In New York!
Ok, picture was taken back in office; mf poses :)
The preparation
By the time I got to NY, the advance team had already been there for a week and quite washed out; they sent emails at unearthly hours. Hadn't hit me yet that the rest of us would suffer the same fate.. Lots of things cropped up, starting from arrival; our meet-&-greet didn't show up. That was only the beginning of ground transport woes..
The first day after arrival was benign. Then the rest of the week just went by in quite a blur.. I forgot what I did on some days.. And being late in recording this was only part reason!
I was supposed to be doing logistics for staff and crew, excluding the events company staff. One day quite early in the week, I went on a recce trip to Queens where we rented a kitchen for our hawkers to prepare food. Took the train there and a cab back - the train was cheaper and jam-free but the 20min walk from the hotel to the right platform might result in a few stray cats, so we stuck to coach arrangements. Gratefully, Makansutra organised the hawkers such that they had no problems at all with the coach. Can't say the same for other groups though; some people kept having trouble with ground transport!
Throughout the whole ground transport ordeal, I was glad for DC's company and guidance. A few times, she and I had to go to the hotel where our partners were staying (we stayed at different places; can't remember why) to make sure they arrived and got checked in. She dealt with the divas while I liaised with the coach company and our travel agent in Singapore. There were so many people with different transport requirements!!! At night, I wasn't doing my papers as I had hoped.. Had to deal with a lot of excel files with a lot of names and flight details and arrival dates and room-sharing details that didn't tally *.*
When our freight arrived after some customs issues, we unpacked those boxes and started packing 5,000 goodie bags.. 5,000!
There were tens of such boxes..
Finished products
The damage
It took all 11 of us, some 10 from the event company, and some 10 volunteers three hours of madness.. Some of us never passed over the chance for a Kodak moment..
That's me, long hair over face :p
After just one hour, I decided while I would love to do some brainless job sometimes, I just couldn't do this kind of brainless job - the packing was driving me mad – crazy and angry!
In fact, I wasn't the only one going mad. AA kept repeating "It has been a great honour working with you.." - cranky!! Emotions were also high with the mounting stress as the event drew nearer and as unexpected events kept unfolding. Friday was very bad for me; at some point I seriously felt like crying =( That night, I made a trunk call for some much needed TLC at 6am when I crawled into bed.. Slept for only one hour before I had to wake for the real thing.
But we had some 苦中作乐 time as well..
E.g. 1: Playing with goodie bag items
E.g. 2: Eating instant noodles
Day event
We were all in our orange "uniforms". I had once jokingly said I looked better in the sweater teamed with just underwear but I walked out with exercise pants in the end :p
The setup involved everyone moving the registration stuff from storage to the terrace... At one point, one of the hired hands asked TO: Are you paid by the hour too? :p
DC and LH
Queues started as early as 10am (I think, cos I was dashing about) although the registration was supposed to start at only 10.30am.
The queues for the food were overwhelming - chwee kueh and chicken rice were the first to sell out.
Yummy sambal... But we only had a few mouthfuls of leftover carrot cake at the end of the day...
The Wollman Rink in Central Park, and that's the stage behind..
I had no defined role as I was on standby for any issue on ground transport. And man, were there issues! Some people couldn't walk a few steps to the coach parked at another building exit (of an apparently not-so-idiot-proof square building) so the driver had to turn round and round given New York streets to reach them, with me remote controlling both parties - the people and transport company that used radio to reach driver. Time loss = one freaking hour.
Despite the delay, was glad that the concert managed to open at about 1pm. The audience seemed to be having great fun despite the heat - it was raining all the way until a couple of days before when we started setting up the place. In his opening address, the Man said we brought SG weather to NY :) Oh, TO and I were Vanna Whites - we carried lucky draw boxes :p
After my brief appearance on stage, I started my long journey to transport 200-300 goodie bags to the dinner venue - NYPL. It was a really painful process; I had been trying to do that since about 11am but couldn't find anyone to help. The two hired hands were hopelessly lazy, showing me black face all the time, especially the older and lazier one. We got two waiting staff to help carry the second batch and they were so charmingly helpful despite the weight and distance, and they were supposed to be dealing with food, not goods.. Attitudes, my friends, attitude..
