Myanmar (11 - 13 Dec 2013)

Just returned from my maiden trip to Myanmar, went to Yangon to manage a work event as the banking sector in the country undergoes reforms. 

Myanmar is hosting the SEA Games and some Team Singapore members were on the same flight. The journey from the airport to the Traders Hotel was uneventful, I booked a hotel car. Security was tight upon arrival, mainly because the hotel had a bombing incident not long ago plus SEA Games officials were in residence. Ate room service for lunch, the hotel food prices are really reasonable. 

Spent the first day preparing for our event, had a meeting with the local partner as well as dinner with Gavin, Kevin's brother who lives in Yangon with his family. Gavin was actually entertaining some invigilator from Singapore and I gatecrashed their dinner, which had been planned for Traders.

There was a bit of a crisis when I found out one of the speakers had pulled out at the last minute and the first night was spent re-organising the agenda with my colleagues and the event partner, who had flown in from Dubai. 

The event itself went off relatively smoothly yesterday, the local partner were really a big help. I missed lunch because I had to pump...housekeeping did a great job in arranging my toiletries! Ate with my colleagues after though, and then we decided to check out Bogyoke market, a popular market for gems and local handicrafts which was just around the corner from our hotel. 

I bought a bunch of cheap accessories and then we headed back towards the hotel. I ventured a little further down the road to snap a picture of Sule Pagoda and along the way, caught a glimpse of how the locals went about their daily business. Was late in meeting up with Esther, Gavin's wife because of poor mobile connection but we finally managed to meet up at Bogyoke market. 

The shops were starting to close for the day but we went to the second level and I bought some lace fabric thanks to her bargaining. We went to a supermarket next door and I bought some cashews before we caught a cab to Shwedagon Pagoda, the largest pagoda in Myanmar. 

Luckily we went in the evening, it was not as hot. The place was huge, never seen so many Buddha statues in one place and it was pretty at night. After that she followed me back to the hotel before we said goodbye and I joined my colleagues for dinner at the hotel's Chinese restaurant. Very short trip, but at least I can say I've been to Myanmar now!

England (Day 4 & 5, 22 - 23 Nov 2013)

I'm back! And the boy has left! He and the girls came to the airport to pick me up and it was a case of 'hi' and 'bye' as he checked in for a flight to India. I lugged a fair bit of booby milk back, they survived the long flight thanks to Kevin's beer cooler box and some long lasting gel packs I invested in. 

On Friday, the meeting ended after lunch and it was early evening by the time we checked back into the Lancaster London and dumped the bags. AL and I headed out to Oxford Street to shop and had a sucky Japanese dinner within Selfridges. The Christmas decor was up, bought a couple of tops from Primark and House of Fraser. 

After we parted ways, I made my way to Ayoush, a Moroccan restaurant and bar managed by Tarek. It was pretty quiet for a Friday night, maybe because not many know about the bar in the basement but the interior was quite lovely especially the cut out shadows from the Moroccan lamps. Didn't try much from the menu, Tarek was quality checking a couple of the appetisers so I just shared them and had an orange juice. 

Yesterday I met Anjali at Notting Hill to have breakfast and walk around Portobello Market for a bit. The newlywed was glowing and I passed her a belated wedding gift from Shanghai Tang from me and Swana. 

We ate at an American-style diner called Electric Diner and then braved the cold to jalan a bit. Silly me didn't bring a proper jacket, just my thick sweater and I was freezing. Forgot my leather gloves too and the fleece ones I had were not enough. 

Posed for pictures at what we thought was the house Hugh Grant lived in the movie 'Notting Hill' but I think it was just herd mentality after we saw other people do it, and it was not the right house! I wished I had more time to walk around but had to rush back to pump and check out before catching our evening flight. I did managed to squeeze another hour at Oxford St though, die die still managed to buy clothes for me!

England (Day 3, 21 Nov 2013)

I'm an award-winning chef! Well not quite chef, but we had a team building/cooking session after today's meeting and my team won! It was all a bit kalang-kabut with the clock counting down and a case of too many cooks spoil the broth but for some reason we got the most points and impressed the judges! 

We had to prepare 3 canapes, a main course and a dessert from the ingredients available as well as do table setting and serve one of the other teams. I volunteered for the dessert team and we had a sticky date pudding recipe to follow, so we didn't need to be too creative. 

 
 
 
 

There was a mad rush for ingredients, weighing scales and equipment and some conflicts to manage as people disagreed on how to do things, but that was one of the points of the exercise...to see how we work as a team. 

There were a lot of opinionated people and so I decided to let them lead but there was a part where I stood my ground on the cutlery setting, correcting someone's arrangement and I told them to trust me, I went to hospitality school! Had to Google an article to prove my point!

 
 
 

I didn't really get a chance to taste much of the food though, was busy checking and plating our dessert and my food kept getting cleared. 

During breaks in the meeting, I popped out to snap some shots of the property...typical English countryside!