Quality vs Deadline

Recently there were issues at work that causes some delay. We wanted something to look better, so we ended up pushing the deadline to make sure that it's aesthetically as nice as possible. Despite all the stress and causing a train of delays (because when one thing is late, everything other department that comes after that is affected as well.), I'm still glad that we chose to do so. I feel like it's annoying to rework things, but when the product comes out, I will be very proud and happy to see it on the shelf versus knowing that something could have looked much better will be on that store shelves forever. Although, in the end, I think we could have avoided the whole delay if we just started everything a bit earlier. I guess we learnt from that.

Coincidentally, the same issue happened to my personal product as well. The manufacturer ran out of the material and I was asked to make a choice. Either pick a different material that's not as nice to keep the deadline, or have them re-order the material that I wanted, but it will be almost a month delay. I debated a bit because I felt really bad that my customers especially the ones that have pre-ordered are waiting. In the end, I chose the delay. I knew that to me, the final product is the most important. Truthfully, unless the customers can see the comparison of the two materials like I can, they would never be able to tell nor be upset about it, but it still matters to me. I know it and I want my product to be the best it can be. I guess that's a good thing about a smaller scale personal product though because I am not causing horrible trains of delays in other department.

I really love designing products of my own. It's very fun to see the process and it's very rewarding when my customers are really excited about it. I don't know if it will ever grow to be something bigger or not, but if it will ever become something bigger, I know I definitely do not want to compromise the quality. I'd only sell something that I'd want to buy myself.

My Nephew buried in plush dolls. Baby Yeti is still the cutest to me.

Lego Headquarters

Giant Lego Bricks in front of the Headquarter
My work permit is finally approved! I'm going to officially start work on Monday at the Lego Headquarters as a Senior Designer. I'm so excited. I've been doing a lot of freelance projects for the team here, and I really like working with them. Everyone is super nice and really enjoy creating awesome things for kids, so I feel so honored to be able to officially join them here in Denmark. There are a lot of buildings around Billund that are Lego buildings. I wasn't aware that there are lego offices ALL OVER this town. They are also building more. Anyways, this will be my new work place.

As I was walking around the town, I also noticed these pretty ceramic blocks that are placed randomly on the streets. It's so nice to see little spots of colors as you are walking.

Aarhus

Back to Aarhus again today. I had to go order furnitures for delivery from Ikea. This time, I also get to explore the town a bit. I got a european charger for my nintendo3DS XL too. I read that there is an asian market here, so I was quite excited, but it's so small. It doesn't have much at all. It's still better than nothing :(. I think asian food is just not popular here. I saw a few thai restaurant signs, but they were all shut down. Mitsu was really sad about sushi here too. They don't seem to have a good sushi place here either. Lucky him though, he'll get to go eat the really good ones in Japan soon. There are a lot of bicycle riders here. We passed by a bicycle parking spot that's filled with bicycles. It's amazing. I've never seen so may parked bikes.

Train station, The town, Bicycles! City Hall, A street, maybe a church?
Got a bagel sandwich from the train station. They didn't toast it. It tastes so much better toasted! I should open a bagel stand next to them and sell toasted bagels lol.

Lego Hotel

Mona Lisa made with Lego bricks
I never got a chance to stay at Lego hotel. The last two times I was here, I was at Hotel Propellen because Lego Hotel was all booked up. I think it has very nice decorations, so I stopped by to take pictures since it's a short walk from my place. They really do pay attention to little details which made it fun. There are mini figures hanging from the sign in front. Even the bathroom door has signs that are made of lego bricks to tell you if it's for men or women. There's a Lego monkey hanging from the tree inside. During the summer, they also have buffet.

Billund Bakery

Fresh self-serve Orange juice machine!
I'm happy that there's a bakery that I can walk to. They have a machine that you can use to squeeze fresh oranges. There are many types of pastries that I've never seen before, but I'm really into these "fastelavnsboller" which I talked about before in the previous post. It has light pastry layers filled with pastry cream, whipped cream, and jam. It's very light and not too sweet. The lady that works there doesn't really speak english, but she's very kind and is always smiling :)

Billund - my town

Cloudy with a partially pink sky
Here are some pics of my new neighborhood. I'm in a town called Billund and it's pretty much known for Lego. It's a colorful town that's quiet and children friendly. There are brick buildings and modern buildings around, lots of grass and trees, and very friendly people everywhere. The roofs of the houses in Denmark reminds me of houses in fairy tales. They are so triangular and they extend pretty far down compares to the ones I usually see in America.



