Travelling November

Just noticed that I haven't been updating this blog for almost 3 months.
Life have been pretty hectic coming towards the end of the year.

I have been travelling a lot since end of October.
It started with a trip to Bangkok with my high school friend and her family in October, which I planned since early this year. It was more like a revenge to my husband's active night life/social life, because I hardly get to see him earlier this year due to his frequent mamak time with his friends. So I thought I should give myself some time off too. But I guess things somehow turned out quite too much...

After returning from the 4 days shopping trip in Bangkok, I was told by the MD to go to South Korea, and was also asked by the US colleague if I could join him in his visit to China. So, I headed off to South Korea and jumped to China.

This trip to South Korea gave me some chance to look around, as my flight to China was over the weekend. I went to the Changdeokgong palace, and had some peaceful moment on my own inside the king's secret garden.

Seoul is a very vibrant city, and Gangnam is especially high-tech. I was lost in Gangnam, and came to realize that the huge black pillars that served like the street lights, are also multipurpose interactive tourist boards that have maps etc.

In my China trip, I saw some living history in one of the China factories, see below.

This image looks exactly like one of those we seen in our history text books, talking about industrial revolutions. But the picture was taken when these people were working right before my eyes. I guess only engineers could appreciate this? The manual labour involved in this is enormous.

Of course, there were also some real kick-ass state-of-art Aluminium foundry we saw, but I couldn't take any pictures. China reminded me a little of USA -- everything is big.

Right after returning from China, my trip to Philippines has been arranged. The trip was meant for two weeks travelling from North to South of Philippines, but the job site in the South had some demonstrations, so our trip to Philippines was shortened to only a week. (I travelled with Mr. Experience in Philippines.)

I was extremely tired when returning from China, and was secretly feeling glad that this trip to Philippines is only a week instead of two. Although I still have to return again early next year to the South.

This trip to Philippines also coincide with my birthday, it falls on a Saturday. I spent my birthday in the job site climbing 60 ft above the ground, walking on thin structures and frames. Although I like engineering, but kinda feeling sad that I have to work over the weekend and my birthday, while the office politicians have been shooting arrows at my back.

I met our representative in the birthday evening, we celebrated in the hotel restaurant with half a coconut cake and a bouquet of lilies. I doubt I could bring the flowers back to Malaysia -- It wouldn't worth quarantine it in the airport.

The plants are in some remote places in Philippines. On our way to the plants, I saw a river was entirely filled by the volcano sludge and turned into very unique grey/black stripes of land, stretching miles and miles.

I saw large sugarcane fields and padi fields along the highway that has no ends, the large stretch of light purple sugarcane flowers under the huge dead volcano was giving a oddly peaceful aura.

I also saw mountainful of coconut trees with huge underground geothermal steam pipes snake around it and around the villages to get into the plant. Coconut trees were sweeping as the wind blows, and the geothermal steam merged with the moving white clouds, everything is so dreamy and serene. If it weren't the hot sun, the sweat, the machine and construction sounds we made, it would be a heaven.

Back to reality, one thing I find common in all these 3 countries, is the horrible traffic jam.

Mushroom rice needs attention

I came across an article that made reference to Dr. Emoto's rice experiment:

Three bowl of rice were capped and put together.

The person speak good words to first bowl of rice for a week, ignore the second bowl of rice and scold the third bowl of rice.

At the end of the week, the first bowl of rice turned brownish but kept it's fragrance, the third bowl of rice turned black. The second bowl of rice turned black and grew moldy.

The result was regarding positive thinking and its energy. It seems that ignoring someone is the worst of all.

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We have a new girl came into the office, she is a relative of Ms. Sulky, she is replacing Ms. Azreal during her maternity leave.

She sits next to Ms. England.

Decamouth was very eager yesterday, showing his concern to Ms. England on her messy working desk.

"Your desk is pretty messy er?"
England was pretty slack about it, "Yeah, I don't have any place to store things."
Decamouth seized the chance! "Well, you need a cupboard, I have one in my old seat in the sales department!"
England continued to slack, "Oh yeah?"
Decamouth continued, "... I can clear it for you."

The next thing I saw, Decamouth was using a trolley bringing that empty cabinet over to this side of the office for England. He even carried that cabinet down from the trolley by himself.

I am not sure about others, but it is obvious to me that he is showing off to this new girl.
This new girl also noticed that Decamouth had been looking at her very frequently from his office.

This made me want to vomit, because Decamouth doesn't even carry the water refill cartridge to the kitchen water cooler!

And today, he is walking around as if he forgot to wipe his bottom after taking a dump, trying to claim that it was due to carrying heavy weight. What an arse!

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Decamouth has always been an arse, and I found out that he does this to crave for attention and appraisals.

I sometimes wonder if he had a mountainful of moldy rice harvest in his heart...

What is your true colour?

We have surely met some people in our lives, who are good at very specific things, but do not know how to do most other trivial things in life.

Our finance manager is on of them.

She is same age as me, but have been living a pretty easy life to most of us. She owned a driving license, but don't know how to drive. Her mother fetch her to the office and fetch her home. She brings lunch from home, prepared by her mother. She doesn't know the basic ethics when meeting clients, very blunt but very sharp when it comes to figures.

She can split the bills accurately to the cents between 14 people. She can calculate things so accurately that you won't pay one cent more to the government or any party. She is very precise in her share and not her share, especially when it comes to job scope and hierarchy rights.

She insisted that managers should have the priority to choose the company allocated car park space, over the executives, despite the MD prohibiting choosing carparks.

There is no grey area like, "you scrub my back, I scrub your back."

She lives entirely in her own world.

The MD brought in five fat mangoes today to the office, this finance manager likes food, and she will take any free food without hessitation, and own it entirely to herself.

