Just another "thoughtful" day

Sometimes I wonder what I want in life. I would ask myself dozens of questions and never get any answered. Even if they are answered, I wonder if they are the right answers and then you start to think, what are the right answers?

Life is just so contradicting. People only cherished things or people when they are no longer around. And the irony is letting go is just so difficult for most people.

Have you ever felt loneliness even if you are surrounded by friends and family? I often do. Why do i have such a feeling? I don't know. Maybe this is just one of the questions that will never get answered.

The other strange thing I discovered about myself is I like to feel depressed. I just indulge myself in that kind of feeling. I have absolutely no idea why.

I don't understand why someone can just change their feelings and thoughts overnight? I don't understand why people are so afraid to go after what they really want? Is it because of family pressure? peer pressure? or just the thought of venturing into something unknown scares them? I am guilty of this as well. The society has molded me into such a person that I do not know what is what anymore.

When you are young, you are not scared of anything. You get up after falling down, you ventured into the unknown - crawling - walking - running. If taking risk is always hanging on your head, maybe we are all still crawling now. Why has this changed when we grow up? Is it because we have family? We have too much committments in our life?

Why do I have so many questions? I don't know. Frankly, I don't know anything. Just another "thoughtful" day.

A Fruitful and Tiring Week

Finally it's the end of a very very busy and tiring but fruitful week. I learnt so much about what the rest of the people have been doing and of course I shared what I have been doing as well. I'm like half way across the globe from these guys. Let me summarise what's been going on this past week.

On Monday morning,I was woken up by a call at 2.15am (which is around 9.15am singapore time) from a withheld number. The caller hung up when I picked it up. Tried to go back to sleep but finally woke up around 5am. Not a good day to start the day by.I went to take a shower and went down for breakfast at 7am. The next day, I got a call again and this time at 3.30am (10.30am singapore time) from the credit card company asking if I made a transaction with my card in Netherlands. My goodness, if they know I am in Netherlands, can't they wait till later to call me? Disrupt my sleep again.

Watched the news and saw that the temperature will be going down this week and can go down to -2 deg. That was indeed very bad as I think I was not well prepared for the cold weather and I had on 4 layers of clothes already.

So I asked the hotel to get me a cab to the office and that costs me 17euros for a 15 mins ride. Look at the snow covered tulip fields near my office.

Things start to kick in after lunch, we had meetings, presentations and workshops for the whole of the week. But not forgetting the fun we had as well.

We went to the SnowWorld for skiing or snowboarding (for some). It's like the snow city in Singapore, I guess although I have never been to the Snow City. My boss had so kindly brought all the ski pants,jackets,socks and gloves for me. Thank God I can fit into them else I think it's going to be very embarassing for me.

Skiing was no easy task, at least for me. First of all, I had problems wearing the ski boots and then I had problems fastening the boots onto the ski and after that I had problems trying to walk up the slope in the skis.

Then I tried to ski down the slope and ended up crashing into the trainer. I had to walk up the slope again and this time, I crashed into my other colleagues so I was practically crashing into everyone that is on my path. Finally when the ski lesson ended, I managed to ski a little without falling or crashing into anyone. You would never imagine that you can actually perspire under all the thick clothes you wore for skiing but yes, I was perspiring. It was tough but fun to experience it. Whether I will be back for more, well...that depends.

Next, we went for rock climbing. I always believed I lacked the wrist strength for rock climbing but surprisingly, it's pretty easy. I can go all the way to the top. Here's a picture of my team at the rock climbing place.

After all that exercise, we had a good dinner. Meat Fondue...never tried before but it was really interesting. I thought it would be somewhat similar to cheese fondue but I am wrong. There was oil in the fondue pot and then you had a plate of different meats - veal, beef, pork and chicken and you put them in the fondue and fried them.

The weather was getting colder and colder by the day with yesterday morning at -3 deg. My face and skin were so dry that I can feel them peeling off. The feeling was terrible. I was also almost down with a cold with me sneezing a few times a day and on some nights, my nose was blocked. I tried to pile on the moisturiser and hand lotion as often as I can.

We went to another city - Leiden for dinner one of the nights and we had indian food. Leiden is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in The Netherlands. It forms a single urban area with Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten, Valkenburg, Rijnsburg and Katwijk, with 254,000 inhabitants. It is located on the Old Rhine, close to the cities of The Hague and Haarlem.It was a nice city and there is even a windmill museum there as well.

One thing I had an issue with was on the service by the restaurants. We had dinner in one of the japanese teppanyaki restaurant and the waitress just refused to serve us until there was another order from another table. It's really sickening. The whole dinner was finished only in about 2.5 hours.

Had quite a late evening on the last day of work. Was in the office till around 7pm. All other colleagues were coming in to say goodbyes to me and wishing me a safe trip home. Left the office around 7pm and went to Amsterdam for dinner. Guess where we had dinner? Hard Rock Cafe...hahahaha. It was cold and we didn't want to walk too far from where we parked the car. After dinner, we walked around the surroundings for a bit before returning to the Hotel. Say goodbyes to my boss and colleague as they were on an earlier than me the next day.

On Saturday, I checked out around 11am and met up with a friend living in The Hague. He picked me up and we drove to the airport to deposit my luggage at the storage room. Then we took the train from the airport to Amsterdam Centraal station. From there, we decided to just walk to the Van Gogh Museum. It was a nice walk as the sun is shining and there isn't much wind. I realised I know more about Amsterdam than my dutch friend. He said he seldom come to Amsterdam so he didn't know much about the place. In the end, I am the one who is bringing him around.

