Nameless, for now

Okay, peeps, it’s just too busy to post daily, so weekly recaps it is!

Sunday, May 4 - Arrived safe and sound, after a very long, but very uneventful plane ride (although there was much turbulence over the Pacific).  Took the Airport Express train and a shuttle bus to the Eaton Hotel in Kowloon.

Monday, May 5 - Woke up around noon, after a lovely and much needed sleep.  Had dim sum for lunch (duh!)  We got the lay of the land on Hong Kong Island - we took the subway over (under the harbour!) to the Island side and wandered around Central for a bit.  Then, we hopped back on the subway over to Kowloon side, wandered around the harbour for awhile.  Markus took some awesome shots of the daytime skyline of Hong Kong Island.  Then, we walked up Nathan Road - the Golden Mile - until we reached our hotel.  Had dinner at our hotel (no time yet to scope out the local joints), then had drinks in the bar.

Tuesday, May 6 - The Peak!  Holy shit, can you say “steep“? *LOL*  We took the age-old Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island, then made our way on foot to the tram station.  The tram was unlike anything I’ve never experienced before - you’re literally being pulled up the side of a mountain by a cable at a 45 degree angle.  But, wow, at the top, what a rockin’ view!  We also had lunch at the historic Peak Lookout.  Afterwards, we headed back down the Peak…on foot.  It took approximately 1.5 hours to get back down to Central, after taking baby steps down the (again) 45 degree angle walkways, then the hundreds of stairs.  Our legs were like jelly after today!  And I also have two quarter-sized blisters on the balls of my feet.

We attempted to have dinner on a side street, recommended by our lovely concierge…except there was no way in hell I was eating at any of these sketchy places! *lol*  Usually, I’m quite adventurous, but no way, no day.  There was no English in sight and no pictures either. *lol*  We saw a few stalls of the Temple Street Night Market, but we wanted to wait on that, until we could spend more time browsing and haggling.

Wednesday, May 7 - We took it easy today, recouperating our (my!) feet.  Then, I read Jen’s blog post about her awesome Vancouver marathon experience and felt like a total schlub! *lol*

Thursday, May 8 - Time Warp!!!!   ~~~~~    !!!!  (sorry, inside joke!)

Friday, May 9 - Markus says today was “went shopping for Mama, bought stuff for Papa” day.  Yeah, that pretty much says it all. *lol*  ;-P  We subwayed it over to Hong Kong Island again to ride the rails.  We took the double-decker streetcar from pretty much one end of the Island to the other.  We hopped off just before the Happy Valley Racetrack to go shopping for shoes and purses, stumbled across Times Square (HA!), and wandered around in the blissfully cool mall for a bit.  Then, we hopped back on the streetcar and got off just after North Point to take these amazing pics of the harbour and Kowloon.  Finally, we jumped back on the streetcar on our way to dinner at a great Thai restaurant in Wan Chai.  We got home last night quite late, had showers, and fell into a well-needed and well-deserved slumber.

Saturday, May 10 - It’s now 1pm and pouring rain.  We’re soon headed to The Peninsula Hotel for high tea.  After that, who knows?  Although I could never see myself living here (never say never…I once said the same thing about Vancouver!), it certainly is an amazing place to visit.

Next week holds even greater adventures.  Day trips to Lantau and Macau on our own and an organized tour to mainland China (the city of Shenzhen and the awesome Xian Terracotta Warriors and Horses Exhibition), as well as more Hong Kong escapades, including another trip up The Peak for some fantastic night and neon shots of Hong Kong Island!  Stay tuned!

I have been a busy gal in the past few months, so the writing has been sorely lacking.  I’ll try to do better!

Work is amazing and traumatizing, all at the same time.  I’m keeping a few specific work details off the blog, so if you want to know, you’ll have to ask me in person or via email! :-P  But, generally, it’s fantastic, and I love going in every day and being excited about my work.  My boss is amazing and one of the most dedicated HR professionals I’ve ever met.  She could end up being a true mentor to me and we are a great complement to one another.  We just hired a new Payroll Administrator, whom I oversee, and she, too, is awesome.  I just love it all!

Our condo went on the market a week or so ago.  It’s been a bit of a stressful few weeks, getting things ready, staging our home, and having three potential buyers cancel their viewings (one bought a different property the night before, one decided they didn’t like the area, and one decided, upon a drive by, that they didn’t like the look of our building).  Oh well, what can you do?  But we can’t dazzle them with the interior improvements if they don’t actually come *inside*!  We had our first showing this afternoon and the feedback we received was very, very good.  So, we’re thinking positively, and we’ll take it one step at a time.

The Hubby and I are headed on our next set of travels on Saturday…Hong Kong! :-)  We’ll be there for two weeks and are getting more and more excited by the day.  We’ll have the laptop with us, so look for photos and frequent updates while we’re there.

