted to meet all 7 of us at Yi Café’s no. 400.

At first we didn’t know who wanted to meet us but when we saw them, we realized that it was someone we met on the first day.

The 2 guys are of quite high management position at the hotel and they were so nice to us. They gave us a feeling that they sincerely wanted our remaining time in Shanghai to be filled with activities so that we’ll learn the most out of this whole trip.

We had quite a long meeting with them, about an hour and a half and hopefully they will be able to get YJ and I out of reservations and put us somewhere more interesting.

But then again, I don’t know where I wanna go. I’m still quite directionless and aimless of what I want to do in the future.

After work we went over to Citi Tower to help CF and JY buy Subway and amazingly YJ and I didn’t get ourselves any! My first step to saving money and losing weight (:

Came home and we watched “No Reservations”.

Finally, tomorrow is the last day of work before the weekends!

Replies

KC: Don't worry. I'm working on the "saving money" thing like now! Hahaha.

2007-11-07T23:21:00.000+08:00

I went on a Shanghai tour today because I followed Jun Wei’s tour! :D

Nancy was kind enough to let me take off because I’ve already accumulated more than 8hours of OT. Haha.

After eating at the hotel’s buffet breakfast, the coach set out for a place called Tong Ren Tang.

There was free foot massage for all but since I was in tights, I decided to give it a pass because taking it out was way too troublesome.

We then had lunch at that place where they served food that had herbs in them and then we went to the tour guide’s friend’s house to look at fake branded goods.

Surprisingly no one bought anything from there, so we left for Qi Pu Lu!

They were only given an hour and a half to shop around so we walked around and in the end they bought watches and a bag. I so didn’t want to buy anything because I’m feeling super duper broke already.

Their next stop was Nan Jing Road. We walked around Bu Xing Jie and in the end; we had early dinner at this western restaurant. The food’s not bad and reasonably priced too!

There wasn’t much walking afterwards so we practically slacked at the meeting area and waited until 8pm where their coach was supposed to come to pick them up to the airport.

I took my stuff (the stuff that I asked my mum to pack for me) and bided them goodbye! Oh how I wish I could take the plane back to Singapore too :(

But anyhoo, I’ve finally gotten the stuff I wanted from Singapore! A pity I didn't get the chance to pass Jun Wei the stuff I wanted to bring back. I guess it’ll be sitting at my apartment until the day I go home...

Replies

KC: RMB3000 is my entire pay! Can't pass you everything because I need to pay for necessities such as rent, groceries, transport etc. Hahaha.

Rachel: Woo! Congrats girl! :D I'm surviving. Will be back in Feb 08!

2007-11-06T23:20:00.000+08:00

YJ and I wanted to take photos and videos of what's going on downstairs our house in the morning but, there wern't any live chickens on sale! :(

We so need to wait and wait until they start making the streets look like a wet market again. And so far, our multimedia project is still untouched :/

At around 10am YH called us saying there was leftover food in DaLian Room so YJ and I went downstairs to eat! :D There were muffins, banana cake, American breakfast, pancakes, fruits and watermelon juice (:

I think we were seriously crazy. The moment we heard there was food we rushed downstairs. Hahaha. And our excuse was to collect some notes from Hubert (which was true, but we only knew it when we met YH).

YJ and I left 15mins earlier today because there was seriously nothing to do!

We then went to Lu Jia Zhui MRT station to meet Joanne because we wanted to eat Singaporean food!!

Took the train to some MRT station but in the end it was the wrong stop so we had to cab down to Parkson Mall.

The placed we dined at is called CrossRoads. It’s a place that sells most of Singaporean cuisine.

We ordered Mee Goreng, Nasi Lemak, Tauhu Goreng and Curry Chicken!! Yummy yummy Singaporean food!

Finally my craving for some Singaporean food has been satisfied. Although it isn’t as good as the authentic ones, I guess we’ll just have to make do with this. The price was quite reasonable too. About SGD6 for a bowl of Laksa?

