The Apple of His Eyes
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Yoga Lesson
Yoga is something which I deemed not-so efficacious in losing weight, and to me, it is almost as stultify as golf. “How can one sweat it all out with just stretching?!” I always thought to myself.
So even with free offers for the past few years, I was neither moved (by the offer) nor motivated (to lose weight by practicing Yoga). However, due to the expanding waistline ever since I came back from my Taiwan and Paris trip, I guess it’s time to move a little of my stiff body.
One of my colleagues recommended ‘lunch-time workout’ and I thought, “Why not?”
So I went ahead to book a session of Sivananda Yoga, which is another form of Hatha Yoga which consists of a series of 12 basic poses: Headstand, Shoulderstand, Plow, Fish, Seated Forward Bend, Cobra, Locust, Bow, Half Spinal Twist, Crow, Standing Forward Bend and Triangle.
There weren’t many students (about 8) in the studio for obvious reason, i.e. lunch time and I thought, “WTH, I will be sticking up like a sore thumb since I am the only one without experience!” True enough, I was extremely laggard in class; even the old aunty in front of me looks like a pro. I did many moves that were beyond me and my imagination (that I can achieve them!) and it is almost 10 times harsher than the aerobic class which I previously attended.
What I couldn’t imagine myself doing was the headstand. “Crazy” is the word I nearly blurt out when I saw the instructor demonstrating in front of me, unsupported. He encouraged me to try and I made known to him this is my first time and NO THANKS for trying it. I gave him the excuse that I had low blood pressure, but he assured that I will only feel a tinge of giddiness after that. Not given a choice to say ‘no’, I plucked up my courage to do it with the help of my instructor and with support.
It feels good, to be upside down.
Yoga appears to me as an exercise less strenuous, however in actual fact, it emphasized a lot on postures, flexibility and concentration. And I have none of the mentioned. Overall, it was an interesting learning experience for me, except for the part whereby the brazen old aunty in front of me farted continuously and loudly.
I left the studio knowing that I will be immobile tomorrow.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
How do you know...
that you got through your probation period in your new job?
Here's how.
I launched my company portal to view my to-do list. Ran a search on my name. Page refreshed!
Congratulation! You have 122 items on your to-do list!
Not that I daunted by the amount of tasks assigned to me and not that I am under the gun to get things done. Its just... Erm... Maybe... Unfortunate.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Moving the Shell
Some of you may know that the official key handover 'ceremony' will be this coming 21st Oct and I will be out of the house on 16th Oct.
It took us 1 week plus to pack everything and still the packing is still in progress.
Packing my clothes alone takes 2 days.
Kevin has 4 boxes of clothes.
Ziv has 2.5 boxes of clothes.
I have... 12 boxes of clothes. Its time to stop buying.
The new house is not going to be foofaraw which I deemed unnecessary. One good thing about Kevin being in the window furnishing business. Everything concerning window (privacy) is being taken care of.
Not so titillate about the move, but I will survive. I will get used to the new place, eventually. Maybe even before I get used to it, we already found a new place (again).
And.
I HATE MOVING.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Just a conversation
As i was titivating myself in the mirror this morning Kevin walked past me, took a glimpse of THE bag.
Kevin: So, you've gotten your Birkin for the coming birthday. Don't expect anything from me next year. (my birthday is actually next year)
Me: (in absolute disbelieve) What?! Who told you this is THE present? (shake my forefinger rigolously) Uh uh! No!
Readers! Tell me!
Do you remember I said Birkin is going to be my birthday present?
A) I remembered, you blog about it!
B) Nah! No such thing!
If your answer is (A), i take it that you are sleep-talking. Answer again.
If your amswer is (B), you are the most honest person i ever know. BFF!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Hossan Leong Show
Caught the HoHoHossan Leong show last Sunday and man, it was a hoot and Hossan never fail me with his uproarious style of presenting the show.
It was our first time watching a show live and it is different from the Dim Sum Dollies and Broadway Beng which we attended. They even have games segments and some sponsored sections like sending an audience to a makeover session and at the end of the show we’ll get to see her transformation (it is quite sad to be chosen, anyway, that means, ‘sorry, you have got no style!’) and pick an audience who has the whitest set of teeth to win $120 etc. Some parts of the show are cliché, but the wacky portions help to balance up the whole show that makes it truly entertaining.
The only drawback of the show, it is TOO short, we need more. I am looking forward to Broadway Beng during early Dec.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Broken Promise
... but please la... it is HERMES ok!
Shattered.
Crushed.
Burnt.
Whatever you want to call my broken promise. I think some may recall that I made a pact, one to set a limit of 2 bags per year and well over the years, the total value of both bags increased by 1 to 2 folds. So, perhaps deciding on a number of bags just doesn’t work and restricting a maximum credit will be a better way to deter over-spending.
We’ll leave it to next year because it is all too late now.
Thinking that I am giving myself excuse to splurge? Alright, let’s talk about facts. So tell me, which IT bag victim will leave Paris, the birth place of Hermes without a birkin (provided there is stock available)?
No way! Over my dead body! Siao ah?
