emspace thoughts

Why I'm blogging again....

2011-03-10T23:37:00.001Z

It's pretty late and I really should be capitalising on this time to catch up on sleep, whilst my little ones are snoozing away, but I really want to capture this thought before it drifts away into the land of sleep deprivation.

I had a dream last night during a rare period of REM sleep that made me want to start writing some kind of diary again. I can't really find the time or motivation to dig out my big paper diary, so I've bitten the bullet, downloaded the app and revived my blog for this purpose.

The dream was about a race. It was my first day at 'work' but my boss had allowed me to take part in this race around a course that started in a castle-dungeon setting and then evolved into a TVB studio of sorts. Along the way, there were tasks to be completed and competitors were staggered so each person arrived at each checkpoint alone. I also had a camera and my work ID pass. As I ran this race, I remember thinking I need to hurry and complete it and get back to work. I wasn't thinking about winning it, just getting through it. The obstacles included a logic puzzle, which I painstakingly completed only to find it had been sabotaged ages ago and I could have gone straight in and picked up the next instruction had I have checked it first. Another obstacle was having to deal with a very stuck up producer and convincing him to let me pass his area. Random celebrities were dotted around the course as well as an area with some plants in.
When I finally reached the end of the course, I gathered in the waiting area to see who had won the £1000 prize. Everyone was shocked when the winner was the girl who was 16th fastest to complete the race. Then the compere explained that the race was not just about who gets to the end first, but also about the experience and what had been captured on the camera. This girl had posed with every celebrity she met along the way and even taken pictures of the insects living on the plants. The real prize for her was being able to relive each experience over and over again.

As I waited for the kettle to boil this morning for my kids' milk. I made my resolve to capture more of my life and not just whizz through without anything to show for it. I don't usually analyse my dreams, but this one had a clear enough message.

Back again!

2011-03-10T23:01:00.001Z

Back properly this time!
If you're still reading this and wondering where I've been, here is a clue....

2010-01-30T11:13:00.002Z

Back to the blog...

Can't help wondering if anyone still visits here any more, but have torn myself away from the brain-numbing addiction that is Facebook to pay some more attention to this rather neglected blog of mine. For my last hols, I even posted my diary on facebook as well, but it's only fair that I share everything on here - the original and best of Em's travelogues!

Back with more later...

2009-10-06T13:59:00.001Z

(Copied from Facebook notes)
Postcard from Pattaya - No 2

Another rainy day, so we headed to our favourite place in Pattaya (Central Festival) and caught a movie in a swish Thai cinema this afternoon. We opted to pay the extra 20 baht (40p) and get VIP seats that reclined, whilst we watched Disney's new release "G-Force". Great way to spend a couple of hours whlist the thunderstorms passed by outside - and the price for this experience - 3 quid each! Bargain.... I think we'll be heading back there on Friday when we have to entertain ourselves for 8 hours after checking out of the hotel and before our taxi comes to pick us up.

We also got to experience the best of Thai patriotism when we all had to stand and pay respects to the King as they played the Thai national anthem before the film started. Oh, and their 'switch off your phone' clip features a cute panda - beats the Orange one hands down.

The storms were here yesterday too, but cleared up in time for us to go and accomplish one of our missions for this Pattaya trip - to go and check out the baby tigers at Sriracha Tiger Zoo. Okay, this place may have had some bad press about how they are treating their animals and we did see one or two elephants that were going a bit doolally and they do keep animals in cages, but on the whole there were many other animals that seemed to be quite comfortable and it is the only way that Joe Public can go and get close to these wild animals in some way. Ethics aside, Tony got to feed his baby tiger...

Hope the weather clears up tomorrow, we're going on a boat ride to Ko Lan (Coral Island) to go fish-spotting on a glass-bottomed boat...

2009-10-04T05:04:00.001Z

(Copied over from Facebook notes)
Postcard from Pattaya - No 1

Arrived safely in Pattaya yesterday and checked into our hotel - The Siam Bayview on Pattaya Beach. It's a bit old and dated, but it's really handy because it has 2 pools, is across the road from the beach and most importantly, it is right next door to Pattaya's brand spanking new shopping complex Central Festival. Important for 2 reasons: aircon and places to eat.

I think we got a bit spoiled in Bangkok because we got a deluxe suite (with kitchen and huuuuge bathroom) to ourselves when we were there, so the typical sized hotel room here with diddy bathroom isn't so great in comparison. On the bright side though, we don't need to get skytrains or taxis to go anywhere and we got a fab nights sleep because the aircon temperature in the room is just right.

Started the Pattaya leg of our food journey with Burger King ('cos Tony wanted to know if it was any different from UK - the answer, UK BK is much better). Then in the evening, we went to Sukishi - a kind of fusion Korean BBQ / Japanese Sushi place. Tad pricey for Thai standards, but still bargain at UK standards and we don't get KBBQ in the UK, so didn't need any more justification than that really. Also, BBQ king gets to show off his cooking skills...

BBQ King shows off his skills at Sukishi...

(Yeah can put pics up on this computer!!)
The set included chicken, beef, pork, scallops, octopus and tiger prawns. We also got some teriyaki pork chops just in case it wasn't enough for us.

Then we picked up some fruit, water and other provisions at the food hall - I got some fresh pomelo.

Lovely fresh pomelo!!

Said last time I'd talk about the food a bit, so here goes - with pics as well....
The guidebooks say that the best food in Thailand is served on the streets on plastic tables and chairs, but with all the traffic fumes in Bangkok, we didn't opt for this for fear that our stomachs wouldn't last til the end of the trip. Instead, the closest we got to street food was the MBK foodcourt, where you'd buy coupons to exchange for food at their indoor street market (and of course we had aircon seating too). Here's what I got for 45 baht (90p) - crispy roast pork rice and soup:

My 90p lunch at MBK.

Then there's the fair share of chain restaurants such as Mos Burger... this was my chicken teriyaki burger meal.

Mos Burger (this one's for you Kin...)

We also got our fair share of high end stuff (well, we justify this by not spending money on alcohol), but unfortunately in these places, there is a strict 'no photo' policy, so you'll just have to take my word for it. On our last night in Bangkok, we decided to splash out at the 18 pound a head 'Oishi Grand Buffet'. Even though this is the equivalent of about 75 pounds to a normal Thai worker, it still gets really busy, so we went early at about 5pm and were surprised to be told that we could stay until 10pm if we wanted. We didn't, but did get our fair share of food in, starting with a tray each of teppanyaki, then bbq tiger prawns, sashimi, sushi, tempura and then desserts. Lovely...

Right... off to do some sunbathing now that my breakfast has gone down!

2009-10-01T10:19:00.002Z

(Copied over from Facebook notes)
Postcard from Bangkok - No 2

It's a bit rainy today, so we decided to head back to the safety of the shopping centres and as there's only so much wandering around on hard marbled floors you can do before the feet start aching, we're back in one of our favourite haunts at the rooftop internet cafe above the Paragon foodcourt. Today there are a bunch of kids here also hiding from the rain and they are all playing online games. One of them is a little kid who looks about six years old playing some war game with his headphones on and Tony is in awe of how skillful he is at his "trade".

We took an excursion out of Bangkok yesterday on a river cruise down the Chao Phraya river to the old capital at Ayuthayya. It was perfect cruising weather in the morning, just a little cloud and not too sunny nor too rainy. The temperature was just right and it was so relaxing sitting on the top deck, enjoying the scenery and counting the temples on the riverside. The sun came out when we arrived and we started off our tans with a walk through the King's Summer Palace at Bang Pa In in glorious sunshine. Final stop of the day was the ancient ruins in Ayuthayya city, quite eerie seeing the skeletons of what has been reproduced in Bangkok.

The 85km journey from Ayuthayya back to Bangkok took about an hour. Then the 3km journey from the riverside back to the hotel took about an hour and a half..... such is the crazy Bangkok traffic. Thank goodness we are staying near a skytrain station!!

Off for a seafood buffet tonight.... next postcard will talk about the food I think!!

2009-09-28T12:21:00.000Z

(Copied over from Facebook notes...)
Postcard from Bangkok - No 1

Sawasdee kaaa.....

Monday evening and accidentally located a rather posh internet cafe overlooking a food court in one of Bangkok's shopping malls, so have paid my pound to get myself an internet fix.

Journey was tiring, but the A380 leg from Dubai to Bangkok was great. Pretty amazing how that pot-bellied plane manages to get into the sky. Watched four films and barely got any sleep, so was glad to get to our hotel.

Had first massage yesterday morning, which was greatly welcome, even if it brought out a couple of sore muscles from the flight and completely knocked me out for a couple of hours. Then spent the afternoon and evening checking out the largest shopping centre in Bangkok at CentralWorld - 7 floors that puts the Trafford Centre to shame!!

Took a tour to the Royal Palace this morning and it's very grand and sparkly there. Went onto check out some more shopping malls again this afternoon - MBK, Siam Discovery, Siam Centre and Siam Paragon, where we are now....

Getting in some decent shopping, having loads of laughs with Tony and of course making the most of the vast array of food!!

Pics will come later - there is no SD card slot on this PC.

Laters!!

2009-08-13T21:41:00.002Z

Self-rediscovery

It's been a while since I blogged and the last few months have been quite a journey...

Now I'm through and out of the other end before the next one starts, it's time for a little self-rediscovering, so what better than a lovely Myers-Briggs test to see how things have changed lately.

Handy that Jan came up with one on Facebook, yielding the following:

Emma took the quiz "What's Your Myers-Briggs Personality Type?" and got the result: ISFJ (Introversion, Sensing, Feeling, Judgment)!

You are quiet, friendly, responsible, and conscientious. You are committed and steady in meeting your obliga...tions. You are thorough, painstaking, and accurate. You are loyal, considerate, notice and remember specifics about people who are important to you, and concerned with how others feel. You strive to create an orderly and harmonious environment at work and at home. Famous people with your same ISFJ personality include: Former US First Lady Barbara Bush, figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, Mother Theresa, General Robert E. Lee, and actor Michael Caine.

Comparing this to my result from five years ago (http://emspace.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_archive.html), I have flipped over in three of the four categories. Yup, it's been confirmed.... I am turning into a recluse!

One thing hasn't changed though and that's my love of watching TVB series!
Just finished watching At the Threshold of a Persona, not a bad series, but as usual with these government department sponsored shows, it's a bit too PC to be true really. You knew that Roger Kwok's charcter would never turn bad and no-one in Immigration are allowed to be bad guys.

Next on the list will be 2002 classic Burning Flame 2, one of those series that I never got round to watching. For some reason, I never watched BF1 either - weird that, especially as I'm a big Louis fan! Our YesAsia order arrived today though, so we have some films to catch up with too.

Will be back on the ol' blog a bit more now, if I can tear myself away from my four farms on Facebook. Damn those apps, so bloomin' addictive.

2009-04-24T19:24:00.008Z

Why it's worth reading your emails sometimes...

A colleague of mine sent me an email for a special offer at a local restaurant this week and normally I just gloss over these circulars, but when I noticed that it was for Japanese food, my attention got grabbed and I consulted with Tony if he wanted to check it out. The Yo!Sushi outlet at Spinningfields in Manchester (that closed down mysteriously not long after it opened) has now been taken over by one of the top Japanese restaurant chains in the North West - Samsi. The offer was for 2 days only, you could get 50% off the food - either sushi off the conveyor or Samsi food from the menu.

Needless to say, we decided to go and make the most of it, so my booking was whizzed off sharply.

The decor of the place was still very reminiscent of a Yo!, so it was quite weird when we were ordering, because there was a strong urge to go a bit crazy like we normally do in a Yo! because their portions are so diddy. Fortunately, I remembered that Samsi's portions are a bit heftier and held Tony back from ordering everything on the menu. We opted for the Seafood tempura, Chicken gyoza, Steak Teriyaki & rice and a Seafood Ramen. As we were sitting opposite the sushi chef, we also plucked a couple of things off the conveyor belt and Tony watched in awe as the guy churned out his plates of sushi, rolls and sashimi. None of this machined rice malarky that we have to settle for at Yo! - proper hand pressed sushi with velvety fish being sliced with skill and precision.

Here's the guy at work...

The bill? Came in at £18.98 - fantastic!!

While I'm on the subject of food, here's a few more food pics I downloaded from my phone:

Some of Tony's BBQ food from our Easter Sunday barbecue.
Great weather, fab food, superb company and lots of wii and karaoke fun.
We couldn't have asked for more.

This is the famous jumbo cod from our local fish and chip shop - Armstrongs. It's about 2 foot long and made fresh when you order it. They even had to warn us how big it was when we asked for one each! We picked it up on the way home as a reward after finally chucking out some of my hoarded rubbish at the local tip.

2009-03-31T20:03:00.003Z

Still Shopping Through the Recession

With the recession looming and everyone tightening their belts, I haven't been in the shopping mood for a while, especially after being disappointed by some of the sales earlier in the year. Even with the mid-season sales in full swing, I couldn't muster enough energy together to go for my after-work jaunts in town. Thanks to my old friends at Debenhams, who sent me a free voucher that ran out today; a generous 20% discount voucher from Dorothy Perkins and a long day at work, I finally dragged myself into town this evening for some retail therapy and came back with quite a haul.

Among the wonderful things that my parents bestowed upon me were a pair of chunky calves, so I have pretty much resigned to the fact that most tall boots will not fit me. Even so, I still keep trying and when I checked out the boots that were in the DP sale, they had a pair of black leather boots that were discounted from £60 down to £25 (plus an extra 20% off with my "VIP" voucher). I tried them on and was amazed that they fit snugly and were quite comfortable to walk in as they were just the right height heel. Unfortunately, when I asked for the other boot, the salesgirl came out all apologetic and said that it seemed to have gone "walkabout" (pardon the pun). Then she suggested I try the brown pair that she'd found as they were cheaper. I was actually made up when I saw them, because I already have a black pair of ankle boots that I wear for work, so I much preferred the brown ones and with the amazing £16 price point, I couldn't go wrong really! Joy!! I had a gift card (Christmas pressie from sis-in-law), so I decided to capitalise on the discount and picked up a frilly top for work as well (£12 from £25). No cash spent, I left the store happily with £85 worth of stuff and £2 left on my gift card.

The Debenhams voucher was only valid against non-sales items, so after much hunting around for something worth getting, I ended up spending it on a £5 vest top, which meant I effectively got it for free. I did take a look through the sales stuff, but there wasn't anything I really wanted aside from a pretty John Rocha party dress (£45 from £90) and I didn't buy that because I have nothing to wear it to just yet. So I just got a supersoft pink jumper (half price at £6) to wear to work on Pink Thursdays, but I'm not 100% sure if it's actually pink or peach. Dodgy eyesight.

Yay another great spree, but I'm not really helping the economy by spending just £6 of real money. Oh well, even the thrifty have to cut back a bit in this climate...

2009-02-18T17:27:00.008Z

Birthday & Culinary Highlights In Hong Kong

A combination of the global financial crisis and the pound at a record low meant that the timing of my trip to Hong Kong this month couldn't have been worse, so with the prices of stuff in the shops almost double what we would expect, we decided to spend our money on getting some good food in instead.

We flew by Finnair for the first time because they were the cheapest option and my great-uncle won't fly by anyone else after he enjoyed his last flight with them so much. The flight into Helsinki was ok, but I was too mesmerised by the snowy fields on the approach to worry too much about the short plane journey. Unusually for a European flight, we were also fed with some hot food on the way - a portion of meatballs, gravy and mash - akin to the stuff you get in Ikea restaurant, but a bit sloppier. It tasted ok, but I didn't take to the rye bread very well.

Connection at Helsinki was smooth, but it's no Changi when it comes to shopping. The plane to Hong Kong was a brand spanking new Airbus A340, probably less than a year old and with the best entertainment system I've seen on a plane so far (dare I say, even better than Singapore Airlines!). The selection of films was pretty good and I finally got to watch Wall-E. Two more bog standard airline meals later (the Finns seem to like putting pumpkin in their food) and we finally arrived in HK.

After sorting out our hotel room (we stayed at the Royal Plaza in Mongkok) and grabbing a bit of rest, we wasted no time in heading over to Langham Place, where Tony completed our first mission and acquired a special birthday present for his sis (can't tell you what it is yet, as it's a secret until March). The first evening meal was in the Langham food court and although we took a look at Pepper Lunch (as strongly recommended by my sis and her bf) the smell of black pepper was a bit overwhelming, so I opted for the Hainan chicken rice instead and Tony went for a curry.

The next day was my birthday and we had originally planned for me to go present hunting in TST, but after a lot of wandering around, I didn't actually find anything, so we headed back to Mongkok and had an early evening meal at a place called Simply Thai in Grand Century Place, downstairs from the hotel. We'd noticed that the place seemed quite busy at night, so we dropped by before the evening rush and enjoyed a special lamb cutlet green curry, salt and pepper soft-shelled crab and made-to-order Thai roast chicken, all washed down with a cooling lychee, orange and cranberry fruitshake. For HK standards, it was a tad pricey, coming in at around $450, but for food of that standard, we were prepared to pay UK food prices.

The reason we ate early was because we had tickets (thanks to a helping hand from my cuz) to go and see Hacken Lee and Alan Tam in concert at the Coliseum. The venue had been closed for a few months for refurbishment and this was only the second performance since the re-opening. The concert was a bit different from other HK pop concerts that I'd been to because there was much more of a party atmosphere and everyone got up to dance and join in - normal for a Western gig, but highly unusual for the more reserved Chinese. The stars had been sponsored to work up some "muscles" for the show, but I think it was the men in the audience who were more excited when the female dancers came on in skimpy outfits to perform some pole-dancing routines. When it was time for Hacken and Alan to strip off and show us their bits, it just deteriotated into a bit of a comedy. When Chin Ka Lok dropped by to do his stand-up guest routine, then we knew it was time for a laugh. Oh, and the music wasn't bad either - a full 3 hours of old classics and new hits, with Hacken proving that his voice is just as good singing live. Making Alan try and sing all his 100 mph lyrics songs was pretty cruel, but it made me chuckle. Definitely a birthday to remember!

Although we spent the next few days wandering around a load of shopping centres, we still didn't actually buy very much. Instead, we did our usual rounds of all the tasty fast food places - Maxim's MX, Fairwood, Cafe de Coral (not so good) and then we also did our fair share of the good stuff too. One gem we picked out was a "Handmade Udon" restaurant on the top floor of apm (mall) in Kwun Tong, where they served up boneless chicken wings udon for me and crabmeat and scrambled egg udon for Tony - totally delicious and all for about a tenner. Tony then proceeded to go nuts at Muji and spend about $350 on freeze-dried soup, tandoori marinade, mango lassi powder and mango sauce. Looks like fans of our BBQs are in for a treat this year!

A trip to HK is not complete without a trip to Sai Kung for seafood. Okay, so it's a bit pricey, but when it's so fresh it's staring at you as you walk into the restaurant, then you really don't mind paying over the odds for it. Tony was ogling at all the tanks outside the restaurants that make the lobsters at Glamorous look like a fishpond. After checking out all the offers being thrusted in our direction by the promoters on the street, we opted for a 'Special meal for 2' that consisted of lobster e-noodles, salt and pepper squid, fresh steamed fish, flash-boiled prawnies and veg - all for $420. We then added a place of fleshy razor clams for $228 to top it all off.

We saved Disneyland for the second week, after all the kids had gone back to school and the workers had gone back to work. It was also $50 cheaper after the Chinese New Year holiday period. There were still plenty of mainlanders around, who annoyed Tony greatly by their sheer lack of manners and respect and inability to stand in a queue without shoving, but the waits weren't too bad and the weather was lovely. We got in photos with Goofy, Pluto, Stitch and Chip 'n' Dale and front row 'seats' for the parade. Most of the rides were really sedate, but Tony was pleasantly surprised by Space Mountain and came out really giddy. I thoroughly enjoyed my first Disneyland experience, but I'm not sure if I want to bother with the other parks - wonder what would be worse: queuing with mainlanders or queuing with Americans.

The last few days were spent visiting friends and family and that always means more great food. My uncles splashed out on a new year banquet that included roast meats, a whole roast goose and big fat fresh steamed prawnies, but Tony was a bit disappointed that they didn't opt for more lobster! My friend took us for some Taiwanese beef noodles, which were tasty and she also co-erced her Indonesian maid to make us some traditional fragrant soup-rice-noodles. Dim sum and sushi were disappointing - we can actually get better in the UK, now that is something I never imagined I'd say.

We don't usually eat at hotels that we stay at in Hong Kong, but when we passed by the hotel restaurant on the way out every day, we couldn't help but notice the posters (and the food out) for the daily evening 'Lobster & Prawns' seafood buffet. After checking on the budget, we worked out we had enough to splash out on the $368 per head charge and the hotel was kind enough to offer a 10% discount for guests. With about 120 different things on offer to eat, we were like kids in a candy store when we arrived at 6:30pm and were shown to our seats. Among the selection was cold Boston lobster, barbecued lobster, lobster in sauce, baked tiger prawns, seared Kobe beef, lobster and shark fin bisque, sharks fin and mushroom soup, emperor prawns, sashimi and sushi made to order, crabs legs, tempura lobster balls (our favourite - we had about 6 sticks each!!), roast lamb shank, chilli garlic lobster claws, lamb chops in black pepper sauce, German sausages, cold meats, DIY hotpot and roast beef. Then there were the desserts - birds nest Portuguese tarts (YUMMY!!), creme brulee, blueberry cheesecake, mango sorbet, bread and butter pudding with vanilla sauce, birds nest coconut pudding, home-made cookies and chocolate, profiteroles and all the watermelon and pineapple you could ever wish for!
(Unfortunately, we were FAR too busy eating to take any pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it how good it really was!!)

