Escape to KL

Q4 signifies many things, another year older, another year ending and of course the liquidation of excess annual leave. The rules stipulate, no more than five days annual leave can be carried over to the following year without "exceptional approval" (exceptional approval, means offering a legitimate reason and for the application to be approved by the Head of Human Resources) meaning I have 6 days that will be forfeited unless consumed between now and January. With no strategy in mind; I have haphazardly taken off a slew of random Mondays and Fridays.

I have managed to convince myself that spending 2000 HKD on a flight is still less than what I would spend on a night out in Hong Kong. Delusional, or not, I sneak off to Malaysia for a weekend in Kuala Lumpur to attend a seminar based on Option Trading held by the group Wealth Mentors. The promise of turning "$10K to $2M" appears "to good to be true" or an "outlier case" and the program's high cost would suggest that a majority the organiser's wealth is generated by the greed of the unsuspecting. In any case, the strategies taught are simple and fill the audience with hope and expectation, with enthusiasm fuelled by greed and easy money. The days are long and demanding and  I am skeptical, only time will tell.

The rest of my trip was as expected. Obscene amounts of food, quality family time and TED Talks. Currently Reading: "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion".

There's no 'E' in this Whisky

Despite spending time living in Europe, there are still regions that remain unvisited on my travel bucket list. The non-exhaustive list includes: Santorini and the Greek Islands, Normandy and Northern France, Cinque Terre and the Italian Coastline and the Whisky Regions of Scotland. Unfortunately these destinations more often than not took the backseat to the twenty-something life experiences that Europe has to offer (think Pamplona Bull Run and Ibiza). I confidently reasoned these destinations could be appreciated irrespective of age and would be experienced at a later stage in my life.

Recently there has been an the explosion of award winning whiskies from both Taiwan and Japan making Asia now a reputable player in the the world of Whiskies. It was decided that Japan, home of Suntory and Nikka would be a fun side trip to experience an Asia based Whisky tour. We managed to get cheap flights from Hong Kong to Osaka for 1200 HKD. Unfortunately, the main distillery in that region also happened to be closed during this time of the year for annual maintenance. Not to be discouraged we managed to visit a handful of local Whisky bars and even managed to find some non-export priced age whisky!

The trip, my first foray into the world of Air BNB found four grown men sharing a one bedroom apartment in the Naniwa-Ku district just outside of Namba. The days involved eating. Lots of it. A typical conversation that would take place went along the lines of "If we have [dinner/lunch] in 4 hours, we can most likely have another meal in 2 hours time, take a nap and then go out to eat again". I repeat. Non-stop eating. Most of the time was spent in Osaka, with one day out in the Bamboo forest of Asashiyama, Kyoto.

 Asashiyama, Bamboo Grove

 CoCo Ichibanya, Katsu Curry

 Koyoshi Sushi

 Matsuzakagyu Yakiniku M

 Otsuka Steakhouse