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"Cibai" Gaffe

2012-01-05T20:53:00.027Z

"Cibai, cost me £61 to renew my passport"

Those were the words in BC's FB status that got him into big trouble. BC bowed to pressure and deleted them because a preacher (I hope BC wasn't trying to be sarcastic by calling him that) from Malaysia who happened to be his "friend" reprimanded him in public. The preacher commented, "B, watch your words, you're a Christian!"

I winced in disgust reading the comment.

It's this type of person who encourages the stereotyping of Christians. That they are infallible. That their sin will encourage the sinning of other sinners.

It's this type of person who thinks only Christians have the moral high ground. What if another person of a different faith uses the same words as BC? I guess it's alright for him then, because he's doomed for not becoming a Christian anyway. Really?

It would be impertinent for me to think about the preacher as hypocrite. Christians, like other homo sapiens on this planet are not allowed to express their feelings with words of their choice. Only biblical words I suppose.

We live in an imperfect world. When we judge others, we run into the danger of thinking ourselves as righteous. More worryingly is not knowing where to stop. What's the next inappropriate word after cibai? Stupid dumb-dumb? Or even uttering the word "bloody" would get a Christian lynched next time by Mr Righteous Preacher's court of law? Tell me what Christian is that and I'll stay a million miles away from this freak.

"Cibai" is Hokkien for "cunt". It is rude, unprofessional and ungentlemanly. That's about it. If I had to reprimand BC I would probably go along these lines and in a private message. BC may have younger "friends" who see him as role model, that I would consider what he said as understandably inappropriate. But that's about it.

The Christianity I grew up in teaches me to do good to others as they would to me. It teaches me as an imperfect human to be always forgiving, loving and charitable to another human being. On that note, I wonder what we Christians think about embarrassing another Christian brother in public. Isn't that rude, unprofessional, ungentlemanly and inappropriate too?

You tell me.

2012

2012-01-01T21:57:00.001Z

Today is the first day of 2012.

Just over two years ago, a movie by the same title predicted the world is ending this year. The movie was rated poorly.

A more chilling account comes from the Maya people who predicted the same some 1300 years ago. This was eventually dispelled as inaccurate.

On both accounts, the world is not ending this year.

I guess I have these to look forward to then:

1) In two days, everyone in the office will start to realise the world is watching our project. Pressure is upon us.

2) Professional exam - FINAL!

3) Do three half marathons, a marathon, an aquathlon and a triathlon - a target I hope to exceed.

4) Olympics.

5) Visit the US of A.

6) Visit new European and Scandinavian cities

7) Taking the career to the next level - God willing

8) NI's GIGS at Malaysia

9) Another nephew or a niece?

10) Third season of Downton Abbey

I am contented with ten things to look forward to, but each requires hard work, perseverance, patience, money and a modicum of luck.

Happy New Year!

Google Accent

2011-12-09T09:28:00.006Z

I tried the Google App voice search for the first time after installing it a year ago.
I searched for something more recent, something the world talks about, so I tried, "Libya oppression".

The result was "lesbian operation".

Fine, it's my accent. So I cleared my throat and pressed the microphone icon again, I spoke up "li-bi-ya o-preh-shen", this time in a clearer and slower voice.

The result was "legion operation".

Tried again, it was "Libya operation".

Ah..getting there. So I tried again, it was, "Beautiful person".

"Beautiful person" from "Libya oppression"

I gave up in the end, knowing that I will never get there. Or was Google actually telling me these are the outcomes of the Libya oppression? I doubt it's as intuitive as that yet, but who knows.

A moment of realisation, I resorted to typing them out in the search bar and got 2.87 million results in 0.20 seconds.

Visa

2011-12-05T23:25:00.025Z

Today I received my Biometric Residence Permit which means I am in the last leg of my stay before being granted an indefinite leave to remain in the UK - or commonly known as a PR. Okay I am already counting the chicken before the eggs hatch. I am assuming I am still around for the next two years; gainfully employed and not tainted by a criminal record.

