Happy Chinese New Year!!

Just wanna say, Happy Chinese New Year guys!!! Wish us all a kind, playful and happy goat year :) 新年快乐， 恭喜发财，万事如意，身体健康，年年有鱼，快快乐乐 :))

I had 2 days of overeating!! XD On CNY eve, I went out for dinner with my sisters, little birdie and another friend at Botoli Restaurant in Burwood. We had CRABS yayyyy ^^ crab is exxy in oz, so we only have it at weddings and just on really rare occasions. We had them cooked 2 ways, Singaporean chili crab and XO sauce with vermicelli. They were really nice :) We also ordered steamed silver perch with ginger and shallot, salted egg deep fried prawns, and tofu combination claypot.

They were all nice, but because they were very busy, the food only started to come to our table 45 minutes after ordering. So for the first 45 minutes, we stuffed ourselves with tea -.- we had it refilled 2-3 times before we started eating lol. Finally the XO sauce crab arrived, and we all forgot our manners and started eating :P well, me at least hahahhaha...

It was a fun night. We joked around, my friends being jayus,  it was full of laughter. So yeah, it was a great night :)

Then on the new year's day, living in Sydney means no public holiday on the first day of new year boooooo... So I had no choice but to be shameless for the day and chased my manager, supervisor, and married colleagues for angpao aka hongbao aka red pockets aka 红包 XD I also did it over the phone to my married friends. So you can say I was very hardworking and put all my heart and soul into it. Unfortunately, despite all the effort, I got NONE. BOoooo again -.-

We had dinner with our cousin and auntie on the first day of new year at a Korean BBQ buffett restaurant in Campsie. Oh my, how round my tummy was after that -.- we have a children song in Indo called "Topi Saya Bundar" aka "My Hat is Round". I seriously had that song on my head as I walked home yesterday, except it sounded like this, 

"Peruttttt sayaaaaa bundarrrrr,

Bundarrrr peruttt sayaaaaa...

Kalauuu tidakkkkk bundarrr...

Bukannnnn perutttt sayaaaaa" -_-"

To non-Indo, here's the translation, "My tummy is round, round is my tummy, if it's not round, it's not my tummy." :P

For the restaurant info, it's called Se Jong. $31 a head, unlimited serving of meat, salad, japchae, mayo prawns, fried chicken, dumplings, soba, sushi, soup, desserts and so on. It really wasn't bad! The marinated meat was tasty, and the meat was constantly refilled. They really aren't stingy in providing food. The meat and seafood tasted fresh eventhough beef was a bit tough to chew.

Anyway I think this Chinese New Year is not bad at all :) Plus, we did clean up our apartment before the new year, put up some sheep decoration, lucky words paper, bought some CNY snacks, cut my hair before the new year, and even wore new pyjamas! Last time I had new pyjamas for CNY eve, I was a kid. Really brought back memories :)

The only thing missing is the red pockets XD

新年快乐!!! ^^

The Speed of Gossip

We bought our first home :) yayyyy! After so many weeks of tears and sweat, headache and footache, fights and arguments, we bought our first home.

My broker and solicitor are so not proactive and a lot of time only answer my questions with yes and no (and if I'm on my unlucky days, they just decide to ignore me). So in summary, quite useless. My solicitor is just plain straight useless. My broker is nice, but she's not one to update you with all the progress all the time. You yourself have to ask for updates. You might think I'm just the anxious one, and that is true, I am the anxious one. However, what would you think of this scenario: I gave her a call on Sat to tell her we found the house, and sent her the contract to pass to solicitor. On Sat night, I had doubts, so told her to hold it. Sunday night I texted her saying to go ahead and send it to the solicitor. Monday afternoon, a solicitor called me telling me the points I need to discuss with the vendor, and told me that since my broker is already on holiday overseas, so I had to talk to the solicitor instead. WHAT??? I think you get the picture.

So, with that, and that this is our first property, I turned to my homeowners friends for advice. 1 of them is my friend's sister-in-law. One day, I asked her a lot of questions. Then that day lunchtime, I put an offer for the house. Short time after, it was accepted and I had to go and sign the contract. Before I left the office, I sent her an email, just to tell her my offer had been accepted. I thought, I've been bugging her all this time with Soooo many questions. The decent thing is to tell her myself instead of from other people. Afterall, we've just been talking hours before, right?

Then that night, at 9 PM, her sister-in-law, which is my friend, whatsapp me and asked, "Purple Lady, I heard you already bought a house?". I was laughing XD I was about to tell her, but she beat me to it :P I said "Yeah, who told you? Your brother?". She said, "No, my mum asked me." LOL to the max XD

So apparently, her sister-in-law told her husband about it after I told her. Then that late afternoon, he made his daily call to his mum in Jakarta and mentioned it to her. Then a few hours later, my friend (his sister) called her mum, and her mum asked her if this is true. ROTFL

That, is the speed of gossip my friend XD I knew it was gonna be fast, however I didn't think it would travel overseas to Jakarta, and back to Sydney again within 6 hours! XD I imagined simpler scenario ie. The wife told her husband, and the husband told the sister :P

Anyway, my friend was scolded by his brother because she asked me directly, so making him ember a.k.a gossiper. And his brother was scolded by his wife for talking to much or in short, again, ember :P

As for me, I'm happy to get a funny story and experience the speed of gossip myself :P It reminds me of when Amy and Sheldon tried to proof how fast news travels in The Big Bang Theory XP

Jakarta Flood

I don't currently have anything I passionately want to talk about. However, I'm on my way to work and have neither reading material nor movies to watch. Well, I have mockingjay to read, but I don't want to regret later on to finish the book before the movie is out, so I better not read it. So let's start my random blabbering :)

Jakarta Indonesia is in flood. As always. I would be surprised if they don't have one in a year. The timing is correct as usual too! Just a week before the Chinese New Year. I don't know why, but the flood never fails to come before Chinese New Year. Maybe the Rain God does his spring cleaning and throwing all the mopping water to the earth?