We were so full after stuffing ourselves we decided to take a walk around where we were. I think we somehow walked into the super rich district (somewhat like Singapore’s Sixth Avenue) and the shopping there is so different.

The style of the clothes were way different that what we’ve seen and of course, the price. A normal top can cost like RMB500.

After walking around, we decided to take the train back to Dong Chang MRT station.

When I reached, Jun Wei was already at the interchange so I waited for them at the train station because they wanted to walk the night market at my area.

Yup, the long awaited tour has finally made its stop in Shanghai! I met him, his mum, 2 aunts, uncle, grandma and baby cousin and also another family of 4 that was on the same tour with them.

I accompanied them for awhile along the streets before heading home to get my stuff because I wanted to stay over at their hotel otherwise I’d have to wake up super early tomorrow and travel all the way there.

In the end, we missed the last train to their hotel so we cabbed there and I slept over.

2007-11-05T21:52:00.000+08:00

Today's just not my day.

I think it rained last night so our quilt cover was soaked in the rain and I doubt it'll be dry by tonight so most prolly we're gonna sleep without it again.

Although we left our house earlier than usual, we still reached the office at 9.10am. Why?

Because when I was about to go into the staff entrance, I had to tap my card. And guess what?

KIM FORGOT TO BRING HER CARD AND KEYS OUT.

I was cursing and swearing already because I had to like pay RMB20 to borrow an extra set of my locker keys from the HR dept.

But then, I realized that I had EVERYTHING I needed. I sent my uniform for washing on Friday so I can just collect it from the laundry, I was already wearing my stockings and I could borrow the hair net from YJ because her hair is short now. I was so happy that I could just borrow YJ's locker for the day...

BUT; yes the but word. MY SHOES ARE INSIDE MY LOCKER!

Damn it. That's the only thing that I can't borrow! I thought of wearing my boots upstairs but it seemed like a crazy idea. So yeah, I wasted RMB20 just to retrieve my shoes! Wth. I totally felt like banging my head against the wall.

The only thing good that happened at work was the number of GDS forms they gave me in the morning. Less than 20 (: Sweet.

But we did more shop calls first and when I finished my GDS I helped YJ do some callings and I got damn pissed by some woman because she was so unreasonable and rude. I wasn't in the best of moods so I just cut her call (:

Another bad thing happened. A super VIP member of the hotel didn't get picked-up at the airport because the email wasn't read properly and the data wasn't keyed into Opera. It's like damn serious I think because he's a VIP and Rice is handling the situation: /

Although it wasn't entirly our fault, but still. Maybe we should be sent back to BQT so there'll be less screw ups :P

We slacked around (reading blogs, playing online games) for like 2 hours before YH called us and asked if we wanted to go to BK for lunch.

So we went to find him and Cherry & Goh were there too. Lunched for 1hour before heading back and I tried to download msn messenger but instead I could use windows live msn so yay! I can finally be online when I'm at work now (:

After work YJ and I went over to Super Brand Mall to look for Joanne. Walked around for a bit before cabbing home (:

And I’ve bee watching Jeff Dunham on youtube. It’s so amusing!

Replies

KC: Cant! I need money to survive! HAHAHA.

2007-11-04T23:06:00.000+08:00

I was woken up at around 10.30am today because we needed to wash our bed sheets.

It’s such a chore to take out all the sheet covers and pillow case covers. Our washing machine wasn’t big enough to contain all the stuff we needed to wash so we went over to JY’s to borrow their washing machine (:

And without a doubt, there wasn’t enough space to hang all the stuff outside to dry. So we used our clothes rack for the huge bed sheet and left the other one aside to be hung out later.

Angela, YJ, JY and I then cabbed down to Super Brand Mall because YJ and JY had a hair cut appointment and Angela and I went SHOPPING!