Immigration rules have certainly changed a lot in the span of four years. I first started with the International Graduate Scheme (IGS) which gave me the opportunity to work here for a year after Cambridge. Six months later, the IGS was scrapped and replaced by the Tier 1 - Post Study Work Visa. The switch was to facilitate the points-based system. The T1-PSW does the same thing as the IGS, except that it is valid for two years.

After a year with the IGS, I applied to be a highly-skilled migrant. I applied to this new form of visa, known as the Tier 1- General, also a points-based system, to remain in the country. At the time engineers were a great commodity. There weren't enough of people like us in the country. We were in the list of skills shortage group. T1G was easily available to almost anyone with the right qualification, age, salary, skills and some money in the bank. As long as you fulfil these criteria, you're in.

Biometric Residence Permit

Things have changed a lot today. Apart from the application fee increasing from £750 four years ago to £1000 today, the T1G is now abolished. The Biometric Residence Permit (basically like the MyKad) is also a new invention to replace the vignette stamp in the passport. The only way to come into the UK is through a Tier 2 route which requires you to be in the skills shortage list and an employer who is willing to support your application. Yes, lots of odds stacked against newcomers.

Tier 1 is now only for the rich or super-smart. As long as you have £1mil in cold hard cash, or exceptionally talented (such as some award winning mad scientist), you're in. That too is based on a quota. Because I neither have £1mil in cold hard cash nor a noble prize to prove my exceptional talent (running a marathon, blogging and youtube videos don't count!) I wouldn't have gotten a visa if I applied one from Malaysia today!

The skills shortage list now suggest that my type of engineering profession is no longer needed in the country. But we're not alone. We join other professionals such as pharmacists, biology teachers and musicians. Doctors have been banned long time ago. The doors are closed, at least for newcomers in these sectors. Those who are in might have to follow new rules.

Recently the government was embroiled in a bit of an action with regards to border controls. The moribund economy further exacerbated feelings of xenophobia among jobless British people. Whenever statistics of unemployment are published, immigrants are to blame for "taking jobs" from the locals. Some politicians find it a great opportunity to make popular decisions to the detriment of immigrants in the country. One report suggested that the government will want to break the link between staying for five years and automatic conversion to PR. In the proposal, immigrants will now have to cross the threshold earning of £35,000 in order to become a PR. Anyone earning less will have to leave.

Imagine the disruption to businesses. But that's an example of what I meant by politicians "making popular decisions to the detriment of immigrants..." and may I add...businesses as well.

It's been a cracking five years witnessing the ups and downs of the immigration rules in this country. After going through so many hoops and considering how difficult it is for others to come in now, I am beginning to think if I should ever leave in the near term or even at all.

Diasporas

2011-11-22T22:58:00.027Z

Occasionally I am ashamed of my country because of the things I experience and news I read online.

At times, I am also very proud of us; again by what I experience and read online. This week I felt particularly patriotic because of what I found out.

Last Saturday, I had lunch with my friends at Hakkasan, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Mayfair. I had always wanted to dine in Hakkasan especially with all the rave reviews about it, however the prohibitive cost had always affected our collective decisions. I don't fancy dining in a posh restaurant on my own, so I must involve friends or at least a friend before I agree to do it. **Some joked if cost is our deciding factor, that means we still haven't made it in life!;)**

Hakkasan

Hakkasan was the brainchild of Alan Yau. He's a Hong Kong restaurant entrepreneur who also opened Wagamama, Sake no Hana, Yauatcha and Princi Spirito di Milano. There are also the smaller fast casual restaurants like Busaba Eathai and ChaChaMoon. An impressive string of restaurants under his belt I must say. But this has changed. To-date, Wagamama is sold, Sake no Hana is sold, Yauatcha is sold...and you guessed it, Hakkasan is sold!

