Our holiday

Finally I got around to doing this! Here are the highlights from our holiday in KanTing:

Our Apartment

Ok its my only day off this weekend, and I am spending it blogging so I can update you guys on my life - how loyal a friend I am! Seriously though... its raining and I am waiting for it to stop so I can go shopping.

Here are some pics of our extremely expensive and unnecessary 3 bedroom apartment in the most overpriced and conspicuous suburb in Taipei. I complain every day why we are not "saving money" for the future, and the same response I get each time is "why dont we save by buying you less stuff"?

PFFFT!

My comeback is "If it costs me $500 to buy a dress and wear it only once, that $500 is worth it if it bought that look on your face when you see me in it."

I'm not sure if it works, but at least it shuts him up.

This is the entrance of the doorway with some of my shoes. The rest are in the cupboard. I love shoes! I want more!

This is our living room. Its not a great picture cos it was quite dark when I took it. There is a balcony that looks out onto Taipei city but I have never been out there.

This is his favourite corner. BORING! I never go near it...

This picture is really just so I can show off my lillies. They are my centrepiece and I will make sure I always have lovely fresh flowers at home so it is nice and cheery for when I get back from work :)

This is my bathroom. Well, just the sink. I couldn't get the whole thing in. Most of my products dont fit, so I am going to buy one of those fixtures that can hold things on the wall.

And this is his. Note his products (or lack thereof). Everything other than the mouthwash and the gel belonged to the guy that used to live here from his company. Sad. I got him some cleanser and moisturiser once but Lord knows where he's chucked it. Sigh... boys.

This is the dining room, and the kitchen and laundry are behind that doorway. I couldnt be bothered with pics of those rooms cos I rarely go in there. We dont use the dining room that often either, that's why there is so much stuff on it. I tried cooking the other day (despite pleas from Froggie to "can you please not"!!) and it so wasnt worth the effort. It costs more to eat at home than it does to eat out, and he just gets frustrated and doesn't want me to do it. There goes my dreams of learning how to be a housewife (yay!)

This is the guestroom. It is actually quite big - so this is where you guys can stay if you come to visit!

And this is the master bedroom. We have a very nice kingsize bed and lots of storage space that I couldnt get in this picture. Again... I ask WHY we spend $1000 a set of CK and Sisley sheets?Would a pair of matching leather Prada shoes not bring us the same amount of joy..??

This is the lovely garden on the rooftop of our apartment, and it has a great view of the city:


This is the Taipei 101 building, the tallest building in the world... for now. But I think Dubai or Shanghai is building a taller one, which means that the only attraction in Taipei wil become obsolete. LOL

This is the other side of the rooftop. It looks like those ones in movies where they have the standoff at the end with the good guy and the bad guy. I love it!

And here's me & the frogsta:



Hahaha WHAT A POSER!

Goodbye Life, So Long...

Perhaps it is time to enlighten you all on the mechanics of my new job.

Let me start by decrypting the meaning of what being a "Strategic Marketing and Communications Manager" at Pamir Law Group is all about:

Firstly, it is a law firm so by default - everyone works late and never goes home. No matter that what I do has absolutely nothing to do with the legal arm of the company. I am still expected to go to every team lunch, cocom meeting, and group conference calls. Not to mention that fact that my project(s) are all grassroot and entail a perpetual stream of strategic/creative/analytical ideas. Its good because I get to make a real difference - I am telling others what to do, what I think, and I drive my own brainstorm sessions and discussions. I hate it cos it is now 1:45am on a Friday night (Sat morning) and I am still in the same conference room that I have been in since 10am this morning (bar a 2hr banquet lunch), and we are still going strong. POOR FROGGIE. I miss him. Its been a while since the last time we met...

I also have to work through the weekend, and have an 8am start on Sunday with these "really important people" that we flew all the way from the US.

Which is something I have discovered about this Conference. There are a lot of really important people. So many, in fact, that I cant even begin to understand why I am even allowed to have so much input on a project of this magnitude. They must think I actually know stuff or something. Thank God I had a year of PR experience learning the art of effective bullshitting and optimistic reporting.

Anyway. I digress.

The good things about the job are that the lunch breaks are long and leisurely, and we often get taken out on the company's expense. The lawyers here were all bigshots back home in the States and I get to learn a lot from them during our lunches. I feel educated!
Because we work such long hours, they are really flexible about when we start work. It is meant to be 9am, but I can really just get in any time before/by 10am (which I havent done yet, but I have been coming in much after 9am). There is always communal food in the kitchen, and it seems to get replenished magically as soon as it disappears. There are plenty of secretaries so I never need to do any shitty jobs.

At the moment, we are still in the planning stages and talking strategy, drafting ultra-thick documents and having non-stop meetings. But from July, I will be spending more time in Beijing and Shanghai doing some fun stuff - like talking to suppliers, locking in the big gun speakers and sponsors, yelling at the runners/staff in the China offices, and checking out hotels and tasting menus. It means an all-expenses paid working holiday, but I dont know how much of a "holiday" it will be, or if I'll even have any time for my friends there... if the workload now is any indication of what it's gonna be like, then I'm not holding my breath.

