1. dslr
2. our house
3. have a good and matured dress sense by 31 years old
4. tour N. Territory, Hokkaido, Africa, States, Europe
Monday, December 21, 2009
10:52 PM
Some pics
Our upcoming December tour
Coffee egg, made by my manager's husband's friend
Taken from pregnant fish stomach, dried and air-tight it
Nantou: Hot guiling gao with peanuts and lots of ingredients at the bottom of the cup such as red beans
Saturday, December 19, 2009
9:38 PM
Earthquake!!!
Earthquake AGAIN! 2nd most serious earthquake that I experienced during this secondment. :( I can't wait to go home!!!
Its cold outside, so I rot in my hotel room @ 19th floor for the whole day. Just now while I was internet messaging my husband, the chair shakes (quite common). Then the wardrobe door open and close, the drawers as well, curtains swaying, the whole room seems to SHAKE! Not again - earthquake :-\
@level 19... you can imagine how much impact I felt
Sunday, December 13, 2009
11:09 AM
Stupid thing one after another
This is stupid... very stupid!
Tomorrow I have to wake up by 5.30am to catch the first high-speed train to Taichung then take cab to client's place WITH my luggage, handbag and laptop! (bus->MRT->HSR->cab)
Next week, I have to travel to and fro client's place at Taoyuan (yes, its Taoyuan again) via bus->train->cab. Travelling will take 4 hours everyday for 2-way. And the worst thing is that I am booked on this engagement for 4 days (4*8=32 working hours) but I have to work on a 51 hours task. What is this! ^#&*%%@%$#
The Director asks if we can OT, how to reject right? Its Christmas week loh and my hubby is touching down on Christmas eve early evening.
PS: Over here, Christmas is not a public holiday, so don't ever think of getting half day on Christmas eve. My coy in SG has 0.5day off on eve. :(
I can't wait to return to SG!!! Its now do I realise that I am very fortunate to work in my office in SG. *8 people from my department has resigned in these 2 months.
Lazy nights at hotel - called for room service
228 Peace Park (a place that I will pass by when going for piano practice)
Yesterday 5ish pm view from my balcony
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
9:55 PM
I want this secondment to end asap
$ is not easy to earn. Allowance is so little and I have to work so hard. Life here is much tougher than Singapore especially on the travelling and job scope. The scope covered in this department, which is the same name as my Singapore's department, overlap to a few of my Singapore departments. Not only that, most of the engagement requires documentation in Traditional Chinese. Its not just simple mandarin statement but in wen(2) yen(2) wen(2). :( No wonder the turnover rate is so high. People usually leave after 2 years.
There is a reason for staying at least 2 years. Over here, all the big 4 require the staff to sign a 2-year agreement. If they resign before 2 years, they must compensate the company with the outstanding month's salary.
I can't wait to return to SG... Back to my loved ones.
Everyday, I am counting down to the last day of my secondment. Keep telling myself that if I wanna go home, I must go through these difficult engagements, one after another.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
9:52 PM
*releasing myself
I dun like the culture here. Over here, being a Senior is like a very powerful thing. Can scold, yell and intimidate the juniors in front of clients. Maybe this is just one of the rare case and unfortunately for me, this Team-In-Charge (sometimes Field Manager) is my "buddy" hence most of my engagements will be working with her.
There's a few times, I feel like telling her nicely on how she can make the junior staff feel better. But I still don't feel appropriate.
Actually, its not just junior staff, even team members (any rank, definitely lower or same as her), she will make them look like they are under her IN FRONT of the client.
I don't remember seeing such thing in SG. In SG, the least respect we can give the team members is not to intimidate them in front of the clients. It does us no good anyway. It might in fact worsen the engagement when the client looks down on the team members and end up giving them problems, which will result in delay in our delivery.
One thing I don't understand about this "buddy" is why does she like to "coach" staff in front of the client? To make herself look like the lead, so that she (herself ONLY) earns respect from the client?
She is the same rank as me but she got retain by a year. And it seems that high chance she will get promoted next year because 50% of the managers resigned and she is the only staff who got retained for not promoting as a Manager. I guess more staff will suffer if she gets promoted.
As of now, I can already see all of the staff being afraid of her and never dare to oppose her, except me. :X I would say that I am already considered as one of the good-tempered people around and even I can't stand her. Can't tolerate her. But of course, knowing her character, I try to avoid heaty argument with her. But when I need to explain for myself, I will still speak up and make sure things don't end up badly since she is my "buddy" and I will have a lot of chances working with her.
Other than her, all the rest of my colleagues are very nice people. :) Maybe that's why she can put her weight around. :( I truly feel that she is a serious problem in this department. In my first engagement, which was with her, I was shocked when she scold a Senior staff over a minor thing. I quickly helped the Senior cover up before she teared.
