Cape Town part 2

We managed to go to Cape Town last weekend to do all the touristy stuff. Taxi fare here is damn expensive and theyre not that safe either. We arranged the transport with the company driver who apparently do part time on weekends. It still cost us 350 rand (RM175) return trip (for 30 mins trip), but that’s significantly cheaper than taxis.

Its quite difficult to get around here due to security reasons. There are so many problems in this country, and it shows just how shitty it can be if you have a huge gap between the rich and poor, and especially when the majority are poor.

The ‘Welcome to Cape Town, prepared to be blown away’ signboard greeted us as we were exiting the highway. This city can do just that.

We took a boat tour, hoping to see some whales and dolphins. The tour operator promised that we would see dolphins, but whales migrated north during spring. But of course no dolphin can be seen, and if not for the fantastic view of the city and table mountain, it would have been a total rip-off.

Hopped on the ‘Topless bus’, a double-decker which gave us quite a good tour of the city and suburbs. It took us around the city center, and also the Bo-Kaap…. the cape-malay area. And of course to the table mountain, were we hopped off and took the cable car to the top. We could see everything from up there, fantastic view of the seas and city on one side, and the wine lands and mountains on the other.

Coming soon…. more pics.... from top of table mountain...!

Yello from Stellenbosch

Im not exactly in Cape Town, but in Stellenbosch, about 45 mins drive away from the 'Mother City'.

Touched down Sunday morning via Johannesberg. On the way to Stellenbosch from the airport, we went pass a squatter camp. Its similar to the squatters in Jakarta.... only that its in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a 'fence'. That was going to be the only hint of Africa during my trip here that I would see up till now.

Beyond the squatter camps, its just endless vineyards surrounded by beautiful mountains. Stellenbosch is right in the middle of South Africa's winelands. This is where you can get supposedly the best wines in the world. There are a lot of guest houses, wine country resorts, wine tours and all that stuff here. I just never get this wine route tasting country-resort thing.

Stellenbosch is quite a beautiful town. Its a university town, with the university of stellenbosch buildings scattered around the town. Students form a third of the population, but theyre all away for the summer. So the crowd is a bit mature now, and less things to look at(all though its still not bad!). A lot of nice restaurants, bars and stuff like that.... all the fine dining crap. it reminds me of Ann Arbor in so many ways.

People here are predominantly white. Unfortunately, most black people I have met so far are the driver, receptionist or waiter. Standard of living quite high, and you can see a lot of german cars. The people here are beautiful.

We are staying in some guesthouse. Sadly to say, this place is more suitable for a couple in their 50's. Everything is 'old-fashioned'. My toilet seat is made of wood. Are you freaking kidding me. My room smells like some wood. It is just so weird when at the breakfast, 2 young asian guys among some old couple who are obviously here to enjoy the wine country stuff. I think my dad will love this place.

One week has gone by, and one more week of training to go. Tomorrow we are planning to go to Cape Town, and do all the touristy stuff like table mountain and the waterfront. Cant wait for tomorrow cause I feel like I am 50 already after staying at this place.....

Cape town, South Africa

Blogging from MAS lounge at KLIA. On my way to Cape Town. Will be there until 4 dis. Its going to be 2 crazy weeks there.

The past week was hell week as well. So glad its over already. Screwed up so many things along the way.

Looking forward to get on the flight and have the ever fantastic MAS sate.

the third world

It has been a while.... the last time I was in hometown Kuching was like 4 months ago. Even after 4 months.... nothing.... I thinks its becoming stagnant. Apart from the new flyover near the airport, I dont see many changes in this town. Kuching enjoyed its heyday in the 90's..... after 97 it was like nothingness..... even the roads look dusty now. It used to look like a garden, well kept decorative plants and flowers, tree-lined streets and boulevards....maybe the new mayor has got something to do with this.....

Houses dotting the hilly landscape of Monterrey. Its pathetic really.... this is like the only decent picture of Monterrey that I managed to take. I would probably never step my foot in this city again..... and yet I couldnt find the time to explore the city and take more pictures. The schedule and jetlag was too exhausting. Got the picture from my hotel room.

Luckily there was a mall across the street from the hotel. It totally reminded me of the mall near ann arbor.... the two-level one.... twelve oaks or something. The shops and brands were no different than those you can find in the US. In fact this city in most parts could be mistaken as a southern US city I think. Its cool to see walmart, ford trucks, mustangs.... I even managed to catch conan o brien on tv..... freaking hilarious as ever. American football was shown everywhere in bars...... prolly because americans were everywhere..... but too bad couldn't catch the Michigan-msu game.....

