Things done in 2010

So fast, 2010, just flew by and in a couple of weeks time, it will be 2011 already.

Still very fresh in my mind in 2009, I have celebrated the New Year's Eve with my best friend and family members in a dinner in KLCC.

Below were the things I have done in 2010 in random order:

• Celebrated New Year Eve of 2010 with my friend + his wife and my gf and my mom with a dinner in KLCC
• Proposed to my gf in one of the tallest building in Malaysia and.....
• My girlfriend became my fiancée
• Watched live ballet performance for the first time (although it is more of a comedy)
• Upgraded my mobile phone by buying a new phone
• Send my fiancée to the airport as she took a flight to the US for her company posting training for a year
• Miss my fiancée a lot
• Being selected to look after Australia and New Zealand sales for my group and travel extensively across ANZ
• So much travelling / flying that I was upgraded by the airline to an elite class
• Got a cake from my niece and nephew for my birthday. No celebration just simple cake cutting
• Mom celebrated her 70th Birthday, my brother and me organized a small birthday dinner / party for her
• Posted back to look after SEA mainly Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore
• Got the keys to our new house
• Started and completed the renovation work of our new house
• Got extensive help and learn a lot of things from my fiancées parents on the new house renovation
• Learn to install down lights
• Moving house for the first time in my life into our new house
• Got a 40 inch LCD TV as a new house gift from my uncle
• Stop playing indoor football after a "scary" accident. Lucky I fully recovered after that
• Started hiking (hills and reserved forest) together with my colleagues
• Started jogging around the park in front of the new house
• Shifted to new office as the old office cannot accommodate the whole team as we have expanded due to extensive hiring
• Tasted "Kopi Luwak" for the first time. Its a kind of coffee in which the raw coffee bean is first eaten and digested by an Asian Palm Civet cat, then when the cat 'poo', the coffee bean is collected and process. One of the most expensive coffee in the world
• One of my Aunt passed away
• One of my close colleague (and teacher) left the company to venture on his own. He is the one who taught me the most about water treatment
• Officially a Tzu Chi Volunteer after attending their volunteer training
• Now I am a regular dental assistance in Tzu Chi Free Clinic

2010 have left lots of memories in my mind. Lots of sweet and tearful, many ups and downs, joy and sorrow, happy and sad occasions throughout the year.

Overall, I would rate it as an exciting year that have enriched my life experiences both in personal and working aspect. Seen lots of new places and experienced lots of new things in life.

Hopefully in coming 2011, I will continue to learn and improve... Looking forward for the coming 2011!!!!

To all my readers out there, HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011 and have a Great Year AHEAD!!!!

Started Jogging

Since shifted into my new house few Saturdays ago, I started to use the park in front of my house for evening jogs.

Started it with some fast walk and started to do some half rounds on the smaller route but amazingly, within a week or so, I can manage to cover whole complete round without stopping.

I just can't believe it myself. Human body can adapt and be build up so easily. Now my target will be a full round without stopping and hopefully as time move by, I will be able to do a few rounds without stopping.

Hope I can keep this up.

Shifted to New House

Last weekend - 13th of November 2010 (Saturday), finally after nearly five months of renovation work, we shifted into our new house.

This is a totally new environment for both my mom and me in which for the last 33 years (as I remembered for me) and 40 years (for my mom) we never shifted before. We have been staying in the same place all these while.

This place which we shifted into is nearly double the size of our old place. Besides that, this new place is gated and guarded in which safety will not be a major concern. We can happily leave the gate wide open, and not be too worried about passerby / strangers walking into the house as to enter to our area, those who are not staying there need to register themselves with the guard giving their ID card and their car number plate taken down.

Shifting house is a major task. With the help from my family + relatives and a few good friends, the major shifting process took place on Sunday (14th November 2010) morning. I have got a 30ft lorry from my office colleague which this lorry have a lifting platform mounted behind the back to ease the loading into the lorry and unloading it again at the new house.

I was on leave on since Friday (12th Nov 2010) until Wednesday (17th Nov 2010) happens to be a public holiday here. So have a 6 days straight of days off at home to unpack and re-arrange the new place.

Now, have been comfortably settled into the new place and my mom seems happy with the setup although everything is still very new to us. Need to adjust to our daily routine and new location of the things we use to put.

Today is the first day of me in the office and took a new drive route to work. The drive was smooth as many people took leave to continue straight for the weekend since its already Thursday today and weekend is the day after.

The renovation took lots of effort and coordination, inputs and discussion with lots of people inclusive of my fiancée, my mom, my brother & sister in-law, uncle and cousins inclusive of the contractors and suppliers.

One of the best design item in the house that almost everyone that came will say its beautiful is my prayers' cabinet which was designed by my fiancée dad. He really put in a lot of effort into make the design looks really great. Also he had design my kitchen cabinet setup which was really beautiful. Thanks Uncle!!

Trip to Hanoi, Vietnam

On Monday (18th Oct 2010), I took a flight to Hanoi, Vietnam again.

This is the 2nd trip I took for this upgrading project and I am book into a different hotel. I am enjoying the advantage of holding the Silver Card of an airline where I need not to queue up to check in as they have special counter for me to check in.

Perhaps I am too used to travelling for work, I did not pay special attention to the flight departure time. I told my regular cab driver to come and pick me up at 0700, but my flight is only at 1045am. If I were to pay more attention to it, I would have booked the cab at 0745 instead. So I am an hour too early to be at the airport.

Therefore, I ask my cabbie, which is also a friend of mine, to go for breakfast instead of going straight to the airport. He took me to a shop near the airport which serves 'wan tan' noodles with add ons like steam chicken, BBQ pork, roast pork etc. We had our breakfast there and then departed to the airport and still much time to spare.

As I arrived in Hanoi, two of my local Vietnamese colleague (Short as his name means short in Chinese, not because he is short and Pail as his name means pail in Chinese) pick me up from the airport with our company driver and company car. We came to the hotel and then went for a cuppa local Vietnam coffee which I never miss whenever I come here.

We had our discussion in the coffee shop and I took a short rest in my hotel room and at 1830, both my local colleagues came and join me for dinner. We went to a shop which Short took me previously. It is a shop where they have a good variety food which is some kind like 'economy rice' I get back home. We ordered a few dishes and have it with rice. One thing I found special is that one of the vegetable we ordered is basically cabbage which is simply boiled in hot water. Then, my colleague requested for a hard boil duck egg. Yes, duck egg.

Where I come from, duck eggs are normally salted in which they are marinated in salt water for approx 40 days to make it salty. But, they way they have it here is different. They just add on a very very salty fish sauce to it to make it salty and it is used to dip the boil cabbage. Something special / different. FYI, the locals here eat their vegetables in a very health manner. Most greens are simply boiled with plain water and dip in fish sauce for taste. No oil use in the process, hence their greens as they serve on the table are a bit yellowish. Perhaps that explains for the slender bodies of the ladies here.

Then, as usual, I never miss to scroll into DVD shops to see if any movie series catches my attention. I bought a very popular Hong Kong cartoon - McDull, which my lovely fiancée recommended to me when I went to visit her in the UK previously.

After walking for about an hour scrolling down the busy streets of Hanoi City Center, we adjourned and both Short and Pail went back home.

This morning started early. I woke up at 0630 am and took my breakfast at 0700 and left the hotel at 0730. The drive from the hotel to site is only about 40 km (max) but this drive took an hour to arrive. Its because they drive at a very low speed as streets in Hanoi is full of motobikes and there is virtually no traffic rules. People ride and drive from all directions and one amazing thing is that they are able to coordinate themselves so professionally and never bump into each other. At least I have never seen it before - touch wood.

Spend the whole day at site today, had meeting with the customer and followed by the contractor. Had lunch at the industrial area canteen where they serve you 4 dishes and just charge VND20,000 per person (approx USD1 per person) and unlimited amount of rice - eat all you want.

After lunch, we went back to the site for some discussion and left site at about 3pm and reaching back to hotel an hour later. Upon reaching the hotel, I catch up my work e-mails which have been sitting in my inbox for the whole day and at 1830, Short came over and we went for dinner together.

This time, he took me to a noodle restaurant. It seems it is very famous here in Hanoi. Basically, they use marinated slices of fish and when you order, they serve it in a small little wok with fire and fry the fish in the wok as you eat.

Then, there is just unlimited amount of dill and spring onions for you to "cook" or rather fry together with the fish and eat together with the noodles - Vietnamese noodles. Its kinda nice and something different, but its a bit too oily as the fish is frying inside oil and when you pick up the dills and spring onions out from the wok, it will be drench in oil.

After dinner, we took a walk at the night market, and after walking for about an hour, we ended up in a stall to have some coconut water to quench our thirst before I came back and update this blog.

Will be working full day at site again tomorrow and will be leaving Hanoi back home on Thursday afternoon.

Trip to Maldives

Yesterday (14th Sept 2010 - Tuesday) I took a flight from KL to Singapore on transit to Republic of Maldives.

I have came here before many times during the course of a project which we my company was awarded a job here back in 2007. Now after approx 3 years, we are on the final run of this project and I was invited by the customer here for a final review and defect rectification meeting.

