company junk trip

from left, me, Ben, Bonnie & APAC boss, Joerg Zobel

Last Friday, was our company junk trip.  We all left for the junk trip at 12:30pm, you can opt for not going but if you did, you've just gotta stay in the office and work~!

Some of my friends think that this is absolutely a great company to be working for, well, I sort of think the same.  Put it this way, which employer would let all the staff have half a day off and then pay for a couple of junk trips for everybody?  Not that many I would guess.

Anyway, we arrived at Lo So Shing Beach (Lamma Island), played some beach volleyball, dipped in the sea for a bit, had a few beers and some form of food, karaoke sessions and a fall into the speed boat... hehehe

looking alright there...

Bruised! Around the knuckle of the right thumb.  The forearm felt bruised as well, just not visible that's all.  Should not have played beach volley ball at this age, especially it's been a couple of decades since I last played!!   Having said that, it was really a lot of fun.  Chasing the ball, doing the serve, falling over... fun fun fun!

I still remember we had to take tests for PE when we were in the girls' high school.  We had to do running, jumping, throwing, basketball, volleyball, soft ball and all!!  And those were not the only sports I did (not good at them at all though), I also was a gymnast (school team), trained at least twice a week; went swimming with my brother every Saturday, rode a bicycle everyday and played badminton quite often as well.  So, I was fit, skinny.  Now, if I walked up 20 steps quick I'd start panting!  But swimming is OK, cycling should still be OK, Yoga is OK, dancing to the right music with a few pints of Guinness is OK as well.  Hehehe

Anyway, we had an awesome time out of the office and hey, don't get jealous, let me know if you want to join the company hahaha

The long distance swimmer is back on the attack!

Yes, this day the 14th of August, 2011, Adrian completed his first long distance ocean swim in HK, in a long long time.  Close to 2 decades to be exact.

I have always known that he's a good swimmer, therefore encouraged him to go back to long distance swimming because he was a good swimmer when he was a teenager.  He swam in a relay team across The Channel twice when he was a teenager.  Put it this way, how many people do you know that has swam The Channel?  Though he was in a relay team but it is still impressive, and he did it not once, but twice.  Now, that, is something that you can brag about when you sit down with your grand kids when you're 60.  I always thought that it's a pity he didn't go further in swimming.  There wasn't a platform for him to do it, the school wasn't doing enough for their swimmers.  He thinks otherwise though, he said, "we wouldn't have been able to meet if I continued swimming and eventually make it to some international races."  Well, this I must agree hehehe for I did not know how to swim until I was about 14!

And so, with only a few sessions of swimming in the pool downstairs and some snorkeling in Pulau Tenggol, off he went to take part in The Deep Water Bay Ocean Swim.  It is a 1.4km swim, not a lot compared to what he did in The Channel but it was definitely a lot of hard work considering how long it has been.  Here's the course map.  

Before he decided whether or not to take part, I actually did some research on the past races and found out that the fastest bloke did it in just over 17 minutes.  But cheeky me told him 24 instead hehehe.  So he jumped into the pool and did some laps.  The last practice he had, he swam about 1.8km under 30 minutes.  But of course, that was just swimming pool.  It a totally different story when you swim in the ocean.

We got up, well Adrian got up at 5am and I got up just about 5:45am.  We got to Deep Water Bay at about 7am --  we were the first ones there.  Registered and then waited for the other participants to slowly turn up.  It rained for a little a bit just to terrorize me, the one who didn't bring any form of rain gear.  Of course Adrian wasn't worried because he's going to get wet anyway!  But luckily it only lasted for about 10 minutes.

So we arrived, one of the earliest to be there, Adrian got himself registered and numbered and wristband on.  Looking good, eh?

The event started at 8:30am this morning.  There were 278 participants, aging from 10 to 60+.  We were quite intimidated by the amount of super fit people participating.  V-shaped bodies, six packs... But I said to Adrian, "that doesn't mean that they are good in the water (of course he knew that), but you are more streamlined to do it!"  My theory is, their stiff and squarish bodies get more resistance in the water than him.  Have you ever seen a skinny shark/dolphin/whale?  In fact, look at the fastest fish, they are not skinny at all!  ;-p

Despite the lack of training and the "age" factor, he completed the whole course in just about 26 minutes!  100th in the overall placing and amongst the 39 swimmers in his age group (35-39), he finished 10!  Not bad, eh?  He is quite impressed by the results as well, although he didn't think he did as well as he did when he first got out of the water.

catching his breath

And of course, we are all very proud of him.  And, Adrian, has decided to participate all 3 races next year!

Have a look at all the photos here.

Google Translate

It should indeed say, "Restaurant", but...

And I thought to myself, "thank goodness!  at last, translation made easy!!"  Well Adrian was really disappointed at first try...

I started a blog in Chinese and of course, being my lovely husband, he would like to know my thoughts.  He's a Brit, and a Brit who does not read any form of Chinese.  So he thought of using Google translate... the comment was, "what have you been writing, my dear???" looking at me like he had to try and get to know me from scratch.