At one end of the spectrum, there is this person I so admire for his entrepreneur skills. Someone whose business is to build businesses and sell them for a profit; and at the other end, the jewels in the businesses themselves. For Hakkasan to keep its Michelin star, they have to be impeccable. Alan Yau isn't the one who maintains the star for his restaurants; it is the Head Chef and his team. Who are these people? Who is the Head Chef? So I find out.

Hakkasan's success is largely due to it's Head Chef, Mr Tong Chee Hwee, a Malaysian who alternated his career with Singapore and Kuala Lumpur before being headhunted by Alan Yau ten years ago. I wouldn't have thought the man behind all the rave reviews about the food happened to be a Malaysian. In fact I read that his great culinary skills were influenced by observing his mother and grandmother doing some serious Malaysian cooking in wooden stoves when he was young!

The Hakkasan experience spurred me on to look for the next Michelin-star restaurant to dine. I then found Kai, also at Mayfair. This is the first Chinese Restaurant that was awarded a Michelin star and guess what, it's run by Bernard Yeoh, a Malaysian. It's head chef, Alex Chow, is also another Malaysian.

So what's the big deal with the whole Malaysian thingy? Nothing. However these two examples gave meaning to an article I read in the weekend - the magic of diasporas; they also gave compelling evidence that my country is losing a lot of good people. And some of them are Michelin-starred people that the world now talks about but once neglected by it's own country.

Progress in Life

2011-11-21T20:00:00.010Z

When I was studying here, I was careful with money. Even though there was no need to account for what I do with my money, I made sure my scholarship was always spent on important and necessary things only. In some ways, I made myself accountable for the "good" expected of me by my sponsors. For example, I'd rather pay £500** to fly back to Malaysia for my research than £90 for the wool coat that was selling at a bargain on Boxing Day sales.

I was a member of the Cambridge University Hare and Hounds Club. I had always wanted to get the club winter running gear but resisted the temptation. To me that was a "considered purchase", so I refrained from such "luxury". My free long sleeves were good enough and I wasn't too happy paying exorbitant sums only to soil the gear (we used to run in mud!)

This week I finally made a purchase of the club's hoodie in preparation for winter. Finally I can afford such "luxury". Not bad for some progress in life huh?;)

**That too didn't happen as I won a large grant for my research in the end! ....and I still didn't get the wool coat.

Pain of November

2011-11-19T02:23:00.002Z

Today I know how it feels for a mother to see her child dead upon birth.

After working hard on something for 11 months, sacrificing social life for weekends in the office, waking up in cold sweat in the middle of the night and poring through texts of hundreds of journals, what I got in the end was a dead "baby".

Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani.

British Road Names in KL

2011-08-15T00:18:00.011+01:00

An email with information of old KL road names brought back nostalgic memories.

All the names reminded me of growing up in KL. Whenever it's school holidays, my brother and I followed our parents to town. I've no recollection why we ended up in the City all the time but I do remember vaguely of the trips to the dentist, shopping for school uniforms, textbooks, toys etc because of all the walking under the sweltering heat of the tropical weather!

I remember my father will always drive pass Central Market, which at the time was a wet and dirty market, to park his Peugeot 305 in nearby Bank Pertanian Malaysia as it was closest to my mom's and his office in Medan Pasar and Leboh Ampang before continuing our journey to the colonial-looking Sin Seng Nam coffee shop for some serious breakfast- Chee Cheong Fun, soup noodles and steamed bread with kaya and butter.

Before I get carried away giving a low down of my childhood, fast forward to today, some of the names in the list below are still recognisable. In fact, one is still used interchangeably - Bukit Tunku/Kenny Hill. Unfortunately, I must say I cannot recognise the rest.

When I was young(er), my parents always told me stories about their courtship days eating porridge in Campbell Road. Now I see that's in Dang Wangi!

It does also explain why some KL buildings inherit partial English names that doesn't make sense anymore to our generation, for example SJKC Jalan Davidson, while it is located in Jalan Hang Jebat.

Jalan Davidson in Jalan Hang Jebat, does it make sense?

