Hey it's Jun 2013 !

Ok let's do my "bi-yearly" blog again.... :)

Today it's a Saturday, and the weather is hot in HK. I'm trying to post my Yunnan travel books for sale online so I start using a laptop again! Since I've had a iphone I don't really use my laptop anymore. Indeed, the cord of my laptop was actually being destroyed by my dog so I can't connect to the electricity anymore, so I'm actually using Ben's laptop to type this blog..... 

What has happened in the past yr? Ummm I guess no big change but with some small changes, like: 

1. I'm still working at the same company, but changed the position. 
2. I didn't meet many new people but I have a first dog. 
3. I still look the same but I'm turning 30! 
4. I'm living in the same house and always wanna buy a bigger one 
5. I'm still 5ft2 but no longer 100 lbs 
6. I'm still a happy & positive young girl but start losing the enthusiasm and reluctant to try new things (i'm still using my iphone 4 for 3 year while 90% ppl had changed to Samsung :P) 
7. I've traveled to Yunnan for 10days with Saimon and I LOVE their diversified culture people scenaries and food!

Goal for the rest of 2013: 1. Take pre-wedding pictures in Japan 2. Learn Ball room/Samba dancing (always want to but no partner) 3. think of a business idea (goal of my life) 

 Ok See you next time! (when?!)

It's been awhile since my last update! I realized people no longer write blogs anymore, i guess it's because we are now so used to Whatsapp or Facebook to update status, so there's no more point to "summarize" again on the blogs... oh Well, Technology changes your life continuously. So what I've done for this year? ummm.. I travelled quite frequently this year, went to Bangkok during CNY, then Vancouver/US during Easter, and Malaysia for my birthday. Afterall, it's just because people in HK cannot stay in this city for more than 6 months without going to somewhere else. We would go crazy!! Ok Let me recap a bit of my trips while my memory is still there. Bangkok: haven't been to bangkok for quite some years, most of the HK people are bkk-fan which they NEED to go their at least once a year. I didn't intend to go during CNY because it's peak season and so much more expensive, but the CNY is one of the two China long holidays Ben's dad can have so we gotta pay the premium. Nothing much exotic we did there: just Spa everyday and non-stop eating...... I love Thailand !!! Vancouver: My most enjoyable trip always. Vancouver is such a boring place but the most important thing is I can meet with all my friends and family. That's the most important for me. Oh ya, we also went to the States this year: California Disney and San Diego Safari... Where else did we go? Anyways... my feeling to US has been refreshed, we always hear negative news about the States in Asia, but after the trip, I remember most of the US ppl are very friendly... and things are cheap and big there! Malaysia: A place where most of the ppl said is boring, but I actually found it quite interesting. We went to Kuala Lumpur, Malacca and Langkawi, and they all gave me different experiences. Langkawi is a relaxing small island which allows us to drive around. Malay people are very nice, I guess is because of their religion. We can't find the entertainment like what we had in Bangkok, it's just a peaceful gentle place. Kuala Lumpur is a booming city. We can see the old and new architecture and I enjoyed the Muslim Museum the most. I love Malay food as well! Cheap and Yum! Malacca is like Macau in the old days, there're many colonial style buildings, but far less people than Macau. In summary, 1 day there is good, 2 days would be boring la! hehe

Few Things Worth to be blogged in Year 2011

1. Silk Road & XinJiangTrip.
- Definitely one of the most memorable things happened in 2011, or in my life so far. It's hard to believe we went to so many cities/attractions within 2 weeks and we experienced so much. The train rides, the hotel, the food, the beautiful views, the culture, the weather, the sickness, the arguments with Travel agency/driver.... etc. It's just undescribable. After all, I'm impressed by our adaptability and flexibility. Even though the situation got so worse, no one had complained a word and tried to give up. This is the no.1 criteria of looking for Travel companions. Btw, I'm still waiting for Step's detailed recap of the trip... so we can still talk about it when we become ah por.

