today was somewhat of a mixture of good and so-so kind of day. the market today was pretty quiet, unlike yesterday's drastic sell off in most of the asian markets. we've all talked about a possible correction in the HSI and H-shares indices, but who knew that day would be here! fortunately, the market recovered back some of the losses it saw 24 hours before. but the nikkei had a great day today.

work was somewhat of an okay day today....maybe i'm starting to not care as much but i felt especially good after talking to one of my coworker about some of my frustration and he told me it was normal since that's what he had to go through last year when he joined. that gave me slight hope and confidence.

tonight, i had dinner with one of my friend... we went to this korean bbq restaurant that she suggested. the food was awesome! i totally forgot how much i missed eating korean food! then after dinner, we decided to walk back instead of my usual means of transportation (i.e. taxi).. it was a nice walk and gave us time to catch up even more.

since my company is not having xmas party this year due to cost cutting (so cheap!) i've been invited to my ex-cowo's xmas party at Goldman this friday =) I'm looking forward to it... Hopefully it'll put me in these festive holiday mood that i usually have every year. although christmas is my all time favorite holiday, somehow i'm just not feeling it this year... i blame it on my job

i plan to update my blog more regularly so come back often and check for updates! =)

my new life in HK

So I finally took my Hong Kong securities licence exam this past saturday after cramming for the past 48 hours. I'm not sure how well I did but hopefully I passed. I really hope I passed and don't have to retake it again. I guess I'll find out in the next few weeks. Wish me luck *gulp*

As for adjusting to my new life in HK, I feel like things are progressively getting better and worse simultaneously. Is that even possible you ask?!? I think a lot of it are as a result of my work. Like any jobs I'm sure, some days are good and some days are bad...but for my job, high is really high and low is significantly low. So it gets a bit depressing during the lows... but i'm trying to make the best out of it. These days, I'm really busy at work... when I'm busy is usually my high days. I've been booking a lot of trades, getting prices from the traders, handling all kinds of trade related issues with clients. During busy days, time flies by so quick.. before you know it, its time for lunc... then the next thing you know, its already 5pm. One thing I really dont like is having to wake up at 5:30AM every single morning to be at work by 6:15AM. I'm totally not a morning person.

Lately i've been feeling quite nostalgic about my old life back in Tokyo. At times I really miss being in Tokyo and being surrrounded by many of my good friends. But now I'm in Hong Kong, with hardly any friends, starting all over again from scratch. I admit, the thought of just leaving HK and moving either back to Tokyo or LA has crossed my mind several times. I use to like visiting Hong Kong for vacation but it's really different when you actually live here. Little things we take for granted like having a clean air, or having our own personal space is something I miss among other things.

In a more exciting news, I finally moved into my new apartment and have bought most of my furnitures I need. My living room sorta looks like an Ikea showroom...heehee. My apartment is slowly starting to look and feel like a home. I finally bought myself a Sony flatscreen TV that I've always wanted to get for myself. I felt the need to treat myself to something good after all the mental anguish I've been going through.

I just realized that I never posted any of my London pictures -- so here it goes....

Me and my new coworkers in London - they're all quite cool people:







Me and the international party-girl, Mary! I see her everywhere around the world but in the US! Hopefully we'll end up living in the same city one day...whether that be NYC or HK =D















My Nottinghill flat in London:

















What you see below is arguably the weirdest couch you will ever see. This entire couch is made out of teddy bears!! We found this couch in Harrod's department store in London. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw this.. it still makes me laugh when looking at the picture because its so ridiculous..haha

Yes, I'm still alive

it's about time i updated my blog. i just read my last entry and that was a long time ago. so many things have happened in the last few months that i'm not sure how to begin. first and for most, i'm sorry that i haven't been very good at keeping my blog up to date... for those who constantly came back to my blog to check if i ever made it out of SFO okay, and to those who kept sending me emails wondering if i'm still alive -- THANK YOU for checking up on me! the truth is, the last few months have just been an emotional roller coaster... mainly as a result of my work and few other personal things here and there. needless to say, the situation is improving.. or maybe i'm getting decensitized.

i've been all over the place the last few months... started my summer in NYC, then flew back to HK for 3 weeks, then to London for 3 weeks, Singapore for another 3 weeks, and then finally came back to HK. As glamours and jet-setting as it sounds, travelling around the world and living out of a suitcase for nearly 4 months really is not all that fun. sure, it was fun shopping in picadilly circus in london on the weekend, having dinner and drinks with mary and her "friend" in london, or feasting on chilly crabs in singapore...but after awhile, i just wanted to settle down and have some normal routine life.

i've been back in hong kong for nearly 5 weeks now... things started out quite rough at work but its gradually improving. without going into too much details (since this is probably the wrong venue for it), i never felt like this about any of my past jobs..and i've had plenty of jobs. i wouldn't say everything is 'great' right now but it could be a lot worse i suppose. hopefully things will get better and i'll start enjoying work more.

on a different note, i finally found an apartment and moved in! i found a brand new apartment in central/midlevel area. it was tough finding a brand new apt in hong kong. i have this strong requirement to to not live in an old apartment....but man some of the apartments that my agents showed me was just absolutely horrendous...with pink toilet seats and bars outside the window..and that's not even the worst part...some are just really really old and ghetto... if you were there with me, you would have agreed.... it was straight out of a 70's HK movie..scary.

my new apt is nothing like that... its quite modern, 2 bedroom apartment, with a gym and a pool downstairs. the only thing is that the rooms are quite small (really small)... but i dont really mind it. one thing i noticed about hk is that ppl here is that number of rooms are more important than the size of each room. some apartmens i saw were only 500 sq feet..yet they somehow managed to have 2 bedrooms?!?!

i'm still slowly trying to organize my apt.. i just bought new cabinets, dining set, and few other furnitures here and there.. one last thing i'm shopping for right now is a plasma tv... i've always wanted to buy one and now that i feel like i'm working so damn hard at work, i feel like i deserve one even more ;)

sometimes its weird to think that i'm living in hong kong... just yesterday, i was out shopping for my apartment stuff, and out of the blue, it hit me that i'm now permanently living and working in hong kong (i know, duh me!).... but it just feels odd living here esp since i'm not even from here and have no family connection here.. the city is great but i think its exhausting to live here sometimes.. there's not that much stuff to do on the weekend except shopping and eating i feel like.... hmm... so i'm gonna try to find new things to do on the weekend.

anyways, i better hop into bed... i have to wake up at 530am to go to work.

hopefully i'll make a habit of updating my blog more regularly than before. good nite ya'll!