Christmas in paradise

I have booked my dream Christmas.

Last Christmas, after a few consecutive years of not really enjoying this time of year, I made a decision that I didn't want to spend Christmas 2012 in the UK feeling like a spare tyre in other people's Christmas celebrations. Instead I wanted to be on a beach somewhere in the sunshine. I finally booked my flights tonight. I shall be spending Christmas 2012 in Boracay, an island in the Philippines with my dear friend Kay. I cannot WAIT!!

I finish work on the 21st and fly out of Hong Kong on the 22nd for a whole week away before returning on the 28th to see the New Year in on the harbour in Hong Kong. I am excited to leave Hong Kong on an adventure to somewhere new. By then I would have been here for five months and I think leaving Hong Kong, and then returning will be a big moment as it'll feel like I'm coming home, my new home, Hong Kong.

I am very keen to see the New Year in here as I also remember, like it was yesterday, waking up on New Year's Day this year and deciding that 2012 was going to be my 'Champagne Year'.

To do all of this with one of my closest friends will truly be amazing and a dream come true. Only 57 days to go.

Wednesday got me thinking about the balance again. I feel it deserves a capital B as it is a running theme in my life. Learning to fight or fly, stay or go, battles or admitting defeat. Time management is also a running theme. I left work at 6.30 even though I hadn't finished what I was doing as my eyes were going blurry and I was feeling overwhelmed with everything. I made the decision to leave and look at it again tomorrow with fresh eyes and a new day. It's all a learning curve,. I have already found myself in a slightly tricky situation with the team and will have to see how it is concluded in the next few days. I was unsure of how to deal with the situation, so spoke with my manager, who then called someone else, who then arranged a conference call to discuss. I wasn't sure whether I had blown something out of proportion, or whether the disagreement was justified? Either way, I will have to face the music and carry on fighting my point.

Office dynamics are very interesting to me. How people work together to get things done. The greater impact on the whole business. How all the cogs work together.

Relocation or vacation

Monday morning blues turned into another day in Hong Kong. After a moody Monday morning, I slowly came out of my Monday misery and ended the day on a high.

There was no particular reason I was feeling blue this morning, I just was. I went running and thought to myself 'I have relocated to the other side of the world, found myself a job, and an apartment and have fallen into the same routine that I was in back in the UK'. Was I still on a journey?

Work distracted me from continuing these thoughts as I worked my way through phone calls I had scheduled the week before. I went for lunch with the girls to a lovely little restaurant called Charlie's. I have been to a few eateries recently and felt quite let down by the promise of good food and it turning out very average. A theme of expectations not being met is developing. After a pretty miserable weekend I was glad for this little treat of a surprise in the lunch break.  The girls had been planning all morning and by lunch had booked a 1/2 marathon in February and a bike ride on Lantau Island next week for the bank holiday Tuesday. Hong Kong loves it's bank holidays, and I love Hong Kong for it. It has 17 each year.

The afternoon went swiftly and I left the office at 6 to collect my newly heeled shoes and head home for a Skype with my cousin who has just returned from the trip of a lifetime sailing around Indonesia. It was lovely to hear all about his adventures, although it made me jealous, just a little. I hope my dear cousin and I will be reunited soon in Hong Kong. He really is one of my favourite people and I miss him.

We talked about committing to our careers and it made me think that now really is the time to grow up and join the real world. That even though every job right now feels like days on end of email writing, that this is the start of building business relationships, which eventually lead to working relationships and finally your clients becoming your friends. I am so very early on in my career that right now is the time to start focusing on the long-term rewards of working hard and committing to developing business skills and relationships.

That staying a year or two isn't going to get you much further than the email stage and that relationships take time and there is a lot of people in my company to look up to.

Learning to commit and the benefits

One of those things

On Thursday I had to attend my first event, a book launch for IFlR1000, a publication including a list of all the top law firms and top deals over the past year. It was an opportunity for me to meet with potential speakers and network with the people I will be speaking with to produce the best events. It was also a great chance to chat to people from work outside of the office.