2. New House
- Wow another milestone of my life. Even though we bought our house in Dec last year, we could not move in Until early Apr. The "house buying" process was quite dramatic since we didn't "see" the house before we bought it. So it was quite worried yet exciting while we first saw our house. Anyways, the "house renovating" process was quite smooth as well, lots of people had headache in this stage but we made most of our decisions very efficiently. Maybe because we just liked everything simple and clean, so it saved us a lot of trouble.

3. Singapore Trip
- I think I travel with Saimon more than anyone else! The excitement to be the 1st time to go on a standby flight, 1st time to be a weekend getaway (except to China or Macau), and the tight itinerary and full use of time maximized the return of my trip so well!

4. Contract to Perm for me; New Job for Ben
- Although we still face lots of challenges in our work, this is worth to mention cause I think this made the future of our careers look brighter.

5. Grey Hair
- Discovered my first (and then few more) grey hair...................................................... the most hurt-est and Upset thing of 2011. T_T

Singapore Trip 2011

You know I almost immigrated to Singapore instead of Canada years ago! Since Mom loves Singapore, so it was the 1st choice for my parents when considering immigration. However, this country had a pretty restrictive immigration policy, and my dad was over their age limit at the time we applied, so my mom ended up choosing Canada instead. Well now years later, I finally had a chance to visit this country! In fact, I didn't have too much desire to go to this place, because i always think it's just somewhere similar to HK -- Small Modernized Asian city. But since I could only go for a weekend, so we didn't have any better choice. Anyways, thanks Saimon bringing me there! So, to maxmized our holiday, we left on Friday night and back on Monday morning. We took the United Airlines mid-night flight, arrived the airport at about 1am? (btw, UA is bad, avoid it if possible). Then we searched around to look for free wife just to "check-in" in facebook! Holy smokes we're so mo liu~~~

So the first day was the Universal Studio day. We didn't know until the last minute that it's its Grand Opening Day on May 28, so I was kinda worried that we couldn't get the tickets if it's sold out. In fact it didn't happen, the theme park was much less crowded than what I expected... which is GOOD! We didn't get to wait for long line-up and "ppl mountain ppl sea" everywhere.... so we chose to sleep few more hrs than watching the grand opening parade and arrived at about noon. Its size is similar to HK disneyland, just much less ppl (even on Grand Opening Day!). Maybe because it's still not a popular place for mainland tourists yet la.... then we wondered around the Sentosa Island before back to the firework at night. The weather was hot and humid, but no thunder storm nor strong sun, so it was not TOO suffering.

2nd day was a tiring day. We used our fastest speed and boost our highest energy level to visit most of the rest of the attractions -- Indian Temples, Chinese Temples, China Town, Malls, some Museums... and of cuz the Merlion and the newest Marina Bay Sands Hotel & Casino! ((and left down some $$ as well...) It's amazing to count how many places we visit! but maybe it's only becuz this city is not big.... Btw, I'm eating Laksa for 3 times in 2 days and it's so good. :)

3rd day, slept few hours in a 1 star hotel and headed to Airport at 3:30am, arrived HK at about 8am and back to work in the afternoon. My colleagues said we're crazy but I feel so good~ because only Young ppl would do this, right? v^_^v (((oh btw, Saimon is heading to Vietnam the next day after this trip, I truely admire his eagerness, but I think it's a bit too much lor.....)))

Job change

Sometimes I think I do always have the "luck" to work with a good boss. U know, sometimes it's hard to get along with your teammates & boss, but I think I get the good ones most of the time. Like Stella when I was in Canada, and My boss now. So my boss has been promoted to another position lately, he then asked me whether I would like to "follow" him, or stay at where I am. Without a sec of considering, I said I'll follow him! The reason is pretty complicated yet clear: I think I would get better rewards if I follow him. What kind of rewards? Firstly, a perm job (my biggest desire), Secondly, a new job nature. In fact, I have no idea what I'm going to do if I change to his "division" (because it's a newly set up job area and he's the only person working there now). I just know he'll work with some UHNW (Ultra High Net Worth) Clients in the bank, and I'll assist him. Well, no matter what it is, I'd love to give it a try.