During the course of this project, there were many ups and downs. I myself had learned a lot of things while running this project. The project was to build a resort island from once an island devastated by the 2004 Tsunami.

While in transit in Singapore, I met the customer's Project Manager (JC) which is one of the most calm and cool Project Manager I have ever met. We had our initial discussion and flew all the way from Singapore arriving at about 10pm in Male and on transit for another flight to a place call Gan, which is the south most group of island in Maldives.

Then, in the transit flight, I met with another contractor which was also invited here for this meeting. This contractor supplied the interior design for this resort and he personally had been stationed and worked here for the last 2 years.

Upon arriving at Gan, I checked into a local hotel while JC and the contractor I met checked into one of the most expensive hotel here in Maldives. While in the airport, we were checking out ourselves where are each of us staying and the contractor actually mentioned that I should grab the offer the customer (which is the owner of the hotel). The villa they offered to us is at USD250++ per night. Normal rate for this villa is about USD1,250 per night. What a bargain!!

I did not check into this hotel is because it is too expensive for our company rates. Hence, upon arrival in Gan about 2am, I proceed to the hotel my colleague here booked for me.

However, in the morning, I called my boss and explain to him that I am willing to pay the difference in the cost to take this bargain to stay in the customer's hotel, however, to my surprise, my boss says proceed to check in and don't worry, I can claim it in full. I was so happy with it and immediately, I packed and checked into this hotel.

We had our meeting where all the contractors came at 10am and it lasted until 12pm when we break for lunch and then at 3pm, again the meeting continue with individual contractor which lasted until 5pm.

Upon coming out from the meeting, I checked into my villa - Water Villa no. 247. This is call Water Villa because the villa is actually sitting about the Indian Ocean with water flowing under me.

Me and my colleague took a dip in the Indian Ocean, which is first time for me even though I have been here so many times. I fully enjoyed the villa facilities and setup. This hotel group is one of the high end hotel group in the world, hence explains for the price of their rooms and villas.

During the construction phase of this project, when we first heard the rate of they are going to charge, no one ever dream of staying here. It is for the rich and famous which can afford and willing to spend above USD1,000 per night stays. Not for us ordinary working people.

Well, here I am now, in my Water Villa no 247 (actually its villa no. 47 - 2 is just indicating the type of villa), blogging this entry and enjoying every minute of it. I take it as a company paid holiday for the hard work and effort I have put in over the last 3 years to make this project a success and bring it to a closure.

Trip to Hanoi

On Monday (23rd August 2010), I left home at about 0745 for the airport and flew in to Hanoi, Vietnam for work. There is a new project here which we had just secured.

The flight was about 2 and half hours. Landed in Hanoi at approx 1.10pm and coincidently I met my colleague which is from Singapore in the luggage collection area. So we both then met with a local engineer here and we went straight to the customer's factory. On the way there, the skies turn grey fast and upon us reaching the customer's industrial area - Noi Bai Industrial Park, the rain started and couple with strong winds. It is some kind of storm brewing and it lasted for about 1.5 hours.

After the rain, I went to the plant with the local engineer here and did our survey and we discussed some of the works to be done here. At about 3.30pm, we left the customer's site and checked in to our hotel - Boss Hotel. The room was acceptable and I was placed on the 4th floor - room 401 and my window overlooked the main street.

My colleague with his team proceeded to the conference room to have their own discussions, but I went straight to my room to start working on my e-mails. There were 45 mails waiting for me in the mail box.

Then, the local engineer took us to a shop nearby where they serve local food. It seems this shop was popular for glutinous rice. The bowl of rice came with fried eggs and some kind of fish cake. There is also come simple condiment, cucumber marinated in vinegar. It was simple and nice.

Then, the local engineer left for home while me and my colleague from Singapore took a walk along a lake. Lake seems to be something popular here in Hanoi. It seems on 1st of October 2010, Hanoi will celebrate 1,000 years of founding and all hotels were fully booked for the period of 15 days.

After the walk, we came back and rested.

This morning - 24th August 2010 (Tuesday), I started my day at 0730 with breakfast with my colleague at the hotel restaurant. Then, at 0830, the local engineer again came with the driver to pick us up to drive our way to meet the suppliers. The first supplier has a big setup here in Hanoi. I doubt they will be interested in doing this 'small' project for us.

The meeting lasted for about an hour before we drove to a 2nd supplier's office. From the meeting, it looks to me these 2nd supplier is more interested to do this project with us. They showed their interest and went through the scope of supply very throughly. The meeting lasted for about 2 hours and by the time we finish, it was already close to lunch time.

Again, our local engineer took us to a local shop. This shop is some kind of a economic rice shop I find back home. We ordered a few dishes - namely chicken, soup, local vegetable, some of the shop's specialties.

After lunch we proceeded to another FRP supplier's place and this visit was brief as this owner seems to be doing the job half heartedly. I am not at all impress with this supplier. To my surprise, this owner actually works as a security officer and have 3 stars on his shoulder as he was on his duty uniform when he met us.

After this visit, as we were on our way back to the hotel, I suggested to my colleagues we go get some coffee and the local engineer took us a coffee shop. I had my cuppa espresso - local coffee bean. The moment I drank, the butter taste was overwhelmingly thick in the mouth. I enjoyed it a lot. Then, just opposite to this coffee shop, there is a shop that sells the coffee powder. I bought some arabica coffee beans grind into powder to bring back with me.

I just got back from dinner with my Singaporean colleague. We took a cab to the restaurant. Unfortunately, the cab driver was not honest. The meter clearly showed VND24,000, he insisted that he wanted VND200,000!!! No joke man. Both of us got down from the cab and went straight to the restaurant and seek the restaurant staff to sort it out with the cab driver. We ended up paying VND40,000. I learn a new trick. If you are in trouble with the cab, go to the restaurant that you plan to dine and get them to help you.

Dinner was nice and simple. We had chicken with sticky / glutinous rice, bitter gourd stir fried with eggs, deep fried bean curd with pepper and my colleague order a beef wrap. Unfortunately, I do not eat beef, hence, he have it all for himself. The price is also quite reasonable. Two of us dine with one beer each, the dinner cost us VND233,000 = approx USD12. I took the restaurant card so that next time I am here, I know where I can eat. Of course, there were lots of place to eat around Vietnam, and I am not a fuzzy eater, so its not going to be a major issue with me.

Furthermore, I have a local engineer here which can take care of it. We travel around with a company employed driver with car, so transportation is not an issue.

Tomorrow morning, there will be another customer's visit at 0930 and after that we will work from our hotel. On Thursday, we have scheduled 2 suppliers visit to site to show them the scope of work and I am leaving back home on Friday for my long weekend. 27th August 2010 (Friday) its a public holiday in Malaysia, and so is 31st August 2010 - Malaysia Independence Day (Tuesday). So I took the Monday off as a replacement leave.

So now, here I am in the hotel reading Malaysia newspaper and watching TV and of course writing this blog. I am sure that's the same thing I am going to do tomorrow night as well....

Trip to Philippines

On Sunday (15th August 2010) evening, I boarded took a flight to the Philippines and as soon as I landed in Manila, I have a connecting flight to another island call Bacolod.

I was lucky that in Manila, I have a very good friend who came to the Manila Terminal 1 airport and gave me a ride to to the Terminal 3 for my connecting flight.

The flight from Manila to Bacolod is approx an hour. When I landed in Bacolod, another colleague of mine pick me up from the airport and took me to the hotel which is approx 30 minutes away, distance of approx 25km. There I met up with the sales person in-charge and we all had dinner together at the hotel.

Bacolod is a small town, where the main industry there is sugar production and it seem this town itself supplies for approx 90% of the sugar used in the whole of Philippines. The appointment with the factory facility manager was scheduled at approx 9am the next day.

The room suppose to have internet WIFI connection, unfortunately, for whatsoever reasons, it did not work from the room, hence, I have to go down to the lobby to use the facility.

On the second day, (16th August 2010), after the meeting, my colleague took me to the air line agency and try to change my ticket, unfortunately, the airline they booked is a budget airline, hence, no changes is allowed. I was initially schedule to fly out from Bacolod on Tuesday noon and tried to change it to the same day itself, since the meeting ended earlier and scheduled.

So I have no option but to issue another ticket for the return flight from Bacolod to Manila.

On that evening after arriving in Manila, my colleague booked me into a hotel which is quite near to the office. The flight from Bacolod was delayed for 20 minutes circling above Manila city as it seems the air traffic was busy.

Upon checking into the hotel in Manila, only I realize that I have accidentally left a collar T-Shirt in the hotel in Bacolod. I immediately called the hotel there and they found the T-shirt. I was kinda relieve as I can ask my colleague to collect it from the hotel and have it couriered back to me.

Went out for dinner with this colleague of mine, we went for Mediterranean food. I had the lamb stew which was good. Enjoyed it a lot.

This morning, this colleague took me to our production facility near Laguna to inspect some parts which they ordered from oversea and they are not able to make the head and tail of it. So I did my best to have the unit explained to them and hopefully they are able to use it now.

The boss of our Philippines office was really polite, he knew I had came into the Philippines to assist his team, he insisted that we have lunch together. We went for Japanese food which was good.