After an hour and a half, we had to be rolled out of the restaurant. Fortunately, it wasn't too far back to the hotel room!!

Also worth a mention was the Little Fat Sheep hotpot restaurant - we went to the branch in Mongkok. Unsure as to how big the portions were, we went for some squidballs, beefballs, lamb, prawnies and veg. The broth was a wholesome Chinese medicinal soup, which nicely brought out the subtle flavours of the food. You don't need to go for spicy when it comes to hotpot.

We checked the list of places we still had to eat at on the last day and the only one outstanding was Korean BBQ, so we decided to splash out on a lunch BBQ platter - beef, chicken and mini octopus, rice, soup and side dishes for $148, plus an extra dish of lamb for $98 to round off our 12 days of Hong Kong's culinary highlights.
Can't wait to go back again!!

2009-01-22T20:49:00.002Z

The sun shone as I said goodbye one last time...

2009-01-07T22:02:00.005Z

To my beautiful Grandma, who taught me so much...
To my loving Grandma, who took so much care of me...
To my talented Grandma, who brought so much enjoyment to me...
To my smiling Grandma, who shared so many happy times with me...
To my dearest Grandma, who loved me so much...

Rest in heavenly peace, with Grandad by your side once again.
You will forever live on in my memories.
Goodbye and sweet dreams, with love.

婆婆﹐安息。
您永遠活在我心裡。

2008-12-09T17:29:00.006Z

I so want to watch this....

Stumbled upon a trailer today for "Citizen King" an independent film by one of my favourite actors at the moment, Johnson Lee and TVB's friendly Caucasian Brian Burrell. It was aired as part of the Hong Kong Independent Film Festival this year.

Looks like a lot of fun, hope it comes out on DVD....

2008-11-21T00:41:00.009Z

My sis told me last week that according to blogthings, she has finally grown up.
I decided to see if I have matured....

You Act Like You Are 22 Years Old

You are a twenty-something at heart. You feel like an adult, and you're optimistic about life.
You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

You're still figuring out your place in the world and how you want your life to shape up.
The world is full of possibilities, and you can't wait to explore many of them.

What Age Do You Act?

Oh dear, I seem to be regressing.......

http://emspace.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html

2008-11-04T20:39:00.006Z

Holiday at home & Halloween

With the onset of the economic slowdown and other reasons, we decided not to go away on holiday this year and came up with an idea of a 'holiday at home'. Whilst trawling around on the net, I came across an offer for a 'two-for-one' offer on a one-day spa day at Rookery Hall in Nantwich. A full-hour massage and full use of the spa and gym facilities at the luxury hotel's leisure centre for what worked out as just £40 each - not bad eh? The place was quite tucked away and Tony had some fun whizzing down the country lanes and flying over the bumps getting there. It was well worth the trip though and after a couple of hours by the pool and relaxing in one of the best spa pools I have seen, featuring 3 different types of jets (a 'tap' jet for the shoulders, a back jet and a pebble jet where you lie down), then we were nicely tenderised by the therapists.

After we got back, we toyed with the idea of going to Jersey for a spa weekend, but when we checked that the offer at Rookery was still on, we decided to save some money and go back there for another day! And it was just as good as the first time....... aah! Thinking about it makes me want to go back again!!

Other things we got up to... we each spent a few days with our families, especially our sisters and we had a day trip to the Designer Outlet at York to start our Christmas shopping. Actually, we did a lot of shopping and eating out and I got a couple more bargain hoodies and a new Kipling bag for my collection for half price!

It looks a bit like this, but without the side pockets. Kipling bags don't go into the sales very often, so I was quite pleased with this find for £19!

Have also been whizzing through plenty of TVB series lately, although "Moonlight Resonance" was a bit poo. After sticking it out with "Your Class Or Mine", I finally have my hands on something decent. Currently enjoying the eye candy of a buffed-up Kevin Cheng and scheming Roger Kwok in "Last One Standing" that I've been looking forward to for ages. My neighbour dropped by this evening with some packages that our postie had dropped off and among them was my "The Four" DVD's. Yay! Finally some good series to while away the winter nights with. I'm also re-watching "Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion" because it's one of those series where I love every single character.

The build up to Halloween was quite fun this year, thanks to the many hours whiled away playing the trick or treat game on Facebook's (fluff)friends and some pumpkin decoration at work. However, we decided to be spoilsports and went out on Friday, after picking up some cheap Katie Melua tickets on ebay for just £6 each. It was a good concert and she has a beautiful voice, so I really enjoyed myself. The only thing that spoiled it a bit was that we were left waiting for her to get onto the stage. We had arrived at the MEN Arena at 6:45 pm, but with the support band and everything else, Katie didn't get onto the stage until 8:45 pm!! Maybe she was too busy carving her pumpkin...

2008-10-03T22:41:00.007Z

Mid-season Sales & Bargain Hoodie Heaven

The Debenhams mid-season sale was on this week and as usual, I headed down there brandishing my extra 10% off sale prices discount card and all my vouchers for freebies that I'd been sent. I've been really tired after some really long, busy days at work recently though, so I didn't hang about as long or do as many circuits of the store as I normally do. Maybe because of the dreaded credit crunch as well, the items in the sale just weren't that appealing. In the end, I came away with two necklaces from the Jon Richard Simply Silver range - one was a crystal heart drop and the other was a diddy star shape with a small crystal embedded in it - for £4.50 each. Well, it qualified me to get my free Green & Blacks chocolates and free samples of the new Christine Aguilera perfume, so it wasn't a bad hoard for £9.

Then, today whilst walking off a mini-celebratory dinner at Yo! Sushi, Tony and I wandered down to check out the sale at House of Fraser. We weren't really going in to buy anything, but we saw that the storecard holders got an extra 10% off sale prices, I had a little root around and dug out and dusted down my Recognition card that I hadn't used for about 6 years. As it happened, they had closed down my account, but the nice Chinese saleslady was more than happy to re-open my account (and claim the commission!). Then after a bit of a delay and a computer crash and then a pricing error, re-key and a little more discount for having to wait, we finally ended up getting a Ralph Lauren polo hoodie for Tony that was down from £110 to just £25! Then Tony insisted I bought something for myself too, so we headed up to the ladies section, where I acquired my second Bench hoodie that was down from £45to a cool £20.50 (see pic).

It's a grey zip up that is plain on one side, but reverses to a yellow print with loads of little doodles in the pattern. I do quite like a lot of Bench stuff, but as you know, I can't justify paying the designer premium, so this was a real chance find, especially as it fit me too! My first Bench hoodie (white with brown/pink design) has received a lot of compliments, so I hope this new one will be well-received as well!! Anyway, I think it's cool and it's even cooler that play.com are still selling said hoodie for £39.99! hahaha.....

2008-09-20T21:26:00.003Z

My New TVBuddy!!

I introduced Hangyodon, Geung-geung and Monchichi to a new friend tonight. My sis brought her back from HK for me. This TVB fan is very very happy now....

THANKS SIS - YOU'RE THE BEST!!
(& happy birthday for Tuesday!)

2008-08-31T16:16:00.004Z

Another Day... Another Dress

I don't need a good excuse to go shopping, especially as I work in town. However, I got one this week. Looks like red is my lucky colour, because at the ball last week, wearing the dress in the last post, I somehow came away from the mock casino with the highest number of chips for the night (I was playing roulette whilst the other people at the party were dancing and drinking - neither of which interest me too much). My prize was a £50 Debenhams voucher, and as I had an invite to a colleague's wedding reception, I decided it was time for another dress. Even with some free money to spend though, I stuck by my principles and set out on another quest to find a bargain.

Sifting through the remaining dregs of the Debenhams sale, I was highly tempted to buy the apple-coloured version of the Minuet dress that I'd got last week. However, it was priced at £10 higher than the red one and they didn't have my size in, so that went out of the window. After about 45 minutes, I didn't really find anything that fit or I liked, so I started resigning to just getting a nice cerise floaty top (£7 (was £25) Dorothy Perkins) and pairing it up to a pretty skirt or some smart pants instead. So I headed back to the DP concession to see if there were any decent skirts in the Petite section. There weren't any, but what I did find was a black satin dress that had fallen off its hanger and was stuffed in between the rails. I pulled it out and it looked ok and was pleasantly surprised that it was in my size! Then I checked the price and it was just £12, reduced from £35. I wasn't really keen on getting a black dress for the occasion, but when you get a find like this, then I didn't want to miss out.

I got another £2 off when I got to the till and found that the floaty top was down to just £5. Don't you just love pricing errors in your favour? Another successful shopping trip and still another £33 to spend next time!

There were a couple of gaudy black flowers on the waistline of the dress, so again following the advice of Gok, I took them off to make the dress a bit simpler. Then married it to my little pink Coast shrug (that cost twice as much as the dress!!) to lift the tone of the dress a bit. Sorted!!

2008-08-21T20:52:00.005Z

Gok Would Be Proud!

I've been shopping again!!
This time, I had an excuse as I have been invited to a work event tomorrow evening, where the dress code is on a black, red and gold theme. As the only red dress I currently own is from about 10 years ago when I was just a slender size 8 and the black dress that fits was worn for the last work event, I felt that this justified a visit to the shops... and anyway Debenhams has a sale on.

I checked out all my regular haunts on the first floor, but didn't spot anything, so I did a round of the other part of the floor that I usually skip, because the dresses there are either for old women, or they are designer stuff that is way way out of my price bracket. There I came across the Minuet Petite section, one of the more expensive labels, and there was a pretty red dress that was on the end of the sale rack that caught my eye. The design was quite simple, but I felt the material and it was a beautifully soft and slinky silk linen. A bit posh, but I checked the price label anyway and found that it had been reduced several times, from £120 all the way down to £29 - bargain! When I tried it on, it fit too! Wuhoo... dress sorted!

I also found a black cardigan from Principles (one of my favourite shops, when they have a sale on) for £15.50, reduced from £35. The cardi had a ribbon belt on it, which I thought looked a bit odd on the cardi, but would be ideal to jazz up the dress a bit, so it planted an idea in my head. (Yes, I have been watching too much of Gok Wan's TV series...) Then I nipped over to Primark to look for a little black flower brooch to really make the dress a bit different. I didn't manage to find a black one, but there was a perfectly matched red flower for just £1.50! Jackpot!! Also picked up some sparkly and jangly Indian bangles in red, black and gold - £3 for 30 of them!! Don't worry, I don't plan to wear them all to the ball.

Anyway, here's my final creation - and in true Gok style, total outfit cost £49!

2008-07-11T22:36:00.003Z

Yet another new toy...

Dearest hubby bought me another new toy today as my birthday/Christmas pressie for the next three years or something like that. I wasn't really too bothered about getting it on day of launch, but that's one great thing about working in the city centre, I can go out on speculative jaunts during my lunch hour and stumble across chance finds of things on launch day. I managed to get a Wii fit when it first came out in a similar way.

I visited the Arndale Centre O2 shop to start with and there was even an official queuing system in place. About six people were there filling out their forms and when I asked one of the promo girls how long the wait was, she told me it was over an hour. As I only had an hour and I knew there were two other O2 stores in town, I decided to try my luck at Market Street instead. It's amazing what a few spots of rain can do to people - when I got to the other store, there was no queue and three assistants were stood having a bit of a chat. Jumped in and picked myself up an 8GB iPhone (the 16GB versions had run out in the first hour). Wuhoo and no queues!!
*Em gloats annoyingly in the faces of those people who queued for hours*

As the usual lack of foresight of my former employers meant the connection systems had crashed, the phone function is still not connected up, but I have managed to sync the rest of the phone and have hooked it up to my Wi-fi to start having a good ol' play with it and it's pretty cool. My faves so far are watching Super Trio on the Youtube application and downloading a load of applications, even a Mandarin phrasebook. So far, I have only got the freebies, but knowing my impulsive nature, I'm gonna have to be really careful not to go too nuts on games and other stuff.

2008-07-05T23:18:00.003Z

Hurrah for the Shuttle Bus

I know I go on a bit about buses in this blog, but as I don't drive, I tend to spend an awful lot of time on them!

Anyway, I headed back to Liverpool yesterday to see the folks and pick up some TVB magazines, so when I came back today, my bag was pretty heavy. Usually, I am good and do the trek across town in Liverpool and Manchester on foot, but the extra weight in my bag today, coupled with the sticky heat and the prospect of a random torrential shower (like the one that's hammering down on the conservatory at the moment) made me take the decision to make the most of the city centre shuttle buses to get to and from the coach station.

In Liverpool, the '08 Capital of Culture S1 shuttle circles the town centre, linking up the tourist spots and the transport terminals. Fortunately for me, Chinatown and the coach station are on its track and with the distinct lack of users of the bus this afternoon (not sure where all the tourists were - probably getting drenched on the red open-top bus instead), I ended up having my own private bus for my journey! Well worth the £1.50 fare.

However, it is Manchester that wins again on what is becoming a Manc vs Lpool theme in my blog posts. The Metroshuttle No 1 bus whizzed me from the coach station over to Deansgate, where I had to drop off some DVDs for a friend and then the No 2 bus took me back over to the bus stop where I get my bus home. All for the grand total of ZERO PENCE! Yup, it's absolutely free and I love it!!

2008-06-04T23:03:00.006Z

Manchester City Centre Still Best For Shopping

In an attempt to stop myself from going mouldy in the house or spending time looking fruitlessly for a dream house, we decided to go to Liverpool to check out the latest venue where people can go and spend their hard-earned cash. The Liverpool One shopping centre in Paradise Street opened its doors last week with a visit from the Queen herself, so we thought we'd go and have a look.

Landing in Scouseland at around lunchtime, we dropped by on my folks and then had some great food at the Tea House in Bold Street. The food quality there had gone downhill last time I went, but it looks like they have a new chef and the portions have gotten significantly larger. Tony was impressed with his massive dish of Curry Beef Brisket Rice. I had Char Siu Wan Tan Ho Fun, but could have done without the Wan Tan, which were a bit cardboardy. Char Siu was lovely though.

The new shopping centre was okay - kind of like the Trafford Centre, but without the marble and the roof. It was a lovely day, so the open air feel wasn't too bad, but I can imagine it being pretty miserable if it was raining. Definitely a design flaw having the seating area out in the open. Also like the TC, there is a John Lewis at one end and a Debenhams at the other. I set out looking for a present for my Grandma and a Fathers Day present for my dad, plus a little treat for myself as it was pay day last week. Things didn't go too well though - apart from the money for the meal, I spent a total of £2.80 that afternoon on 2 ice creams and a bottle of water. Don't know why, but the shopping formula just didn't work out that day.

The shopping trip continued in the evening, when we actually went to the Trafford Centre to try and track down some Yardley stuff I wanted to get for my Grandma. Another hour or so, no joy either and migraine had set in, so we went for a steak (courtesy of Tesco clubcard) and went home.

Then yesterday afternoon, I was feeling quite spritely after work, so I decided to wander straight on past the bus stop to go and see if I could get my Grandma's pressie from the Arndale Centre. In the space of an hour and a bit, I'd tracked down the 2 presents and even picked up something for myself. Just goes to show that you don't have to go to very far for the things that you want. Manchester City Centre is still THE BEST place to go shopping in the North West.

My treat for myself (has to be a bargain!!) was a pair of Caterpillar boots (since my old pair are still caked in Derbyshire mud) for £35 (pic above) and a yellow egg cup £1.24. Good eh?

2008-05-20T20:36:00.006Z

Horoscope advice...

Aquarius (Jan21-Feb19)
In all truth if someone isn't being honest with you, you cannot fight against what you don't know or understand. When other people are being awkward, at least be sure to let your yes be yes and your no be no. That way they can't accuse you of being deliberately deceitful. If you sense storm clouds are gathering in a professional relationship it might be better to make sure your work is completely up to date and to keep well out of the way of those who are looking to cause trouble.

Russell Grant was spot on again today as I got another public bashing from one of my colleagues in a meeting this afternoon. Coupled with being really tired from hay fever, it left me in a pretty foul mood. Why can't people just keep their noses out of what you're doing and just concentrate on their own agenda. I have no ambitions at the moment; I am no threat to anyone - so just leave me and my sensitive disposition alone!!!!

I will follow the advice from Mr Grant, keep my head down and get on with my work....

2008-05-15T21:28:00.007Z

Yobs, Earthquake, Bargains & Chocolate!

The past few days have been pretty crazy around here with hundreds of thousnds of Rangers fans descending on Manchester, where I happen to work. I walked through Piccadilly Gardens on Tuesday afternoon after a training day at the other office and the fans were already there. Most of them were just enjoying the sunshine, but some of them were quite menacing and there were plenty walking around with beers and cans.

Yesterday morning, I arrived at work at around 8am and there were already plenty of fans wandering around in the town centre in search of alcohol. My offices are on the outskirts of the city centre, but even there, they were wandering around searching for a pub. By the time I finished work at 4pm, pictures were already being circulated like the one up there, showing that the whole of the town centre was packed out with Scots. Trams and buses were suspended and I was a little worried about whether I had to walk half way home to avoid the crowds. Fortunately, I glanced out of the office to see that the bus station was clear of fans, so I got a slow bus, which became a very slow bus when it got caught in the traffic. My 25 minute journey became 1 hour and 15 minutes!!

After watching "The Apprentice" last night, we checked the score and when we found out that Rangers had lost, we commented that the riots would be on in town. We weren't wrong!! I'm quite indifferent about the footy fans really, based on the number of them in the city, the trouble could have been a lot worse, but then again it was a pretty major disruption to those of us who live and work in the city.

What I do care more about is the massive loss of life in the China Earthquake. As the initial shock fades and the rescue efforts continue, there are now questions about the corruption and shoddy work that caused schools to crumble whilst luxury apartments remain standing. The reporter said that these people face execution - and so they should, if they have not already suffered the consequences through the loss of their loved ones or their own lives.

Please make a donation:
http://www.redcross.org.uk/donatesection.asp?id=77029

Today was a 'free chocolate day'!
It started in the morning when I picked up a mid-morning Kitkat from the vending machine to keep me going until lunchtime. I put my 45p in the machine and it decided to be extra generous and give me 2 for the price of 1!! I resisted the temptation to eat them both today though and will save the second one for tomorrow.

Then this evening I paid a visit to Debenhams to take advantage of their summer spectacular sale. The temptation of getting 25% off, a free £5 gift voucher AND a box of Lily O'Brien's chocolates was just too much, so I made up an excuse of needing some looser fitting work tops for the summer and to accommodate my recent episode of bloating to justify my shopping trip. Anyway, after nearly an hour of browsing my favourite concessions, I picked up a few nice, but cheapish tops for work (as you know, I don't go for expensive clothing) that just took me over the £30 limit and went to pay. Then when the woman had put everything through and saw my voucher, she said "Oh, you need to spend £30 for that - you have only spent £23.25 so far!" I was pretty surprised, but went off to search for something else worth about £7 to take me back over the limit. It wasn't easy!! After another half an hour of wandering around, I finally came back with a summer hoodie for £8. The total came to £31.25 - apparently one of the tops I had chosen that was labelled up as £16 was older stock and had been reduced to just £6!!

Here is what I got - I'm still not through with my brown phase yet!
Frilly vest: £3.75, Mock cardigan blouse: £6, Flowery blouse & white vest set: £13.50, Grey flowery hoodie: £8
With even Debenhams pulling bargains like this out of the bag, I don't need to go and fight with the masses at Primark any more!

I'll end this post with more chocolate - this is the lovely gunky gooey brown stuff that we got as part of my trip to Cadbury World that my hubby arranged for our anniversary treat a couple of weeks ago. I then had an amazing massage and facial - it was a lovely day! *mwah* to Tony!!

2008-04-20T10:22:00.008Z

哪吒回家 Nezha Comes Home

曲：黃家強詞：周耀輝編：黃家強監：黃家強
Music: Steve Wong Lyrics: Chow Yiu Fai

贈我名字姓氏和我日夜見面你明白我嗎
望見爸爸的膊望見媽媽的背我懷念極大
還會沉默吃飯未會誠實說話我逃避你嗎
就怪代溝的錯就怪時光的錯我情願未大

很久已沒暢談 (約會多電視花)
終於會內疚吧 (內疚到似哪吒要回家)
很久已沒坦白 (虔敬到叫爸爸叫媽媽)
終於再擁抱嗎 (不如再親近好嗎)

或有沉重往事或有華麗信念我明白你嗎
望見爸爸的眼望見媽媽的髮我遺憾極大
習慣沉默太耐忘記誠實太耐你原諒我嗎
就怪代溝的錯就怪時光的錯我情願未大

越來越難是麻木還是怕竟那麼隔想了解那麼難
越來越忙是時候就回家竟有一剎想削骨如哪吒

Giving me my name, See me night and day, Do you Understand me?
Watching dad's shoulder, Watching mum's back, I am filled with memories
Still dining in silence, Not able to speak truthfully, Am I evading you?
Generation gap at fault, Time is at fault, I'd rather I didn't grow up

It has been a while since we chatted - Too many appointments, TV is fuzzy
Finally I feel regret - So much like Nezha I have to go home
Too long since I was frank - so much I call for dad, call for mum
Finally can we embrace? Or just get close again?