Got back from the library in time in the van to fetch the Boss and the group doing reception at NYPL cos the day event was over. So I didn't get to watch the concert but saw from webcast later that people were swaying to the songs, ahhh...
The rest of us picked up some loose ends and left the park for good. But not before another group shot :p
Night event
No point getting a cab and getting stuck in NY traffic so we walked back to the hotel with just enough time to change for dinner. In the van, bosses said they met a couple who said they knew me. Turned out to be the old couple SF and I met in Boston last year. So I found them during cocktails and had a chat with them..
Somehow was plucked from my assigned table to sit at RQ's table. Was dreading the pressure to "mingle" but it turned out to be quite fun - had some mutual friends with some people at the table as they were quite young :) And one of them was from my sec school!
Had to help out at the reception halfway through dinner. Chatted with the people there. The events guys were quite dazed by then and they were saying that this was the most siong event ever! I could hardly agree more..
Went back into the hall when the concert started. It started late!! Cos they didn't want to start until all dishes had all been served, and all lights must go, etc etc.. By the time it finished, it was so late! In fact, a few guests had filed out before the concert ended.
We cleared the library pretty quickly and had a debrief (or two?) in the hotel. Said I would never be a tour guide; had enough of divas who couldn't handle transport and hotel!!
Post event
The next day, had to attend a thank-you lunch for our volunteers, during which LY seemed especially “friendly” with RQ! Haha! So we got her to ask him if we could leave lunch earlier - and we did! LY, LH and TO went shopping while I carted myself to the Met where I roamed for two hours. Bought a poster - Spring - to hang in my room =)
There was a Greek parade along 5th Ave, for Greek independence day, which was delayed due to the rains in March/April.
Talked to a few Greeks and they were so friendly! Struck me that they might be born in the US and have an American accent but they still had deep ties with their country.
It was a lovely day so I walked 40 blocks (!) to the hotel, checked out the ladies' shopping kills and showered before leaving for the airport. Bought myself a man's scent - yes, for me! :p Did some inflight shopping too - blusher..
Was so tired I was suffering fatigue for the next few weeks.. Didn't help that we had to table papers at the meeting quite immediately after Sg Day.. Second bout of stress that made me feel like crying - twice in two weeks! I've never been so freaked out in my 3.5 years of working.. Seriously hope that this won't happen again, and if it does, that I have learnt to deal with it better..
I didn't watch NDP :p
Watched The Bourne Ultimatum instead :p
Our first movie at AMK Hub!
Oh, but I'm listening to the NDP songs now, check out the first link! Already did my "NS" this afternoon, and last night - no more work until tomorrow! Suddenly remember watching this commercial about NS coming to 40 years this year, and found a website for it.. Actually I like the Singapore story, didn't use to appreciate it much during history lessons 13 years (omg!) back though.. Maybe that's why I love watching NDP live, being in the thick of the celebrations! But couldn't get tickets this year..
But I digress...
Wandered into the arcade while waiting for admission for hall number four. Found that I actually had the tap card for this arcade! Bought it ages ago for the one in Jubilee. It had some credit left so got Sito to beat the moles! Got 35 tickets and exchanged them for three stickers and a cute badge - happy :)
Material things, like my iMac, make me happy, but the mundane things make me happier :) E.g. I'll be happy when this pimple goes away! Going to remove the purifying mask putty now - wish me luck..
After many late nights, I've finally finished Book 7! My mind couldn't leave the plot. I would think of it on the way to work, on the way home, while taking toilet breaks, etc..
The one thing I kept thinking of since the end of Book 6 was whether Snape was on the bright or dark side.. Snape always seemed so sinister and was mean to Harry they all while being friendly with the Slytherins. Yet, Dumbledore had always insisted on his innocence, that he was a double agent. So I looked back..
