This calls for a Celebration

Yesterday is officially the day I would declare that I am in debt! It's going to be a life-long debt and it's definitely a big committment in my life - bigger than that of getting a boyfriend. I've actually just signed the Sales & Purchase agreement for a house and my bank loan has also been approved a few days ago!

It's going to be a helluva long term debt!

So I think this calls for a celebration as I now join the property owners club!

Popped a bottle of my favourite Rose (Nicholas Feuillate)

I celebrated it at Albion and James was there!!

and a cigar and whisky after that....

I'm now blogging from the 1st class lounge at KLIA. Will be boarding in 10 minutes time and I'll be in London, Amsterdam for work and a holiday in Paris for the next 2 weeks so don't miss me! Cheers....

My last day at Fidani

MIHAS just ended!

The time has come. Today is my last day with the company and the farewell party was carried out yesterday at the office. It wasn't exactly how I planned and until this very minute, I am still working on the proposals and answering clients' email. There's about 2 unfinished project which I have just started after tendering my resignation 3 months ago.

It was a long story and I guess I've been talking about leaving months ago here and finally on the 2nd week of April, I did it after my assistant tendered hers on 1st April. What a big joke huh? Actually when I wrote the post "rethinking", I have already been drafting my resignation letter. Finally I put the talk into action and the thing is, never look back when you have decided. No one in the company believe that I would leave until a week or two ago when I told them that I am really not staying back.

I still haven't packed. Look at my messy room!

I've worked here almost 3 years come 21st July and it's indeed sad to leave everything that I've built and nurtured for 3 long years. I see Fidani grew by 30% every year and I must say although it's not a great achievement, that's the best I can do with just my assistant and myself in the sales & marketing team. What I really miss is my clients. I love all of them because the key clients I have are the nicest of the buyers I've ever met and knowing that the company have not found someone to take over my responsibilities is just worrying because there'll be no one to take care of their orders.

I'll miss working with Wei Mei!!!

I have a fun time working there. There's just so much to do and learn. I've met people I never dreamt of meeting and chocolate has brought me so far. Friends call me "choc babe" or simply "choc" which is a better name to remember than "eiling" and I cannot imagine myself leaving this industry. Marketing handmade chocolates is really challenging but I love it because I have the passion for product development and packaging development. I think I will miss my best lady designer, interior designer and printers.

Farewell Lunch at the office!

My colleagues aka the production staff are a bunch of fun people too although sometimes I get angry at them for careless mistakes. After all that, we are still friends and we're just like a big family. These people I tell you, they are such good cooks. Everytime we do a party at the office, everyone gets a chance to show off their culinary skills and all I did was to eat! They all are qualified to open a restaurant and not a chocolate boutique! heheh....

Since I haven't finished packing, I'll be back to the office on Friday to handover my responsibilities to the factory manager whom is doing a 2 persons' job cos Wei Mei & I left together. We'll be shopping in Singapore tomorrow!

Random Updates

Cheers with free coffee

The MIHAS exhibition is still ongoing. It was really a tiresome event and I had to answer so many enquiries! It's like repeating the song like a broken record player. But we all had fun. A few of my ex colleagues came and visited us. Even the suppliers were there.

And we had endless servings of free food like fried chicken, noodles, satay and coffee FTW!

People from Kazakshtan.

Speaking of which, I've really got a few posts to catch up with. I had some really nice wine dinners recently and I haven't have time to blog about it. Will be updating soon!

Stephen Dew, winemaker of Kaesler Wines from Barrossa Valley.

The grand Ornellaia, Super Tuscan wines from Italy.

That's all for today folks. Ciao!

A week of Hell and Heaven

I know I have been quite morbid for the past week and if you have been following my twitter, you would also realise that I've been tweeting about the Nirvana Memorial Centre and the burning of effigy for my grandma. It's going to be a week of hell and heaven to me this week as I will be working 9 days non stop in a row with Saturday and Sunday from morning till 7pm.

Like what I've written earlier, work was inevitable and even when my grandma was lying in that coffin, I still went to work because I was fully in charge of the current MIHAS exhibition going on in Matrade at Jalan Duta from 23rd to 27th of June 2010. It's the biggest Halal exhibition and it was my 3rd time setting up the Fidani booth.