We spent most of our time at H&M and I bought RMB800 worth of tops, a pair of gloves and a bag.

We then headed to the bank and Watsons before going up to some restaurant for Dim Sum.

Soon enough, the 2 were done with their hair cut and joined us. We ordered pigeons and the usual Dim Sum stuff.

JY then left to meet CF to go collect their custom-made coats while we went to H&M again cuz YJ wanted to shop and we needed to get fa piao’s for JY.

I ended up buying another jacket which cost RMB250. So in total I spent close to RMB1000 in H&M.

I know I need to stop shopping like that. I’m so going broke soon.

The rest of the people headed to eat Sheng Jian Bao but I didn’t go because I was still so full.

Our landlord came over to collect our 1 month overdue rent and also to pass us more hangers for our clothes.

And after that they called me and they were at Dong Chang MRT station. So I headed down to walk along the streets and I shopped AGAIN. OMG!!!

I bought like 2 belts and a sweater to sleep in. It’s considered very little already! I know I know, I need to stop spending money.

Replies

KC: I can't help it. HELP!

2007-11-03T23:32:00.000+08:00

Despite it being my off day, I still had to wake up early (well, at least 2 hours later than my normal working days).

I walked all the way down to Super Brand Mall because I had an appointment with Toni & Guy Academy to get a hair cut!

The best part- it’s for FREE.

Although my hair was being cut by a trainee, it wasn’t bad at all. We were inside this room where all the trainees were and there were also professionals there to make sure they didn’t ruin our hair.

The guy that cut my hair was quite cute! He was so random most of the time I didn’t bother to answer his comments. The whole hair cut took like 1 and a half hours.

They drew some stuff on the mirror indicating how to cut the hair and how many degrees the cut should be etc etc. It was quite interesting to see how they learn to be professional hair dressers.

So yeah, my hair’s short now- not that short, but until my neck bone.

After my hair cut, I met YJ and JY for lunch at that Korean restaurant. We then cabbed down to Qi Pu Lu and the stupid cab driver drove us in circles and our total cab fare was RMB25 (when we cabbed back from Qi Pu Lu last time it only cost us RMB15).

We called to complain but somehow it didn’t work.

Shopping was crazy today. Not like we bought a lot of things, but there were so many people there! We couldn’t walk properly and so many people were squeezing inside the mall.

It was so hard to shop but we didn’t come back empty handed (: I bought like 2 pairs of boots, 1 top and 1 coat.

Walking back to the MRT station was such a challenge too because our garbage bags kept on tearing and there were so many times our stuff almost falled out! So, we had to hug the garbage bags and walk to the train station and thankfully we reached home without dropping any thing.

2007-11-02T22:15:00.000+08:00

We wanted to wake up 15mins earlier today to head to the bank to deposit money before heading to work but our plan failed. Not because we woke up late, but because we didn't bother rushing to get out of the house earlier :P To make things worse, we we're 10mins late for work. Haha.

I blame it on the weather; we need to wear thicker clothes and wearing it and then taking it all off to change into our uniform takes more time you see.

I thought today I'd be doing GDS only, but when we were doing shop calls, Nancy asked me to do callings for Sat, Sun and Mon while YJ called Wed and Thurs because occupancy is expected to be freaking high.

I hate doing call arrivals. Oh, we took some videos of us at work for our multi-media project (: We're working on it, slowly.

So, I spent the whole morning calling and calling. Finally it was lunch time and YJ and I headed to the staff canteen to eat (we brought money just in case the food wasn't to our liking).

Food was quite okay though, so we ate there. But, after eating we were still not full! We headed over to Super Brand Mall after that to look for more food. We settled for large fries and 2 pineapple pies @ Macs (:

Soon enough, we won't be able to go out of the hotel to eat because of the weather. It's way too cold to be dressed in a suit only and walk across to the mall.

