My love for breakfast and Singapore buffet breakfasts continues to grow. This morning they had green guava which, while I have eaten guava, I have never eaten green guava before.  Now I have. It has a slight guava taste and was like eating ‘green’ guava (i.e. not ripe guava).  Some people apparently call them apple guava’s and that is probably a more fitting name because they are crispy like apples, green like apples and about the size of an apple.  But they are a guava (in case you’re confused).  I can’t wait for tomorrow to see what new fruit I can get to try.

After breakfast I had a meeting on professionalism. In the past this gone relatively well but maybe I am now bored of the content already because it seems the same things stay on the agenda for each meeting. And despite the Frenchman (who I cannot understand) not being present for the meeting (though he is here in Singapore), it still seemed to go on for too long.  I can’t even blame the chairman (who is South African and generally quite a good chairman), I just think it is that everyone wants to say something. I said nothing for the duration of the whole meeting. And those of you who know me will know that for me to do that in a meeting from 8:30am to 12:30pm, it must be exceptional circumstances or I am totally out of my depth.   I don’t think it is the latter though.  After the tea break I watched a guy opposite me (he is from the UK, I know him) nod off to sleep. It kept me entertained.  I also surreptitiously managed to take a photo him.  Even though he is looking slightly up and what looks like at the screen, you will see his eyes are totally closed (he is the guy in the blue jacket). Sorry about the grainy photo but I was taking it with my iPhone and I couldn’t really turn on the flash. The first shot has the bottle of water on my side of the table right in line with him so I had to make a big show of opening and drinking from the bottle so I could move it out of the way. Only slightly confusing thing was that I was already drinking from another open bottle.  People next to me probably thought I had lost it.  But incredibly I don’t think they realized that I took the photo though.

After lunch I managed to get in some work time again and late afternoon I met with Paul (who is also here) for catch up, staff discussion, genera conversation. Paul had ventured into the Gen Re Singapore office today. I doubt he did any work but he just went in to say hi to everyone (not that he knows anyone there – just the branch manager). While we were talking I got in some more fruit intake this time by the way of Watermelon fresh squeezed juice.  It was very good but then at R100 ($10) per glass it ought to be.   I couldn’t stop myself from having a second one it was so good.

There was a conference dinner this evening.  But after having googled the venue on TripAdvisor during the earlier meeting and reading the first 10 reviews, I decided to give it a skip (everyone said ‘service is shocking’). That and the fact that I didn’t sleep that well last night and don’t feel 100% and I know I have 4 busy days ahead without a weekend in between made me decide to stay in and have room service instead.  I went for the Wanton Mee (you’ll have to google that one) and when I called to order it they asked whether I wanted it wet or dry. Now there is a choice I have never had before.  Hard to ask “What do you mean by wet or dry” so I just confidently said ‘dry of course’ like they were an idiot for even asking. Immediately I had done it I was worried that I was going to get dry, uncooked noodles but I resisted the urge to phone back and change the order. It was very good (as most meals are in Asia). It came with a soup (which was obviously the wet bit).

Despite it being Saturday tomorrow, it will be a ‘working day’ here at the conference.  I am SO looking forward to that.