Up-Closed and Personal Tower Bridge

 

Call me 'blessed' if you want, but I feel really blessed not just materially or career perspective  but also spiritually.  This Monday and Tuesday I had an opportunity to participate in another company event.  The event is an EALA wide event which stands for the regions Europe, Africa, Latin America.  The event took place in central London and right beside the famous London Tower Bridge.  There were about 10 of us representing the Dutch practice, 3 of us arriving early in London City Airport and have  a few good hours to enjoy the stroll by the bridge and early morning coffee.

When we checked into the hotel, all of the rest just got the normal low floor room but I was checked in to executive high floor with the perfect view of London Bridge welcomed me into the room.  I knew this was not by accident but the Lord was pampering me...The photo above was taken at around 5 GMT.

Finally this is the night scene of the Tower Bridge again after we had an enjoyable dinner (with never ending flow of Moët and Chandon champagne, excellence food) at a restaurant to celebrate the success and great place for networking.

In short, I witnessed the up-closed and personal view of Tower Bridge from the morning to the night.  Tower Bridge remains charming regardless of the time of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Pig Year!! 猪年快乐

The year of Pig is approaching in less than 48 hours!!  It is another Chinese New Year.  This year is MY year and also a special year for my favorite cartoon characters - McDull and McMug, who are the stars of the year of Pig as they are made of the pig figures, original Hong Kong creation.  Whether you consider this Hallal or Tidak Hallal, they are the best when it comes to cartoons.

We don't celebrate Chinese New Year here and it is not a big thing and thus we don't have any holiday or major celebration like re-union dinner, red packets, never ending eating, feasting like what you are going to do AGAIN this year.  To all my families and friends back in Asia, wishing you all a Happy Chinese New Year.

I am enclosing the picture of my favorite cartoon, McDull dressing in the red chinese motif top and imagining with the Mcdull's wisdom that he is going to enjoying the good food and perhaps ZZZZZZZzz in the coming Chinese New Year.

To end, with the special greetings from McDull - Happy Pig Year

麦兜祝你-猪年快乐，万事如意，新年进步，身体健康。

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

 

Tonight, this verse became a rhema word to me.  I do believe what I have long hope for and that I have not see will surely and soon come to the past in His time. AMEN

Quad Parcours

Today, I attended a focus group activity of my company.  The main purpose is to foster the relationship with members of the focus group and also to discuss the hottest corporate topic GP2W.  GP2W (Great Place To Work) is a corporate initiative with the main aims to make Accenture a great place to work and indirectly increase productivity and talent retention.  It took place at Dorhout Mees at Biddinghuizen nearby Lelystad.

Given the weather of +3C, it was relatively cold for outdoor activity.  However, I thoroughly enjoyed myself on this Friday afternoon.  It was good to set aside a Friday afternoon to focus on something completely different.  The first activity we did is called Quad Parcours, some form of racing but in a muddy and murky ground.  The vehicles is not too difficult to control and I had a joyful ride after all.

Despite of no competition, my colleague was trying to over take me from behind.  It was rather fun and enlightening, above all some form of physical activities that I desperately needed after a week of work.

 

CARPOOL

 

Skyline when we started our journey from home

Skyline of Rotterdam when we about to enter the city

These days I have the blessings of carpooling to work with Johannes.  Carpool is not a very common practice in Europe, but we decided to do it anyway.  After all, with Johannes now working in Rotterdam and I have to be at my client's head office 3 days a week that also happen to be in Rotterdam, it is indeed a brilliant idea.  We are contributing positively to the environment by travel in one car and also allow us to spend more time together.  After all, I have a car park reserved for me by my client.  The only disadvantage is that I have to start very early (since I am not a morning person) as Johannes starts his work at 8:15am.  However, so long as I sleep early and well the night before, I like the idea of starting early.  There is absolute solitary in the morning that I can get things done in the peace of mind before the other come in by 9am.  I also get the opportunity to enjoy the early morning scenery by observing the colour changing in the sky....  

Finally SNOW in the Netherlands!

 

As per the weather forecast, we finally have the out poured of snow today.  I was told by my co-worker who asked for permission to work from home tomorrow instead of driving all the way to Rotterdam due to the anticipation of the weather.

This morning I woke up full of expectation that I will see the houses and the garden to be covered by beautiful fresh white snow.  But...,I was disappointed because I woke up and the usual grey sky welcomed me.

 

A few hours later, just before I finished with my first con-call of the day, I looked out to the window and the snow flakes started to pour down from the sky, rather heavily.  It was rather pretty as if the Lord is pouring out His glory and blessings from Heaven above.

With a few more hours of snowing, the area is covered with white, I managed to take two photos.  The one on top was taken around 10am when the snow just started, the 2nd photo was taken about 3 hours later when I had my late lunch break.

Another common norm for this country, snow is not here to stay, it is usually melts away as soon as it stops snowing.  Outside is getting murky now and by tomorrow, snow will be washed away....

Creative Writing

Last night we went all the way to Amsterdam to attend a creative writing workshop organized by Open University UK.

The session took place in an English Bookshop along Lauriegracht.  There were around 14 of us including the facilitators.  David Stephenson is the lead of the evening and he took us through the basis of creative writing by asking us to work in a group of 2 to 4, first described about the last book we read.  The highlight was when he gave each group a black and white photo and then asked us to observe the photo carefully and write down our impression and our story.  It is amazed that later when we shared our stories, each of us, despite of working on the same photo, came out with completely different story.

It was Johannes that first enrolled himself to this session, I am sort of just coming along person.  I also benefited from the session and hopefully I will be able to apply some of this skill in my blog writing...