I came back and finished all the call arrivals. I was given a thick stack of GDS bookings in the morning so I finished that up too. Although we're quite occupied with work, I don't like facing the computer for such long hours :( My eyes hurt.

So I was like typing in the GDS bookings and stoning when YJ received a call from Joanne. Guess who she saw at the hotel?

LOUIS KOO.

We so made an excuse to go out of the office to print the reports and off we headed to Shenyang Room to see if we could get a glimpse of him.

The doors were shut, and the BQT staff said we couldn't go in :( He's here for some event today and there's outside catering near the Bund. But, they don't allow female staff to work! How unfair.

We hung around for awhile and the doors opened twice because someone walked out of the room. We saw him sitting down inside. And finally, the whole group of them walked out of the room and he walked past us. He's not as tall as he seems to be. And we couldn't take photos with him.

That was the end of the whole celebrity saga and we headed up again so I could complete yet another stack (thinner this time round) of GDS bookings before ending work.

Our initial plan was to go home first because my leggings were loose and YJ’s feet hurt from her boots. But then we got lazy because the MRT station was just next to our hotel and we didn’t want to walk for like 20mins home to change before going out again.

So we met JY at Nan Jing Dong MRT station and walked around Nan Jing Road. We didn’t do much shopping because things are expensive there.

We got hungry and ate at Da Niang Jiao Zi and walked around some more. Saw Bread Talk and bought bread to eat (:

We walked the whole stretch of Nan Jing Road but didn’t buy a single thing. Raffles Place was just nearby so we decided to go there.

The shopping mall feel’s so much like Singapore! Food court at the basement and top floor and brands such as Mango, Fox, Aldo etc etc.

Again, we didn’t buy anything but we headed right to the top and ordered dessert (: It was something similar to ice kachang but not that similar.

Our plan was to take the RMB2 ferry back to Pudong but I think it was a half an hour walk so we decided to forget it and take the train instead because the train station was just THERE.

Finally, 1 week has gone by and being stuck in Reservations doing GDS is so boring. I’m only looking forward to weekends now.

2007-11-01T23:40:00.000+08:00

Lets not talk about work today because it's so routined :(

Anyhoo I tried to call KC and freaked him out at his office in the morning :P I also tried calling Karen when it was like 3am at her side but I couldn't get through.

The food at the canteen sucked today so we decided to eat out. YH, YJ and I walked out in the cold weather all the way to Citi Tower to buy SUBWAY! The bad thing is that it's only take away there so we had to walk all the way back to the hotel immediately. I swear it was freezing cold.

We headed next to the BQT office's meeting room to eat our lunch before going back up to work again.

There was a fire drill in the hotel today but we people in the RSV dept didn't know anything about it! Not fun.

I finished up all the GDS bookings they gave me and had nothing else to do. Helped YJ send some emails, did some call arrivals and I was free.

Thank goodness for the internet because I was reading gossip blogs, garfield comic strips and playing tetris (:

After work we met Joanne and Angela to eat in the staff canteen. We decided to take the 7pm shuttle bus home because the weather was too cold to walk for 20mins.

Saw Maxim outside and killed time by chatting with him until it was time for us to take the shuttle.

YJ and I then went out with JY and CF to Ba Bai Ban to shop because JY wanted to get boots.

We left the house at around 8pm and the first thing we did was to buy ice cream to eat in the cold weather! Walked down and it was super quiet- barely any stores were opened.

We walked to and fro the streets for like 4 times before the stores started opening slowly. Compared to last time, it's considered little. But, I still managed to get myself a bag, wallet, socks and leggings.

Everytime we walk the streets, I'll never fail to buy at least something :P

We headed back and sat downstairs our house to eat shao kao! Damn, I think I'm addicted to it already and I'm always ordering the same thing. It's super cheap too. RMB1 per stick (2o cents SGD; cheaper than satay lah!).

