2 more days until I’m on holidays. I’m calmly excited (that’s
an oxymoron if there ever was one).
Had a lovely day yesterday with a half day in the office and
then our favourite NSW sales team took myself and 2 colleagues (my two favs)
out to lunch at Café Sydney as a thank you for 2014. Wasn’t that nice of them? It
was a shame about the rain – it meant getting a little wet from the cab to the
lobby and we weren’t able to sit on the balcony and look out at the bridge. The
rain was pretty heavy at times. There was also a large cruise ship at the
terminal so it did obscure the view a little. It was funny hearing the guys
joke that that was how they arrived. One in a dingy and he had to double park
next to the large ship owned by the other sales guy. Cause yes, that’s how well
they did last year.
It’s good to know (for personal reference and out of curiosity)
that grown men in their 40s can act just like people in their 20s. They have
coined this ficticious place called “The Club” which was initially an allusion
to the sales floor on Level 1 being deserted after 6 PM save their team. And
now, everywhere that they travel to and where there are places actually called “The
Club”, it is their mission to take photos of the place with them posing as a “gentleman”.
Quite funny and refreshing. These are a bunch of men who are all married with
kids acting like teenagers again!
On to the next topic, because Ms Lawyer is pregnant, they
were all discussing designer baby goods. Who knew there were strollers that
cost over $1,500 and special cots and bassinets and all the trimmings. Ha ha,
this is a club that I am definitely in no hurry to join but it is nice to see
that the men know just as much about baby goods as the women. And what is good,
what’s bad and what works. And how it was always baby #1 gets the most
attention (sterilise everything properly, do everything to the tee), baby #2
(sterilise but maybe not the full 3 minutes, half-baked jobs) not so much and
baby#3 (if applicable) is like… meh, whatever, you’ll live (just rinse or wipe the
bottle, no sterilisation). This was true for all those on the table with kids.
Hilarious.
I don’t know how you can just talk 4 hours away with a bunch
of sales people but that’s exactly what happened. We were sort of asked to move
as they were preparing for a table at 5. Whoops, so much for going back to the
office. By this time, I had a bit of a wine headache (1 sparkling, 2 white and
1 dessert) and was a bit sleepy and not feeling too great. I might add here
that I don’t rate Café Sydney that highly anymore. If I were to go fine dining
and I was paying for it, I would pick somewhere else. It was just a little flat
and… vanilla (my new favourite word it seems). There was nothing wrong per say,
just nothing wow. I had the Moreton Bay Bug salad (more prawn than bug), Pork
Belly (was a tiny bit chewy) and Salted Caramel Peanut Tart (I honestly think I
can pull this off and perhaps even one step better, I should have picked the
other dessert that I wanted!).
So we kind of parted ways at that, one guy had another
customer thing at Quay that night (lucky guy!!!) but I wouldn’t want to go to
two awesome restaurants in one day. That’s too much. He said he was going to go
for a run in between but it was bucketing when we left so I’m pretty sure that
didn’t happen. It was around about now that I was unsure if I still wanted to
meet Anna for dinners and catch up. I was a bit tired and headachy but it seems
to clear up as I made my way to town hall and the bookshop to look for the new
release book Mayday which is about
how the top honchos at Qantas well, screwed Qantas. So found it at the third
bookshop (thank you google on my phone, I don’t know how else I would have
found a third bookshop in the CBD!) and just went to Westfield to read and wait
for Anna. I really needed that hour to myself. I was dandy by the time she arrived.
Phew!
We went to Ippudo. I really needed the ramen and carbs to
soak up the alcohol. So it was a good choice. Got a pork bun too. The pork was
a too fatty for me but the fluffiness of and the whiteness (I know its bleach
and its bad for you) is amazing. I want to make my buns like that but I can’t
get that kind of flour. Plus I would say they are probably adding some not so
good for your ingredients to the bao. Nevertheless, the food is always
exceptional here and we enjoyed it. Talked about people getting pregnant and
who’s pregnant (and why it is Asians who are the ones who get accidently
pregnant – she totally agrees with me on this!), our jobs and how it sucks
(think she needs a new challenge), home decorating and how expensive it is (OMG
there is this amazing store in Berry!), how she locked her wallet and keys in
the office (whoops!), Hawaii and how I can get her cookies (lol), loads of
random stuff that girls like to talk about…
So tired by the time I floated home. My citi debit card
arrived in the mail so I got to activate that. Hope it works fine next week. Although
I asked for it to arrive express post, it didn't but I can’t really fault the
customer service experience so far. They really have been helpful every step of
the way.
