Reflections & Checklist for 2008

It is again the time of the year to reflect on my year-long doings and whether my resolutions have been fulfilled. Going through my checklist, it seems I haven't really done much and thus, will need to carry forward these resolutions and add new ones at the same time. Sadly, this year seem to pass really fast and not because I'm doing lots of happy things (ok, there's some), but mainly, have been busy with work & studies. It's been a tiring journey and I foresee more to come. Maybe that's why my resolutions have not been fulfilled! Will elaborate later as I go through my checklist...

Talk about sabbath! Unfortunately, although the year began with me really setting aside time each month to get away from work & stuff to seek GOD, this resolution seemed to dissolve slowly as the year moved on. I guessed I still took half-days (on days I had Songcraft) but I would say it wasn't that productive in the spiritual sense on these breaks. I didn't cover much on my own, but I must say the sermons at Sunday service were pretty impactful, especially the 1st half of the year where we covered Psalms & John. It is amazing what the Bible reveals. Unfortunately, I didn't become as disciplined as I hoped to be in reading the Word.
But I guess I did indeed take a rest in doing nothing in particular...ok, did some shopping & movie-going, but I seem to have run out on things to do. Previously, I would go somewhere to snap photos, but have been lazy. However, I did manage to visit the Biennale. And I did finally go for a holiday just recently. But considering that I still have so much leave that I actually fretted on whether I could clear my leave (some friends say it's disgusting...I'm carrying 1 whole year's leave forward to next year!), I'm not taking enough breaks.
So, I would only say, my sabbatical is half-fulfilled, and spiritually, also half.

Music-wise, I think I would say I've been quite productive this year. I've written not one, but two Chinese worship songs! Other than that, I've written 2 English secular songs, 1 more or less complete duet (need to ask a friend to help), completed 1 really old song and half a English worship song. That's quite a lot for a year! Although I have not presented all of them, but I would say this resolution is more or less fulfilled. Not that I would stop writing. What's more, I finally got down to taking a refresher course for my keyboard skills by signing up for Believer Music courses. The modules are focused on worship and I had a good time. Took the beginner's module and will be continuing to the next level in the new year.

Job. Now that I'm on a professional development programme (PDP), which officially started this year, I've gone through 1 NUS module, attended 1 music libraries conference and 1 arts symposium. Got to know more about Asian music and found a mentor who impressed me during the symposium. Of course, as this specialising move is meant to be over & above my regular work, it's been a bit taxing as I tried to juggle studies (which fortunately was completed in the earlier part of the year) and meet deadlines. Also, my workload seem to be increasing; as I complete 1 item, a few more items gets assigned to me and sometimes I wonder why I'm doing all this work. Can I actually relegate it to others? Actually, I don't know. I don't want to say I'm all that important, or maybe I'm too controlling. Actually, if I can find someone who can take over some of my work areas, I'm fine as I'm not possessive. Just worried the project, which is meaningful, will die off if I'm no longer taking care of it. But it's hard as everyone has their own areas too and those available, might not be able to cover.
Another reasion for more work is being the IT savvy person in my department as I'm now majorly involved in the development of a system (which has many phases) and also any system matters in my department will be referred to me to follow up, whether to raise the issue with the IT department or raise requests for improvements.
With the PDP, projects that have a relation to music would somehow involve me and it's becoming a burden. Ah well, I guessed I asked for it. But honestly, I find that the work I'm doing doesn't exactly help me understand the subject better as it's mainly administrative or technical work.
Another major impact to my working environment was that this year I got a new boss coz the previous one retired. I must have complained a bit before in here. Somehow there were some 磨擦 between us (yes, to the extent of raised voices...imagine the usually mellow me doing that!) and I find it hard to get through to her sometimes (or is it most of the time?). Nowadays, I try to restrain myself or maybe I'm a bit indifferent or resigned to it. Hopefully it will get better. She might also not be so supportive of my choice of specialisation. She really takes it that it is entirely over & above my work, but in fact, it is supposed to be incorporated in 1 way or another.
Maybe all these work may help my career progression but that is only if I can cope & deliver them. So afraid I can't as I get overwhelmed.

For sports, I think my footwork is quite steady now but my speed & accuracy is still lacking. However, I think I've improved a little and become slightly more aggressive while sparring. Also need to work my brain a little.

And my dream book! I haven't written down my dreams & aspirations yet after 1 whole year! This has to be carried forward.

Unfortunately, my character has not improved either...think it got worse. Am more disgruntled these days. Maybe the new boss came about to test my character and to mould it. Hopefully GOD will teach me how to handle such distress.

It seems that this year has not been a good year with the "weight" upon my shoulders. Had fallen sick consecutively each month for the last couple of months which is unusual as I used to hardly fall sick. Also, am not exactly inspired or as high-spirited as last year.