JY then came over to our place to settle money and we gossiped all the way until we fell asleep :P

Replies

KC: Why?! Sometimes, you'll just get so sick of the food you're eating and Maggie Mee feels like the nicest thing on earth.

2007-10-31T22:57:00.000+08:00

I received a sms at like 6am in the morning. Jun Wei’s in China, again.

Didn’t reply him until I was out of the house and walking to work and when he called me I was at Citi Tower (beside the hotel) and he told me he was at Pearl Tower (at the other side of the hotel). Too bad I couldn’t meet him to get my stuff because his tour bus was leaving already. I gotta wait for another 6 days or something until I can get the stuff I asked my mum to pack from Singapore!

From today onwards, the people in our dept told YJ and I to split the work. So, I’m currently doing all the GDS bookings and YJ’s doing all the call arrivals.

I was bombarded with 65 GDS bookings in the morning and I faced the computer the whole day imputing all the data into Opera.

Soon enough it was lunch and finally after a long time the canteen food was NICE! We had minced meat noodles, fried chicken wings and sweet and sour pork (:

We tried to go to the general cashier to get our pay but when we went there, it was at 3.30pm :(

So we went up again and I thought I was free already because I finished all the 65 bookings but I was given another 25 bookings to do again!

After completing the next 25 bookings it was 3.30pm so we went down to the general cashier to get our pay. There was a queue there and we started queuing!!

It kinda sucked because we knew some of the people in the queue as well and we didn’t want them to know how much we were taking. Because it’s the first time we’re getting our pay, it’ll be in cash and for RMB, the biggest note is RMB100.

So imagine us getting RMB6000; that’s like 60 RMB100 notes which is quite thick!

And the stupid cashier has this machine to count the money and this BQT staff that was behind us was trying so hard to see how much we got and I think he saw.

Its not that we don’t want anyone to know how much we’re getting, but it’s not very nice because our pay is considered damn high here.

So after our pay we went to print out the reports and went up again. Having nothing to do when I went up I started surfing the internet and play games until I was given another 20 GDS bookings to do.

I had only 45mins left so I quickly did it to leave work on time! We headed over to Lotus to look for Joanne and Angela cuz they ended work at like 4.30pm.

We did grocery shopping!! :D :D Bought fruits, yoghurt, junk, etc. Cabbed home after that.

The most random thing happened when we came home. We were packing our newly bought groceries and suddenly we realized that the Soya Bean Milk in the fridge was leaking and dripped onto the floor. And then we started to say “omg the house is so dirty, let’s clean it!”

And yes, we started off with the kitchen area because of the spilt milk, then I went to wash the toilet that was filled with hair, YJ and Angela swept the floor and mopped the room and Joanne mopped the kitchen area.

There was hair all over and we took quite some time to clean it and waited for the floor to dry.

Watched “Shop Girl” for awhile and I cooked Maggie Mee for dinner. The show was quite boring and we stopped watching it after half an hour. And since all of us had already gotten our pay, we settled money (:

Replies

I want to come back skinnier! HOW. OMG. But you said I didn't gain weight. So hopefully I'd remain the same OR become skinnier in like 3 months! HAHAHA.

2007-10-30T22:45:00.000+08:00

Work started at 9am as usual. We thought that we could take our pay today because it’s 30 Oct but when we went down to the general cashier, the person said that it’s either tomorrow or when the notice is up :(

So much for being so hyped up getting RMB6000 at one shot. Sigh. We still gotta wait.

When I was doing the arrival calls today, I had to call someone from Hong Kong. And then I found out how to make overseas calls so I tried to call my dad. And it worked!!

So I was like calling my dad, 2 aunts, mum, Lance, Jun Wei, Nadia, my ah ma and chatted with them (: The good thing is that I don’t have to pay a single cent because I’m using the hotel’s phone but I don’t know if they need to pay or not.

We also did shop calls to ask if they had any Christmas promotions and also keyed in all the GDS bookings.

