Work.

Monday seemed so far away – the one that has just passed, I mean – and it has been almost a week since I went for my day off. In the many times that I’ve been to Macau, I think this time round was probably the best as I was with a friend who never minded me losing the way or not knowing where to go. I don’t get too much of that sometimes, really.

Went to IKEA for dinner yesterday after a failed experience 2 weeks ago. If you are in Hong Kong and you are keen for some Swedish meatballs for dinner, try going there on a rainy weeknight and you might just get lucky. If it’s a weekend and the weather is good outside, you can bet to your last dollar that there won’t be a seat available even if you were to stand for an hour. The best thing about the food at IKEA is that they aren’t too expensive, and they aren’t really too bad either. Though my sis commented that the meatballs tasted somewhat different from the ones that she had back in Singapore, but I guess sometimes you can’t be too choosy on these things.

Since going back to work, my tiredness is building up again, so I think I’ll be off to sleep. Hopefully I can get a good night’s rest and have another good day tomorrow.

Black.

After a 19-day period, I’m finally done with this round of reception of Mainland delegations. I’ve received 3 delegations in a row, and I think it’s not something that I would like to repeat in a short while. After these couple of weeks, I’ve probably managed to stack up two feet high of backlog work which I’ll attempt to clear beginning next week.

Anyway today I was at the Peak for work as I brought the Mainland delegation there for a visit after the end of the course here. When we headed over to the Peak the weather wasn’t really the best, but it wasn’t really raining. However, as I was munching the fries inside the New York Fries at the Peak, the rain started to really pour and it took quite a while before all my delegates managed to gather back at our starting point, all drenched despite holding umbrellas. And while we left the Peak, the rain was so heavy that at several spots, the rain water was falling off the slopes as if the slopes were waterfalls. Apparently the black rainstorm warning signal was hoisted, and for me, this is the first time that I’ve ever encountered the black rainstorm warning, as the highest I’ve ever got was the red one. Oh well, I guess since we can’t be having typhoon signal 8, we’ll have to make do with a black rainstorm warning signal.

I’ll be at work for half more day before I head out to an extended weekend – I’ll be on leave from Friday afternoon all the way to Monday, and will return to office to Tuesday. Not that I’ll be flying off to anywhere, it’s just that I wanted to really have a weekend spent casually!

Weak.

I know I’ve gone missing for a while, primarily because I’ve been tied up with work – I’ve been working with visitors from the Mainland for 2 weeks in a row (and I’m into my third week today), and to be honest, it can be very tiring. Some people think that my job isn’t exactly that difficult looking at the job scope, but actually it can be exhausting!

Anyway I’ve gotten myself the new Manchester United kit for the upcoming season, and while I still think Nike makes horrible football kits, this one is at least better than that black V we had last season. The return of the collar is always a welcoming change – let’s see if we will have any upfolded collars a la Eric Cantona this season.

I was in Guangzhou last Friday and Saturday for a national studies course in the Guangdong Province Communist Party College (!) and while I must say that the things that were being taught to me wasn’t exactly the most related to my work, to be able to understand (or perhaps have an introduction) to the ever-complicated Chinese political structure is pretty useful. At least now I can differentiate between a 部長 and a 廳長… or can I? Hahaha…

And the last few days I’ve been able to find my primary school friends in Singapore, and looking at them, I suddenly have this special thought – what’s with all of them getting married so early?!

Would be heading out to Chai Wan tomorrow morning – meaning that I can breakfast at Oliver’s Super Sandwich at 20% off again. Lovely.

Hot.

Hello, welcome to summer.

This week the hot weather was really out at force as it was sweltering for a good couple of days. The only consolation that I could draw was perhaps that I was working mostly in my office, so I didn’t have to handle the heat outside. That said, staying indoors didn’t necessarily mean that I could escape from the heat – the air-conditioning in my office wasn’t really the best in this world so there were occasions during the day when it suddenly would get pretty warm!

Tomorrow marks the start of a crazily-hectic three weeks for me (it really should have been two, but I foresee three because of some past experience) and I don’t think I would be staying up to watch any of the World Cup semi-finals, as well as the final itself. I don’t think I could afford myself any reduction of sleep, given that I probably won’t have enough of that for quite a while.

After all these years, I realised that the when we are all looking for things that we dream of, such as money, power, and things that come along with them, deep inside perhaps what a lot of us are really chasing after is really just to be able to wake up naturally without the alarm clock. Now wouldn’t life be wonderful?

I think I’ll leave my fan on for the whole night – hopefully I won’t catch a cold with the wind blowing directly at me.