You know, it sort of says something when, the moment we stepped out of the airport and took in cool European air of, what, less than 24 degrees, we go, "We're home!" We were immediately reminded of the first second (don't remember the first) time we stepped out of London Heathrow and took in that air.
Given that our first day in Barcelona happened to be on Sunday, and it being an European country where Sunday means shops are closed, the lot of us chose to take the sightseeing option of walking down Passeig de Gracia and taking in Gaudi's works first.
We've also been playing around a bit with our iTouch Maps. 'Course, the route they show are meant for driving.
Oh yes. The Metro so reminded us of the London Tube. Just as convenient, not as new and clean as Sporeland's MRT, altho' not as old and dark as the Tube. When we came out from the Passeig de Gracia metro station, it was cameras out and snapping at random buildings as we walked along Passeig de Gracia.
Not being able to identify all the buildings along Passeig de Gracia, we've called them by whatever brands we recognize on the buildings, like 'that Guess building' or 'that Lacoste building'.
To note were also the hexagonal tiles all along Passeig de Gracia. There were intricate patterns on them too.
The famous landmarks are pretty well known among tourists. As we reached Casa Batllo it was surrounded by people taking photos from all angles. Colourful walls, balconies that look like masks, we really wonder how it looked like inside. Sure, apartments, but if the design outside was one of a kind already we'd think the inside would be equally funky.
After Casa Batllo we headed for lunch - our first local meal. With the restaurant recommended by a colleague, the lot of us had trouble with the waitress until she asked us where were we from. Once she said she was from China, immediately our Sporeland colleague got along with her in Mandarin. Lunch consisted of tapas (bread and tomato, crab and seafood salad, preserved olives), four cheese pizza, and seafood paella.
Once full, it was onwards to La Pedrera. Also another apartment designed by Gaudi, this time a wavy design that reminded us of the sea.
From there it was the long trek to Sagrada Familia. Now if we were talking about walking in Sporeland, Bolehland or Bangkok for that kind of distance, with Metro stations near where we were and near our destination, we would have, without hesitation, jumped straight onto a train. But this was Europe in autumn!
Oh and we could also walk about taking more photos of random buildings on the way from Avda Diagonal till we reached Sagrada Familia.
Sagrada Familia is really, really different from your regular cathedrals. Our first impression? Marine Cathedral from Sailormoon S. Asides from that it's rare we see the words Sanctus on the cathedral walls, a massive overload of sculptures or statues depicting different scenes, even a Christmas tree with doves! Just too bad the iXus' battery was flat by that time, else we might have taken more detailed (as far as possible) pictures.
The lot of us headed back to the hotel after getting souvenirs from Sagrada Familia. Reason being, since we checked in at 11am, our rooms weren't ready and so we left our luggage with the porter while we went sightseeing. So at 4pm we headed back to check out our rooms, and by 5ish we were ready to head out for more. Our colleagues, however, remarked, "Still got energy?" so we left them and went out by ourself.
We started by dropping by Placa Catalunya to see the fountains, before heading to Hard Rock Cafe to check out souvenirs for sis, the HRC Tee Collector.
From there we headed down La Rambla. There were a flea market of sorts going on as it was the weekend. The entire stretch of La Rambla also had these newstands called Hola! Typical newstands selling souvenirs, postcards and magazines...including naughty magazines. And naughty DVDs. Not that we got any, innocent angel that we are.
From La Rambla it was down to our final target, Maremagnum. A shopping mall that's open on Sunday (as stated by our guidebook), plus it's at Port Vell. More sightseeing.
Just before reaching Rambla de Mar and Port Vell we were greeted by the Monument de Colom. Christopher Columbus atop the monument pointing...somewhere. Surrounded by lions.
We aim to walk down La Rambla and Rambla de Mar, in fact, all of Barcelona with the Chief one day.
After walking around Maremagnum we left at 9ish for dinner around La Rambla.
Then it was back to the hotel before ending Day One!
And so, taking into account for time zone differences, we're a couple of days behind in writing this.
Happy Birthday, sweetheart.
This year has been great with you. Let's have many more to come ya? Lots of love.
The difficult thing we find about packing when it comes to trips for work is that we have to pack more clothes.
...Ok so that's not really true. Given that we don't handle tropical climate well, it's no wonder if we go through two sets of clothes (or more) in a day. On a business trip at least one set of clothes would be work attire then. And to pack leather shoes instead of Crocs (so crap we don't have any sandals for easy wear).
Checklist!
Work attire for 4 days.
Casual wear for 6 days.
Shoes.
Ah hell, cram slippers into same shoebag.
Toiletries. Hmmm that shaving kit from our last trip could be put to use here.
FF bags for laundry.
FF Passport to visit the branch in Barcelona should opportunity rise.
Check if there is a FF branch in Barcelona.
Passport.
iPods.
iXUs.
NDS.
Chargers for L'amour, iPods, iXus and NDS.
Bloody heavy laptop with bloody heavy laptop bag that cause calluses.
Travel plans, e-tickets and other work-related documents to make bloody heavy laptop bag heavier.
Spare bag to be packed in luggage bag.
Time Out Barcelona guide book.
Wet wipes. Ironically we think this will be one trip where wet wipes aren't necessary.
Sunglasses. And glasses. Contact lens already in toiletry bag.
Check if rain falls mainly in the plains.
While everything has been tetris-ed into the luggage, somehow because it's work-related we feel that there's something missing or essential that we're forgetting. Fingers crossed!
Now we'd spent the week in Sporeland making the Chief's birthday cards (which was why we could leave our NDS in the Chief's care), and while we had the idea in mind to make such cards weeks before, it took some time for us to prepare the materials.
First, a trip to Papier to pick up some basic things. Picked up some cardstock, a bit of decorative cards, alphabet stickers, album pockets to keep the cards in. Then back home to scavange for our craft scissors, ribbons and a mini photo for size reference. After seeing what we lack, it was to that paper shop at The Gardens to pick up glue, a wooden letter (darn them to have no stock of letters for a full first name), and felt paper.
Then we'd picked up some craft magazines from them cheap magazine shops in Amcorp (RM9.90 per mag, old editions of course) to get some ideas for layout and designs. The Chief probably thought that we were going through some creative phase akin to our ambigram phase.
Then it was choosing photos to print out. We'd basically chose nine assorted photos, group pics of Team Layton, of our Camland Trip, of our Bangkok trip, and a few of the Chief. Arranged it so that it's all wallet-size to fit onto an A4-size paper (oh you know, just select 9 photos, right-click and select 'Print', you'll get what we mean). Had it printed at a photo shop then cut out.