Maybe we have deep experiences, Or beautiful beliefs, Do I understand you?
Watching dad's eyes, Watching mum's hair, My regrets are massive
Used to silence for too long, Forgotten honesty for too long, Will you forgive me?
Generation gap at fault, Time is at fault, I'd rather I didn't grow up

Harder and harder, Is it numbness or fear, So distant now, So difficult to understand
Busier and busier, Is it time to go home, A sudden moment, I want to slice my bones like Nezha

[In Chinese mythology, Nezha did a great wrong and in a moment of regret and to avoid implicating his parents, he sliced his bones in sacrifice.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDHVNgol5Fk

Some sad news from a good friend and coming across this song at karaoke yesterday reminded me that with everything going on in life, we still need to make time for our parents. Once you've flown the nest and have your own life, your own family and your own home - it's only too easy to become so absorbed in your own little bubble and forget about the people out there who really matter.

2008-04-10T21:20:00.003Z

Jackie Chan ad for Woolworths - So Hilarious!!

Whilst clearing out my spam mail today, I came across one that directed me to the Woolworths website to watch a Jackie Chan clip. I clicked on it out of curiosity and found myself shocked for a moment and then reeling on the floor.

How can one of Hong Kong's greatest ever film stars stoop to the depths of this????
Even if they paid him handsomely, surely he doesn't need the money!!
Maybe his agent was playing a terrible joke on him.
Who knows...

2008-02-24T16:03:00.006Z

Lots Of Little Bits Of Shit

On the whole, my life has been going quite well over the last few months. Work is getting busier, but more enjoyable because I am finally getting my head down into some proper, challenging and varied work and getting recognised for it. Other things are moving along and I managed to go for a massage on my extended birthday fun weekend at the beginning of the month (more about that later) without the therapist telling me how stressed I am.

Why is it that just when you think everything is going well that all these other petty little things come along and mount up together to start stressing you out? Am I really trying too hard to be the nice person perhaps? When people who don't truly appreciate what you do for them start throwing your hard work and good heart back at you by being totally ungrateful, overly critical, showing you their bruised egos, making unreasonable demands and doing nasty little actions behind your back - are you meant to feel terrible? Or am I just being overly sensitive again?

Still, for me to wake up in the morning on a Sunday when I could do loads of really constructive stuff and just feel: "Sod it, I'll just stay in bed with a pack of prawn crackers, a vitasoy and my TVB DVD's." - can't be a good thing.

Ok, moan over, let me blog about some nice things!

My friend Su joined me for an extended birthday weekend at the beginning of the month and we made sure we packed it full of loads of fun stuff, including going to a Boy George concert, a Wii, karaoke and cake party, a walk in the Derbyshire peak district and then a wonderfully relaxing spa day. Oh, and plenty of CSI watching in the evenings!

The pic up there is of me on a hill near Bakewell. We went on a 4 mile walk over some small hills which were covered in mud, but it was great fun and it was nice to spend time with Su and get some fresh air. Of course, we made sure that we rewarded ourselves at the end of the trek when we got back to Bakewell and got some cream tea, toasties and bakewell tart. And as usual, here are some food pics:

2008-01-07T01:39:00.001Z

Renewed Competition

Happy new year!
Hope 2008 is as great as it is made out to be (otherwise I will be asking for a refund!).

I'm wondering if people have given up on my blog after being absent for a while, but I have a good excuse, that is my Christmas present that Santa (aka hubby) bought me this year (see pic). The reason it has eaten away into my time is that it's a game that I am actually not bad at and I stand half a chance of maintaining my high score without being thrashed and destroyed by my husband. Unfortunately, with him being uber-competitive, it means that every time I get a high score, he has to try and beat it. So, being the proud sod that I am, I have to try and raise the bar a little higher each time. Hence, even the excitement of watching TVB's "The Ultimate Crime Fighter" has to stand aside for this little bit of renewed competitiveness between us. It's all good though - it also means we're making the most of the Wii instead of letting it gather dust along with the Gamecube and Dreamcast.

Christmas and the new year just kinda came and went this year. Caught up with family and a few friends, but as I only took Christmas Eve off work, I found myself back in the office before very long. It was okay though, nice and quiet, so I was able to get some work done.

Roll on January 31st, when I can really let my hair down for a week!

2007-12-01T16:26:00.001Z

Em's Christmas Wish List 2007

As usual, for the benefit of those people who ask me what I would like and get the response of "*shrug* I dunno" ...

Shed
I want a shed to put all the junk in from my conservatory, but my hubby won't let me get one just yet.

USB Cassette Deck and MP3 converter
This is one of those things that seems like a good idea so I can rescue all the songs from the 90's that are festering away on cassettes, but I'm having second thoughts about it because it's so bloomin' bulky and maybe some things are best left in the past. Hmm...

Guitar Hero III for the Wii
This looks soooooo cool, but the £60 price tag is pretty hefty so maybe Santa can be generous and bring it to me.

Another Kipling bag - a bit smaller than my current one.
Okay, this a bit frivolous, but a girl can never have too many bags!

Bench hoodie from play.com
Ties in with my recent love of brown clothes and it looks really snug and long enough to keep my back and bum warm.

Plane ticket to Hong Kong
Haha ... only joking!

This list might grow... I don't really want for much this year, so I am a little indecisive!

2007-11-10T11:26:00.001Z

Manchester Rainbow

Just as I got off the bus yesterday, it started raining, but it was still quite sunny, so I looked around on the off-chance that I might see a rainbow (because I have a thing about them). I looked around and saw a complete rainbow spanning up from the tramline, so I grabbed my phone and snapped a few shots. People must have thought I was a bit weird, but the fascinating thing about rainbows is that they only last a short time. Three minutes later, the rain had stopped and the rainbow had gone, but I was so pleased that I'd managed to capture the moment.

As for the pot of gold, does winning £6 on last night's lottery count?

2007-10-26T21:52:00.001Z

Wispa is back!

When I was a kid and scoffing chocolate every day on the bus on the way home from school, my favourite chocolate bar was the Wispa. When they went experimental on it in the 90's, then sales fell and they ended up taking it off the market. However, with the emergence of Facebook, many like-minded Wispa lovers campaigned for its return and faced with a couple of setbacks in the past few years, Cadbury's finally did the right thing and listened to the masses, bringing Wispa back onto the shelves of our confectioners.

As I was a member of the Facebook group campaigning for the return of the Wispa, I found myself on Cadbury's mailing list and they wrote to us asking if we'd like a freebie. Of course, I wasn't going to say no and with the postal strikes finally over, Mr Postie brought me my Wispa and my "I Saved Wispa" badge today.

Wuhoo! I'm all happy now... yes, I am so easily satisfied!

2007-10-14T18:29:00.001Z

New Toys

Felt a sudden urge to buy something this weekend - I think it was because I haven't been shopping properly since I got back from my hols and I needed some respite from a week of shittyhormones. So, despite the rainy weather, I ventured out yesterday and came home with a couple of new jumpers and a pair of trousers for work and this:

The game is great fun and as I'd been pondering whether or not to get a PS2 just to play Singstar on it, now I don't need to. I hope they release more songs on this in the future - I'll definitely be in the queue for it! After a couple of hours playing this game, it confirmed that I am much better at singing than I am at dancing! My highest score is on 80's songs such as "Stars" and "Karma Chameleon"... showing my age here!!

Then after going for dim sum with hubby and mum-in-law today, we ventured down to the phone shop to see what I should get for my upgrade this year. I had actually already decided and would have got it yesterday if the shop in Bury was not out of stock. So I came home with this:

... and what was even better was that it was FREE! Now I don't need to get a new camera either! My gadget genes are truly satisfied this weekend!!

2007-09-29T18:20:00.002Z

Combining Work With Play

People who chat with me on MSN will know how easily I get hooked on silly little online games that will quite easily waste away hours of my time that could be spent on more constructive things, like cleaning the house or writing articles for batgwa.com (which is now live - quick plug).

In an effort to curb my spending on these games, I signed up to a scheme with iwin.com, where you subscribe to $9.99 a month and this will allow you to download one game per month (in other words, you get the game for half price). Trawling through the offerings to use up this month's quota, I came across "Plant Tycoon" and after playing the demo, I finally found a game that forces me to go and do something else for a bit when I am playing it - therefore freeing up my addiction for a little while to say go and clean the oven or write a quick article.

As a result, I have managed to raise $2000 today in my virtual garden centre, but have also written four articles, vacuumed the lounge, cleaned the kitchen, done two loads of washing and written a National Day speech for my dad!

The idea is simple, you run a greenhouse and starting with some seeds, some soil and some water, you have to grow and cross-breed your plants in search of the ultimate goal of the 6 Magical Plants. On the way, you have to tend to your plants, sell what you grow in your garden centre, decorate the place and upgrade your tools. Easy enough, but then the added complication of infestations, dodgy delicate plants and the bug-catching mini-game will make it more interesting.

The great thing is that this game runs in real-time (that you can speed up or slow down to a certain extent or pause). That means you need to allow at least an hour (or 5 hours in slow mode) for your plants to grow. This gives me time to go and do something constructive before I come back to the reward of my fully grown plant.

Pavlov was a genius!

2007-09-25T19:17:00.002Z

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

(Thanks lepra for taking us to get these tasty mooncakes!!)

Hope you have a great reunion with your loved ones!

2007-09-22T16:54:00.001Z

Em & Tony's Excellent Adventure

It's been barely 8 hours since I touched down again on British soil, but I'm really eager to get all my thoughts and memories down in writing about what has been an incredible and sometimes surreal trip to Phuket. So after a couple of short naps and my head still wondering exactly what time it is, I'll recall and re-live the experiences from the last 12 days in what promises to be a pretty long entry!

Our journey began with a trip on what is currently our favourite airline - Singapore Airlines (SIA). They are currently heavily promoting the fact that they are the first airline to be flying with the mega-plane Airbus A380 and it does look pretty awesome. When we finally get to heading over to Australia, we will definitely have to take a trip.

The great thing is with SIA is that they feed and water you very well and their seats are about 20% more spacious than your average economy seat, with plenty of space under the seat in front for you to stash all your bits and pieces (or in the case of my hubby, stash his legs). Of course, you can't forget their excellent entertainment system, which meant that I didn't actually get round to even reading their in-flight magazine as I tuned into "Pirates III", some Ronald Cheng movie and the Japanese epic "Oh-Oku" to pass my time on the flight.

Talking of food (regular readers of this blog will know you can't get away from it!) - on the first morning of the flight, due to the eating arrangements on the flight into Singapore, the transfer time at Changi Airport and then the flight out of Singapore into Phuket, we actually had THREE breakfasts! So when we finally arrived at the hotel on Sunday morning, our bodies were wondering what was going on!

Seventeen hours (including the 1 hour transfer from Phuket airport) after leaving home, we finally arrived at our hotel - the Pacific Club and Spa in Karon.

After booking this hotel, I had spent hours and hours reading up the rave reviews about this hotel and it almost seemed I already knew what it was like and it did live up to our expectations, except for one or two rough edges. As it was the end of the low season, there were renovation works going on, which we had already been warned about, but they upgraded us to a bigger room for free and they held regular pool parties with free food and drink when they had noisy work going on. Hey, anything with a free lunch is always good!

They had laid out the towels on the bed in the shape of a pair of swans and decorated them with the soaps and body lotions and stuff. This caused a funny moment when my husband went to freshen up and called out to me from the bathroom, "There's no soap!" It turned out that the soap was carefully balanced on the swan's back, so we quickly dismantled the structure, but not before taking a pic of it.

The weather was beautiful, but we were absolutely shattered and the full sized fridge provided for us to "stock up for ourselves" was empty, so we gave in to our post-flight nap attacks before taking our first excursion out to the exotic 7-11 at the bottom of the hill. Then we retired to the hotel roof to make the most of the sunshine before the precipitation stakes rose.

The first few days were spent just finding our feet and acclimatising. We figured that we had a fair amount of time, so we'd arrange all the activities to the second week. We ventured down to Karon beach on one occasion and it was nice there, but they charged to rent the sun-loungers there and sand got everywhere (well, it is a beach afterall), so we figured it was much nicer to spend the rest of our sunbathing sessions on the hotel roof instead, where they have a waterfall swimming pool, free sun loungers and a drinks service!

In the evenings, we took a rather extortionate taxi ride down to Patong in search of food and some shopping. The thing about Phuket is that there is no public transport infrastructure. If you know how and are patient enough, then a songtheaw (public truck bus) is only 20 baht (30p) but they are few and far between. All other times, especially if you are a tourist, then you are at the mercy of the taxis and tuk-tuk drivers who will charge you 250-300 baht (£4.20-£5) for the 10 minute trip from Karon to Patong. I kinda resented this for the first few days because it was something we hadn't budgeted for, but in the end, I just resigned to the fact that we were on holiday and the money had to be spent.

The other huge variable is in the price and quality of the food that you get. On our first venture to Patong beach in search of fresh seafood, we were fortunate to stumble upon a great deal by "Patong Bakery & Restaurant", where they did a seafood basket - containing 1 spiny lobster, 2 rock lobsters, 4 tiger prawns, 2 squid, 1 crab, 1 chilli fish and some shellfish - all for just 1500 baht (£22.50) including cooking and you get free salad and fried rice. That was beautiful, especially the garlic sauce that they braised the squid and prawns in. Tony really enjoyed the chilli fish, but that was a bit too hot for me.

When you find something as great as that, you fall into the illusion that everywhere is the same standard. Boy were we mistaken. The following day, we decided to try somewhere else and as the guidebook had mentioned about "Patong Seafood Village", we thought we'd give it a go. Unfortunately, this place charged by the gram and wasn't as nice as the first place, so coupled with a little over-zealous selection of tiger prawns, we ended up spending three times what we'd spent at the Bakery and getting less and worse quality food. We walked away from that one feeling a bit sore and vowed we would stick to the Bakery for any more fresh seafood.

We weren't really there for pubbing and clubbing, so we didn't stick around too long in the infamous Bangla Road, next to the Thai Boxing arena and the trucks that drive around promoting the fights blaring out "TOMORROW NIGHT TOMORROW NIGHT - MUAY THAI - THAI BOXING!" on a megaphone. It was really just a thoroughfare for us to get to one of our favourite air-conditioned haunts - Jungceylon. It's a shopping centre that only opened at the end of last year and comprises of a lot of western eateries, such as KFC and Haagen-Dasz, a huge Carrefour supermarket, a Robinson department store and a basement area the specialises in "traditional crafts" and includes a couple of massage places. We liked it because it had air-con, it was clean, there were security guards saluting you as you walked in and there was loads and loads of ice cream everywhere! There is also a small games arcade on the first floor, where you can shoot some zombies or drive a fast car for 10 baht (15p) a go!

The only bit of real sightseeing we did in the first week was going to Wat Chalong, which is billed as the most important Buddhist temple in Phuket. Maybe it is built to be functional, but when you compare it to the hugely impressive Kek Lok Si in Penang, it seemed like it wasn't very well run. I guess the customs must be a little different in Thailand, but there was something about allowing reckless tourists to set off firecrackers in what is supposed to be a quiet place of worship that just seemed wrong. Also, they were eager to dump your incense offerings pretty much as soon as you had put them in the ash pots - at least in Malaysia and Hong Kong they let them burn for a bit before they clear them out.

After that disappointment, we decided to make up for it by visiting the Tesco-Lotus hypermarket and go nuts on cheap Hershey's and fruit gummys. Well, we had to justify our 1100 baht (£15) taxi fare somehow!!

After four days of sunshine and just a few spots of rain in the evenings despite the weather forecasts being stuck on "scattered thunderstorms" throughout the trip, they finally rang true on Thursday afternoon, when it started to rain and the storm lasted for the rest of the weekend. So we headed to Central Festival shopping centre to avoid the rain - this is where we discovered two of our favourite places in Phuket - Oishi-Ramen and Fuji Japanese Restaurant. The disappointments of the first few days were washed away with the rain when we finally found somewhere that did tempura ramen for 70 baht (£1.10), sashimi set - that's 4 types of sashimi, miso soup, sticky rice and tofu - for 140 baht (£2.20) and mixed steak (fish and meat) set for 240 baht (£4.00). Well, we had to make up the losses from the £75 meal somehow and these were tasty. Fuji also did the best tasting watermelon juice (according to Tony).

As a shopping centre, Central was a bit more established and more upmarket than Jungceylon, so there was more to see and the prices were more reasonable. There was also some kind of mini-concert going on there, but we didn't have a clue about who they were. The band seemed quite popular though because all the usually highly attentive sales assistants were too busy standing outside to catch a glimpse to hound you into buying something.

Thanks to the friendly folk on Tripadvisor, we followed a recommendation to contact a chap called Richard to join in with his Friday night social for forum members. These take place every Friday night and to join in, you just have to contact Richard to book your space. We were a little apprehensive about spending the evening in the company of people we didn't really know, but as it was a barbecue (and Tony never says no to a barbecue) and it was something to do on the Friday evening, we threw caution to the wind and just had a good time. We met a few friendly Aussies and one fellow Brit who had been in Oz for a year, who was a great laugh.

The barbecue is at a restaurant called Mammas and Pappas and for just 150 baht, you can eat as much as you like from the freshly cooked selection of chicken, sausages, burgers, pork and the infamous "asparagus wrapped in bacon" that Richard kept raving on about. The taxis that picked us up from the hotel then came back and took us onto the Sunshine Bar on Rawai beach, where you sit around a bar, order in a few drinks, watch the staff dance around a pole, which after a few drinks our fellow revellers went on to try and climb. The mamasan there is crazy (I think her name was Kimmy) and seemed to take a liking to Tony who made her laugh hysterically whenever he caught her eye. There is also a katoy (ladyboy) called Nancy who works there with a waist to die for! The place isn't sleazy and it's just good fun if you let your hair down and join in with the dancing. It may have been pouring with rain outside, but we were having far too much fun to notice and when 10pm came round and the taxis came back to pick us up, many people were reluctant to leave.

What do you do in Phuket when it's blowing a storm outside? Well, we went for a massage! We also decided to book in at the services floor at Central for the little pampering things we'd promised ourselves. I went back for a haircut, with a stylist that looked like a shorter Thai version of Eric Kot with Craig Charles dreads, and my husband had his teeth done by a dentist who was constantly on MSN.

It was at this time when we were safely inside, we didn't realise that the storm was so bad outside that it had caused a plane to crash at Phuket airport. As we were leaving Central that day, I received a text message from my bro asking if we were okay and it was only when we arrived back at the hotel that we realised what had happened and I got a little freaked out. The thought of those 88 people that had died, who should have been enjoying their holiday like we were - it really brought home how fragile life is and how we should enjoy each precious moment we have. It was very sad and I think it touched the hearts of everyone on the island.

We had arranged to go elephant trekking on the Monday morning following the crash, but out of respect for the incident and also the lingering damp weather, it was postponed. However, the skies cleared up by lunchtime, so we decided to make the most of our holiday and booked a taxi to the zoo.

The zoo in Phuket is not government-owned, so many of the controls that you would expect from a licenced zoo were non-existent. This made the whole experience a lot more exciting and also a lot more scary! As soon as we walked in, we were met with a big sign that said "Take picture with Tiger - 200 baht". Tony's a bit of a tiger nut, so he was straight in there, but when he came face to face with a fully grown tiger that looked decidedly peeved with the hot weather and the guys poking around at him with sticks, then even he became very nervous. I was totally chicken and wouldn't go near. It was even more unnerving that one of the tiger handlers only had one arm! They kept telling Tony to put his hand on the tiger's back, but the tiger showed that this was not a good idea by growling and thwacking him on the arm with its tail. Tony didn't need telling again to keep his distance.

The zoo also had quite a large crocodile population and after we visited their enclosure, we sat down to watch the scheduled "Crocodile Show", which sounded innocent enough, but turned out to be another incredible scene, when two guys wearing just a vest and shorts performed stunts like croc-wrestling and sticking their heads into the animals' mouths! Afterwards, for a small tip (I think we gave them 160 baht) they let you lean over and hold the croc's tail whilst they took your photo. We stayed for the elephant show, which was nothing spectacular, but Tony felt it was quite cruel. We didn't stick around for the monkey show after seeing the gibbons looking miserable in their cages. Also, our driver was eager to take us down to Promthrep Cape to take a look at the views of the bays - and what amazing views they turned out to be!!

Sunshine greeted us on Tuesday morning for our earlyish start to go elephant trekking. We'd arranged this through Richard and I'm really glad we did. He picked us up from the hotel and took us to a bar near the reserve, where he gave us a short briefing about the background of Kok Chang Safari and more importantly some tips on how to get the attention of the park's resident wild gibbons Charley and Lum Yai. It was a very informative talk and I felt that it gave you a much bigger picture of the backgrounds of the elephants and how they had been rescued from the cruelty of hard labour and mahouts with sharp hooks. He also told us the story of how Charley and Lum Yai were rescued from the streets of Bangkok where they were made to pose for photos with tourists, drink beer and smoke cigarettes. This is the reason why they were not afraid of human interaction, but also the reason why there are strict rules not to feed them.