Now, I am sitting here in the airport, using the free WIFI to update this blog while waiting to board on my plane back which is schedule to board at 1800 hrs and leave 30 minutes later. I am expected to touch down at 10pm in Malaysia.

Overall, it was a good and fruitful trip.

Shift to new office

Over the year, my company had expended and the existing office is not able to cope to give a workstation to everyone.

Therefore, about 3 months ago, they rented a new office block, which all regional staff have to move. The new office have 10 managers room + 1 conference room. On the outside, they have put up 21 working cubical for the executives and engineers.

This new office is not very far from the current office, merely behind the existing one. In this new office, it seems the internet cable installed was the high speed cable, hence the internet access is faster.

Suppose to move the office on Tuesday (3rd of August 2010), unfortunately, the office chair did not arrived in time, hence, only today all of us moved and started working from this new office. However, even today the manager's chair yet to be delivered, hence, we are all using the meeting room chair for the time being.

This new office is located at the 4th floor of the building which is shared by other tenants. The parking is behind the office block, which is quite a distance to walk every morning and evening after work.

Because of this move, for the last 2 days, I have not visited the progress of the renovation. So, will make it a point tonight to go and have a look at it.

One week in Perth

On Monday 5th July 2010, I took a flight to Perth, Western Australia for business trip.

The flight left at about 10am and touches down in Perth at about 3pm. In which a colleague of mine was kind enough to pick me up from the airport. Having met him at about 4pm we did not go to the hotel but we went to a supplier's place to discuss some details of some work we wanted him to quote.

After the discussion, he took me to check into a hotel which is quite near to his house. This is one of the cheapest hotel I have stayed in Australia. It is only AUD99 per night and basic amenities are available there with heater and warm shower.

Then on Tuesday, we went for a customer's appointment and from there we drove down south of Perth to a place known as Bunbury. The drive was about 2.5 hours and on the way, we drop and made a sales call with another prospect before reaching our hotel about 3 hours later in Bunbury.

The hotel we checked in was known as "Lighthouse Hotel" due to the fact that it had a light house near to it as it was near a sea side.

On Wednesday morning, as schedule we visited a customer which have 2 dairy factories in Bunbury area. The first visit was good, we manage to achieve what we intended to. However, on the 2nd factory, we were very annoyed with the Electrical Supervisor which held us up for more than 1.5 hours just to make us wait for him and for simple task, instead of just picking up the phone for clarifications, he made us wait for him to browse through his e-mails and note book pages after pages trying to find the information for us. He did not manage to find it after the ordeal and ended up having to call the person in-charge as well. He could have saved us the 1 hour or so of waiting time for it.

However, the positive thing that happened was we manage to meet their General Manager and happens that the CEO of the company was also inside the GM's room having discussion when we requested to meet. At least a consolation.

We drove our way back from Bunbury to Perth again and initially of planning to reach sometime at 3pm, we ended up reaching at about 5.30pm instead.

On Thursday morning, there was an early flight for us to catch from Perth to Kalgoorlie, which is about 600km east of Perth. My colleague was suppose to pick me up from the hotel and together we will go the air port. The flight is at 0620am and we were suppose to meet up at 0500. However, my colleague overslept and we were very close to missing the flight. The airline lady was kind enough to allow us to check in, but because we were late, our luggage did not come through when we arrived in Kalgoorlie.

Since we knew the reason is late check in, we were not too worried and allowed it to come in via the next flight which will arrive at 1pm. We proceeded to the customer's meeting and the meeting ended only at about 5pm before we called the airport to confirm the luggage had arrived and we went to the airport to collect it. What a relieve when I saw my bag coming through the door as if the luggage did not come through, I would not have any cloths to change for the whole night and worse is we are going to leave Kalgoorlie the next day.

Today, our flight from Kalgoorlie was suppose to be at 1.50pm and arrive in Perth at 2.50pm, leaving me with adequate time to check-in to my connecting flight back to Malaysia.

However, due to some reason, the flight was delayed by 30 minutes and hence, I missed the connecting flight back. I have to book and pay for another different flight back which instead of me reaching at 10pm in Malaysia, but at 10pm, I had just left my colleague's house to the Perth airport.

Good thing the have seats available for this flight and I have to transit in Singapore instead of getting a direct flight.

Anyway, the whole week was good. Manage to confirm an official order and the customer did told us that he will send across their company's Terms & Conditions of purchase to us for review and approval before we seal the contract.

Well, now here I am sitting down in Perth International Airport, using the WiFi posting on this blog and the time now its 1215am on the 10th of July 2010.

I will touch down in Malaysia in 0930 hrs in the morning.

What a week!!

Trip to Singapore

Yesterday (28th June 2010 - Monday) I took a flight to Singapore for a working assignment. My company participated in the Singapore International Water Week (SIWW) exhibition held here in Suntec City.

Flew in with the 1450 hrs budget airline and checked into a nice hotel in just behind Orchard Road. Due to most of the hotels are full, the office had booked me into the Executive Room in which I get to enjoy the Executive Lounge, get free internet access and also breakfast and evening tea inclusive in the package.

Checked in the hotel at about 5pm, then at about 6.30pm, my ex-housemates back in Liverpool came over and we went for dinner and drinks together to catch up. Both of the doctors are working here. It is kinda a nice feeling meeting and catching up on their latest updates.

Today (29th June 2010 - Tuesday) after breakfast, I had a tele-con together with my direct manager from 9.30am until about 10am. Then, I left for Suntec City for the exhibition. I was suppose to be the exhibitor together with some other colleagues. The exhibition starts from 9am until 5.30pm.

I myself took a long walk and visiting other exhibitor's booth the learn the latest technology on the offer in the water treatment industry.

Spend the whole day in at the exhibition center and had lunch with my fellow colleagues and after the exhibition, we went for some drinks and dinner before reaching back the hotel at 8pm.

Took my shower and then went to Marina Bay Sands Casino. No, I didn't even spend a single cents gambling, just a visit to see the environment and setup they have. Drinks are free flowing there where soft drinks, coffee and tea and bottled water are served unlimitedly to everyone in the casino, regardless if you are gambling or not.

Just got back and now the TV is showing the live world cup game between Paraguay vs. Japan and later at 2.30am, Spain will play against Portugal. I hope I can keep awake to watch the match.

Day 9 in Whyalla

Today (15th June 2010 - Tuesday) is my 2nd day in Whyalla, but the 9th day of this trip.

Had breakfast in this hotel as another colleague of mine is coming to pick me up at 8am. Had poached eggs on toast and some mushroom and a flat white coffee.

As schedule, the colleague of mine came at 8am. She took me to the steel mill and got me induced to the safety induction there to allow me to go into site.

Spend the whole day at site looking at various water circuits and also did a presentation to the customer who are championing this water recycling initiatives at the mill.

This colleague of mine was kind enough to buy me packed lunch from the popular burger franchise. She got me a tortilla wrapped with crispy fried chicken with salad and mayonnaise of course with some French fries and a large carbonated drinks.

Worked all the way until about 6pm before leaving site to head back to hotel. Ordered from the restaurant in the motor inn again. This time, I got myself a seafood chowder soup and also chicken stir fried noodles in soy sauce. The soup was good, but the noodles was a bit too salty.

Tomorrow I will be flying out from here back to Sydney in the evening with late arrival.

Guess tonight I will again sleep with World Cup soccer in middle of the play.

Day 8 in Whyalla

Today (14th June 2010 - Monday) I took an early flight from Adelaide to Whyalla. The flight was via a Saab 340 3 seater per row turbo propeller plane.

The flight took about 45 minutes. Landed in Whyalla and a colleague of mine came and pick me up from the airport. Not difficult for him to pick me out from the crowd. I am the only Asian in the flight and in the airport.

He first took me to give me a preview of the steel mill that I will working on tomorrow. He showed me the various sites / factories where different process takes place. Then, he took me round a scenic drive where you can get to see the town below.

Checked into the hotel after that at about 11am. As he drove near the hotel, he showed me a botanic garden next to the motor inn. Then, he told me there is a couple of kangaroos locked in the cage at the park. I was delighted and just after checking in, I went to look for the kangaroos and true enough, after so many trip here to Australia, I finally get to see real kangaroos in front of my very own eyes.

After taking a few photos of the kangaroos, I walk along the beach behind the garden and then stopped at a cafe there to have my lunch - good old fish and chips with a glass of flat white coffee.

After lunch, I came back to the hotel and started working on a couple of New Zealand's prospect until evening.

Then, ordered a room service for dinner, had lamb with lots of vegetable. Very unique and tasty too. Called it a day after half way watching the World Cup.

Tomorrow will be a long long day. Will be at the site the whole day to investigate if we are able to make the difference by looking into water recycling potential in the steel mill.

Stay tuned... more to come..

Day 7 in Adelaide

Today (13th June 2010 -Sunday) is my 7th day in this 2 weeks working tour.

This morning I flew from Sydney to Adelaide with the 1245 hrs flight. Arrived and checked into the hotel at about 1430 hrs.

I arrived at the hotel at about 1030 hrs, which then I had my brunch. As typical me, I had "Mee Goreng Mamak" with Pork. It tasted sweet, which is a little annoying. The stall that sells this uses a kind of a devise where when you order and pay, they will give you some kind of a pager.