To have 5 mangoes among 14 person in the office, we need to cut all the mangoes and share it among the group.

I didn't realise she took one mango to herself, and was commenting to the other colleague that the person who took the mango to his/herself is very selfish. She over heard it and offered to share with me. I was like "Oups, I said the right stuff at the wrong time and place." Anyway, since she offered it, I said ok, and asked her to cut it, since she was having the mango and the knife. I felt that, if I rejected it, it would only make me looked like a guilty party.

So she took the knife, and slice a tiny portion out with the skin, and said to me ''There is no peeler in the kitchen, I don't know how to peel. So you take this, I will take the rest."

I wasn't sure it was because of her lack of living skills or she really wanted to have the entire mango to herself, but I felt pity for her.

I saw her digging away the large portion of the mango, with the core still attached, dripping the mango everywhere, I believe she really never cut a mango before, with a knife.

I mean, you really don't need a peeler to prepare a mango. Anyway, I wasn't really into the mango, but was only curious to know how this person is... and I think her true colour is the mango yellow.

Good anime

It has been a long time since I last watched something good... Came across The Secret World of Arrietty just now and spent some time on it. It was simple and sweet.

Life have been very busy and targetless. Anime like this reminded me of those research days. Things are so simple and I only need to focus on the research, my mind was clear as the water, my life was satisfying and fulfilling as the ripen fruits.

Never had I felt so empty and busy like now, yet feeling tired and having my mind fogged up so badly. I couldn't see my future.

I was awarded a silver star the other day. The face of it was for my contribution to the South Korea market, but the fact was for the MD to shut my mouth and to make me sound stupid complaining about the unfair stuffs going on in the office, and about his bias thoughts on me.

I helped the IT consultant recently in the Windows 7 system upgrade and came across a confidential document from the MD's backup files. It was an evaluation and 5 years plan for this office. I was unfortunately identified as the most problematic employee, least chance for career advancement. I was also identified as emotional when taking up multiple tasks, which was an unfair claim without taking into consideration of the scenario for saying the truth under the threat of losing my job.

I don't come to work fighting for names and power, I work for self improvements and professional growth. I raised questions to things that doesn't sound right, and make noise to get things done. I guess I learned my lesson seeing the dirty tricks from these people not wanting to do their jobs, yet yearning for credits and attentions.

I know I shouldn't have read that document, but I also start to feel that honesty and sincerity is merely a relative term. It is only worthwhile in front of people who can appreciate it.

The dark vinegar is brewing... I hope I won't loose myself in this strange world.

A day in Setia Mall

Went to Setia Mall last Saturday, I was disappointed by the lack of preparation of the mall. If it weren't due to the Parkson 5x Bonuslink and its location (close to my side of the town), I wouldn't be there.

The map on the newspaper advertisement is amazingly simple, without road sign and landmarks.

There weren't a single sign board from highway/main road etc. leading to Setia Mall.
There weren't even a road sign around the mall.

Lots of illegal parking around the peripheral access road. (that's how we identified the entrance...)

The carpark floor was not epoxy coated, very dusty and still have the concrete cement smell.
Signage in the carpark was poor, lack of floor directories.

The glass panels were not cleaned, there were still some construction smudges all over the place.
The wood handles were not polished.

The mall was not properly lit, the air conditioning broken down, dusty floor, some shops still had those chemical smell of new renovation -- so strong it made me tear. Most shops had no internet line, phone line, as a result, they couldn't take credit card.

Parkson was one of the better prepared shop in the mall, but the brands in Parkson wasn't as complete as other Parkson in town. I visited the Ladies department, the clothing taste and brand location was disorganised -- you don't know if they are targeting youngsters, young adults, or mature adults.

I have to say Padini concept store has better fashion jewelleries than Parkson.

I didn't get to visit Uniqlo though, from the outside, they look well organised and prepared to do business in this new location.

I was glad that Setia Mall management decided to give out free parking for that day due to the dysfunctional air conditioning.

It has been a while

I have not been able to access to this blog for a long while. Just got back from a long postponed honeymoon to Cambodia. Loaded some photos to Facebook.

Cambodia is generally poor, Siem Reap is considered their pretty good town,but it is about 30-50 year behind some of our South East Asian countries. Nonetheless I love Cambodia for its people, they still have some basic human trusts among the crowd. They aren still some very precious human interactions and instinct that will soon be lost as the country advances.

Things are not cheap in Siem Reap, everythings starts from USD1, from fridge magnets to a pencil. Otherwise, it would be USD 20....nothing in between. But it is relatively easy to haggle compared to China.

Perhaps we visited the market pretty early (around noon) so they are superstitious about getting the first deal than making good profits.

Food and drinks are considered expensive, judging from the average local income (USD 140 a month.). A meal in local hawker stall next to the road, not by any tourist hot spot cost about USD5.

We went to Angkor Wat, entrance is USD 20 per person for 1 day and USD40 for 3 days. Most of the attractive stuffs are in the small circuit. The grand circuit consists mainly small temples and barriered archeology sites.

The main attractions are Angkor Wat, Bayon temple and Ta Phorm, which means main temple in local language. Those huge trees that grow in between the temple structures are impressive, it shows the age of the temples, but it also destroys the temple through time. It somehow shows the Buddhist believe - nothing stays or gone forever.

In the trip to Tonle Sap lake, we witnessed some poor lives,but it made me wonder if they would be any happier if they were richer.... We lost many things to get rich and developed, but in the end all we asked for are the same old basic things.

I am sure there are a lot more pitiful stuffs happening in Cambodia, especially with their rich mineral-precious gems. I hope they will learn to protect themselves better.