We weren't sure whether our backsides would survive a one-hour trek, so we just took a short 20 minute ride. Unfortunately, our elephant met with a wild pig on the track and became very obsessive about hunting it down. As our mahout said: "It wants to have a boxing match with the pig!" This was not good when we were on its back and it decided it wanted to try and charge down the hill after the pig, which had already run away. Luckily for us, the mahout managed to keep it on track and we got to the end without too many bumps!

Our fellow tripmates had decided to go for the hour-long trek, so we had to hang around at the drinks shack (couldn't really call it a bar) for a while. Charley was hanging around and he soon came over and plonked himself on our table. The driver started playing with him and we followed Richard's advice to try and gain his trust by grooming him. It was like a monkey massage parlour, but they were extremely clean (Richard said they get shampooed once a week by the staff) and after about half an hour, we had Charley sprawled out on the table napping away contentedly. It was a truly amazing experience, especially for a city-girl like me who is not used to getting so close to nature. Lum Yai made an appearance just as we were leaving and when she saw Tony grooming Charley, she quickly pushed Charley out of the way and grabbed Tony's arm as if to say "Groom me!".

I had read numerous reports about the excellent sailing tours with Captain Mark on Tripadvisor and also on his website, so I made a last minute booking with him after we arrived. Originally we had tried to book for the first week, but it was a relief that we had booked for the second week, when we saw the weather.

The Wednesday morning was absolutely glorious and by the time we reached the pier, the sun was firmly wedged over the occasional white fluffy cloud in the sky. There was an Australian family with us on the trip, who were a little reserved at first, but when we got to know them a bit, their two little girls became very talkative. One of them wasn't very well, but still came along even though she was sick for most of the journey. Captain Mark lived up to his reputation as being a very friendly, very passionate and very caring guy.

Tony and I travelled on the top deck, soaking up the rays, salt water and sea air. The morning was kicked off with a snack of fried chicken, coconut sweets in banana leaves and fresh pomelo, bananas and a fruit that resembled an overgrown Longan.

The trip to Koh Phanak took about two hours and about half way there, Captain Noi stopped the engine, raised the sails and we just sailed by wind power. It was so relaxing! When we reached the island, Captain Mark took us over to the caves in his little dinghy and we went caving. Unlike some of the other tours, where Mark says they just dump you and leave you to wander, Mark provided us with torches and led us through the caves, which have not been "commercialised", up and down, in and out of the streams and into the Mangrove Hong. (A hong is an enclosed lagoon which is flooded in high tide and are often inaccessible.) It was quite breathtaking to suddenly see light at the end of the tunnel passage and find yourself in the midst of lush greenery and surrounded on all sides by a cliff face and forests. Looking up at the sky above you and the hundred foot high cliffs was incredibly humbling. Mark then showed us some of the wildlife around the little pools such as the miniature crabs and mudskippers and pointed out the dolphin rock.

The second spot we visited was the Fairy Cave, which had many stalactite and stalagmite formations that resembled everything from an ice cream sundae to a cascading waterfall, shimmering as the torchlight hit the mineral deposits within. This cave ended with two "windows" from which you peered out into a permanently flooded Ancient Hong. It was like something out of an old Chinese fairy story and definitely looked like an ideal spot for immortals to hang out.

As lunchtime approached, we jumped back into the dinghy and sped over to a secluded beach, which we had all to ourselves. Captain Mark's cook Yah had bought some fresh prawns, caught that morning, from a passing fisherman and we had a picnic lunch, consisting of barbecued prawns, chicken curry, tom yum goong, vegetables and rice. Delicious and beautiful!

A short rest after lunch, making the most of our private beach and Mark was back to take us onto the next place. This was the Pirate Cave and this was the only time in the entire trip that we met other tourists. Mark had done an exceeding good job of avoiding the crowds. There was a bit of chaos as we docked at the Pirate Cave because a group of mad canoe guides and their naive charges had just arrived and some ended up capsizing as they tried to bump us or push us out of the way. Erm... hello - canoe vs dinghy?? Anyway, we headed towards the haunted inside of the cave with Mark's torches and saw the grand platform, where the pirates of old used to gather and meet (and hand out their punishments - hence the ghost!). Mark showed what a kind bloke he is by making sure that some of the other tourists were ok when they were trying to negotiate the darkness of the caves with the light from a mobile phone and camera flash.

Our final trip was around to the other side of the island to the Bat Cave. Mark and the Aussie dad paddled the dinghy into the cave and the rest of us shone the torches upwards to look for the bats. You could certainly smell them! Sure enough, we found some colonies and again, being able to see something like this first hand is such a fantastic experience. There was another hong at the end of the batcave, but unfortunately the tide was too high for us to get through in the dinghy.

The day out sailing was definitely the highlight of our holiday! We were muddy, soaked through and definitely salty by the end of the day, but we were still totally up for it and it was such a great feeling. Being in a small group made it all the more personal and there is no better guide that you can have than Mark! He served us up with watermelon on the way back and there it felt strangely liberating to eat your watermelon, spit the seeds over the side of the boat into the sea and then chuck the skins overboard! I didn't care that my shirt and face got covered in juice, I was having a great time and loving every minute!

As the holiday drew to a close, we decided to go for a long massage on the last day and then head back to Patong Bakery once again to make the most of what we couldn't get for those prices back home. A 2-hour massage at Jungceylon cost 650 baht (£10), which isn't the cheapest, but we liked the environment and the service. We thought it would be quite relaxing, but after a long hard day at sea the day before, the massage actually drew out all the aches and pains we had picked up like a proper Thai massage is designed to do. It was good, so good that when we walked out of the spa afterwards, we were like robots and had to take things really easily for a while for fear of just collapsing into a little heap on the floor.

The folks at Patong Bakery recognised us and welcomed us back in the ever-friendly Thai way, anticipating we had come back for the seafood basket. As before, it was beautiful - my favourite was the squid - I have never eaten a squid with a steak knife before and give me this rather than a steak any day!

If you had asked me in the first few days of the holiday whether or not I'd miss Phuket, I would've definitely said no. However, when the time came to leave, we both really wanted the holiday to last longer. The second half of the trip had really stepped up and we ended up having a really fantastic time. Everyone in Thailand, from the hotel staff to the people in the restaurants and shops had been ultra-friendly and helpful (with the exception of one stroppy taxi driver who drove a beamer and didn't like hills). Everyone and everything were just so chilled out!

Still we had to go and after dropping off my 22,000 baht for the hotel bill (bargain!) we headed back to the airport to begin the final adventure - the flight home with a 5-hour stopover in Singapore, where we had a brief meeting with a friend and picked up some mooncakes disguised as spacetoys!

As this is likely to be my last long trip for a while, I'm glad that it turned out so well in the end. I think if I was to visit Phuket again in the future, I wouldn't spend so long there, but I'd definitely go back to see Charley and Lum Yai and take another sailing trip with Mark. Of course, there's the seafood and massage now that we know where to get it!

Some classic highlights to remember:

- the 15 year old tuk-tuk driver who didn't know where he was going and then when he finally reached the hill that the hotel was on insisted on getting his tuk-tuk up and ended up scraping the bottom of it along the ground with a horrible grinding noise

- the taxi driver who we nicknamed "Jimmy" every time he asked us "where you go tomorrow"

- Tony identifying candidates for Wife Nos 2, 3 and 4

- Tony telling me to be careful when I slipped at the zoo and then nearly falling flat on his backside himself

- the tailors trying to guess Tony's nationality and failing miserably... Japan? Malaysia? China? Indonesia?

- going into the herbal sauna at the hotel and rushing straight out because I couldn't breathe!

- the driver nearly knocking over a 70-year old bloke on Bangla Road because he was too busy pointing out the sights to us

Resources:
Singapore Airlines: http://www.singaporeair.com/saa/index.jsp
Pacific Club Resort & Spa: http://www.pacific-club-phuket.com/
Tripadvisor Phuket Forum: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g293920-i5037-Phuket.html
Cathy & Gary's Travel Pages: http://www.cathyandgarystravelpages.com/friday_night_bbq.htm
Phuket Zoo: http://www.phuketzoo.com/
Sailing with Captain Mark: http://www.phuketsailtours.com/

2007-08-26T20:47:00.001Z

Making the Most of Summer - Part 2
(and how to make Em swear uncontrollably...)

As you can see from the cloudless blue sky in the pictures above, Uncle Sunshine was out and about again yesterday and as we'd booked our tickets in advance, we made our second trip of the summer to a theme park. This time it was Alton Towers (where the magic never ends - except it does at the end of the season on 11th Nov - but hey, marketing is allowed a little flexibility).

Once again, I was testing my theory that it is always quiet on a bank holiday weekend because everyone thinks it will be busy and once again, I was right. It was the quietest that I had seen Alton Towers in the last few visits and we hardly had to queue for the rides we decided to go on. Even for Rita (which I will come to later), the queue was not the hour and a half that we saw on our last visit.

As it was just hubby and me (bro and sis decided not to join us because of partner disapproval), we skipped the nasty scary rides (Kumali was quite enough - see last post). The only big ride that we wanted to go on was Rita-Queen of Speed and what an experience that turned out to be!

After a good 40 minutes in the queue, we were just about to reach the steps to the ride when the music stopped and everything just seemed to grind to a halt. We heard a few muffled announcements that the ride needed resetting and thanking everyone for their patience, so we just hung around and waited.... and waited... and waited... about half an hour later, they finally reset the ride and there was a big cheer when they finally heard that everything was done and checked and safe and ready to go again. By that time, any feelings of fear or trepidation had disappeared and I was ready for anything.

So we waited our turn and climbed onto the ride, 0-100 kph in 2.5 seconds, 4.6 g - it didn't sound that bad, so why were people screaming so much? The red lights turned to green lights and then......

(My husband found this so funny that we bought the picture. That and his pic made him look really tanned and 'ripped'.)

90 seconds later, it was all over. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before! I was really light headed, like I'd just had an introvenous vodka shot and when I stepped off the ride, I just could not stop swearing. My hubby had to tell me off because there were so many kids around, but I couldn't help it. I don't think I have said the F-word so many times in public before! It was mad.... but I really loved it. If it wasn't for the hour queue and my growling stomach, I'd have gone on it again. Even at the risk of having another swearing fit! Amazing!!

If you ever go to Alton Towers, you have to try this!!

The rest of the day was relatively sane and the lack of queues meant that we managed to fit in The Flume, Runaway Mine Train, Duel and Hex in without hanging around too long. It was a shame that the River Rapids were closed, but I still managed to get a soaking going down the log flume. Fortunately, it was the first ride we went on and I dried off quite quickly!

The next adventure of the day came when we were driving home and TomTom decided to send us down a narrow country road on the way down the hill where the park sits. Luckily for me, my husband is quite an experienced driver and negotiated it very well, but I couldn't help wondering what would have happened if a car came in the opposite direction down this single file track!

The final adventure was when we got back to the motorway, an accident had closed off our junction and we were sent on a 20 mile diversion in the opposite direction towards Stafford. Thanks to my husband at the wheel, TomTom with some reassuring instructions, an AA roadmap and my (often questioned) map-reading skills, we managed to work out our own diversion and avoid joining the 7-mile tailbacks, getting home before it got dark!

I think that's enough theme parks for one year (okay, there's Phuket Fantasea to go - but I can't see that being too white-knuckle). Next trip will be to something a bit more sedate - maybe a musical or concert... or even a ballet? Okay... maybe not!

2007-08-13T21:14:00.001Z

Making the Most of Summer...

The sun came out on Saturday! Great timing for a day out to Flamingoland. In case you're wondering it's not a new member state of the EU, it's actually a small scale theme park tucked away in the North Yorkshire countryside, somewhere between York and Scarborough.

I don't usually do rollercoasters and the like, but pretty much as soon as we'd arrived, my hubby decided it would be a great idea to go on this:

If you squint, you might just see me on there. My friend who took this clip was wise and decided against being chucked around against the resilient forces of gravity. We on the other hand were left a little worse for wear. That's why there should be warning signs on these rides: "NOT SUITABLE FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE PREGNANT, HAVE HEART CONDITIONS AND BACK PROBLEMS, OVER THIRTIES OR THOSE WHO VALUE THEIR BRAIN CELLS."

After lunch we went on the other big ride of the day, that was a water ride with a huge wide berth slide at the end. In the queue, we watched everyone who emerged at the other end coming out totally soaked to the bone. The splash into the pool at the end is such that you may as well jump in and swim around. Stil we went on and yes, we all got soaked. Fortunately, Mr Sunshine was out and about and we quickly dried off. I even managed to get myself a bit of a Yorkshire tan! Not bad considering the appalling weather we've had this summer.

Oh, and before you ask... yes, there are flamingoes at Flamingoland!

2007-07-24T22:35:00.000Z

Em the Scriptwriter!

(Click to enlarge...)

Here is my attempt at writing the words to Siuhak's comic strip (see http://siuhakfans.blogspot.com/) - apologies to any purists out there, I couldn't find a lot of the colloquial words, so the soundalikes will have to do!

2007-07-19T22:15:00.001Z

Packing it all in...

In the words of Russell Grant on my horoscope today:
"A breeze of change is starting to waft through your life and it will help to keep abreast of developments."
I don't know where this guy got his crystal ball from but it's definitely top of the range. Since the beginning of June, my life has been through so many changes; new job, new working hours, renewed interest in reading, daily reflection in my morning bus journeys and my latest venture - closing down TVBspace and launching my evening commitment into the pages of the new site. (Not sure if I can mention the name of it yet, so I won't just yet.) The last few days have been getting my head round the writing style of said publication and having to digest and assimilate the electronic version of the blue pencil all over my work. It's quite different from the informal banter of TVBspace, but I guess it's good training for me, so when the day comes for me to hang up my numbers head and make a living out of tapping away on a keyboard to create words instead of data tables, I will be well-[repared. Incidentally, the guy who vacated my current job for me to come in left the job to become a full time writer - is that an omen?

The salivary gland problem I had at Easter came back this week, so I was suffering from swollen gums all week. It's settled down a lot now, but that coupled with hay fever has zapped my energy, so in the past few days at work, especially just after lunch, I have been doing Homer impressions at my desk (okay, not with my feet up, but snoozing all the same) and then suffering severe paranoia about my colleagues seeing me dropping off.

Talking of new stuff - here is a shopping update that is a bit late. I bought myself a new bag as a reward for getting a new job. I'm not really one to spend a lot of money on handbags - my last few bags were all around the £10 mark - but I do like the design and practicality of Kipling bags, so after a lot of umming and aahing, I decided to go and take a look. I came across this one in the shop and it was perfect for carrying my stuff to work and back and after about half an hour in the shop trying to convince myself it is worth the £49 price tag, I finally treated myself to the most expensive handbag I have bought for myself. My justification was that if I am using it every day, then I'll get good value from it. That, and I have the monkey to keep me company on the bus.

In need of some stimulation during my bus journey, apart from reading my books (currently reading spy novel "Good News Bad News" by David Wolstenholme), I have made a few observations:

1. The 135 is a social animal. It moves in shoals of at least three or in the case of this afternoon, there were five of them within 10 minutes of each other... shame they were in the opposite direction.

2. The 135 also doubles as a sardine can as the drivers have a sadistic game that they play called 'pack-as-many-passengers-into-the-bus-as-you-can-then-drive-slowly-so-that-the-empty-bus-behind-can-drive-past-and-taunt-all-the-sweaty-people'.

3. The 135 cleaners don't use detergent or air fresheners. Instead, they spray a special odour on the bus that enhances body odour and attracts every insect possible through the small gap in the window to agitate further the already heavily agitated passengers.

4. The very loud bell does not tell the driver to stop because he seems oblivious to it until you ring it a few times and he curses you by shouting: "Stop p*ssing about with the bell!" It is merely very loud to annoy people and wake you up when you want to take a nap.

5. Copies of the Metro are provided for passengers to use as a sign to other passengers that they are not interested in chatting randomly. If you don't use it, you run the risk of being targeted by the random-chat brigade who insist on moaning to you about the weather/the bus/the time/global warming/life in general*
*delete as appropriate.

My study continues... I will post further findings here later.

TVB-wise, I have been watching "The Family Link". Well-written, light-hearted and some superbly convincing acting as ever from Sheren Tang and Kiki Sheung. I haven't really watched any of Cecilia Yip's other series - now I know why. Still, Derek and Kenneth made up for things and seeing Michael dressed in that negligee was interesting!

2007-07-11T23:28:00.003Z

More Bunnies...

My sis brought my attention to this today:
http://boards.1up.com/zd/board/message?board.id=games&thread.id=228289

Looks so cool - better start saving up my pennies... or if it's out by Christmas, maybe Santa will be generous!!

2007-07-03T23:00:00.002Z

60 SECOND RANT

Aargh... need to get stuff off my chest before I go to sleep............

- People on ebay - If the post office decides to go on strike and we do not post stuff every day, then that's not a reason to send me stroppy messages. If you want your stuff so urgently, then go out to the shops and buy them AT FULL PRICE!!!
- Ungrateful readers of my news articles - first you ask me to add article titles, then you bloomin' complain about them being 'irrelevant' or 'not making sense' ... if your grasp of English is as poor as your grasp of Chinese, then maybe you should just skip the words and look at the pictures, you might get more enjoyment and save me some time if you did that
- Demanding relatives... 'phone me for instructions and just do it'... sorry, did I not tell you that I have a full time job and plenty of other stuff to do or am I just forgetting that the world revolves around you and you alone? Oh and if my opinion is irrelevant, then don't bloomin' ask me for it...
- Uber-competitive work colleagues playing human table football at a 'team-building event' ... you are supposed to kick the ball, not my shins!!! I now have a 2 inch by 3 inch bruise on my leg, but no-one cares that I am in pain...

Ok it was more than 60 seconds, but I feel a bit better now....

2007-06-29T20:59:00.002Z

Homer Simpson Moment

I was heading to the in-law's for dinner after work today, so I had to walk down to the bus station instead of crossing over to get my normal bus home. So I headed downstairs from my offices, out of the front and then walked down the side of the building to the bus station before crossing over to the bus stand where my bus left from.

At that point, I looked out from the bus stand and what did I see staring back at me? Yup, in the same way that Homer Simpson drives for miles to get to work only to park behind his house, I had walked for a good 8 minutes only to end up straight opposite the window to my office.

Oh well, at least it gave me a chance to admire the company's shiny building whilst waiting for the bus...

I finally feel like I 'belong' to the new company now because I have my staff ID and got paid today! Woohoo!!

2007-06-26T22:14:00.002Z

My Megabus Adventure & A Relaxing Weekend in London

One of the disadvantages of leaving my last job was that I missed out on a big company bash at the opening of 'The O2' (formerley known as the Millenium Dome) last weekend because I gave up my right to the free tickets when I handed in my resignation. However, as it also happened to be my friend's 30th on Sunday, I decided to make the trek down to London anyway. When I checked out the transport arrangements, I had a few choices.... my usual preferred mode of transport was the train, but they wanted something silly like £60 for the return fare, so I checked out the National Express site, which quoted a more reasonable £27.50 return on the coach. Just for fun, I looked at flying, which was a vast improvement on the 5 and a half hours on the coach and came in at a rather reasonable £70 return Manchester to Gatwick. As I was pondering what to do, I remembered that I had seen the blue and yellow Megabus on my travels in Manchester, so I decided to check whether the £1 fare to London was real or just an urban myth. After a few clicks on their rather efficient website, I didn't get anywhere for a pound, but it wasn't far off, with the return fare coming in for £7.50 and their journey time was an hour shorter than National Express because they don't stop in Birmingham and Oxford on the way.

I did a bit of checking on the review sites and found that people either loved or hated the experience with Megabus, with their reasons centred around the actual bus or coach that arrived. I also read that they had invested in a new batch of coaches, so after a little pondering, I decided to take the plunge and take on the Megabus adventure for the first time. (Anything to save a few pennies!)

After a few more weeks of checking out the Megabus vehicles whenever I saw them in town, I was relieved on Saturday morning to find that it was an executive coach that was waiting for me in Chorlton Street and it was on-time, the driver patiently waiting to check my entry code as I arrived at 8:40 am. I even managed to get a seat by the window and as the departure time of 9:00 am approached, no-one sat next to me. 9:01 and I was urging the driver to go, but unfortunately he hung around until 9:05, by which time a few more passengers had boarded and one of them had decided to sit next to me, which was fair enough I thought and she wasn't very big, it could have been much worse. The bus set off and I settled down for my 4.5 hour journey down to London. Then about 20 minutes in, my nose started burning on the inside - I looked over and the silly woman sitting next to me had decided it would be a good idea to paint her nails... with French manicure white paint (ie Tippex in a posh bottle). The smell was irritating my already irritated nasal lining, so I pulled out my bacon roll and chomped away in an attempt to mask the smell. I also revelled in watching her give herself the wonkiest French manicure in history as the coach bumped its way down towards the M6. Then I stuck my ipod headphones in my ears and read my magazine until we got to the services in Brum, where everyone got off for their nicotine, toilet or Costa Coffee fix and I stretched my legs and got funny looks off people for photographing the coach with my phone.

