Skip to main content

Tis the season to be jolly... Christmas Parties

Thankfully my favourite holiday - Christmas - is fast approaching and work is of a slower pace and people are winding down to the holiday season. I had my team party last Friday and the good thing about this role is that we can leave for Christmas team lunches and not head back to the office for the rest of the day. In my previous role, we had to follow the market trading times which ends at 4pm to get the closing rates and curves so we could not enjoy such a luxury.

We had lunch at a pizzeria in Shoreditch, a hippy part of town which is not too far from our office. The assistants who joined us brought along wigs for us to wear and we all had such good laughs wearing them and taking photos. I think that is an excellent idea for laughs. There were blonde ones (which they all insist I have to wear because it is completely unlike me), black ones, long ones, short ones... Even for the guys, there was an Elvis wig and one with dreadlocks which was hilarious. Started with cocktails each before lunch. And during lunch, there was like a neverending flow of wine. They ordered countless bottles, it was unreal. At the end, I couldn't believe the total bill because it was just a pizzeria! In any case, we moved on from the table after lunch to their bar for more photos and laughs (and drinks, what else) before adjourning to a 2h KTV session. When they sang Empire State of Mind, we made Allan wear the dreadlocks wig to rap and it was funnily apt.

We had the English version of KTV. Slightly different from what we are used to in Singapore. They don't do MTV style, rather they just have words on the screen. Oh oh and the rate for that private room - oh.my.goodness - was GBP225 for 2h! I think I might just quit my job to open a KTV place here in London. I shall charge them at a discounted rate of GBP200 for 2h next year. Insane!! No wonder Luke told me when he was in Singapore for student exchange, they went for
countless KTV sessions. (They must have thought it was dirt cheap.) Nonetheless all good fun, and as u can expect, more alcohol thru it all. I wasn't drunk coz I was stuffed with a huge pizza but it got to a point I felt like another sip of wine and I could puke. Eek! Obviously my colleagues enjoyed all those alcohol and were crazy happy and so KTV was really good fun when you are that happy. Singing skills don't count anymore.

Saturday morning, K and I woke up really early to join Rebecca my housemate and her friends for her birthday breakfast at Borough Market. She chose this Spanish cafe Brindisa which was different because I don't think I've had a Spanish fry up for breakfast. I had eggs on toast, fries and pan fried chorizos (Spanish sausages). Too full after that. Burp.

After that, I had to rush off to meet Daryl and Chloe to deliver a Christmas hamper to one of the single moms in church who attends my connect group. Chloe's connect group kindly made a food hamper for her and her little baby, and Daryl kindly agreed to be our driver.

Fast forward to Saturday night, I joined K and his friends for a Christmas party at Noelle's place. She lives in the posh west side of London in a nice 2 storey apartment (high ceilings- I like) and the crowd was a mix of Singaporeans and Taiwanese. The usual- food and gift exchange, and their favourite activity- a game of poker to end the day. Umm I mean, morning. Thankfully K joins them once in a long while for poker and last night was one of those nights, and I have to say I got really bored and was nodding off by 1am..

But before that,

They said that K and Jack did not dress up to the Christmas theme so had to "volunteer" to be Santa and a tree!! Meihui who organised naturally was the best dressed for the night in her green dress and red cape. I have to applaud these guys who were both very sporting.


And for some reason they all love to tease K so WK was taking a stack of newspapers to make a fake belly for him, whom they claim is the thinnest Santa they have ever seen. Who again,very sportingly put it under his Santa costume. Poor K! And suddenly all the girls wanted to have a picture with "Father Santa". They all joked that he must have not felt this popular before. haha


Santa and his mischievous elf. Santa showing off his new found belly.

Who looked like he was pregnant haha "How many months Santa?"

The cheeky guys

And with us girls

LinkSomeone give credit to Jack the tree who could nothing else but stand upright!

I don't think I will be blogging before Christmas (hence this long post) coz I am going to Stuttgart (yes again - hooray!) to spend Christmas with my second family. They have once again kindly invited me (and K this time!) over so I am really looking forward to seeing everyone and meet Sammy, the newest addition to the Tews family.

Merry Christmas everyone. Let us remember the real reason for this season - JESUS! I hope you will have a blessed time celebrating with family and loved ones.

Love, Bel :)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jubilee Weekend | Afternoon Tea Party

http://www.thediamondjubilee.org/ Today is the end of the Jubilee celebrations and how better to end it off than to have an afternoon tea party in the company of friends, while watching the celebrations on our TV.  It has been quite an emotional afternoon, in the good sense of course.  I don't think I've ever seen Queen Elizabeth on TV (and heard the national anthem God Save the Queen) more than these 3 days combined, but this Jubilee weekend has made me grew to love and admire this lady.  She is 86 and reminds me so much of my own granny, and her strength is amazing.  Imagine being sworn in as queen at the age of 26.  (I mean, what was I doing when I was 26?)  On Sunday when she and Prince Philip went onboard the Spirit of Chartwell boat to watch the River Pageant, it was cold and windy but they stood throughout the 3 hours event.  It was said she was offered some hot tea and a seat, which she both said no to.  I love my grandma but ...

Murder Mystery Dinner Party

Two Saturdays ago we were invited to the Kim's for a themed dinner, specifically a Murder Mystery dinner party.  What is that, you might ask.  It was our first time attending such a dinner too, and so how it works is: a group of people attend a dinner party.  Each is assigned a role and will be given a script to read that night.  The aim of the party is to identify a murderer in the midst of us by the end of the night.  The hosts would work off a dinner game set (they got it off Amazon) and it comes with proper invites, setting/ scene, table name cards, scripts and even a suggested menu.  Clearly RX is an Agatha Christie fan. Two weeks beforehand, we received our invites in the postbox, telling us what roles we each have been assigned and the suggested attire (and props if necessary).  Interesting yes? The dinner was to start at 7pm and we were to have 8 people that night.  It's all very mysterious… Our invitation cards assigned K the...

Cooking mee pok dry | bak chor and fishball noodles

When I touched down at Changi airport a few weeks ago, I was very hungry and K suggested grabbing a quick bite at the food court.  I immediately went for the queue at the bak chor (minced pork) noodles stall.  This one dish is very local and we simply can't find it here.  London's Chinatown has a few Malaysian restaurants with fried kway teow, chicken rice, laksa, etc but there is no authentic fishball noodles or minced pork noodles. When my friend Corinne shared this link last week, I was intrigued and I didn't know K was too.  He suggested going to the Asian supermarket on Sunday to get the necessary ingredients.  We found Dodo fishballs from Singapore here - what a win!  Unfortunately the mee pok (yellow, flat noodles) is of a darker shade here and tastes slightly different (maybe a different type of wheat?).  We found fishcakes too. http://delishar.com/2015/12/fishball-noodles-mee-pok-tah.html This is a healthier version of the hawker center'...