On my way back, was in transit in Mexico City. I was told by the other guys on how crazy the Mexico city airport is. Some people would prefer travelling to Monterrey via Dallas just to avoid this airport. It thought it was OK.... until I bought a lot of chocolates and candies and the security took ALL of them away. I was already late at the gate and didnt have time to argue with them.... in SPANISH. Anyway, the Mexicana flight gave us fantastic view of the expansive city.

The view of Los Angeles was also fantastic..... I could even spot rodeo drive from up there. It really felt good to be in the states again.... even only for a few hours of transit. The pure american accent was fantastic and refreshing...... such a relief from the fake accent of KLites and american wannabe malaysian. Too bad I couldnt spend some time in the US.... I only have business visa anyway.

Anyway its still good to get just a little bit of americana again. It must be realy gorgeous in ann arbor at this time of the year when the leaves change colors.

Hola from Monterrey

Greetings from Monterrey, Mexico. I am gonna be here for about a week, coming back on a Friday flight. We have a training workshop here for our project, which is the main activity for global deployment.

So this one in Mexico is catered for Project Managers in latin America and the caribbean, 20+ of them. People from places like brazil, mexico, honduras, argentina and so on.... and 2 guys from KL and one from London.... it is just crazy. I have one presentation to do in front of these people... its quite scary and I hope my superior will change his mind about me doing it and he does it instead.

When we were in KL, were told jokingly by a brazilian that the training is gonna be in Spanish. Well, it wasnt a joke... the training is in Spanish. At least I have some use of the very basic Spanish that I studied in Michigan.

I am still trying to recover from jetlag. So far have no time to go sightseeing. Looking at the schedule, it will get more hectic. Hopefully can get some picture of the city and buildings. Its a nice city, and is very similar to the US due to its closeness to the border. Too bad I cant extend my stay into the US... maybe couple of days in LA or something like that.

moronic car owners

Someone left a dent on my car. Its a small one, one has to really look and explore all angles before it can be spotted. Nevertheless, it is such a sore sight. I would rather get a minor scratch than a small dent. At least the scratch can be get rid off by waxing. He who left the dent... i surely hope ur car's body is flawless and somone will do the exact same thing to your car.

This makes me paranoid whenever I need to park my car. I really need to choose my parking spot, preferably next to an expensive car or a really well maintained car exterior wise. I am also tryin to avoid family cars- suv, minivans, and mpv. More often than not, these are filled with a family, housewives or obnoxious kids who do not have a care in the world about how deep a dent to other peoples car their act of opening the door would result in.

You only get this kind of problem here in KL. You can park as close to any other car in Kuching and not to have to worry about your car being dented by morons.

Update!!

Our project is nearing global roll out.... so its getting a bit busy now. Nevertheless, I can update this blog.... whenever i have internet lah.

I want to upload some pics.... but now at office cant do that. Im gonna do that some other time, not to distant future. Ive got some pictures from my trip to indonesia couple weeks back. Got volcano pic and stuff like that hehehe....

Lost at sea...

In a bid to save this blog from extinction, I set a goal for my self, to post update of any kind, at least once a week.

Back to my post. I thought that it was the usual thing: go through the competencies... look at the rating i give myself for each competency, reasoning provided, area for improvement bla bla bla.... then out of nowhere came the soklan cepumas from my bosses: "Do you relly want to stay in this organisation?"

That totally caught me offguard. It wasnt the usual assessment after all. Totally unprepared for this. What the hell does that mean? I seriously thought I was getting fired. After that I was bombarded with torpedos, scuds, bomb so forth. Questions on how do i want to move forward, technical or business.... engnieering or stay in consulting bla bla bla.... my contract is ending very soon....

I went straight to the point and asked them if this is related to my performance or my lack of decision making on how do I want to progress with my job. They replied the latter.... but that didnt make me feel better at all. There is still this sneaky feeling that I am getting fired or sumthing like that.

After all... after 6 months in this IT consulting thing.... I still dunno what the heck that i want to do to myself. I have no idea if i want to go to the business side, or do technical things, or leave this consulting and go back to engineering altogether. And if pepople ask u what u wanna do and u reply u havent decided or dunno... I think it makes u look like a dumbass. Bottom line, I have some serious thinking to do in this couple of weeks, which hopefully will lead to some decisiion making from my side.

Satria Neo

I just test drive the new Satria Neo 1.3 manual. Overall, I was quite impressed by it. Though they didnt really allow me to go anywhere.... just go one round around seri petaling. Pity they dont have the 1.6 manual for test drive.

