Busy week of work...

Crazy busy work week this week...

It was busy but happy, though, and most importantly, it was very productive, proving that the new office environment is working out very well ;)

Gosh, I am so glad that I have the close startup office environment back!!! The face-to-face interaction, immediate responses, effective technical discussions, and, creative questions, as well as the friendly atmosphere filled with causal chats, jokes, etc... It feels so refreshing to have an AWESOME team again too!!! (Yea sorry, all you sucky finance engineers at investment banks. It's rude but I still have to say it - I don't think I want to debug your shitty code and debate with you the importance of testing/refactoring in software development EVER AGAIN!!!)

Anyways, back to the new office! Now we just need a big white broad for writing down our new ideas, discussion notes, flow diagrams -- then we'll have a nice, "complete" office for ourselves!! ;) YAY!!!

Me at office, all energetic and awake, at the beginning of a work week.















Tired me, after a full week of work, yawning at 3am Friday....

Time for bed.....










Despite the fact that we are working our asses off most of the time and busy as hell, we are incredibly happy about our current work life in Hong Kong. Actually, not only the work life, I like everything in/about Hong Kong!!! ^_______^

Though I am guessing Mike might have a slightly different opinion about the cleanliness of restaurant food in Hong Kong... ;) But other than that, it's GREAT here!!!




















To reward ourselves for this week of hard work, we went to see an action musical called Terracotta Warriors (兵馬俑) at the Hong Kong Cultural Center on Friday night.
I think it was so-so.

The martial arts parts were great and entertaining but the group dancing parts were weak. The dancers were not synchronized for the most part. A bit disappointed... (the first musical that I watched in HK のに)
>_____<

Family's old friends

WHAT? Jackie and .... a baby?!?!?!?!
Don't worry, not that Jackie is having a baby!!!

The cute little baby in his hands belongs to a family friend. Her family was the first family that we knew after we moved to the US. They had helped us a lot.

M0m and Jackie had dim sum with them in the US recently and sent me pictures of their gathering. Looking at the pictures reminded me of a lot of things that had happened since we knew each other.... wow, 10 years already!!









Priscilla, an old friend from fellowship from long time ago, is the REAL mom of the baby boy.

Haven't seen her in ages, she looks a lot more mature now ;)
Is it the Power of being a mom? hehe.... ^_^














We knew their family for a long time...
I am especially glad that my family is still in touch with their family. (Mostly thanks to mom!! ^_^ )

I felt really amazed to see a younger friend from childhood had moved into a totally different stage of life!!










The baby is sooooooooooo CUTE!!! (A mixed baby, her husband is a Caucasian) ^_^ Mike thinks the baby looks totally like a White baby, no traces of Asian at all. But I think he looks more Chinese than White... We'll see! =D

Though looking at my mom's happy face while holding the little baby.... Does make me wonder if she is secretly hoping to hold her grandchildren anytime soon.... ;)











Mom also sent me pictures of our front yard in the US.
Wow... I don't remember ever seeing such pretty flowers in the yard before. I wonder how much effort dad has put in to keep the flowers so fully-bloomed?! ;)
Anyways, dad, you have done an amazing job!!!










Mike and I missed the chance to see cheery blossom in Japan this year. (The urge to leave Japan was so great that no pretty views or famous attractions could make us stay an extra month just to wait for the cherry blossom season.) We sometimes felt it's a pity to not have seen it in Japan after staying there for a whole year. But after seeing this picture, I felt a bit ironic that there is actually really pretty cheery blossom right in front of my parents' house front yard!!!

First day at new office

After we had everything set up properly, the desks, chairs, internet, laptops, monitors, etc, we finally started working at the new office!!! Yay!! ^___^

I can't help but snapping a few quick pictures to capture this memorial moment!!!

My desk~ Yea, just the laptop for now, unwilling to move my LCD monitor from home yet... (I need it to browse and watch video!!!)






















Andrei's desk, won the "Most Complete Setup Award"!!!! ^___________^ (No wonder he insisted on getting a HUGE desk, look at how much stuff he has!!)










Mike's desk. Same as me, still the laptop for now. I guess he can easily comb his hair anytime now, with the gigantic mirror right behind him, how convenient!! ;)










"So how should we prioritize the database/backup stuff..." Andrei asked.

"I think we should..." Mike, in the middle of his sentence.

"Hey guys, here!!" Me, the crazy girl who rudely interrupted the very productive technical discussion. ;) haha....





"Sorry guys, don't be mad. I won't do it again!!"

And of coz, they already went back to their technical discussion, ignoring the little rude interrupter.




















Well.... I am not always just "playing". Look, I am working very diligently!!! See!!
























And then got interrupted by the camera man ;)









I LIKE OUR NEW OFFICE !!!!!!!!!!
^______________________^

California-style earthy cafe

Both Mike's parents and my parents told us that we spent too much time working but not enough time to ourselves just to go out and have fun, so....

Taking their advice, we decided to give ourselves a work-free holiday this Sunday. It was a long break from eating out at a restaurant since Mike had a pretty bad food poisoning last Sunday night. After several days of "home-cooked food" (well... mostly just PBJ and canned soup, the best was some simple fried rice...), he finally regained appetite. (Thank god!!!) But to play safe (well... need to rebuild his confidence on restaurant food again), we went to a Western vegetarian cafe in Soho. (The rationale here is that he firmly believes that a western restaurant is cleaner than a Chinese restaurant...)

He chose an organic, vegetarian cafe at Soho called Life.