Because all the food is to be cooked or fry fresh and hence you need to wait, the waiter will give you this device in which when your food is ready, this device will beep and vibrate to inform you to collect your food from the counter. Cool device and nice idea. I bet it is not cheap to install such a system.

Adelaide is half an hour behind Sydney. Right after check in, I went down to the city center - Rundle Mall off the King William Street.

Finally after 2 days of shopping for a proper winter clothing, I bought a flee which is on bargain. It cost me only AUD30 (approx RM90) for it. The colour is Navy Blue. Good enough for the coming winter and I just tested it earlier by just wearing a simple T-shirt and put on the flee, I went to the street behind my hotel to pack my dinner. It was able to keep me warm. Good buy I would say.

Bought Japanese Teriyaki Chicken Set (again) but this time it is with Miso Sup and Salad as the package. One thing I realize is that where ever you go (well at least those countries which I had travelled before), Japanese cuisine is the only cuisine which the food tasted nearly 100% the original food in Japan.

Well, it might be wrong for me to say 100% as per Japan as I have not been to Japan to savor the food there, but based on those I have tasted, be it in economical sushi shops up to real high end Japanese Restaurant, they always tasted the same all over. Perhaps I am not sensitive enough to spot the difference, but good enough for me to get back the Japanese food taste which I am used to.

Last night or perhaps early this morning, when I called my lovely gf, I was surprise to hear that she is waiting for the World Cup 2010 kick off for the match between England vs US. Now at least I know that in future, when I want to watch any football matches, I got a good company, which is my lovely wife to watch together with me. Isn't that great or what?

Well, tomorrow I will be flying to Whyalla. It is another place where I am suppose to meet up with the customer on Tuesday as tomorrow (14th June 2010) is a Public Holiday here in Australia. Perhaps more window shopping again?

Stay tuned....

Day 6 in Sydney

This morning (12. June 2010 - Saturday) started early at 5am. I went to the airport by a cab and checked in for my 7am flight. A tour group of Korean tourist is lined just ahead of me and they are also flew into Sydney.

Perhaps due to being too tired from staying awake the whole night, I slept over the 3 hours flight. In fact, I slept over the Transformer 2 movie, which I had not watch it myself.

Checked into a different hotel that I use to stay when I come to Sydney. I use to stay in Brighton Beach and this time, after so many recommendations, I checked into Coogee Beach.

Upon checking in, I use the phone card to call my gf for a short conversation. Will be calling her again later tonight.

Went to the Sydney Paddy Market - located in Hay Street / George Street. There were lots of stalls selling all sorts of items. You name they got it there. Bought some macadamia nuts of various flavor - plain, honey coated, wasabi and abalone.

Then had lunch there in the food court above the Paddy market. Had curry laksa, which taste not quite nice actually exceed my expectation.

Initially wanted to look for a jacket and found one. However, after many rounds of thought, I guess I should make use of what I have now - a leather jacket.

Did lots of walking today. Now my legs are really tired. Just packed some Japanese food take away and some green tea from the shop just below the hotel. Will eat it and go to bed. Tomorrow I will need to catch a flight to Adelaide at about noon time.

Will post the happenings tomorrow.

Day 5 in New Zealand

Today its Day 5 (11.June 2010) in New Zealand and its the last day on this New Zealand tour of duty.

This morning we went to the Palmerston North airport to meet a colleague which flew in from Nelson. Then we drove for about 30 mins to meet up with a customer.

The meeting was good. We manage to get across the message we want to present and got a good positive feedback from them.

The evening, me and my colleague flew back from Palmerston North to Christchurch. I have to come back to Christchurch because my plane was book Sydney - Christchurch return. My colleague came into Christchurch because his house and family is here.

I check into the same motel as I stayed on Monday. The owner of this motel was helpful. He suggested me to get some Italian food delivery. I took the menu and ordered Chicken & Cream Pasta. Also in the order I included a green vegetable salad with cheese and balsamic vinegar dressing. The delivery came on time, 30 minutes on the dot.

The food was also good. No complaints.

Tonight happens to the opening ceremony of the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Initially I wanted to catch an early rest, but then perhaps due to the coffee that I had taken during dinner, it kept me awake all night long. I also manage to stay awake until 5am when the cab came to my hotel to take me to the airport to catch the 7am flight to Sydney.

By staying awake, I manage to see the first goal for the world cup which is scored by the host nation - South Africa. By the way, it was South Africa vs. Mexico. However, Mexico manage equalize.

At 5am, the cab came and took me to the airport. I am flying to Australia to begin my Australia tour this week.

Day 4 in New Zealand

Today (10th June 2010 - Thursday) is my 4th day in New Zealand. This morning started from Hamilton, New Zealand. Went to a customer's place and had a good fruitful discussion.

Then, we went to a nice coffee shop which also serves good food. The coffee there was really tasty and have a unique after taste, which I have never came across before this.

After lunch, the working tour continue to another different customer. This visit I think is even more fruitful than the earlier one.

Then, in the evening, we proceeded to catch a flight from Hamilton to Palmerston North. We again took a rented car and again it is the 6 speed Ford XR6.

The lady on the counter of the car rental booth is really not helpful. Our car was booked without a GPS device, and when we requested for one, she insisted that it is not possible and all sorts of reasons she gave. I think she is merely lazy to process the GPS rental and just give us all sorts of reasons. Therefore, we have no other choice but to navigate with the good old method using a road map.

We checked into the Aubyn Court Motorlodge. Its kinda cool place. Clean and neat. One thing really cool is it comes with a jacuzzi tub which is located beside the bed. With the weather so cold, I wonder who is going to use the Jacuzzi tub.

Straight after arrival, me and my boss went for Indian cuisine in the city center. We had good old chicken and mutton curry and some tandoori chicken, naan bread and white rice. It was nice and tasty.

Came back after that, but to keep updated with the work e-mail.

Tomorrow will be the last day of this 1 week New Zealand tour. Will be flying from Christchurch from Palmerston North and will fly out to Sydney on Saturday morning.

Stay tuned. More update on the way...

Day 3 in New Zealand

Today (9th June 2010) I have traveled from New Plymouth to Hamilton via Auckland.

I drove from a site known as Whareroa to the New Plymouth Airport. I drove a Ford Falcon XR6. It is a shift-tronic car with a 6 speed gearbox.

At 100km/hr the rpm is only approx 1,500, which is really low. The car is really powerful. Although I could not determine the actual capacity of the engine.

I begin the day with a discussion with a customer which I have met when I first came to New Zealand. Then, we drove for about 1 hour to another site to meet with another customer at about 1pm.

After the meeting, I drove back to the New Plymouth airport to catch our flight. First we flew to Auckland, in which the flight is about 45 minutes and transit for an hour before boarding another flight which the flight time is only 20 minutes to Hamilton.

I boarded one of the smallest plane I ever flew on. It have just 2 seats each row side by side. The coolest is that in the plane, we can see the pilot doing everything during the flight. The plane model is BEECH 1900 D.

Landed in Hamilton and checked into a nice hotel in the town. It was too late for dinner, as when we arrived in the hotel, its already 9pm, hence, just ordered a BBQ Chicken Salad with avocado, tomato, cucumber and coriander oil. It was nice, light and refreshing.

Tomorrow will be another day of heavy travelling with another 2 customers to visit within Hamilton. By this time tomorrow, I will be in Palmerston North. The flight from Hamilton to Palmerston North is about 50 minutes.

Stay tune, more updates on the way...

Day 2 in New Zealand

Well, so fast Day 2 (8th June 2010 - Tuesday) is over, now its about 11pm, just checked in to the hotel, Auto Lodge in New Plymouth.

The flight initially was suppose to leave Christchurch at about 1730hrs, but was delayed until 1815 and we were place on another flight instead.

The weather in Christchurch is really cold and it was raining the whole time we were at site. I think the temperature in the middle of the afternoon was about 4 degrees C and it was raining quite heavily.

Took a flight from Christchurch to Wellington (Capital of New Zealand) and then from Wellington to New Plymouth. The journey started at about 1815hrs and due to delays, landed only at about 2100 hrs in New Plymouth.

Again, my colleague rented a car and drove our way from the airport to the hotel. Tomorrow will be another travelling day with 2 customers on the list to cover before leaving for Auckland (transit) and then finally to Hamilton.

Its about 12am already, I better go hit the bed and get some rest. Stay tune for more updates later when I get to connect to the net.

Day 1 in New Zealand

Yesterday I arrived in Christchurch after 8 hours flight from Malaysia to Sydney and transit to Christchurch, New Zealand.

By the time I arrived here in Christchurch, its already 4pm. Did not do any sight seeing as the sky was already turning dark, its winter here, by 5.30pm, it will be dark.

Went for dinner with my colleague and we could not see any good place to eat, hence, just had good old fast food, the one which is popular for grill burger, if you know what I mean and straight came back.

Not many people is in town yesterday evening as it was a Public Holiday here in New Zealand (7th June 2010), Queen's Birthday.

Today, its about 750am now, will be leaving for a long day site visit and will catch a flight from here (Christchurch - Wellington - New Plymouth).

Will keep posting when I have time. Stay tune....

