blocking people in grindr

i cannot take it when people gets mushy with me and call me dear, love, and what have you. and despite telling them that i am not their dear and love, and that i prefer they do not address me as such (cos in the first place, i don't even know them), they responded with "why honey?". as for me, my response? i block them.

no need to think twice about it.

all the angst

i have no patience with anyone who refuses to listen, close their minds to possibilities and ideas, and above all, keeps harping on how things were done previously. and i didn't like it when despite trying to explain, i get interjected again and again, until i have to eventually use a very firm tone and call the team stop it and let me finish what i have to say before they speak their thoughts! need such tones once a while to get the conversation going, even if it meant making people feel uncomfortable. and i do admit that i myself am very uncomfortable to use such tone of voice.

i have never gotten into situations where i have to use such firm tones (almost to the point where i sound mad) as much as in the recent months. things at work are in a state of fundamental change and despite the months of framing, rationalisation, communications efforts, and workshops to align and bring people along with change, i still get people who focus inwards onto their own areas when issues arise and choose to adopt a "last time, this was how it was done and i expect this to still be done now" approach rather than a more productive approach of "ok, let's see how we can work this out together".

hard not to lose my top! darned! i think this work is creating all the angst in me. i am beginning to also not like myself.

lol!

thor: ragnarok

this is such a pleasant movie to watch. the thor (played by chris hemsworth) in this movie is very different from the thor of the previous editions. he's a lot funnier and whoowwww... with his short hair, he's so bloody hot (not that he was not previously)! it's nice that be able to see quite a few characters such as dr strange, hulk, etc coming together.

watched it over thursday night and ended up heading to work on friday feeling superbly tired. and then watched it again on friday night at the imax theatre in 3d format. frankly, the 3d is nice but it gets a little uncomfortable when it is in imax as it is really into your face.

quick reflections about my trip

was in osaka and kyoto over the last weekend. here's some quick thoughts:

• the place was crazy busy. and it wasn't even tokyo. but generally, i amazed me to see how people are so organised and observed basic courtesies. it's a very japanese thing - being courteous and civil.

• having said that, there was an overwhelming number of koreans and chinese. so much so that the public announcements urging people to refrain from eating or drinking when they walk, or when they shop, etc, included the korean and chinese versions (in addition to the japanese version).

• it was really interesting to see novel ways of marketing stuff. for example, i walked pass a pharmacy and there were 2 salesgirls dressed in schoolgirl-like attire and they were doing a dance routine in unison and waving placards to encourage people to patronise their shop. in a warp way, it reminded me of japanese anime where schoolgirls has large oversized breasts and would dance around and have their breasts bouncing up and down to attract attention of the forever horny japanese guys. hmmm...

• and oh, there seemed to be a lot of cute japanese men! wow! hahah... i could almost imagine them wearing goggles, just like how they did in japanese porn! and of cos i needed to confess here. while at the temples, what caught my attention were cute guys (i don't know whether they were japanese or not) and that was the highlights of my visits to the temples. i even managed to secretly snapped a couple of photos of the cuties! lol!

• the japanese train system was amazing. short trips, inter-city trips, all sorts of variations and each one operating like clockwork. and it was interesting to observe how the train master actually walk from cabin to cabin, bowing as he entered and exit each cabin, and in between, walking slowly and deliberately as he inspected each cabin along the way. very professional.

• looking at the city as i travel from point to point, i could literally picture a scene from godzilla. from my view in the train, the houses looked like toy houses lined with street lamps and overhanging wire cables, and the houses are messily interspersed amidst tall towers. i could imagine godzilla moving around and as he moved, he would wag his gigantic tail and destroy the houses that crossed his path. lol!

• i visited the museum of history in osaka and it was amazing to observe their storytelling technique. by having the museum located in a tall building that overlooks the historical site, they were able to provide a birds' eye view of the current day real-life site, and with clever use of lights and movements, and computer-generated and videos, infuse history over the sites to bring across a story that cuts across the different times of history. impressed.
• regretfully, it rained non-stop during my 4-day stay in japan. nonetheless, i didn't let it affect me too much. bought an umbrella and did my exploration. the only issue was that the rain impacted my abilities to take proper pictures. otherwise, all's ok and good.

