Today I am "left behind" - hubby and gang are going to White Cliff! haiz... that is a place i have always wanted to go, but can't go when the opportunity comes.
I am staying at home. Mugging, working, and yes, this bit of blogging.
Look forward and yet dread going back in 2 weeks time. Argh! May got to be a record month, Washington, NYC, Singapore. 3 consecutive trips. I calculated that I will spend 40++ hours flying this month.
I have been having diarrhoea for a few days, when I barely recovered from the "Amsterdam cold".
All 3 of us came back sick.
I am dead tired, and dead busy. What a bad time to be tired!
Yesterday I did something which is hehehe.... very typically me, when I am tired.
After work, I went to shop for groceries and refilled the petrol-left the petrol cap of the car on the roof, and drove off. Hubby saw me coming back happily with my groceries and me proudly telling him I pumped petrol.
However, my "milestone" moment quickly turned to embarrassment.
Hubby: You got put the cap back or not? I bet you didnt?
Me: Har? cap? What cap? Shit!!!! I heard a thud when i drove off!!!
Tickets booked. Q****Airways- the airways that my friend told me dun pray pray, insider news say safety is heck. I thought hard hard hard, and decided what the heck! It it takes me to HK on less than 400 quid, and the savings from taking QA to HK, and then take budget airlines to Sg makes this HK stopover arrangement even cheaper than direct flights to Sg. That means, I will get to "do" HK again. woah hahahaa.
Things i must eat
*******Egg Tarts*******
Roasted Goose
Hui Lau Shan --- all those bird nest, mango, steam milk etc etc. This time I must plan such that I eat once during day time, eat again for supper hiak hiak hiak.
Won Ton Mee
Congee + yau cha kuay + soya bean milk breakfast
Nai cha
Lau po peng
ok , back to work. Yes, work! I cannot believe how busy I am this month, that I look forward to June!
We finished the Bak Kua, in 4 days. 8 precious pieces between us.
My friends have been angels- they bring me Bak Kua whenever they come! Haha... I think everyone knows that I love to eat.
ET brought almost 1kg of the thing near CNY, and worried about being caught. Hers was a normal packaging. The first time smuggler just hoped that no one would suspect a gal in business class smuggling.
EC is probably a much more experience smuggler, and brought a vacuum packed box. Gosh, that is a very costly version of Bak Kua, each slice preciously packed. She also lugged here two boxes of laksa and curry mix. That got my cravings settled till I go home :)
I will cook the laksa in an authentic manner, having discovered Hoo Hing C&C at Park Royal. That is a HUGE chinese supermarket!! Being a distributor, their stuff are really fresh! The bean sprout were so crunchy, and the tofu and to fu pok were fresh :)
Argh, the gals know me well. I am so touched. Hmm.. I wonder if I will get durian one of these days. Ok, I know that is too greedy, but I can start wishing :)
This is all we could catch- Cardiff Castle was closed by the time we reach. Cardiff is an interesting city and a place where I would come back and chill out. The atmosphere in Cardiff Bay is just cool!
But if I want to live, I might want to live in Swansea. Small city with most houses built prettily on the hills.
The cliff are stiff, and one slip means bye bye. Perhaps that is why is it such an exciting place to make out. I saw a couple having a picnic at the edge, and start necking passionately. Regreted not taking the photos. That is a perfect example of loving dangerously.
Sheep actually graze on these cliffs- you can see the evidence: lots of sheep shit on the green green grass.
Hubby was wondering how many sheep went down.
The Worm Head. You can walk over there during the low tides.
Rhossili Bay
Rhossli Bay is breathtaking, and it would have been wonderful if we caught the low tide period, and walk across to the Worm Head part
Here are the photos of the beach hopping day at Gower Peninsula. It is a pity that some photos taken at earlier parts of the day were "greyish" because it was cloudy and misty.
Meet up with EC on Thursday, and we attacked La Tasca for dinner. To our pleasant surprise, there was an eat all you could promotions for a tenner per person.
We were rather "weak", and therefore could only polish about 9 tapas dishes- most of it vege based like salads and aubergine. Hmmm... Hope to go there another day, more prepared, and break the "record". Hubby said that the highest number he ever heard was 52 plates for 4 blokes! Wow...
I like the Ealing branch of La Tasca because the food is yummy, the atmosphere is great, and the sangria is fantastic. All the waiters are Spanish! This is a place where reservation is a wise idea, especially if you have a party of 4 or more.
I was sick when we visited Wales. Hubby was unwell too. MS joked that we caught the Amsterdam virus, which is very potent.
I was so tired, after a few days of massive political maneuvers in the office when I left for Wales. It was practically Tai Chi vs bullets and arrows. I probably did not sleep well, or too "konk out" because of the cold. I could barely keep my eyes open, sleeping through most part of the car trip. I need SH to shake me and hubby to yell before I would open my eyes to look at something. It didnt help that Wales was totally grey!!!! It was misty/foggy and grey. We could tell that the landscape was beautiful, but nothing would look nice in photos if they are grey.
Thankfully, we went with MS & SH, who I think are really nice people, and very accommodating to the fact that we are both unwell. We spent a lot of time in the car, doing a very "tour group" like tour... most of the time sitting in a car, get down at spots to sight see, and off we go again.
There goes my adventurous Brecon Beacon trip. Only 1 morning was spent trekking, but that was probably one of the biggest adventure in my life. The last day was unforgettable. I had a narrow brush with death.
We felt better that morning, and did the waterfall trek. We decided to do a challenging route. I had no worries, apart from the fact that we were not well equipped.
