Friday, March 29, 2013

London 2012 Part Four

A long weekend as it's Good Friday today! This week was a pretty short week, given that I was in KL for a day and Friday is a public holiday ~ only 3 working day in the office, with a farewell drinks session for the boss last night. I reckoned he should be on the flight back to LDN by now & I'll have to start getting used to the empty seat next to my desk soon. A brand new month/quarter next week, so let's all enjoy the weekend first!
 
*** You can read all about P1, P2 & P3 here.
I had a good night rest and woke up to see this straight out from my window :)
 
I wished I was here on vacation instead of a conference ... just sipping tea & eating scones out from my balcony window, basking in the warm morning sun.
 
Breakfast @ the Restaurant, which I totally enjoyed all my meals there, especially the wide range of desserts that they have!
  
Breakfast, just one of the sides that I started with :) We were really well-fed during the conference, with 2 tea-breaks on top of the 3 meals.  


We attended one full day of conference, divided into morning & afternoon session. For the morning session, we listened in to the new features of the upcoming product launch. It was also a moment of personal glory when the deal that I was working on (the 1st combi-deal signed ever) was mentioned by the big bosses during the event :)

Lunch ~ I must stressed that the cheesecake was really finger-licking good!
With some time to spare before the next session commenced, we headed up to the roof terrace. This place offered stunning picturesque view of the city. I didn't have my camera with me, so I used my iphone to capture the panaromic view.

Most of the colleges can be viewed from the roof garden. It would be nice if I had a glass of champagne in my hand, relaxing on one of the sofas and watching the world passes by *dreamy mood*

Is it me or everything just looked too wonderfully-to-be-true here? Even the flowers looked extremely picture-worthy, lol!
Sales & AM team were put to a stress test during the afternoon session, where each individual was assigned a scenario to role-play. It was nerve-wreaking, as you had to present in front of all your peers, who clearly knows the product as well as you do, perhaps even better. Scores were also given based on your presentation. It was all good-fun & we now know what are our strengths & weaknesses, so we can perform better during our clients meetings. I left the room with more insights on myself & what are the areas that I could work on.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

London 2012 Part Three

 
Happy mid-week! As I'm blogging this entry, it dawned upon me that it will be the boss's last day in the office tomorrow, as he will be heading back to LDN (after staying in Asia for 2 years) to take up an extended role. Leaving drinks tml night and we planned to get him drunk, so he can sleep his way through his flight on Friday morning, lol! Hopefully, I won't have to nurse another hangover on Friday.
********
Read P1 & P2 here.
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We travelled to Cambridge, around 80km north of LDN, for a 3D2N sales conference.
I love being in the countryside, away from the tall buildings and be closer to nature. This is something that you can't experience in Singapore :( 
 
We checked into a nice boutique hotel, The Varsity Hotel & Spa, located on the edge of the picturesque River Cam in the heart of Cambridge. Old school keys for the room :)
 
 When I entered the room, I was delighted to see the old English cottage charm that the hotel has retained, especially love the wall-paper!
 
They even have a chest of drawers available for you to put your clothes. I can totally imagine myself staying here for a very long time. 
 
Comes equipped with coffee & tea. 
 
Our T-shirt & Welcome note placed in each room.  
The view from my window ... I'm loving this place already :)   

They even provide complimentary walking tours every Saturday at 2pm, lead by one of their experienced guides, taking guests on a tour of the historic sites of central Cambridge. So, take advantage of this if you're heading for a trip there! 
The Varsity Hotel & Spa
Thompson's Lane (Off Bridge Street)
Cambridge CB5 8AQ
United Kingdom
Tel:+44 0 1223 30 60 30
Email: info@thevarsityhotel.co.uk 

 
A change of clothes, before heading downstairs for buffet lunch. 
Lunch consisted of sandwiches, wraps, salads and whats-not. The raspberry cheesecake dessert certainly tops my list of must-have desserts!

After a hearty lunch, we attended the first part of the conference ~ where we reviewed on our performance from the past year and the objective for the year ahead, as well as the product road-map. It was certainly good exposure for all of us, as we get first-hand information from the relevant department heads, allowing us to brainstorm on how we can introduce all these new functionalities to our clients. 

We had a private room @ St John's College, but before that, drinks/catch up session at the reception area. When it was time for dinner, we were ushered into the room & boy, it felt like having dinner @ Hogwats! 4 rows of table were placed horizontally with a long table that joined all the tables at the end. The bosses sat at the end, just like how the head-masters sat in the movie :) 
 I found my place-card at the 1st table, but we didn't have a table tagged to the table, lol! Each table consisted of a good mixture of people from the 3 teams (AM, Product & Sales) across the different offices, so as to interact better with one another.
 
Graduation hats, which we all had to wear :) 
 
Time to start off the 3-course meal that was prepared for us. 

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Jumbo Seafood @ East Coast

 
Met up with the Uni gang last Friday for dinner. As we enjoyed our experience at Jumbo Seafood (East Coast) during CNY, we decided to head back again with the Uni friends. As usual, the place was crowded on Fridays & we were shown upstairs for our table. They gave us a big table (for 10) even though there were only 6 of us. 
 
Brought along my fave bottle of Riseling and Boss EK forgot to bring his red-wine contribution! So we had to settle for one bottle of wine & I wanted to ban him from drinking as punishment, lol! 
Loving my whites more than ever :)
 
Scallop wrapped with yam ring, served with traditional sweet "ngoh hiang" sauce. Highly recommended!
 
Salted egg coated with succulent prawns, gave off a hint of spice & sweetness ~ not the best dish on the table. 
You-tiao stuffed with cuttlefish paste, coated with sesame seeds. This was deep-fried to a perfect crisp & served with sweet peanut prawn paste. In fact, dipping this into their chilli paste makes this an addictive dish as well.
 
Seafood fried rice which wasn't anything fantastic, ordinary at its best. 
 
Kenneth wanted to order satay & EK chided him for wanting to order satay @ a chinese restaurant. The irony is ... EK went on and ordered mee goreng, lol! This was the star dish so far, with the right flavours packed into a single dish :)
 
The arrival of the highlight for the night! Advertisement shoot, endorsed by dear Kenneth :) 
 
The must-order chilli crab ~ stir-fried in rich savoury chilli gravy & served best with deep-fried man tous. It could be a bad day in the kitchen, for this didn't taste as good as the first time we came. Kinda disappointing as I had high expectations it :(
 
Buttery cream crabs for Yaozu, as he can't take too spicy stuff. 
 
Pris "photo-bombing" in the pic while the 2 guys were totally oblivious to it. 
 
Boss EK & his lady boss :p
 
with the ever accommodating Yaozu :) Interested parties can always drop me a liner!  
 
How can I forget my dearest, right? 
 
with the gossip-buddy, lol! We are still waiting for the new member to join the group .... Kenneth, you should know what to do, haha!  

A side note: EPS parking is now implemented at the carpark, with per-minute charging (as of 20th March 2013)
Jumbo Seafood @ East Coast Park
Blk 1206, East Coast Parkway #01-07/08
East Coast Seafood Centre
Singapore 449883
Tel: 6442 3435
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