escapades of the elusive kat

Nothing much really happened. Went in to work, got stuff sorted out, tried a restaurant or two.

I decided to unplug the fridge and let it defrost overnight with the doors open. It looks pretty dry already, but I'm going to prop the doors open, don't want any chance of getting moldy.

Not sure if it was a next door neighbour or a building management guy, but I got asked if we're keeping the unit. I just said we are.

Cleared the mailbox and there was still so much junk mail and authentic mail for the previous tenant (and probably previous-previous tenant too). Haven't they updated their correspondence addresses?

I also used google maps to look for a nearby post office and the way Singapore addresses are written is just stumping me. I'm finally getting to understand the formats by now, but I still haven't located a post office so fingers crossed there is one at the airport.

Dad seems to be doing better though now for no reason he's got an inflammed knee. I will surely be visiting tomorrow!

The Boss called me late last night: he lost something, and he thinks he left it on the plane! He's telling me almost 12 hours after the fact. It was midnight anyway, so I let it sit until this morning.

I called the airline customer service, got through the entire conversation in Mandarin. Lady said I should call another number (she gave me the number) later in the afternoon.

Did that, another big conversation in Mandarin, and booyah! They got my Boss' item. Boss wanted to ask them to courier it out, but they needed for him to show with ID to pick up the thing.

Anyway, I was riding a kind of high today because, I managed to resolve a Boss issue all in Mandarin. I'll admit I was feeling pretty cool and pretty good.

So with my new work location, I have to drive.
Well, I could take the bus to work, but I'd rather drive as I don't really feel like stuffing myself into a tin like a can of sardines day and night.

Our car park technically is only registered to Mom's car, but we lucked out with the actual location of the car park, so we can park 2 cars in that spot (weird spot that goes in deep to a dead end against a wall, so we can park 2 cars).

Now that I need to drive, Dad has no car to drive. I thought it was so natural that I finally get to drive my car (the car is registered in my name, yes. I bought that car when I got my first full time job). Dad says it's OK he will walk or take the bus now, but really, you can hear in his voice he's upset he has no car (despite his vocal protests of "It's OK!").

So we were in the market of buying a second-hand car. Our mechanic also deals with buying/fix-up/sell second hand cars, so we asked him. He said he didn't have anything on hand right now, and offered to lend us a car. At first, he wanted to lend us a Cooper S. He asked me "are you afraid to drive an European Car?" (Some differences with the signal lights and rain swipe levers, or something like that). I replied, "I don't mind, but since it's Dad driving, are you afraid to let my Dad drive the European Car?" And LOL mechanic was like, "nah, your Dad can drive your car" LOL.

Anyway, at the end of the day, mechanic said his friend just returned one of his Japanese cars to him, so he will lend us that car. It's a Toyota Will Cypha something. By the license plate, it's older than my car, maybe by around 6 months or 1 year. Good thing he's lending us this car, because I later found out the Cooper S was actually my Mom's friend's (ex friend? Frenemy?) husband's car. So I thought all was settled. We got the spare car for Dad, I can drive my car, no bother about my Sis as she will continue to drive Mom's car.

Dad throws a mini fit. He wants to keep driving MY car, because he's used to it, and that he sometimes takes Frankie the dog out on car rides, and he can't very well put Frankie in the mechanic's car (a borrowed car), right? So. He gets to drive my car *rolls eyes* and I have to drive the borrowed car. Oh well.

Since I've already registered with my workplace car park the details of my car, I have to de-register that and register the mechanic's car... a load of paperwork... and unfairness! I have a membership deal with the gasoline/petrol place with my car where I don't have to pay on the spot (it's by month-end settlement) and it's so convenient. But Dad gets that. Mind you, he drives the car and the gasoline fee gets deducted from my account. Now with the mechanic's car, I can't put it under my account (as the car is not under my name), so I have to pay every time I put gas. Ugh. Aaaand... I'm paying double! Before, when I didn't drive, I didn't mind so much to pay for Dad's gasoline as he would sometimes drive me around. But now I don't need him to drive me around, as I will be able to drive around myself....

And car park. I'm the one stuck with having to look for a car park in the street. Why is my life always so unfair? I'm the one who's bringing different fringe benefits to the home, but I never get to enjoy these benefits. It's the others that get to enjoy them (and hog them), and I am stuck having to do things without the benefits. Like Mom's car (that Sis drives) I was able to put that car into my account too, so Sis gets the postpaid benefit, and discount of gasoline too, but she just never pays me back on time. I have to nag her for weeks and only then she will pay me back.

Mom says I have to understand that she gets paid less than me, well, they have to understand getting paid more also means the responsibility and stress is very probably more too!

