Friday, October 20, 2006

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.





Wednesday, October 04, 2006

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.