Jiang in Nairobi - August

This is a highly overdue post! Sorry have been swamped with work lately and could not find time to collect the photos and upload them.

So Jiang came over last August (yes, I know this is late) to visit me in this wonderful and magical land of kenya! :) When Jiang came out of the airport he was immediately hugged by my African driver, Leonard (This is the guy that drives me around all the time). Imagine Jiang's shock when he saw a big black guy approaching him with his arms open! Haha. But I think that just showed how open and friendly the culture here is. So brought Jiang home to meet my friends and then we went to my favorite cafe to hang out and have lunch. We did some grocery shopping (you can see the vegetables laid out nicely in the shop) and Jiang was amazed at the size of the GMOs (look at him carrying the huge ass cabbage!). Anyway, for the first night, my friends organized a BBQ party for our friends around the world. Poor Jiang though, he barely spent 30 mins there and he was too jet lagged to continue on. He met my Nigerian roommate, Funmi too(she's the one carrying the tray below)

Well, needless to say our adventures start off the next day proper where we went with my friends to explore the gorge 1.5hours away from Nairobi. We had fun and took loads of pictures. Pity that the sun wasnt up so our shots were not as awesome as it could have been. Regardless, I think he managed to experience my weekend life where I will roam the outskirts of town and engage in such outdoor activities. By the end of the second day, Jiang had already declared he could imagine living permanently in Nairobi! Hahah, what a quick convert.

On Monday, we began our trip to Masai Mara where we hoped we could glimpse The Great Migration and the grand safaris. We took an amazing number of pictures of animals, the vast lands, our trip up the hot air balloon, our champagne breakfast, our visit to the african village and tented camp etc. Everywhere we went, the Africans were all eager to greet us and talk to us. When we visited the Masai Village, Jiang was even invited to dance with them in their Warrior Dance. Coincidentally he was dressed in the same colors as them but you can easily spot him in the picture below dancing and jumping around with them.

Apparently, in their culture, you most own 15 cows and you must have killed a lion in order to marry a bride. Sorry Jiang, you have acheived neither of those... :P

The trip was amazing and relaxing. It was great just enjoying the whole ambience of Africa without the stress of work. I could also show Jiang around my favorite spots, like the chinese restaurant I always go to eat unlimited crab hotpot buffet!!! Jiang was amazed at how fresh the crab was. Hee Hee

On the last day, we managed to squeezed time to climb a mountain! Yup, the very same mountain i climbed the last time. Haha, quite an experience for him. For me, I was timing myself to see if i can complete it faster than the first time. It turned out that Jiang was a pretty good climber and he can easily match my incredible speed! Where it took me 1.5 hours the last time to climb up, we climbed up to the top this time in 45 minutes! Yea!

Of course, we were just plain exhausted when we returned back and had to catch the plane back to Singapore. I was pretty happy... until I saw the 200++ emails waiting for me. Alamak.

Oh well, Jiang might come again to bring me back for good next year April 2012! Hee hee, im glad I've managed to convince him to love this place as much as i have come to love it.

Nairobi in August

Sorry, in case you were wondering, yes, Stacey has landed safely back in Nairobi for about 4 days now. My next flight to Singapore would be on 14th October. Then another one in December, stay in Nairobi for 4 months before making a final trip back for good in April 2012.

My roommate has left for good to Ghana and i'm dwelling on my own at the moment. Extremely lonely I must say, miss having someone to vent to and bitch about and have the same streak of "kuai lan-ness" as me. But on another note, I have the whole kitchen to myself so i can cook and clean the way i like for all i want, i also dont have to close the bathroom doors (which some of you know i hate doing...) and i can play my music as loudly as i want.

Just as i am starting to adjust to this individual freedom, my boss has just dropped me a note, sigh, aparently there are shifts in some resources, so another lady will be staying with me in September. Sigh. Jie Jie was telling me that because of her race, she will be cleaning and cooking in my house. Alamak. Jie Jie... (I'm sure you all can guess which country she is from).

Oh, freedom, just as i have grasped thee, as swiftly you came, you have slipped through my fingers once again.

First week of work was very tough i must say, alot of unreasonable demands and alot of changing of minds and inconsistent messages. Seriously makes me start venturing into my old archives on my comp and dig up places i can go do my masters in Psychology at. Dont know why but coming back this time seems more difficult to adjust to and already started counting down to my next trip back. Yup, it's 50 more days people.