Apparently, Mom's friends thought "poor Sis" was having a hard time and "did charity" and paid into a fund for her. WTF? It's not like I want the same thing, but if they are paying money into her account, then in some form of thanks or repayment, you'd think when they need help, they'd ask Sis first? No. They never ask her. They all ask me. And they ask in such a way as if I HAVE to do it, or else. WTF? I threw a fit once to Mom and said, people should start to ask Sis for help. If she's so useless and admits that she can't do it, only then I will do it. She's receiving help from people, so she should put some effort in helping back first. Instead of outright just asking me. You may say I'm being petty and greedy that I'm just mad I'm not receiving the same money/help from them. In a way, it's a yes, but it's not simply just because of that. That's a whole other can of worms for next time.

Aaaaand! Here I am, back from my business trip to Seoul. This time the flights were more pleasant. For economy class, it was nice.
Obviously I can't show anything work-related, but yeah, here's a rough run-down of the trip.

It was a 9am flight so I had to leave home around 6ish (company car, thanks). Once landed in Seoul, I had booked a full-day car for the team, so we had a quick trip to our first stop and meeting. After meeting, it was time for dinner!

Korean BBQ!

Since our hotel was in Myeongdong area, we went for a gander around the Myeongdong Night Market. I sort of had some memory of it, but then also I don't really remember it from my last trip.

Cute sketch-portrait shops and pet stores!

Actually what happened was, we had dinner as a team and walked around Myeongdong together. Then we all went back to the hotel. I had a short rest (10 minutes?) and then I went right back out because we were all too polite to actually do anything in the night market, LOL

And so, I did a more thorough walk-around.

Seared Marshmallow ice cream? Check.

There were a few of this HBAF or peanut/almond snack shop.

There's this weird Line Friends Square thing, but you had to register for the "queue" and then wait for your turn.

Anyway, short walk over then I went back to hotel to sleep.

Next morning, I started with a nice run!

This day's assignment was to look at a few office units for rental.

All in all, we visited 6 units. We have units that we like, and units that we don't like. Didn't have a proper lunch but we did stop for coffee two times, and we had a short break around lunch hour and took a quick look at the DDP. NOT recommended on a hot summer's day.

There were some interesting AI stuff in the DDP as well. A photo-booth thing where you stand in front and then it'll give you suggestions on what clothes to buy.

The second coffee/snack stop we made was in Gangnam area, Nudake. Very cute croissants (croissants?) shaped like an onigiri or some other such thing. Even the sofa had croissent legs!

The croissants were actually pretty good.

We wanted to go to the Starfield Library, but it was getting late and the team wanted their own "me" time, so we decided to head off to the Hyundai Seoul, the newest shopping mall, and disperse there. I did a quick walk around to see what it's like.

Then I made my way by the subway to... the Starfield Library. The photos on the web made it look huge, but when I was there it was just pretty... small.

After this, I braved the bus network. Which, I would like to recommend an app, called Moovit. It tells you the transportation directions (like bus, train, subway, etc). Since it was just too much sun during lunch, I made my way back to the DDP. The streets surrounding the DDP turned into a night market when I went there, full of stalls. So I did the requisite gander around too.

Eventually made my way to this secret bar, Jean Frigo. It must be some French brand as the menu was showing the price in Euros as well. The facade just looks like a fake vegetable or fruit shop, but if you brave it and open one of the freezer doors, you get into the bar.

It's mainly fruit juice based cocktail. But I wanted the cinammon apple punch and it was exactly that that was sold out.

I had planned to eat at the bar but their dishes looked a bit heavy (everything was attractively cheese, cheese, and cheese) so I decided to skip it. Went back again to Myeongdong and had a croissant Taiyaki for dinner.

Next day, after my morning run, and going into my Boss' room to wake him up and send him off, I went out for more walk around. I wanted to go to the cathedral, but I missed a road and instead walked around the block.

Might as well look what's around.

This "Maldong" place is soooooo weird. I will come back later as this was open (8:00am) but it was empty and products not ready yet.

Went back to the hotel to send off my remaining 2 colleagues (I decided to stay an extra day), and after that, went for lunch. FINALLY! My favorite pork knuckle restaurant in Seoul! Myth Jokbal! But, I was one lonely person so I was only allowed to order from the set meal menu... so there were a bunch of other kimchi appetiser items that I don't eat.

I decided to go to the National Palace Museum of Seoul, they had some interesting exhibits. Pity I was like 3 days too early as they had an interesting Notre Dame exhibit going on show 2-July.

Really interesting stuff.