The list below:

1) Jalan Raja Laut = Broadrick Road
2) Jalan Cheng Lock = Foch Avenue
3) Jalan Dang Wangi - Campbell Road
4) Jalan Dewan Bahasa = Old Airport Road
5) Jalan Esfahan = Straits Road
6) Jalan Hang Jebat = Davidson Road
7) Jalan Hang Kasturi = Rodger Road
8) Jalan Hang Lekir = Cecil Road
9) Jalan Hang Lekiu = Klyne Road
10) Jalan Hang Tuah = Shaw Road
11) Jalan Masjid India = Dickson Road
12) Jalan Lebuh Pasar = Market Street
13) Medan Pasar Besar = Old Market Square
14) Jalan P Ramlee = Parry Road
15) Jalan Raja Chulan = Weld Road
16) Jalan Sultan Ismail = Treacher Road
17) Jalan Syed Putra = Loarnie Road
18) Jalan TAR = Batu Road
19) Jalan Tun HS Lee = High Street
20) Jalan Tun Perak = Mountbatten Road
21) Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin/Silang = Cross Road
22) Changkat Raja Chulan = Hicks Road
23) Jalan Bukit Aman @ Bukit Aman = Bluff Road @ Bluff Hill
24) Bukit Tunku = Kenny Hill
25) Jalan Cenderawasih = Spooner Road
26) Jalan Dato Onn = Brockman Road
27) Jalan Duta = Guillemard Road
28) Jalan Gereja = Church Street
29) Jalan Istana = Taylor Road
30) Jalan Kebun Bunga = Orchid Road
31) Jalan Kinabalu = Old River Road
32) Jalan Langgak Golf = Golf View Road
33) Jalan Mahkamah Persekutuan = Holland Road
34) Jalan Mahkamah Tinggi = Clarke Road
35) Jalan Raja Abdullah = Hale Road
36) Jalan Raja Alang = Hans Road
37) Jalan Raja = Raja Road
38) Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz = Princes Road
39) Jalan Semarak = Gurney Road
40) Jalan Sultan Sulaiman = Swettenham Road
41) Jalan Tangsi = Barrack Road
42) Jalan Traver = Damansara Road
43) Jalan Tun Ismail = Maxwell Road
44) Jalan Tun Razak/Pekeliling = Circular Road
45) Jalan Wisma Putra = Hose Drive
46) Persiaran Mahameru = Swettenham Drive
47) Persiaran Maybank = Court Hill
48) Persiaran Sultan Salahuddin = Clifford Road

Would be interested to know about British road names in other Malaysian cities. If you have anymore to add in here, please feel free to write in the comment box.

Paris Marathon 2011

2011-04-12T21:05:00.010+01:00

After all the training through the miserable winter months early this year, I finally completed my ninth marathon in Paris on 10 April 2011, and achieved a new personal best time of 3hr 45mins.

Completed the 9th marathon

The Paris Marathon cost me €90 - €80 for the entry fee and €10 to insure the fee in case I didn't turn up.

This is the first marathon I ran outside of the UK. Along with the list of firsts in this race were:
1. First time running in compression tights
2. Using a GPS watch
3. Peed nonchalantly at a Parisian listed building
4. Witnessed a female runner pulling her running tights down and peed in front of me!

Pardon me for the disgusting fixation on peeing but Paris has always started as a city of filth. People peed on the streets and walkways nonchalantly. It was a way of life just as Malaysians had to use "lah" in their conversations. But Paris is rid of that image today, in fact it is the most romantic city in the world. The marathon peeing experience certainly brought back a surreal moment in time of what I read about the old Paris. In fact the vespasiennes, basically public urinals, were installed to stop Parisians from relieving themselves as and when they liked and preventing buckets of faeces flying down from flat balconies.

At the running expo before race day, I collected my running pack with CP, Florence and Noris. The weather at the time provided a good indication of the climate we would be running in the next morning. It was dry and hot.

