Vaynard's Personal & Aquatic Journal: Work week 1

Supposed to start work on Monday but end up only started working on Wednesday. So end up slacking at home on Monday, or maybe not really slacking. Did housework and iron my working attire and all. Went around my neighbourhood and explored while I went to buy lunch and all. During dinner time, went to join my fellow housemates for some 扣命 BBQ dinner. Oil and salt was free. And the worst was that it is not that cheap. Blacklisted this hawker for good. Unless he makes some changes to the food he serves, we shall not patronize him anymore.

Dishes with free oil and salt

The killer BBQ... 夺命烧烤!

For Tuesday, no more slacking at home. Since Evi also not working yet, both of us went to 七浦 for shopping. This place is a mega clothes shopping area. Girl’s heaven I would say to be the best way to describe it. Many shopping centers filled with clothes, bags, belts and accessories. The best of all, everything is at distribution price. No item is more than 100 yuan. Bought some Polo tee and off we went to Ikea as Evi wanted to get a mini-table and mirror. On the way there, passed by Shanghai Stadium and Shanghai Indoor Stadium. Also along the way was the Reebok Basketball Garden. It looked like some US basketball zone where all the pros play. Someday when I free, maybe I’ll just go there and join in the fun. At Ikea, everything is some familiar as everything was almost 99.9% matching of Ikea Singapore. The décor, the arrangement and of course the café which sold Swedish Meatball and the hotdog bun. That ends Tuesday’s shopping.

On the way to 七浦

Finally... 七浦!

Shanghai Stadium

Shanghai Indoor Stadium

Reebok Basketball Park

Evi in search of her small table

Finally Wednesday, my first day of work! Met Mdm Tao at 娄山关站 then she brought me to the shuttle bus stop. The most unfortunate of my house as my shuttle bus stop is located so far from my house. But luckily it is still near MRT station. Thank God! At that place, saw Jiamin who is from the previous batch of GIP working at Schering Plough. But sadly, her job scope and mine very different, so can’t get much help from her. Once I reached Schering Plough, I was brought to HR department to settle admin. Little did I know that I have to go through some weird self study module which talks about practices in pharmaceutical plant. Following, I met my supervisor, Mr Zhang Jian Zhong, a sixty year old engineer. First task for me was to read ISO manual on compressed air for a meeting in the afternoon. The meeting was damn scary before Poh Hoon came in. Everyone was speaking in Shanghainese. How am I supposed to understand that? Meeting was also no different from a warzone, everyone was shooting one another. After meeting was more reading. At 4.20pm, everyone started to shutdown their com and packing. I was like, aren’t we suppose to knock off at 4.30pm? How come everyone was already packing? Then I realized that the shuttle bus will leave the company at 4.40 sharp. After work, I chiong down to Century Avenue to buy a cake. It’s Edwin’s birthday! Trying our best to hide it from him, we off all the lights at home and hide in every corner of the house. Once cue from Yee Chwan was given, everyone appeared with the cake. First birthday celebration in GIP Shanghai and definitely many more to come.

Ops team with Edwin

Housemates + Adam

Work for me has become rather a routine though with a slight amount of unpredictability. Daily work includes reading of manuals, research online to solve problems, lab experiments or visit to production section for checking. Thursday evening, my boss gave a welcoming treat into Schering Plough. He asked “So what do you want to eat? I only two choices for you, either Thai or Western.” I choose Western. And end up, we landed at Hooters Shanghai. Then I realized that my boss is actually a regular of Hooters. By chance, it was happy hour. Thus whichever beverage we order is 1 for 1. Singapore Hooters is filled by loads of Minah, here is different – 100% locals. The first girl who served us was named April. When I saw the menu, I was shocked. Everything was so expensive. But thank god I am not the one picking the tab. Poh Hoon ordered all the expensive dishes like crab and steamed prawn and many others. Then when our beer came, April took some salt and put it on the napkin. I was like rather surprised that it actually is done so that our beer mug will not get stuck onto the napkin. Very impressive idea. Then the seafood was being served, however we do not need to peel them ourselves instead April did all the peeling. Woohoo… Handsfree seafood eating. Then it was their shift changeover, they did a dance over the whole restaurant and April was taken over by Jolin. All the while Poh Hoon keep talking to the both April and Jolin, as both of them are very interested about expat life in Shanghai. Then suddenly Poh Hoon told Jolin it was my first time Hooters Shanghai and she started clapping her hands which led to the rest of the Hooters girls’ attention and they started clapping as well. Then Jolin told them it was my first time here and all of them wanted to sing me a song. Jitao tio stunned! After the song, heard from Poh Hoon that it’s the norm. When the bill came, the whole dinner plus drinks cost 500 over yuan. Poh Hoon also gave a 100 yuan tip for Jolin. Wonder how much exactly does Poh Hoon earn.

Ang Moh at Hooters

Hooters Beer Mug

Did IR analysis with Mark in the lab on Friday. Can feel the presence of Prof Zaher and realized I forget a lot of stuff on IR analysis. Lucky the samples were prepared by Mark. The machine quite irritating, every step of computer command requires a password. Too much hassle to operate a simple process which could be replaced by just one simple button. TGIF… Work ended and we headed to Origos at 南京东路 for dinner. Pizza buffet for just approximate 8-9 SGD. Dirt cheap. Food was decent. There’s satay, pizza, bbq stuff and loads more. What’s most horrible is the grass like veggie. Taste was yucky to the max. For Edwin, it was the blue coloured ice cream which was actually peppermint flavor but I guess the colour is kinda wrong. After which we made our way to Metersbowne, a shop endorse by Jay Chou, Angela Zhang and Wilber Pan. They got very nice transformers shirts and whole shop is going on a promotion on buy 1 get 1 free. However, the shirt I like does not have my size. They only have the smaller sizes. Are PRCs so petite? Weirdz… After which home sweet home. Embrace the weekend!