There were instances that suggested that Snape could be a good person, e.g. he shielded the trio when Remus Lupin turned into a werewolf in Book 5, and he stopped a Death Eater from torturing Harry as they were escaping Hogwarts in Book 6.
But why would he stand up against Voldemort, whom he once revered? Soppy mf could only think of one reason for him being truly on Dumbledore's side: he loved Lily Evans, but inadvertently caused her death at the hands of Voldemort. At one point, I realised that while he was always scolding Harry for being like his father, he had never once badmouthed Lily Evans. That was pure speculation until Book 7, when just before he died, he told Harry to look at him - cos Harry had his mother's eyes!
I think I'm like Dumbledore - my guesses are good :p
Happy and satisfied! But JK Rowling really killed the series for sequels man, with that last chapter saying that the scar hadn't hurt for 19 years.. I would miss this adventure for sure...
Alright! Now that I have no more compelling reads, I can now scan the news more diligently and do some blogging at night.. Normalcy commences..
Haven't done this for ages, lazing around on a weekend.. In fact this must be the first time since I moved into my own room..
Good feeling :)
Cleaned my room, put all my CDs into iPod, and just finished the sixth book - cried with them all over Dumbledore, so sad..
I must now resist temptation to start on the seventh book and go iron my clothes..
Ahhh.. Relaxed :)
Saw a news headline today, something like "ugliest Miss Hong Kong in 20 years"
So mean!!! Thought she was pretty in the picture..
Then just now, I googled for more pictures.. And I came to a conclusion: She is still pretty, but I, fluffy mf, look better in a bikini!
Doesn't say much about her then, unfortunately..!
Spent Sat with Jo and her 6-month-old baby, Lucian.. He was such a good boy; he entertained himself most of the time while the mummy and the auntie (yes, me, sighs..) chatted on and on, only crying when he was hungry, sleepy or cold.. And he smiled so easily it was amazing :)
What a smiley baby!
He is very very soft and quite small in my arms, very huggable, like a little doll..
And look at his legs! Oooh... So succulent!
(Finally understand what Siok and Joyce Darling meant when they described babies as yummy :p)
Actually, think it is quite tiring to look after a kid.. It's a full-time job! .. I think I still want that job :p
To maximise the 4-day trip, we took overnight flights both ways. But we were so tired on arrival despite sleeping on the flight that we slept until noon - glad that we could check in at 8am..
Woke hungry and headed for Macs (!) before walking down 南京路 (Nanjing Road) for 人民公园 (People’s Park)..
It was a happening shopping street but when we took a turn into one of the sidewalks, this was what greeted us - an interesting clash of cultures
Turned out that we walked the wrong direction and ended up instead at the start of the Nanjing Road pedestrian walkway.
We carried on to 和平饭店 (Peace Hotel) but unfortunately it was closed for renovation.. Took a picture anyway :p
So we took a leisurely stroll down the Bund, snapped a few shots
Looks so fake right?
But it's real! We're there!
At some point, we decided to walk elsewhere and came across a park that we couldn’t find on the map given by the tour agency. However, from the park description, we wandered into some old streets on the other end of the park and found 城隍庙 (Old City Temple)!
Outside the temple was a maze of old temple-ish buildings and walkways, which we explored slowly. Towards the end of the day, we queued 30min for 蟹肉小笼包 at RMB10 per basket of 16! Eight in Singapore would cost S$8? Very happy, very yummy...
Not knowing the way, we cabbed back to drop our shopping bags before going for dinner near our hotel, 中福大酒店, which was very centrally located. Dinner was at an average local diner. Ended our day with a foot bath and massage behind our hotel - it was good! Where we were soaking our feet, they massaged our backs, then our feet. The therapists were quite chatty, saying that Sito looked local while I spoke like a Taiwanese.. So funny, Sito looked Korean while in Korea, Japanese while in Japan and now he looked Chinese while in China!! :p
Had to wake early for breakfast in the hotel before the day tour the next day. Our tour guide 小全 told us stories while driver 王师傅 drove on silently. One was a funny tale of some angmoh journalists trying to bully Deng Xiao Ping, who couldn’t speak English:
Journalist 1: What is the capital of the US?