We reached a roadblock just earlier in the brainstorm (yeh - at about 12:30am) so I got bored and took a picture.

Here are the 2 guys that I have to work with on a daily basis - the Law Partner and the Project Manager. The Project Manager is Costa Rican and Virgo so no problems there. The Law Partner ... thats another post....

There are some other girls on the team but they're not as important (ie. the dont have the word "Manager" in their name so they dont get to stay back. Sucks to be them huh)...

This stuff on the wall is the result of 14hrs of brainstorming. Like WTF. Yeah. it could've taken 2 hours right? Not when you work in Asia...

And here is my desk after my first week at work:

Yep that is ONE DAYS worth of Starbucks and coffee mugs.

And I started decorating my desk with pictures. These were the ones I already had, bit I'll develop some more next week so my desk is a happy place. Note my bday card with all your messages! Hearts :)

I am really sleepy and not really listening to what's going on anymore, and I'm not providing any input, so I'm just gonna say I'm too tired and go home.

Goodbye lucky people who get to knock off at 5pm on a Friday night...

More Bday... I'm over it

It turns out that it was this other girl's bday today, so the whole office went out for (another) 2 hr banquet lunch, and we came back and had cake - for both of us!

How cute is the candle - its a question mark! LOL i love it!

This is Angela, a fellow Cancerian, and the only person in the office skinnier than me. And thats saying a lot for Taiwan, where everyone is stick thin! We have a fat office hehe...

And this is pudgy me. See the blubber? And the sunburn? Ewwwww!!!

Btw do you love my pink security tag holder LOL... it was a free gift with the laptop.

Oh and that reminds me. I got a really special gift today. VPN on my laptop, which means that I now have remote access to not only my email, but the entire office server from home. Now I have no excuse not to work until midnight every day. NO KIDDING... I did a conference call at 11pm last night. Argh im so overloaded and in over my head - maybe I'll stuff up and they'll fire me...

This is (one of) my secretaries. She's cute. She's also the first one to get into the office, and the last to leave. Her hours are something like 8am - 10pm every single day. Which is why I should really stop complaining. At least I get my own room.

I'm tired. Its 10pm and I have to get back to work. I think Froggie's annoyed at me cos I'm a little cranky. Oh and can someone please tell me why I've been bleeding non-stop and its so not anywhere near my period and I'm takng the Pill every day?? Is it too hot? Or am I too stressed, sick, or pregnant...?

Happy Bday to Me!

Yay, my real bday finally came!

I had a "special bday present" from Froggie this morning. It was pretty good... but better for him i think... bahahahahahaha!!

Anyway... then in the morning the biggest bouquet of flowers was delivered to my office - 77 roses (and another 10-15 other white flowers).

WOW! Breathtaking...

And of course all the other girls were jealous but too bad for them. Who cares? Watever. Deal with it I say!

How cute is the note:

Heehee what a sweetie.

Anyway, I still didnt tell anyone it was my bday so they must have thought I just have a heaps nice bf... but a few of my close colleagues found out anyway from my skype profile (LOL!) and 3 of them took me to a really cute Mexican restaurant and I SAW A CELEBRITY!!!!

It was 小S with her baby. That probably doesnt mean anything to people who dont know about Taiwanese pop culture but shes HUGE!

She was waiting for the toilet when I was coming out and we smiled at each other and I walked off, and then did an immediate double-take like "OMG!!" and I rushed over to the table and said to my colleagues "hey there was a chick that looked sooooo much like 小S just then" and they were all like - "yeh, thats her"...

NOOOOO reaction.

Taiwan is such a small place, these people must be used to seeing celebrities all the time but it was exciting for me! This is her by the way:


And this is what I ate - and I had nachos and dessert afterwards too. Me piggy! I've actually been eating like this for every meal and I swear my tummy is like a giant ball at the moment. Noooooo!!!! But MOOOOOOOORE please...!!


The guy sitting opposite me is Juan Carlos Madrigal, my biz partner. The other 2 are lawyers at the firm. Theres a lot of them. And they all work really hard. Their lives really suck, they stay in the office overnight sometimes, its just sad...

But its my bday so its meant to be all about me. So who cares about them.

Ok now for the good bit.

For dinner, Froggie took me to this restaurant called ShinYeh on the 85th floor of the Taipei 101 building. It serves nice Chinese/Taiwanese food like lobster, abalone, sharkfin etc...

The view was amazing! Look!

It was pretty expensive for Taiwanese standards but really nice. Here's some of the nice dishes that we had. There were others but these were the best:

This was my favourite! My NT$1200 bowl of birds nest. Soooooo worth it heehee:

But noone cares about that right?

You all wanna know what I got..... so DRUMROLL....

WOOHOO!!! I totally get everything I want all the time! Life is goooood. Stay true to Chanel. Pray. Love animals. Poo more often. Have make-up sex. Stop dieting. Laugh more. Get hitched. Save the whales. World Peace!

Love is the answer bitches.

L ... O ... V ... E

Froggie & the Princess
xxoo

Welcome to Pamir

Wow.

My first day at work was interesting if not a little overwhelming.