Wei Mei & the unfinished booth

I have a different theme and design every year. Last year I had a double decker booth here but due to the limited budget for this year, I have to settle for a simple booth like this which also costs RM25k for the fixtures excluding the 10k rental fees. This year, the big boss wants to concentrate only on corporate and wedding orders but instead, we've got quite a number of export inquiries.

I cut my finger while trying to set up the foldaway table. So useless of myself.

This guy scares me. When I was setting up the booth, he walked over and asks if he could take a picture with me and I said, errr... ok and then I regretted the decision because not only he took a picture with me, he held my hand and asks if he could kiss me. I said "hell no!!" and the next minute, he kissed my hair. Eeewwww.... I had to wash my hair with Clorox. When Wei Mei saw him passes by, she asks me to hide. LOL....

If you follow my twitter @ 3iling, you can see that I did a few updates today such as strangling the chocolate bunny and also holding a beautiful bouquet of chocolate roses. I will be updating from the exhibition centre as sometimes you get to see some amazing things that people do, for example, stealing my chocolates!

I wanted to tweet about our PM coming to our booth to sign on my newest chocolate box but the twitter wasn't working. I was just standing next to him and boy, the reporters are like a sea of people! Everything went by like a whizz.

There were some really funny incidents today. A foreign exhibitor came and asked if I was a chinese and I said yes, I'm a Malaysian Chinese and he said "wow, you are very beautiful and you don't look like the other Chinese" (I wasn't making that up and yes, that stroked my ego pretty well). Then another visitor came and talked to me and when I asked them what chocolates are they interested in, he told me that I am very beautiful. -_- And I served him some chocolates. Before he went off, he gave me his card and told me that I am better than the chocolates! heheh... I am not sure if I was selling myself or the chocolates.


This came as a surprise when the organisers told me that Fidani won the 1st prize for the best packaging award. It was indeed an honour to be winning this 3 years in a row. When the CEO of Matrade presented the trophy to me, he told me he wasn't surprised that we won it. I was taken aback when this morning, a judge came to my booth and asked me to impress her with my chocolate packaging and I did by promoting the Fidani Chocolate Tubos range. This is indeed a very good farewell gift for me.

And all the freebies I received minus the free food which has filled my stomach this afternoon!

And the heaven part was meeting friends that I only see once a year. Most of them are the exhibitors that I have befriended over the past 3 years and we get to see each other only at MIHAS once every year. But now with the BBM, I get to save their PIN and stay in touch. Cheers to BBM!

Rethinking

I think this is the time. The point in my life where I am thinking of a change in my career.

It has been 5 years working with chocolates, ever since I graduated in 2005 and I never thought I would be involved with something I love so much and had a passion for. But now is the time to rethink whether I should have a switch in my career. I need to get out from the comfort zone and see the world from a different perspective! No more working for the sake of passion. It's time to seek new challenges that would be rewarding. I need to path my route for future career advancement.


I need to be brave. To take the first step is never easy but I shall be determined.

A need for rethinking. The time is now.

Up, up and away.....

No it's not the new film from Pixar Animation Studios. It's my recent trip to Genting for a meeting with the Genting tenancy management. I went up there with my GM and also Interior Designer/contractor to present the drawings for the shop rennovation which would be taking place this month.

I realised it's been quite a number of years since I last went up to Genting in a cable car @ Genting Skyway. If I could still remember, the price of a ticket one way is RM5 and if you're a silver/gold Genting Worldcard member, it's free!

When I was there two weeks ago, the weather was kind. It was kinda foggy up the hill and it's really cooling, ok maybe cold. Going up in a cable car was a breeze. I think it's much better than driving up but then again, if you could only trust your little reliable car and own driving skills in getting yourself uphill safely, by all means drive!

The meeting was done in one to two hours. You'll see a new (famous) chocolate-themed shop at the T2 level of First World Plaza by end of August! And I must say that the drawing looked fantastic at least for now...

Me with my ID/contractor & GM at the back.

After that, we just end our trip up to Genting with a hearty lunch at "Good Friends". I've been to that restaurant for years since I'm in primary school if I could remember and that restaurant is still as good. They serve very good pumpkin tofu and pork tripe soup.