Then we'd run about to lad, Esteban, Puddy, otousan and Germ getting them to write their wellwishes on small pieces of cards.
With the bare basics, we packed it all in our luggage so that we could work on it in Sporeland. Only, once we'd unpacked at the hotel and looked through our inventory, we realized we forgot to bring a few essentials. Blade. Ruler. Normal scissors. Glue stick (we'd only brought glue paste). Scotch tape.
So we asked at the hotel front desk for scissors, ruler and scotch tape. Somehow we'd thought room service would send some up later, but instead we had the fellow attending to us rummage about the drawers of the front desk looking for the requested stationery, also with a reminder that we had to return it back to the front desk and not leave it for room service to take it back. Very pa pai folks. Good thing when we checked out we did bring down their things too, because they had a note stuck to our account requesting them back. Yeesh.
Oh, we also bought photo corners from Borders at Wheelock. Very useful things. We'll need to check Borders The Curve one day to see if it's available here.
Given that we've set up a worktable in our hotel room, it was time to start working on the cards. Truth be told, we'd no idea about the layout. So we took them cards that already have wellwishes on them, and worked our layout based on the cards' shapes. Struggled slightly with space, but somehow we managed.
Pasting card to the cardstock wasn't easy with glue paste. We had to spread glue along the edge using our finger.
With one card down, we then started on the second card. We wanted to make use of the piece of felt that we bought, and somehow decided to make a sort of plant motif. A slight mistake on this was making the photo frames leaf-shaped, as we then had very little space for wellwishing. Still, the basic layout was done.
Only, it felt as if it lacked something - namely decorative text, those letters that you stick on to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY and the likes. That's where we were lucky to stumble onto this shop in Wheelock Place.
What caught our interest was that they had a rummage basket where alphabet stickers that were damaged were sold cheap. We picked up two large alphabet stickers of different fonts for SGD8, with only a few letters probably not as sticky as they used to be. Still perfect for our needs.
And the results...aren't gonna be posted up here, unfortunately. Anonymity required.
With the cards done, it was time to bring them back and have them sent out to be signed by everyone before the party.
And so that's the first two cards. We plan to make more of whatever occasions for the Chief in the future. Hmmm. This also mean that we know what to get next as a present - a craft album!
"What a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive" -Sir Walter Scott
So we've been lying to the Chief lately. Just a few white lies. After all, what the Chief doesn't know would not hurt, right?
Well it started off when we received an email from YKLS regarding a jazz performance by Finn Peters at Alexis Ampang. That got us hatching a plan that we, um, rather the Chief didn't know about. What better alibi or premise then to say that we were keen on attending the performance as we heard it was rather good? Given that it was also at Alexis (and the Chief loves their tiramisu) we thought buy the story.
Of course, it turns out that we couldn't keep it as simple as we hoped. Things got messy and we soon needed to lie a tad bit more. But we must be rather good at keeping a straight face because the Chief never suspected anything.
Until, of course, Saturday night itself when we arrived at Alexis Ampang. The both of us walked into Alexis only to be greeted by a long table of friends and a birthday cake.
See, come the end of this month it's the Chief's birthday, and we won't be around to celebrate it as we'll be in Barcelona for some work thingy. The Chief was not happy the way things have been turning out really for this month. So we decided not only to celebrate early, but to make it a surprise too.
So with emails sent out, an initial reservation for ten set, the theme thought out (bowties, not necessarily formal etc), a Tiramisu Torte (with brandy!) ordered from FBB, the birthday card collected by Junior for everyone to sign, the stage was set. We started with dinner at a deserted Shanghai 10 in Sungei Wang (the food was still good) before making our way to Alexis. Unfortunately, we forgot to factor in traffic and we ended up 45 minutes late. Sorry ya guys!
After drinks (Salisbury Cabernet Shiraz 2006), cake, presents and listening to the performance, it was off to Marketplace as the Chief has never been there before. More drinks, a quick tour, hellos and then we headed home.
Results? A slightly stunned Chief that didn't show too much expression in being surprised, but yes the Chief was definitely very happy.
Oh well. The more lies bit? We told the Chief that tonight mum was gonna be hosting dinner for her friends, and we needed to go collect a turkey from Porto Romano. And we wanted the Chief to help us to carry the turkey, deposit it back home and then we could both go off for dinner.
Oh, and that we'd need to dress up as well because Porto Romano wouldn't let us in for any reasons if we didn't dress nice, even if it was just to collect a cooked turkey.
As the both of us entered we were greeted by another table of friends and two empty seats.
The results of more emails, reservations for six at Porto Romano, a theme to dress in blue and 'guys wear scarves and girls wear ties', lad helping us to buy the birthday present and get the birthday card signed by everyone, and a stop to Baskin Robbins for an ice-cream cake 45 minutes before the Chief was due to arrive to pick us up.
The Chief, seeing the table, thought that it was a coincidence and headed for the kitchen. We'd to forcibly push the Chief into a seat. After dinner, birthday song and presents, the group of us headed to lad's place to play a bit of Guitar Hero and House Of The Dead on the Wii.
All in all, this weekend we managed to pull off two surprise birthday parties for our Chief. Oh, and next year we think we shall look for venues where there's ample lighting. Both places that we chose this year had nice candlelit ambience but made for horrible photo-taking. And now, the thanks to the following peeps:
Paul, Alexander & Jin, Sam & Lance, Adrien, Lifebook, Earl Gray Tea & Daemon, William, Apollo and SK - Thanks for making it for the party and waiting for us while we struggled through the traffic!
Jason - Muchos gracias for having to drop by to collect the card as well as getting the cake!
FBB - Loved the tiramisu. Could smell the brandy as the Chief was cutting the cake!
Lemon, Esteban, Juangtis - Mierci beaucoup for making it for the dinner!
lad - Thanks ya for all the trouble of running about getting the presents and signatures!
It's because of you guys the Chief is very happy.
Yet another trip to Sporeland and it didn't disappoint - we've soaked all our clothes just by being out in the open for over a couple of minutes.
Of course, to be fair, it isn't really just Sporeland that we find hot. Bangkok had us sweating buckets too, and if we'd to travel in KL as how we have to in Sporeland and Bangkok (public transport and walking to destinations), we're sure to be griping all the way.