• above all, the cool temperature was a huge plus for me.

i will definitely head back to osaka and kyoto again.

trip to japan

it was a superbly short trip. total of 4 days. almost 2 days of flight and 2 days in japan. here's how it went.

thursday, flight from sg to kix (osaka, japan) via taipei. departed in the morning at 7am. took jetstar and all the memories of my previous employment came back as it was an a320. anyway, landed in taipei late morning, had a quick lunch, departed to kix and landed in osaka about 4-ish pm. took the train to namba and stayed at hotel ibis styles in the middle of the shopping belt. beautiful place!

friday, explored osaka. visited the imperial castle and the tenmoji temple. rained throughout due to am impending typhoon. hit back to hotel by late afternoon, took a nap and headed out to do some shopping at umeda area. by this time, gotten myself familiar with the rail system and was able to move about quite easily. but seriously, trying to the the train was a challenge as all the words were in japanese. only manage to find the english translation after some exploring. but yeah, the second day ended well.

saturday, made a trip to kyoto. had planned to visit four location including the signature fox shrine (kintara-inari shrine or something like that), the nijo palace (nijo-jo), the bamboo forest and another shrine. in the end, only managed to visit the fox shrine and the nijo-jo. there was just too many tourist and as it rained through the day, it was not a very comfortable journey as i had to walk with wet feet. worst of all, at the nijo-jo, i had a nasty fall on top of the watch tower. the floor was slippery and i was at the top of the tower taking pictures. and i missed my footing as there was a slope on the side of the stairs, and fell very badly. hit my left elbow and landed on my right loin area (didn't realize my left elbow bleed quite a bit and my right ribs were badly injured until much later). decided to abandon all other locations and took a train back to osaka to rest.

sunday was a long a arduous trip back to singapore via manila. almost couldn't take off as the typhoon was near osaka and announcements of emergency warnings of landslides and evacuations had started. thankfully, the flight took off just as widespread emergency warnings came on. it was interesting cos when i was in the plane getting reading to take off, a loud jingle came on air and it didn't sound like it was from the airplane. i look around and realised that everyone's phone had gone off. i checked my phone and there was a warning (in japanese which i couldn't understand fully except for a few chinese characters relating to emergency and evacuation). amazing.

well, arrived home safe and sound by late evening and that was my short and sharp (and very painful) break to japan.

:-) 

bad online travel agent

i learned from my colleagues that i had to clear half of my annual leave by dec 17. such "unstated" policies are practices that are expected of employees so that the company do not end up with too many uncleared leave by the end of the fiscal year end-mar. and so, i decided to take a break overseas over the deepavali week. deepavali was on wednesday and i took leave on thursday and friday. this gave me a 5-day straight period where i could go on a holiday.

as usual, bee ended up not being able to go. this time round, it was because his passport had expired. and for me, i had wanted to leverage my staff travel benefits (i am still a travel nominee of an ex-colleague) and so i had to book my tickets as late as possible to ensure there are seats for me. things was a little tricky cos i couldn't really find a location that suits my holiday criteria: weather - it must be cool. and with this one single factor, my choice got a lot limited to locations in korea, japan, china and australia. had to look through all the different locations the airline fly to and finally zoomed in onto osaka, kyoto, seoul, melbourne, tasmania, nanjing, etc. thing was - the hotels across most were very expensive... anyway cut the long story short, there were so many limitations related to flight time, hotel cost, etc that i eventually decided to use an online travel portal that sells flight and hotel packages. by that time, it was already wednesday night and i had lost one day. and to maximise my overseas stay, i chose one where the flight out of singapore was on thursday morning. so, after looking through the different portals, i decided to book one on zuji.com. that was the start of my nightmare. 

after selecting the flight, hotels, etc and made my payment, the website advised me that my payment did not go through and that i had to call the agent. time check then was 7pm. that was what i did and after speaking with the agent for almost 45minutes and doing multiple checks, i was told i should call them in 2-hours to allow them to trace the issue. before i hang up, i asked for the airline pnr number, which i was given. i then headed out for dinner and to ensure things went ok, i called my bank who assured me that the payment went through. at 10-ish pm, i call the call center again and another call agent handled my call. this one was a little bitchy and after tracing the issue, told me that they have some issues with their support team cos the airline couldn't confirm the take off and that they will resolve the issue with the airline. having worked in an airline before, i knew this was pure bullshit, but i kept quiet about it. the call center agent insisted that despite "the airline issue", i should just trust them to resolve the issue and that they will call me at about 3-4am to advise if i should proceed to the airport. 

