Time flies...
Door: Yaisa
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Yaisa
21 Maart 2007 | Singapore, Singapore
a) when you're having fun
b) working 11 hours a day
c) have visitors from back home
d) all of the above.
For those of you who guess the right answer, the prize is delicious chilli or black pepper crab along the East Coast when you come and visit (note the "when", not "if").
Goodness, time is definitely flying by. We can hardly believe we've been here almost for 4 months already! We're running short of time to write stories for our weblog as work is piling up, both for Timmo and myself... It is past 8 pm as I'm writing and we're still at the office. But we both find our work extremely challenging and eventhough we work long hours, so far, it's very gratifying.
Enough about work... hold on, just one more work related comment; like all our colleagues around the world, we are closely following the development around the merger talk between Barclays and ABN AMRO. Coincidentally, Barclays and ABN AMRO are in the same building here in Singapore... did Rijkman Groenink realise that when he officially opened this new ABN AMRO office?? At least that we won't have any costs once all the offices have to integrate... :-) To put your minds at ease, for now we are totally not worried about these merger talks. Barclays sounds like a good partner and is not big at all in Asia. Meaning that there will be plenty of space for us from ABN AMRO, to run the business in Asia. And if not, we'll just move to Citibank... bank employees continously seem to job hop back and forth from ABN AMRO to Citibank, so why not us? :-)
Enough said! Now about our dragon boat race... did we win, did we lose??? Well, we feel like champions, but we're not really... :-( We didn't do too well in the first race, but got into the B-finals. Halfway during these finals (at around 200 m., the race being 500 m. in total) we were in first position and ready to charge in order to cement our victory... were it not for another boat to ram us from the back!! Their coxman obviously had no clue as how to steer the boat, as they came all the way from the second lane into our fourth lane to ram us at full speed... Well that was the end of our taste of success and we ended up fourth, leaving behind only the boat that rammed us and who were disqualified anyway... Needless to say that our coach stressed that we were ahead before we got rammed and that in his mind, we were the winners of the race... Well, we certainly didn't loose any sleep over this mishap and both really enjoyed the event! Apparently the next race is 10 km long as opposed to the 500 meters we rowed this weekend. Hmm, not too sure about my participation in that torturous ordeal!!
In the meantime Viola (Timmo's mom) and Betty (Bas' mom) spent their first few days in Singapore. They are now travelling around Bangkok and will be coming back next weekend to spend another 4 days with us. We were showered with cheese, Dutch candy and chocolate (among many things) and took them to enjoy our favourite eating spots, went to the botanical gardens with them (beautiful!!!) and went shopping on Orchard Road... so much more to see and do with them when they come back!
Anyway, while I'm looking forward to a quick visit to Holland, the first week of April (for Ying Wei's graduation - at last!!!), I'll close off this weblog by promising that we will post some pictures of our life in Singapore soon...
Lots of love,
Timmo & Yaisa
b) working 11 hours a day
c) have visitors from back home
d) all of the above.
For those of you who guess the right answer, the prize is delicious chilli or black pepper crab along the East Coast when you come and visit (note the "when", not "if").
Goodness, time is definitely flying by. We can hardly believe we've been here almost for 4 months already! We're running short of time to write stories for our weblog as work is piling up, both for Timmo and myself... It is past 8 pm as I'm writing and we're still at the office. But we both find our work extremely challenging and eventhough we work long hours, so far, it's very gratifying.