There was a sense of anticipation and excitement in the office. We headed to the venue at 4pm to set up at the venue. It was in the heart of Central in a bar called Azure, on the 29th floor of LKF hotel (the hotel lobby was on floor 12)

The entire top floor was reserved for the cocktail party. There was panoramic views of the city, it was all very grand.

We got to work packing gift bags for all the guests. There was a lovely atmosphere amongst us all. Lots of laughing and getting to know each other. Two hours after arriving the guests started to filter in and the wine and canopies were brought in.

Friday morning was quite in the office and it remained this way all day. I had an appointment at immigration tower in my lunch break to collect my Hong Kong ID card. Immigration tower is a soulless place. I was exceptionally tired by the afternoon. I couldn't focus any more and left at 6. Nicola waited for me and as we walked in the direction of home we decide that a glass of wine would be nice to finish the week and start the weekend. We sat on the balcony of The Pawn and watched the Friday night world go by.

I left after a lovely natter and made my way home to natter to my lovely sister. A proper old catch up and an early night.

Saturday morning was time for a run and a slow morning of cleaning, washing and generally relaxed flaffing in my apartment.

By 12 I left to meet with a friend for lunch and then to Tseun Wan for a charity event. We headed to il Bel Paese to have some Italian before our long, for Hong Kong, anything over 20 minutes is considered 'long', journey.

Discovery Park was a bizarre place, another shopping mall and not much else. The charity event hadn't started so we meandered around, finding a children's arcade to entertain us, which it did for about 29 minutes. We won enough tokens for a notebook, after a few moments of thinking we had broken the machine, which printed tickets for five minutes. They just kept coming out, enough to stretch the length, and then some of the entire shopping mall. We thought we must have hit the jackpot. It equated to 225, which you could exchange tokens for. Prizes from a chocolate bar for 20, to a toy for 2000.

Soap Cycling carnival was in the centre of the mall with workshops, candy floss and soap modelling. I spoke with the founder of the charity, as I'd like to arrange for Feeding Hong Kong and them to collaborate efforts.

IIt was a long journey back and we almost travelled from one side of the MTR to the other. Tai Koo was our next destination, to have a look round the shops. I managed to find some jeans and a suit jacket for work thinking its funny moving country, you have to replace everything you left behind that you have already purchased before but in another country.

I set off home for another Skype catch up. I wanted to have early nights all weekend so I wasn't too tired for my week at work.

Sunday I met with Sally, Richie and Tapper for brunch at the Brunch and Supper Club in Causeway Bay. A lovely little place with a great Sunday morning atmosphere. It was busy and the menu had a good combination of offerings. Eggs Benedict is what the others ordered, and I opting for poached eggs and spinach.

We had another long trip ahead to Sha Tin for Ladies Day at the race course and the Red Bull Soap Box Race, which I had been looking forward too for weeks.

It was a bit of a let down. The races were pretty miserable, not like the Happy Valley niceties. And the Red Bull Soap Box Races were very poorly managed. How an event organiser in Hong Kong doesn't think that potentially thousands of people will turn up is beyond me. We couldn't even get close and after a few attempts at breaking through the crowd and climbing over various fences we decide our efforts were in vain and headed, with the other few thousand people, slightly disappointed back to the MTR deciding on a few drinks in Central.

I was feeling a bit fed up by this point and went back to Happy Valley with Richie for some food and a cup of tea. I decided to call it a night on the day and weekend and head back to have an early night.

There is something a little frustrating about a weekend that isn't very enjoyable when you have a full time job. You have two days of freedom to do whatever you fancy and when this turns into something not matching previous expectations it leaves you feeling empty when heading to work on Monday. Luckily, by Monday afternoon I was feeling myself again and vowed to myself that I would make sure I always had a busy schedule booked in for Mondays as it seemed to boost start your week well. Lesson learnt: Busy Mondays are good. Hong Kong needs better event managers

Better luck next time......