On race day, the morning temperature was mild but quickly soared to 28 deg C in the middle of the race. Malaysian friends might think I am overplaying the weather issue but considering I have been training through the winter months and having gotten accustomed to wearing winter gear, this was certainly an exceptional circumstance. I had to make last minute adjustments. This means wearing thinner clothing and peeling off some of the layers I have been training on. This automatically increased the risk of injury from potential chaffing, just like wearing a new pair of shoes.

Paris still has a little bit more to catch up with London in terms of "fun" and "vibe" but apart from that, the quality of the race was superb. It was on par with London, and in some areas better than London. In Paris for example, runners are offered raisins, oranges, banana, sugar cubes and sweets at every refreshment station. This was not the case in London.

Maybe I worry too much about the smaller things. The bigger things like the running expo and crowd support did make London the clear winner. Other things like the finishing t-shirt and medal are better off in Paris than in London. I was told, "€90 for Paris, £32 for London, what do you expect?". Sure, but don't forget London gets almost everything subsidised from the sponsors. But even if they weren't, I'd rather pay a little more, even double that, to get a nicer medal, t-shirt and a guaranteed place.

The medal

Having ran London twice, I found the Paris route more appealing. It's greener, more scenic and wider. But Paris wasn't always like that. Like I mentioned earlier, it was once the filthiest city in the late 18th century, River Seine, the main river through the heart of Paris, was a cesspit. The route also brought me to parts of Paris I wouldn't have found or ventured. For example, the route introduced me to the greener side of Paris such as the Vincennes to the east and Boulogne to the west of the Champs-Elysees marathon loop. Though my fifth trip to Paris, the marathon surprised me of the many places I have yet to cover.

The reason I spoke of the east-west divide was because Paris was quite a "$h1Th0L3" (pardon my language) in the 18th century. The city was absolutely trashed by abattoirs and sewage from Chatelet into the Seine. More than 20,000 Parisians die every year as a result of river pollution and the average lifespan of Parisians at the time was 23 years old. That's almost like life's greatest swindle - an antithesis to scoring 5As in Sixth Form and then looking forward to dying! That is why I was particularly drawn to seeing the distinction between the east and west. The poisonous parts were concentrated at the east of the river and if you've lived in the west, you're probably slightly better off.

Back to modern times, it's amazing taking control of the roads for a day without the fear of being run over by the chaotic traffic system at the Champs-Elysees on normal days. That is the why event management team has done a great job in putting the race together.

Welcoming finish by CP, Florence and Noris

Special thanks to CP and family for hosting my stay in Paris. They have been extremely kind with their hospitality as always - from the privilege to choose the bed to sleep to the minute details of carbo-loading for dinner the night before and breakfast in the morning. Knowing that I like raclette, CP also specially hosted a raclette lunch for post-marathon meal with his family. What more can I say but a million thanks!

CP hosted a sumptuous raclette post-marathon lunch

Also thanks to Noris for flying to Paris just to support me and the cohort of Malaysians who ran the marathon.

Malaysian supporters and runners

The cohort of 2011 Paris Marathon runners

To Fiona, Khoi, Jacqueline, Vinita, Lena, Lau, Kong Lim and Candy; it's been amazing training with you guys! Training for the marathon was so much easier this time as compared to the yesteryears in Cambridge when I was either a “freak” to many or I’m “too “slow” to the other freaks. So it's good to know I've found the right freaks to train with finally!;)

To Azran Osman Rani, CEO of Air Asia X, nice to have kept in touch with you and know that I beat you in the race!

Whole Foods Market Run

2011-03-28T23:04:00.010+01:00

The Whole Foods Market Run is the penultimate training to the Paris Marathon. This is the milestone marking two weeks from the race day in the French capital city.

Can't believe I have already gone this far since signing up for the race back in October last year. This is the first marathon out of Malaysia that I train with a group of friends. It was a lonely journey for the past two London Marathons.

