Busy Month of Work and FOOD

I JUST had to update today, after all, this day only comes once every 4 years right? Hehe, guess if u always check my blog, u must b surprised at the rate i'm updating this month. It always seems that the more busy I am, the more I blog. Must be how I release stress or something. Or that I just had to blog about how I'm feeling etc. But I'm really backlogged with posts, I have a list of things to blog about and I'm forcing myself to post based on the time sequence instead of jumbling everything up. Call me perfectionist but yea, I think it'll b less confusing for me when i come back and read my old posts.

Anyway, this will just be a quick update on what I've been busy with this whole month so far. It's been pretty hectic, since it's such a short month and then you include CNY into it. So let's see, I went back to Kuching on the 6th till the 10th for CNY which I really enjoyed. It was all that I was expecting and a little bit more. I'll blog on that later. Then went back to work on the 11th :( but most ppl in the office were still on leave, so it was pretty quiet too. There were also fewer cars on the road, guess a lot of ppl in KL basically took longer leave since CNY was close to a weekend. Oh and Valentine's Day here was pretty quiet. I think I saw that only the receptionist received roses. This year, I treated myself to some books and dinner at Chili's. Hehe...which was pretty ok too. Of coz, I did all this on the 15th of Feb, instead of the day itself, so as not to get ripped off by the exorbitant prices. :)

The company organized a CNY lunch with the customers of lighting department on the 18th of Feb, at Oriental Pavilion, Jaya 33. Each table cost about RM1000 and had some pretty good stuff. Shark's fin soup (where u could see actual PIECES of fin), cod fish, yee sang (total of 4 for me this year, hopefully it will pay off!), suckling pig, roast chicken and more. I must say, most of us went back to the office around 3 something feeling rather full and sleepy :P. And that night, there was a testing and commissioning of a project in KL, near Sogo. Basically we had to adjust the angle of the lights to get the required effect on the facade of the building. So I got to learn how the changing of the angles appear in real life, as well as the colour difference of the lamps. We reached the place around 7 something and finished at around 9, which is considered early..a lot of times they tend to finish at around 12 -_-.

I had to go for the Project Dealer's training from the 19th to 20th at Boulevard Hotel, Mid Valley. 1st day was mostly about the lighting products, including the newly acquired LED lights and I admit, I kept falling asleep! This is actually pretty common for me, I tend to feel drowsy during this type of trainings/meetings, unless we have to do some practical work. I must make sure I sleep earlier on the nights before any meetings/trainings. It's not good to continue this!! But the next day, I didn't have any time to sleep as I had to help my supervisor with the training. The project dealers, as well as our own sales engineers were taught how to use the software we use to do lighting calculations. They had to try out some simple examples and the other 3 of us designers were assigned a group to take care of. So yeah, I had to answer their questions and I did feel worried if I was up to it. Luckily, it went pretty ok.

In the afternoon, they were divided into smaller groups to try designing the lighting for a cafe and presenting it to everyone about the concept, lighting fixtures used and calculations. Since I wasn't in a group, I just thought I'd give it a try and see how I would do. I ended up having to present last as my supervisor thought it'll be good to show them what I did, since I'm considered to be more experienced than most of the other participants. After presenting, there was this silence in the room, till my supervisor asked them to ask me questions. To which they asked me to demonstrate how I did cove lighting, explain about the lighting etc. -_-|| Luckily i could answer! But the main thing was that we were very well fed over the 2 days of training. Breakfast and 2 tea breaks were quite ok, but the lunches *phew*. 1st day was buffet lunch where I really did try to eat more veg...and 2nd day was set lunch where there was salmon and lamb!...wow..I think I grew fatter in that week alone.

Main Course of Set Lunch: Salmon & Lamb (L-R)

I think I gained even more in the next week as a few of us were assigned to do a lighting audit at a 5-star hotel in KL for 2 days. 14 of us were divided into groups to audit the different areas, which was pretty interesting. My group got to go to the pastry kitchen where we saw them baking, decorating cookies and cakes, and making chocolate!! Oh the temptation...but we didn't get to try anything though. There was even a sausage making room, ehhe. But we also had to audit the rubbish compacting room :( Overall, I think our group was pretty lucky since we didn't have too hard areas. Other groups ended up with the huge basement car parks. Since my task was to count the lamps according to type, i would have really suffered in the car park, since there are so many! On the 1st day we started late as they were discussing the methods to audit, so I had late breakfast with 2 of the male sales engineers, which was on the senior one (Thx D!). I had a HUGE chocolate croissant, which they doubted I could finish, but I did! Heh.