Loaded with work

It had been a while since I last updated this blog. Recently, work load in have been really high. Not much time for me to think of this blog.

Next week, again I will be travelling to Australia and New Zealand for 2 weeks for work.

Well, keep this posting short. Hopefully the weekend in Australia, I can have some time to update this blog further.

Passing of Aunt

Yesterday (24th May 2010 - Monday(11th Day of the 4th Month)) at about 0845 am, one of my Aunt pass away. She was 67.

This Aunt have been quite close to our family. She is the one who had introduced me to my first 2 part time bank job when I first finish school while waiting for the results and just before I went to the the UK for my further studies. She is the one who had also extend a great helping hand to my brother when he further his studies after leaving school. She allows him to work there in the canteen she operated in the morning and in the afternoon, he will go for his classes. She not only did not cut his pay, but instead paid him a full salary and provided him with lunch before he left for his classes.

It seems when She first got married, she and my Uncle (BP) stays with my parents in my current house. My God-Sister was born in my house and that is how she became the God-Daughter to my parents.

She had struggle all her life to make ends meet. She started a steamboat restaurant about 11 years ago (back in 1999) and when the business started, it was not as good. However, over the last 5 years, the business have picked up really well and that is when she just started to have a more relaxing life no need to worry about making ends meet.

About 3 years ago, her family bought and renovated a Semi-Detached house in PJ area and that is when she started to enjoy the fruit of her struggle. Unfortunately, earlier this year, she was diagnosed with a critical illness and yesterday she succumb to her faith.

We (my mom, my brother and myself) made our last visit to her on Sunday evening when she was admitted to the specialist center after she had difficulty breathing.

The funeral ritual is was held yesterday and today and tomorrow (26th May 2010 - Wednesday) at 10am she will be cremated and her remains will be placed at the Memorial Park which is not too far from where I am working now.

Dearest Aunt, sincerely thanks for all the joy and cheer you have bought to our lives, thanks for everything you have done for us. I hope you are now enjoying the peaceful and joyful life wherever you may be. Perhaps you might meet my Dad and the rest of the Uncles / Aunties and now all of you are having a great time keep each other accompany. May you rest in peace Aunty.....

Getting the House Key

Yesterday afternoon, my mom called and inform me that the developer finally send a letter informing us that the house is now ready for handing over.

Finally after more than 1 year of waiting, the house is ready for occupancy. However, the process is not as simple as just go and collect the keys. Firstly, I need to clear off the outstanding amount with the developer which as of today, taking out the bank portion, I still owe them RM80+ even after I got a rebate of RM1,188 from them.

The developer paid for the whole year guard fees which cost RM70 per month x 12 months = RM840. Then, for the 2 pieces of touch card it cost another RM50 a piece = RM100. On top of that, it seems they have appointed a company to do some management work on the rectification or some kind, which I yet to discuss with them, that is another RM300.

Even after paying the RM80+, I will still have to wait for the bank to clear the outstanding 20% which will take another 2 weeks or so before they make the payment.

All in, as expected, the key can only be collected by end of this month. Anyway, its better than nothing. Now the major coordination work will start. Work on the renovation will start the moment the developer rectifies all the complaints (hopefully the list is not too long).

Stay tune. I hope I will have the time to post the development of the renovations in as the process goes on. It was an interesting journey from the day we sign the Sales & Purchase (S&P) agreement until today. But, I think the journey gets more interesting from now on until the day we shift in.

Insurance

Last Friday (7th May 2010), my brother experience chest pain while driving to work. Hence, he went to consult a General Physician (in a Polyclinic). However, the doctor fear that he might be having some heart complications, he was referred to a specialist center for further investigation.

So after discussing with this wife, he admitted himself to a reputable specialist center for further check up. The specialist center's business is so good that he waited from about 12pm till 6pm before given a room to be admitted.

They run all the test and investigation, he was found healthy and on Saturday morning, he was allowed to be discharged and can you imagine, he waited from about 11am until 6pm in the evening for the insurance clearance?

This is not the worse. The worse news came when the insurance company actually rejected his claim saying that he have had a some medical history and hence he is not covered. What is this??

He claim under his company's group insurance and in group insurance, anyone and everyone is insured regardless of their medical history. Unless otherwise stated initially, that the certain number of staff due to age, previous medical history or whatsoever is not covered or if the insurance company wanted to add loading to their premiums, it is by default everyone is 100% covered. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. So my brother have to pay the medical bill first and then pass the claim to his company for them to 'fight' with the agent / insurance provider.

This is the thing about insurance. When they wanted you to buy, they will give you 100% + 10% guarantee, everything under the sun also they say can claim, no problem, easy procedure etc. But when you really want to make a claim, they will come out with another 100 + 20 reasons to inform you it is not claimable etc.

Sometimes, I see, it is a cause and effect that the largest and possibly the oldest insurance provider in the world gone into liquidation. You know which company I am referring to, no need to mention names here.

That is the reason sometimes, when it comes to insurance, I am quite skeptical. I see those agents as people that was misguided and misleading the public. They think they know everything to the very last details of the product they are selling, but in actual fact, I think what they really understood is less than 10% of the whole story.

So to all insurance buyer out there, if you think you are always fully covered with all sorts of protection plans, coverage etc etc, please double and triple check again. You don't be surprise when the above incident that happens to my brother happen to you!! There is always a fine print that you might have not noticed in your policy and it will come back and haunt you!! Beware!!

1st May 2010

1st of May 2010 is my Birthday. It was a Saturday, hence, the public holiday was only replaced with one day of annual leave in the record.

On Friday evening, I went out for dinner with a close friend of mine - Sur. We went of some Japanese food here in Subang Jaya SS15. This is not the conventional Japanese fast food. It is a proper Japanese restaurant where the food is prepared only when you place an order.

We started the dinner with some Sashimi (raw fish), then proceeded to some fried stuffs like soft shell crab, deep fried oyster and grilled squids. Since both of us enjoy a fair bit of alcohol, we ordered a small bottle of sake - Big Mountain (Da Shan) as it was translated.

It was nice food and good sake. It leaves a very nice pleasant after taste in the mouth when it is swallowed. All this happened on the 30th April 2010 evening. The dinner ended at about 11pm before both of us headed home. Thanks mate for such a nice dinner and sake...

Then on the 1st of May 2010, I woke up quite early as we had plan for "dim sum" breakfast with my brother and sister-in-law. We left home at about 9am to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law at 930 near the highway where we headed towards Puchong for the "dim sum".

My brother lead the way and we went to a shop made popular by the owner which is a host of a food program in a local (now I think its regional). The food there was reasonable, the service is also not too bad. One thing is as any "dim sum", normally we have a pot of Chinese tea, the hot water top up is self service. Good thing is that the hot water dispenser is just behind me, hence, it was not too troublesome for me to refill it.

My brother told me that the treat have 2 purposes, one is to celebrate the forth coming Mother's Day (9th May 2010 - this coming Sunday) and the 2nd is no other then my birthday. Anyway, thanks Brother and Sister for being so thoughtful to remember my birthday and also buying the meal!!

The shop was crowded and people have to wait in a queue for table, but the service was fast. Within a few minutes, the piping hot "dim sum" is brought beside us for us to take our pick. We took almost one of each to try and it include the must have 'har gao" (prawn type) and not leaving behind the many varieties of "siew mai" (pork stuffed in a kinda wantan skin).

We also ordered a plate of "lor mai kai" (glutenous rice with chicken), stir fried "lor bak gao" (radish cake) and another must in eating "dim sum" the "chee cheong fun" (rice roll) which have prawn stuffings.

The bill came out approx. RM120 for the 4 of us, which is reasonable as for "dim sum" you expect to pay something like RM30 per pax. It was nice to have the family sitting together on a Public Holiday to enjoy some traditional Chinese food which also covers both the meals - breakfast and lunch. It seems the place is open until 3 pm, which means it serves lunch as well.

That night, after my futsal game, me and my mom went and pick up my uncle and aunt to go to our usual hang out place for weekend, Yuen Steamboat Restaurant. Normally we will all meet there but today, my cousin is taking his wife back to the in-law's place, so my uncle and aunt have to hitch a ride with me.

My aunt made some "mee hoon kuey" (rice flour made into a dough and eat with soup - also commonly known as "pan mee") to be eaten there at the steamboat restaurant.

To my surprise, my cousin which came later brought a birthday cake for me. I cut the cake and serve it to everyone there. It was a chocolate mousse cake with fruits toppings. Of course, they also have some candles place around the cake and my young little nephew blew the candles on my behalf. Again, thanks for the lovely cake.

Well, that's how I spend my birthday. Looks like lots of activities for the day right?

To sum up, I really appreciate all those who took the effort to make this day so special to me. Thank you All!!

Demanding Week

This week (19th April 2010) have been a really demanding week for me.

The week started with me in Auckland, New Zealand for a meeting and catching a 1830 hrs flight from Auckland to Sydney and on the 20th, evening again catching a flight from Sydney to Brisbane and back on the 21st evening.

Only today 22nd April 2010 morning, I can properly sit down and do my work effectively in the office. Within the 3 days, I have been on the plane for 3 times, on average of one flight a day.

