Delightful surprise

Hi all,

Thanks for the messages Z and P. Sorry but it's been hell at work the last few weeks/months so my postings have been far and few lately. This @#($* job is going to kill me one of these days. I'm starting to hate it...not only the workload which is manageable but when you have people within the organisation who just don't know how to work as a team i.e. guys who are on their best behaviour in front of the bosses but hopeless when not (read politically motivated). The best one has been in the last two weeks where I was doing a favour for a guy from a different department. I was helping him organise something with the people from his own department and these shite people made life so hard for me and basically said "Stuff yez...you're not from our team so don't expect any help." So I washed my hands off it and now their boss said "Let's do it" and all of a sudden it's "Great idea! Where do you come up with these things?" but it wasn't directed at me. So there you go...it's a good thing I don't deal with these guys 99% of the time otherwise I'd go postal.

So...like I said, there's so much to do and I can't take leave till late October. ARGH! I have however put my name down for this trip so hopefully my boss will let me take time off or it'll be time to look at other "opportunities". Of course you guys are all invited to come along. :)

Anyways...enough ranting as I always do in my posts. Let's talk about the delighful suprise (the subject) I got at dinner tonight. I was tired, grumpy and lazy so I decided to just go downstairs and try the hotel buffet. BTW, I'm still in Manila. Decided not to go home this weekend as I'll only spend about 30 hours in Singapore. The Shangri-la does have a pretty good spread although it's expensive. The buffet was ~AUD$40+++ which is exorbitant in Manila. I can get a pretty damn good meal for about AUD$3.

Speaking of the Shangri-la, I'm now an "Executive" member (total stay of at least 20 nights) and not far from being an "Elite" member (60 nights) so you can guess how much I've been travelling recently. "Elite" will be nice. I get a free room upgrade whenever the rooms are available, free breakfast, lounge access,etc. I only have the free breakfast now but then again, the company pays right? :) And another nice little suprise is what I reckon is a computer error with Singapore Airlines. They have upgraded me to a Gold member so now I have lounge access too. :)

Oh yeah, back to my delightful suprise...I keep floating off-topic at 2.43am...first the buffet had a seafood theme tonight and I was in the mood for seafood. I think I ate about 2 lobsters, tons of prawns, tons of vegetables, etc. I was pacing myself well tonight so I wouldn't feel sick. I left plenty of room for dessert because I felt like it. I walk to the dessert table and guess what? (yes, my delighful suprise....*drumroll*) Turkish desserts! Funny how I never really used to like it but hanging out with everyone in Melbourne and going to various Greek/Turkish/Russian/Israeli restaurants, I've developed a more Mediterranean taste. Oooh...first thing I saw was Baklava (sp?), Turkish delights, Turkish coffee, etc. etc.

I have had some awful Turkish delight before (was harder than a piece of rock) so I only took a couple to start with and with some trepidation, put it in me mouth. Yummm...it was the "melt-in-your-mouth" type. Jules, Z and P, eat your heart out! Heh heh. But the Baklava wasn't so good - very "tough". Turkish coffee? D-e-e-e-lightful. Needless to say, I went back for more and felt a little sick afterwards. :)

I'm going to Taal volcano tomororw. It's called the world's smallest volcano so I'm curious to see how small. The volcano actually sits on a lake within the crater (or was it called the caldera?) of another larger volcano. Should be good. I must remember to take some photos. I still haven't posted my Hanoi trip up here.

Anyways....zzz time. Ciao!

chet