Bell’s Blog

I havent’ updated in a long long long time. What’s new eh? Haha! Well Just a short note now. I might try to update more often. I always say that but really how often do I get around to it? I’m a bum… a lazy bum bum! Anyway… I’m off on holiday in 2 days! Very much looking forward to it! On Sunday 6th we fly out to London and we’ll do the tourist rounds and a bit of catching up with my Londoner friends before flying out on Friday 12th Feb (whew! Not the 13th!) to Kuching! YES! I’m coming home for Chinese New Year for the first time since 2004! Gong Xi Gong Xi!!! And yes I will be handing out Ang Pow for the first time since my wedding day… but only to relatives so any of you leeches unrelated to me who wanna ask me for ang pow… DREAM ON! I’m not sure how many people still read my blog since I stopped with regular updates… but anyone who is keen to catch up with me either in London on Kuching… drop me a line! I’ll be in Kuching from the Saturday 13th until Saturday 27th… arriving back in Switzerland on the Sunday 28th and back at work at 7am on Monday!

As for contact… email me and I’ll give you my roaming cellphone number. I don’t know the address of where I’ll be staying or whether or not there’s a phone on the premises let alone internet. The house belongs to my mother in law and as far as I’m aware, is empty for most of the year and minimally furnished… in fact, I think mum told me that MIL bought some mattresses to accommodate having us there for a couple of weeks.

Im very much looking forward to being home for Chinese New Year! Kwang and I have made a list of all the foods we’d like to eat… It’s humongously long so I doubt we’ll be able to do all of it but I don’t intend to do ANY cooking at all over the next 3 weeks… so… WISH ME LUCK!!!

Next week.

It’s about time I guess. I’d been thinking about it for a long time anyway. And I suppose I’d already decided I would probably get one when I went back to Kuching for holiday in February. So I was looking about online for ideas and shopping around trying to figure out what I like. That was a couple of months ago. The variety of nice phones available out there is absolutely mind boggling! From prices, colours and shapes to functions. Do you want to be able to surf net? Do you want just to make phone calls? Do you like buttons or touch screen? Do you like compact phone or does size not matter?  I’d had my phone for so long that I didn’t even know where to start looking! I look at all the tech specs of any one phone and all I see is… Yak Yak Yak Blah Blah Blah Wah Wah Wah… It was so overwhelming that I only shopped around for about a week or 2 before I gave up.

So why am I getting a new phone so suddenly and not waiting anymore? Several reasons like Xmas deals and stuff. But what set my mind was that I lost my phone last week. I’ve got it back now. Don’t get me wrong… I’m really thankful I got my phone back, I love it to bits! But my phone was so old… that it wasn’t worth stealing. And once again, don’t get me wrong, I would have been totally pissed if a dishonest person had taken my phone! But in a weird way, that’s what helped me make up my mind. My phone is so old… It was in when “WAP” was new. Short of copying everything onto paper, I’m unable to back up my contacts onto any other device. Photos are practically unviewable. My buttons have become desensitised… I may have to press, prod or shove multiple times before I get a response. Despite changing batteries, the phone is a power drain… on a full fresh charge, I can only receive 2 phone calls of approximately 5 minute duration… and that’s MAX.

However, despite all its misgivings, my good old phone has been loyal. It’s been through a lot. It’s battered and bruised and scarred… it’s been dropped on the street, cars, gutters, toilets, IN toilet bowls, and it’s survived every trauma. I’m a phone destroyer… with an indestructible phone… but it’s now dying slowly of old age. And it’s time to let go.

Now please don’t groan when I announce that I’ve just today placed an order for a new iPhone. I really don’t want to “be like everyone else”. For all my searching I’d narrowed my choices down to 3 phones plus iPhone… LG new Chocolate, Samsung S8300 and Nokia N97 mini. But, having been out of the phone and tech scene for over 4 years, I don’t think I can handle re-learning ho to use all the new operating systems on other phones.  I already have an iPod touch… and I know how to use that perfectly, so there’s no long stretch to extend that knowledge to using an iPhone. Yea… I know… what’s the point of getting an iPhone when I have iPod? Well… there isn’t one. I can try and sell it, only it’s got my name engraved on the back. I doubt I can find someone else called Bell who will want an 8 Gb iPod Touch. It’s stupid… but I didn’t expect to get one. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have done it. But there you have it… bad planning. My own fault really.

Besides, there’s not much that’s not to like about iPhone. Now I just gotta sit tight and wait for my phone to arrive. Kwang is getting one too.. gosh.. matching phones how lame is that?! :/ He ordered his phone about 3 days ago and it just got shipped out today. SO I would expect to receive mine before xmas

Patience Young Grasshopper….

That was fast you say? Of course it was! Of course we didn’t get all of it! And certainly not all at once! Plus there may or may not be a few changes later on… But I was so excited… I just wanted to update right away! OK… not right away… it happened last night. Online auctions. Several of the items I want were going cheap… of course there’s the retail price/buy now price being SUPER HIGH and then bidding begins at only $1!!!! GET GET GET! We’ve actually been trying for a few nights now with no success. But last night, we managed to nab a few items at bargain prices… and of course all BRAND SPANKING NEW!