If I haven't been there myself and someone just gives me this picture and asks me to guess where this cafe is, I'll tell you it is a cafe in California. Check out that huge wooden wall-mounted wine bar/book shelf, the colorful chalk board with cursive font English menu and also the generally "chill" atmosphere of the cafe... (I can immediately name 5 or 6 cafes with that similar style and decoration in the Bay in San Francisco already).




Though the big windows exposing the semi-old looking tall flats outside betrayed the Californian-style decoration. ;)






















There are some other interesting decorations on the other side of the room. Don't ask me what those long, thin metal things hanging from the ceiling are, I have no idea... They do give the whole place an extra earthy feeling though. (as long as they don't fall, heh...) =D








Menu is earthy-looking too ;)
Both Chinese and English descriptions are present. But from what I saw that day, the customers were mostly westerners... Can't blame, just look at the price....









Mike, carefully picking his lunch from the menu.
Interestingly enough, he originally picked this cafe because they have his "long-missed" veggie burger; however, he ended up picking some other dishes. I asked him later why he didn't choose the veggie burger.

"What??!!!! They have it??? But I didn't see it in the menu..."

"You need new glasses..."

Though I personally think what really happened was that he got distracted by the diversity of the menu and forgot about his original "target".

Well, the truth is - it did't really matter, because... (to be continued...)








Mike's pick, some Mediterranean snack platter.
It has some fried pita-looking things, a whole roasted garlic, roasted peppers, some chewy flour biscuit thing (not the tasty type~), a few different types of olives, and a spoonful of avocado mix & some other bean mix. Some carrot and lettuce was added on top as a final touch.

Except the pita, everything on this plate was just so-so.... Kinda a waste, considering how many fresh, organic (as the restaurant claimed) ingredients were used in this dish....













For me, I ordered a "Nachos". Honestly, when I ordered this, I was expecting lots of lots of greasy chips with a yummy dip made from very unhealthy ingredients, such as cheese, sour cream, salsa, avocado mix, etc... (the American style).


Kinda like this - my imagined Nachos...











But it turned out to be like this

"Nachos" - the earthy, healthy (boring) version

They use wheat cracker-like pastries instead of the yummy greasy chips; and just mere avocado mix instead of the yummy cheese-salsa variety dip...

Very disappointed. . . =(




Lastly, the cauliflower and broccoli soup. Looked pretty good, but I ended up adding like 1/3 of the salt from the salt container into the soup... I have to say it's one of the tasteless western soup I have ever had...

And the bread - one word - stale...






You can imagine how disappointed we were (especially when the bill came)!!

I guess the conclusion of the day is that branching-out does not guarantee you good results (especially when it comes to food)!!! ;)

Hehe... but I still believe - you won't know, unless you try !!! So I think we'll keep trying new stuff!!!

Yay, we got an OFFICE !!! (Part 2)

After settling the lease and confirming that we got the place, we continued the process of setting up our brand-new grand office!!

First, came the new chairs....

Me, staring at the spot (roughly) at which my chair/desk will be placed, trying to decide whether my monitor should be facing the North or South side. (haha... don't worry, I don't know any "feng shui", nor do I care...)
And don't mind the purple-pinkish color of that particular chair in the middle... Let's just say that Mike has "special" taste... ;)
The other chairs are of normal colors ^_^










After we got all the chairs, here came the gigantic, modern-looking, pretty wood-colored desks.... in the process of being assembled (by the guy from the shop where we bought the desks. As you can see CLEARLY from the picture, who was NOT working but just sitting and chilling.... ;)











Well... and even (pretended to) play a bit of rock music to "entertain" us. (The poor guy from the shop who needed to ignore our crazy friend here and kept assembling the desks for us...) =p





















And finally, "done-done-done-DONE...." (well, bear with my not-so-obvious "musical drum sound"~) =D
Finally, the office was coming into shape.... in a fairly rapid fashion. (which is a very good sign =D )











Just to clarify - I didn't tell them to pose in this picture. What you saw here definitely reflects their "true inner-self".... (^_~)v
Andrei (left) : "Yeah, it frecking ROCKS, MAN!!!" (designed dialog - at a Rave party in the 90's, featuring the madness of Russian... or... just Andrei?! )

Mike (right) : "How can I help you, sir?" (designed dialog - at a mall's customer service dept in Tokyo, featuring the extreme politeness and formality in any malls in Japan...)







After finished all that setup work at the new office, we somehow still managed to work for 6 hours, went to Jap class (well, this was only me), and even watched the entire 2 hour-long classic Cantonese movie 賭神 (God of Gamblers) .... AMAZINGLY busy and yet fulfilling day!!!


Speaking of God of Gamblers, it's truly a classic.... doesn't matter you have seen it 10 times, 20 times, etc., still so AWESOME!!!


(Though this does make you wonder why his so-called Hollywood movies were so shitty....)

Yay, we got an OFFICE !!!

After 2 full days of walking around in Causeway Bay and looking at (at least) 20+ places with various housing agents, we finally found a place that we all like! We will have an office next week~ How AWESOME is that!!?! ^_^


Interestingly enough, the place that we like the most was the very first place we looked at... (same thing happened to us when we were shopping around for our apt....)











Our new office, nice and big and bright!! (and I really dig the big mirror, hehe....)












Our camera man, Andrei, busily documenting and keeping track of all the places that we have seen.











Next step will be to "solidify" our new office and shop for new desks and chairs!!! Busy week ahead !!!! ^_^