I have posted an announcement of the start of this blog here earlier, it is called New Blog.  This is the translation to the first post called "Two Blogs" (this is how I call it, not as translated below):

Two blog

My first blog on Blogspot, the called me ... and all around me ... most written in English. At that time, and her husband separated, it is one of our communication platform. Sometimes written in Chinese, have to give his translation (written ororal use), or he will give me that unhappy face. Although the face looks funny, it is not easy to translate, but the reason for that nauseating, I will not refuse him. With this new blog, had wanted to put a link just idly even, but think again (hope we can do this action), as the release of the Chinese here, the English remain inme ... and all around me ... where would it not perfect? ​​seems very professional. .. In fact, it is just fun Exhibitions it!

Helloooooooo~~~~ You call that translation?????   How????

Here's a proper translation:

Two Blogs


My first blog in Blogspot is called me... and all around me..., it is mostly written in English.  At the time when my husband and I were separated, it's one of our communication platforms.  Sometimes when it is written in Chinese, I had to translate it to him (written or dictated), or he will give me that unhappy look.  Although he looks funny putting on that face, and translating is never easy, but for that rather blushing reason, I won't refuse him.


With this new blog, initially I thought of simply posting a link and that's it, but on second thought (hope to do this more often), I may as well post Chinese posts here, keep the English posts in me... and all around me.... Just perfect, isn't it?  Seems very professional... in fact, it's just for fun.


Comments of any kind are always welcome!


And the above is almost word to word.

Pulau Tenggol - part2

Of course, you may wonder what we'd be doing spending 5 days on a tiny little island with no shopping, no TV, no spa, no internet.  Nothing much I would say.  We'd wake up, have breakfast, jump into the sea.  Most of the time Robin would ask us to tag along when he brought the divers out to the different dive sites.  Get back to the resort, have lunch, then snorkel again, and then come back, shower, dinner, take a walk on the beach or simply sit down and interact a bit with the other guests.

A lot of divers would visit this island but we think, even if you're only snorkeling, it's still phenomenal.  Although you don't get to see the many beautiful creatures in the deeper waters, you'll still be able to see some beautiful things that is just less than 30 meters away from the shore.

Some might ask about the food.  Well, the kitchen is run by a young mother (her 3-year-old is the only tiny human being on the island), the food tasted very good, and they were generously portioned.  It almost felt like home.

We don't have a professional camera, it's just a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX36, in a waterproof bag.  And these are some of the photos that we took: -

anemone - closed but we can still see the clown fish swimming in it!

another anemone, try to spot a different species of anemonefish in it.
see it? at the center top of the photo, the white stripe is on its back, the pink anemonefish

a pair of pink anemonefish, a.k.a. pink skunk clownfish, in their anemone home

look at the landscape

the amazing colours

a giant clam, just about 18" wide

the clearest photo that we have taken of a clown fish - very shallow water, approx. 1 meter deep, with the sunlight.

a beautiful giant clam - the most beautiful we've ever seen!

see the yellow, blue and white little things?  they are Christmas tree worms

this is the fish that wouldn't leave us alone, it was getting very close and even if it was so close to getting hit by our flippers it still would not leave us along!  Adrian thought it was not quite as friendly as it looked so we swam back to the boat.  However, according to Robin, they are in fact very playful fish!
Funny how 2 big persons getting scared because they were being circled by an A4 size fish... hahaha

this is Robin, the cheeky DM

a blue starfish, we've seen a few of them, spans just about 1 foot

the beautiful sunset

There you go, I don't think much needed to be said.

And we have decided, by the end of our second day, that we will return, for sure!!

Pulau Tenggol - part1

This trip, we spent 5 days on an island on the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia - Pulau Tenggol.  We were completely amazed by the place and we were already talking about returning to the island the 2nd day of our stay.  It is very raw, very quite and very beautiful.  Not as superb as Maldives but not far off.  However, if you're looking at a resort like what's available in Maldives, you should not come here.  It is purely original, not decorated at all.

We took a coach at 10:30pm the previous night and arrived at the jetty at just about 5:30am, the boat arrived at 8:30am, as scheduled, to take us to the island.  There was a storm out in the sea so the water was very rough, so rough we were drenched when we arrived (so drenched that there was not a single dry spot on our clothes, including underwear!!) and it was just a one-hour boat ride!  However, one amazing thing about the sea being so rough is that I could see numerous baby rainbows by the side of the boat because of the all the splashes!  So many that I lost count!

As soon as we got off the boat, I spotted a cat.  It was a really unique experience so I will blog about it separately later.  But if you can read Chinese, this will tell you about the interaction between me and the cat.

The room was a very simple and basic room, with hot water supply all day long and electricity from 6:30pm to just about 9:30am.  Very little mobile network coverage - just one or two bars at all times, and no internet access.  It is somewhat more isolated than some of the islands in Maldives.

The resort is owned & managed by Malaysian Chinese and run by the local Malays.  The dive master, Robin, is a very friendly and funny guy.  I was, for 4 days in a roll, the only Malaysian guest in the resort, I was out numbered by Dutch, French, Aussies, Spanish and Mainland Chinese！And so, I've been called "ah moi" almost every time he saw me.  And when he asked Adrian if he knew what it meant and my lovely husband said, "cheeky little female!" and he agreed!!!

On the very first night we arrived, we saw turtle laying eggs on the beach and we also saw milky way!!  Neither one of us have ever seen soooooo many stars in our lives.  It was simply breath taking!!  Of course, this trip being the celebration of our 2nd anniversary, a kiss under the milky way was inevitable!  hehe


~ to be continued ~