Wednesday, September 30, 2009
1:49 AM

Semi-Holiday

Oscar Wilde said that if you are bored of London, then you are bored of life. I can kind of agree with him, because I feel that I still have so many things to do in London, when in fact I have already been to many places I wanted to go to.

Musicals and plays - you get plenty. Wicked was wicked. The white witch was so funny, and I simply love the "toss toss". Les Miserables was the best in the sense that the plot brings your emotions on a roller coaster, and Valjean's voice was so awesome. Phantom's set and singing was by far the best, and sends a chill down your spine. Coldplay's from here, so I took the 50 quid deal to catch the Viva concert, featuring Jay-Z (forget about the other opening acts)!!!

Jay-Z!

Lovely butterfly confetti!

Fireworks for finale!

Phantom

Then you have shopping at Harrods, the usual Oxford Circus and sooo many weekend markets. The usual food is not that awesome, but you can find all kinds of food, albeit not cheap. So we had our Jap, Chinese, Indian, Italian, French, Middle Eastern, Belgian, fast and Traditional English food. The drinks here are so cheap, you are limited by your tolerance for alcohol rather than the price, unlike back home!

Drinks is good bonding. Meeting up with Manu whom we met during the Sapa-Laos crossing!

Weekend trips were great! Oxford was fun exploring Harry Potter's school; Windsor was beautiful; Legoland fun and kiddy, while our road trip to Bath and Stonehenge was simply exhilarating driving at 100mph. The view, as I drove down from the steep hills towards Bath was breathtaking, that I was totally not concentrating on the road! The thermal bath and steam baths were awesome too!

Look real doesn't it!

Moulin Rouge

Among my favourites.

A really thrilling ride in Legoland!

Our passengers on the road trip.

Finally at Stonehenge.

Lovely Bath and its Abbey.

Training here is like semi-holiday where we get to explore this place and its culture. At the same time, training is getting more fun now that we get to apply what we know on real companies! 2 more weeks!

Saturday, September 05, 2009
12:49 PM

Resilience Test - Part II

We imagine Hong Kong to be all fun, all play, shopping and eating. For me, this trip to Hong Kong is really to adjust to working life, especially just a long holiday, rather than spending as much as last year and having that much fun. I think I'm giving myself too much stress, but I think I really need to get up to speed and prove my worth. Nobody said the money I earn is going to be easy. Honestly, this is very much out of my comfort zone, which means I'll learn much more than if I were put in my comfort zone. I need to be smarter and sharper!

Most of the grads are in M&A, but I'm in a very unique dept which provides solutions to financial institutions. This means I have to know all the products and think of ways to apply the solutions on the problems the banks face. There's nobody left of the dept I used to work w except the head of the dept now, who, fortunately is a nice lad! Another guy coming in next week as AD.

All is not smooth-sailing. This is going to sound very minor, but it's because I didn't get my office pass till Wed, and my email and PC access userid and password until maybe next week, not because of any other incidents. But can u imagine how troublesome that is? I can't access my sch email or gmail, which leaves me to the phone as my only mode of communication! I need my boss to logon to the PC so I can use it. My new computer and system will come next week, hopefully, but by that time I'll b in London for training for 5 weeks.

OMG, wish me luck!