Then to the Gyeongbokgung. I wasn't sure at first but mid-way I realized I was here before already.

These kids were either part of a youth tour group or something, anyway, they were doing free guided tours. It was interesting to see their command of the English Language, they had pretty good pronunciation (American) when they were reciting the spiel, but when they had to speak freely, they couldn't. At the end of the tour they wanted me to say something about the tour so I just said it was nice to have brief guide and intro to different parts of the palace.

Random palace pictures.

On the way back I finally managed to find the Cathedral entrance and went in there. I wanted to go light a candle for my Uncle as I missed his wake and funeral, but I guess candle lighting isn't a thing in Korea? They didn't even have a candle rack.

I went back to that weird pink Maldong place for a donut.

The peanut store, I got a bunch of nuts to bring home. Oh yeah I also stopped at a Olive Young for a bunch of facial face masks.

I did walk over a few more places such as the Lotte Department Store but I didn't really have much to buy in those luxury chains where we had a store back home as well, so, not much shopping on that front.

It then started to rain, and rained through the following day, so I just spent the morning having a nice breakfast and then hiding indoors until it was time to take the bus to the airport again.

Hello from Singapore

Hello all, I am writing this on the plane (but probably posting this late in the night).
I’m enroute to Singapore again!

After the last trip, we’ve locked down on an office space and after some back and forth with the landlord and the agent, we managed to make payment on time for an April handover, getting a 1 month rent free renovation and set up period, and the actual rental term commencing in May. My assignment this time is to go pick up the keys to the office.

Why is a person in Macau flying all the way to Singapore to pick up the keys to a place that she won’t be working at? Argh.

There’s a few more things I must settle. I’ll be looking for an insurance agent there for the liability insurance and a property insurance. Also have to start talks with the local telecom to set up the telephone lines and such.

So other than these random bag of tasks, I am in Singapore… seemingly on holiday. A colleague was already gushing… “oh wow! I haven’t been to Singapore for so long already! I really want to go to Singapore!” Well, you are free to go on my behalf to get work done. Do you know how busy I am? I do not have the time to be playing around traveling for minor tasks like receiving the keys to the office when there are already employed staff there!

But, well. Due to reasons, this time I’m flying via Hong Kong, on Cathay Pacific. Just the bare minimum standards of an economy class trip, and Cathay is of course so much better than Air Macau. (I flew to Singapore on Air Macau the last time).

Next trip to plan: Seoul at the end of the month! This is a little more scary as unlike Singapore where everything is English based, in Seoul it’s not. I need to think about where to stay, local transport, and such. I really so hope there will be someone on board that speaks Korean or IS Korean that we can be going there with.

You know, I feel like such a creep LOL. I am sitting on my flight seat, aisle seat on the window side of the plane. My next two seats are empty, yay. I have my own in-flight entertainment TV screen. YET, I’m looking over 2 rows ahead on the opposite aisle seat’s screen. The guy in front of this one is watching Barbie. This one I’m looking at is some… maybe American high school story of some glam girl’s fall from grace or something. I don’t know. I’m only watching the screen and trying to read the subtitles. I have my own screen. Heck. I brought my own entertainment. I have my Switch this time. Awful idea, my computer bag is heavy as hell, but there’s a nostalgic game I used to play that had a Switch remake so I’m playing it there.

Two more hours to Singapore. I’ll stop here, toilet break, and start playing on my game 

An add-on after I checked into my hotel. I’m in Little India, and the hotel wants to look trendy and new and modern but sorry the state of the walls and other small things (the electric outlet, the seams between the glass wall of the toilet and room) just screams run down. But I’m not complaining, it’s a roof over my head, I’ve got a queen sized bed, the air con is lovely in this heat. My only lament is the lack of slippers. I was banking on their providing cheap paper thin slippers so didn’t bring my travel slipper but I banked wrong. I did think about buying new slippers but they are so expensive! I need a dollar store or Daiso type of place.

Dinner was at the food market places Tekka Center, then I went hunting for dessert and found a so-far the best sweet dessert soup place. Had a walnut and black sesame paste soup and it was DELICIOUS! Too bad this is in Singapore… I could be coming here every other day!

A few more tasks to handle tomorrow and then Friday I have to meet with a big management boss and the local staff, then I have the rest of Friday and Saturday morning free. Now. What should I do this time around?

Random photos of my walk around Little India. Need to get my guts together and try some actual Indian food. Already went for that... naan or prata thing in the market. Need to try more!

Tekka Place is NOT the market (Tekka Center) but now I found out I did not shoot a photo of the signage.

mi Hotel? Everything digital? And also walked past the University of arts or something.