OK another happy thing lately is... I got compliments from my biggest boss after I assisted him for 2 weeks. I didn't expect he would come over to my boss and told him what he thought, I really appreciated it, and I LOVE being recognized after working hard (who doesn't though, right?!) :)

btw...here's the news:

ABN AMRO appoints new head of Private Wealth Management, Asia

5:01pm, Tuesday May 17, 2011

As part of its continuing focus on the distinct needs of UHNW clients, ABN AMRO has appointed a new head of Private Wealth Management, Asia dedicated to clients with US$25 million and above in assets with the bank. Kearia Yau has been promoted internally to fill the newly created position and will be responsible for building the bank’s presence in the UHNW banking segment. Yau will continue to be based out of Hong Kong and reports regionally to Hans Diederen, CEO private banking and country executive, Singapore and globally to Richard Bruens, global head of private wealth management.

(Temp) Executive Secretary

What an ideal working calendar the past 3 weeks -- we got at least 1 day off during the weekdays, plus the weekends so that means we got 3 days off for every 4 days work, so happpppie! However... this kind of calendar comes to an end after today lu..... >_<

Also, my 2 week interim position of being our office's biggest boss's secretary has also completed. The new secretary just came on board yday....What a big relief !!!! It's totally not as fun as I thought of, but I'm glad I had a chance to experience it... Even though the boss was on biz trip most of the time, I got so nervous and panic whenever he's in the office..... Well, at least the best part was I got to see lots of top confidential things~ @v@

I Love going to China

woohoo~ Easter holidays for four consecutive days! thanks God^^

so went to ShenZhen today for the first time after we moved to our new house, it took less than 45mins for us to arrive Lo Wu! amazingly fast... in fact it's more convenience for us to go China now than to Causeway Bay!

I Love China!

Groupbuy-holic

Thanks for US QE2, the inflation has seriously arrived and prices of everything (except our own Salary of course) has been rising so rapidly lately! It's soooo scary, never seen this kind of rapid price hikes before. We can barely feed ourselves with a $30 lunch now in Central. So because of this phenomenon, i've built up a good/bad habit for myself -- Group buying. There're so many groupbuy sites and my favourite deals are those I can use for lunch/dinner. Experience are pretty good so far, but my true wish is price hikes can slow down a bit, US stop injecting $ so that it'll make our life easier. :(

久遺了的獨處時光

Enjoying my long-waited quietness, freedom, and loneliness at my house. by myself. :)

入伙喇~

從1月尾收樓，經過2個月之後，今日(Apr 2)正式入伙喇。 從收樓，搞裝修，搵傢俬，添置"砂煲an餐"，其實我都唔覺好困難，因爲只要你肯俾錢，咩都可以輕鬆搞掂。所以最辛苦既係，點樣用最少既錢做到最好。仲有呢一開始會追求完美，見到雜誌個裝修啊，擺設啊好靚啊就好想自己間屋都係甘，但到後黎就會知道無可能。不過，只要你抱著憧憬，就會做得開心~ 雖然有時遇到唔如意既事我都會發下脾4，然後對陳生講：我唔理喇，你搞掂怇啦!!!!! 但overall黎講，一齊非常順利 :) 最blessing既係間屋真係keep得好好.....大佬，我地無"目弟"過樓就買左啦窩，好大冒險ga ma.....

Last day of 2010

Holy shit!!! time flies....... another year has passed!!! What have I done this year??

Didn't go anywhere special to count down since there're so crowded everywhere... in fact jason invited us to a party with his friends in Clear Water Bay but we thought it's kinda expensive for us so we went to have jap food instead. However, we "accidently" ordered a $880 Uni.... we were so "ho" that we ordered Uni without looking at the menu! so we ended up kinda regret that we didn't join the party instead.......... v_v

anyways.......2010 was not a bad year for us, at least we bought a house and nothing bad happened! let's look forward to 2011 and hopefully it'll be a better year~

Xmas Short Trip to Macau & China

Oh yeah it's Xmas again! Nothing much planned to do except having a Xmas eve party at Jason's house and non-stop eating. Not going anywhere interesting either cause it's so expensive everywhere! ((and gotta save $$$ for our new house...)) Also HK dollar just keeps depreciating so much that everywhere is not affordable anymore.