Running buddies

So this is one of the few race events which we signed up to condition ourselves for the long distance race.

Something about this race that I hated and liked. I liked the organising, the timing, drinks, support, traffic management and professional arrangement of the entire event. No hiccups, at least none of which that stood out to me.

The route was flat except for the climb up to two bridges - Kingston and Hampton Court Palace. The weather was perfect for running with temperatures lingering at 9-10 degrees C. Official results are out today:

Time: 2 hrs 8mins 57 secs
Total distance: 16 miles or 25.6km
Category position: 92 out of 231
Overall position: 427 out of 1367

Map below

The sponsors were generous with their offers. Whole Foods Market, a natural and organic foods retailer, was one of the sponsors and particularly generous with their cereal bars, fruits and herbal body wash. The words "natural" and "organic" conjure up an image of expensive and posh products and so they were with Whole Foods Market products. But these were given out free to runners until the stock ran out!

However, there were also things which I didn't like. One of them could have been avoided from the planning stage. The run fell on the day we switched to the British Summer Time. This I felt could have been organised on a Saturday, instead of Sunday. Already I felt this clock changing is such a cynical attempt of us humans trying to tamper with mother nature's daylight. Having to succumb to this inconvenience gave me a grumpy start to the morning. I wouldn't have minded it if it wasn't as early as 8.25 am and didn't have to catch an early train to Kingston. I woke up at 5.30am and effectively had 4 hours of sleep before taking on the 16-mile challenge. I had an hour less sleep than I should, so how can I not be grumpy?

Lucozade, was the other sponsor that provided runners with their branded drinks. Very generous of them to the point they've become obscene. I have given feedback about this during the London Marathon so they provided the soft pack drinks the following year. However, I don't think the shift in packaging has anything to do with my feedback. Unfortunately, the Lucozade bottles made their appearance again in this run. Sad to see the majority of the bottles not consumed entirely and strewn all over the roads. What a waste!

The finishing medal? What finishing medal? There was no finishing medal, bloody heck! All we had was a mug after 16 miles! Yes a bloody mug as memento. This is an area UK organisers can learn from the Asians. I think we get better mementos and finishing t-shirts back home!

Race memento??!!

Well I guess I'm just going to transfer my toothbrush, toothpaste and shaver into this new mug. At least it gets to remind me of this race every time I clean myself.

Can't help but think of those t-shirts you find in souvenir shops that says: "My friend went to London and all she got me was this stupid t-shirt"? Now I think the same for this race and the mug.

Red-herring

2011-03-23T13:35:00.003Z

The O2 Arena is home to many concerts and international events in London. The site will also play host to several events during the London 2012 Games. As we were discussing about a serious issue related to the events taking place next year, a colleague looked puzzled.

He was in deep thoughts and appeared seriously engaged in the discussion. One of us asked if there was something he wanted to share. Waking up from his thoughts he replied, "Gosh, Blink 182 is great! These guys are playing in the O2 soon."

What a red-herring!

Tracking down Japanese Host Family

2011-03-14T13:27:00.018Z

Whenever my brother called at a time when the rest of the UK is still sleeping, there are only two possibilities - (1) something is terribly wrong or (2) he's forgotten the UK time. This time something went terribly wrong. He called to announce that a large earthquake has struck Japan, my immediate reaction was to wake up and turn on the TV. If it was as serious as he described -that SOME CITIES IN JAPAN HAVE COLLAPSED- it would be BREAKING NEWS in BBC. And it was.

When I saw the news, my thoughts went out to the people I knew when I was studying in Japan; Niigata in particular.

Most of the people I know from Japan were accounted for in Facebook except for one - the Nakata family. The Nakata family was my host family when I was studying in Niigata. Mrs Nakata, the host mother whom I occasionally contact treated me like her son when I was there. So when the earthquake struck, my thought was with her and the family.