In other news, I miss my friends (not just these four, all of you!)  I’ve been working crazy overtime lately and trying to get our place ready to go on the market, so most everything else has had to go on the back burner.  Today is the first chance I’ve had in a long time to comment on blogs and catch up on Flickr and Facebook.  We do have friends coming over on Tuesday night for dessert and tea.  And I’m seriously going to try to reconnect more once we return.

Oh well, I guess I can spill our juicy news for the measly three people (well, four…I know Jen Hawke still visits) who still read my blog.  Notice I said “measly three” and not “measly people” - I love my peeps!  I, seriously, have the best friends! :-)

So, two weeks ago, something very cool happened.

The M-man and I bought a house!!!!!!  A whole freaking house, with a garage and a yard and everything!

Obviously, we are so freaking excited!  Could I use any more exclamation points?  Yes, I could!!!!!!!! *lol*

Here are the deets:

• 1800 square feet
• 4 bedrooms (1 master, 1 guest, 1 office, 1 library)
• 2.5 bathrooms
• hardwood floors (reclaimed fir)
• granite countertops
• excellent appliances
• surround sound entertainment package
• pre-wired for ethernet, etc.
• security system
• two car garage
• front and back yards that are reasonably sized, yet easy to maintain
• full new home warranty
• nice deck out back

I’ve put a whole whack of pics up on Flickr - just check out my sidebar.

Here’s the developer’s website Red Boat.  I’m sure that the astute will notice that it’s in Queensborough, which we didn’t even know existed until last November, when we first looked at the show home.  It’s so beautiful down there, right on the river, with awesome mountain views.

We purchased the Balsam floor plan, which is super cool and perfect for us. We take possession on September 26th!

Now, for the bad news…we have to get our condo ready to put on the market and sell the freaking thing! *LOL*

Is anyone still reading this thing? *lol*

Cause I have some juicy news to spill.  Well, the M-man and I think it’s juicy, anyways. ;-P

Well…here’s the saga. 

The Hubby and I went to Toronto last Thursday for the One Night Live concert. I was excited to go, really looking forward to the concert and our mini-vacation. I had never been to Toronto before (actually, anywhere east of Winnipeg, really).

We planned a nice dinner out at Rosewater Supper Club on Friday night and a winery tour in Niagara for Saturday. Then, dim sum and shopping on Sunday.

Minor points of discontent:

1. The concert was late…by an hour (it was supposed to start at 7pm, but actually started at 8pm). Major technical difficulties. Bad sound checks resulting in…yep, you guessed it…bad sound. We finally left at 12:30am, but the concert wasn’t even finished at this point. After being awake since 4am, it was just too much.

2. The meal at Rosewater Supper Club on Friday night was fantastic. However, the four locals sitting behind us left much to be desired. Extremely loud, obnoxious, vulgar comments were coming from their table as the wine flowed. I eventually tuned out when talk started of blow jobs and the c-word.

Major point of discontent:

Do not, I repeat, do NOT eat at Bright Pearl if you ever want to have dim sum in Toronto.

We ate dim sum (as we do quite often back home) on Sunday afternoon. We arrived at around noon, got seated quickly, and tucked into our little morsels of heaven.

After eating, we headed down to Eaton Centre to escape the cold. About 15 minutes after arriving, I felt my bowels start to churn. Uh oh. Okay, let’s hit the washroom. Obviously, something I ate disagreed with me. Doesn’t happen often, but when it does, one bathroom trip will “cure” it.

We continue shopping until it’s time to leave for the airport at 4pm.

On the way to the airport, I was feeling queasy and just “off”. Didn’t think much of it. Time to board the plane. Am definitely feeling nauseous, like I’m going to hurl, the plane is spinning, and my upper abdomen is cramping. Hmmmm…what to do?

Get escorted off the plane. Plane leaves without us.

Have the priviledge of having EMS called. Note to Toronto travellers - Do not get sick in Pearson International Airport. Due to budget cuts, they have eliminated their medical clinic and ALL medical staff, including nurses. So, your only option is to wait for an ambulance to take you to the nearest emergency room (Etobicoke General, for those playing along at home).

Spent the next 8 hours in emerg. I won’t gross you out with the details, but let’s just say the diagnosis was gastroenteritis. Severe gastroenteritis.

Was released from emerg at around 6:30am. Booked into the Sheraton at the airport, as we had rescheduled our flight home for that day at 4pm. Yeah, right. Didn’t happen.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that Air Canada had NO IDEA where our checked bag was?

After spending the next two days in the lovely Sheraton, lying in bed, cramping with pain, doing my business (from both ends) in the bathroom, we finally checked out on Tuesday and flew home. Roughest flight ever. Seriously. Spent most of it locked up in the cubby they call a bathroom.

Back home now, but still not back to work. Have yet to eat solid food - tried some grapes earlier, we’ll see how that goes over.

So, that’s pretty much my Toronto saga.

PS - Did I mention that I *just* started a new job and have now taken approximately half my sick days in less than a month.