Will 2009 bring better days?

Tokyo trip 2008 - Day 7

It's goodbye to Tokyo today and we went to Tully's to grab our last breakfast there as I liked the matcha latte there best. Had a bagel sandwich with ham, egg & cheese.

Also took some final photos from our hotel room. It was a nice day, but very windy.

I would say I enjoyed the break, despite the minimal sight-seeing and will miss Tokyo. Looking forward to visiting Japan again!
However, I must say no more bags for the year!

Tokyo trip 2008 - Day 6

It's Christmas and more or less the last full day we had in Tokyo.
It's still a working day for the Japanese, but there were still a lot of people walking around.

We went to Ebisu first to this Aranzi Aronzo memorabilia shop. There were so many cute stuff that I actually spent 5,000 yen there!

We then went on to Ginza. Did some window shopping and finally settled at this dessert place for tea called Ginza Karacu Pâtisserie Cafe. I had a white chocolate mousse with raspberry while V had a coffee swiss roll with red beans. What was interesting was they put a jacket for the teapot when it came to keep the tea warm while I waited for the tea to infuse.

After this, we went back to the hotel to rest a while and put our stuff before setting out for Christmas dinner. We finally settled on 高田屋which was quite near the hotel. I had kitsune soba and we shared some yakitoris and an omelette. And what's Christmas without some cheers! We ordered a glass of umeshu each and toasted to each other. What amused me was that the waiter who served us was multi-tasking. He was the waiter, griller (flipping the grill) at some point, bartender and cashier. The cooking part was taken over later after the cook (who probably came in for his shift) appeared.

After that, we went to the Sky Lounge at our hotel which offered a panoramic view of the city. There was a couple there, so we didn't stay long. Only took some pics (which wasn't very clear) and returned to our room to do some packing.

Tokyo trip 2008 - Day 5

It was another relaxed day as we made our way to Shibuya on the way to Shin-Yokohama. Had to exit the station to take another train service, but since we were at Shibuya already, we decided to try out the L'Occitane Cafe for brunch. Had a scrumptious meal and got a window seat to catch the view of the famous crossing. I ordered a Croque du L'Occitane (croque monsieur topped with tomatoes) & the L'Occitane tea, and we shared a mixed fruits tart. The tea cup was as big as my face!

After brunch, we continued to our intended destination, the ramen museum at Yokohama. It was essentially a small place where there's a past & present set-up. The olden days were depicted like a food street and there were many ramen shops, supposedly handpicked by the founder. Unfortunately, due to our heavy brunch, we didn't have any appetite to try out the many ramen stalls.

The present (future of the past) was actually the museum shop, where I bought some cute souvenirs for myself and friends.
However, we did eventually eat ramen at a shop near our hotel where it served curry-based ramen. I chose the medium spicy option, which wasn't actually very spicy.

Before dinner, we actually stopped by Isetan where I bought yet another agnès b bag. This was the only place I knew that had the pink one and the design is supposed to be their Japan-limited edition (star edition) of their classic bag. Other colours I saw at different places were bright green, red and black.

This would be my last bag for the trip.

We also bought a piece of cake for Christmas countdown. This strawberries & cream cake seems to be prevalent everywhere, so we bought a piece from Takano at Odakyu to try. Light & creamy, it was quite nice.

Tokyo trip 2008 - Day 4

Ok, we woke up real late today and by the time we went out for breakfast, or rather brunch, the cafe had ended it's breakfast menu. So we went to Excelsior to have a light snack. I got myself a cup of clam chowder and a royal milk tea with soy milk. The soy taste was quite distinct.

The early afternoon was spent doing some shopping around Shinjuku and my friend bought her LV bag and a surprise buy at Prada. The item was on sale with 40% off, but it was still her most expensive buy from this trip. It was nice with the "bleeding" look.

The purchases made V very happy and we followed that up with an early tea at Fauchon Cafe located in Takashimaya. I had a quiche, Fauchon earl grey ice-cream and a cup of Fauchon tea (which I forgot the name). The ice-cream was nice (highly recommended by V) but would have liked the earl grey taste to have been stronger.

After tea, we went on to Harajuku. I had the satisfaction of helping V carry her LV purchase for a while...unlikely I will buy one myself, at least not in the near future. But I did buy a bag at agnès b that day. It was on sale at 40% off (about 9,500 yen) in a good functional size.

After the shopping, we decided to try this tonkatsu place called Tenshin Tonkatsu in Meguro of which I read about from a link my friend sent me. Fortunately, V was sharp enough and knew some Japanese so that we more or less guessed the way there as the directions given in the review wasn't detailed enough. We arrived at the shop just when it opened and the signage lit up, which was lucky coz we might have walked past it without knowing! I had the hirekatsu while V had the rosukatsu. I had actually wanted the fattier one (rosu) but was misled by this other review. But all things worked out well as we split half-half our portions of the pork cutlets. The scallop tonkatsu was also recommended, so we ordered that as well.