Anyway, one thing i finally cleared off my to-do list when i was in Singapore was to save all the stuff Uncle Yiu Seng had managed to salvage for me on my old university comp and download them into my new comp. OMG. You cannot believe the amount of old pictures i have, like "did she really have that kind of hairstyle?!"

Be prepared for my next few posts everyone, i've got a couple of surprises up my sleeve. :)

Malindi and Back

Hello family!

Last Friday left Nairobi to explore a town called Malindi. What do you need to know about it? Sun, Sea and Sand.

It was an awesome beach weekend holiday. Left on Friday night, back on Sunday night. Came back with awesome memories and great photos to share!

Here are some shots of the clear seas which I only thought exist in Mauritius.

See the clear waters, we also were playing around with a puffer fish. Haha. Yes I know, it is the second most poisonous Vertebrate in the world. Oh well, risk a little, live a little.

Only in Africa will they say they are bringing you via a boat ride to BBQ on an island and then when you reach this "island", it's a partially sunk strip of sand that appears when it is low tide. The tide was still high when we reached and we ended up BBQing on a partially sunk island... The BBQ was good though, fish, lobsters, prawns etc.



Either way, it was a great experience and I'm definitely going back there again. I had loads of fun and I love soaking in the sun! And we did quite a number of rounds of snorkelling too. Of course, I paid the price with my sun burnt back! But it's well worth it! The total damage? Flight +accommodation + meals + local transport and entertainment = US400. Haha. Cheap! Shiok ah!



Missing you all very much though and looking forward to coming back on 12th August.

Location:Malindi, Kenya

Stace in Nairobi... 22 more days till Jiang comes

Checking in...

Been some time since I last wrote here so thought everyone might be interested in what's going on with my life. :)

Last week marked a significant milestone for me and my project. We need to pass 5 "milestones" from now until next year April 2012. Each time we pass, we get to move on to the next stage. Our project received an overwhelming 100/100 pass! So that's quite an achievement. Our next review is in September.

At the same time, I also reached my three year mark with my company! My leads were congratulating me and I was quite happy too because of the following reasons:

1) It's rare to see young people stay in Accenture for more than 2 years.

2) Once you pass the 3 years mark, you are not liable to forfeit your sign on bonus if you quit! So you can quit without anything holding u back!

Of course, the leads were not very happy with my train of thoughts. Haha

On another note, it gets chilly here cause its winter now so the temp hovers around 18 degrees, everyday it's jacket with scarves. I love it.

I miss playing music so I went out to buy myself a mini guitar! Check it out, it's a beau isn't it!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Standard St,Nairobi,Kenya

Ngong hills climb

Hi everyone,

My first weekend back home and what did I do? Well, climb a mountain again of course! This time, I targeted ngong hills which was slightly shorter than my last mountain, 2400m high this time. The name ngong stands for knuckles because from afar, the hills look like how your knuckles look like when it is all clenched up. Here is a picture of it:

Anyway with my new acquaintances, we started at 7am and headed to the town of ngong hills by car, this is only 30 mins away from where I stay. What we read online was we needed to enlist armed guards to escort us up the hill because there were robberies and mugging occurring in the hills.

We started driving up and up until our car hit white. White. Because we were in the fog! We parked our car and proceeded for the hike. The security guard post was not open yet so we decided to climb ahead, hoping that robbers and muggers were also not early risers.

What greeted us first were these majestic wind mills which were harvesting the wind energy there.



We climbed for THREE hours. Oh my goodness, so tiring. On the way we also passed by many jobbers who were using this to train for their marathons. CRAZY. While we were struggling on this, these people were just running up and down the hills... No wonder Kenyan people are known for their running abilities.





Overall, great morning spent and loads of calories burnt too! Everyone felt like they had accomplished something wonderful. Of course now they are also all complaining about their aching thighs.. Haha

1 weekend down, 8 more to go before jiang comes!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Ole Sangale Rd,Nairobi,Kenya

Went to Ghana and Back again

Headed over to Ghana for a project workshop so I flew over to the land of Accra on a Saturday morning. Everything from start to finish was entirely unpleasant. From the moment the plane took off to the minute i stepped on the plan to get back to Nairobi.

On the plane to Accra, my unfortunate next-seat persons were drunk! You can smell the alcohol in them and they just kept ordering more and more bottles of wine! It's 7 am in the morning guys! Once arrived in the Accra airport, I was really beginning to feel the heat. I changed 100 USD thinking that's enough money to last me for one week. Check this out,

Ghana Cedes is almost the same rate as Singapore dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!