Hubert said he wanted to meet all 7 of us at Yi Café at 4pm so we went down. We chatted for almost an hour about what we’ve learnt so far. He’s really concerned and wants us to make the most out of our stay here.

After work, we met Joanne and Angela because they ended work an hour earlier than us. Joanne was going to meet her aunt for dinner so all 3 of us went along too.

We headed down to Ba Bai Ban to meet them before walking to another building to eat steamboat. The food there wasn’t that bad but it wasn’t filling.

There were very minimal road side stalls today and because we were still hungry we headed over to KFC and I ordered an egg tart (:

We then went opposite our house to buy ice-cream to eat in the cold weather and then Joanne and I sat down to eat Shao Kao.

Hopefully we’re able to get our pay tomorrow. I so want that amount of money badly.

2007-10-29T21:54:00.000+08:00

It’s the normal routine again.

YJ and I finally managed to reach work ON TIME (:

We were thrown to do arrival callings, shop callings and GDS bookings for the whole damn day.

There wasn’t much to call so we sort of slacked a bit by using the internet. All we did was surf friendster, read blogs, check emails, played tetris and bejeweled.

It was damn funny when either of us would pop up of our cubical and peep over to go “eh, what you doing huh?” and started laughing so loudly when we see each other playing games or doing anything else except Opera and Lotus.

We also lunched early at 11.30am today because we didn’t have much breakfast. Disgusted by canteen food, we decided to go over to Super Brand Mall without knowing what to eat. In the end we settled for Macs.

Nearing the end of the day, we had to go down to level 1 (where the rubbish area is) and head to some engineering room to print out reports. I hate the place because it’s super smelly!

We had to print 4 days worth of reports because we didn’t get Thursday and Friday’s one printed out + the weekends.

Headed back upstairs to slowly count figures for another report and I heard that someone was looking for me over the phone. I thought it was some guest or something so I pretended I didn’t hear them calling my name but in the end they transferred the call over to me :(

And no, it wasn’t any guest but our dear assistant director of F&B; Goh.

“Hello, Kim ah. What time you guys knock off today? Can come help me with some stuff?”

“Actually, we’ve got nothing much to do already so we’ll just tell Nancy you’re looking for us and we leave now okay?”

“Okay, see you later at BQT office.”

I had no clue what he wanted us to help him with but it was good that we got to leave half an hour earlier because we really had nothing to do. Even if we stayed, we’ll end up playing online games for another half an hour.

In the end, Goh wanted us to help him reply email (s). He told us what he wanted to reply and we had to go up to Yi Café to take measurements of a coffee machine -.-

We took like one and a half hours helping him reply the email. It doesn’t sound as crazy as it seems because he took time explaining to us what to reply, we went up to measure the coffee machine, went down to type the email, waited for him to come back and check, spent more time discussing what else to include, editing the email and attachment and finally sending it to the EAM of F&B.

And you know what, we could clock in this extra one and a half hours as OT! :D Goh even agreed to treat YJ and I to Yi Café someday because we helped him. Hahaha.

YJ and I were starving by the time we finished but the canteen food sucked today we didn’t even wanna eat there after looking at the food. We were deciding where to eat and almost settled on Subway but the only problem was that they didn’t have any seats!

So, we decided to go to Super Brand Mall again (minimum walking distance out in the cold) to eat (without knowing what we wanted).

In the end, we settled for Korean food! 1 Bibibap meal (miso soup + salad + fruits) cost us RMB30. C-H-E-A-P.

We both had a meal each and were super full after that because we finished everything on our plates!

Our initial plan was to drag time until 8.30pm to take the last shuttle bus home because we weren’t dressed very well for the cold weather (I was in flip flops and YJ didn’t bring her jacket).

But in the end, we ate until 8.45pm and decided to take a very slow walk home to digest the food and we reached home at 9.30pm!

Replies:

KC: I'm working very hard too!! I'm clocking in OT you know :P