For the past three days, I have been trawling through my email address book to look for her contact numbers. Usually, I prefer to email her since my Japanese vocabulary has deteriorated from the heydays of speaking it "amature-ish" fluently to a level now Japanese people would shun and rather speak to me in English. Unfortunately, emails to her multiple accounts were bounced and calls went unanswered.

"We're sorry, there's a disruption to the destination you are calling. Please try again later."

At the very least, the random messages acted as suppressant to the nerves. A slight hope that things might be better than I imagined. At least there was the possibility that the mobile network has screwed up at the point of time.

On Saturday I checked with Owen's wife, Akiko whose family is in Chiba. She confirmed she too was facing the same problem and that the lines to Japan were severely disrupted at the time. Slight relieve.

Not to be beaten down, I arrived work half an hour earlier this morning to try again. I avoided the evening rush hour in Japan hoping the lines would be less busy. Still no luck.

Nakata family's bungalow and adjoining hair salon

Somehow I work better in panic mode. I remembered she has a hair salon in Shibata. So I put in the keywords and Googled them. I remember another Japanese host family telling me that my host mother's hair salon was one of the most popular in Shibata. Surely her contact details had to be in the WORLD WIDE WEB! In the world of technology, no one can be good (or bad) without the INTERNET knowing. So I Googled for her name and hair salon. There were 154564561789494945648956465156156103 results spewed out. Worst of all, the first 10 pages were hair salons in Niigata rather than Shibata. Shibata is in the Niigata Prefecture just like Cambridge is in the East of England. Imagine the returned results of hair salons were from the whole of East of England!

To make matters worse, all results were in Japanese.

Trawling through the WORLD WIDE WEB was definitely worse than finding a needle in a haystack. At least you know the boundary of the haystack and with a little more time, you will find the needle. What is the boundary of the WORLD WIDE WEB?

20minutes into mouse-scrolling and Ctrl+F-ing and cutting and pasting the kanji characters finally got me somewhere. A series of familiar characters jumped out of one particular Google results page. A phone number also corresponded with Shibata's area code - 0254- As if God was helping, I spotted a rather familiar series of characters and kanjis for Shibata.

Now that I found a contact number, I was hesitant to call.

"It's expensive to call Japan. What if it isn't connected to the right person?"
"What if someone picks up and can't understand my Japanese?"
"What if it's the right person but crying to tell me her family members were all missing?"

Of course these came and went in a flash. I didn't even bother pausing for a second thought. I tried the number nevertheless.

I pressed the number slowly, one by one, then paused for it to get through. Then the call was connected. On the other side of the line was a familiar voice. I introduced myself. An indifferent tone then turned into a joyous voice. It was Mrs Nakata.

4am dinner

2011-02-28T22:35:00.005Z

At 8pm it was dinner time. I was hungry but my body was calling for bed. My eyes were struggling to stay opened. I responded with a quick dinner and went back to my room.

I was in fact having dinner at 4am Malaysian time. I'm nursing a jet lag and hoping to recover soon.

It's now 10 minutes to 7 o'clock in the morning in Malaysia. Anyway, good night Malaysia!

2010 in Review

2011-01-16T22:15:00.021Z

It took me a while to recollect my thoughts for 2010.

Overall 2010 was a very difficult year for me. It was a year where I had plenty of downs and a modicum of ups. The lessons learned made me a stronger and better person. 2010 thought me humility and pushed me back to basics. It led me out of my comfort zone. Through that I rediscovered myself.

The happy things I could remember are the many places I traveled, people I met and things I have learned from them. There were also good surprises from people who came to visit me in London. Some investments have also paid off on the financial side except those related to the British currency.

Still the most valuable things to me are those that cannot be bought - family, friends and people who care. It drew me out of seeking pleasure from the ephemeral satisfaction of material and fairweather friends. That pride and arrogance took a big hit through the setbacks that happened one after another.

The journey to becoming a Chartered Engineer and the fight to stay in employment during the recession will always remind me of the difficulties in 2010. Say this is the luck I deserve for being in London but these will always strengthen me to deal with bigger issues in future. It is true that anyone who can survive in London, can survive anywhere. Overcoming these made me realise I have truly grown up. These were the times I wasn't allowed to cry and was always telling myself to stay calm and carry on.