This Sporeland trip being not for leisure, we've decided to keep activities simple - we're staying at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront, located goodness knows away from familiar grounds that is Orchard Road. Still, that we've our laptop, our music scores to learn up, a book, our project, and work (the primary reason why we're in Sporeland the first place), it should be more than enough to keep us busy the entire week.
So let's see, what we've been up to since touchdown on Monday.
Checking in the hotel and checking the hotel. How we wish that there was a bathtub so that we could just immerse in a tub of warm water to wash of the day. But no go. And the room felt a tad empty with no Chief. Zouk was just behind the hotel, but obviously the place would be rather quiet during the weekdays.
Stepping out of the hotel with our bag 'o gym togs and stuff for the sis, we asked the bellboy for the nearest MRT. Bellboy goes, "Outram Park, 10 minutes walk." We should have just hopped into a cab at that point, but somehow we'd foolishly decided to brave the walk. That the sky was deceptively overcast with a cool breeze also contributed to our folly - within 3 minutes we were drenched in sweat.
Visited two Fitness First branches. Make that three, if we count the brief stop into Fitness First Paragon to pick up the timetable for all branches. In fact, we would have just stayed in Paragon if they had BodyJam at a suitable time slot - given that we'd to meet sis before 9pm, choices were limited.
In fact, we've managed to visit two new branches - FF Cathay and FF One Raffles Quay. Initially when we headed to FF Cathay we thought of joining Combat, but by the time we found the place they were already doing track 6 so we took a quick shower before heading off.
Bumped into Ms Long Leaping at One Raffles Quay when we entered the lift to head to FF. Yes, it's a lousy name we've thought up here but it's been a long week.
One Raffles Quay was slightly more interesting - asides from supplying towels they even asked if we needed gym togs! So we don't actually even need to bring gym tees or shorts! Instructor Naila's quite energetic and easy to follow, and with choices of old tracks we were happily satisfied. Oh and the lockers here are similar to the ones at FF Bukit Tinggi - electronic ones where you lock/open using the membership card.
Met up with the sis. Only a while. To pass her stuff and see the wog they had. Then the both of us left for different agendas - hers to meet some agent and ours to head for BodyJam. See this visit no time to meet for dinner too.
Eaten well. Akashi Restaurant at Orchard. Hai Tien lou at Pan Pacific. Jumbo at the Quay. Tiger beer, warm sake, Heineken, Yering Shiraz Viognier, more Tiger beer...
Swam at the hotel pool. Unlike the infinity pool at The Gurney, it's a smaller pool with a view of construction wherever you look. Also the only people there were the angmohs who were there to tan and take a quick dip.
Cave in and subscribed to the hotel broadband. Because there isn't any Starbucks or Wireless@SG spot nearby! Our emails and blogfeeds are piling up!
Coming back home on Friday!
Woke up yesterday morning and was soon bent over in a foetal position with a few theories running through our head:
1) Gastric attack.
Egads the PAIN. Only, the pain is not at stomach level but somewhere in the intestines. Yet we haven't started feeling like letting loose hell from the bowels.
2) Food poisoning.
Only at the time nothing felt like coming out urgently.
3) The mamak left a piece of blade in our roti kosong banjir.
Because that was how our stomach felt like. And now the blade was cutting up our insides as it made its slow progress to our bowels.
Course, the first course of action was to get going to the porcelain throne and see if anything was gonna come out. There were results but pain still persisted. Hence there goes theory one, since there were results, and also theory three, since there was no blood.
That left us with number two...no pun intended.
So there was the purging, the pain, the trip to the clinic once we felt better (and secure enough to visit the clinic without needing to stop by any Janvier-approved toilets), the sleeping on the couch while waiting our turn, the getting of medicine and the more-important medical chit and receipt, the getting home to gulp in meds and sleep...the usual routine one would take for these occasions.
Once home, medicated, showered and back into bed to rest from the morning's ordeal, we logged on Facebook via our iTouch and left the following status:
"Janvier...gas food poisoning."
Trust the iTouch's predictive keyboard to dramatize our situation at the expense of grammar.
Still, one thing we did notice was that we've gone from being in our third trimester to our usual svelt self once more as a result of the food poisoning. Something good after all, although we don't think we'll treat it as a regular solution to putting on weight.
So last Sunday the Chief took us to Mont Kiara for a little look-see about the Vogue tower of the Verve Suites. Turns out the Chief received a preview invite from Direct Access and so we went there to take a look (and get freebies).
Was the Chief finally into getting a place to stay?
Would the Closed Door concept soon not matter?
Well, didn't happen that Sunday. But no matter.
The location is pretty. And quiet.
The concept model was pretty.
The concept rooms were pretty. Both of us liked the single-bedroom design of Centro Jazz and the two-bedroom Metro Bliss. Rooms come fully furnished, and the in-built shelves were done in a way that made the, um, 430 sq ft single bedroom units look more spacious. Nevertheless still very pretty rooms.
Interesting thing that the Chief noticed was that in all rooms, asides from the front door, there were no locks or latches. While there may be a swing door to the bedroom, or sliding door to the bath, drawers and such, there's simply no way to lock them. Very Open Door concept - you can't live with strangers here.
Interesting. You don't have to fool around with the motorized blinds to view into the bathroom to watch someone enjoying the sunken tub. You can just walk into the bathroom and join in.
The usage of the rooftops made the Verve Suites very pretty. Each tower has access to all the rooftop places, and there were already 4 swimming pools (normal, heated, kiddie and exercise pool) amongst other facilites set up - theatherette, mini jacuzzi tubs, al-fresco dining setup...
Too bad the rooftop preview was only model scale-size.
We were practically drooling the entire tour. Prettiness called to be acknowledged.
Something else we couldn't help doing was thinking how long the bookings must be for the rooftop amenities. It could be that the theatherette would be booked all the way till the middle of next year.
So we had some fun looking around the rooms and such. Then came the next interesting bit: looking at the prices. And hooo-wee! We're wondering if RM450k would justify the nice furniture and small size of a single bedroom unit, and we're definitely too poor to look at the RM990k two bedroom unit. Not to mention that the better-located rooms were all sold out anyways. Turns out that the letter Chief received was two months late.
Chief says to wait for the next tower next year before we come back next year for another look-see.
Till then we're gonna plan for Showroom Days where we'll go visiting developers and viewing places. :P
Starts of with our sis mentioning that she's trying out Chrome today as we were finally back online as normal, and we just filed that little fact under without giving it much thought. After all, sis and us were discussing our different browser usage not too long ago - sis sticks to IE7 and FF3 (which we keep thinking Fitness First at first) while we use all three browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.