The break half way helped to make the journey very bearable and the second half was soon passed between napping, playing on my DS and eating. The bus finally pulled into Victoria at 13:40, just ten minutes behind time and just as it began to rain. My first stop in London was to meet with the Managing Editor of Squat Magazine, who I have agreed to do some translation work for, when their new project gets off the ground. The restaurant he took me to did some nice dim sum, which he kindly paid for and we had a good chat about our visions for the future among other things. Then I headed over to my friend Elisa's new house and spent the evening chilling with her, chatting, watching 'Legally Blonde 2', 'Little Britain', eating curry, chicken wings Toblerone and Fox's biscuits and drinking tea. It was great - it has been such a long time since I had such a relaxing time just chatting and feeling really at ease, not having to worry about stuff and just seriously chilling out.

After more dim sum the following lunchtime, it was time to say goodbye and embark on the return leg of my Megabus journey. Not before Elisa treated me to an Mint Aero & Vanilla Milkshake at the coach station, which was very nice! I'll have to try that at home sometime. It was a similar coach for the return journey (if not the same one)and as I was the third on, I managed to get a window seat again. This time the coach was more packed and a guy sat next to me, who tried to engage me in conversation about his homeland in Pakistan and how he is a student from Rochdale, but regular readers will know, I'm not really one to chat to strangers on coaches. My ipod went into my ears and I ended up sleeping for most of the journey back, waking up just to make my neighbour very envious by eating the sponge cake that I had picked up in Chinatown earlier. We were caught in a rainstorm somewhere between Brum and Manchester and the road was almost flooding in a couple of centimetres of water. Then the sun emerged and I looked backwards to see a complete double rainbow in the sky. I have a thing about seeing rainbows because they are so intangible and only last for a short time, so my phone was straight out to capture the moment - shame the pics don't come out very well. It was beautiful, and marked a great end to a great weekend. The coach arrived in Manchester 10 minutes earlier than expected and although I had a bit of a sore bum, the overall experience had not been a bad one! Moreover, thanks to the generosity of my friends, the whole weekend had totalled up at just £28.40 - that's less than I sometimes spend when I stay in and surf, because I inevitably end up buying something online!!

Not bad eh? Looks like I'll be paying the big pink Megabus man another visit sometime!!

2007-06-26T20:05:00.001Z

Soo funny!!

I just love this clip...

2007-06-13T23:15:00.002Z

One for the girls...

Bernie showed me this today, so I thought I'd share it with my female readers... thanks Bernie!! Roll on Mr Hong Kong 2007!!

New job means I have to get up early to get a seat on the bus, so I've been adjusting my body clock to try and go to sleep earlier. Well, that's my excuse for not blogging. The early rise and early nights seem to be doing wonders with my health though, that and the daily dash to the bus stop and playing Frogger with the traffic... and I am getting much more fresh (well, as fresh as it gets in the city) air on my lunchtime strolls.

Have been pretty good at resisting the urge to go shopping in my lunch hour, so far only buying a brown jumper from New Look, which was a bargain at a fiver. I think the fact that I am still getting used to wearing heels every day again deters me from venturing too far on the hard floors of the shopping mall that is 5 mins from my office.

It was my Grandma's 80th birthday yesterday, so the family went out for a meal on Saturday. As well as the usual lobster, scallops, duck, chicken, fish etc, we were also served these really cute (and tasty) Coconut Jelly Koi Carp. Pretty cool eh? Had to post the pic up as my blog is rapidly turning into a food blog! Hahaha!!

2007-05-22T19:49:00.001Z

Everybody Looks So Young...

I've had the VCD set of "Coincidentally" sitting around for a good few months but because the DVD player in my room doesn't like VCD's and insists on playing both soundtracks simultaneously, then I have kinda put off watching it. I finally got down to some viewing over the weekend because I managed to bag a spot in front of the main TV whilst my hubby was out and started reminding myself of what a good series this actually is.

There is a bit of a story about me and this series. I watched part of it whilst I was in Hong Kong about 10 years ago, when it first aired. I remember my sis and I really getting into it after watching from the middle but having to leave to come home before we got to see the end. Unfortunately, we didn't have an ATV rental place around here then, so we just had to go without, so when I found it available on VCD on a Malaysian website, I was really chuffed but I refused to pay something stupid like US$50 to have it shipped to the UK. So I waited a little while longer and when they finally scrapped the shipping charges, I placed my order. A week later, Yesasia started stocking it for half the price. D'oh!!

Anyway, finally getting round to watching the show from start to finish and it is as good as I remembered it to be. Lots of familiar faces there, obvious ones such as Frankie Lam, Annie Man, Kristy Yang and the not-so-obvious ones like Krystal Tin and Chapman To.... and everyone looks so young!! I'm about half way through and I am hooked, sometimes it's good to appreciate an excellent script, attention to detail on costumes and sets and some great performances from the then young cast. It's a shame that neither ATV nor TVB do anything of this quality any more.

2007-05-15T20:00:00.001Z

Thanks Eddie!!

Mr Postman brought me two fab things in the post today. The first was my reference from my current company, which I will send onto my new employers tomorrow and hopefully, this will secure my start date for the new job.

The second was a small package from Japan that he had somehow managed to stuff through the letterbox. It was addressed to my husband, but he soon passed it in my direction saying: "It's for you, from Eddie." I opened it up and found some really neat Arale figures, so like a little kid in a toyshop I spent a happy half an hour assembling them and placing them with the rest of my Dr Slump figures on our display shelf, next to the Alton Towers ducks that reside in an expensive designer fruit bowl and our wedding pic.

So just wanted to say a big THANKS!!! to Eddie! You're so cool!
I'd send you some steak, chips and chippy curry in return, but I don't think it would survive the journey, so I'll just have to save it for the next time you're back in the country instead!

*Em is happy now!*

2007-05-11T23:16:00.002Z

Movin' on...

Tony Blair quit his job this week, well he handed in his resignation. I beat him by a week! Yup, finally had enough of all this shit from my boss and thanks to a timely job offer by a company in a big shiny building in the centre of Manchester, I have found myself in the exciting/nerve-wracking position where I can visit i-resign.com and select one of their nicely scripted resignation letters to address to my boss. Actually, I had to address it to his boss, because he was on holiday.

So now I am in limbo.
Working out my notice period and waiting for notification as to when I can start my new job. I'm a little apprehensive, very excited and more than anything totally relieved to be finally out of this rut I have found myself in. The worrier in me is hoping that everything works out okay because this uncertainty is killing me a bit. The thing is my current work is still as hectic as ever and they are certainly getting their money's worth out of me in these last four weeks and I know I am not gonna get any thanks for it at the end. Sometimes I ask myself why I bother and why I don't just kick back and chill out for the rest of the month, but I am not that kind of person and I will still strive to give at least 100% even though I know I am going.

I'll just keep comforting myself that a couple of weeks worth of unpaid leave is still something to look forward to if things don't happen as quickly as I want them to!

In the meantime, I have been reviving my Sims and sending a few more of my teens through university. I also spent some of my Game voucher a couple of weeks ago on some 'retro' games (that aren't really THAT retro...) such as Sim City and Hotel Giant that I can actually play on my laptop without the system giving up and scaring me stupid when I think it has packed up. Sim City is like Theme Hospital in that there is a turning point when you stop losing money and start making money, then it all goes good.... life is a bit like that too, but the balance point comes at different points for different people I guess.

I've started watching "Best Selling Secrets" recently and it's quite enjoyable. Okay, some of the scripts are a bit strained, but I can live with that in a sitcom. It's good to see a nice mixture of familiar and new faces, Esther is her usual easy-to-watch self and Vin Choi's acting has improved by leaps and bounds since "Brink of Law". Watching Bo Wai Kit (aka Brian Burrell) is a breath of fresh air after so many years of Ho Kwok Wing (Gregory Rivers), who has a tendency to overact, as the resident TVB Caucasian. Another great character is the maid/IT technician/RPG Wizard/Best Friend character Lau Wah, played by Cholam Wong - he is fascinating, funny and just fab! I think he will become another phenomenon like Sai Gwai (Wong Yat San) was in the 90's. The story so far, although exaggerated - but this is a sitcom after all, is quite absorbing, all this conspiracy between Esther, Elaine and 'Vincent' is a refreshing twist and it keeps the suspense value up on what's going to happen to Vin when he finally finds out what's happening! Just proves that Catherine Tsang didn't get where she is for no reason.

2007-04-28T00:05:00.001Z

Move Aside Natwest Pigs...

I had a conversation with my bro today about buying a vacuum cleaner for my mum and dad's shop and it led quite naturally onto my suggestion of buying something a bit more industrial strength, like a Henry. At this point, the conversation turned a little surreal as we talked about Henry's mates, so being in the highly deluded state I am in after developments over the past few days, I looked them up and found George, Charles and James. When I was young, people collected Natwest piggy banks (although we were dedicated Midland Bank Griffin Savers - and I still have the dictionary to prove it) - maybe someone out there is trying to collect a full set of industrial strength vacuum cleaners now.

A few very good things have happened to me recently, but when they all come together, then they start interfering with each other and I am feeling a mixture of being overwhelmed and overly worried about things. I really hope I don't have to face a decision between work and family, because I would be totally torn apart. Oh well, I'll just have to see what other challenges life is going to throw at me. Why are things never so simple?

2007-04-22T22:57:00.001Z

Slicing Demons

After finishing 'Best Bet', which was a bit of fun and not bad as a series, I had a choice of 'Life Art' or 'Slicing of the Demon' to watch next. To avoid Michael Tse overdose, I decided to watch 'Life' first, but I got to episode 6 and was bored out of my brains and ended up half watching whilst I played Cake Mania, so in the end I just gave up. I don't know if it gets better later on, but it bored me to the point where I don't really care. Shame really, it showed promise - I hope 'Super Cops' will be better and Kevin does a better job as a gay murderer!

So I'm currently watching 'Slicing' and it's quite amazing the difference in Michael's character from the 'laan do yee' in 'Best Bet'. It shows a versatility in his acting that was totally wasted during his stint on 'Virtues of Harmony'. We got a glimpse in 'Legal Entanglement' and 'La Femme Desperado' and I am glad that his time in the number 1 spot has finally arrived. 'Slicing' is quite enjoyable. It's a pretty predictable plot, but the scripting has been done well and Elliott Yue and Michael both do a great job of the 'outwardly good inwardly evil' roles. I love their little facial expressions when they are showing their cunning sides. Sunny Chan is back to his old 'dumb plank' role and he isn't really that convincing as the detective in this, but I guess they need a sub-plot to pad out the suspense a little. Once again, Bernice's role is nothing of note and Benz Hui is good as usual as his official role with his 'brief glimpses of genius'. Angela's role is unusual and another surprise is how Charmaine Li's acting has improved leaps and bounds.

Have also caught a few eps of 'Heart of Greed' and really enjoying it so far. Gonna wait until the whole lot is out before I start on it properly.

Talking of slicing demons, I need to slice a few of my own demons soon, otherwise I am gonna turn into a recluse. Motivation is at a low at the moment though and it seems that if I go out, I will just spend lots of money frivolously. Fortunately, I had some vouchers to use up over the weekend, so I didn't actually spend any real 'money', but they won't last forever. I think I need an outlet for my emotions, maybe I should take up kick-boxing or something like that - has to be cheaper than retail therapy.

2007-04-22T22:49:00.001Z

I have no idea who these people are....

... but it was quite fun!

2007-04-12T01:35:00.002Z

My Visual DNA

It's remarkably accurate!

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

2007-04-07T13:37:00.001Z

Doing my bit...

Been spring cleaning recently and clearing out some of the junk from my cupboards, mainly because I have had some time off from work to do this (part of my de-stressing plan) and also because there is a prospect of some more of my old junk coming over from my parents that has been displaced from my brother's renovation plans. Another motivation is that I have finally found an excuse to curb my tendency to hoard. I think it's genetic in my family to collect 'stuff' because we feel it is such a great waste to throw things away that is still useable. Hence when I discovered the Freecycle network, where you can give away things that you no longer need to prolong their working life and reduce the amount of unnecessary waste going to landfill, this plugged the hole in my conscience about throwing away perfectly good stuff. Well at least it becomes someone else's problem. And so, the last few days I have been busy freecycling - so far I have given away some futon mattresses to a lady who collects them (I think she works for a homeless hostel or something like that), some paint to a couple who have recently moved house and are trying to save on decorating costs and I have someone coming soon for some cardboard boxes and an old monitor. All good stuff, saves my petrol driving down to the dump and it's doing my bit for the environment as well!

If you have things to dispose of that don't deserve to go to the tip, then definitely get involved. It's an international movement, made up of local groups, so click on the pic above to find out about your local group!

I've finished watching "Devil's Disciple" now, so I'll jump on the bandwagon of DD reviewers and add my tuppence to the debate. I was quite looking forward to this series because I like Bosco and Sharon and of course there is my fixation of kung fu dramas, but I made the mistake of catching the last episode before watching the bulk of it and that put me off a little. If you are considering watching this series, resist the temptation to watch the last episode before the rest of it because you will be very disappointed.

The storyline is quite simple as far as kung fu dramas go, parental vengeance, the clash of good and evil and friendships and brotherhood. The look of the show was unconventional, but the girls looked pretty good and I could live with the weird hairstyles of the men. The 'academy-like' set up of the kung fu school was a bit strained, especially with the silly uniforms and the whole setup around the 'Saintly Sword Sect' was so cliched, from the silly blue neon signs, the sword graveyard and the insanely jealous 'dai see hing' (elder martial brother) and I found it quite annoying. Some great veteran talents were wasted - Ko Hung, Lily Lee, Lee Kwok Lun etc, and I could see why Patricia Liu got fed up after this series and defected to ATV. Their roles were just so immaterial and pointless, yes even the big bad guy wasn't much to talk about.

Given the circumstances, the young leads bore their focus pretty well and of course there was plenty of eye candy in the form of Bosco and Kevin. Shirley and Sharon did very well too and there is consolation in that Sharon is finally getting some meatier roles to get her teeth into. I'm indifferent about Bernice, she is a great promo model and has healthy looks and image, but on the acting front, she still needs an awful lot of work, especially with the more classical lines of an ancient drama. Wayne Lai was another redeeming factor for me, his character was so likeable and he displayed a great chemistry with Bosco. The scenes between them were the highlight of the show for me and the touching scene when Wayne's character died was for me the best bit of the whole series.

Knowing a bit about the background of producer Lau Ka Ho, I could see elements of this series being a homage to the greatness that was "The Final Combat" with Stephen Chow. Whether intentionally or not, there were elements of Chow's Duen Fei character in Johnson Lee's role in this series, from the silliness, extremeness and abrubtness of his actions to his very modern language and gestures. However, having seen it done by the master that is Chow, then as much as I like Johnson, it really didn't appeal and it was such a waste to have him in Chow's shadow rather than creating something new for Johnson to be remembered for. I have the feeling that TVB's producers are relishing far too much on their past successes and becoming lazy in creating some present-day classics for us to enjoy.

Overall, I wasn't too taken by this show and although it didn't turn out to be as much of a disappointment as 'CIB Files' last year, thanks to Bosco and Wayne, I felt that it really was a waste of what had the potential to be an attractive CG-heavy martial arts series along the lines of 'Golden Snake Sword' and 'Gods and Demons from Zu Mountains' from the past. If I was to re-watch it, I'd probably just fast forward to the bits with Bosco, Wayne and Sharon in and forget the rest of it.

Currently watching "Best Bet", which I feel is quite refreshing and underrated. Not a sparkling cast line-up, but with the right frame of mind it is proving to be very enjoyable. Michael Tse and Wayne Lai just prove that with great acting skills and perfect comedic timing, then eye candy is not so important after all.

2007-04-01T22:03:00.001Z

For Posterity's Sake...

Times move on and my American site hosting company is now providing me with pretty poor service and value for money. Moreover, I don't trust the Data Protection Policies in the states after I found out recently that my personal details had been disclosed by them for all to see on the net, so it's nearly time to wave goodbye to them and make that long distance call to bid them farewell.

Before I do that though, I have the tedious task of transferring all my stuff over to my nice new British hosts. As the old stuff is in some kind of funny old 1999 coding, then I'm just gonna leave some of it behind, but before I cross out the 'thoughts' page from my list as one I can wave goodbye to, I thought I'd copy over some stuff out of it that I wrote back in 1997-99 when I first set up my website in what was a predecessor to this blog.

So here's the stuff from the time capsule:

About 1999....

When I was a little girl, I watched a TV programme where they buried a time capsule for the year 2000. I think I was about 10 at the time. I remember working out that I would be 24 when it was unearthed and thinking that was VERY OLD!!!!
Now it is 1999 .... but I am not old, yet.

About the Internet....

I used to have loads of penpals from all around the world.
Unfortunately I don't write as often as i used to - I spend too much time writing on the internet instead.
I wonder what we'll be doing when computers become outdated.

My Accent.....

People who know me say that I do not have a scouse accent. Northerners say that I speak like a posh southerner, southerners say that I am distinctly northern. I had a neighbour at university who is from Yorkshire and I come from a Chinese background, so I have had influences from both of these - and yet, my cousins in Hong Kong say that I sound like the woman on the cassettes they use for their English lessons. Maybe this diversity has produced neutrality in my language.

No other in the world - Eason Chan

This is a translation of the lyrics from one of my favourite songs.... enjoy!

Giving me confidence when nothing goes right
Sending me warmth when it's wet and windy
Comforting looks sooth my troubles and tiredness
Never changing heartbeat doesn't feel sour
Wherever the long road of life may lead
Having you gives me harmony in living
Hard days don't make me feel bad
'Cos you are with me, you are my dearest

Not once do I count my troubles or tiredness
Not once do you count what you do for me
You give and give again, you start but never end
Without condition, you share all my hardships

I've never said it before, but I will say Thankyou
I am complete because I have the love you give
Who is the dearest and most important in my life?
Of course it's you, you're the greatest,
You're my dearest

If I'm asked who has no duplicate in this world
Who can make yesterday and tomorrow shine
I'd reply there is no-one but you
And be so thankful that we are a pair

Celebrate for a lifetime, that on this earth
I meet you amongst millions of people
Want you to know that on this earth
I want to run to no other, but you!

Just 'cos I'm a girl.....

...old people think I don't know about technology.
...people will get the item on the top shelf in the supermarket for me.
...I can dream unashamedly about having the dream wedding day.
...I can get away with saying that I don't know about cars, or driving, or gardening, or DIY.
...I can't get away with saying that I can't cook, or sew, or iron, or do the dishes.
...it's great!

2007-03-27T22:54:00.001Z

What I love about Portugal....

Sizzling steak at the "Sizzling Stone" restaurant - cook your own steak on a hot granite stone just the way you want it. Perfect opportunity for Tony to show off his steak grilling skills!

18 oz Portuguese T-bone and mixed Espetada (that's a giant skewer kebab to you and me) at an Australian-themed restaurant "Koala Garden" tucked away off the beaten track among the luxury villas of Albufeira.

Okay, not very Portuguese, but a great way to taste the best of the fresh local seafood as sashimi and sushi. Also got another beef fix with the sirloin steak teriyaki and satisfied Tony's yearning for tempura.

We didn't get round to trying the local speciality Cataplana - fish and shellfish steamed with herbs in a tall pan, but there's only so many meals that you can have in a long weekend.

2007-03-22T22:19:00.001Z

Six Months and Counting...

Had more shit this week from my boss, but my senior manager has been very supportive and has kept me from going insane. It's such a relief to know that there is actually someone at work who appears to care for how you feel.

Anyway, have booked my next big holiday... sun, sea, sand, jungle, fresh seafood, massage...... mmmmmmmmmm........ six months to go!!

My horoscope for the year says I won't be able to save much, so I might as well enjoy myself if my money is destined to be frittered away this year somehow. Better than investing it in stocks and shares to see it all being wiped out in one day's stock market crash! At least this way I get a great tan, stretched muscles and plenty of stuff to blog about. If I can stand the smell, I might even go for an elephant ride!

Okay, need to get back to the present and enjoy my Portuguese adventure this weekend!! It's not quite as hot, but at least it's not snowing there!

2007-03-16T17:41:00.001Z

The Importance of Working 'Relationships'

The last few weeks has been a roller coaster ride, there have been some great ups, but the downs have been deep. It's all been a bit of a fuzz, but I seem to remember lots of sleepless nights, a few weekends moping around playing stupid little games rather than going out, jam-packed days at work not even having time to go to the toilet, getting severely frustrated and stressed by an incompetent and unsupporting boss, looking for ways out, seeking help from my senior manager to stop me from going doolally and once again putting myself through the rigmarole of applying for another job, only for it all to come down to the ground with a hard bump on my rear today with another rejection.

I don't dislike my current job. In fact on some days, I can safely say that I love my job. It's ideal really, it's flexible, it keeps me interested and I know what I am doing. There is one thing that I HATE (and those who know me know I rarely use this word) and that is how you cannot get by at work without the 'relationships'.

That was my feedback as to why I didn't pass my last two interviews, technically I am able - I can physically DO the job, just that I didn't convey the right 'relationship building' evidence in my interview... in other words, I don't know how to kiss ass.

That is the reason why I don't get on with my boss, because he spends 80% of his day 'building relationships' by the pool table or in the smoking hut and I spend 80% of my day slogging away to make sure things get done.