DXP, thinking that they must be asking about his surname: 我姓邓
Journalist 2: What is the key propellant of China’s growth?
DXP, thinking that they must be asking about his first name now: 小平，小平! (sounds like shopping!)
Journalist 3, trying to provoke him about Taiwan: Who is the current President in Taiwan?
DXP, starting to feel irritated that they were still speaking to him in English while his translator wasn’t around: 等会儿!
Journalist 4, trying to do the same: Who will be the next president of Taiwan?
DXP, frustrated: 随便，随便!
Journalists: *stunned*
First stop was shopping at the temple streets, but since we were there it already, we headed straight for the temple itself, which was closed by the time we reached it the day before. It was a small Taoist temple..
I like this sign.. Can you see? It says 不由人算
We crossed 九曲桥, which was too crowded when we were first there
Saw an old man fanning himself
Next was the 宋庆龄陵园 (Soong Ching Long Mausoleum). Spent some time in the gallery looking at her life story. The Soong sisters had very interesting lives; maybe I should go read more..
Happy signs, not warning signs
We were then brought to a souvenir area where a guy talked to us about feng shui. The group consisted of just us and another Singaporean couple. So he mentioned the feng shui of some buildings and events in Singapore, e.g. the OUB building and the opening of the UOB building, which kind of led to the fate of the two. He brought us to a showroom of 天禄, or pi qiu (don’t know the characters!) as they are more commonly called in China, or at least Shanghai; I know them as天禄 from my Taiwan trip two years ago. His teacher showed face for a while to “read” our names, quite accurately I thought, and recommended two palm-sized天禄 for Sito and me. He left his disciple to do the selling but we thought the kiddo wasn’t “real”. Nonetheless, it was quite an interesting experience.
Lunch was at 傣家村 (Dai Jia Chun), which served Yunnan food along with traditional performances. Some nine dishes for four of us, quite filling.. Left for some shopping at 七蒲路 (Qipu Road) but didn’t buy anything. I tried a dress; it didn’t suit me but the trying experience was new - instead of changing in a fitting room, the lady pulled a piece of cloth across the shop and I just changed behind it, exposing head and calves!!
Went to 新天地 (Xintiandi) to look-see. Should be quite a happening place at night.. Outside was where the Communist Party had its first meeting
With time to spare, 小全 brought us to some 养生 centre and a pearl research institute. At the first place, we had a foot soak in some hot herbal water before a gentle foot massage while a TCM practitioner diagnosed my ills, apparently liver and blood, and recommended some medicine in capsule forms, at a few hundred SGD a month for a 3-month supply. Um, no thanks.. I knew my decision was right when he let another chap took over to diagnose Sito; they had the exact same introduction of “a hospital will tell you that you are ok but we can see that you have this and that..” When they left, we had a good chat with the cute, young therapists who were TCM interns from Guangzhou and Yunnan.
The pearl place was less cute; the guy pried open an oyster, killing it instantly to remove a pearl to show us =( I mean, I eat scallops, but I eat those already killed, never mind that they are killed to cater to tastebuds.. But to see something killed for a demonstration, I don’t want..
Dinner was early, on a boat, again consisting of many dishes but we enjoyed this a lot more than the lunch. The restaurant was right under the bridge; name has a typo.. Um, Chinese typo :p
Opulent inside..
We then went to the Bund for a short walk before taking the 7pm cruise of 黄浦江. Got ourselves a table and enjoyed the night scene. Apparently, electric bills after 6pm are government-paid so that people would put on the lights. Big buildings on the Pudong side had walls that played advertisements, including one that said, “做一个可爱的上海人” =)
The Pearl of the Orient was very pretty at night too.. On the journey back, we were treated to the lights on the Puxi side. The Bund! Exciting vibes but quite unlike what we have in Boat Quay and Clarke Quay..
