Travelling to Ho Chi Minh

Towards the end of 2010, my company have put up a 'travel ban' for all its employees to cut spending / reduce cost.

This is a yearly affair which will take place in most of the year, if not every year in my company. Under the travel ban, travelling will only be approved for those cases which you will sign a contract / secure a sales with the customer. Included in the scope of 'travel ban' are all meetings and trainings. All those activities are frozen.

As 2011 comes, the ban in partially lifted and travelling for the purpose of meeting customer and for site survey is then allowed. Hence, tomorrow, I will be travelling to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam for a customer site visit.

The flight is at 0900 hrs and it will take about 2 hours to reach. The day will be packed with activities as I have appointments at the moment I clear the customs and immigrations.

The are meeting schedules for the next few days before flying back again on Friday morning flight at 11 am.

Then, my holidays will start and one of the highlight of the weekend is to welcome my fiancée back from the US after 10 months.

Really looking forward for that.

Scaling Mount Kinabalu

Just before Christmas in 2010, one of my friend send me an e-mail telling me that his office colleague wants to organize a trip to climb Mount Kinabalu in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.

The best time to hike this mountain is in March and April and they group plan to go on the 20th of March 2011.

I have been doing some reading on this climb and sounds interesting. The peak of the climb is to see the sunrise and the highest peak is at 4,095m known as the Low's Peak.

So from now onwards, whenever the weather permits, I will go for jogging to physically prepare myself for this climb. When I first started, I can barely complete one round without stopping, but now, I can do one and a half round non stop and I plan to improve it to 2 rounds and so on to build my stamina for this climb and also for my own health.

This will be a great trip and lets see how it goes. Will definitely update more when I come back after the climb.

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.