That is the reason why I get made the scapegoat or have my work stolen all the time, because I take responsibility for my promises and I care about what other people think.

I've been working now for nearly ten years and I have now drawn the conclusion that you simply cannot progress in any company without having your head firmly wedged between the buttcheeks of the person in charge. Much as I hate to admit it, I didn't get my current job purely on my abilities and I didn't get away from the phones just because I proved myself. Some people 'liked' me along the way, so I guess I got lucky. I once had an argument with a former manager who dared to suggest I had to do more 'networking' to progress, I now admit I am wrong.

The question is whether I am prepared to betray the strong, honest principles that my parents boldly instilled in me for the sake of a promotion, an extra £10K per year and super flexible working hours. Nah... I'd rather be true to myself. You can still find contentment in a small house, a holiday every year and Cake Mania.

2007-02-23T23:11:00.001Z

Welcoming the Year of the Piggy with Fourteen-day Flu...

I'll start my new year review by showing you some of the photos of this year's lion dancing, except doofus here forgot to take her camera with her due to the invasion of my respiratory system by some pretty virulent bugs (more about them later), so all I had was my new phone (yup, I finally have my Sony Ericsson W810i). The pics turned out pretty well though considering I could barely see what I was photographing and they showed the sunshine really well.

As usual, I spent Chinese New Year with my folks back in Liverpool, writing names in Chinese and selling paper dragons, windmills and hand drums to the wonderful people of Scouseland. The mild weather did its stuff as the sun came out and brought the crowds with it, so it was quite a lively and atmospheric celebration this year and for once, I didn't freeze out on the streets. Despite it being quite a long, hard day and we are all totally tired out for the few days following, I do actually enjoy working the stand at the new year because it's one of the rare times in the year where we pull together as a family to do something special. Even my young cousin (who is not so young any more) chipped in this year, proving that yet another of my grandfather's grandchildren has inherited his entrepreneurial genes!

I did take a short video, so with my newly found Youtube skills, here it is:

The day was completed by the young 'uns going out for pizza and cheesecake! Well, all the Chinese restaurants were packed, so we decided to go somewhere a little quieter!

Unfortunately, the last two weeks have been rather dogged by the flu/virus that I had picked up from somewhere. A tickly cough developed not long after returning from Prague and by the Friday, I felt so rough that I asked for half a day off work. The following weekend was spent tucked up in bed with aching joints and hot and cold sweats, drinking litre after litre of water, juice and tea. I could barely open my eyes on Monday morning, so I decided to take a couple of days off work. In my company, they discipline you if you take too much time off sick though, so I just booked them in as annual leave. On the Wednesday, I wasn't ready to go back in, but I wanted to be fit for the new year, so I dragged myself into work and sat all day sniffing, coughing and probably spreading my germs around. Thursday was better, but the virus had moved into my glands and I had very painful jaws for the next few days. The mad thing was that when I finally decided to see my doctor about my swollen glands (I didn't bother before because I knew that she would just tell me to rest, drink water and take paracetamol) she turned round to me and said: "You're okay, go and see a dentist if your gums hurt." I protested that my jaws were very painful and it wasn't my teeth, but she seemed to give the impression I was wasting her time. I ended up giving myself some self-diagnosis and after 20 minutes on the net, drew the conclusion that I had a viral infection of the salivary glands, kind of like mumps but without the fever. As it was viral, antibiotics wouldn't have done much for me anyway, so I just carried on with the paracetamol and water. Finally, by Thursday of this week, it finally subsided. And my teeth are absolutely fine... no need to pay £40 for a dentist to tell me that!

Anyway, that's the reason why I have been missing from here for the past couple of weeks...

Spent yesterday at my directorate's managers' conference at Bolton's Reebok Stadium. Getting up at 7am to get there and then sitting through 7 hours of 'motivational speeches' really took things out of me, so I have been in a state of dopiness since and am in severe need of sleep now. I spent the whole day being intrigued the Bolton Wanderers logo, which my sis had pointed out to me the day before looks like an upside-down Chinese 'Fook' symbol. See above and you'll know what I mean! Cheers sis... kept me amused!

TVB-wise, I have finished watching "The Price of Greed", which was okay as far as cheap and nasty TVB series are concerned but definitely nowhere near high quality. The storyline did not live up to its promise, Kate Tsui was not as annoying as she is currently in "The Brink of Law", but Sammul Chan's performance was pretty poor. The only redeeming factor was Bosco in his cute waistcoat really and the welcome appearance of Ben Wong later in the show. Have started on "Brink" now and it's nothing special so far. Much as I am a fan of Steven Ma and I love Michelle Yim and Elliot Yue, they are let down so badly by Kate, Ron and the youngsters Vin Choi and Yoyo Chen keep my fast forward button busy. I was so annoyed when Kenneth Ma's character died (sorry for spoiler, but it is predictable) because he was one of the more likeable characters in the show. Bernice is... to be perfectly frank, she is not doing anything for me up to now. It has been a disappointing start (I am up to ep 9) and even the 'sophistication' of the guys wearing glasses doesn't help.

May as well continue watching now and see if it gets any better...

2007-02-07T00:31:00.001Z

Birthday Weekend in Prague

I usually spend my birthday with my friend Su because her birthday is a couple of days after mine and this year was no exception. We decided to do something a little different this year and rather than visiting each other either in Manchester or London, we thought it would be fun to go and do a girly weekend in Prague instead. A couple of other friends tagged along and on my birthday (Friday), we headed out.

My journey started earlier than the others as I had to fly down to Gatwick to meet the others, so I had to trouble my hubby to take me to the airport at 5am to get the first plane down. One good thing about getting a flight so early in the morning - you get a decent hot breakfast instead of a sweaty sandwich on the plane!

Met up with the girls in London and took the swift flight over to Prague. My first impressions of the city as our shuttle left the airport was that it was still very rural and kind of stuck in a 1970's timewarp with the grey houses and grafitti everywhere, but as soon as we crossed the little tunnel into Prague city, then everything was very different and so much more modern than I had expected. We'd booked a pretty posh hotel, so our room was very nice and a cheeky email got us a birthday cake and a bottle of champagne upon arrival, which was a lovely way to start the holiday! After our afternoon snack of champers and chocolate mousse cake, we went out for a wander and just 2 minutes away was Prague's main shopping area in Wenceslas Square with all the shops having their winter sales. As this was a girly trip, we dived into shopping heaven and must have checked out about 20 different stores in the space of two hours. Dinner was at a restaurant called 'Coloseum' which came recommended by the taxi driver, but took about an hour to serve our food. Their home made ice cream was delicious though.

We decided to do the sights on Saturday, so we had an early start and wandered around looking for some breakfast. We ended up in the wrong direction, but ended up in a small local bakery, where we managed to get a hot drink and dry baked bread/cake for around 50p each. It wasn't the best breakfast ever, but it was certainly the cheapest we have ever had. My friend enjoyed her espresso. Then we followed our plan to get a tram up the hill to see the castle, which was very pretty and a snap decision from Su meant that we hiked up the 287 steps of the South Tower of St Vitus Cathedral to get some superb views of the city. We then rushed back down again making ourselves very dizzy as we counted the steps down the spiral stone staircase again in time to watch the changing of the guard in the courtyard, which I am glad we managed to see. Our descent down to the bridge took us down the castle steps and at the bottom, we decided to grab a quick coffee from the row of quaint coffee shops.

More shopping was in order as we strolled gently past St Nicholas Cathedral and found a row of craft and souvenir shops along the road towards Charles Bridge. The views from the bridge were very pretty and the sun actually came out for us as we crossed another of Prague's main sights. Feeling rather peckish, we went off in search of the traditional Czech meal of Roast Pork and dumplings and we found this in the Old Town Square, where we each had a main course, dessert and drinks for £5 a head. Then we wandered back towards Wenceslas Square again, stopping off at the hotel to drop off our things before heading to our cultural encounter at a concert held on the staircase of the National Museum. They put down a load of cushions on the stairs and the musicians stook on the middle section between the staircases. It was certainly an unusual set up, but the venue was stunning. Music was pretty good too as they played some Vivaldi, some Dvorak, some Mozart and some Brahms. After the concert, we decided to do a bit more shopping (all the shops open til 8pm) and then try the street sausages that had caught our noses on the first night. For about a pound, you get a foot-long meaty sausage in a soft bun and all the sauce you can eat. The sausage is super-stodgy though, so needless to say none of us managed to finish it, but it was an experience! We rounded off the evening ordering some honey and lemon and fruit teas from room service and playing cards until 4am.

Sunday morning was spend sleeping in and recovering from the night before, then we decided to go off in search of a decent brunch and we decided to check out the recommendations for Bohemian Bagel. It was a good 20 minute trek over to the old town and it was well tucked away, but it was all worth it as we tucked into our big breakfasts of eggs, bacon, sausages, pancakes, tomatoes, beans.... mmmmm!!! Then after another stroll (and yup, you guessed it ... more shopping) we headed over to the Mystic Buddha spa, where we had booked in for some indulgence in the form of Thai massage! It was so nice and we were totally zonked. It also brought out my cold though, so I had to get a quick nap before dinner - another traditional Czech meal. I had the roast duck, which was quite nice, but the super stodgy dumplings were starting to become too much. The evening was spent chilling as we were all pretty spaced after the massage and a long day on Saturday.

We finally found a decent breakfast place on Monday morning in the form of a French bageterie. Okay, so it was about five times the price of the one we had on Saturday, but the cheese and ham croissant was delicious and so light. All washed down by the richest hot chocolate ever. Some last minute shopping and sightseeing later, it was time to go home.

My trip was especially enjoyable for a number of reasons. Firstly, I have never been on holiday with Su before despite knowing her for so many years and it was great for us to do this and spend our birthdays together. Secondly, it surprised me as to how modern the city actually is. I was imagining it to be quite retro and in some respects it is with the old-fashioned tram system and some of the remnants from the old days, but in the same way that the big cities in China have opened up, Prague has really taken a big leap into the 21st century. Then there was the shopping, I never would have imagined Prague to be somewhere that I would go for shopping, but I was pleasantly surprised at what was available there and despite the 19% VAT, which is higher than the UK, when you hit the sales, there are some great bargains to be had! Finally, the people there are very welcoming and friendly. They love the fact that you are visiting their country and even if they do not speak English at all, they do not shun you like they do in some other countries like Spain. Instead, you manage to communicate by body language and persistance, which is great! I'll definitely be back to check out the sights that I didn't have time for this time, but will make sure I time my trip to coincide with the sales again!!

2007-02-01T22:56:00.001Z

Prague... here we come!

Bags are packed, flights all checked in... wuhoo!
All set for girly weekend in Prague!

2007-01-28T01:16:00.001Z

Great food, Lots of fun, Fine company and the Love of my Family

This is for my dearest hubby to thank him for such a wonderful evening.

As I'll be in Prague for my birthday next week and it's been a while since we entertained my family at home, I decided to invite my folks, my sibs and their respective other halves to dinner tonight for an early celebration. My hubby offered to cook and he made some of my favourite dishes and excelled himself. I think even my mum was suitably impressed. Although my folks had to leave quite early, it was nice to have them round for a change and it was so much more enjoyable and homely than going out to a restaurant and spending lots of money.

My sibs stayed around for some Wii-ing and after a few games of tennis, we ripped into my birthday pressie from my bro and future-sis-in-law:

Three hours later, we were still enjoying it. Despite it's simplicity, it is such a great game and just the dancing microgame was enough to have us rolling around laughing, especially when you put it into fast mode. There is no better feeling than to just have lots of fun, forgetting everything for the moment and just enjoying each others company. Frothy hot chocolate rounded off a lovely evening surrounded by the people I love.

It's times like this that remind us of the more important things in life....

2007-01-18T17:48:00.001Z

Brave this Stormy Weather...

We've just had one of the strongest storms in this country for ages. It's definitely the worst we've had since we moved into our house. At the height, the lights at work kept flipping off and every so often, there would be a huge bang against the metal walls of the building (I work in an ex-warehouse that has been converted into a contact centre).

When we got home, we found this in our back garden:

The wind had blown half of our fir tree down and it had missed the conservatory by about 2 feet. Fortunately the other half of the tree is still standing, but our neighbours have told us that at one point, the tree was blowing so far across that it was touching the conservatory. Scary stuff....
The barbecue was blown about 25 feet to the other end of the garden and our bins had been blown over half way down the drive.

Hope the storm eases soon. We aren't cut out for this weather in this country.

2007-01-15T22:56:00.001Z

You know you're the boss when...

everyone else turns up in suits and boots and you turn up in jeans!

This photo made me laugh today!
Stephen Chan rules!!

2007-01-13T12:06:00.001Z

My Environmentally Sound Birthday Wishlist

I watched a report on the news that said environmentalists are calling for people to make lists of what they want for birthdays and Christmas to avoid the millions of pounds and tonnes of environmental resources wasted on unwanted gifts every year. So, here is mine (and it should also help those of you who are trying to think about what to get me for my birthday! hahaha!)... ok, that's my excuse, now just to indulge myself on some stuff I would like to get my hands on!

A nice, spacious double-fronted house... I'm not greedy, I don't need a mansion, just more space to dump my clutter in.

Wario Smooth Moves for Wii - I think my bro is getting this for me! (Cheers, bro!!)

To make up my set, I need one more Wii-mote and two more nunchuks. Then four of us can play together in games like Rayman and tennis, but I think I might need to get the above house first to make sure I have enough space to avoid some serious injuries. Oh and some Wii points would be nice, so that we can download some Nintendo classics!!

Sony Ericsson w810i in WHITE - I was gonna get this today for myself, but the launch date has been delayed until 22nd Jan. Patience..... argh!

Some Czech money will come in handy for my Prague trip...

Toyota Yaris - This should give me the motivation to get back on the road. It can wait until 2008 though, so I can get myself an '08' registration plate. Hey, I am Chinese so superstition runs in my veins.

O2 XDA Orbit - OK, now I am just being frivolous, but I have heard so many great things about this device that I want one just to see if it really is so great. Shame they haven't got any decent staff deals on it.

Oh well, I can always pin my hopes on tonight's lottery numbers.

2007-01-09T01:38:00.002Z

For all you diehard softhard fans...

Found this little gem on youtube. Ironic that it starts with a warning about not wishing for it to appear on youtube, but hey, watch it while it's still there and enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

2007-01-08T01:04:00.001Z

Draw A House...

Found this on spcnet so I gave it a go and will post my house here too...

Based on your drawing and the 10 answers you gave this is a summary of your personality:
Your house tells the world that you ought to be a leader. You are a freedom lover and a strong person. You are shy and reserved. Once you have a problem, you need a friend with you. Your life is always full of changes.

You will avoid being alone and seek the company of others whenever possible. You love excitement and create it wherever you go. You see the world as it is, not as you believe it should be.

You added a flower into your drawing. The flower signifies that you long for love. We also see that you are sensuous, sexual, and privately passionate. You don't think much about yourself.

Hmm....

Your Personality from Drawing a House

2007-01-07T22:33:00.001Z

Addicted to 'Dicey Business'...

I've been pretty hooked on 'Dicey Business' over the last few weeks because it is a rare occurrence in recent TVB history to find a series that shows a little depth and so many great talents gathered together. The storyline was refreshing and contrary to the original first impressions, it wasn't just a rehash of some earlier gambling related series. It was far more 21st Century, dealing with a lot of human emotions and reflections of modern day society and not just fancy card tricks and big guns. The plot and suspense was spread throughout the whole series and did not just fizzle out half way as is the case with many of TVB's recent productions. The twists and turns in the storyline, the changes of personality as the characters matured and the sensitive elements portrayed all contributed to a high quality presentation from producer Cheung Kin Man, whose earlier productions included 'Au Revoir Shanghai' and 'Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion'.

With 'sam gor' Michael Miu and Bobby Au Yeung at the helm of this series, the potential was there from day one. Throw in the versatility of Jessica Hsuan and two of the most promising young TVB actors Bosco Wong and Tavia Yeung and this is looking cast-wise like a recipe for success. Michael pulled off his troubled 'hero-turned-villain' character of Kiu Ching Chor extremely well and his gamble to sacrifice his usual image of the 'good guy' seems to have paid off. His scenes of internal conflict, especially during the scenes with his mother (Leung Shun Yin) and the scenes where Benz Hui's character is dying were so moving that you were crying for him inside. Bobby showed that he can do more than just comedy and professional characters by playing his reformed down-and-out gambler role of Chai Foon Cheung. Memorable scenes for him included his crying scenes at his parent's shrine and in the sewer when he found out about the history of Bosco's character Ah Fu. I have never seen Bobby so sentimental before and the scene was extremely powerful.

I have always enjoyed Jessica's acting, but I couldn't help but find her recent roles in 'Just Love', 'A Handful of Love' and even 'Life Made Simple' rather samey and monotonous, so her compulsive gambler role of Lee Ching Wan in 'Dicey Business' was a welcome breath of fresh air. She really let herself go, especially in her moments of madness at the casinos and she convinced you totally of how she managed to attract the attentions of casino CEO Michael. In another fresh trial, Bosco played a withdrawn young man who had been through plenty of ordeals in his life and he did extremely well in showing his character's strife in the early part of the show by using just body language in many scenes. He showed some excellent chemistry with Tavia throughout their sub-story and they really did seem like they shared some very innocent love between them. Bosco maintained the innocence throughout the series and having Bobby beat him with a feather duster towards the end to wake him up to his responsibilities was a nice touch that I found particularly memorable. Also deserving of a mention were Benz Hui's superbly camp but ever so lovable 'best friend' character of Chow Fook Wing, Florence Kwok's dependable person in the background Lam Siu Yan and the extremely funny antics of Tavia's mum and dad, played by Lee Kwok Lun and Yvonne Lam.

The show was a balanced mix of comedy, drama, love, passion and friendship. Topics tackled included gambling addiction, commercial greed, business battles, criminal activity, conflicts between allegiances, relationships and even psychological warfare. Plenty to keep most audiences occupied. Of course, there were the scenes of poker and showhand that contributed to atmosphere, this is after all a show about gambling. Overall, it was a very enjoyable production and there was not one character that I disliked in the show. I have not anticipated the next episode for a series in recent times as much as I have for this one, especially as each episode ends on a cliff-hanger.

Totally recommend this series.... you won't be disappointed!

Whilst on the topic of TVB, we have more or less given up with "To Grow with Love". Progress has been slow as I am watching this with my hubby who isn't so much of a TVB fan and since the arrival of the Wii, then Fat Tin has been shelved as the joys of Wii Tennis and Zelda took over the after dinner entertainment slot in my house. Maybe we will continue sometime later, but having got up to episode 12, I am not really missing the rest of this series.

I have been watching my latest idol Stephen Chan's show "Be My Guest" though. It is such an interesting chat show and quite intriguing to find out a little more about the stars and celebs. I particularly enjoyed the ones with Lydia Sum and Softhard and Mr Chan is such a charismatic host. No wonder his radio show was so popular when he did it. Talking of Softhard, the DVD for their stage show arrived yesterday, so I went straight for the best bits in disc 3, where they showed all the guest portions, including Leon Lai, Eason Chan, Leo Ku and Miriam Yeung. They are so funny, especially when they change the lyrics to something reflective of their guests' backgrounds, such as Jacky Cheung's associations with Disney and Eason's collaboration with McDonalds. Yet to watch the rest of the show, but just this bit was worth the £18 investment on its own.

What next? I watched an ep of 'The Price of Greed' and it looks promising, but I think I might suffer from Bosco Overdose if I watch it straight away after 'Dicey'. The trailers for 'The Brink of Law' look really good with all the guys wearing dishy specs and some interesting storylines, so I might grab that one next. Also the return of another of my favourite veterans Elliot Yue should be something of note.

2007-01-01T04:46:00.001Z

Wii Napping after New Year's Party

This is the Wii taking a well earned rest after a good EIGHT HOURS of being hammered (literally) by my friends. Great party... now must sleep!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

2006-12-30T12:45:00.001Z

Plungers, Rabbids, Sword-slinging, Appraisals and Christmas...

The past few days have been a bit of a blur really and has left me in a state of confusion about whether I should spend today fighting the crowds in the high street to get myself a new diary for 2007 or whether I should just stay in the warmth and comfort of home and just get some rest for another day...hmm... in the meantime, I'll write up what I remember of the last few days.

Christmas Day was pretty quiet. My hubby cooked the roast and his family came round. There were no battles and I actually got to spend some quality time playing with our nephew. He can walk now, so he was busy doing circuits of our living room and thoroughly enjoying himself.

We headed back to Liverpool to see my folks on Boxing Day and we joined in the Christmas Party at the local Chinese Community Centre, where I have been meeting up with a friend for the last couple of years because she goes with her folks too - so we swap presents and have a good old catch up. (Contrary to popular belief, I don't go there for the Old Fogey's Karaoke Competition and we never win anything in the lucky raffle.) Volunteered to be the sound engineer again because my dad was having a time trying to juggle being photographer, sound engineer and president at the same time.

