Birthday 2007

Can't remember when was the last time I celebrate my birthday with friends. I think it was back in 2003 when I was in London. I can only recall I had one birthday party when I was in high school (when I was 18 if I'm not mistaken). Other than that, normally I have a low profile birthday and most of the time it's just like a normal day to me.

Yesterday was my first birthday in the Netherlands. As usual, it's one of the ordinary days to me. We went to the city to walk around after work, bought 2 boxes of attractive homemade chocolate and some nice candles for house decorating, and finally decided to have dinner in KFC. We then cycled home to catch the drama "Medium" and Home Alone 2 on TV.

No birthday present or special celebration is needed, and everything was just like the rest of the days. Simple and relax birthday, but most importantly we enjoyed it very much.

I think we will spend this Christmas in such way as well.

Merry Chirstmas people !!!

Amsterdam-Norwich

It's been a hectic week for me and I noticed that I've abandoned my blog for some time. I'm supposed to upload some photos of my house but I just couldn't find time to take some nice pics. Well, if you are interested in knowing how my new house look like, please come and visit me !!! :p

I think I can now consider my house as a "house". Basically it's pretty much furnished and we are quite pleased with the entire outlook of both interior and exterior. We are still thinking whether to furnish the kicthen and bathroom. Perhaps we should take a break now and finish the rest after Christmas.

Am going to England to visit the youth in Norwich. To be frank, I haven't been keeping in touch with any of them since I last visited them. Feel guilty sometimes coz I don't think I've done enough on this "outreach". Feel like this visit is more like a break/holiday for myself rather than bringing biblical teaching to them. Well, afterall I don't think I've done much biblical teaching to the junior youth in King's Cross either.

Happy weekend everyone !!!

Can't Wait

I can't wait until Christmas, although I have only been working for a month. I think I need a few days break and enjoy myself. Then I can spend some time to plan what I want to achieve in 2007. It's always good to have some quiet time to reflect and think what I have been doing in 2006.

Time is really precious. I hope I know how to spend it more wisely.

Poor Customer Service

It’s been a while now and we still don’t have internet at home. We applied it since early October. You can imagine how poor is KPN’s service. Moreover, I still yet have a mobile phone (I’m using a prepaid phone now). Mobile phone contract or tariff in the Netherlands is pretty expensive and not competitive at all I should say. After some comparisons, we were planning to get a contract for the phone Sony Ericsson M600. We went to phone shopsssss to try to get one about 3 weeks ago, but came back with this reply at the end of the day, “We don’t hold this stock in our shop, we will write down your name and call you in 2 weeks time when we have the stock”.

Come on, is this how they do business ??!!! This is such a crap customer service. You think you can go to a better phone shop, don’t even try !!! Mobile phone (or even telecommunication) industry in this country is dying…..

Apparently, we didn't get any reply from them. So now I have decided to stick with my old phone and live with the prepaid SIM card. They have lost a customer. I’m sick of going through all this process. To get a phone, they make many copiessss of your passport, residence permit, bank statement, proof of address etc etc. Come on, I just need a phone.

In general, I should conclude that the customer service in Europe is not competitive at all, if compare to USA I have to admit, even though to a certain extent I don’t really agree with many American’s system. My limited experience being a customer in USA gives me the impression that American’s customer service is more efficient and friendly, or at least you feel like you are a customer.