Probably because I had slipped and fell hard before, and probably because I was very tired that morning and my running shoes was slippery, I had panic attack at a narrow, slippery part of the cliff after a few slips. In the middle of nowhere, where one wrong footing would send me down a cliff at least 7-8 stories high, my legs turned jelly. It is not funny when you are at a very dangerous part of a cliff where sure, strong footing is required and your legs turn wobbly. That affects your balance, and you could easily say sayonara to your life. I was hanging on to dear life by holding onto the roots of trees, and after resting at the "widest part" of the section. At the widest section, it at most 1 metre between a hard wall and a cliff. While sitting there and talking myself out of my panic attack, I knew that if my bum slip off the sloppy and slippery ground I was sitting on, I could spend a 2-3seconds as superwoman. Then, I will claim my fame.
I clawed and crawled my way back to safer ground. All the time, I asked hubby to get away from me, because I was much more panicky with him around. I thought if I slip and he tries to hold on to me, we would both slip. I am no featherweight material.
Haiz, despite my panic, I was still able to sigh to myself that it is clear that I am that kind that wont pull people down when I fall-loser. Like that how to survive in life? I think I am only suited for 1 job: Rich Tai Tai. hahaha. I know my brother will read this and sigh "useless", but there is a saying which is once bitten twice shy. I still have a nice scar on my left knee, courtesy of slipping off a very hilly part of the campus.
heading off to walked-Breacon Beacon first thing tomorrow morning, with a runny nose and sore throat. I hope that I will survive this walking trip. I am just going to follow the leaders again. I start to think that my lack of planning for trips is getting unbelievable. Sigh. No time!!!
I am not sure whether it is Netherlands, the gym or the fact that I am not well and probably dehydrated; the scales showed that I have lost 2 mighty kilograms compared to almost 1 month a go when i first joined the gym.
I am back, after a very good time in "Holland". haha. we made so many silly jokes about "Holland", thanks to watching too many Cantonese movies. All I wanted to do today was to come home early, blog & show off my perfect tulip bloom photos. However, my plans are dashed, and my day is ruined!
Last Wed afternoon, I was told that I have to go to US for a business trip. I was like, what?? Why no one told me earlier? Then, it was a mad rush to arrange for the visa interview blah blah blah. From the sly looks and the remarks, i knew that this was not an accidental miscommunication. It would be convenient to leave me out because "I cannot go", isn't it? To my great luck, my friend has just applied for a visa, and could tell me all the procedures, strategies and saved me lots of mess.
After some hiccups here and there, spending more than £100, and almost 2 hours standing by the roadside in a queue looking like a beggar wanting a bowl of free soup, I "passed", and got my visa! I looked like a panda, after sleeping at 2am to prepare for the interview, and waking up at 6 am.
Happily, I went back to work with the good news. Then, B told me there is a "change of plan". TMD!!! Despite all my obvious hints about the cost of a visa, there was no offer to pay for it. So, afterall, I might not get to go. Keeping my fingers crossed. Bloody hell! Are they playing me? I sometimes feel like I am taking a kindergarten level office politics here, the tactics are so crude and cheap.
Have you heard of the Chagos Islands? The Diego Garcia?
Stealing of a nation: an example of brutal power abuse. Little people like me could only put a link on their blogs, with the hope that more people will watch the video.
Towards the end of the video, it is laughable to see a foreign secretary consider spending £5 million relocating people back to their homeland as not a good "choice" in spending tax payer's money. It is a duty, not a choice! You don't have a choice of whether to pay the fines when you are booked for speeding, do you?
I am afraid, this have to be tagged: CRIME. A dog lover like me just felt so nauseated that more than 1000 dogs(the pets!) were killed as a warning to the people.
More details of the CRIME:
Diego Garcia: Remembering paradise lost
The Chagos Islands: A sordid tale
48 hours before my flight, and I was still feeling quite indifferent that I am going to visit another new country, and country which I had always wanted to visit. However, a bit of Googling sent me to this site (thedude.com) , which has fabulous travel photos! Gosh. I hate those people who travel and blog(show off!) about it, and make me so itchy again. The tulips photos made me so excited!
I just went arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh when I saw the sea of tulips. 
I love tulips.
Got to test hubby: eh, what was the flower for our ROM huh? Answer correctly or you sleep on the corridor.
Post trip: This is supposed to be the "perfect" flower- captured in Keukenhof
Windsor is the perfect day trip from London. We went to Windsor to celebrate hubby's birthday.
Lunch at a pub called Three Tuns, just at the foot of the castle. The food was good. I think this was the first pub i came across which served really authentic mashed potatoes! Most, if not almost all pubs serve reconstituted mash: those powder which you get from the supermarket, and add hot milk+ butter.
The pub is in a narrow lane, near an "attraction" called the The Crooked House.
Just look at the "scandalous" history. I wonder if it had to be closed because the other Charles also used it to meet "his flower".
"In 1687, because of an acrimonious land dispute, the council ordered this first Market Cross House to be demolished. The building that survives now is what was rebuilt soon after. It acquired its famous tilt after being restructured in 1718 with unseasoned green oak. There is a secret passage to Windsor Castle, now blocked, from its basement. This is reputed to have been used both for the illicit meetings between King Charles & his mistress, Nell Gwyn & for taking provisions to the castle kitchens."The entrance where you part with your money:
After lunch, we went to Virginia Waters and the Valley Gardens of the Windsor Great Park. That was rather disappointing as the some of the spring flowers are not in bloom yet, while the calendulas are already past their prime! This has been as strange year, as some cherry trees have lost all their blooms, while the others are just starting to bloom. We went to Hammersmith yesterday and was shocked to see rows of cheery trees in full bloom. Isnt that part supposed to be warmer than places that are not in central London?