We've always used IE. Bugger the fact that it can be buggy, it crashes or hangs. Since IE comes with Windows it's of course the first choice for browsing. We don't mind IE really, and IE7 makes things much neater being with tabs and all (finally jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else). Only in our experience, IE7's the only browser ever to crash on us (especially, especially during a download/email drafting/upload).
Firefox was good, being customizable and not problematic. Only why is there a need to have a Downloads Box appear separately?
Then Apple had Safari for Windows - and seeing how we were using the iPod Touch then, we thought to give it a try as well (since we would be syncing our bookmarks with Safari too). Safari initially while aesthetically pleasing, lacked in a few areas. From the lack of being able to play Flash plugins (no embedded YouTube while reading blogs!) to where it's currently at now - we're currently using Safari as our primary browser, regardless of the fact that it too pops up with a Downloads Box and that their Bookmarks isn't quickly accessible.
Then again, we are slowly being brainwashed into buying things Apple. :P
When Juangtis too happened to put her personal message as 'Chromed', we admittedly got curious as to what Chrome was all about. So we searched.
Turns out Google's out with their own web browser! Cool.
So we're giving it a try as well. Sis says it's fast. What we're interested in (so far) is the fact that if a tab crashes, only that tab is affected and not the entire window. Will Google Chrome do for web browsing what GMail did for email?
Otherwise, so far we'll just stick to Safari for general browsing and IE7 for blogging (because we like the html format) and for work.
So when a poor guy has been deprived of his usual gym cardio schedule due to more commitments (at the moment) and rather than take the prudent measure of suspending his membership, what can he do
Overdo it when he does get the chance to go for class, that's what.
With the choice of either Combatting with FCI at Axis or going for Line Dance Funk with Bernard at The Curve, we opted for Combat, well, because since we've been away for quite a while (3 weeks or more?) and since we've to now choose our classes, we might as well head for something familiar. And yes well it was also nearer. Leaving the office at 6.50pm for either class that started at 7.30pm, it does help us decide where to go.
We've long avoided the Axis branch for a couple of reasons: 1) the idea of driving down even that small stretch of the Federal Highway from Amcorp to Menara Axis gives us the shudders; 2) the studio's lack of proper ventilation can very well suffocate us in a packed Combat class. Been there, done that. But things worked for us this time because there was no traffic and the class isn't as packed as we thought.
FCI almost blinded us with his orange top. And got us puzzled when he asked about a certain sexual position (that still seems impossible to us).
So. Yes. Well. Dahlah we more than three weeks never go for class, jumping straight into the first three tracks all gung-ho we know we'll well pay the price later on. Then there's the shouty bits of course. The restrain from shouting came from the fact that by track 5 we were very out of breath...our poor old heart. Amazing that nearly 4 years of cardio classes and our stamina still hasn't improved.
Then he puts on Black Parade. There goes tomorrow's choir practise. No high notes for us.
Not only we've overdone the intensity level and the shouting, we also drank too much. There were moments when we felt like throwing up. But we needed our 100 Plus after class!
To help ease our muscles, we took some time off in the sauna. Now if ever you wanted a good hot sauna, the closet room sized sauna in Menara Axis should do the trick. In there, one ladle of water does the trick what would take 5 scoopfuls in the other gym saunas. We sorta had the impression we came out like a boiled lobster.
Waiting to use the shower, we heard Nut receive a compliment about his bum. We guess RPM does do wonders heh.
Then back home for a filling dinner before calling it a day. Must say that the cardio today did us much good - them sessions that normally have us falling asleep straight after dinner normally do.
Otherwise known as the MerdekaMoodyMondayMovieMadness. Given that till now we've not been online as usual, we haven't been keeping up properly with our emails - we've only skimmed the contents as thus haven't really followed much of what everyone's been planning.
We'd skimmed so much that even when the gang has been planning some meetup thingy with an alliterative title that's five words long, all that registered was that there was an alliterative title. Details of the event didn't stick. Thus when 'Vin called us to ask what we were bringing, we were admittedly still rather blur about the whole thing.
Luckily it turned out to be a potluck event, and when 'Vin ticked off the names and food being brought, no drinks were mentioned. So we quickly offered to bring drinks. Bought Sarsaparilla cordial (honestly, what's the difference between Sarsaparilla and Root Beer cordial?), F&N Orange, F&N Ice Cream Soda and Kickapoo.
The food layout was VERY generous (somehow we find potlucks tend to be, heh) as 'Vin cooked one and a half bags of nuggets, Esteban brought to bowls of pasta (made with half a bag of garlic - lad said they took an hour to chop it all up), Canadian 2-for-1 pizzas, 30 currypuffs from Paandi, baked bacon rolls, salad and ice-cream.
And to wash it off, we made ice-cream soda floats topped with sarsaparilla cordial. Sweet.
Initially we started off with lunch followed by Hellboy II, which we found much better compared to the first movie as there's more eyecandy this time. Still, like the first movie, not that memorable.
After Hellboy II it was back to the food for Round 2.
Then we all decided to make it a movie marathon and put on Kung Fu Panda, in English. That it was starting to rain heavily helped make the decision to stay much easier too.
Then Round 3 with the ice-cream floats.
We'd left soon enough while the others started warming up the PS2 - the weekend saw us up late and we were soon crashing. Still - we'd a spanking good time celebrating this year's Merdeka!
Which so happens to be rather quiet this year, innit? In fact we'd almost missed the fact that it's Independance Day - no festive decorations or billboard adverts, we didn't see many flags a-wavin' from cars or shops, heck, we don't watch telly so we won't know about the latest patriotic ads.
'Course, it's not as if we're much of a patriot ourselves - we don't have that muhibbah spirit, plus we're admittedly racist, we don't feel that grateful feeling for living in an independant country, Independance Day is just another public holiday for us to celebrate.
If we were to think of anything to be proud of, it's probably for the food. And that we'd only ever suffered from floods and never earthquakes or other far more lethal natural disasters.
Um. There's lots of things (to be proud of and that isn't great) that we're leaving out, true.
But in short, we're actually feeling that it's rather a good thing that this year's celebrations have been kept rather quiet, whatwith the political circus that's been going on the whole year that our neighbouring countries have been following with much amusement.