But since we just HAVE to escape from this place as long as we have a chance, we chose to go to Macau again!! I know..... it's a boring choice but where else can we go? However the hotel rate in Macau was crazily gone up by the high demand from Mainlanders, so we rather cross the border and sleep over at ZhuHai instead. And since we've been there before already and the weather was freezing outside, our main activity was to stay at hotel and play MJ!! lol~~~ it was actually pretty fun actually because it's automatic MJ table :P

Oh ya I think I've mentioned this phenomenon before, which is most of the men in Macau and China have young girls accompany them now, no matter dining or walking on street !!! this is just so.... crazy. I cannnot let myself think of another thing..... Also all the brand names shop was blood-washed by those rich mainlanders too. Like Hermes, I doubt if they really know what's it all about..... -_-

Dec 4: Another life time decision was made

After a year of causual shopping, 3 consecutive weeks serious shopping, finally, we bought a Xmas present for ourselves! It's the biggest present we've ever bought but it's also a life time debt for us.

Yes... we bought a house^^

okay.... not exactly a house, but a small flat v_v. Anyways... the process was a little dramatic, and it doesn't happen a lot to first time home buyer. Why? because... the house is a 摩貨! what is a 摩貨? it's basically means the seller of the house sells the house before he physically owns it!

So what exactly happened? The seller of the house is an aggressive investor (i.e. 炒家) that he's also owning many houses at the same time. His goal is to buy a house and then sell it away within a short period of time to make money. However, becuz of the sudden new launched of policy measurement, he's afraid that his plan is not going to work out, so as a result, he will need to start paying mortgage for the house and probably for ALL the houses he owns. So now he rather sells the house at a cheaper price to make sure he has less debt.

So.... What's our benefit? He is willing to sell the house at a cheaper prize.
What's our risk? We cannot see the house before we buy it.

That's why I said first time home buyer normally would not buy a house in this way.

well... we gonna "receive" the house at Jan 31. And by that time, we'll know if the risk was worth taken :)

Makeup Class at Portfolio

After looking for freelance makeup & hair stylists for the Jason's wedding, I wanted to take some makeup class again! I remember I had taken one in Van but it totally didn't work well... haha. So I was browsing around on web and see if there's any makeup class I can try out. Basically the "star-grade" makeup artists in HK has their own makeup school now. So I found Gary Chung's makeup school - Portfolio and it looks pretty interesting. ((((If u remember, Gary is Tsui Sze Kei's official makeup artist.))) So I called them up and ask for the price, then they invited me to a free trial class. THen i immediately asked Carmen to go w/ me becuz i know she'll be so interested la~

So lucky of us, the trial class was doing "smoky-eyes"!!! it's one of the must-learn class nowadays becuz girls love smoky-kitty eyes now. It's suitable for brides and party. And more lucky of us... the class was taught by Gary himself !! woohoo~ he's such a professional teacher.... he started by skincare process, then makeup, then hair. He chose a student and did the whole makeup. Other than that, the most attractive thing about his school is all the tools and makeup are free for use for the students, he encourages his students to go school with differet models and practice as much as they want. Also his school linked up with other model school, dance school, and celebrities, so it is really a good way to start the career because u can build ur portfolio with celebrities! However, the price is also "star-graded" too. There're 3 parts which last for about half year. It's $40,000 for 3 parts or $15,000 each. :P

Jason & Mandy's Wedding - Nov 29, 2010

Ok another guy friend of mine got married..... except Michael and Simon, i think all my close chug friends have married? Why boys get married so early nowadays? Girls, please add oil !!!

So after 1 year of their announcement, finally the big day is here! For the past two weekends all the bridemaids, groommaids, helpers, have been grouped together to brief and rehearse. They divided the day into two sessions into an afternoon session (for signing marriage certificate in front of civil celebrant) and an evening session at Shangri-La. And since Mandy's parents are so insist that every traditional thing has to be done, it made the process much more annoying and boring for them. And maybe the BMs and GMs didn't interact much (they don't "so" each other at all), it made the process less fun. Anyways.... it was great to seeing my friends going to another stage of life!