First was Bed (frame only)

Retails at about chf 5000… Auction GET for chf 500 (incl. delivery)!! Woo Hoo!!!

Second was Sofa Set, in black microfiber… (or cream)

Retails about chf 4000… Auction GET for chf 500 (inch. delivery)!!! Hooray!

and… Third was a little extra… nice swivel chair… either the white or black with red seat, I can’t remember which

Retails for chf 900… Auction GET for chf 115 (incl delivery)!!!

How cool is that!?!?! I’m so happy! Both Kwang and I were very happy! Especially about the bed, cos for the past few nights… there was this really nasty buyer who was bidding on ALL the beds! And he obviously had a bigger budget than we did, so it was very annoying to see him out-bid everyone night after night! Kwang thinks he re-sells them… which of course makes sense. But I like to think he’s a goon, hired to hike up the auction prices! Whatever the case, I’m just really happy Of course that means we’re a whole lot poorer for now too. I’mhappy about the chair too, we only bought the one but if it’s really comfy, we might consider a second. And the sofa is a great buy, microfiber is supposed to be stain and spill resistant… sure that doesn’t mean it’s food and water proof, but “resistant” is good enough for me! Warm and comfy to boot, perfect for the upcoming winter! I suppose I will come down from this high soon enough, after all I gotta wait about 6-8 weeks before they can delivery the goods. Kwang mentioned something about how the bed and the sofa are made to order and that’s why they take a couple of months to get it to us… I wonder if that’s true…

*GYAAAAH* SO EXCITED!

So what if I’m somewhat of a home maker… I like it that way. We live in a very simple apartment with only 1 bedroom and a pretty big but long and narrow living room. It’s quite nicely lit, and that’s one of my favourite things about it. The apartment’s rather plain though… Apart from a couple of (now very squeaky) chairs and our bed (100 francs with a very thin mattress only 2 inches thick), the rest of our furniture are hand me downs from the previous tenant who asked if we wanted to take them off their hands. Some are bought second hand. A couple of items we pick up off the kerbsides… and NO it’s not stealing… Some people with unwanted items (anything from CD cases, to flower pots, to kitchenwares to furniture) who don’t want to go through the hassle of selling something or dropping it off to some charity will leave them out on a fine day and stick a sign on there saying “Gratis zum mitnehmen” meaning free to take away. Normally they’re whisked away within hours.

Why have we gone so cheap on our home furnishings? Well…. mostly because we’re relatively poor. And partly because when we first moved in, it was to our understanding that we’d not be living here more than 3 years. But now it’s been 4 years, and looking to be a little longer now that Kwang has a new job lined up to begin in December. With the extended stay and a little bit more in our pockets, we’ve been thinking of improving our living conditions and make for a nicer living space. So I have a wish list I would like to share… and I hope it will be realised within the next year. Although we’re already looking, I’m pretty sure we will need quite a bit of time, and money to eventually acquire all of these and perhaps over the course of the year we may change our minds… and I guess most likely… some of them may not happen at all. But where’s the harm in a little wishful thinking for now right?

So here they are for now in no particular order:

iRobot Roomba… it’s so cool… the 2nd pic is just a long exposure shot of the route the Roomba took around someone’s living room

OR

Dyson Baby (DC22)

Samsung flat screen 42 inch TV… isn’t she beautiful?

Sofa set

Bookshelf

Bed

AND

Memory Foam Mattress

Kenwood Multipro Libra food processor

Kenwood Titanium Major stand mixer

And there you have it… my wish list… some of the things I would like for my home. Please tell me I’m not asking too much…

FIrst things first… Kwang and I have booked our tickets to go home – Look Out Everyone In Kuching! – for a couple of weeks from Feb 13- 28. Hooray! We’ll be joining the rest of Kwang’s Family – Mother, Sister, Brother in law, and niece – who will be flying in from Christchurch. Naturally some time will be spent with them but I’m looking forward to making the most of my time there, looking forward to enjoying myself. I intend to eat to my heart’s content! Of course there are friends and family to visit. There’s a new cellphone for me to buy. And not a whole lot of time for much else… because, let’s be honest, 2 weeks is very little time.

NOW… for the hypothetical question… This question applies to anyone who is in Penang! Yes, Shouters… I mean YOU! So here it is:

IF - and that’s a pretty big if – I were to negotiate… and succeed, via various forms of blackmail and bribery, in squeezing a little blood money from my CFO, and book ourselves on a flight to Penang for a couple of days – but not a weekend, because I can’t afford to blow RM 800+ on Air Asia tickets only to spend 2 days there – would anyone be available to take us on a whirlwind gourmet tour of Penang? I’m talking lots of eating until bursting, All the best places, several kilos weight gain in 2 days, lots of fun catching up and and absolutely nothing else for 48 hours! Come Come, Spread the word,  let me know!