This week started off with a three-day conference that was work-industry-related. Three days of meeting and catching up with coursemates and other acquaintences who're in the same industry too. As it's industry-related, this means that the company pays for us to attend talks, and more importantly, eat free food and take home goodie bags.
We must say that food in Sheraton Subang isn't all that great. Only their afternoon tea break snacks were good (fried chicken drumlets and samosa). And they ran out of coffee too darn fast.
As for the freebies, we'd gotten a nice bag that looks like a laptop bag sans paddings, and interestingly - normal saline eye drops. Surbex-Zinc tablets, Bio-Enhanced Fish Oil capsules and Booster Blitz Energy Drink powder that's "enriched with Vitamin B for an instant boost of energy". Rather smart choice of freebies...stuff that keeps you awake for the lectures.
If only they were considerate enough to provide coffee during the talks as well rather than only during the morning tea break/lunch/afternoon tea break.
Normally it'll be fun to attend any conference to have a change of pace from the job. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't beg off work as we had pressing matters back in the office during the same time - thus at night after the conference we'd be back in the office doing unpaid OT till the wee hours of the morning.
A bit stressful as we definitely lacked proper sleep. Add that on to a few other things and on our drive back home from the office at 3am we were actively cussing all the way home.
We think the stress showed up in quite a few ways: On Monday evening we started feeling rather blue for missing BodyJam for 2 weeks already, and found ourselves at the Curve before choir began to watch others enjoying the class. On Tuesdays we needed destressing therapy hence another trip to the Curve for BodyJam, a bit of window shopping (Mac City selling iPod Classic 160GB at RM999 while stocks last! Normal prices RM1399!) and then later on we just chilled a while at the Chief's place - before heading back to the office. On Wednesday, even more destressing therapy in the form of a bottle of Fresh Lime Body Oil Gel from Skin Food. Very therapeutic.
And now we've time to once more connect online! With no need to OT anymore, BodyJam after two weeks, and all that destressing therapy, we can certainly feel our personal happiness going up again.
So now it's the Chief's turn for the chain story. And we pastes it here.
Alexander
It wasn't a dark and stormy night - that's really a clichéd beginning for a story. For Julien, it was bright enough to see the faint outline of Philip's naked body. Philip was sleeping soundly on the silk satin bedsheet, but Julien just couldn't even get his eyes close on that full moon night. He was looking out the dusty windows, lightly holding the almost empty wine glass. Then, he caught a glimpse of a shadow... who was this stranger in the night?
Janvier
Julien silently shut the window and kept in the shadows, to avoid being silhouetted in the moonlight. "Must get the job done quickly now," he thought while appreciating Philip's physique, "before he gets back." He downed the remains of the wine, then took out his garrotte. Why do I always get the good-looking ones? he pondered as he got into bed, cradled Philip's head and slid the garrotte around Philip's neck. Then Julien yanked and Philip jerked awake, only to have Julien flip him facedown on the bed and pressed his body down on his, his face smothered by the pillow and Julien still strangling him, when the bedroom door slammed open.
Fable Frog
Julien retreat off of the bed leaving Philip's lifeless body. Swiftly he reached for his shirt, knocking the wine glass off the side table. "What have you done?!!", a loud voice came from the door, "Not this one, not right here!!". Julien stood by the bed quiet as a mice, with his head hanging low. The light from the door shine into the dark room, as if spotlighted onto Philip's body while a shadow grew longer reaching the face of Philip.
Adrien
But then it stopped. The creeping shadow halted, as if time stood still, and the approaching figures outside the door had frozen in place. Julien kept silent, his eyes and ears, vigilant, knowing that even the slightest of movements could trigger the shadows - the frozen figures that spoke of undesired calamity.
“For Hera’s sake, could you please keep that aside?! I strictly told you to refrain yourself from using the powerful one... Wait. He’s still in there. I can sense his energy. His fear. Even so, our beloved Phillip is far too devious to just play dead. Fine. Use it.”
It was a man, and he was not alone.
Ban
One of the men produced a verrrry suspicious-looking phallic instrument about 8 inches long which he flicked on. Brilliant white light shone forth from it to illuminate the scene at the bed but Julien wasn't anywhere in sight.
"I really wish you didn't bring that obscene looking flash light of yours here. Couldn't you be a little more serious about work?"
"Oh, don't bother about me and keep concentrating on finding him."
Lifebook
"Just switch on light, dimwit!!"
Julien looked around him. Now he had to get a way out of the room, and it had to be quick before the guys found him. For the moment, jumping out from the windows was his only option.
After a minute of rummaging around, one of the guys managed to find the light switch.....
QR
"I found it!" he says and flicked the switch but nothing happened. The light wouldn't turn on and both of them turned their attention to the faulty switch.
This was the diversion Julien has been waiting for. Swiftly, he sprinted fast and silently like a cat towards the opened window. It was freezing cold with winter winds but he had to get out of there.
Legolas
"Stop right there if you still want to be in one piece." Julien froze as his mind was turning quick about what to do next when the light suddenly came on.
"You idiot, told you to switch on the lights and you got the socket." The man had a gun in his hand, pointing straight at Julien. "So you think you can get away this time? I don't think so."
"You must know, bullets won't do me any harm," Julien replied calmly, while still thinking about a way to get out of this situation.
"Heh heh... I have the powerful one to help me this time. It's game over for you now."
Jason
"Is that so? Let's see how fast your bullets are," Julien replied and he dashed to the door with supersonic speed, knocked the second guy who is blocking at the door to the floor.
The first guy fires his gun towards Julien continuously but all of them misses the target, and without any hesitant, Julien sped to the main door but his steps stopped there.
"Hi Julien."
"Freddie... Get out of my way."
"Awwww... Why the rush? How long we haven't seen each other? Don't you miss me?"
Chief
Julien was immediately stunned by that statement. Yes. Julien used to have a wonderful time with Freddie. Freddie, being a pilot, was required to fly around at least twice a month, for a period of two weeks each time. Whenever Freddie was in another country, he would definitely give Julien a call, started off saying, "Don't you miss me?"
It's JL's turn next!
This is something that the Chief noted about the differences in both our family...philosophy. It started with our bedroom doors.
See, the Chief notices that the bedroom doors in our house aren't closed (when empty) or locked (when occupied). 'Course, the only time a bedroom door is closed is when the aircon is on, so that the room gets cold. Otherwise, mum has this thing about keeping the doors (and windows) open 'for ventilation'.
