Cruise Holiday to Greece =)

It’s been a really long time since I recall going on a family holiday. I think it might have been Hong Kong the year before going to university or maybe before that. Anyway, it has been a long time. It was daddy’s 60^th birthday this year and we decided that it was a good time for that family holiday again. After some processes of elimination, we opt for a cruise holiday in the Aegean Sea, visiting some Greek islands and Croatia.

The cruise was ‘totally awesome’! It was a really nice lazy holiday, almost no hassle, no thinking, no worrying… just waking up and arriving somewhere new to explore everyday. Food was served on the cruise ship all around the clock pretty much. The entertainment team made huge efforts getting people to participate in various events and activities… the atmosphere all round was great. There couldn’t have been a moment where you felt bored or had nothing to do… and definitely not hungry. LOL I learnt some cha cha cha, tango and something else. It’s so much fun. I think I’d try pick up the dancing again when I find some spare time in my timetable.

First stop was Venice where we had to board the cruise ship. The weather forecast said it was going to be a cloudy grey day, but it turned out beautiful. In fact, it goes the same for every destination, so praise the Lord. =) The order of embarkation as follows:

Bari, Italy

Katakolon, Greece

Santorini, Greece

Mykonos, Greece

Piraeus/Athens, Greece

Corfu, Greece

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Venice, Italy

I think I’ll talk about each place separately to avoid the long and boring entry. But for now, have a fantabulous weekend!! =)

Praise the Lord

This is going to be a very short entry. I have been very busy lately. So busy that I haven't had the opportunity to sit and blog. There are so many things I would like to keep an entry of, but by the time I get around to doing it, I don't quite remember anything in good enough detail to make the entry worthwhile.

This particular event I wish to share with you is my testimony of having true faith in the Lord. By having faith and believing that he can do such miracles, he will. I've been having a pain in my left arm, upper arm joint for the pass couple of days for no reason that I'm aware of. I just woke up one morning and it was feeling achey. As the day passed by, the joint started making clicky grinding sounds as I move the arm. Some arm movements caused me pain and applying force even to change gear when driving pained it. I still don't really know what happened.

Somehow, after tonight's cell meeting, after Chloe prayed for me, healing me in God's name, I was able to move it a bit more normally, but with slight pain. After the second prayer my arm had been restored! It might sound dubious, but unless you were to have experienced it or witnessed this with your very eyes, it just sounds like something rather bizzare from a fairy tale. But this is anything but a fairy tale, for this is the truth. I am so thankful God loves me so much to give me such blessing.

Andalucía trip

Andalucía was very pretty. At the end of January, I went to Spain with Belle and Germaine. It was such a nice escape from the miserable and grey London. First stop was Seville, then Ronda and the last stop was Granada before heading back to London. It was a good choice since all three places had a different vibe, but all sunny with amazingly blue skies and orange trees everywhere.

Belle and Germaine were like the BEST travel buddies; it helps since we have very similar interests… SHOPPING and EATING!! It was also a wine drinking and appreciation training session for me too; I had good mentors. I didn’t take many pictures as usual because I prefer to look around and capture it in the mind than in a picture, as I can never seem to quite do it justice. I do take some pictures just to remind me of the beauty, but they are more for my own appreciation rather than to show other people. I always think people don’t appreciate pictures much because they can’t relate to it, so it has little meaning to them. Quite often you show people pictures from holiday, people are like, “why is there so little pictures of people, so much scenery and random shits.” That annoys me. Fair enough, I can see their point too. But do I have to be in every picture with the scene to prove I’ve been there? Honestly, I just think it ruins the picture. Another reason why I didn’t need to take many pictures was because we had Belle snapping away already. Her pictures looked way better than the rubbish I took, so I just relied on her =P

Of all three places, I liked Seville the most. Maybe because it was the first stop and we had a great reception desk at the hotel. The guy at the desk recommended a couple of really nice ‘local’ places to eat where it felt really authentic and traditional….. and it was so CHEAP!! The shopping was great as well. Although the siestas are from around 2pm until 5pm, it started to drive me nuts after the first couple of days, but that was everywhere in general, so what can you do?? Integrate with the culture I say, and sleep…!! Hmm… speaking of which, I really wouldn’t mind a quick nap right now.

