Farewell For Now

The 2 years I spent in Switzerland in the early 1990s were some of the best times of my life. Having returned home, I maintained a close-knit group of friends who shared a common link to L'Institut Hotelier 'Cesar Ritz' where we studied - Danny, Phoebe, Patricia and Faizol.

Patricia has since moved to Brisbane with hubby Robert, and the latest ones to move will be Danny and Phoebe in a few days. Having done stints in Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu at Shangri-La properties, Danny will be assuming the role of Director Of Sales & Marketing at Shangri-La Hotel, Dalian in China.

To wish them well and send them on their way, I hosted a farewell dinner over the weekend. Faizol and wife Sonya joined us, with Patricia 'phoning in' all the way from Brisbane. A silver lining - I've got a new place to visit soon. Meanwhile, there'll be an alumni gathering of Cesar Ritz graduates this Friday, so time to catch up with the others as well.

Photo of Danny, me, Faizol, Chloe, Sonya, Phoebe and Wesley.

Good Friends

It is always nice to know that friends are thinking of you. Danny, Phoebe and I have been friends since the early 1990s, when we first met in Switzerland as students and room-mates at L'Institut Hotelier 'Cesar Ritz' in Le Bouveret, a tiny village of only 700 people on the edge of Lake Geneva. A picture paints a thousand words so they say, and this photo says it all really. They were fun times.

So, the 3 of us go a long way back. I was bestman at their wedding, and now with a kid in tow, they never fail to keep in touch. Over dinner and coffee on most occasions, well actually dinner and durian earlier this evening, we would talk about the latest happenings in our lives. Danny, Director of Sales & Marketing at Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur keeps me updated on the happenings in the industry that I was once a part of whilst Phoebe, now a 'domestic goddess', shares tales of bringing up their son. They in turn take a keen interest in my work and my personal life, more so the latter I suspect!

What so great about this friendship of ours is that we are still as close as we were back then. We often reminisce about our road trips round Switzerland - Bern, Basel, Zurich, Thun, Interlaken, Leysin - which we hope to do again sometime in the future, when the finances permit. But in the meantime, we have tons of memories and photos to fall back on.

Photo of L'Institut Hotelier 'Cesar Ritz', courtesy of Cesar Ritz Colleges.