Not that we found any need to ventilate the room, since we're only home at night when the room isn't so stuffy or such. In fact we've done quite well with our room in James Blyth Court without much airing (well yes we did have the windows open a slight bit once in a while, but that was because it was much colder outside and was our only aircon.
So. Bedroom doors open or unlocked. See, maternal conditioning is a fine thing in many different ways. Enough reminders for someone to do something and sooner or later you'll see it done without telling, just so that you don't have to keep telling. Ahem.
This essentially means that even when we're in the room doing anything, anyone can (and do) barge in. Quite honestly we're used to family members just opening our door followed by immediate conversation, heck, our mornings are usually started by mum coming in while we're still sleeping to steal clothings or our towel to make up the laundry quota, then our dad to wake us up (supplementary to our mobile alarm), then mum again to do vacuuming or whatnot chores.
In contrast the Chief's family practise a stricter privacy policy. Door remains shut (most of the time) and locked, with family members knocking and waiting for permission to enter. Cor.
Now this does sorta spill over to other things we do.
We've had friends over to the house before, although not frequently because the telly's normally taken up by the parents which means all videogaming and DVD Nites have to be done elsewhere, which leaves us househosting for boardgames generally.
The Chief meet up with friends outside. Not many know where the Chief's place is - rarer still those who've been inside. Well then again there's rather a number of family members staying together, much akin to those rich Chinese families in them Chinese television series, so a gathering of friends would be much easier outside.
You'll realize that this makes our presence there much more noticiable.
Well even the Chief says that we're a relatively much more open fellow, shy violet that we are.
Wonder what everyone else feel about their privacy settings. Then again, we adher to the Open Door policy because we're staying home with the family. Who knows how when we stay out (a long time more, probably...)
Now last Sunday we were a tad stressed out, as we were invited along to follow the Chief's Clan up to Genting. It's not just with a few family members, but rather the entire family was going up to celebrate the dad's birthday. Initially Chief told us that there'll be extended family members and staff coming along as well, so we won't feel so out of place, but on Sunday morning itself it turned out that only immediate family members were going!
Well, immediate family members and their married partners, of course. And kids.
And there we were. Going along together for a family trip. While it's not as if we never met the family before, it still felt slightly awkward, as we never really talked much to them, being the shy violet we are. Fact that most of the family spoke Chinese too didn't help. Yet if the Chief think it's OK for us to come along, we weren't too worried yet. After all it's not the Chinese New Year family reunion dinner we're talking about mah.
And what's there for Clan Chief to do in Genting? Hit the casinos. Us? We don't gamble, at least not with stakes that high. Even during Chinese New Year, money we set out for gambling we already count as money meant to lose. But in any case we weren't prepared to just fling hundreds to thousands towards the croupier in exchange for chips, so we contented ourself by watching the Chief do so in the Genting International Room.
At baccarat the Chief picked up a hundred. After lunch at the jackpots the Chief picked up another three.
In fact, all family members who played (all save those babysitting the kids at the theme park), came out with earnings.
Once we all were back down at the Chief's place, we were interrupted midst Super Mario Galaxy to be informed that the family would be going to KFC for dinner later, and that the Chief's dad "wanted the two of us to be there".
Thankfully for both lunch and dinner we hid away from the Chief's dad well across the other end of the dining tables, in case all we get were piercing stares. Then again, it could be that we were making a mountain out of a molehill. The only question the Chief's dad asked us was if we still wanted more chicken. Other than that, dinner went well.
Stress stress.
Now the weekend saw us having a couple of food outings - beginning with bah kut teh in Klang on Saturday followed by Oriental Spoon dim sum on Sunday morning.
We've been craving for bah kut teh for quite some time really, and with Aeon Jusco Bukit Tinggi open we thought to head down for bah kut teh breakfast, then followed by a romp about Aeon to see the stores, then head back up home. So there were five of us: Junior and his Sindy, dctw, Chief and us.
It took the Chief 56 missed calls before we heard the wake up call(s). The Chief's patience is really a virtue. Plus it wasn't easy to wake us up with a wake up call, unlike a wake up kiss.
Then it was picking up the folks before heading down to Klang via the unscenic route that is Kesas. Bah kut teh breakfast was different as we tried this place recommended by Sindy, featuring bah kut teh that resembled more of braised pork rather than bah kut teh. While the herbal smell of bkt was strong, the amount of soup we had in our bowl failed to satisfy our craving. We think we shall need another round of bkt again sometime soon.
We were all very lucky to have Sindy along, as Sindy was very familiar with ordering as well as the good kind of meat/bone etc. A-hem.
Once the bkt cravings were satisfied, it was time to move on to Aeon. Since our first visit there was just to do dinner with the Klangites at BBQ Plaza before heading off to 'Nic's house for Ticket To Ride, this time we decided to take a proper look around the place (regardless of Sindy's claims that there's nothing in Aeon to look at).
Hmmm. We missed that leisurely shopping pace that we had shopping at Queensbay Mall. Maybe it's because the Chief and us did that alone.
Still, Aeon saw us all dressing up Junior - from formal blazers in G2000 to snazzy jackets in Padini Concept Store. Took some pics of him in it to tempt him into buying the jacket later on. Yet after all that Junior still walks out empty-handed! Nevermind, we think the jacket is niggling in his mind. And somehow now that the jacket is mentioned, we think we do have that particular jacket at home...
From dressing up, it was on to lunch at BBQ Plaza (that makes our second time) before paying a quick visit to the Fitness First there. The lockers there caught our attention, new kinds where the locks don't use a key but a keycard instead. Then everyone had a gander at the weighing machine where we could check our height and it'll calculate our BMI.
We. Are. Now. 59.8kg. From the 50-55kg that we are familiar with. NO WONDER WE LOOK LIKE WE'RE IN THE START OF OUR THIRD TRIMESTER. We're gonna cut down to only eating heavily with the Chief.
After Aeon we headed into Klang town for the cendol. We all took the small cendol biasa to cool off from the heat, then it was time to leave. Leaving Klang town it was time to drop everyone back, this time via the more scenic route of Federal Highway. And what did we see in our rear-view mirror? Junior asleep on Sindy's shoulder. Patut the car very quiet in the backseat.
Given our shock at starting our third trimester, that still didn't stop us from having a spanking good dim sum breakfast on Sunday morning at the Oriental Spoon in Sooka Sentral. The place was booked 2 weeks in advance by Junior, and the Chief wanted to check the place out too (it may be true that us Klangites, used to bkt breakfasts, were never exposed to the idea that dim sum comes in many varieties other than sieu mai and lo mai kai).
