The Saturday before Christmas

Had a whirlwind sort of day yesterday. After rushing some work early in the morning, I headed to town to meet Stazla and her dragonboating friends, Cheryl and Andy, for lunch. They were here on holiday, would be travelling to the other parts of the island over the next few days, and they had spent their morning earlier doing a healthy jog, which is just the sort of thing you would expect any fit and young Singaporean dragonboater to do. :) We had a great conversation, and it was a pity I wasn't able to spend more time with them as a "host" and show them around. After lunch, I took a 40-minute solo cab ride to Banciao City (板橋市) in Taipei County (台北縣) and boy, it was such an unpleasant ride. The driver must have either smoked heavily himself or picked up a passenger that did, because the interior of the vehicle chokingly smelt like a well-used ash-tray. *cough*

When I returned from Banciao City, it was about 7 pm, and I was scheduled to join Ben, my friend from the California Fitness gym here, at his friend's Christmas party near Pacific Sogo. Unfortunately, Ben couldn't make it at the last minute, so I went ahead on my own. The party turned out to be a health company's Christmas fancy-dress ball for its employees and friends of its employees, and since I'm two degrees of association away, I did not know a single soul there and stood out like a sore thumb with my rather mundane apparel. After wall-flowering for a while, I decided to cut short my involvement, and headed to my office which was nearby to process some work. I didn't leave until about 1 am in the morning, which was a miserable way to spend the weekend before Christmas, but hey, I managed to get some of my intray cleared, so that is still cause for celebration.

I hope I have pleasant company on Christmas Day.