On the flight, from Auckland to Sydney, I remember watching a movie (Up in the Air) if I got the movie title correctly, it feature this guy (George Clooney) which is a frequent traveler which clocked 10 million air miles and is one of the only 7 that had reached this status. More people had been to outer space then those that have hit the 10 million air miles.

It reminds me of the life that I might be heading for in near future after being transfered here to Australia. Australia is a very big country and I am in-charge of the whole of Australia and including New Zealand. We have sales office in most of the major cities across Australia and I am supporting all the sales team there.

Looking at the positive side of it, it is nice as I get to do all the travelling and visiting at the company's expense, but on the negative side, it will be challenging to keep travelling like the way I am doing now when I am older, say by another 10 years or so. Therefore, for this assignment, I just plan to do it for about a year or 2 and then back to my home country and sit there quietly - hopefully.

The bright side of things is today will be my second last day of this 2 weeks adventure visit to ANZ, tomorrow afternoon at 2pm, I will be flying back to my home country.

Until the next posting, cheers mate...

3rd Day in Sydney

So fast today is end of Wednesday (14th April 2010) already. Today is fully meeting day with all the top sales managers presenting and answering to their respective P&Ls and give a projections on how are the going to fair by year end 2010.

As per all meetings teas and dinners are part of the schedule. However, I realize for tea time, the food they serve here is not as good as compare back home in Malaysia hotels. The only better is their coffee which tastes better than those we get in Malaysia.

As for dinner, the team organised a Thai cuisine dinner. First time having Thai food here in Australia, nothing to shout about. The cookings had been altered to suit to the local taste buds here hence, it is not as spicy as typical Thai food should be.

One cultural difference I realize is during meetings, the people over here do speak freely and openly to the presenter when they have doubts. Of course, they will first raise their hands like in schools before speaking out.

Well, as initially I have not expected to update this blog as I never thought there will be any internet access, but I was wrong, they did have WIFI services which was part of the hotel meeting package which allows me to login to update his blog at approx 2230 hrs from my room - 508.

At approx 4pm (local time) I got a SMS from Tzu Chi Foundation Group organizer to ask if I can serve them in this coming Sunday's free clinic. I had replied that I will not be able to make it as this weekend I will be in Auckland, New Zealand.

Tomorrow is another full day of meeting and more numbers to digest. Hope it will be as good as today... stay tune...

2nd day in Sydney

Today is the 2nd day in Sydney office. Woke up at about 6am this morning. Perhaps due to some early rest yesterday evening, was feeling refreshed and took some breakfast. For so many trips I had made to Sydney, this is the first time I got breakfast as part of the room package. All previous trips, my room bookings was excluding breakfast.

Came into the office at about 0745. This morning was productive. Lead the team for a detail engineering discussion for the tender that we are working on and clarified almost every single details required. Also, send out a detail specs to some suppliers to request for quotations. Just a round table discussion for about 2 hours, I think it had reduce the bouncing of at least 20 mails back and forth.

Today was rather interesting. My boss told me that they HR finally agrees to give me a full Ex-pat package for the transfer. Previously the package given to me is full transfer package which is not attractive to me. Anyway, again, lets see how it all works out. Hopefully this will be a better offer comparatively to the previous offer.

Will be leaving at about 5pm from the office. The whole lot of Sales team managers is now at the hotel preparing their presentations and figures etc. for tomorrow's meeting. Me and my boss are invited guest for this meeting. Hope it will be a great meeting for the next 2 days. The meeting is at the hotel we are staying, so don't think I will be in the office for the next 2 days to check my mails and update this blog.

Stay tune for more updates later....

Arrival in Sydney

Departed from my house at about 7pm last night with my regular cabbie friend. Checked in was fast, change some currency and walked straight to the Plaza Lounge. This is a lounge set up by a few banks for their platinum credit card holders.

Not too bad inside. They serve food and drinks all free for members.

The moment I got inside there, I grab myself a cup of black coffee and found a corner to sit and called and spoke to my gf for about an hour or so. The flight is scheduled at 2210 hours, so only checked in at 2130 after talking to my gf.

The flight was not too bad. Manage to catch some sleep and didn't feel the 7.5 hours flew by. Landed this morning at 0730 in Sydney and took a cab from the airport to the hotel to drop off my luggage and refreshing myself after flying the whole night.

Then, at 0930, left the hotel and came into the office and had some short discussion with the team on the progress of a tender that we are working on together.

Now, nothing much to be done, so just have time to surf around and chit chat with anyone available. Waiting for 1645 hrs before calling for a cab to head back to the hotel can calling it a day and that is another 1.45 minutes to go.

Well, another day gone by not very productive.....

2 working weeks abroad

This Sunday (11th April 2010) I will be travelling to Sydney for 2 consecutive week.

The travel is extensive. Below is the plan:

11th April 2010 - 15th April 2010

KL - I will be in Sydney from the 12th April until the 15th of April.

16th April 2010 - 19th April 2010

Sydney - Auckland

19th April 2010 - 20th April 2010

Auckland - Sydney

20th April - 22nd April 2010

Sydney - Brisbane

22nd April 2010

Brisbane - Sydney

23rd April 2010

Sydney - KL

Looking at the schedule myself, I pity the secretary that does the bookings for me. However, she did a great job and got all the details sorted out well.

Don't think I will have time to update this blog for the next 2 weeks or so, hence, will only come back and log my 2 weeks outing when I get back to my office later.

Tune in for more in 2 weeks or so time.. I will try to do simple updates whenever I have time in ANZ...

Officially a Tzu Chi Volunteer

On the 28th of March 2010, I attended a formal Tzu Chi Foundation official training / coaching.

I have been a volunteer with Tzu Chi in their free clinics for more than one year already. So fast time passes by. I remember the first time I was involved in their outreach clinics was in March 2009 (referring to my old posting) and in April 2010, I am formally their volunteer.

My lead group had requested me to register officially since early of 2010. However, due to the workload and after a few times being request to fill in the form, in March 2010, I filled in and submitted the form officially. Then, it was like almost a week later, there is this coaching session that was for the first time being organized in the branch which I serve. Without much of hesitation, I attended this coaching and have understood more about this foundation.

They were full of protocols and formalities that the members follows. No, don't get me wrong, I am not saying it is red tapes and no I am not complaining at all. I think with the existence of these protocols that makes the foundation so successful as it is today. It members were respected worldwide as very highly discipline and organized team of volunteers.

We are not army or any Red Cross society which we have to fall in line, practice marching etc. The protocols are simple rules that is to be followed as in temples and very simple hand placing techniques that makes the whole team looks like as though they have been trained for hours and hours to achieve the results.

The coaching started at 0830 with registration process all of us, approx 100 people were led into a hall and seated. Then the coaching started teaching us the basic protocols and give all of us a history of the foundation, both internationally and locally, the founder and their missions.

I was most impressed with the lunch serving ceremony, where very senior volunteer actually brought lunch boxes for us and kneel down in-front of us to serve us the lunch. In this foundation, they teach us to be thankful and do good deeds. When we help a person, we do not wish to be thank by the recipient, but in-return we thank the recipient to give us the opportunity to help them and improve ourselves. This is a very positive and good mind set which had changed my view on lots of things recently.

Perhaps this is one of the many secrets to the success of this foundation. The training ended at about 1630 and now officially I am entitle to wear their junior volunteer uniform, which is the grey collar T-shirt with white long pants, white socks and white shoes.

Personally I felt so proud of wearing the uniform every 3rd Sundays when I go for my routine free clinic volunteer work. I can see the patiences there have such a great respect and admiration to the dedicated team there.

Hope I am able to progress more in time to come and eventually be a full fledge volunteer one day.

Lonely Weekends

My lovely fiancee left for the US on Monday afternoon. Her flight is firstly to Los Angeles with a brief stop over in Taiwan. Upon arrival in LA, she had a overnight stop before continuing her flight to Kansas.

Finally on Wednesday morning (Malaysian) time, she had arrived safely in Kansas after embarking on a 2 days journey there. One thing nice is she flew on Business Class which makes her trip fairly comfortable.

She was selected by her employer to attend a one year training in the US to learn more about their company's product line, design etc. It was a mixed feelings when I send her off at the airport.

I support her in this decision to up take this opportunity given by the company as I know, this will enhance her career path and it is a chance too good to be missed. I felt happy for her to get this opportunity, but deep inside, I miss her company a lot.

Missing her lovely voice that I can hear almost everyday after work as we use to call each other every day while driving home and talk until one of us reaches home for dinner first.

Knowing that she had settled well in the US have been a great relief and felt happy for her that good local arrangements had been done for her by her company. Now we will again be away from each other for the next year or so.

This relationship had been a very unique one. We got to know each other when we were 13,000+ kilometers apart, that time, I was in the UK and she was back here in Malaysia. Then, as we started as to fall in love and begin as a couple, 5th October 2000 (I remember the exact date!!) , she took up a very interesting career and went to Australia for few months before embarking her further studies in the UK for the next 5 years or so.

Then, in the year 2007, she came back to here to pursue her career in the industry. So fast, this year 2010, she is again approx 15,000km away.

I will be looking forward to seeing here again soon, perhaps during Christmas or CNY in 2011.