PPS - Did I also mention that I have to write a final exam this Sunday?

Geez, how slack can one blogger be? ;-P

The rest of our Austria trip went well.  Spent some time shopping on Mariahilferstrasse and touring the Albertina (we saw a Monet and Picasso exhibit - it was lovely!) 

We left Austria and headed for London.  After a desperately needed change of hotel, we settled down and saw as much touristy stuff as we could in three days!  The Hubby has posted in detail here, so I won’t elaborate.  Other than to say that London is incredibly beautiful and we could definitely imagine living there one day! :-)  Besides, who wouldn’t want to live in a fantastic city where all the museums and art galleries are free, all the time!

I’ve got a crapload of pics up at Flickr, so go here and have a look. :-)  More coming soon….

Since we’ve been back, I’ve been catching up with friends and putting out resumes like crazy.  I’m still waiting to hear on a couple opportunities, so hopefully next week will bring some good news.  If not, then more of the same.

The Hubby and I have made a couple last minute reservations for Dine Out Vancouver 2008: Le Gavroche on Thursday and The Cannery on Saturday.  Should be good times!

I am attending a CHRP Recognition event on Thursday night and I’m really looking forward to mingling with all my cohorts who worked incredibly hard to attain this designation.  It will be great to catch up with some familiar faces and to do some networking.

I’ve also attended a couple of HR seminars over the past two weeks that were really valuable.  And a great opportunity to get my name and face out there to prospective recruiters.

Hmmmm, what else….  We’re looking forward to our upcoming travels - Toronto at the end of February and Hong Kong in May.

That’s about it for now, I guess.

Oh yeah, we have some incredibly exciting news to share, but that will have to wait for a bit. ;-D  Besides, you all need some suspense in your lives, right? *lol*

It’s currently 2:32pm on Saturday, December 29, 2007.

We’ve just finished lunch (the main meal of the day in Austria) - pumpkin cream soup, pork tenderloin medallions in a mushroom cream sauce, parsley potatoes, mixed veggies, with fruit salad for dessert.  I don’t know how anyone here eats so much without eventually weighing 400 pounds (I also declined the many, many offers of cake, Christmas cookies, chocolate, etc. - my best friend right now is “nein, danke”).  And I don’t know how Markus’ mom prepares food like this every single day to have on the table ready for noon. 

Now we’re just hanging out; Markus is visiting with his parents, while I vainly attempt to understand even a fraction of their conversation, eventually giving up and just typing this post instead.

Later, we’ll be heading into Vienna to visit with a group of Markus’ friends that he’s known pretty much since birth.  The train ride into Vienna takes about twenty mintues or so (faster if we catch an express train).  It’s “punsch” night, which means a hot, steaming fruity punch (a variety of flavours - orange, berry, or apricot, usually) mixed with rum.  Mmmmm!  We’ve already had several mugs of this while visiting the outdoor Christmas markets in Vienna.

Tomorrow is a bit of studying for me, more visiting with family, and possibly a visit with friends at the local pub (Gwölb).

On Thursday, we went to the Vienna Opera to see Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute).  Being a Mozart work, it was performed in German, which was fantastic.  The singing was impeccable and the orchestra was amazing.  The Opera house was packed to the rafters and we had such amazing seats.

Basically, it’s been a great Christmas vacation so far, with lots of relaxing, catching up with “long lost” relatives and friends, and kicking Markus’ butt in Uno. *lol*

Markus and I made it here with minimal stress - there were flight issues, as per normal, but nothing that we couldn’t handle. :-)  We’ve decided that, combined, we have the worst travel karma ever. *lol*

It’s cold here, the wind is chilling to the bone.  But no snow yet.

We got a good night’s sleep - well, some of us did (read: me).  Poor Markus could not sleep past 2am for some reason.

We’re off to the market to buy some provisions, then off to Mom and Dad’s for lunch.

More later!

After two gruelling exams (the National Knowledge Exam - NKE, and the National Professional Practices Assessment - NPPA) and an anxious eight week wait since the NPPA, I am proud to announce that I am now entitled to use the designation Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) after my name!

CHRP represents the ethical standards, body of knowledge, and level of expertise sought by employers.  Certification is fast becoming a requirement in hiring mid-level and senior HR managers and consultants.

I am so thrilled that my past three years of hard work and dedication have finally paid off!

Still busy.

Still waiting.

But we did buy one of these yesterday.  The price was just too good to pass up - and now we can take it with us on our upcoming travels!

 As well, we found out on Thursday that our Air Canada return flight from London to Vancouver was moved up, and consequently, we couldn’t make that connection.  So, we’ve been scrambling to find a solution.  Yesterday, we did that.  Our new itinerary looks like this:

So, we get 2.5 days in London (baby!) to see the sights!  Any tips or suggestions on hotel (and/or general location - we know *nothing* about London) and things to do when we’re there?