I have no problem with the exterior. It looks really good to me. Build quality looks good. I really like the headlights, look like gen2 a bit, but more refined. The rear lights are ok, albeit a bit bland. The body looks beefy, due to the higher ratio of body:glass(window). Fancy the feline look also. But the gas tank cover is ridiculous. Despite hat...... still thumbs up for Proton!!

Interior is trademark proton all the way: cheap plastic. The round air cond looks ugly and cheapskate. The three knobs in the middle look like that of gen2 and dont look any better. Steering wheel feels plastic and cheap(why cant they use waja's wheel????). Dashboard:plastic. Meter panel is ok, but i dont really like the meter 'hood'.... looks like bra hanging. Door handle: round(very ugly) and plastic. Dont like the samurai sword handbrake, dodgy. Driver's position is a bit weird, quite high, which leaves not much headspace. Seat feels fairly comfortable. Not much room for the passenger at the back, but what do u expect from a satria right? Despite all these, I can still say thumbs up to proton for improving the overall look of the interior. It looks so much better than the ridiculous interior of gen2.

I am no car expert and I cant comment much on performance and handling. I was concerned about the high revving campro engine. Proton were supposed to tune it for this new satria. I have never driven a Gen2 and dont know how bad it is. But based on my test drive, the 1.3 manual version was ok, pick up was ok.

I only took the car out for like 15 minutes, so didnt really have a good feel of it. The handling feels really good. This should be expected from proton, with all that lotus involvement.

The most imnportant thing is..... the new satria is using a new mechanism for its power windows.... can we expect a no power window malfunction for the new satria???? Only time will tell.

The pricing, in my opinion, is spot on albeit predictable. The Satria is quite a good package overall.

Then we come to the holy grail of Proton: QC. I can just pray they did something to improve their Quality Management programme(if they have any...). Cannot tell.... only time will tell. But people claim that the quality of savvy models is so much improved compared to other models.

This is a good sign from Proton. I really hope they can continue to come out with models as good as this new satria... and improve quality.

It is raining outside....

This week has been so good... it has been a long time since I can sit at the office and browse internet until the cows come home..... I can get used to this again...

Anyway, it has been almost 6 months since I joined my current company, thats the longest I have ever stayed in a company. Hopefully I can make the stay longer, even though I have no freaking idea what the hell am I doing right now lalala. Well.... fck it and I couldnt be bothered, now I just want to concentrate on being confirmed and get higher salary lalala.

This also marks the almost six month that I have been staying in KL. I couldnt help it but to compare KL to kuching. Though I have stayed in KL before during my A-level years. First thing that comes to mind are the drivers..... KL drivers are among the stupidest around. Not only they perform stupid acts all the time, they embed their stupidity with agression and speed.... stupidity with added danger to human lives make them all the stupider. Kuching drivers are stupid but dont drive fast at all.... so at least they dont get killed.

what the hell am i writing about, absolutely have no idea. This IT environment has depraved me of anything creative and artsy.

The makcik who sells nasi lemak in sri petaling is always in my memory for all the wrong reasons. This makcik you would never find anywhere in Kuching. With that motherly nature and kind eyes and all that, who would expect such a person to rip you off. Well she ripped me off my nasi lemak. I would have never imagined such a humble dish like nasi lemak could be so pricey.... to be exact the simple everyday nasik lemak with sotong sambal at the side for 4 ringgit.... freaking rip off indeed. I almost believed that she ripped me off cause I look like chinese and she was being rascist.... then again, maybe she was just being a normal KL folk.

I love astro

I thought that it was the usual astro technical glitch, but the service is not back yet. So the support people were right indeed. It has got to do with the so called central system that we have here at arena green apt. Nothing to do with astro, everything to do with the central system. So there is a need to contact the management.

But people dont work on Sundays. No way to get people to fix the problem. I feel like installing the dish myself. We are put in this position where people can screw up and nothing can be done to fix the problems.

This astro service interruption is really getting on my nerves. Missed the "el-clasico" and the Liverpool match last night. Both astro and the management are morons.

I find that astro service here in KL is so much worse than in Kuching. Technical glitches, weird messages popping that cannot be deleted..... missing channels... wrongly printed bills.....omg i feel like smacking some people. The central system instead of individual dish does complicate the matter as well. This is because now we have to deal with 2 morons: astro and apt management. Sigh....

Its time to get going

I am trying to update this blog as often as I can. Dont want it to be obsolete.... I first used the word obsolete in my final 450 report and now I will use it whenever I have the chance.

