谢谢你的美好，我绝对不会忘掉

A repeat song on my playlist.

Anyways, been speaking to a few people over the weekend and everyone reckons I’m so lucky to be able to travel for work. The whole she-bang of getting free tickets, free accommodation, free food and maybe just maybe travel allowance. But I had a serious thought about it, am I really that lucky? The initial thrill of it, planning tickets, where to go, who to see was fun. But when details are locked in, its just work, in a different country really. I used to be the same, when I saw that friends travelled to the UK for work, I was envious that wow, you can go to such a fantastic country and you don’t have to pay a cent. But planning this trip of mine, I’m either flying or driving, just constantly on the road and changing hotels for that matter. Arranging meetings with various suppliers, just making sure that we get the most out of the trip.

For those who don’t know, I am travelling to China for work in March, stopping by Singapore to see family of course. I guess that’s a bonus and that is very kind of my boss to allow me to do that. But the places we have to cover in China, is just I’m not even sure if that is possible. Being that it is my first time in China since well 1992 I think, he is actually more familiar with China than I am. A bit embarassing actually. But yes, tickets booked, meetings locked in, accomodation in the midst of being arranged, there always is a pretty picture in front of all the hard work isn’t it?

So I’ll be going to here, here, here, here and here (according to google images anyway)

What it actually will be, well I’ll have to wait till March don’t I? =)

My frustrations with online boutiques

I am very tempted to name. But I will not. I think I have harassed them to a point where I just gave up and paid extra postage fees to avoid anymore correspondence. Its not a bad case of bad customer service, its just a case of lack of communication. I guess that really frustrates me because everything could have been avoided had I been told and well informed of the situation.

I know I don’t make much sense at the moment. Let me summarise:

Before I went home for Christmas last year, I bought some items online and paid for local Singaporea postage because I thought the items would have arrived in time for me to bring them back to Perth. I mean local delivery times isn’t long at all right? So I got my parcel, with only 2 items (I bought 5) and so of course I sent off an email asking after my other 3 items, but they don’t quite respond because it was sent with the email that I bought the items with and it was work email. There was no response over 1 week plus, I guess yes festivities. It got down to a point where I was leaving for Perth that I still didn’t get a reply. So I came back to Perth, sent off a couple more enquiries about it. Finally, I had a response saying that the parcel was sent back unclaimed. And that if I wanted those items, I have to re-pay for postage or I could cancel my order (but wait for it, there’s a 15% charge for packing fees.)

I admit I’m griping a little, in the end I gave up arguing and just paid the extra postage to re send it. But surely, back of my mind, I’m thinking online boutiques are just as much liable to their customers as normal retail boutiques are. Its not just a matter of waiting for order, packing them and sending them out. Maybe its just unfortunate that I faced this situation. Oh wells.

This is why, shopping should be done traditionally, in the shops with the option to try them on and feel the material and see how it looks on you before the purchase is done. Conveniences in the end may just end up creating more hassles in the end.

*breathes*

Singaporean by Nationality?

And so tomorrow is Australia Day, my first in 7 years. Well last year didn’t count cos I was trying to finish off my thesis so I didn’t even think about celebrating it. But yes, it is my first Australia Day in 7 years and I’m excited (well a little) because I don’t have to work, I would say this is also one of the very rare public holidays that I actually get off. Nonetheless, I celebrate tomorrow with mixed feelings. Well obviously, I am not Australian by birth, neither am I by nationality. But as the years go by, I think I’m starting to lose a little bit of Singapore and gaining more of the Australian ways.

In some ways, I feel that I am Singaporean by nationality only, well to a certain extent. I know I definately have a different concept to marraige than most Singaporean girls (no offence girls, I still don’t understand the house before ring part). I know I look at the value of things differently from AU to SG people. I guess also mainly, Singapore changes so fast each year that I am starting to lose track of who I really am. I no longer rush to doors, ie rushing to train doors, lift doors, bus doors, I would rather miss the train than run a whole escalator after the one train when the next is only arriving 3 mins later. But yet, people I catch up with lament that the trains don’t come often enough. I realise one thing as well, I always feel the pressure to be prepare my EZ Link card way before I get to the top of the station as everyone seems to be rushing out of the train station. Maybe over here we have to walk up to the top, therefore allowing for more time in between to prepare your card.

These are just small things I suppose, but very much integrated in our everyday life that makes who we are. I’m not sure if I’ll be proud to say I am Australian. I know I am Singaporean by birthright. And then it hits, I’ve been one of those half-f*cks as I so affectionately call them in my younger days. Asian who doesn’t quite understand their roots anymore.

Oh wells, happy Australia Day everyone. =)

I’ll attempt to talk about my holidays. Key word: attempt.

Looking at all my photos I took on my mobile and my camera, I’m not even sure where to begin to talk about my holidays. I thought of a lengthy entry, but then I was too lazy to customise all photos and what not. So I decided to take the easy way out and did collages instead.

From 23/09/2010

Singapore & Kl food!

From 23/09/2010

This sums up my holiday in 2 collages! Yes I am lazy I know. Yes I haven’t been updating my blog I know. I have run out of excuses. I shall be more diligent from now on. =)

One week back in +61. 3 weeks of fun left in +65/+60.

So I took a 4 week hiatus. 3 weeks for my holiday back home, 1 week to catch up on work. Now that everything’s pretty much cleared up, it is back to routine Perth life. Work. Home. Work. Home. Waiting for my next trip out of Perth. You know when people say, they need a holiday from a holiday, I felt exactly like that when I touched down in Perth last Sunday. It was 36 degrees and full of flies and lugging all 37kilos back ain’t easy. But that’s boring Perth. Who wants to talk about that? Let’s talk about my fantastic holiday.

This trip was a little different from before. Over the past few years, I always catch up with the same people year in year out. This year, I try to squeeze in people who I haven’t caught up in ages. Some I haven’t seen in 5 years (and that’s minimum) and to catch up with them to get an update on what’s going on in their lives was awesome. The usual suspects were great too, family as always gets compromised by me. Took a short trip in KL and caught up with more old friends. Did the usual to spruce up my looks, hair, nails etc. Didn’t get to go to Universal Studios or MBS though. Didn’t have the time. Some say that a 3 week holiday is very generous. I feel that time at home is never enough.

Nonetheless, it has been a great 3 weeks and I can’t wait for my next holiday back home again. =)

Ain’t Singapore beautiful?