And so, after a drunken night, we had supper which was grilled chicken from roadside stalls that just tasted oh-so-good, and then we hung out at the balcony for a bit talking about I don't-really-know-what, then we decided to rest a bit so that we could wake up in time to go for our snorkelling trip.  Was rudely awakened at 8am.  Grabbed a change of clothes, my day bag and some other things before rushing out to breakfast with the rest.  The guides picked us up at 830 sharp.  The ride which was really just the back of a pickup wasn't that great as I could still smell alcohol in my breath and my stomach was kinda churning.  I forced myself to drink water on the boat ride as we commenced our island hopping.  We visited 4 beaches in total, and we probably spent more time hanging out on the beach and cam-whoring than snorkelling.  The birthday girl was stung by a sea-urchin but was still doing fine.  I felt better as the morning became afternoon.  I made sure I hydrated myself well.  We hit Hong Island at midday and had some lunch.  Was pretty good.  Chicken with pepper and mint leaves and green curry was awesome with fried rice.  Perfect for post drinking cure.  Hong Island was beautiful.  Had a main beach where boats could land with tourists and crew.   However, its main draw was a big lagoon flanked by cliffs.  Fish were plenty and people fed them often.  Shoals of fish gathered in the area and people could relax by the beach with its beautiful white sand, or frolick in the clear water with the fish.  We would hang out there later.  We went for our kayaking trip first.  It was pretty eventful, we got to explore a mangrove lagoon.  Its really weird because the water at high tide only becomes waist deep.  Played with starfish there.  We encountered some people living in a cave on the island.  They had a hammock that hung above the water and overlooked the other islands.  Pretty good view, just a rather boring lifestyle in my opinion.  As we continued on, we saw a monitor lizard scrambling out of the water and up the cliffs, among other wildlife.  It was a good trip.  We got back to the beach at around 230pm and hung out at the lagoon.  Our boat ride back was so serene.  We all fell asleep.  We were only awoken towards the end of the trip when our boat hit some strong waves and became quite unbalanced.  We survived the trip back to the beach and got back to our hotel rather dry......

I decided I needed a day off for the month of January.  The next holiday did not come till February, where all us chinese people will celebrate the Lunar New Year.  So I cleared 1 day off-in-lieu for a public holiday last year.  And I packed my bags and headed off with a couple of my dragonboat friends.  It was the first time I was travelling with them and yea it felt a little awkward; I didn't even hang out much with this gang in the first place!  Well, good time to get to know my team mates better (If you're thinking that I should know my team mates well, give me a break - there are 60 people in the team.  Inevitable we break up into cliques).  Anyway, I booked my tickets for Krabi and got ready for a budget beach get-away holiday.

In true fashion, I took the MRT with my 50L trekking backpack and headed to the Budget Airport.  Grabbed a coffee and immediately ran into my team mates.  It was surprisingly easy to talk to them.  I immediately knew this was going to be a good trip and I wasn't wrong.  We did a little bit of waiting for each other but we still had time to grab some lunch and board the plane last.  The air stewardesses probably tried hard not to slam the doors on our asses.

I'm getting a little tired at the moment.  Will blog more about it sometime later.

I find it harder and harder to get myself to blog on Xanga, especially when most of my work involves word processing, typing out emails and letters to members of the general public.  It just gets so.... tedious.  But at least on this space my words and opinions are of my own free will and have no effect on others whatsoever.

I digress.  As a new year starts, I am looking forward to a change of seasons from the wet and cloudy days over here to the sunny ones.  Of course, when it gets sunny here, it becomes boiling hot as well.  At least I will be able to get tan again and enjoy training sessions at Kallang and Sentosa.  Training as restarted and I find myself easing back into the routine slowly.  It's a little different this time round as I have a higher workload and I find myself rushing about more and more.  Perhaps that's called an "improvement" of my jobscope.  GREAT.

I also realize that there are no holidays this year in January.  That's pathetic!  I have to slog in office for a whole month before we get to Chinese New Year.  And the Chinese New Year period clashes with Valentines Day.  Yes, I'll admit I'm the crappy type of romantic and place importance on that day.  However, now that it clashes with the festive period where it's the only period where I get to catch up with my cousins, I'm afraid I'll have to push that day with her forward.  Maybe I'll bring it forward to the end of January.  I already know what I'm gonna get her.  The thing is, what should I do with her on that designated day?  Guess that's what I'm gonna puzzle over for the next 2 weeks.

Time to get ready for training.  Out.