Dinner was at my parent's house in the evening and we had roast duck and pancakes, steamed fish and char siu. I do miss my mum's cooking so much nowadays, the only thing missing was her soup, but she didn't have time to make it after the party. My bro and sis bought me "Rayman Raving Rabbids" and an extra Wii-mote for Christmas, so I took my Wii over and we had a Wii-fest in the evening. Such great fun and that Rayman game is soo funny. I especially like the music game and the crazed nunchuk shaking games, reminiscent of the days of DDR and Bishi Bashi. The animation is soo funny as well, especially the end of level shoot-outs with the plungers!

Shame the evening had to come to an end as we were having so much fun, but a re-match is planned for New Year's Eve at my sister's house party.

It was back to work on Wednesday and my mission for the rest of the week was to get as many appraisals written up for my team. That's 10 x 6 page reports on how well my staff have been doing this year. Yawn.... I was sooo losing the will to live. You have to be positive or constructive with all your comments - that's not easy for some people who you don't rate at all. Well, after a long hard slog, I have just one left to do and that can wait until Tuesday because my brain is already mashed enough.

Have also been playing Zelda on the Wii and it is such a beautiful game. It's pretty addictive once you get into it and before you know it you have clocked up three or four hours gameplay on it. I'm not one of these who just whizzes through these games (some people claim to have completed it in 19 hours... madness and what a waste of money!) so I am taking my time.

I smell food...

2006-12-25T01:09:00.001Z

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve has been a quiet affair this year. The family gathering was pretty brief, but it was nice to see everyone again and look in wonder at how my cousins are growing up so fast! My little 6-year-old cuz Phoebe ran up to me and gave me a huge hug when she saw me and that made me feel all fuzzy inside. She is so lovely!

Will be catching up with family a bit more over the next couple of days, eating, lazing and just enjoying being away from work until I go back on Wednesday, but let's not think about that right now.

Pressies so far: haircut and massage from hubby, a book on beadworking from Secret Santa, shortcake & lucky packet from Gran, book token, memory stick, some chocolates and a DVD set...

Hope you have a great time this Christmas too, whatever you get up to!

2006-12-18T22:50:00.001Z

Wii Related Strain Injuries

Got home yesterday and finally pulled my Wii out from the box after banning my hubby from touching it until I got back! There then followed a two hour Wii Sports and Wii Play session with my uber-competitive husband who I am unable to beat in any game apart from laser hockey! The Wii is sooooooo cool! I am so glad I kept it!

Unfortunately, I think I may have overdone it a bit on Wii Tennis as I woke up this morning with an extremely sore shoulder. It's a good workout though because you do end up breaking a sweat after a couple of games and my shoulder started to loosen a bit this evening after a few more games. Wii Boxing is great to let out those frustrations and break a good sweat. Haven't quite worked out the intricacies of Wii Golf yet, especially putting - we are too impatient, but tenpin bowling is simple enough except for my ball always veering off towards the left all the time. As a Brit, we don't really see the point of baseball, so I can't see us playing that game too much.

All I need now are some generous friends and family to buy me a few more controllers and games... hehehe.

My boss gave me his annual Christmas gift of a cold last week, so I am suffering now with a runny nose and a tickly cough. Not good - why can't people keep their germs to themselves? This is the fourth year on the run that I have been ill over Christmas. It's not fun... snif snif...

2006-12-17T00:51:00.001Z

Wii for Meeee.... hehe

Part of me was secretly wishing for my Wii not to sell, so I could play with it - especially after the mad advertising campaign on TV. It didn't, so it means I can finally get my hands on it, well, later on today when I get home.

Didn't make a profit on it, but at least I didn't pay over the odds for it and still have it for Christmas...

Wuhoo!!!

My Gran's out of hospital now finally and back to her old self again. She just needs to take it easy now, so I hope she will not let her hyperactivity put her health at risk again. Went to see her today at home, she is so glad to be away from those weirdos in her ward and nurses who didn't have a clue. Can't believe they asked a male nurse/porter to help her bathe - that's so wrong! The NHS has definitely gone downhill and I blame poor management, we pay so much in taxes and it all goes to a bunch of muppets who are more interested in squandering it on stupid things like publicity and propoganda when they should be caring about the patients and the standards of care and hygiene.

My hubby arranged a surprise Christmas present for me today, which didn't turn out to be a surprise in the end, but less said about that the better. Went for a haircut in a posh salon (waved bye bye to about 7 inches of my hair, but it does feel good - not used to how it looks yet) and a really relaxing massage. I was falling asleep at random times during the treatment and throughout the day, thanks to the therapist and she was targeting the tight areas of my back so much it felt like a Thai massage where they bring you out in bruises at first, but then you feel so good after a couple of days. The bottom of my back feels like it's been punched and bruised, but it's that good kind of bruising when you know it will be so much better because the strain has been brought to the surface. I will definitely be saving up for another massage - I think I should be able to afford one every two months or so if I cut down on buying breakfast at work and taking porridge instead.... will probably do my waistline some good as well.

2006-12-09T13:20:00.001Z

Project Free Wii is now underway...

My Wii arrived this morning, but it's still in the box.

With the current shortage in the UK, I'd be silly not to try my luck at doubling my money on it really, so the listing has gone up. If it sells, then great 'cos I don't mind waiting, if it doesn't, then I have a Wii to play with over Christmas. Been changing my mind over and over again in the last day or so - such a dilemma, but decision has made now, the 1% won.

Wish me luck! Hahaha....

2006-12-07T00:14:00.001Z

2 days to go...

And to mark the occasion, my bro pointed me in the direction of this funny article:

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/the-japanese-wii-safety-manual-is-crazy-219119.php

Had me chuckling away...

I have 99% decided that I will keep my Wii and start using it as part of my drive to move more instead of sitting around after work wondering why I am so bloomin' tired. Hopefully a couple of games of Wii tennis every night will get my heart pumping a bit more. (Which isn't hard considering my current level of activity...)

Trying to get into the Christmas spirit at work, but it's difficult when everyone around you is so apathetic. Picked up our £20 budget to decorate our area of the office today, so maybe after the tinsel and baubles go up, then people will start being a bit cheerier. There has been a lot of stress kicking around recently and even the men are all suffering from PMS. Also organised this year's Secret Santa and Christmas lunchtime party for the team... I guess this is as fun as management gets!

At least they are not making us stick to corporate colours this year. Even though blue and silver tinsel is quite pleasing on the eye, when the whole place looks the same then it gets a bit boring! I think the girl organising the decorations this year is planning to get the new trendy lilac tinsel. The guys will complain about it looking girly, but hey if they are so bothered, then they can put their own decorations up!

I will be going to three Christmas do's this year - that's a whole three more than last year! Woohoo...

2006-12-04T00:02:00.001Z

Thinking of Gran, Christmas Shopping and Old Friends

Visited my gran in hospital on Friday, she's had a pretty bad setback and is coming to terms with not being able to live as active a lifestyle as she has been over the years. She was telling me about how she won't be able to sing Cantonese opera any more or go shopping in the market for the best cuts of beef and pork and I felt a lump in my throat, but didn't want to show her how sad I felt. She seems so weak at the moment - a far cry from the strong independent woman who looked after me as a child. I am glad that I managed to take her on holiday earlier on in the year, but I am sad that we won't be able to do it again. I hope that she will regain some strength soon and my grandad will look down from heaven and protect her.

Then yesterday I got dragged out by hubby to go Christmas shopping. I really wanted to just stay in and sleep, but I guess it's better to get the inevitable out of the way. Picked up some toys for the kids and wandered around Ikea after stopping for lunch there - we like the meatballs and the ice cream there. I wasn't really in the right frame of mind for shopping though because I wasn't in a spending mood, so I left all the spending to my hubby and kinda just wandered around in a bit of a daze. I perked up a bit in the evening when we visited another shopping centre and my credit card finally came out to get a couple of presents for people. In the evening I wrote out a load of Christmas cards for my mother-in-law to people who I don't really know, so I just kinda guessed what to write in them and hoped for the best.

I started writing my own cards today and I realised how rubbish I am at keeping in touch with old friends who don't email or go on MSN. Sending them a card once a year with a few lines scribbled inside is about all the contact we have nowadays, but I guess that is better than not having any contact at all, which is the case with 99% of my primary and secondary schoolfriends. Sad, but true. I also finally got round to physically writing a reply to one of my old penpals who still sends me the odd letter once in a blue moon because she says it's nice to receive an old fashioned snail mail letter once in a while. Have to admit though that it took an awful lot of effort to pick up a pen and rack my brains on how to express myself with pen and paper and in Chinese too. Evolution in action - soon I will forget completely how to write and depend totally on this keyboard to express myself.

The Hong Kong press have been keeping me busy recently with the whole 'Gay Affairs' piece and surprisingly the other hot topic at the moment is who the traitor is who sold out on Sammul Chan and caused him so much bitterness that he has had to let it out as soon as he leaves TVB. All fun and games, but personally, I think he is being quite petty and childish about it all. He may feel justified in airing his views and he probably feels bad that TVB haven't even considered him for any awards this year, but to stamp his feet and throw his dummy out of the pram is not really the best way to build up your own image. The spearhead is pointed at Kenneth Ma, but I think that even though Kenneth isn't quite the innocent that he portrays, at least he is playing the game right, keeping to the rules and this in itself is deserving of an award. Face it Sammul, everything in this society is all about politics. You can't beat 'em, so if you don't join 'em, then you're out of the game. Same with any workplace really... including mine.

TVB-wise been watching 'To Grow with Love' and 'Dicey Business and am three-quarters into rewatching 'A Step into the Past'. Gotta take my hat off to Raymond Lam, even five years ago, his portrayal of the young First Emperor was exemplary. Raymond Lam, Louis Koo, Derek Kwok, Jimmy Au all in one series... what more could I ask for? Hahaha!!

Wii arrives in 5 days - to sell or not to sell, that is the question!

2006-12-03T23:50:00.001Z

Bargain of the Week 3 - Well I have plenty of cupboards to fill with stuff

Motto tableware - 19p per piece at Ikea

Dropped by at Ikea recently primarily to have lunch (Swedish meatballs £3.75 per portion with potatoes and gravy) but we took a look around anyway and I came across this week's bargain. Rice bowls, serving dishes and plates for just 19p a piece! So for less than a fiver, you can get a full set for 8 people. Not bad at all. We'll be doing some entertaining over Christmas, so I bought some rice bowls and some serving dishes. Nice size too - good for serving when there are only two or three of us and the portions aren't so big.

Other great things on sale at Ikea - soft ice cream cone 35p, plastic bag dispenser £1.25, footstool £9, leather sofa £300...

2006-11-30T00:23:00.001Z

Bargain of the Week 2 - Justifying my Earlier Foolish Purchase

I bought 'The Movies' PC game as a Christmas present for myself last year and I think I paid near enough the full asking price for it, which is around £19.99 at the time. I don't think I have played it enough to justify that, but after buying my new PC, the speed that it runs at is much more enjoyable, so I might just try getting my money's worth out of it when I break for Christmas.

Anyway, the reason why this game is here for Bargain of the Week is thanks to a post on the MSE site, where an eagle-eyed moneysaver has spotted that PC World is selling this game for the unbelievable price of just 97p. When there is a bargain as good as this, I am always up for it, so I checked out my local branch, put my order in off the internet and managed to get my hands on the last four in my nearest store. When I picked them up, they still had the £19.99 price label on them and the sales assistant's eyes nearly popped out when the 97p price came up on his till. He seemed so gutted! Hahaha! I don't need them as such, but they'll do as Christmas presents for my cousins or something to throw into the Secret Santa at work, or I could even make a couple of quid by chucking them onto ebay.

Maybe I will go around and take a tour of my local PC World branches to see if there are any more 97p offers to be had!

2006-11-23T15:57:00.000Z

PMS SURVIVAL TIPS

This is a handy clip for those people who have to live around me at certain times of the month....

2006-11-20T00:12:00.001Z

Em's Bargain of the Week - Part 1 - Getting overexcited about Shower Gel

If you're like me and working hard for the ultimate goal of a mortgage-free life, you'll know that every penny saved is a little step towards your ambition. Unfortunately, living in the world of 'Ripoff Britain', saving money isn't always easy, not that I'm gonna compete with the excellent Money Saving Expert site, but I'll share any money-saving snippets I come across here with everyone and let myself get overexcited with my penny pinching schemes! Hahaha...

Anyway, the first item to make it onto the list of "Em's Economies" is this one:

Boots Basics Shower Gel - 35p (plus you even get 2p back on your advantage card!)

We came across this in our local Boots store, which isn't really known for bargains as even the BOGOF offers can work out more expensive than your supermarket for most things, but this and the rest of the Boots Basics range is a find! Unless you have special skin, then a shower gel is a shower gel really and this clear blue gel smells quite fresh, the scent isn't overpowering and foams up as well as the standard Boots shower gels. Okay so it doesn't claim to help you to de-stress or have aromatherapy properties, but hey it gets you clean and it all still gets washed down the plughole anyway. If this doesn't interest you, other products in the range include 2 toothbrushes for just 28p, toothpaste 29p a tube and for the ladies 30 panty liners for 29p! Can't get fairer than that!

Shoppers away!! 'Til next time...

2006-11-14T00:06:00.001Z

Not funny really but hilarious....

I saw this report on the news this evening and even though it's probably not funny for the drivers in question, as a pedestrian and bus user, I found it rather amusing. The story is about some stupid drivers who think it's clever to try and drive into a pedestrianised zone in Manchester by tailgating a bus, but then find themselves getting speared by bollards. The whole thing is captured on CCTV and has been aired for all to view their utter stupidity.

You can watch the video clips here:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/video/view_broadband/519.html

The other thing that brought a smile to my face on Saturday was when I was crossing the motorway bridge near my house on my way to the post office. The bridge crosses 8 lanes of traffic and it was fairly busy on that morning. There was this little kid on the bridge, his mum had already finished crossing the bridge, but he was hanging about, playing real life 'Frogger' with the traffic. I just found that soooo sweet! The bridge usually makes me quite nervous because the speeding traffic below gives the illusion that the bridge is swaying, so seeing the little kid took my mind off things and made my bridge crossing the most enjoyable one yet!

Pumpkin time... time for bed!

2006-11-08T22:43:00.001Z

Free Wii!!

Dear Customer,

Due to a European shortage of the Nintendo Wii Consoles, we regret to inform you that we will be unable to supply your pre-ordered Nintendo Wii at launch. As an Official distributor of Nintendo products we are guaranteed more stock before Christmas, but Nintendo have informed us, along with all other official Nintendo retailers, that the console will not be freely available until next year.

All pre-orders will be fulfilled on a first come, first served basis and we will fulfil your order as soon as we can.

Hmm... does this mean that there will be a massive market for inflated prices for Wii's on Ebay? I placed my order at lunchtime on Day 1 of launch, so I should be quite high up on the list and hey, if I can double my money and in effect get my Wii for free, then I don't mind waiting an extra few months for my machine. Hahaha... My colleague is laughing all the way to the bank because he pre-ordered SEVEN of them from various places to make sure he got one. He was going to cancel the ones he didn't need, but now he's looking at a tidy profit if he gets them all fulfilled!!

Back to work again, the week in Liverpool kinda flew by. It was nice to be back with the sibs again, even though everyone ends up doing their own thing in the evenings. Managed another trip to the cinema whilst I was there and we caught the Borat film. We've been fans of him from the TV show, so we really enjoyed it, even though it was pretty obvious which scenes were staged and which were 'real'. Still wanna catch 'Open Season' and waiting for the new Aardman/Dreamworks collaboration 'Flushed Away' - looks really good in the trailers.

Been mad busy back at normal work - loads of people off sick at the moment with various ailments, so the rest of us have to work extra hard to make sure all the work gets done. As a result, the bosses have been extra careful not to upset everyone and it's been fairly smooth running despite the pressure. I don't mind it being busy, the days fly by and when you get stuck into what you're doing, you look up and it's lunchtime, then you look up again and it's time to go home.

Winter's really setting in now, can't believe it's November again. One good thing about being back to GMT is that the HK papers update an hour earlier, so I can get my news translations done an hour earlier and have a bit more time to myself before bedtime to chill out, write my blog and watch my series and stuff. Still watching "Land of Wealth" and am re-watching 80's series "It Runs in the Family" (Stephen Chow and Sean Lau) that I bought on VCD. Funny stuff!

2006-10-31T14:27:00.001Z

Back in Scouseland

Back 'home' in Liverpool again looking after the shop this week. Things are pretty quiet though, so I have been catching up on some rest and TVB viewing.

"Maiden's Vow" was okay. The first story was quite good as I liked watching Sammul Chan's nasty streak. The second story was deadly boring and you just wanted to slap Charmaine's character for being so dumb. Third story was daft, like watching a silly sitcom, but then again I have never been much of a fan of the seventies series and the last story was cute - again, Sammul did great as the gay guy! I'd so love to have a mate like him, he was so caring and sensitive. I think Charmaine and Joe were at their most natural in the last story too, but the ending was just plain stupid. TVB have never been good with their endings - this series was no breakthrough.

I start on "Land of Wealth" this evening, although I have jumped ahead a bit and watched some of "To Grow With Love" to see what the hype was all about. It's okay so far, nice light comedy - I think I have to be in the right frame of mind to watch it though otherwise the shallow plot would just totally annoy me. My copy of classic ATV drama "Coincidentally" arrived this week as well, so my entertainment for the next few weeks is cut out.

Also went to watch "The Departed" yesterday. Being a big fan of the "Infernal Affairs" movies and based on the comments I have heard from other people, I didn't hold out much expectation for the film and it was a good job because I fell asleep for a few minutes in the middle of it. Yes it was that stimulating! There is no way that DiCaprio and Damon could match the charisma and charm of Lau and Leung and Mark Wahlberg was the only redeeming factor in the film. Jack Nicholson couldn't quite master the comedic timing of the Eric Tsang character and the incontinuity of the Sor Keung thread (played out in 'Departed' by various different people in the gang) destroyed the humour. Trying to combine all three films into one meant there was no suspense and the decision to drop the 'aside' where Leung and Lau meet in the hi-fi store was a bad one, because that ironic scene was one of the best in the original film. What made my experience worse was that the woman sitting behind me kept kicking my seat and then gasping in terror whenever she saw the unnecessarily graphic gore scenes. Maybe she should go and see a less violent film in the next screen instead, maybe "Open Season" would have been more in her league. Talking of which, I might go and catch that next - saw some trailers and they are hilarious!

2006-10-22T18:59:00.001Z

"Face to Fate" and my addiction to Wuxia series

At the expense of some sleep and a couple of shopping/dimsum trips, combined with a contribution from shittyhormone insomnia and PMT lethargy, I have managed to polish off all 30 episodes of "Face to Fate" in the space of a week! I guess it is also down to my crazy addiction to 'wuxia' (ancient martial arts) series, especially when there is an element of fantasy in the storyline. I just get hooked and have to keep watching, even multitasking goes out of the window as it's one of the very few things in life that gets my undivided attention. I remember I once spent an Easter weekend doing nothing but re-watching Ekin Cheng's "Golden Snake Sword" and by the end of it, I must have left an imprint of my bum on the sofa! Oh and the eye candy helps as well... hehehe!

The series was based on a novel by Wan Shui On, but according to another report I had read somewhere, it is nothing at all like the original story. Typical TVB to adapt it into something completely different. There were a couple of stupid TVB-esque things I noticed that probably would have bugged the hell out of me in another series, such as the rubber tubing that Lai Yeuk Yi (Raymond Lam) and his brother used in their 'blood cleaning', the suggestion that they had transporters to get them from place to place in record speed and that they never had any luggage with them, but still had about three changes of clothing even when they were camping out in a cave. I think that the logical layout of the series - 'we have to find five heroes, seven ingredients to the cure and endure five rounds of the 'Golden Seal' tournament' - appealed to the logic of my mind and kept me going and the producer/scriptwriter did a good job of ending each episode on a cliffhanger, so you simply had to watch a little bit more to find out what happened. Another reason why I liked this series was that the characters were not all clear cut good or bad. Unlike most wuxia, where people are very clearcut goody-goody or evil villains, nearly all the main characters had a 'grey area', where they were neither good or evil. Even the protagonist, Lee Bo Yi (Frankie Lam) is neither a member of the black or the white and has his own weaknesses and demons to deal with.

The main cast was pretty good, Frankie, Raymond, Tavia and Selena all pulled off a decent performance and I particularly enjoyed the unconditional friendship between Frankie and Raymond's characters. However, the show was definitely made by the supporting cast - Derek and Nancy's romance was really sweet (although there was a tad too much 'run n hug' going on), the 'heroes' - Jimmy Au, Lee Ka Sing, Al Wai, Evergreen and Fiona - had some interesting mini-stories and I liked the fact that the main sect introduced much more than just the top four students and helped to introduce some fresher faces by delving a little deeper into the characters of the 'younger' students such as Chan Kwan, Matt Yeung and the girl who played 'Yat Ha' (her name slips my mind). The storyline was well organised and visually, this was another attractively presented series (not quite as good as 'War of In-Laws', but still good), bearing in mind the budgets and lack of location filming. Most of the location scenes were shot in Yuen Long's Tai Tong Lychee Valley, but they made the most of what they had and I thought they did a good job.