This year's flood makes people complain about Jakarta's current governor Ahok. One of the promises made when he and Indo's current president were campaigning to be Jakarta's leaders was to fix the flooding issue. People are saying, "Didn't you say if you were a governor, Jakarta won't experience flood anymore? You are just big talk and no outcome!" Etc... Etc...

Well, I think he's been in Jakarta only for 2 years? And people expect him to fix 40 years of flooding problem in 2 years. You tell me, aren't you crazy? I personally don't expect Jakarta to be flood free after he became the governor. Now, read with singlish accent, "You think he is god meh??".

However, he's been doing great work so far. And the most important thing is, he did DO work. Unlike the other governors who I can't recall their names simply because they didn't do anything noticeable.

My home is in East Jakarta. And I have seen the difference in the area.
1. The river along Pasar Mester/Bukit Duri has been cleaned up. Illegal housings torn down and the not illegal stores along the river have been torn down too because it's dangerous to have them there, and because they need to do some work to that area to fix the issue. My friend was actually one of the victims of that clean up. She posted so many status updates on Facebook complaining. She felt it was unfair. She grew up there all these years and suddenly was forced to leave. She said they were told just days before the day so they didn't have time to prepare. However, according to my mum, they have got the letters months before, but they ignored them. I don't know which one is right, but that area is now clean and rubbish has been taken out of the river too.

2. My parents' store used to be in the area where it's the first to be flooded (Legok, Kampung Melayu), and the one that got hit the worst. However this time, she had to call people who still live in that area to check if it's flooded. That area was not mentioned in the news. Turns out, weeks before this flood started, people have been sent out to this area to clean the sewers. Total of 7 truckload of sand/mud/i don't know what else were cleared from the sewers! So, after about 20+ years, that area is not flooded!! *tears of joy lol*

Surely he did other things in other part of Jakarta, but I'm not going to talk about them. The funny thing was, he cleaned the dam in Pluit, north of Jakarta, and added so many pumps to have the water pumped out to the sea faster. However, when water started to rise at the beginning of this week, you know what happened? The electricity was OFF!!! ROTFL :P of course those machines couldn't work -.- the generator can only make 2 of the 9 pumps available work. Therefore, the flood started. Apparently the National Electricity Company turned off the electricity supplies to that area to avoid electric shocks (before the flood happened). Surely they should be able to still supply to the important ones, shouldn't they? When I heard the news I was half laughing half banging my head to the desk lol. He, was furious and went on requesting the president to give the order to make the dam a special area and electricity supplied 24 hours. Just like the presidential palace.

Unfortunately the weather forecast for Jakarta today and tomorrow is rain again. In addition, the neighboring city, Bogor, who every year shares their abundant water supply with Jakarta whether we like it or not, is having the same forecast. So, most probably Jakarta will be flooded again tomorrow, be it due to rain or due to Bogor sending us their love with water -.-

Is This Professional? :l

Some of you said to me how you guys miss my superexcited boss. Unfortunately nothing really interesting came out of him lately (i'm bored as well lol. As annoying as he can be, he is undeniably very interesting topic to talk about :P). So just to cure you a bit from missing him, here's an update :P

Yesterday, he, Little Miss Nice, poker face, creamer, and Lao Er had this meeting in the meeting room close to my desk. The meeting as usual went for AGES. And most (if not all) of the voice I heard was...can you guess? YESSSSS 100 for youuuuu, super excited's voice!!! :P and what were the words I heard? Disclaimer: if you are under 18, please do not continue and check other posts instead. The words were... BITCH! f*ck me! A Cow, and moreeee F*CK!!! -_-!

Honestly, me and the guy sitting behind me didn't hear much things other than those swearing words. Long story short, it was a meeting about deliverables which apparently were not covered in the scope (most of them are already done per his own instructions. Back then he said we could charge them later). And now he's saying that the next door department should have informed him earlier about that long list of updates so he could have talked to the client first about charges  @__@

Anyway, my point is he swore that much for like I don't know, 2 hours? And my colleagues and I outside the meeting room could hear all those words. He really should be more discreet. I don't mind him swearing or nagging between the directors as directors are human too and of course need nagging and gossiping too (though previously I thought guys don't need those. I was wrong). But really, 1. they shouldn't use swearing words in front of their employees. It's unprofessional. The other directors should talk to him about this, but well you all know from my stories how he is. And 2, especially when they are talking about the client. What if some of us have someone who has someone related to that particular client and somehow using the speed of gossip, it comes to their ears that the boss of xxx company says she/he is a COW, what happens then?

Surely it would make an even more interesting story *smirk*