Enough about work... hold on, just one more work related comment; like all our colleagues around the world, we are closely following the development around the merger talk between Barclays and ABN AMRO. Coincidentally, Barclays and ABN AMRO are in the same building here in Singapore... did Rijkman Groenink realise that when he officially opened this new ABN AMRO office?? At least that we won't have any costs once all the offices have to integrate... :-) To put your minds at ease, for now we are totally not worried about these merger talks. Barclays sounds like a good partner and is not big at all in Asia. Meaning that there will be plenty of space for us from ABN AMRO, to run the business in Asia. And if not, we'll just move to Citibank... bank employees continously seem to job hop back and forth from ABN AMRO to Citibank, so why not us? :-)
Enough said! Now about our dragon boat race... did we win, did we lose??? Well, we feel like champions, but we're not really... :-( We didn't do too well in the first race, but got into the B-finals. Halfway during these finals (at around 200 m., the race being 500 m. in total) we were in first position and ready to charge in order to cement our victory... were it not for another boat to ram us from the back!! Their coxman obviously had no clue as how to steer the boat, as they came all the way from the second lane into our fourth lane to ram us at full speed... Well that was the end of our taste of success and we ended up fourth, leaving behind only the boat that rammed us and who were disqualified anyway... Needless to say that our coach stressed that we were ahead before we got rammed and that in his mind, we were the winners of the race... Well, we certainly didn't loose any sleep over this mishap and both really enjoyed the event! Apparently the next race is 10 km long as opposed to the 500 meters we rowed this weekend. Hmm, not too sure about my participation in that torturous ordeal!!
In the meantime Viola (Timmo's mom) and Betty (Bas' mom) spent their first few days in Singapore. They are now travelling around Bangkok and will be coming back next weekend to spend another 4 days with us. We were showered with cheese, Dutch candy and chocolate (among many things) and took them to enjoy our favourite eating spots, went to the botanical gardens with them (beautiful!!!) and went shopping on Orchard Road... so much more to see and do with them when they come back!
Anyway, while I'm looking forward to a quick visit to Holland, the first week of April (for Ying Wei's graduation - at last!!!), I'll close off this weblog by promising that we will post some pictures of our life in Singapore soon...
Lots of love,
Timmo & Yaisa
-
21 Maart 2007 - 12:59
Hanneke:
Hé Yaïsa en Timmo,
Wij zijn de vakantie aan het plannen naar Australië. Als alles goed gaat vliegen we 26/12 heen en 18/1 terug. We blijven ca. 2 weken in Sydney en gaan 1 week rondtrekken richting Blue Mountains.
Alex is heel heel zwanger en kan ieder moment bevallen (ze is voor vandaag uitgerekend!!). Alles gaat goed en ze kan niet wachten.
Rob en ik gaan in september naar een concert van the Police. We hebben op de valreep kaarten kunnen bemachtigen, en alle plaatsen waren binnen een uur uitverkocht.
Voor de rest gaat alles prima. Ik ben benieuwd of we elkaar nog zien in OZ. Laat het nog even weten!!
Groetjes en liefs,
Hanneke -
21 Maart 2007 - 13:02
Alex:
Wat leuk om jullie berichten te lezen! Zoals Hanneke net zei (Han, jij bent echt héél snel :-)) ik zit te wachten... daar is het des te leuker om e-mails uit de verte te ontvangen!! -
21 Maart 2007 - 13:31
Walter:
Nix mis met Citibank en (evt) weer terug :-)
Klinkt goed daaro!
Groet,
Walter -
21 Maart 2007 - 19:51
Iris:
He Yais,
mooi te horen dat aan de andere kant ook nog een beetje wordt gewerkt...:-)
Wij zijn inmiddels ook aan het plannen.....zeker is dat we hier 1 Dec willen vertrekken en rond 31 januari weer in NL moeten zijn.....Laatst besproken plan ;-) is dat we naar Cairns gaan, van daaruit naar beneden in 4 weken en O&N in Sydney. Vervolgens nog een weekje daar rondhangen en naar Singapore/ Maleisie. We moeten 6 April even een planning alignment sessie houden om te zien of dit bij iedereen past....
Leuk, tot snel!
Kus voor allebei...
-
21 Maart 2007 - 19:52
Iris:
Scusi, het was natuurlijk He Yais en Timmo!!!! :-) -
22 Maart 2007 - 15:13
Anjo:
Die tien kilometer kunnen toch wel?
Het is zo'n mooie uitdaging! -
23 Maart 2007 - 15:17
Maria:
Hoi dame,
Vind het harstikke leuk om te lezen en ben benieuwd naar de fotos van het prachtige Singapore. Groeten hier van de 10e verdieping.
groet,
Maria
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