Anyways, try to do that at office (update blog).... after lunch or a couple of minutes here and there.... so far its not really happening. At home the connection is intermittent at best..... better use the online time to check email and other more important stuffs... right?

We have a full house at bkt jalil. Now I have 3 housemates..... thank goodness that there is no way that the number will increase any further. Anyhow.... with the cheaper rent divided by four, comes the catch. The house could not get any more messy, blocked sink.... and weird smell.... its getting disgusting lol.

The BTA's....

BAT GSD is recruiting more Management Trainees (Business Tech Associate, BTA). I was in the first batch of 45 BTA's.... n now for the second batch I heard that they want to recruit another 30. For this position, you will most probably become a SAP consultant.... but others could be involved in other things like skyway, six sigma n MEGA. I am in SAP n have no idea about those other things. But for SAP, I think its not really technical. Its more important to understand the business processes and figure out how to make full use of freaking SAP as the supporting technology. The ad will be in THE STAR this Saturday, in "Jobs" section.

Regardless of whether you are interested in the vacancies or not..... GO BUY THE STAR this Saturday. It is imperative to go through the jobs section and take a look at BAT's ad. It is worth your money and energy to flip those pages... theres gonna be a surprise lol....

On the new T43

I got a new laptop: a Thinkpad T43...!!! My previous hp was given to someone else cause we were running short.... just got the new IBM last week. Honestly, the only thing that got me excited about T43 is its price.... and the keyboard. Feels good indeed. Other than that.... I couldnt be bothered.

The T43 is the only good think I can mention about work. My motivation is decreasing slowly but steadily. I am sick of reading. I am in a vulnerable position.... it is easy for me to start thinking that I dont have anything to do and start surfing. 9 to 5 reading as your tasklist is not good at all.... especially for new people like me. What to do... just suck it up. Have to try to motivate myself.... thats not too easy.

Went to chili's for the first time. For some reason, maybe due to my experience of living in the US.... I got this notion in my head that chilis is a western food heaven. Its like if you want to have western, might as well go to chilis and nowhere else....Those baby back rib song and n sync singing and all those commercials surely do something to your head right. So I had steak.... and it wasnt good at all. Such a dissapointment.

And I think I know when a steak is good. I had "filet mignon" at michigan league.... supposed to be expensive and luxurious cut of meat.... catering got extra and everyone got free food..... it was the most delicious slab of meat I have ever tasted. Applebees' was not bad at all too.

And it is Valentines day........

On the project assignment

Our group of 45 people is now segregated.... projects assigned and now we form smaller groups. A few people are going to africa after chinese new year.... to freaking zimbabwe.... what in the world is bat doing in zimbabwe right.... but how I wish I was assigned to zimbabwe.... not for the sake of travelling, nor the lions, baobab trees and victoria falls...... but the money.... man the allowance they give are freaking unbelievable..... maybe i am sick of reading blueprints already, cant wait to get going.... at least some trip to africa sounds like excitement and fun..... can look at lions, victoria falls, baobab trees, sand.....

What a wonderful week ahead.... I will have the whole of next week off cause im on leave next Friday...... this Sunday im off to kuching....

Confessions of a lady driver

There was this creaking sound coming from the back of my sister's kancil, i repeat, my sister's kancil, It was really bothering me, but I somehow said "just ignore it". This would not come out from the mouth of a guy..... or so said my "pillion rider". Now that i think about it..... should the kancil broke down, I would have absolutely no idea what to do. I can change flat tires, but thats about it. I am indeed a freaking lady driver. I used to drive my parents cars... but never really care about their maintenance whatsoever. This is like the first time i am responsible for a car, and the kancil is already 1500 km overdue its supposed service maintenance ...... By the way, there is no chance that I would own a kancil ok. It is a freaking sissy car, you would not find me thinking about buying a kancil, at all, and the one im driving is my sister's. I would rather drive a Kangoo than a kancil. You know renault kangoo.... it has got to be the ugliest vehicle gracing our roads, and it looks kind of funny also. No offence to kancil owners.

Nasi Lemak Antarabangsa

Grey's Anatomy is on every Wed night on tv3..... who would expect that to happen.... thats like the only thing im watching right now.... and its a good show by the way, so far....

nasi lemak antarabangsa kampung baru is so overrated, I have eaten it twice, and I still think it is so-so.... if not edible. There is nothing special about it. I cant understand y is it so famous. It was supposed to be the best nasi lemak in town. And its not cheap. So dissapointed..... and tom yam near KL international hotel is supposed to be the best in town.... ikan bakar kpg baru is also credited to be fantastic..... well just see abput that....