I sincerely Wish her All the Very Best in Her journey!!

Last customer for the day

Yesterday (8th March 2010) was a really demanding day for me. I started the day very early, reaching office at about 7am to attend to a tele-con with a potential customer from Sydney. There the local time at Sydney is already 10am (3 hours ahead). The tele-con went on for about 2 hours and we manage to clarify lots of issues on their tender.

As I came in rather early, I left the office at about 1530 hrs to renew my car road tax which is coming due on the 15th March. Firstly I went to a nearby Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) to withdraw some cash. Unfortunately, the machine was not able to dispense the cash to me and requesting me to contact the bank. So without further doubts, I drove to the bank where I open my account previously informing them that my ATM card is not working. The bank employees did saw my card was not in a very good shape (thorn a bit already) and suggested me to change to a new card. So I did and it cost me RM12 for the replacement card. At that time it was already like 1615 and I was so worried that they are not able to replace it on time.

However, the bank officer was kind enough, made the last process for me and replaced my card with a new card. I am the very last customer to walk out from the bank yesterday at 1645. Banks closes at 1630.

Then, I straightaway drove to the nearest post office to renew my road tax and again, when I reach there it was already 1655 and again, I was the last customer allowed into the post office with the security guard close and lock one side of the twin glass door. The renewal was swift as I have all the documents in place and again, I am the last customer who walks out from the post office.

When I was driving home, I was thinking, such a lucky day for me being the last person to do everything... last person to walk out from the bank and post office before they closes for the day. Else, I might have to do it today.

Sometimes perfect timing is required and a bit of 'luck' is required to make a good day.

Different Way of thinking

As my previous posting, my function have now change from project management to sales.

Previously, I need to focus on getting the job completed on time and on budget. Even previously I have been involve in costing items for the project, but costing is not too major of my concern as my main concern is to ensure the plant works properly and deliver what it was suppose to as I am in-charge of the project and not selling the project to the customer.

However, ever since taking on this new role, I have a different mind set. To me, cost is a major factor that I need to look into as it will have to balance with the economics of the customer. I realise that now I am more cost aware and sensitive on the costing part.

Perhaps it is due to the pressure of needing to balance between the customer's saving and our expenditure, I tend to scrutinize every single dollars we are going to spend / cost in to the system.

I am not sure what else is going to change, but I see all these changes are for the better and I am taking positively.

Having taking this new role, I felt that I am communicating with more people and coordinating / juggling more work at the same time. Lets hope all will fall into one place which is to generate more projects and build more creditability.

Change of work Title

Perhaps I have posted this previously and it was based on the description of my boss. However, it was confirmed today via an appointment letter where for my new role in this new location, my work title had change to Business Development Manager instead of Project Manager previously.

This is a full time sales position and we carry budgets for the year on our shoulders. This year the number is looking pretty high for me and it is in a new country which I will be relocated to.

I hope I am able to deliver as everyone anticipated. It is not easy to carry such a title as normally such title is only for higher ranking or more senior manager as it is not easy to develop business and that title is Business Development Manger or BDM in short.

Cool eh...

Last Day in the office before CNY Holidays

Today will be the last working day for me before the Chinese New Year Holidays.

Just finalized the trip to Sydney and New Zealand earlier today after one week of trying to get in-touch with the boss, as he was beyond reach for the last few days due to meetings and travelling.

Well, if you as me how many days off I will be taking, I can tell you I will be off from tomorrow until Sunday (21st Feb 2010) and on Sunday night, I will be flying to Sydney arriving there on Monday morning. So technically speaking, I will be starting work on the 8th day of the New Year.

This trip to Sydney will be also making visit to Auckland and New Plymouth, New Zealand to meet some of our colleagues there and some site visits before coming back.

Also, in this trip I will be meeting the Human Resource Manager there to discuss about my relocation or secondment to Australia. I am not sure what to expect and I am sure it will be a good offer.

Well, that is all for now, I think I will be meeting up with my gf and her housemate that is back here for CNY holidays in one of the shopping center for lunch, perhaps I might be very late when I arrived there due to the traffic. Keeping my fingers crossed.

To everyone out there, Happy New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai!! May the year of the Tiger brings Health, Wealth, Joy and Prosperity to ALL out there and Happy Holidays!!

New Phone

Last Saturday (11th Feb 2010), I bought myself a new phone which I have been eyeing for some time already.

As usual me, for things that is of certain price, I will do all my background checks and read-up all that I can before I am willing to buy it.

This particular phone met all my requirements that I wish a phone could have to date. Firstly, it is in a colour that I kinda like - black. Then, it comes with many other feature e.g. WiFi enable, Bluetooth and the best part is it has a GPS and a Map which I can use it for navigations.

Just before I bought the phone, I had made some enquiry about installing the map on the phone from a reputable map / navigation company where they sell their maps in memory card that can be used on the mobile phone. However, as I bought this phone it comes with the map / navigation function that I need not to pay anything more.

Only after so many days of buying the phone, yesterday I took out the manual and begin to read it. There is one more cool feature that came with the phone which is it had a function that when the phone rings and you want to ringtone to stop without answering the phone, all you need to do is to turn the phone with the screen facing the table and automatically the phone stops ringing without you pressing anything. Cool right??

Overall, I would say this phone manage to meet all my requirements and have all the feature that I needed for a phone. I would say it was a value for money purchase.

Pre-CNY Lunch

It is in a Chinese tradition that company normally organise 'Sau Kong Zau" which literally translate to completing work for the year before going for the Chinese New Year Holidays.

As the office I am working in is not a Chinese company, we do not practice this tradition, but in return we will have dinner after everyone comes back from the CNY holidays.

However, among few colleagues we got together to have a the lunch today at a reputable Chinese Restaurant. On normal lunch hour, tables are plentiful but, today, the restaurant is full. You can see that the restaurant have not enough waiters to serve all the customers there.

When we first arrived, we have to wait for 10 minutes just to get a table organised for us. This could have been avoided if my colleague had listened to me earlier to pre-book a table. However, he is not willing to take my advise, he did not book any tables, hence, we walked in as guests and therefore have to wait for a table to be arranged for us.

Then, as we were seated, we have to wait for another 10 minutes before tea is served to us as the restaurant was really short-handed. They did not even offer us peanuts on the table for us to nibble. Even after tea was served, we have to wait another 10 minutes before a Captain finally attended to us for us to order our food.

However, as there were only 7 of us, we ordered only 3 dishes, namely, lotus roots stir fried with celery and black fungus, triple mix roast which have roast duck, roast pork and bar-be-cue pork or "char siew" and a fried noodles. Besides those, we still have the 'Dim Sum' which was served there because we were all very hungry and didn't want to wait too long for the food, at least some prawn dumplings and fish balls to ease our hunger.

Overall, I would say the atmosphere was good, the ones who have attended was kinda of 'friendly' type that can joke and have fun. By the time the bill came, we 'go dutch' and it was only RM35 per person.

Besides the waiting and the lack of service, the main thing is the get together and have a meal before we all go for our holidays which is kinda fun.

Then, in the car, one of the secretary says that our logistic department lady boss wanted to organise a meal at one of a 'high end' seafood restaurant and asking if we want to join. Of course that is after the CNY and before the 15th day as CNY is celebrated for 15 days in the tradition. I told her that I will be flying off to Sydney on the 8th day of CNY for a week, if they can wait, I am happy to join. Lets see how it goes.

Another Great Weekend

Last weekend (6 & 7 Feb 2010) was really a great weekend.

As all usual Saturdays, I woke up about 0630 and at 0700 me and my mom are on the way to the wet market to grab some vegetables and meat to for coming CNY.

On the way back, we drop by a morning stalls to get our self some breakfast and then by 0900, we are again on the go, this time to a hypermarket to buy some can drinks which are on offer. Its only 0900, there were so many people already inside the hypermarket and most of them are there for one reason, which is for the cheap can drinks on a bargain price.

Then, as usual, my weekend date with my gf, but today I did it differently. On my way there to meet her, I drop by a florist to buy 3 stocks of red roses which signifies "I Love You", that is according to the hear say practice.

As I met her, I told her that one of my friend wanted to engrave their wedding band and wanted to see our ring for sample. However, as usual my gf is a very very smart and bright girl, immediately she suspected something is amiss. Then, she know I might be proposing to her.

From the very beginning when we started this relationship, she always wanted "the hill". The Hill she meant here is there is a small hill at the KLCC park. The incident is this, during our very first few dates, once we were having our meal at the KLCC food court, happens it can oversea the park hence, the hill in the park. She immediately says she want to have the proposal done there and all these years, when I ask her about the wedding, she will ask me for "the hill".

Just weeks ago, I told her I will give her better than "the hill". So I took her with her wedding band to KL Tower. We bought the tickets to the observation deck which is 278m above ground. With everything in place, I took the courage to kneel down, presented her with the 3 stock of red roses and the wedding band, I propose to her and she agrees to marry me!!!!

I was on top of the world!! Well, we are 278m above ground anyway. There is it. On the 6th of Feb 2010, I propose to my gf and she is now happy to be my wife. I kept the ticket we bought to accent up the tower as a souvenir piece.