Begging to leave a tad early from dim sum to meet up with friends of the Chief, it was down to Pavilion...and to also mooch some yu tiao - yao char kuay in soya bean milk. Then we decided to buy another pack of yu tiao for a friend who worked at Pavilion too, only to find out when we reached the store that she was off duty on that day...so we had to finish that pack of yu tiao too.
Luckily the walk from Pavilion to Low Yat (where we got ourselves a xxGB internal hard disk) and the Time Crisis games we had in Sg Wang helped burn off a bit of calories...
Only to head out of KL and into PJ for the iPoh Ngar Choi Kai Fan, where we had pork balls, a plate of chicken, a plate of taugeh, and a plate of char siew siu yoke to share between the Chief and us.
We so need to do more cardio, except we don't have the time to do so now. Soon we'll be 9 months and ready to give birth at this rate.
So Alex brings up the topic of playing a Chain Story game as a BFF Project. We remember the last time we tried anything like that was on GMail after reading NJAPF's post where she and some friends played this game too...only the one we played on GMail never really took off (we wonder how this one will fare).
Minichapter 1: The Chain Story
Minichapter 2: Read on!
Julien silently shut the window and kept in the shadows, to avoid being silhouetted in the moonlight. "Must get the job done quickly now," he thought while appreciating Philip's physique, "before he gets back." He downed the remains of the wine, then took out his garrotte. Why do I always get the good-looking ones? he pondered as he got into bed, cradled Philip's head and slid the garrotte around Philip's neck. Then Julien yanked and Philip jerked awake, only to have Julien flip him facedown on the bed and pressed his body down on his, his face smothered by the pillow and Julien still strangling him, when the bedroom door slammed open.
Onwards to Froggie to continue the story!
-pop-
"You are running dangerously low on disk space..."
...and we know we have a problem here. Currently our desktop has two hard drives, the main HD of 80GB which we regrettably partitioned to two, and an older HD from the previous PC of only 10GB.
Both are now reaching bursting point, and this because of pictures and music (from the iXus and ofr the iPod). We've even burned off some of our photos taken last year onto CDRs (in duplicate for some) but it's not helping.
We've even uninstalled a fair number of games, keeping the nostalgic ones like our DOS games which takes up minute space comparitively, the real-time strategy games and Heroes Of Might and Magic games. Even Diablo II got uninstalled early on!
Nevertheless. Looks like we should be getting a new hard disk. And an internal hard disk instead of a portable one, because the space is used to store our music files and we'll need iTunes to sync that with our iPods.
Sigh, it's gonna be a fair bit of work up ahead...moving files, organizing folders, especially the bit where we move music files from one place to another and need to update our iTunes regarding the file relocation ("The song could not be located because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?")...
Now to make sure the desktop can make it till we get a new hard drive.
Work: Janvier, I need you to go somewhere.
Janvier: Okay.
BodyJam: But don't be late for class!
Janvier: Packed already. Hopefully no ja- we mean traffic.
Nintendo Wii: ...I don't see you anymore nowadays...boo hoo...
Janvier: But Wii, you know it's hard when the parents always keep Bravia occupied!
Sony Bravia: I work all day. You bring Wii, I work all night too...
Work: And don't think about slacking off work for Wii's sake.
Taman Tun-nites: TGIF! DotA!
Janvier: Onz!
Nintendo DS: Gimme more love! Touch me!
iTouch: Stop touching him! Touch me!
YKLS: Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing!
BodyCombat: Lord r u coming to class.
Blog: Can we talk about something else other than Bangkok already?
Janvier: That's what we're trying to do...
iPod: You haven't been listening to anything we say for a long time...all you care for now is iTouch, especially since he's now added on that iPhone 2.0 software.
Janvier: That's not true!
iTouch: Touch me!
Janvier: You're our music player iPod. iTouch is more our PDA!
YKLS: Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing! Rehersal today, don't forget.
Janvier: Oh? Damn. Gotta miss Combat then.
BodyCombat: U not coming for class lord?
Blog: Your last update was yonks ago...
iXus: Have you renamed the photos and backed them up?
Janvier: Damned. And the Bangkok pics are on the laptop, not in the desktop. Thank goodness we've uploaded them already.
Desktop: You know, you haven't played much of that Heroes Of Might And Magic: Tribes Of The East expansion that you bought...
Boardgames: Look! That's how cobwebs are being made!
GameBoy Advance: I can't see! I'm blinded by this layer of dust!
YKLS: Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing! Memorized the songs already? Start memorizing!
Bloggers: People people let's do dinner.
Taman Tun-ites: Birthdays coming up!
YKLS: Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing!
Bloggers: Birthdays coming up!
YKLS: Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing!
Discworld Books: We're all due for a reread!
YKLS: Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing!
Blogs: Read all of us!
YKLS: Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing!
DVDs: Watch us!
YKLS: Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing!
Ambigram sketches: And we all feel so unfinished.
Honestly, we'd never thought that our timetable would look so hectic compared to last year. Then again, so far the only change to our timetable this year has been that we'd to rush from BodyJam to YKLS on Mondays (and no more BodyCombat on Mondays).
Now, with YKLS's production coming closer, there's more rehersals that'll be taking priority (second priority to the Chief of course) over other things (including gym time boo hoo) but we've to make do as we can. What we find however is that our cave time has dropped rather drastically. It's as time like these when we really wished for more than 24 hours in a day - not so that we could get more work done, but more things done. In fact, cave time has been slotted to midnight till 2am generally, although sometimes it gets later than that.
'Course, the Chief still takes precedence over all else and we don't mean that in a bad way. And thankfully we've both set aside days for just the two of us (bar celebrations or special occasions) so that's not jeopardized.
With choir rehersals soon taking about 3-4 days a week, we did thought of suspending our gym membership, at least till after the production. But heck that's a tough move to make and so far we don't see ourselves missing Jam/Combat still.
The only real part that lost out the most in all this?
Sleep: BOOOHOOOHOOOOO!!!
"Please take off your bathrobe and lie down."
We get on the bed and lie facedown. We didn't need to do anything, for the service, all we had to do was just enjoy the pleasure and sensation.
She started slowly. Facedown, we couldn't see a thing, best to just close our eyes. Pushing the blanket aside from our right leg, she places her palms on our right calf. It was warm to the touch. Her palms alternate as she work upwards, left, right, left, right, until she gets past the thigh.
Then her hands trailed down and she would begin again.