It is not like you enter Hermes one rainy day to seek shelter and since you are there and you nonchalantly asked, “Any Birkin?” and Voilà! The sales shoved you one and even ask the color you prefer.
The above situation will NOT and NEVER happen.
Let me explain myself why it is worth to break a promise for a Birkin.
It is often when you enter the shop and asked the same old question and classically 9 out of 10 times the sales will snort, “No stock for the day”, when probe further about the availability, the sales will not look into your eyes but somewhere else and snap, “ I have no idea.”
Now, get it? This is how covet a Birkin is.
It is bananas to say this but I m not possessed when I m typing this.
Listen.
Each Hermes Birkin has their own story on how each find the owner, its true and this is my story.
I went to Paris with an idea what I which Birkin I want to buy. The color, the material, the size, I know what I want. But as days go by, towards the 3rd day of my stay in Paris, my instruction to Kevin is really easy as pie. Just get me a Birkin of any size. Or a Kelly is fine too. Any color is cool too.
Because each time, the answer to the availability is ‘No’, ‘Sorry’, and refusing to take NO for an answer, Kevin starts to believe they don’t sell to Asians. Well that’s ‘a silly thought’ and I assured him, there’s simply no stock. Seriously, I m not sure about that but I just wanna make sure that Kevin still believes in the possibilities of getting a Birkin over the counter.
My first day of Hermes was disastrous. It was elbow-to-elbow in both shops and I couldn’t even get someone to attend to me. Finally I found one and the answer was standard.
You know what, the sales at Hermes are so fortunate, they work shorter hours than me, they open at 1030am and close at 6pm. And I cannot make it to the store on time since I work on 9am to 6pm. I was lucky to have Kevin, my Hermes broker to pay the both shops a visit, twice a day to ask for stock. I know it has been hard on him, but he knows I LIKE IT A LOT and so, sorry, no choice.
On the 5th day, which is a Friday, I almost give up, cause I know it is impossible to get one so last minute, however, at 3pm, I received a call from Kevin. He asked me to look down my office. OH MY GOSH, I nearly swooned at the sight of the orange paper bag. Couldn’t contain my excitement when I see him carrying a super big orange bag with a super big orange box in the bag. So I am a proud owner of Birkin. Come to think of it, I didn’t ask the color and size not to mention the amount.
I rushed back to hotel after work and opened it up. Not my ideal color and material, but its Birkin, so who cares.
Kevin told me that there was someone ahead of him, contemplating if he should buy the bag for his wife, but he feared that the material is not scratch resistance and so he gave it up. At that time standing around the guy waiting for him to make a decision is like having stomach cramp. He tried to act cool, so that the guy ahead of him will not buy because knowing that someone is going to buy it straightaway after him.
So once they guy breathed, “No.” Kevin immediately tells the sales to PACK ignoring the color and the price totally. He only knows it was size 35.
Actually I feel sorry for Kevin to put him under so much pressure, it is worse than buying stocks…
Anyway, I never see that a bag comes with air bags and specially designed raincoat. Anyway, for those who are interested in Hermes, the tax rebate is only 10%. I am not sure why it is so special.
So may I present…
The raincoat, lock and whatnot.
Blue not my ideal... but its fine.
Paris
So despite of the very unhappy flight home, Paris, overall is still a go-able place.
I still remembered my conversation with Kevin a month ago when we were at Taipei.
K: Taipei is so hot! I wish we can go somewhere cool, just like Japan.
C: Yeah, I prefer the weather in San Francisco.
A few weeks later, I was told to go to Paris.
Dreams come true?
Maybe.
Photo blog...
Main entrance of Notre Dame:
Back of Notre Dame along Sein River:
Where is this place? Kevin touring at his leisure.
View from Effiel Tower at night, it is super cold up there. It took us 2 hours to queue for tickets and get to the summit! And about another hour to queue to come down!!
Effiel Tower with special lightings:
Effiel Tower in normal lightings:
Effiel Tower in the day:
Cafe Marley just beside Lourve Museum:
One of the street which I thought was nice:
A typical supper for almost every night in Paris:
Best macaron in the world is from LaDuree and I had all 6 for myself:
Foie Gras for Appetizier by Air France Business Class:
This is what happened after 10 hours of flight on Air France, without makeup, after a nap:
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
SQ333
I am a passenger of SQ333, and a very unhappy one.
First of all, during the flight to Singapore, about 2 hours later, we heard a stuttering pilot talking over the intercom, conveying to us about the engine failure. His stuttering told me that he is in fear, and he did not know what to do. He made all the passengers on board panic and not knowing what’s next. Or ‘are we all going to die?’ If you think that the newly crowned Miss Singapore World speaks poor English, then this pilot is 10 times worst! If Singaporeans think that the Miss Singapore World is going to disgrace Singapore (if she ever represent Singapore), well, sad to say, Mr Pilot already does! He disgraced Singapore in front of Australians, French, Americans and people of different nations.