I feel so "lonely" over here. There's no one I can speak my mind to (complains of the staff here ;p). I really can't stand it that I start blogging this entry before drying my hair!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
11:14 AM
updates on these few days
Finally! I'm BACK at Taipei! I miss my hotel sooo much! I never know that heater will not be installed indoors. This is pretty strange indeed. Taiwan is a country with 4 seasons, obviously including the bitter cold winter. How can they (my client's place and resort) NOT install heater??? This is ridiculous!!!!!!! :-((((((((((((((((((((((
From this Tuesday to Friday, I only spent NT$75 on meal. :X Well, you must be thinking how is it possible right? Breakfasts are covered by the resort. Not nice, but at least I won't starve. Lunch and dinner are provided in the client's canteen. Not nice, but that place is super ulu that its not easy to get food unless you take cab to another district which only has maybe 1 foodstore.
On my first night, I spent NT$65 for a microwave meal from 7-11 as I was not aware that the client's canteen provides dinner. Another NT$10 was a chocolate bar (Yes, I don't snack, but if I don't get it to keep me going for my evening journey back to Taipei, I don't think I can endure till the 8pm dinner appointment with colls).
I was surprised that my colleagues treated me dinner yesterday! I thought it was just a dinner outing with me... We dined at the famous 一品花雕雞 (http://www.1ping.com.tw). The 花雕雞 is nice. The wine taste is thick.
The booking was so full that we only managed to get the 8pm slot. All I can say is that the food is special. I have not seen any of them in SG, other than the 2 types of veggies and plain rice with sesame seeds. :X The steamboat was served four times by adding water to the original thick wine soup with different side dishes by first having the 花雕雞, followed by some special dishes (dunno what balls, 年糕 and 崇), then another set of special dishes (pork blood with ricecake, some dry soy thingy and something that looks like "coin" dumpling but isn't), and finally 2 types of veggies. All these side dishes were customised depend on your own preference.
They also arranged for a Sunday "day tour" for me, but was deferred at the last minute as 2 colls have something on at the last minute: family and work.
Just like last weekends, I plan to only go to piano school, and simple places for lunch and dinner. I gonna be really careful of my spending till payday which is end of next week. I need to find time to return to office to meet up with my HR to get the cheque and to go the bank as well, which is only opened on weekdays 10am-3.30pm. :-\
Weekends are always so short, how nice if its only 4 working days a week...
At the start, I was still thinking of going around Taipei to tour over the weekends, but without at least NT$5000 on hand, you will not enjoy the touring. I dislike the feeling of seeing something that I want but can't afford. :-|
If not for the NT$5000+ surgery, I would have been enjoying myself in these 2 weeks. Actually if I wanna shop a bit in this weekends, it is still possible, but I better save it for rainy days. *touchwood*
Pictures taken from the resort
View from the balcony:
View of the room
(erm.. blur pic but at least you can figure out something)
(blur as well)
*while walking from breakfast area back to guest room. stupid right? have to walk outside. if its raining, u've to carry umbrella JUST to eat breakfast in the resort. -_-
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
9:02 PM
of this week's engagement
Life in this engagement is only work and resort. Nothing else. The sky turns dark starting from 5pm. At 6pm, its as dark as SG's 10+pm. There's also nothing outside except for trees.
Last night, I looked out the balcony window, the scenary looks really nice with the street lights. I was expecting nice scenary in the morning. To my disappointment, its looks like a remote kampong area. -_-
In Taiwan, getting lost is very common for me. I am lost again this morning when I wanna go to the lobby from the breakfast area. The breakfast area is not in the same building, I have to go to level 8 and walk out. I'll passed an ugly fountain, enter a club house and go downstairs. When I left, I followed the sign "Howard guest room" because I walked from my guest room and the resort is called Howard. But I didn't find the entrance into the hotel. There's door at each level but the knob was dusty and locked.
This place is so weird. Its near the reservoir and for sure, its very cold. But there's no heater. There's only a central unit air con which will only turn on the heater when the temperature goes below 10 degree celsius -_- I have already turned off the central unit but its still cold and I can hear the wind's howling since I step into the room this evening. :-\ Why is the weather so windy?
Usually no matter how cold the country is, as long as you go indoor, its as good as room temperature. But its not true in my resort guest room and client's place. The client gives us a meeting room which has an air con unit that cannot be off. I already turned to the maximum temperature; 30 degree celsius; but its still cold. I can always feel cold air waves running down my leg. My upper body is still not that bad because I have wearing coat. Can you imagine wearing a coat indoor?
I guess the TV reception is very poor at this location. Out of 13 channels, 6 of them are news. I don't understand why they need so many news channels when they are reporting on the same thing and using the same information. There's 1 sports channel, 1 HBO, 1 buddhism talk, a few not nice chinese drama series and one hokkien drama series. So boring...
I can't wait to return to my Xinyi district hotel! Though the hotel is not fantastic but at least I can control the temperature.
These 2 nights I am alone as my team member has something urgent to attend to at her other client's place in Taipei city.
Working life over here is tedious. Things over here seems to be very nasty. Even the disposable chopstick's fine piece of wooden splinter can cause me so much harm.
I still prefer my SG office. I am counting down to the days to see my husband. He'll be here over the weekends next week! :)) At end Dec, we'll be taking leave and touring other parts of Taiwan! At end Jan, its time for me to prepare to return to my lovely home!
Thinking about it, 3 months is quite long. BUT I have to stay here for more than 3 months! I am already here since 25 Oct and I must work till end Jan 2010.
(erm.. blur pic but at least you can figure out something)
(blur as well)