And not long later, we had lunch...which was buffet! This is considered 1 of the best buffets in KL and it costs about RM100 per pax. OMG...I was like in heaven when I saw the spread. The buffet was divided into different areas by type of food. There was loads of fresh seafood like oysters, mussels, crabs, prawns, sashimi and sushi in the front. Then, there was the Chinese area complete with dimsum, porridge and get this..duck's tongue..EWWW. The Indian/Malay food area, Western roasts area and so on. But the area which I really really went weak for was the dessert area! My eyes literally brightened and I started noting down mentally which desserts I wanted.

Here's my only plate of mains, the meat was too tough tho :P

Though the food was pretty good, I made sure I saved up space for those yummy desserts. There was this counter with a see-thru panel where spoons were stuck through, and these spoons were holding little fruit pastries. I took like 2 of them and I wasn't sure if I had to take the spoon together with the pastries, but I think I did. Hehe. There were lots of yummy-looking cakes and also their own ice-cream, but I stuck with just the choc/fruit/cheese cakes. They also had quite a big selection of their handmade chocolates and even a chocolate pizza...WHOAAA. And finally, I went for the ultimate...the chocolate fountain! After all, it was my 1st time actually dealing with a chocolate fountain on my own. So I chose some fruits and marshmallows to dip under the glistening waterfall (imagine a mini version of the choc waterfall in Charlie & THe Choc Factory). After they were thoroughly covered with melted chocolate, I sprinkled them alternately with chopped nuts, raisins and sprinkles. Surprisingly it wasn't too sweet, but just nice. Later I found out that they use dark chocolate, which is my fave! THat was seriously the best buffet I've ever had, pretty much worth the RM100. I would go just for the desserts ok! So, I think I will go back just for their hi-tea, which I'm sure will have EVEN MORE DESSERTS! Did I make anyone drool yet?

Yummy Chocolates! (taken from sheryl0202.blogspot.com)

Chocolate Fountain! *drool* (taken from sheryl0202.blogspot.com)

The next day, we had lunch at the chinese restaurant there, where they ordered lots of interesting stuff. One of which to note was duck with kiwi instead of the usual orange duck etc. It was slightly sour and tart, when I expected it to be sweet. This went down really well with the guys at my table who ordered another plate. But my fave was the scallops dish! They sort of made nuggets out of whole scallops with eggs, water chestnut (i think) and stir-fried with a sauce. Those scallops were really really sweet and fresh and I had 2. There was a platter of mixed roast pork, a plate of mostly roast chicken skin and so on. I was the only girl at my table and they kinda treated and called me a princess *blush*. I felt so paiseh, coz they always made me take 1st. BUt yeah, I could keep up with their appetites..eheheh. It was an incredibly expensive lunch..2 tables of 14 ppl...the bill came up to over RM1000 -_-. Turns out the scallops dish was one of the more exp ones..eheh..but hey..they ordered it..i just eat ;)

We also had this meeting/training for our new lighting concept on the 28th, where I had to give a presentation about some project examples. My 1st time presenting at the company so I was kinda worried but yea, it turned out ok. And they ordered Domino's Pizza and KFC for lunch! Good grief, talk about fattening me up huh? Well, it was my first time trying Domino's which is pretty good, I think better than Pizza Hut, but not as good as Romeo's at Centrepoint. I think I had like 2 slices of pizza, 2 chicken wing parts and 1 KFC piece, not sure what part it was. The next day, I went with some female colleagues to this restaurant at Bangsar. Our company is organizing a function there in April, so they had to coordinate on the food details while I was there to do measurements of the features we planned to light up with our new products. What they didn't tell me was that they planned to have lunch there 1st. So yes, more fattening up with pasta and worse..they ordered dessert, which was much nicer than the pasta. Warm chocolate cake with a molten center and some pancakes with fruits, ice-cream (strangely, with sweet olives!). It was also my 1st time going around measuring things with a measuring tape and I nearly fell backwards down the stairs while measuring how high they were -_-.

In addition to all this, my brother was in KL from the 19th to the 27th and of coz, we brought him to all the good food places like Pangkor Seafood for our fave lala, Jake's for the steaks, Rakuzen for Japanese and so on. So yes, I think I definitely gained weight and I can feel that my pants have gotten a bit tighter. Even though we did work after eating..but still. Damm..after all that effort to eat healthy and maintain my weight! I was so happy when I found that my pants were looser just b4 CNY.....!! So in March onwards, I must control my food intake!....BUt it will be hard when I have cupboards with my stash of CNY food -_-......Pls don't tempt me too much ok?....Esp with desserts..they're my weakness :P