 So apparently my Boss has just received a new task and has asked me to prepare a presentation that's about that. He keeps telling me "it's very simple!" Without going too much into what it's about, it will somehow involve the potential to traveling around and he tacked in a phrase, "then we can go on holiday on company money!"

He was all chipper and happy, but deep in my thoughts, only one phrase was flying around:

"It's not like I yearn to go on holiday with you Boss. Geez. Chill."

Also, I've now re-listened to his monologue 3 times and can only come to one conclusion that of..... it's f*cking not simple at all.

But anyway, Kat doesn't outright complain or reject and will just work on it, so, I shall be building an outline of what needs to be done, and information I need to collect.

This is going to be a pain. Ugh.

I have this one colleague from this department... I shall call this colleague "D" and D is the head of department "B".

When the project first started and there wasn't really any structured departments, D needed someone to issue invoices and receipts. Since the company wasn't formally structured yet, D used the reason that "you (me) are the Boss' assistant, so for your development you should assist and do it."

Being the greenhorn with that Boss that I was at the time and not knowing what he expected of me, I did as D said. Soon, it felt like I was just getting work piled up on me because D always used that reasoning. And then one time D had to deal with another person but didn't want to, and D told me "ah, I know that he doesn't like me, and I really don't like working with HIM so will you do it instead?"

Hotheaded that I was, I said "I don't really like dealing with you, but here I am! Work is work and how to work around such inter-personal relations is part of the job, I believe."

LOL. How brazen of me. LOL.

Anyway, that was a couple years back. Right now, D is on holiday. D got a "dream team" but D has the tendency to... harp how good the staff are when they are newly hired, but when they start to not-perform, then they are all from hell. This "dream team" is... simply what D calls them. So far in my dealings with them, they will hardly make it to my "dream team."

D has this secretary that D has harped how good she is. "She was the assistant to who-and-who (some big shot in town)". I was just dealing with that girl today.

What happened was, my Boss contacted department B directly to get something done. D's on holiday and out of town, so the team at department B asked D's assistant to call me. Essentially, stuff had to be packed up into boxes and get sent to the Boss in Hong Kong.

Simple enough situation, right?

Since the Boss didn't ask me to do anything, I really didn't know what was going on. But, I can make educated guesses on what needs to be done. Source a courier that would pick up the items and delivery by Friday. But, other information is also needed... "How big are the boxes? How heavy? How many boxes?" Was what I asked the girl.

She sent me a photo of a big box that had the dimensions written on the box, that's good. Then another photo of another box that had no dimensions written on it, but I saw a person's arm on the side, so I could make an educated guess of how large the box was. But I still needed the dimensions to sort out the courier.

She gave me the box size of 17.5 x 17 x 9 CM.

I was feeling weird. 17 CM is not very large. It's around the length of my outstretched palm maybe. But on the other photo one side of the box was the length of an arm (hand to elbow) and surely that's more than 17 CM.

I asked her to reconfirm.

She confidently states, "the dimensions are correct."

Well. I wasn't really up for any arguments, so I simply sent her this, and said "This is 17.5 CM."


A couple minutes later, she sends me an update of "45 x 43 x 24 CM. This is the correct box size."

I figured since 45 CM was just around where 17.5"  would be so she probably read the measuring tape wrong, and I also didn't really want to continue with the fight. As long as it's a size that's transportable by humans, I counted that a win, because then I could send it by some alternative methods (not normal courier) and can make sure that the Boss gets them before Friday (and it's another holiday tomorrow, so the send out and arrangement of delivery cannot wait, had to be done today).

But by golly, geez! I'm not here to teach people how to read a measuring tape! Don't they learn all that in school?

So what if she was the assistant of some local big shot? Why did she jump ship then? From a direct-to-big-shot to a department-head's-assistant? Did she jump ship or did she get axed? By her little performance today, I really wonder.

I know that yes, people make mistakes, mistakes can happen, it can maybe just be not her day, or any other reasoning, but some careless mistakes are simply that: careless mistakes. She can argue that she's on holiday and it was her colleague that had given her the measurement, but that just proves one more thing. As a middle man, I would not just "pass on the message" as it is. I would try to understand the message, and if I deem the message clear, then I would pass it on. So say she got the measurements from her colleague, she could have tried to imagine the box size then let me know. Not, when I challenged her, her retort was "that was the measurement my colleague gave me!" Hey hey hey, your colleague could be wrong, or I could be wrong, but in saying that without fact checking yourself, you've made yourself wrong as well. And now you're just digging yourself deeper.

*sigh*. I'm so tempted to say "kids these days" but this would invariable make me feel old (heck, I feel old already thinking that).