Oh I seemed to have slipped into review mode again, but I do recommend this series if you are into your martial arts. It's a shame though that this series will probably never be aired on mainstream Hong Kong television because it is typical of an 'export' production that is destined for Pay Vision. The Hong Kong viewers miss out on so much good stuff because they have a distinct preference for shallow, meaningless comedies. Hopefully TVB will continue to make at least a few quality productions per year and not just give in to mindless commercial pap. I'm off to watch "Maiden's Vow" now, but the multitasking will be back for that one. Not really too interested and it's just a stopgap whilst I am waiting to get my hands on "Land of Wealth".

2006-10-17T00:57:00.001Z

History Matters - One Day in History

Be part of the biggest blog in history - TUESDAY 17TH OCTOBER 2006....

http://www.historymatters.org.uk/output/page96.asp

2006-10-11T23:35:00.001Z

Fun fun fun....

This cheered me up a little - click on the link and click "View Trailer"...

http://www.play.com/Games/Wii/RNR/3-/1027934/Rayman_Raving_Rabbids/Product.html

2006-10-11T21:44:00.001Z

Hyperdefensive Permanently Premenstrual Male Bosses

Had a shitty day at work today. I hate it so much when my boss makes me cry at work. A mixture of him being mega control freak, permanently premenstrual and hyperdefensive coupled with my shitty hormones was a recipe for disaster really.

I had flashbacks of my last encounter with a bullying boss when he spoke to me today. That was not pleasant. Like the last one, he wanted me to manage my team with an iron fist, targeting them hard and reprimanding them even harder when they missed their deadlines and targets. Does he not realise that in the current working climate, you CANNOT put pressure on staff to work like that. It is all about 'agreement' and 'commitment', not 'you will or else'. All it takes is a little upset and you run the risk of your staff member deciding to go off sick for a good 3 to 6 months or they are straight onto the phone to the union with allegations of bullying. If I was not as dedicated to my job, I could easily have done the same after today's little episode. If he carries on with his power trip and high horse charade, I may seriously consider it.

My senior manager learned months ago not to use the bully approach with me or my team when he found it got him nothing but disgruntled staff and poor results. I am hoping that my boss will catch onto this soon and snap out of it, before I start feeling a sickness coming on....

2006-10-01T12:18:00.001Z

CIB Files - "Can It Be" any worse?

Haven't done a TVB post in a while, but I was so disappointed by the much anticipated "CIB Files" that I have to mention it here, so if anyone reading this is in two minds as to whether or watch, I can save you some time and help you with your decision - don't bother!

I have to admit, I was quite looking forward to watching this series. There was so much potential in the storylines and backdrop, the cast was solid with some great talent and after reading Greg Rivers' enthusiastic blog post about it, I thought that it would yield another excellent police series, following in the footsteps of "Forensic Heroes" and the classic "Detective Investigation Files". After watching the series, the cynic in me is beginning to suspect that Mr Rivers was trying a little too hard to promote his series. I felt cheated.

The first episode proved promising, there was a little mystery in it, some investigation and second guessing and the characters were introduced with some intrigue. Unfortunately, it all fizzled out in the second episode and after that, the series began deteriorating into a mishmash of second-rate soap opera, attempted comedy and a modern-day tribute to Producer Chik's earlier success story in "War and Beauty". The cases became mundane and dismissive, the characters all displayed varying levels of blind stupidity and the 'flashbacks' to WAB such as Bowie's 'discussions' with Patricia, the love-hate relationship between Bowie and his father and the downbeaten Kenny Wong scenes were irrelevant and irritating, leaving me thinking to myself: "Eh? What was that all about?"

My view is that with top class actors such as Wong He and Christine Ng on board, Chik could have done so much more to enhance the show if he had concentrated more on the cases and the depth of the characters. There were so many unanswered questions: What had Christine endured to get to her position? Why was she so bitter with Bowie? What made Bowie change his mind about his father all of a sudden? How had Ah He's experiences undercover affected him? How had Maggie dealt with her ordeals? What makes the CIB such a fantastic team? ... instead, all we were presented with was a floaty wishy-washy explanations and interactions that all appeared to be surface deep, whilst the producer and writers indulged on trying to remind us of past successes and injecting the show with half-hearted humour that was both unnecessary and unamusing. Some scenes that bordered on farcical included the whole 'Fung Shui incident' between Greg Rivers and Kenny Wong and Ah He's unhealthy relationship with the traffic cop - 'Oh, we should stop meeting like this!' I could write better myself.

This blog entry is fast becoming a complete review of the series, so I will end my ranting here. Don't waste your time with CIB... honestly!

I'm a little behind on my series at the moment, so I haven't even started on 'Land of Wealth' or 'Face to Fate' yet, but I hope they will be better than CIB. One series I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at recently was "War and Destiny". The reason for this was I was captivated by Sunny Chan's performance in this show - he totally made it for me. Ron, Myolie and the others were same old same old and Mandy Cho's whiny voice once again nearly made me switch off, but Sunny saved the day and the show. I've never really paid much attention to Sunny in the past because he is not one of those artistes whose performance jumps out at you, but the positive impact his wife is having on his life coupled with an extremely well written character was the recipe for success in this show. Check him out - you won't be disappointed. I was chatting to Tammy about this earlier and we both think that TVB should do a sequel to this show but just have Sunny as the central character - maybe a flashback story to tell us what happened in his last 8 years since he went missing. That would give us a great scope for excitement and we wouldn't have to endure another 20 episodes of Myolie's crying and Ron's declarations that he is not Japanese. Hey TVB - if you're reading, let Em and Tams write this for you. Hahaha!

Hmm... what shall I watch next?

2006-09-23T13:04:00.001Z

A Day in the Life of...

Yesterday was a really weird day for me. I don't do many diary blog entries, but it was one of those days I feel need to be recorded for posterity.

I'd taken half a day off work and the other half was spent getting to one our other sites to go for a job interview for a job that I wasn't too bothered whether I got or not, but seemed (on paper at least) to be half like what I envisaged to be my 'dream job'. My other mission for the day was to head back to Liverpool for my sister's birthday.

As I did not want to risk motorway driving after several years off the road, I decided to take the bus and coach route to Leeds for my interview. I arrived at the bus stop at 10am, to wave goodbye to the earlier bus that was not the one I had planned on getting, so I wasn't too bothered that I'd missed it by about 2 minutes. So I sat and waited for the next one 15 minutes later, listening to my Ipod and went through my interview prep in my head. Suddenly this guy sits down next to me and says: "Good Morning". Not wanting to be impolite, I said Good Morning back to him and plugged my headphone back into my ear. Bad move... this guy proceeded on asking me rapid fire 20 questions about my background, China's political situation, whether I could speak Japanese, who invented electricity, whether Einstein was a physician and what I thought of Britain's transport system. In the end, I just ended up replying "Don't know" because I felt so uncomfortable. It was the longest 10 minutes ever and I was so so glad when his bus arrived and he left. I am so glad I don't work with the public any more - too many weirdos nowadays.

So my bus arrived and I headed out to the coach station. The ride to Leeds was pretty uneventful, thank goodness. I'd planned to get some lunch in when I got to the office, but although I was not at all nervous about the interview, I didn't feel like eating. Instead I went in search of some familiar faces (and somewhere to dump my bag) but my counterparts in Leeds had been scattered and relocated. I must have looked either so dumb or suspicious as I trawled the offices looking for where my colleagues had been moved to. Finally I found them, but they were going for lunch and didn't have much time for me. I was sweating like a pig, probably a mixture of discomfort, stuffy rooms and hormones, so I decided to cool off a little in the washrooms before finding my interview.

Then I arrived to what was the weirdest interview I have ever attended.
It was like Good Cop Bad Cop meets the Reeves and Mortimer show as in between asking me the usual questions, Vic and Bob would spring into some kind of comedy routine of their own and I just sat and watched as they seemed to heckle each other about something totally irrelevant. Then after veering completely off topic for about 5 minutes, Vic would come back to the interview and ask me to continue with my answers. I was pretty confident through the interview as I have been to enough in my time to be able to reel off answers that fell into the company's requirements (and having been to the company's interviewing course), but this interruption was quite unnerving. Every now and then, Bob would come in with the odd question, which I can only guess was designed to throw a spanner into the thought processes, but they were all very negative and really gave me the impression that she didn't like me. That's all fine, but she ended up doing such a great job of putting me off that at the end of the interview, I came out thinking to myself that even if they offered me the job, I don't really want it now. If anything, the whole experience has made me feel even better about my current job (not that I had a major problem with it in the first place), so I think I will be staying put for now.

Anyway, I emerged from the interview, picked up my stuff and bade farewell to my colleagues before heading out of the office, which incidentally had been infested with hoards of daddy-longlegs (aka Crane Fly to non-Brits) into the pouring rain. Got the bus back to the coach station, again to wave goodbye to the previous coach, so I waited for mine and finally had something to eat. It was 4pm. I had a cheese and ham toastie and a hot chocolate - sod the healthy eating thing, I needed comfort food. At 4:20, I joined the queue for the half four coach back to Liverpool. At five o'clock, I was still in the queue for the half four coach. At 5:05 I was on the half four coach and at 5:15, the half four coach left Leeds. God bless the Great British transport system.

Despite my friend pointing this out to me some years ago as a 'British-ism', I don't usually notice that British people like to talk to complete strangers, but the guy sitting next to me on the coach started nattering on away to me as soon as he sat down. My patience was lacking a little by this point, so although he was not as weird as the earlier guy, I gave him a few curt responses before plugging my trusty Ipod into my ears, closing my eyes and pretending to sleep. Traffic was horrendous, weather was atrocious - what more could I ask for? The guy got off in Manchester and a woman carrying a toddler sat next to me. As far as young kids go, he was actually pretty bearable because at least he wasn't screaming. However, throughout the whole 50 minute journey, the little black kid had his wide dark eyes staring at me and it was quite unnerving. That and his mother allowing him to put his feet on my trousers and kick me on the leg was rather annoying. Unfortunately I am too British to say anything to her for fear of being accused of being racist or something like that, so I just wished and wished to hurry up and see the end of the M62.

There is nothing better after a long hard day than to come home to a welcoming home and caring family. I am lucky I have both at my parents' house. Everyone was busy doing their own thing, but to come back to an environment where there are no judgements or expectations is the best feeling in the world. Mum's home cooking, Dad's 'nice cuppa tea' and a good old belting karaoke session with my sis is all I need to put things right. Raaaahhh... as Snoopy and Woodstock would say.

Oh, and happy birthday to my sis today, who is 21 for the fifth time!

2006-09-15T21:18:00.001Z

Wiiiiiiiiiiiii........................

Put my order in for a Nintendo Wii today! What a beautiful piece of kit!!
Roll on December 8th!! Tons of fun!!

If you have been on Mars for the last six months, then take a look at this and all will be revealed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itBMiSBtmfk&mode=related&search=

2006-09-14T22:17:00.001Z

Double Take 2

I was watching 'Celebrity Masterchef' on BBC1 this evening and I noticed there is another uncanny likeness between former Chelsea and England footballer Graeme Le Saux and TVB main man Moses Chan. Take a look and see for yourself....

Moses?

Graeme?

Incidentally, I was a bit gutted for Mr Le Saux when he didn't make it into the quarter finals after his stunning performance in the kitchen, I thought he did a fine job!

2006-09-07T14:38:00.001Z

Five Fab Things about Madeira

Sunny blue skies and even bluer sea.
We didn't have a drop of rain all week, temperatures were a warm, but comfortable 25 to 18 degrees C and it is nicely cool at night to make for a good sleeping temperature. This is a view of the cliffs on the far side of the island from our trip on the Catamaran.

Stunning sunsets and total tranquility.
No rowdy Brits or noisy nightclubs here, just sitting on the balcony in the evenings or taking a walk around the hotel gardens and watching the amazing sunset scenes.

Fantastically fresh and reasonably priced food.
49p for a third of the sweetest, tastiest, most refreshing watermelon I have ever had and the spread you see in the picture came to just £20! Tuna tastes like tuna and not some bland reconstituted dolphin meat you get in tins in the UK. The tomatoes are large, juicy and beefy and the cucumbers contain about half the water of the British ones, so they are packed with taste. Oh and their steaks are always cooked to perfection!

Dolphin watching.
For around £18 for three hours, you can take a trip out to the Atlantic and go dolphin and whale watching. Okay, the pic isn't that great, but we did get to see plenty of dolphins and whales on our trip. Not for those who get seasick though as the waves can get a bit choppy.

Beautiful flowers and parks and NO BUGS!
For a warm place, there are relatively few bugs and insects in Madeira, so for an anti-bug activist like me, this was ideal! The ones you will see are some butterflies and moths and some wasps that are more interested in the lovely blooms than your arm. So I rested easily without worrying about being eaten alive by stupid mozzies. There were some little lizards running around in the rocks, but they seemed relatively harmless and couldn't make the climb up to the hotel balcony, so that was okay.

The holiday was fab and so relaxing - plus our hotel had FIVE pools, so there was never any crowds. Everywhere was so quiet and we never had to queue for much. Would definitely recommend the island if you fancy somewhere to totally chill out!

2006-08-12T23:52:00.001Z

Double take...

This has kept me amused all night. It's just uncanny....

2006-08-01T22:00:00.001Z

Dodgy Ankle, British Heatwave, Random Number Generation, A Good Soaking and Dr Koo...

Pretty much sums up the last three weeks for me really.

I actually injured my ankle in February when I twisted it after tripping on a hole in the pavement outside work on a dark evening on the way to the car park. It was quite a bad fall and I ended up flat on my face in a muddle puddle and even the car driving past stopped to either laugh or make sure I was okay before driving off. The weird thing about my injury is that when I am standing up or walking, then it doesn't hurt. It's only when I am either lying down or sitting cross legged in a certain position when it starts to ache really badly. This usually coincides when I am sitting cross legged on my chair at my PC in the evenings. I really should go and see a doctor about it, but I am only reminded of the pain at night when the doctor's surgery is closed. Must have done some lasting damage to just one ligament or tendon in my ankle for it to be so temperamental.

Weather's been really hot in the UK in July. As soon as we hit August, it won't stop raining. Not that I am complaining because we can finally get some decent sleep without sticking to the bed in the mornings or having to risk eating or being eaten by moths and other insects by sleeping with the fan on max and the window wide open. (I am scared of birds flying in!) If these hot summers keep coming, will have to seriously think about investing in some aircon for the house. British houses are nicely insulated for the winter, but when it comes to summer, they just turn into human sized ovens.

Tis the season for random number generation as we renew our car and house insurance policies for another year. How the companies come up with these premiums is totally beyond me. When the quotes I get range from £280 to £480 for the same car and the same people and the same cover, it just proves my theory that they just use a random number generator to create these prices! Madness...

Went on our company outing to Alton Towers a couple of weeks ago - nice day out with my sibs and sis-in-law-to-be. My sis gives a better account of this on her blog, so I won't say much more apart from the fact we get totally soaked as we stood in a thunderstorm in a queue for the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ride. My semi-waterproof jacket was no match for the gallons of water that was chucked on us by the heavens and I was wet through. It was a fun day though and it was nice of my company to pay for most of it!

On the TVB front, I have been watching "Forensic Heroes" and as I'd expected, I really enjoyed it. Great to see the return of Florence Kwok and of course the company of 'Dr Koo'. Having recently gotten into the world of CSI after catching a few episodes on satellite TV, this series just came at the right time and I thought that everything about it just fell into place really well. Even Linda Chung was bearable as she appears to have de-squeaked herself and found herself a bit of a personality on the screen. Great stuff and well worthy of its 43 points! Just started on "Men in Pain" today and the first two episodes are promising. I am quite a fan of Louisa So and Ron's performance is an eye-opener, why after watching this series I may even grow to like him! (Or maybe it's just the floppy hair that I have a soft spot for...)

2006-07-18T01:00:00.001Z

Welcome to the Sims House!

Hahaha... yes I have been a little distracted for the last couple of nights, so the news pages are a little thin on the ground. The reason? Well you've probably guessed, I have my desktop back and I have some catching up to do with my Sims.

With my recent fixation on the TVB sitcom "Welcome to the House", then who better to start rebuilding Sim TVB City with?

Here's some pics...

Ko Family 1 - this is Ko Hing, See Tau Por, Ko Yau Yi and Ko Yau Ching.
I couldn't quite get the occupations right for this lot, so Yau Yi is currently a medic and Yau Ching is a scientist. Maybe if I get a chance I will move Yau Yi into the business career path. See Tau Por looks a bit old cos they automatically make the elders look grey. There is obviously no such thing as hair dye in the Sims world.

Ko Family 2 - this is Ko Yau Pang, Ah Fan, Ah Mer and Ko B

Ko Yau Pang - he isn't quite a chef yet. At the moment he is a security guard (hon gaan!) - maybe one day he will manage to get onto the Culinary career ladder.

Ah Mer - he is in the military, hence the uniform. It was the nearest career path I could get to DHL... close enough (and it makes enough money for him to afford a computer in his room).

This is Ah Fan in the bath. She's a bit pregnant at the moment, so all she does is eat, puke and bathe. She doesn't quite have enough body points to do yoga just yet, but when she does, I'll take another picture of her doing her stuff. She is on the Athlete career path, but not sure if Yoga instructor features in there at all. She looked really daft when she worked as a mascot though!

2006-07-09T21:45:00.001Z

Why playing The Sims is good for me....

I hit a void this afternoon. I was supposed to be chilling, so I decided not to go out and spend any money, but after all the translations are done and when there is no-one online to talk to, I have no tapes to watch and the telly has been taken over by my tennis and football watching husband anyway, I am left on my computer wondering what to do. Normally I would flick on The Sims and spend a couple of hours living out the lives of my electronic people, but with the death of my desktop and my lappy refusing to let me play, then I am kinda stuck with surfing the net. As a result, I end up window-shopping and that naturally leads to me spending more money anyway. Damn.....

Fortunately, I have acquired a new desktop - found a decent bargain, which should be with me next week. Hoorah! Hopefully I can play my games again on it and stop spending frivolously.

Italy won the World Cup!
Well, Tony is happy....
My fantasy league team finished 9507th place in the international league and 90th in the site league! Hahaha, no prizes there then!

2006-06-29T00:57:00.001Z

Hecklers

I am not a comic act, nor am I on the stage. So why do I seem to attract so many stupid hecklers to my site? I've not done anything to you, so why do you spam my tagboard with so much shit and then when I ask you politely to stop it, you turn around and call me names????? Even my old friend 'oldgeezer' got pelted...

Take a hint, I have your IP address and I will ban every single goddamn one your ISP owns so that you don't keep changing it and coming back. I know you live in the UK - if you don't leave my site alone, I will hunt you down and pelt you with a real piece of shit.

Rant over... I can go to sleep now.

2006-06-22T23:45:00.001Z

Counting the days....

My holiday just seems so far away, but I can keep myself going by checking out the pics of the hotel I have booked into! Just hope that it lives up to the reviews and the pics...

I'm going to the island of Madeira... and yes, I like madeira cake as well!!

2006-06-21T22:10:00.001Z

My first ever footy shirt...

In six years of working for this company, I must have entered hundreds of competitions to win stuff and so far, I have won a phone and two cinema tickets. Had a nice surprise today when I was reading through the weekly email from the big boss and she announced that I was one of the winners of the first few draws in the "World Cup Predictor" competition. So I went off to collect my prize, thinking it was another company branded T-shirt or something, but to my surprise, I came back with a cool England shirt (complete with price tag - it was £35)!! This has to be one of the best things I have received from the company!

Found out about the nasty things that TVB have been doing to my fellow fansite owner TVB Square today. (Check out the blog at the site for more details.) I'm now wondering when I'm gonna receive a similar letter through my door. My hunch is that they are combatting any sites that offer 'downloads' of any kind and that they won't come down with the same force on little fansites like mine, but there are some other more blatant download sites that CHARGE people who are still in business. Now that's what REALLY annoys me! (Those who know me will know who I am referring to...)I think if TVB weighed up the amount of free advertising and publicity that fansites provide them with, it would far far outweight the amount of 'loss' they have made. Oh well, if TVBspace gets shut down and Ghosty is sent back to emspace, then don't worry, I'll make sure he gets his old desk back and a space to put his pot plant! Maybe my creative writing will make a comeback - unless TVB decides to crack down on fanfics as well, but that would be WAAAY out of order! (And all the references to TVB in 'Stardust Dreams' have been disguised anyway.... hahaha!)

Anyway, enough about those stupid people. Booked my next holiday - always have to have something to look forward to. Sooo looking forward to it now, a week of 5-star luxury and indulgence, nice weather, fresh seafood, refreshing hikes.....

Doesn't that look beautiful?

2006-06-15T00:07:00.001Z

Eyes are better today...

Master Chow's remedies work a treat!

Your Personality Is

Guardian (SJ)

You are sensible, down to earth, and goal oriented.
Bottom line, you are good at playing by the rules.

You tend to be dominant - and you are a natural leader.
You are interested in rules and order. Morals are important to you.

A hard worker, you give your all at whatever you do.
You're very serious, and people often tell you to lighten up.

In love, you tend to take things carefully and slowly.

At work, you are suited to almost any career - but you excel in leadership positions.

With others, you tend to be polite and formal.

As far as looks go, you are traditionally attractive. You take good care of yourself.

On weekends, you tend to like to do organized activities. In fact, you often organize them!

The Three Question Personality Test

Yes that's me down to a tee....