No explanation about engine failure has been done through the intercom for about an hour or so. Lots of passengers started making up stories, sighting smokes coming out from engine and creating more mess and fear among us. This is just not the right way to handle situation like this and I thought pilots should be educated in their schools to remain calm when such incident happened and SIA should have a protocol for the pilot to follow not just in terms of navigating the flight, but to calm the passengers, assuring us that ‘we are going to be fine’.
Although the pilot emerged several hours later to inform us that the plane works on 4 engines and one of them failed, it just didn’t really matters to us at all, cause that was what we heard from fellow passengers and all of us were already panic, these kind of information should be conveyed to us from the beginning and not several hours later.
Anyway, more unhappy things followed, in brief:
- We waited for about 1.5hours at the baggage collection area, clueless about what caused the engine failure and ‘are we going home?’
- We waited in the cold, about 17Degree Celsius for tour bus to pick us up to some hotels, note that no one told us, which hotels we are going and where! To think that I really trusted SIA so much that I got on to the tour bus. The wait was about 2 hours depending on whether we are kiasu enough to dash across the road (lucky not to get killed) and up to the tour bus. The tour bus driver drove recklessly and nearly killed us all while stopping in front of us. If getting on a flight with engine failure is not traumatizing enough, then this one is surely to wake me up.
- Reached the hotel, a representative from SIA told us to go up to put our luggage and come down to the lobby for a briefing or information update, unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Everyone is still in lost.
- I decided to trust SIA again that you will bring us home safely and so during this period of time, my husband and I remained calm. We did not pursue for any answers from SIA, we waited for SIA to contact us.
- However, I realized on the next day, a significant number of Caucasians passengers packed-up and leave the hotel, seemed to be going to the airport. I was slightly disappointed, aren’t we Singaporean given a priority in times of such incident, even if we don’t, then why can’t SIA be fair about allocating passengers? Not like we don’t need to go home, just because we are not transiting to somewhere else like the Caucasians.
- Finally, was assigned to Dubai and then back to Singapore. Although this is not our ideal flight and means more time onboard, but we accepted it willingly, because we don’t want to pose more troubles to SIA and the staff organizing all these. I don’t even want to delve into questions why some people can get direct flights and some don’t.
- The flight paper had my husband name on it, but not mine, and the staff assured me that ‘it was joint’ so I can get onboard, even my name is not there.
- Reached the airport 3 hours ahead of the flight time, just to be sure that nothing going to happen again. More disappointment! We were not allowed on flight by Air France because apparently, the flight paper which we are holding is not even confirm and even if Air France allowed us to get on board, there was no flight from Dubai to Singapore (via Emirates) and if we get on board of the flight to Dubai, that would mean that we are going to get stranded in Dubai! I don’t believe SIA let this happened.
- The group of about 20 of us, could not get on flight and so Air France let us make a call to the local SIA to ask for an explanation and guess what, after talking for a few minutes with one of the passengers, this person (not sure if her name is Marie) hang up on us and refused to pick up our subsequent calls.
- We heard about someone in the T1 office for SIA, but it was out of bound to us and when we tried to contact them, they were off duty.
- Lost and stranded again, I made long distance call to Singapore SIA for help and they did help us, but due to the distance, it was not a timely help, there were lots of ding-dongs here and there and I literally pass the phone to the Air France crew to talk to the SIA person and the gate closed shortly even before things were sorted out!
- To think that I trusted SIA so much that SIA will help us to get home, I was really disappointed, we were push around like burden in the airport, no one to help us when we needed the most, flights details were shoved to us without getting confirm and ‘we are literally on our own in this foreign land’! I see fellow passengers came very early to the airport and running within the terminals just to get an answer. Why is SIA so cruel to local like us?
After this entire ordeal, I decided to plan my own trip home, since SIA is inefficient. I booked the next available flight from Paris to Shanghai and then Shanghai to Singapore, there is only business class available, but I couldn’t care more, because I WANT TO GO HOME, I don’t want to carry my 40 kg luggage around the airport and back to hotel and wait for unconfirmed flights again.
I don’t know if SIA is going to settle this in a cheap manner, because why are we not put on flight for Shanghai, is it because it is business class? Is it more cost-efficient to make us stranded in Paris then putting us up on business class flight so that we can GET HOME?
My husband and I and 2 other mothers with their 2 5-year old kids booked the flight, the SIA staff on the phone asked us to hold, but the Air France crew could not wait anymore because the flight is not taking in passenger anymore for the next 1 minute. Ultimately, we still chose to believe in making our own arrangement rather than stuck in Paris with SIA.
I don’t take ‘isolated case’ as an excuse. It’s a shame that SIA being so established do not have a team on risk or crisis management. Coming from a public relation background and not practicing it, I cannot comprehend why there isn’t a team in SIA to work protocols in times of crisis like this? You should have the team to analyze on different situations that may happen especially when we are dealing passengers in terms of hundreds. And if you already have the team in SIA, I think you should either fire them all or re-train them again, because this is not what established companies do. There are many case studies on how big companies handle crisis and SIA is nowhere near their standards.
We booked SIA because we wanted direct flight, but we already accommodated SIA by accepting the transit flights, which is not what we signed up for in the beginning, and it brings us lots of pain to do the transit because we have huge luggage.