The hotel, sorry Motel, was 15 minutes away from the airport. The room was spartan and no carpet, dingy toilet and the gym consisted of 3 equipments; all 3 were spoilt. Oh well, what can you expect from a project with a tight budget. Anyway, seeing my boss and friends whom I have not seen in a month was really awesome! I miss company so much! We quickly headed out to the one and only Accra Mall for lunch.

If possible, Ghana is HOTTER than Singapore! One minute standing in the sun and my ears were getting painful! We went to this high end restaurant called Rhapsody, i like! Then we went grocery shopping... In Ghana, the prices here are exorbitant! It is way more expensive than anything I have seen! Fruits/ Juices/ salt/ Pepper - at least times 3! anyway I was curious how Ghanians survive on such expensive stuff so i checked out their GDP per capita on Wikipedia.

An average Ghanian earns 1400 USD A YEAR. Average Singaporean earns 56000 USD a year! Where do they get the money to buy all these things!

Sunday was a relaxing day with my friends, we explored a famous Ghana street, cafe in the morning, Thai food for lunch. Went for Chinese food for dinner. A bowl of plain white rice is 6 dollars!!!!!!!!

Then my horrible week started. Monday was bad, Tuesday was worst. When I think it could not have gotten any better, Wednesday was a slump. Thursday was neutral and Friday was a relief. I have been badgered, cornered, whined too, complained about, argued with, pushed around. At one point, after an exhausting and frustrating day, had to let out steam in my room by crying it all out. Stupid and unreasonable people!!!!!

My only solace was with my friends who were too, in the same predicament as I was. We went out every night, eating chinese (Chinese food is awesome there!), ice cream, Jap food etc. On saturday, which was my last day, we all went to watch a movie! Awwww... good times indeed. The cinema reminded me of Singapore's. But then again, when everything went dark, every place looks like Singapore. Needless to say, my 100 USD ran out very quickly, by Wednesday I had no more Ghana money and no place to change money. I was changing money with people, to my friends from Kenya, i changed Kenya shillings with Ghana money. From my boss, i changed Singapore money for Ghana money. We were like a mini currency exchange center!

Bitten by mosquitoes many times throughout the week, so lets see in a couple of weeks time if I get sick. Hur Hur, then more excuse to come back to Singapore early.

Anyway, once I reached back in Nairobi...the cool air that greeted me was such a pleasant feeling. Upon reaching home and coming back to my own space... even more wonderful. This week, all my clients are still in Ghana for the second phase of the workshop. So the office in Nairobi is relatively empty... I'm going to enjoy this week man.

Lonely Stacey

It's been sometime since i last udpated!

Nope, I havent been busy and nope I havent been having that much fun as well.

I've just been feeling a little under the weather and also I went to Mombasa for the Easter Holiday.

Mombasa is a tourist attraction place like what Bali is or Phuket is. I went by myself, to a resort for 4 days. Did stuff like massage, steam room, bake in the sun, snorkel and eat lotsa lotsa buffet every day breakfast, lunch and dinner!

My room was a quaint room (that Jie would never step in) and it has a balcony that overlooks the sea! But I cant go out because there are monkeys around, and if you have food, they will grab it! Or if its raining, they will take shelter in your balcony.

The good thing: It's quiet, it's hot and i got time to relax and think.
The bad thing: It's mosquito/flies/chameleon/crows infested, it's kids infested and it's rainy season.
The worst thing: I'm alone.

Yes. Never again will i go to a holiday by myself anymore. I can do tours, I can do business travels but I absolutely will not do personal and self-indulged holidays anymore. It may be good for other people, but certainly not for myself.

Oh well, at least i learnt that about myself during this trip. :)

Oh! It's confirmed, i am coming back on 27th May.

And Jiang is coming over to Nairobi to watch the Great Migration during National Holiday - August Period! Whee!!

The Great Migration is truly a once in a year event that happens when the wild beast travels from the West to the East of africa across the great river. Thats when you see hordes of Wilderbeast, buffalo, gazettes, zebras, elephant, giraffes crossing. Then you see the lions, cheetahs and crocodiles prey on them as they cross. You can view it from a hot air balloon or you can drive around the park to view them. This occurs between August to October so come on down everyone!!!! (But not during the week Jiang is coming! haha)