Dave’s Blog

Well not really, I was actually late for work today because my alarm clock stopped and failed to ring.

It *was* snowing this morning though.

Well not really, I was actually late for work today because my alarm clock stopped and failed to ring.

It *was* snowing this morning though.

I’m currently at the London NYE fireworks, waiting for them to start. It’s 10:30 and it’s already crazy packed. When I asked a colleague whether it was worth it to go to the fireworks, she asked me whether I liked people and crowds to which I replied, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have moved to London.

As usual, it’s been a long time since my last update. I guess I rely too much on my Facebook nowadays.

However, there are still those determined readers of this blog, which I have abandoned and I am ashamed for that. The shame! The shame! This Christmas, coming to a cinema near you, is the new Dave Blog, with more constant updates!

I’ve just hooked my blog back up to my Facebook profile. Let’s see if it works.

A new burrito place opened up next door to our office and their opening promotion is to offer free burritos to the staff of our firm along with two other large firms in the area.

It’s amazing how many people will turn out for free food. Even some of the traders (the most money-spinning people in the firm) abandoned their desks and queued up!

Dave’s been sick and hibernating at home.  Since last week I’ve been sick, which I’ve blamed squarely on my colleagues, who were sick just before me.  I’m now passing that baton onto others in the team.  I’m sure it’ll spread and come back to me.  Karma’s a bitch and comes back to you eventually.  So’s getting sick in London.

On the other hand, I have been happily pottering about at home, doing random things, cooking, cleaning, you know, domestics.  I really do need to get out of the house though, so perhaps this weekend will be it.  It’s all too easy to spend each weekend pottering about at home and not enjoying the scant bit of sunlight that is left before it gets all dark and gloomy again.  After having pretty normal length days, it’s going to be miserable when daylight savings ends at the end of the month and we go back to having the sun go down at 4:30 in the afternoon.

So to all my friends that I’ve not caught up with, my most sincere apologies.  I will be making more of an effort in coming weeks.

Oh, and in other news, Dave will be going back to Perth for a couple of weeks for Carmen’s wedding.  I fly into Perth late in the evening of the 27th and fly out late in the evening of the 10th.  You know me - I much prefer the late evening than the early morning.  Working early morning support at work is killing a little bit of me with each day that my alarm goes off at stupid o’clock in the morning.

Those of you in Hong Kong, I’ll be there for a brief spell from the 24th to the 27th.  C, that means you.

Our household is a late one, with most of us not going to bed usually until after midnight.  I think the summer months made this more of a problem, as we’d frequently eat dinner after 10pm.  With the sky still being light at 10pm, it just didn’t feel right to eat dinner before then.

Now that summer is but a brief memory, the darker months are rapidly setting in, with the weather turning back to the dark, cloudy, and rainy normality that pervades much of the year in Britain.  It’s also starting to get cold too, the kind of cold that can only be resolved by cranking up the central heating.

With winter quickly setting in, I wonder how long these late nights in our house will continue.  Then again, starting to watch The Godfather II at 1am probably wasn’t the smartest move (the move is over 4 hours long).

Wow!

Had a long weekend in Amsterdam a couple of weekends back, and I must say that I love this city.  It was a weekend of firsts.  It was also a weekend that wasn’t filled with the pressures of having to check all the “must-do’s” in Amsterdam - mainly because there aren’t a huge amount.  Sure, there’s visiting the coffee shops, the Red Light District, do a canal cruise, the Van Gogh Museum, the flower markets, but apart from that, most of everything else was either just really cruisy stuff like chilling out in a pub, or cheesy tourist traps like the Sex Museum and the Torture Museum (both crap).  I will definitely return, but just to ride a bike, chill out with a beer, and take in the laid-back Dutch atmosphere.  One thing you definitely don’t come to Amsterdam for is the food.  There isn’t really such a thing as Dutch cuisine, and that, in fact, is an oxymoron.

More than 30 years ago, my Dad was in Amsterdam, working in a Chinese restaurant, for a year, before going to Australia.  It was interesting to see the Chinese community there (Chinatown was right next to where we were staying, which was right next to the Red Light District).  I’m told that the Chinese arrived on the ships, where they were hired as cheap labour, to stoke the coal-fired turbines that used to power the massive floating beasts.  Amsterdam was, and still is, a major port.  And there are heaps of Chinese there.

Of course, the two main draws of Amsterdam is a result of its liberal attitudes to two vices that are otherwise illegal in most parts of the world - soft drugs and prostitution.  And in the Red Light District and surrounds, you can have both.  It is a real eye-opener to see the windows of the RLD, and to goggle at the women, some stunning, some really not stunning, all dressed up in lingerie or skimpy outfits, displaying their bodies for passers-by.  Photos are forbidden, although many people attempt to take them.  Come on, have a little respect for these working girls.  The famous coffee shops that sell dozens of varieties of marijuana are another attraction, and the sweet smell of marijuana is prevelant where ever there are large crowds.  In fact, the corridors of our cheap 3-star hotel carried this sickly sweet smell, which started to make me sick by the 3rd day.  3-star hotels are not the same all over the world.

Ours was dodgy, but it was a place to sleep.  On the plus side, it was close to the pub we were drinking at on the Saturday night.  A combination of lack of sleep, a huge quantity of alcohol, and good friends and bar maids contributed to my first experience of passing out and forgetting parts of the night.  I did manage to find my way back to the hotel, thankfully, although my friends couldn’t find their way back to the pub to pick me up.  I guess my sense of direction is good, even when completely out of it.  Unfortunately there are photos to remind me of the evening.  My Amsterdam photos are here - http://gallery.me.com/dave.chan#100418 - but there are a few on Facebook contributed by the always helpful M, which I only vaguely remember being taken, and they certainly weren’t on my camera.

So my first trip to Amsterdam.  It won’t be my last, but I think I might go easy on the drink next time round.

Went to watch Wicked last Thursday night with J, E, and K. It was a pretty good musical, with some good singing and a cool and fun take on the whole good and wicked witches. (Let’s just say that the wicked witch was so because she didn’t have a good PR manager). My favourite character would have to be the Wicked Witch. I could feel affinity for her at times, which is what that character is all about.

We paid £42 for our seats, which is more than I wanted to spend, and I still think is more than I should have spent, but I do like my musicals. Go see this one, just don’t pay £42.