I do believe I have posted up some pictures on facebook already, so have a look when you have some time.

 Typical Friday if you haven't figured already... the afternoon is slow and the office is usually pretty empty. I don't understand why Fridays aren't just half days. I never see anyone do any work after 12.30... it's really quite unproductive. Either that, or people come back drunk from a couple of rounds at lunch. I really need to wake up!!!

Oasis in Liquidation

How unfunny is that?! Got into work and my inbox was rammed with emails about Oasis filing bankruptcy and everyone asking if I'm affected!! Grrrr... I am!!! It's a pretty busy period at work this week as well, but I managed to do hardly any work as I was just keeping myself up to date with what's going on with my flight... or what might be going on with my flight... or how I might be able to get my money back...!! Really rather unfortunate...

How cheeky is it putting all your flights on promotion, rake in the money from those tight people who choose to fly while it's cheap, then file bankruptcy before they even know what's hit them. I feel so cheated!! I guess it's bye bye to Hong Kong until later. I can't be bothered with all this crap.

I managed to get through to someone on the hotline earlier on; Anyone else who has been cheated by Oasis and want your money back, keep yourself updated via their website. Although it keeps going back to normal, if you update, every now and again, the notice pops out explaining the situation with the flight cancellations and the relevant numbers to call to arrange alternative flights at some special rate that i don't think is that special. I didn't copy them down, but if you can't find them, it's just the direct sales line of the airlines. (You can google them) Airlines that are helping out passengers who are affected by the liquidation include Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, BA and Cathay, that I recall. Hardly helping though, more like daylight robbery. I saw some of the charges, you are better off buying a return ticket full stop.

I'm going to wait to see if they can do anything about a refund, otherwise I'll file a chargeback dispute with my credit card company and see what they can do. *sigh* that's gonna take months though... bloody hell. It's not a lot to do with the money, because it's not ALOT of money and there is some possibility of getting it back. It's just the disappointment since I was looking forward to seeing old friends and shopping.... yea, it's the shopping!

Well, you win some and you lose some. Won a pair of tickets, literally NOW, to see Happy-Go-Lucky preview... whatever that is. But hey, it might be a good movie. Who knows.

Snow in April...

The weather last week was really good. I could almost get away with not wearing a coat into work, the blue skies were out, you could see all the tourists out around by Tower of London from my desk window. Greens looked greener, everything just looked more beautiful because there was daylight and intervals of sunshine. It's hard to believe how much difference weather makes to your mood and general emotions.

My working week ended with a nice dinner at Belle's and Germaine's pretty bottle of Rose where I heard a rumour it was going to snow on Sunday. I was like... erhhh... NO WAY!! It had been so nice this week, and pretty warm... how on earth...??

Erm... I woke up this morning, wondering which service to attend at church, 0930 or 1130 leh... looked out my window and I saw...

..... seriously, what is up with the mad weather??? My trains are not running today...!! Ng sai lum la, can't even get there. The snow hasn't stopped still and getting heavier as I'm typing this entry.

Okay... I know it's April, it shouldn't be snowing, but seriously, it's hardly a snow blizard. London transport can't seem to cope with anything. When it rains a little heavier than usual, trains are 'severely delayed due to adverse weather', when it's hot, apparently tracks expand or something and trains have trouble moving. 'Adverse weather'??? That is a bit misused, no??

It's hardly like we get big windstorms like they do in other parts of the world.

...or have snow storms where the snow piles up to a point where you can almost be buried alive.

There isn't extreme weather conditions in the UK really, but we can't seem to cope with anything. Makes me wonder if we can actually cope with the Olympics.