As we decent down, we went for our CNY shopping. Well, actually, I went to do my shopping with her as my fashion consultant. I bought myself a pair of black slack and a new long sleeve shirt. Just this 2 items costed me more than RM300 already. But, I think its value for money.

Then, I finally also bought the phone that I have been eyeing for a long while. Good thing is that the price happens to have came down compare to when it first launch. As we went to the shop, the sales person was really helpful. He started to explain the features of the phone to us and it was a good bargain. It comes with WiFi, a navigation map plus all other features which I am looking for in a phone.

Without much of hesitation I sign up for the 9 months interest free installment plan with the credit card company for the phone and we started to fiddle with the phone as soon as we left the shop. Me and my gf went to a coffee shop where they provide free WiFi service and started to 'check out' the phone. It was good.

Well, perhaps I had talked too much of other happening, this posting is suppose to tell the world that my gf have finally agrees to become my wife. After almost 10 years together as bf and gf, she finally agrees to become my wife. Dear, thanks for your trust all these while, I hope we will be happy ever after like in fairy tales.

I am still very very happy with the proposal and we both very proudly announced to our parents which is also very happy for us.

Investment Talk

Yesterday I was the privileged few that was "invited" to attend an investment talk on hedge funds. It was organized by a reputable bank and they only invite their "member". The reason I have the "member" words in in-quote is to be a member, you need to have a certain wealth accumulated to be a member.

Anyway, back to the main idea of this posting. The evening started with a Chinese style dinner and we were served with cold dish appetizer, Ginseng Chicken soup, Patin fish, roast chicken, abalone with scallop and Chinese cabbage, fried vege, glutinous rice with waxed duck and Chinese sausage and have red bean soup with jelly and pancake for dessert.

A speaker from a hedge fund company came out after the serving of the roast chicken and started to educate the crowd about the difference between hedge funds and mutual funds. His idea was good... he term it as.. "...if you have an amount in your saving that you do not know what to do, and do not want to take too high risk, then hedge fund is the option". He went on to explain the mechanism of hedge fund and mentioned the stability of the hedge fund as compared to other type of funds. He presented for about 45 minutes or so, then the representative from the bank came out to present the portfolio and details about the hedge fund they are offering.

The starting investment capital is high and is only offered to 'elite' investor, hence those sitting inside the dining room only. This is not a fund that is open to the public as it is govern by our national banking guideline that this funds is only to be sold for the 'elite' investor and the term 'elite' investor is the member of the bank.

After the bank representative presented, one of the slides I noted is the charges to open the hedge fund portfolio, it is at 7% which means at RM100k, the bank charges is already at RM7,000 and I did a little mathematics, since the day this hedge fund was launched in March 2008 until middle of Jan 2009, those that have invested yet to get their return or I would say it is still in the RED.

After all the presentation, the table where me and my gf's family was seated, a bank manager came to explain and I think he was a bit uncomfortable with a few questions I asked.

During the presentation, I took down some notes and exchanged a few words with my gf and her mom and brother, basically, we felt that it is not really worth the investment. Perhaps we were wrong. Perhaps this is a good investment for long term, which will yield approx 8% to 10% pa.

Personally, I think at this current situation where the whole world is just about to recover from the economic crisis back in 2008 and 2009, if you have any amount of spare cash, just simply pick any funds, be it mutual trust fund, or dividend fund etc, put the money in and over the next 2 to 5 years, it will definitely generate some returns.

However, as any investment, there will be risk. If you are the person who is not too keen on risking, then just put it into something more solid e.g. properties and be a landlord and collect rentals or even buy gold coins. Of course, being a landlord comes all the headache of rental collection, finding the right tenant, repair and maintenance of the properties etc. All these comes to the Chinese saying, if you don't work hard, how to find the world wealth?

Overall, the talk yesterday was good. I learn a fair bit of things and enjoyed the dinner. It was so happen that yesterday was also the Chinese "Lap Choon" which means the official beginning of Spring, which is suppose to be Chinese New Year, but the celebrated date of Chinese New Year is not another week or so. It was nice to be able to sit and have dinner with my gf's family member which we are able to talk and interact as a whole family and personally I think the dinner is more like a bank sponsored family dinner where we had some good time enjoying the atmosphere and the good food they prepared.

Expensive things

I am not sure how many people is actually participate in tenders or bidding or proposals / cost estimation. Basically it is all selling process.

Yesterday, I spend nearly the whole 8 hours working on an urgent request tender from our counterpart in Europe which the customer is building a new plant somewhere in South East Asia. I look for supplier's quotation frantically and prepare the proposal, did the costing, prepared the Process & Instrumentation Diagram so that it could be submitted to the customer in time for their consideration.

However, this morning, as I log in to my e-mail, I saw a reply on my mail box, the customer had request us to change the scope of supply, hence, I have to redo the whole proposal and drawing again. I am not complaining this as this is part of tender bidding and we are not given the up-to date information on the project.

After I had submitted the revised proposal, I was caught off guard by a request from the customer... "your price is almost twice as high as other suppliers." I was like, come on, no body ever told you that we are selling high quality stuffs, hence the high price? Or is this a standard statement that you, as a customer sends to all your suppliers?

I use to hear this a lot. Never once in my working experiences all these years, even include the old company I use to work that I hear people saying my company things is cheap. Don't know why. Did all these while, I had joined a high end company that only sell expensive things?

Well, I use to say, hypermarket things are cheap (some stuffs), the electrical component shop things are cheap (again certain things), but I never hear people saying my company things are cheap.

Weird!!

Or is this the negotiation technique that all customers use to bargain? First complain the things is expensive. Then, if still fail to get discount, "die - die" buy from them.

Come to thing of it, if my company things is term as "expensive", how come the company can still sell their goods / product? How come people still buy?

As part of my job is to discuss / negotiate with suppliers, I never use the word 'expensive'. I use to tell the potential suppliers, don't expect me to bargain with you. Give your best price and safe your time and my time. If I think you are offering me a good bargain, then I will buy directly. Else, I will not call for price negotiation at all. So, if you think you can mark up high and I will negotiate with you, you can dream on.

Therefore, from the response of the supplier, I just spoke to my boss, he told me reply to him politely and tell him that's the best offer, if he think we are offering him value, then, we are glad to discuss further, else, if he is only doing price comparison, then we will just be "friends" and nice knowing him.

Heaty Body

Yesterday morning when I woke up I felt really bad. My throat was tight and was having running nose. Perhaps is inadequate rest from the previous days.

The whole scenario started on Friday evening when I join my friends for dinner at a local noodle stall after dropping my mom to a 'pre-wedding' buffet dinner. It was my sister-in-law's brother's wedding on Saturday (30th Jan 2010).

As usual, we sit and chit-chat until about 1am before calling it a day. Then, on Saturday morning I was already awake at 0800 to send my mom to attend the wedding ceremony at my brother's house.

The dinner was at suppose to start on 1900 hours but, as usual for all Chinese wedding dinner, the people have very bad habit of arriving after 1930. Worse, is at 2030 only the dinner starts. This is a very bad habit of the wedding dinner goers. It had just been a norm that when you attend wedding dinners, the dinner will not be served until about 2030 or so. I have personally attended one where the wedding only starts at 2100. Anyway, this can be a posting topic by itself.

The dinner only started at 2030, by the time, I had already had 2 glasses of red wines. The whole dinner only ended at close to 2300. By that time, I think I would have finished up a whole bottle of red wine. After the dinner, I send my lovely gf home and and as I am on my way home, there was a terrible traffic jam. 2 cars 'kissed and hug' each other and causing a half and hour delay in my journey back home. I only reach home at nearly 1am and I headed straight to bed only to woke up at about 10 am on Sunday morning and went for some local shopping for packet drinks at the hypermarket.

Then, I realise that my tight throat might be due to 'heat', so I went and bought myself 2 fresh green coconuts from the local stall and finish it yesterday itself. It really helped. Now although I am not 100% recovered, from my voice, you will know that I have some flu / sore throat kind of voice. I can't produce high pitch voice like I am able to previously, but I felt much better when I woke up this morning. I think tonight when I am driving home, I will again drop in the stall to pick up another fresh coconut to reduce the 'heat' that is still in the body.

I know in Chinese traditional medicine, there is such thing as heaty body which you must eat something cool to chill it down. That is why Chinese have such array of herbal teas and medicine that is meant to cool down the body. Besides that there is also Cold Cool and Wet Cool and they again call for other types of herbs. Even vegetables have been classified into this array of heat properties. Some vegetable are known to be cooling and give cold cool and vice verse.

However, when you ask a Western medical physicians, they will not tell you its heaty. For tight throat, they will prescribe you with anti-biotic and hopefully, it will clear the sore throat. Only when the physician that you consult uses his fingers instead of their ears to "listen" to your heart beat, they will tell you its heaty. Then, he will give you a concoction of dark, concentrated bottle of medication which by smelling itself it would be good to cure you and expecting you to finish the bottle within 3 days or so. I am just fearful of those thing.

But for me, when I am heaty, I will just drink tonnes of water, a few cans of isotonic drinks and lately I had added fresh coconut water into the list and it works. It is not a miracle medicine / solution, but it does help is cooling down my heaty body.