Walked past the sex museum and decided to pop in for a look. It costed 3euro for entry. Frankly, there's nothing much. Photographs of sexual acts, rapes, sadism etc. Some artifacts from the past and paintings, drawings etc.

Here are some pictures I took inside the museum.

Always remember to get your tickets for the Van Gogh Museum in advance else you have to join in the queue at the museum. Frankly, I am not a great fan of Van Gogh but I just need to visit the tourist attraction,right? Hahahaha. Bought some sourvenirs at the museum shop and then I went to the LV shop along the expensive shopping district of Amsterdam. Bought myself a wallet and a small sling bag. Bought some stuff from the HRC for my cousin, chocolates requested by my friend and colleagues and bought some cheese as well for myself. I also did some shopping at H&M and Zara. Most of the shops were on sale and some of the items in the shops were so cheap. Time went past so fast that soon it's 6pm and all the shops were closing.

So we walked back to the train station and caught the train back to the airport. I had a hard time trying to fit all the stuff into my luggage and had to hand carry another 2 bags and 2 paintings I bought from the Van Gogh Museum. After checking in, I said goodbye to my friend and I went to the lounge for some rest and drinks. The flight back was pretty ok, I fell asleep after watching a movie.

Finally back to Singapore after a long and tiring week. Couldn't get used to the heat and was perspiring in the airport. Sort of miss the cool weather there. Sleep in on Monday as I was feeling so tired.

It's raining snow!!!

Reached Amsterdam around 6am this morning and it was raining with strong wind. The plane can't connect to the gate due to the bad weather and we had to wait in the plane for a while. After landing, I stayed in the airport for my conference call at 7am and then leave for my hotel around 7.40am.

It costed me 63 euro to get to my hotel in noordwijk. The wind was so strong that the cab door seemed going to blow away. I was checked into the beach wing of the hotel and the room and toilet were so small and its a long walk to the main wing where breakfast was served.

Peek at the hotel room and view from the balcony of the hotel room.

I went to walk around the neighourhood and the wind was so strong, I was almost blown away several times and since the hotel is near the beach, sand keeps blowing into my eyes and on my face.

Decided to head back to the Hotel and get online. The internet access in the hotel was very expensive. 10 euro for an hour's of access.

Met up with my colleague for dinner in the evening and we went to Haarlem. Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, capital of North Holland province. The city is located by the river Spaarne, about 20 km west of Amsterdam and near the coastal dunes. It is the center of a flower-growing district and the export point for bulbs, especially tulips.

My colleague said when the tulips are in bloom, there will be buses of Japanese tourists along the roads taking pictures of the tulip fields.

It started to rain snow on our way to the dinner place. My first encounter with that kind of rain. Interesting and my hair was full of little bits of snow which melted soon after. We had tapas for dinner, my colleague ordered like around 8 different kinds and I thought that it's going to be too much but the portion was pretty small.

After dinner, we went for a drink at the opposite cafe but I ordered tea as it's cold. It was a nice evening although staying in the Hotel for 9 hours before my dinner appointment wasn't that fun.

Tomorrow will be the start of a busy week.

Stormy Weather in Netherlands

Take a look at this website. It tells of how strong the wind is in Netherlands. It's going to be a cold cold week ahead.
http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article388802.ece/Rijkswaterstaat_ga_bij_deze_storm_niet_de_weg_op

Finished packing and hopefully I didn't forget to bring anything important. My boss just informed me that I am scheduled for a presentation yesterday afternoon and I have to rush something out so that I have something to present.

We are going to have a team activity on one of the days for skiing or snow boarding followed by rock climbing and then dinner. Sounds interesting. It will be my first time at skiing and rock climbing.

Amsterdam...Here I Come...Again...

Just got my air ticket for my Amsterdam trip. Went to the internet and check on the status of the booking made.

Can't check in now but will do so before i fly and then i will choose the seats which i think are nicer. My seats are reserved on the upper deck of the plane.

Pray that the in-flight entertainment will be working this time round as it wasn't the last time i was on the plane and I wasn't prepared and stuck only with my puzzle book.

I can't really sleep on the plane so makes it even worse for the whole journey. The movies on this flight for this month going to Amsterdam are The Queen (yes, I'm going to watch this definitely), Step Up, Open Season, Fearless ( by Jet Li), The Black Dahlia, Beat the Drum and Miami Vice.

And the movies coming back to Singapore are The Guardian, Scoop, The Departed, Flyboys, Jackass Number 2, Stormbreaker and Nachtrit. Okay, have watched none but some of them I have never heard before.

A new diet

After a gruelling 2 weeks regime of dieting, I lost 4kg. Not a lot but considering the fact that I have been trying to lose weight for the past 2 years.

Actually, the diet works perfectly fine for me but after 2 weeks, I think it's time to take a break and since I am flying off to Amsterdam, no point continuing the diet now. I might probably revert back to the diet after I get back from Amsterdam.

I feel more alert and don't feel tired easily and I believe if I have exercise during the diet period, I might have lost even more weight.

Happy for now....hoping to lose more...must pray hard that I don't gain back all I have lost after my Amsterdam trip.

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Haven't been posting for quite some time. I was on leave beginning mid-Dec and it's my very first day at work in the office today although I am working throughout my holidays too.

And Yes, I am officially one year older. Everytime the year starts, I am older by a year. So sad.

No one really remembers my birthday except for a few people so I don't get presents most of my life.

My hubby will always try to get me a christmas present cum birthday present everytime. But I want 2 presents....boohoohoo