Today's just started off all wrong. I like to spend my 10-15 minute walk from home to work mentally preparing for the day. If that means listening to music, podcast, or just no earphones but a quiet walk, and that's it. I need my "alone-time" morning walk.

Today I had earphones on but them being in noise cancelling mode was an accident. I do like the noise cancelling mode but I also know that out in the streets with traffic and all that I shouldn't have it on. But honestly, this morning, it was by accident. I probably turned it on by tapping on either the left or the right pod, but anyway, the how isn't important.

So I was happily in my own world waiting at a red light when someone taps me on my back - I hate it. And it's a colleague from the office. Outwards I'm all smiles and good morning and putting the earphones away and then noticing apparently I had the noise cancelling on and all that. Deep down I was all like... leave me alone, this is my mental preparation time, stop talking to meeeeee!

In the office they're chatty and noisy already, I don't need that energy before my actual work day starts! I've brewed some tea in hopes of that lifting my mood but no, nada, not helping. Gawds, I'm such an introvert.

Guess I'll just stick those earphones in my ear again and I'll continue with my online courses. I've finished one module already, and I'm now on Economics. I hated economics in high school. I was hoping I would get a better understanding now, but it would seem I still hate it. I know the terminology, GDP, imports, exports, opportunity costs, and all that, but it's the same thing with high school all over again. The terminology is defined, but then the question is asking about something else entirely. Much like those running jokes about algebra or something, where, if I have 5 apples, and you have 10 oranges, so If I give you 2 apples, then how fast is the car going and when is the purple monster in the UFO going to land. That sort of thing. I suppose, Economics shall continue to be the bane of my existence.

My genius staff strikes again.

She's going to have to take some prolonged time off, so I told her to prepare the paperwork so that everything is logged into the system.

And she goes "but I don't know how much sick leave I have to take?"

And then she says "I'm asking to take sick leave, not unpaid leave (NPL - no pay leave)."

But the fact remains... she has no more sick leave balance. And annual leave (paid leave) balance. So whatever else she takes for her leave time will be NPL.

And she continues "but I'm not asking for NPL, and I don't know how many days the doctor will give me." We explain again what she has to do - the doctor says to expect a 2-week recovery, she doesn't have enough sick leave balance, so she can only use the remaining balance she has (1 day) and the rest of it NPL. Her first question, "how do you know I only have 1 day left of sick leave?"

erm... coz I know you've taken 3 times sick leave, each time 2 days, and per your contract you have 7 days sick leave?

She's been working here 3 years almost 4 years. I don't understand what she doesn't understand. And more importantly, she is the one actually hired under that project. I'm not even IN that project if you go according to the HR staff list. How do I know the P&P better than her?

Anyway, after much explanation of why the paperwork needs to be prepared and submitted beforehand, and in case she decides to return to work earlier then it's possible to cancel the NPLs that she didn't take.

More, not disputes, but "I don't really know what's going on,"s and when she said, "You know, in Portugal they do it-" and I just had to stop her right there with a "We're in Macau, not Portugal, so no, I don't know how it's done in Portugal."

She submits her paperwork to my assistant. My assistant missed it as well, but when she passed it to me to sign, I looked at the form and said "she has to sign this again, she's signed in pencil."

Assistant calls genius (not) staff again, tells her "you signed with a pencil, please sign with a pen,".... genius (not) replies "impossible, I signed with a pen." I piped in, "let's use a standard pencil eraser and erase over it to see if it goes off," and off the signatures go, and genius (not) still says "but I signed with a pen!"

What else can I say? The fact was there plain to see, the eraser was able to erase her signature. It's not those pilot frixon pens that disappear in heat either (and if it were, they do say to NOT sign anything with that pen, because it disappears in heat).

She thinks that it's such a big thing for her to miss 2 weeks of work. Rather, in true fact, it's making our work easier without her. Big meeting tomorrow and beause she's out so I have to write the minutes. Am I annoyed? Not the tiniest bit, coz it's so much easier to just do it myself.

LOL this is me being outright and asking my boss for a raise LOL, he knows I'm joking though.


He needed to provide certain information that if provided through that particular platform, it is considered authenticated, but required that he use certain credentials to log in to the system. He claims he's forgotten all his credentials, so I was trying to ask around and all that. Alternatively, he could have provided physical authenticated documents, but he said he's also never received them. Gigantic eye roll.

Finally I did manage go through, after much sleuthing, it was all very legal and above the table, but I like to say I hacked into the system, because it makes life seem more adventurous this way.

Despite him saying good job, no, he hasn't agreed to my raise. Le sigh. LOL. Again, I was joking anyway.