Our limbs melt under her hands. She massages in small circles, easing the tension from the muscles, slowly making her way higher and higher, teasing us to succumb. Soon we feel as if we are floating on clouds...drifting in pleasure, the smell of balsam and rose intoxicating us into a mild stupor.
Her hands then work upwards, towards our back...our shoulderblades...our shoulders. Fingers ran across the shoulders towards our neck before running back down the spine.
Time is...nonexistant. Yet we know we only have an hour with her. Will we finish in time?
And soon enough, it was over.
Well, we do have Team William to thank for finding this gem of a massage parlour. The Royal Natural Spa. Just down the road from Take A Nap on Rama 4 Road.
After three days of walking, it was good to get off our feet and be pampered. Unfortunately, as we went there at 9pm there was only one masseuse for the Traditional Thai massage, so the Chief took that while we settled for the Aromatherapy Oil massage.
A warm foot bath consisting of lime, rose petals and lemongrass together with sea salt scrub, followed by the balsam oil massage, with hot ginger tea and pomelo to end it all. At the offer price of 750 baht then, it was very worth it. We were very much invigorated after the massage that Team PDA continued shopping at Patpong Night Market!
...And slept very very well that night. :)
Ideally what we expected of this trip? One big gang of people going around together camwhoring left right and centre, probably with JL being the tour guide waving around a little flag a la Tour Leader and everyone else wearing thematic clothing ie. all with something in green or stripes.
Of course, knowing that there are 15 people, and that this isn't the first time to Bangkok for some of us, it's quite unlikely we'd all go together as a group/herd/swarm. After all, there's some who'd want to go sightseeing, while others just want to shop, and some who wants to tour the dark and humid places. However, once in Bangkok it was quite clear that we weren't gonna be all touring together, but split into groups.
Team Saladaeng
The group that stayed at Baan Saladaeng. Throughout the entire trip we've not seen Team Saladaeng save one night clubbing, bumping into them at Chatuchak, and dinner together on the final night (even then on different tables as they arrived later). Team Saladaeng went the sight-seeing route and went for some Siam Niramit cultural show. The rest of us gone shopping and went, "WTF is Siam Niramit?". Team Saladaeng consisted of:
Subteam Team Paul - with only a single rabid shopping member but yet the apparent leader of Team Saladaeng. Holding the title 'MallBlazer', he sped through the malls leaving other members desperately trying to keep up.
Subteam Team CamClub - consisting of the more trigger-happy members. As far as we know, winners of the Jumping Pose Photoshoot.
Team Tidur
The group that stayed at Take A Nap Hotel. The majority of us stayed here, broken down into subteams and subsubteams...yes, we choose to complicate it slightly.
Subteam Team William - comprising William and his posse. This team had their own itinerary, and won the Chatuchak Chase (being the first to arrive and last to leave). Kudos to this team for winning the the Best Spa & Massage Discovery Medal!
Subteam Team Ottamon - who suggested the Tour A (shopping), Tour B (sightseeing), Tour C (dark & humid) option. Team members were very well-versed in Tour C and takes the Go!Go!Sauna! Award.
Subteam Team Singles - two (currently) singletons on the trip whose plan for the trip was to follow some group or other, one of them holding the prestigious title of SSSS. Team Singles snagged the Happy Tree Friends Tee Bonus.
Subteam Team PDA - name suggested by the Chief. It could be due to the fact that we kept using the iTouch to keep notes, or that we were notoriously stuck together the entire time. Did a fair bit of walking ourselves doing the Mall Run and probably gotten the Highest VAT Refund Total.
Arrival - When Team Tidur left Suvarnabhumi to get their van to the hotel, Team Saladaeng was already in the lead in their taxi to theirs. Confidence in the driver waned when he drove past the hotel without noticing it, but since we'd paid upfront there was no extra charge.
Mall Run Day 1 - Team Saladaeng took the lead, with Team CamClub one step behind Team Paul every step. Team Tidur was already an hour late and thus headed straight to Central World to shop and dine, before all teams met to discuss the Club Cruise Challenge.
Club Cruise Challenge - Team Tidur (sans Team William) arrived first while Team Saladaeng slowly trickled in much later after the shows. Team William sat out of this challenge.
Chatuchak Chase - Team William took advantage of sitting out of the Club Cruise Challenge to get up and leave early for Chatuchak on Sunday morning! The rest of Team Tidur arrived second to be followed by Team Saladaeng. Team Paul deplores Team CamClub's lack of bargaining, and Team Singles snagged some Happy Tree Friends t-shirts! Team PDA decides to head back to the hotel to drop their purchases, rest and freshen up before using the free time to head to Siam Paragon and MBK for dinner and shopping together with Team Singles.
Cultural Show Craze - Here Team Saladaeng and Team Tidur took totally different challenges! Team Saladaeng headed for the Historical Cultural Show (the costumes and puppets kind) while Team Tidur opted for the Industrial Cultural Show (the chicks and ducks and ping pongs and candles and aquariums kind) instead.
Sightseeing Sprint - All teams sans Team Ottamon took part in the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. Miscommunication between Team CamClub and Team PDA showed in the texts:
Team CamClub: We're going to grand palace today :-)
Team PDA: We're on the way there. Team William is currently leading. :D
Team CamClub: Where are you guys going today?
...Team CamClub arrived at the Grand Palace after all other teams have left, if we're not wrong.
Mall Run Day 3 - With everyone more or less with their own plans, Teams PDA and Singles headed back to do another Mall Run at MBK and Siam Paragon - with much better results!
Seafood Dinner Surprise - Kudos to Team William for finding out this gem of a place - Lek Seafood. Touted as "Affordable yet delicious," and so we decided to join them for dinner. 'Course, seeing how it's been three days in Bangkok now and both Team Tidur and Team Saladaeng have yet to do something together, we received this text:
Team CamClub: We all should have a final night gathering dinner together, all of us.
We advised Team CamClub to liase with Team William. Unfortunately the seafood dinner didn't turn out to be a full gathering dinner too, as Team Singles and a member from Team Ottamon was stuck in the middle of a massage, and Team CamClub showed up as the rest of us were finishing dinner, and Team PDA had to leave immediately after dinner to head for their massage.
Mall Run Day 4 - Not much shopping save to have lunch and bumping into Team Paul still blazing about in Siam Central.
Departure - Finally, only at Suvarnabhumi Airport did we get to take a group picture of everyone! Thanks to Team Shell (whom we bumped into at the airport!) for being the photographer!
