I am currently in Helsinki for company training, and it's still early here, so I thought I'd upload some photos.

It was a 12 hour flight to Frankfurt for transit, and I arrived there at about 5 in the early morning. I met up with a colleague of mine, and he brought me to the Lufthansa lounge for some snacks and drinks.

The stupid thing is that I have to go through the passport and luggage check everytime I move from 1 section of the terminals to another. I was about to meet my colleague in 1 terminal, when my flight was diverted to another gate in another terminal, and I had to queue up again to go through it. For an airport hub that is the interchange for so many interconnecting flights in Europe, you'd have thought they'd be more efficient than this.

The good thing was that I had a very good sleep on the flight to Frankfurt. I was sitting in 1 of 2 aisle seats for my row of 4 seats, and besides another old lady on the other aisle seat, there were 2 empty seats between us. So we just took turns to sleep on the empty seats, and although it was a little cramped, we could afford to sleep horizontally.

Helsinki is a pretty small city, although the taxi fares are pretty steep. The meter starts at 6.60 Euros, and a 20 minutes drive to the hotel costs 27 Euros. I'm not the one who's paying, so...

My colleague and I went out for a walk around the city centre, and the weather was bewildering. It was drizzling one minute, and then bright sunshine another, although the temperature was in the cool 10s throughout. Nice weather, although it got a little chilly when the sea breeze came in.

Although it got dark pretty late, most of the shops were closed, so we went back to our hotel after an early dinner. So there goes my first day in Helsinki. Take a look at the photos, I'll update as soon and often as I can.

Christine, Meng's daughter, had a birthday party on Labour Day.

There were lots of other kids invited as well, and to entertain them, there were professional party organizers from McDonalds who conducted game sessions with the kids. The food was pretty good, and football was shown on the huge projector screen for the guys, so there was something for everyone.

Belated Happy Birthday Christine! Photos are here.

It has been hectic for the previous few weeks, so I have little time to write.

Jas and I have been going to visit contractors, bridal shops, jewellery shops etc during our free time in the evenings and during the weekends. Progress has been slow but steady, and we are getting a clearer picture of what we want.

I was away in JB last week, for a team building event, and it was nice to know my new colleagues. This week, I attended a 5-day Siebel training course, and out of the 15 working days since I joined, I have only been in the office for 7 days. Heh, pretty good start eh?

The blog has been getting some spam comments, so I'm thinking about how to stop them, without inconveniencing everybody who genuinely wants to leave a comment.

And yesterday, the 26th of April, marks the 1 year anniversary of my brother and I coming back to Singapore. A lot has happened since then, we're at our second jobs, and we're to vote for the coming GE in Ang Mo Kio GRC. Good memories, Head of China Operations (private joke) eh?

So how have you been?

I've uploaded the photos I took at Sebana Cove, so hit the link.

We went to Pasir Ris Park on Saturday for a picnic with some of our friends.

We decided on pot luck for lunch, so all of us brought something to contribute to lunch; Yuanxiang baked a cake and made sandwiches, while the rest of us just bought some finger food. The weather was perfect, and we soon filled our stomachs, although the butter cake was a bit filling.

After lunch, the girls went off to buy some drinks, while the guys entertained ourselves with card games. We played a wicked game where the loser has to eat a piece of cake, and we were all begging for mercy before long.

The skies grew gray, and random droplets gave a hint of the rain to come, so we decided to pack up and move to Meaw and Wenqi's place. Wendy was especially delighted with the move for some reasons, all 148 of them.

Evening gradually beckoned, and we had dinner at the coffee shop downstairs, after which we called it a day, and went our separate ways home. I think everybody enjoyed the rare outing at the beach, although I can't say I have fond memories of the cake. Then again, I shouldn't be complaining, as Melinda has a worse fate than me. Heh.

P.S. Photos are uploaded at the usual place.

It has been a week since I started work at the new place, and it has been a mixed experience, so far.

I didn't manage to meet anybody from HR on my first day, but I found that I have quite a few ex-colleagues in the same team, so I managed to find my way around pretty well. I got issued with a new laptop, a new SIM card, and a new, massively HUGE handphone.

I manage to catch the company transport to and from the office, and it was especially good to be able to be browsing the Apple Centre at Wheelock's Place before 6 in the evening. Other benefits include free fruits during lunch, free flow of coffee and other beverages, massage sessions by blind masseurs, and also personal trainers in the company gym. Marvellous stuff, employee benefits. Heh.

Anyway, I was talking to a colleague who was supposed to brief me on my roles and responsibilities, and here's what he said: "Most of us are involved in multiple projects; we deal with multiple parties to solve different technical issues, but our main job, regardless of the project, is that we're here to stop the business users from doing stupid things."

If there is a more succinct way of describing any engineer or developer's scope of work, I have yet to hear it. Brilliant stuff.

So far, so good. Fingers crossed, I may yet enjoy my stay here.