The colours were so different at night
We went back to the hotel for a short rest before roaming Nanjing Road - it was so different at night!!
Spent S$1 at an arcade before some shopping. Walked for quite a while before settling for supper at a little eatery off Nanjing Road. Ordered spring onion pancake, fried dumplings, soup dumplings, soup noodles.. We ate so much! =D
Crashed when we got back and missed the hotel breakfast the next day, only to eat more for the rest of the day! Breakfast was at 吴大娘饺子 along Nanjing Road, 18 dumplings, a grilled sausage and a kebab stick between the two of us; lunch, barely two hours later, comprised 16 小笼包 and fried noodles in People’s Park; tea was ice cream; dinner was an elaborate BBQ affair in Raffles City, which kept us filled, i.e. no supper :p
This shows me getting fat
Our first non-food stop of the day was 上海书城, where we got some books at a fraction of Singapore price. But I didn’t manage to find the two classics I wanted, or rather, they didn’t have the version I wanted.
Raffles City near one end of Nanjing Road and People’s Park was so happening! There seemed to be some sort of a national contest and the fans were persuading passers-by to vote for their idols via sms; one girl asked me to vote even though I told her I wasn’t local..
Roamed People’s Park for a while, and found a pathway filled with middle-aged people. The A4 sheets hanging from trees and walls all read something like: XXX, female, 27, friendly and gentle, looking for guy who likes to play sports, etc etc! We talked to a couple who told us that it was a ground-up 招亲 event, initiated by the parents for their children to find a partner. How very interesting!
Visited the Shanghai Museum after that, quite nice, and quite funny at the end when Sito was recognising the various Chinese calligraphy fonts :) Walked through a 1930s street as we headed to Raffles City for some shopping. Walked out of Uniqlo with plenty of spoils, straight into the BBQ buffet, which left us so full we crashed very early..
And missed the hotel breakfast again, not that we were hungry! Watched Wedding Crashers - very funny and the girl was so pretty! - until 1pm when we had to check out. Then it was a very filling and yummy lunch of soup noodles before crossing over to the Pudong side via the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, which we felt were quite a rip-off; what sights?!
What we liked was the Pearl of Orient; we spent such a long time in there!
First we went up to catch the views.. Then we went to some space level where we had some fun making planets bounce on a flat screen on the floor :p
Ok, a bit scary! :p
And finally we visited the Shanghai History Museum on the ground floor, which was very fun! We spent such a long time in there.. Reminded me of the Chinatown Heritage Centre, which I visited twice.
We thought we should take their MRT for fun, and so we did. But it was a nightmare getting to the station. The area was full of zebra crossings and no traffic lights. Near our hotel, it was terrible enough; turning cars did not always give way to pedestrians. Now without lights, the cars just didn’t want to give way! We decided that it was a matter of “balls of steel” - must be assertive to make cars stop for you!! After all, the drivers were only “balls covered in steel” :p
Made it back to Nanjing Road just in time for dinner at 燕云楼, where we had Peking duck, braised tofu, vegetables, black pepper steak, sour and spicy soup, and noodles. At one point, the chap taking our orders went, “how many of you??” :p But we finished most of the stuff! Very proud of ourselves :)
Final stop in Shanghai was the foot massage place. This time, we went for full body massage. When she was doing my back with her knees (KNEES!), I could feel my dinner *.*
It was a good flight back, slept a little, watched a bit of 200-Pound Beauty before touch-down, quite funny and the girl was so pretty! :) Last note: stewardess was very kind to offer me a box of tissue when she saw me sniffing during take-off, and she remembered to ask after my nose as I left the plane.. What a nice ending to a relaxing holiday!
Flight, accom, day tour: $992
Cash spending: RMB1,500=$300
Plastic burnt: $380
Total damage: $1,672
Oops, slightly more than my target of $1,500.. But it was so enjoyable! :)