I didn't see any Dandelions, but I saw these. Cute weeds here :)

Cat Litter & Toilet paper

I have been traveling around a lot in the past 3-4 months and one thing that I realized is that we use really good Toilet paper in my family in America. I mean really really good and I totally took it for granted. Toilet Paper commercial are always boasting on how amazingly soft their toilet papers are, and they ARE very very soft. We use Charmin, Quilted Northern, and Scott. When I was in Thailand for a month, that's one of the first thing I noticed. Their toilet paper is really not that soft. My friend confirmed and said that they have US Toilet paper there too, but it's like 4 times the price of normal toilet papers. It's the same for Japan, thin and not so soft. Now that I'm in Denmark, I picked up the toilet paper that's a little more pricy than the othera and it's still rough and not that good. My butt must be super spoiled. Thanks a lot mom for always buying such good toilet papers in the US! lol. Paper towels are also the same. Dear Viva and Bounty, I miss you guys too ;_;
Silly Oliver keeping me entertained. That's a toy that I got from Japan. It looks just like him.
Talk about toilet, I'm also struggling to find good cat litter here too. People that knows me already know that I do tons of research when it comes to my cats and they're always getting the best that I can afford. Before coming to Denmark, I was worried because I really don't know what cat food I can get here. My cats mainly eat Wellness, Blue Wilderness, and Weruva daily for wet food and Orijen for dry food. FSc recommended Applaws from ZooPlus that I can order from online. I was very pleased because they also have Orijen. Unfortunately, once I got to Denmark, they said they would not ship to me unless I have a Danish bank card and the billing and shipping address must match. My bank is still in the US, so that's not possible. Thank god, I brought enough food for the cat and a bag of litter with me all the way from the US. It seems I still needed to buy some more sand for the litter box, so I had to get whatever I can from the market near by. This is when I found out that my cats are also little bathroom snobs lol. Oliver hopped in and started sneezing like crazy because of the amount of dust that the new litter had and then gave me a look, but he used it anyways. It was pretty funny. I really do need to get a hold of good litter soon though. My poor cats. They probably really miss their Dr. Elsey's Ultra clumping cat litter just as much as me missing my US toilet papers lol.
Sherlock checking out the new litter.
Today, I made Caprese salad and Mitsu made Hamburg steak that we ate with rice. He didn't have the right sauce ingredients so we had it with tomato sauce instead of the usual Demi Glace sauce. He also made veggie soup. We also bought some pastry from the bakery in the town. This one is so awesome. It's like choux cream puff but with 3 layers: whipped cream, custard, and jam. Yummy :).

Ikea & Money

Aarhus
All I wanted to do today was to go to Ikea and buy some furnitures, but for some reason they wouldn't accept my credit cards. I read online that a lot of stores in Denmark especially grocery stores don't accept foreign credit cards, but I thought at least Ikea would be okay. In the end, I had to search for a bank or an ATM. Mitsu needed a place with currency exchange because the airport didn't even have one and I needed to find an ATM.

Bank 1: Ikea worker told us to walk to an ATM machine that's 20 min away, but the machine didn't work.
Bank 2 : A girl we met on the way said to go to the hospital because there's a bank in there, so we walked 30 min the other way. Unfortunately, the bank system was shut down, so the ATM doesn't work and they cannot do any currency exchange.
Bank 3: The workers from the last bank said we had to take the bus to downtown where we will be able to get money from a major Danish bank called Danske bank. After getting to Danske bank, I was finally able to use the ATM there. Yay! I took out a bunch of money because it seems almost impossible to use my Master card or Visa here. Mitsu needed to do currency exchange for a while was turned down though. This bank actually told him that they have no cash lol.
Bank 4: Danske bank sent us to another bank a little down the street where Mitsu was finally able to exchange his dollars.

That was quite adventurous and took several hours. Then we took the bus back to Ikea and finally, I bought a lot of things that I needed for my place including a wastebasket and a mattress. Well, a mattress topper because that's all we could drag to the bus, but it's definitely better than a bare floor with a few blankets. *rolls around on my new little mattress topper*

That took all day, so I guess I will have to explore Aarhus another day. I did notice that Aarhus was much bigger than Vejle. Downtown felt a bit like San Francisco. For now, I'm just ordering things from Amazon UK because I don't know where to go. I wish I can find a Target, a Container Store, or a Daiso here. T_T. I still don't know where I can buy regular plain plastic hangers. I have tons of clothes laying on the floor that needs to be hung.

On other note, the train and the buses in this country is so nice and new. The windows are gigantic. The train has little tables too. The people are wonderful, friendly, and very helpful. Despite things not being so convenient, the people really made up for that. There are bicyclists everywhere and I saw a cute polar bear with mustache ad at the bus stop that made me think of Sunny. I think she'd like that.

Train station, Bus with gigantic windows, Aarhus, I can't read it! Air for your bicycle, mustache polar bear, and flowers
Lunch was at Ikea. Their soft serve ice cream is so good by the way and it was only 5 Kr! By the time we got back, I was super tired and hungry so I decided to make rice on the stove. I don't have a transformer for my rice cooker yet :(. Rice, spam, and egg. It's almost like a wanna be spam mutsubi, but so yummy especially when you haven't eaten rice in a while.