Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May all of you have a Blessed Christmas and may the new year be one that is filled with Health, Wealth, Happiness and Peace (not necessarily in that order!!)
For the first time (in a very long time that I can remember), we are spending Christmas away from home. My wife, son and God daughter Elaine C joined me in London for the Xmas week. 
We are crashing out in my sister's house in Walthamstow. I have also planned 2 days in Paris and am keeping my fingers crossed that Eurostar is back to normal before we depart to Paris on the 28th!.
We are crashing out in my sister's house in Walthamstow. I have also planned 2 days in Paris and am keeping my fingers crossed that Eurostar is back to normal before we depart to Paris on the 28th!.We flew L class on MAS, which I dub the Low class, since there are so many restrictions on the ticket. To make up for that, I had 4 vouchers to access the business lounge. 2 were courtesy of CIMB and 2 were redeemed from MAS Enrich points. 
So we all had breakfast in the lounge before the flight.
So we all had breakfast in the lounge before the flight.For Elaine, this is here first trip to London or that part of the world and she was certainly bored during the 13 hours it took to get to London. Now she knows she will need something to occupy her for the trip home.
So far (I am into day 5 today on Christmas Day) it has been drizzling or snowing except for one day. 
I was almost hopeful for a White Christmas!! 
But that was not to be. It's a nice chilly morning today and much of the snow has melted or washed away by the rain. Darn. Still, it was great to have been able to capture the landscape blanketed with snow. 
Alex even managed to make his first snowman (looking more like a snow alien).
I was almost hopeful for a White Christmas!! But that was not to be. It's a nice chilly morning today and much of the snow has melted or washed away by the rain. Darn. Still, it was great to have been able to capture the landscape blanketed with snow. Alex even managed to make his first snowman (looking more like a snow alien).Ah well, I think that is enough to hang you up high and dry wondering what else we did.
Updates later - Xmas lunch is almost ready.
This particular Santa shakes around a bit when triggered by sound. It should be a good advertisement for exercise as the belt seems to have fallen off due to excessive exercise!!
I like the centerpiece of The Curve - colorful and full of Xmas trees!! 
Even their tenants decorated their premises, like the one shown here- at The Marche.
The Gardens had a bird cage theme. 
I also noticed bird cages sold all over the place in KL. Mid Valley had a more fairy tale setting, with castle, hanging candles and even fairies walking around for shoppers to take photos. They also had a stage in front of the castle to accommodate shows- like a fashion show by Elle. The number of pro/ semi-pro and amateur photographers was astounding!! 
One guy opened his bag to prepare his gear and you can see that it was a dedicated bag just to hold all his paraphernalia.
We arrived around 5pm because I heard that most of the attractions would be lit after 6pm. By 7pm, the place was crowded - almost impossible to get a photo without a bunch of strangers in the background! At 8pm, they even had pseudo snow generated. I wouldn't want to stand under a bunch of soap bubbles being spewed from about 5 stories up!! and the floor became very slippery after that.
I saw the same thing at the Curve and at Mid Valley.
I was on a train-the-trainer as I had committed to deliver the training in March next year. There was this girl that I have known since she was knee high to a grasshopper (okay okay - since she was a baby). She is married now and stays in Shanghai with her mum and 2 kids. 
Charmaine's hubby works in another province and is home only on weekends (i.e. a weekend husband). 
The reason they stay in Shanghai is because that province does not have an International school for the kids.
Pham - if you are reading this and you want to know who is Helen Sun and what she looks like - tah dah!!!
Niang means mum in Chinese. How did this lady become my niang? It happened about 2.5 years ago when both of us were on a high achiever trip sponsored by the company. 
She had brought her daughter along for the cruise from Singapore to Phuket and back and her daughter just took an instant liking to me and stuck to me throughout the trip..
And they had a series of thank you meals for the key players. Yours truly got invited to all 3, I guess because I am neither here nor there in terms of department or function. Or maybe just coz I am regional. In any case, i appreciate Soh's invitation to all those thank you meals.
Maybe it's because of the ladies in the team, but despite being full to the jaw with food, there was still quite a bit of leftovers. 
After that, we adjourned to Francis Kanner on another street for a round of drinks. 
We had our photos taken before, 
during and after the beer and it was obvious that as the drinks went in, 
the inhibitions went out. 
I even managed to get a shot with one of the patrons who was (in the opinion of the group) bigger size than me.
The place offers buffet dinner as part of the package.
Yes, everyone enjoyed themselves. 
Only one comment that I have about their beer- I think it is diluted with barely an essence of alcohol. 
It must be because NOBODY got drunk or even looked drunk despite many rounds of beer (except for maybe Danny)!!
The last appreciation dinner was with one of our key distributors. 
For that, our distributor also invited a local politician who is a frequent patron of Unique Seafood 23 located at Jalan Kemajuan. 
Why? 
Because Jason would know what were the good/great dishes to order. We also had a few lessons from him on the art of drinking wine, 
as well as the good parts to eat on certain fishes. That was certainly an eye opener!
For example, I never knew (and neither did most of the rest) that the best part of a Chat Seng Ban (7 star garoupa??) was not it's meat. It's the maw and areas around the head. And for that we pay RM40 to Rm80 for a reasonable sized fish at the market!! Wow!! Give me the flesh anytime. I am okay with that. 
This was one of those rare occasions when Izan joined us. The place is halal. 
Dinner ended with karaoke as we had a private function room.
But as I was driving into a shopping mall's car park in Kuala Lumpur, Elaine C pointed to this strange vehicle which has cartoon figurines stuck all over it - both inside and outside the vehicle. 
It is stuck on every conceivable space that does not create an obstacle for access.
They can be found in the 4 corners fo the top of the vehicle, on the side mirrors, even on the exhaust.
his/her kids pissed him/her so much that all the kids collection were stuck onto the vehicle to prevent the kid from playing with them.
Just about a week or so after my last visit to Singapore, I found myself there again for a couple of days of management meetings. 
I have just been transferred back to the Asia Pacific operations and this was a good forum for me to update myself on the who's who in SAPK. 
First observation - while there were some new faces, most of the others that I knew from 2 years ago were still there. Admittedly some were in different positions. 
Obviously we have gotten more breadth in terms of instrumentation. We also have a lot more processes in place - with more to come. One of the senior managers put this into perspective - we just love acronyms and processes!!
Obviously, I cannot blog about the meeting. I am just glad for the opportunity to reconnect with the people that I knew and the people that I need to work with in my current role.
