the wellington moments!

recently, coly and i were reminiscing the great times we had during one of our business trips in my ex company. my heart was filled with excitement as i started recalling the many things we did then!

my ex company had a subsidiary company in new zealand, producing various kinds of sauces and coffee powder. further, they had acquired a boutique café called caffé l’affare in wellington. the café was due for annual internal audit and i was assigned as part of the audit team, together with coly. i was quite looking forward as i always enjoyed café culture and would be interesting to go behind the scenes by auditing one. moreover, i had never been to wellington and could take this opportunity to explore the city. finally, i would be going with coly! we had a lot of fun during our previous trips and i was sure that we would have more fun this time as well!       

the audit assignment stretched about 3 weeks where we would spend 2 weekends in wellington. when we got there, the weather was very cooling with sunshine. we stayed in a service apartment, only 5 minutes walk to caffé l’affare.

the café was not very big, furnished with wooden tables and chairs, yellow lighting, posters and display of coffee making equipment on the shelves. the interior décor gave the whole place a very cozy feel. the staff was very friendly with good service. you could feel a sense of passion in them when they were serving the customers. sometimes, we would eat breakfast at the café, enjoying a nice cup of mocha, before starting work. the café was buzzing with people every morning. i was really inspired to open a café like this one day!

the café manager was a very knowledgeable and humorous guy. he would share many stories and knowledge with us. we also participated in their annual coffee cupping competition. the rules were very simple. there would be 8 sets of coffee, 3 cups in each set. out of the 3 cups, 1 cup would be different from the other 2. using taste and aroma, the participant would need to single out the different cup. the person who identified the most number of different cups correctly within the shortest period of time would win. this was not as easy as it sounded. towards the end, all the cups tasted the same to me. nonetheless, we decided to organize our own coffee cupping competition when we got back to singapore office, to share this with our colleagues!  

the most exciting part of the whole trip were the weekends! on the first weekend, we visited the te papa museum to see the biggest colossal squid in the world on display. after that, we walked by the harbor to the city central, enjoying the scenery and breeze, while stopping by to take pictures and play on the slide at the children playground. at the city central, we took our time to shop around and find a place to enjoy afternoon tea when we got tired. what a leisure way to spend the weekend.

as we had a kitchen in the service apartment, we attempted to cook our own dinner at night. we shopped at the supermarket for ingredients and headed back to prepare. after an hour of busy cooking, we made a sumptuous dinner of mushroom soup, corn, vegetables, steak, desert and red wine! it was real fun cooking dinner together and enjoying the good meal after that!

on some nights, coly would pop by to my room and we would watch tv shows together. i remembered a night where we were watching some ghost thrillers as she was scared to watch alone. hahaha! one of the evenings, we walked down to the other side of the harbor and sat at the bench to talk, only heading back when we were freezing from the cold sea breeze.

during the second weekend, caffé l’affare was participating in a food fair at the stadium and we went over to help out by serving coffee samples to the customers. there were a lot of other food suppliers selling coffee, wine and food products. being us, we would not miss the chance of going around to try the food samples and even bought a prize for our coffee cupping competition. 

another new experience was watching my 1^st opera with coly and my ex boss! the opera was in a different language and i was trying hard to follow the story plot. after watching, i thought i would prefer musicals or theatre to opera. =p

the 3 weeks were fulfilling. although all these happened in may 2010, those moments were still vivid to me. i must say this was the best business trip i ever had! i guessed the commonality between the two of us was that we were both crazy enough to explore new places and try new things.  

so coly, it was really really great fun travelling with you and thanks for being so spontaneous! definitely a memorable one for me! i am sure you know what i mean! = )

http://www.laffare.co.nz

sunny & cooling weather!

caffe l'affare


interior of caffe l'affare

a nice cup of coffee 

the biggest colossal squid

the children playground

our sumptuous dinner!

coly & me!