omg, i needed to wait for their call at 3am? my check in was supposed to be 5am and they will call me at 3-4am to confirm if my holiday plans are good to go? too risky wasn't it? anyway, i hung up the phone and called the airline myself and learned that the issue was that zuji couldn't get the payment done and thus the airline couldn't issue a ticket. and piecing the whole picture together, i learned that my bank had paid zuji but zuji couldn't get the payment through to the airline. i decided to just cancel my booking and do the full booking direct with the airline and the hotel myself. and so i called the call center. this final call made me blow my top. the call agent started off sounding hostile, and then went on to give all sorts of cock and bull story blaming the airline, the hotel, etc. i told her i was from the airline industry and knew every processes in it and that she should stop blaming the airline and providing all sorts of excuses. and when i insisted that i wanted to cancel my booking, she said the booking with the hotel has been finalised and that if i chose to cancel it, the hotel will charge me full and she would only refund me the air ticket. i tried to explain to her that my contract is with zuji and not the hotel and i have every right to cancel my contract with no liabilities because nothing was issued to me at all. anyway, i was pissed off when she refused to let me talk and kept going on and on about all their policies and guidelines and how i should not insist on this and that, etc. 

i totally hated it when people refused to let me talk and kept interjecting me even as i speak and tried to explain how i cannot accept their recommendations to call me at 3-4am. she interjected me non-stop and what totally pissed me off was she said something to the effect that i have myself to be blamed for booking a flight that departs the next morning. i totally lost myself when she said that as she continued to interject me until i raised my voice and told her to stop! stop talking! don't give me all these bullshit. if zuji thinks they cannot fulfil a booking that occurs the next morning, then zuji should jolly stop selling anything and not allow people to book. and since i was managed to book an itinerary, they should very well work towards delivering the service according to the contract! and she should stop blaming the airlines with excuses cos i was from the aviation industry and i know airlines will only stop accepting new bookings 4-hours out from flight time. so to tell me they will call me 3 hours before the departure is unacceptable! and as for her, should behave like a call center agent. i was a call center agent trainer and i know how call centers work and so stop giving me all the bullshit and talk to me respectfully like you would a customer as you are trained. and above all, don't put the blame on me when i had done my checks and the issue was one of zuji not being able to make the payment and not because the airline cannot take off! when she realized i knew inside out of the aviation industry and how call centers operate, her tone changed and she stopped giving me anymore excuses.

i told her i cannot accept this and i wanted to cancel my booking and demanded a full refund - hotel, flight and insurance. and this was where she tried to full a fast one again - i'm sorry, i can get my support team to do a refund of the flight but the hotel has been confirmed and you will be charged in full the hotel charges. damned, i went back to my firm tone again! hey, hey, i have signed a contract with zuji.com and i have not signed a contract with the hotel and the flight separately. i am cancelling my agreement with zuji.com and since nothing has been delivered, i am terminating any agreement with zuji.com and expect a full refund. and she told me she had to call her hotel agent, eider yadda eider to sort this or that out... and that she would call me back later. i refused to hang up and told her i will hold the line and expect a respond from her - a respond no lesser than a full refund. i don't care whether or not the hotel agent agree or not, that is for zuji.com to manage, i reminded her. anyway, to cut the long story short again, she came back after a couple of minutes and told me they will refund me the full amount, and apologised for her behaviour. 

that was my superbly negative experience with zuji.com. i will never use them anymore.

geostorm

this is the typical environment disaster cum armageddon-themed movie except that the lead didn't die but ended up living happily ever after after he successfully prevented a global tragedy. yeah, you kinda get the idea about what the movie is about.

i liked it for reasons being (1) it had a lot of effects related to environmental disasters that one can only imagine - tsunami is the desserts in the middle east, hailstones the size of lorries in central tokyo japan, overheated underground pipes and extreme heat that resulted in explosions that caused buildings to topple over in hong kong, sudden cold wave that saw villages in dessert to freeze instantly, similar cold wave that swept through south american city of rio de janerio to go into deep freeze, tornadoes in india, widespread lightnings in florida, etc... you get it. and (2) the creativity and peek into the future where mankind eventually managed abandon country politics and came together and use technology to successfully control nature from outer space. 

but of cos, being a hollywood movie, it attempted to portray americans in the forefront and americans that eventually saved the world. not unusual and perhaps important from a revenue generation point of view? there was perhaps a deeper and more serious message about how man is destroying the environment and in the attempt to control it, ended up putting mother earth on life support. haha... then again, one should just go and enjoy the show for its entertainment value.

good show.

absence

i didn't realize i've been away for a month until sam texted me and asked if everything's ok. truth be told, i had wanted to blog many a times over the last couple of weeks but ended up being dragged all over the place and having to prioritise what's more important given my limited energies. ok, ok... i'll try to capture some of the events i've missed out in the next couple of blogs.

lol!