The first thing I want to say is that there is so much food in this company! OMG its like an unlimited kitchen of goodies and carbs that just keep popping up every 2 seconds. Everyone walks around with a plate in their hand offering food to each other like its recess in high school. One of the expat lawyers has started a lunch club, which consists of a lucky dip box filled with the names of all the local restaurants, and a name is drawn out each day. I love it but my hips hate it! Thank god it is an office consisting primarily of expats from the US so there are no waif-like Taiwanese girls with a severe addiction to whitening products. The local girls (mostly the secretaries and support staff) are pleasantly normal-sized so I guess I'm not a whale (in this office anyway)!

The next thing is that the entire building is like an ugly brown prison. This is what it looks like:

No air!!

The office is structured a bit like a labyrinth, with lawyers situated in personal offices on the parameter, and the assistants and support staff in tiny little cubicles that snake around the centre. All revolving around the master rooms, the stationery room and the KITCHEN – a sacred place.

I was very pleased to see that I had a room (like the lawyers) and not a cubicle. It is actually quite large and I share it with a paralegal, our desks sectioned off with a high glass wall. Unfortunately, I got the side closer to the door which means less privacy, but it is still a lot more than I got at my old office.

Here's the view. You can tell it's a law firm, yes?

The biggest shock came when I saw my computer:

CRY! I cant work on this! WTF… im gonna go blind… Boooo.

I weeped silently.

But my table looked much better after I took out all my prized possessions an redecorated a bit:


Chanel hand cream and digital photo frame from the girls. Lovely! Feels just like home :)

But so far everything else has been ok. I have my own personal secretary and I don't really need to do anything other than my job, cos she will do all the shitty things for me. Hooray!

They also take quite long and luxurious lunches here. Obviously food is a priority. After a lunch that lasted almost 2 hours, I thought this was going to be the best job of my life. Until I got back to the office and started WORKING.

Now I'm like OMG… this is the fucking tradeoff! I am already expected to be managing and single-handedly driving about 4 different projects on my first day, and have just found out that our team is working all day Sunday. Fun fun!

The weather is so hot and stuffy here my feet have bloated like a balloon and I have blisters al over my feet, I worked til almost 8:30pm on my first day, and I'm fat as a whale - and getting even fatter - from all the food that they're feeding me @ this company.

"Welcome to Pamir", my business partner said dryly to me at the end of a deliriously long day.

Welcome indeed...

OMG i am so sunburnt!

Hello dearies!

I am still at this island resort in KanTing, about 4 hrs from Taipei. Its really nice here, and I am eating and sunbaking heaps and im friggin red as a tomato right now. In fact, both of us are.

In my bid to "get brown" I think i've pretty much succeeded in getting RAW. Pain!!! Yep, and whatever torture I have to go through, Froggie has to be subjected to the same thing.

So at the moment we are 2 peeling iguanas.

HOOOOOOOOT!

Pics soon.

In the meantime, please entertain yourselves with this pic that has just surfaced:

I totally love it.

Stay sexy bitches!

The Hospital & all things pink

We're going away to a resort today, so I have to be quick with this.

The only thing I really want to report is that I have probably severly damaged my tear ducts from all the bawling I did yesterday. We went to the hospital to get my stiches out and the cut is so.... deep....

I am going to have the biggest scar.

This is what the hospital looked like when we got there:

Yep, thats me holding my nose. It didnt stink, but I am trying to avoid catching a disease from any of these 10 million plebs. GROSS!

This is the normal waiting area for plebs with my condition:

Thank God we dont mind paying for the special clinic that non-plebs (ie. me) go to. Check out the difference:

Mmmmm. Nice inside too.

Anyway... turns out the wound is so bad that I have to put these bandages on it for the next 6 MONTHS cos the wound still hasnt closed up! DIES!!! And poor Froggie has to change them for me everyday. What a job...! he likes it though :)

I sat there crying throughout the whole ordeal, imagining what my knee will look like after 6 months. I will never be able to wear a dress again! The horror! It was as though I had just heard that Karl Lagerfeld died...

Good news is that its actually a cosmetic surgery in there so I am finally going to get the rest of that disgusting tattoo taken off with laser surgery. Phew! And the other good news is that Froggie cooked for me when we got home:


Yes, drenched with chilli just the way I like it! How intuitive!

Ok just quickly... look what else Froggie got me! Pink table, pink chair and pink Sony Vaio laptop:

Ooooooooh! Laptop-gasm!

Oh and a pink hairdryer too. He tries, doesnt he? What a cutie...

And this was my present to myself at HK airport. Gucci Spring 2008. Like?

Yes Hazel, I am saving up this year! :)

Did you know that it is Beautiful Women Month?

Here is a poem Audrey Hepburn wrote when asked to share her 'beauty tips.'

It was read at her funeral years later:

For attractive lips
Speak words of kindness...
For lovely eyes
Seek out the good in people...
For a slim figure
Share your food with the hungry...
For beautiful hair
Let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day...
For poise
Walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed...
Never throw out anyone.

Stay beautiful girls! And stay true to Chanel.

Luv Gracie

xxoo