Happy New Year

Fai Chun at my door

Yesterday was New Year's Eve and I was extremely busy with all the bureaucratic redcap of getting invoices paid, bank transfers etc... for books ordered by the libraries. It was traumatic as each time I need lawyers to help me out. Yes ... it is that complicated and thank God your system is alot less stressful. Yesterday was a full 4 hours of waiting and phone calls before things worked out.

Reunion dinner

In the evening we had the Reunion Dinner at Mandarin Restaurant as we always do every year. There were 16 of us from Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, Canada and China. It was good to be able to share the dinner and celebrate the New Year. Ah Ling slow-boiled chicken soup, and we had the usual noodles and rice, dumplings, lots of veggies. We all enjoyed it and especially when we could all meet up at least once a year. Usually our timetables are uncoordinated and we are seldom all together for monthly meetings. Anyway I was feeling unwell and very tired so luckily we ended early and I went home to sleep.

My altar

Morning came with a beautiful golden sunshine ... and lovely start to the New Year. Well the rest of Israel went on as usual. It was difficult for me to tell my jewish friends it's the year of the pig/boar as it's an unclean animal. But most of my jewish friends accepted it and laughed, without getting offended. I had to get back to more bank bureaucracy and paperwork which ended at 1pm ... another 4 hours. And there were any bills to be paid ... which is a no-no on the 1st day of the year ... but I had to get them done. Managed to stop by the asian restaurant "Thailandi" to order 4 noodle takeaways. My arab friend was working there as well as the thai cook this morning so it was good to see them ... and they gave me a bigger share with an extra Springroll. They are always so generous to me. Well I gave 2 packs to our library staff for lunch and another 2 packs to our Curia staff. They all enjoyed it.

I was hoping to rest in the afternoon but more calls to work. So here I am at 8.45pm in my office. Exhausted. Am going home to sleep.