The SAT before their big day, Jason held his bachelor party at CEO. We tried to make him drunk but the first one to puke was Raymond lor! haha... He just drank half glass of Vodka and he's Over~ poor Ray........ then we left early and jason stayed w/ his hk frds. 6 of us went to sleep over at Mike's place... haha i feel like we were back to the old times when we go on ski trip~

So on Monday i took half day off so I could attend the afternoon session. I went to meet up Carmen and the makeup artist at Carmen's house to have our makeup and hair done before going to country club. There weren't many ppl there, i think about 40ppl? less crowded but more cozy. The weather was great and the view was stunning. They exchange vows and rings in front of the ocean, it was so pretty! In the evening we had our dinner at Shangri-La hotel but it didn't start until 9ish! oh man... that's the like norms of wedding dinner in HK...... (and they were behind schedule to make it worse). We finished our 3rd dish at 10:30pm lor!!! and finally we had our last dish at 12midnight...... v__v


Their wedding day slideshow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjUJHAIySOE

Sold another..... (iphone4)

Duration: waited 1.5 months
11/14: SOLD @ $6130 at SinTat
Profit: $6130 - $4998 = $1128

no wonder some ppl can be rich just to do this business!

Terence&Nianci

Not sure is MY problem or THEIR problems, i found it so weird to hang out with people from mainland. They think so differently and their values are so different to ours. Especially nowadays mainland people are so rich that they dun even care how they spend their money. Also they deal their relationships so easily. Like one guy can "bao" many girls at one time and the girls can have so many boyfriends to "bao" them at the same time. (this is exactly what happening to one of Nianci's frds we met when they visit HK.....) I feel so annoyed sometimes when I'm surrended by them in HK and I hear mandarin all the time. Maybe that's how those Caucasians felt when they saw us too.....

So recently Terence and Nianci are undergoing so many problems that I have no more energy and patience to deal with them anymore. I dun even want to pick up her phone calls because i feel so annoyed to adjust myself to "accept" or understand her point of views. Well Terence came back and tried so hard to "fix" their problems, yet the problem is too complicated to solve in any short time. I've never seen Terence been that down and sad, I felt so bad to him, but Ben said i dun have to because the problems were all created by or both of them... sigh...

Vancouver - Sep18-Oct1

Can't believe I've left Canada for two years already. Everything change so fast in HK while happens so slow in Canada. I actually felt soooo excited to go home, well, the only bad thing was i just couldn't stay for longer, two weeks is way too short la.....

So Thanks for my dear friends for an unforgettable welcoming which I felt like a superstar in the airport! I dunno how to describe my feeling except happy and sweet with a little embarrassment, haha. You know a lot of ppl in saw the picture we took in facebook and told me, I have so many good friends. :D

1 year in ABN

Time flies, it's been a year working at ABN already! (Aug 18) The best thing I got throughout the year was I made a lot of friends and good colleagues. My team & boss are treating me very good so even i'm just a small potatoe in the office, I feel happy working there :) Having said that, I still consider to change job if I have a chance.... :P

So my schedule to Vancouver will be Sep18-Oct1, then staying in TW for 2D1N. I feel so excited I can go home again. Sometimes I wonder, where is my real home? There's something I love and hate in both places, so how should I choose my home? All my beloved friends & parents are in Van, I guess i'll feel happier when I'm there? Who knows. Anyways, the housing price has been up for another at least 10% since my post in May/June, so freaking crazy.... how can us post-80's afford a house

Angela's concert

The weather had been bad for past few days becuz of the typhoon, feel so hot and stuffy and the sky were just seems like falling down. So it rains so hard today but we still went to watch Angela's (張韶涵) concert tonight, her voice is so powerful and high pitch man! Her live is so stable as well!! even better than Eason... haha ((Eason dou yau "running pitch" la...))