The waiter actually asked us a few times if we really wanted all 3 as it was quite a lot, but we went ahead with it. I must say he underestimated us. :P

The tonkatsus were crispy & tender, even for the leaner fillet and the scallop fresh and satisfying. Of course we were really full after that and headed back to the hotel after.

On the whole, it was a fulfilling day as we accomplished some pleasant shopping and eating experiences.

Tokyo trip 2008 - Day 3

It's Disney day! And after a quick breakfast at Tully's, we took the train down to Maihama to visit DisneySea.

Check out the cute handles on the Disney train! The day pass was at 5,800 yen, a bit pricey as essentially, we only spent half a day there.

Well, our strategy was to visit the various zones first and think of rides later. Anyway, we were not very big on rides as somehow, think as we get older (at least for me), we can't stomach scary rides. The only rides we took were a kiddy spinning wheel, a mini-roller coaster, Sinbad's storybook voyage & 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (which wasn't much), not to mention the story-telling was all in Japanese! Maybe if we could understand Jap, it would have been much more interesting. But the roller coaster was fun, coz I haven't taken one for ages.

We managed to walk round the whole place (DisneySea is smaller than Disneyland) and took many photos, watching/hearing people scream.

As the sun set (which was about 4 plus) it started to get really cold as there was forecast of rain. But we still managed to get some night shots before escaping the rain, even though it starting to get freezy.

It was a nice time spent, but I think I still liked Disneyland more (been to the one in L.A.). I loved the Haunted Mansion.

We had a quick dinner back at Shinjuku and went back to the hotel as it was raining & cold.

Tokyo trip 2008 - Day 2

The next day started with us having breakfast at Excelsior Cafe. We ordered a crepe mille-feuille, a toasted sandwich with cheese, ham/bacon & a half-cooked egg that oozed, French toast with cheese and ham, cafe latte & royal milk tea. After which, we went on to Venus Fort at Odaiba.

The decor of Venus Fort is like The Venetian in Las Vegas, where Venice was re-created here. It's of course not as opulent or huge, but it allowed me to reminiscence about Venice. There was also a nice fountain that later had a "snow" show. There was also a "garage" museum where vintage & fast cars were on display and a small casino area.

After shopping around, where I bought my Yoshii Mami bag,

we went to sit the ferris wheel which was very pretty with all the cabins in candy colours. Fortunately, we weren't assigned the totally see-through cabins or else I think I'll just "freeze" for the whole ride, which was just 15 minutes. The sun was setting when we took it. We could also see the Rainbow Bridge & Tokyo Tower from the ferris wheel. When we reached the top, there was a slight swaying due to winds and as we tried to shift around to take photos, we could feel the cabin tilting!

On the way back, we happened to notice some Christmas decorations at Shimbashi, so we spent some time there taking photos.

Since it was still early, we headed to Roppongi.

We just walked around and entered MidTown, which was where luxury brands of which I never heard of had their boutiques.

Of course, we couldn't afford any of the things, so we just walked through the building & moved on to Roppongi Hills. Along the way, there were some nice decorations and a Tokyo Tower that wasn't red appeared. As it was quite windy, this is the best shot I have of it. There were helicopters flying around it, which reminded me of King Kong somehow.

It was a bad idea, Roppongi Hills. V, was thinking of buying the LV bag she had been eyeing since her last trip and on entering the boutique, she was pissed off by 1 of the salesgirl there. We went to the counter where the bag she wanted was located and as there were 2 sets of customers and only 2 salespersons, we stood there waiting for our turn, thinking that probably, they could only attend to 1 customer at a time as part of some service policy. To our horror, this salesgirl, while waiting for the customer she was handling to gloss over which bag to get, glanced towards us, or rather, at my friend's bag. Ok, my friend had decided to carry a cheap bag this trip (i.e. not branded) rather than her usual branded stuff, so the salesgirl, gave it a look, and quickly turned back to her customer, pretending not to have seen us. It was like she scoffed at us. We were aghast and V decided to walk out of the shop without buying the bag (which she later purchased at another outlet). She said that this is one of the rare times that she was treated like this in Japan. That sort of spoiled our mood for the rest of the night. We then decided to go find a place for eating.

We came upon this place and looking that the menu had yakitori (which V liked) and an English menu, we entered. Had to take off our shoes though. Had some yakitori, tea rice, tofu and umeshu, which was quite nice. It was quite satisfying and reasonably priced.

That was all for the night and we went back to the hotel.