I felt extremely lonely in those times. I felt I was all by myself and that no one understood my feelings. But those consoling words from family and friends will always be treasured greatly.

Faced with these difficult situations I had to juggle with "staying happy" so that people at home will not get too worried for me especially my late grandmother who occasionally asked about me. Perhaps another immigrant would only understand what this feeling is all about.

And speaking of her, 2010 was also the year I have lost my dear grandmother. She has left a big hole in the family and her absence was felt immediately. I wouldn't categorically say this was the culmination of the streak of bad news for 2010. As Christians, we believe that she is now in a better place.

My grandmother's passing away and the string of other disappointing news have given birth to a very important and meaningful philosophy for me to start the new year:

"I've only failed when I do not have a life to try again."

Wikileaks and the Hidden Force

2010-12-18T21:33:00.014Z

The recent news about Wikileaks have made me realise that there is a more powerful force out there than the governments of the world. I'm not talking about the direct influence of government secrets nor the people conspiring to bring down Julian Assange (founder of Wikileaks). The force I am referring to is the people who threaten to bring down the most secured websites and financial systems that we once thought to be invincible.

When backers of Wikileaks threatened to bring down established sites like Twitter, Amazon, Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, my immediate reaction was, "Where did these people come from?!"

It's suddenly become like an episode of the X-Men movie - instead of a collision between the human world and the mutants; this is a collision between the governments of the world and the cyberworld.

I speak of this "force" with much respect, not because I support them, but because of what they are capable of doing, yet not done it. It only makes one wonder why? But since they have spoken, the threat is very telling about how vulnerable the internet really is. About how uncomfortable we should be now, considering the amount of information we've divulged in the internet over the years. These guys are not talking about some Mickey Mouse websites where we can dismiss easily. They are talking about websites that could trigger massive disruption to you and me and anyone who has a credit card; which is pretty much everyone in the world!

It did take a long while to exorcise the existence of this "force". Not even the hacking of the Pentagon by Chinese hackers has raised the alert of the cyber-Godfathers. Perhaps this in itself is the conspiracy to test the capability of the cyberworld.

Even if this was the intention, the revelation was very much different from the original. Instead, it was a revelation that governments are capable of acting as and when they want, even if it was within the ambit of law. This has also given traction to my believe that law can be simply tuned (or mistuned) to outlaw something or somebody that runs out of favour with the government.

If Newton's law of equilibrium were to apply, surely a hidden force must exist

Wikileaks have provided lots of evidence that the most powerful people in the world don't like seeing. The person who runs Wikileaks is only a journalist and an activist. This bloke is an ordinary folk like us and he is in trouble. How on earth an ordinary folk like us could match the forces that are coming against him? If Newton's law of equilibrium were to apply, surely a hidden force must exist.

Deluge of Snow in London

2010-12-03T00:16:00.002Z

Frozen London on 2 December 2010. The office was eerily quiet. Many people were snowed in and couldn't get in to work. The Southbank gets a rare moment to itself - devoid of people, tourists and fast-pacing salarymen. A stunning backdrop in white punctuated by the rare sight of human lives dressed in black; the only time the colour of misery contrasts sharply with the colour of fantasy.

The Birthday

2010-11-27T17:50:00.018Z

I have turned a year wiser on Thursday. This was marked by a week of dinners and activities beginning last Saturday to this Saturday.

Last Saturday on 20th, Nina invited about 20 guests to celebrate my birthday and Aidil Adha with fellow Muslim Malaysians at her pad in Streatham. She specially cooked soft-shell crabs for me after asking what special meal I wanted for dinner. Felt really touched by the gesture as she refrained from cooking to the other guests until I arrived. Nina also made it excitingly special by uncorking a bottle of champagne to toast for me.

Soft shell crab

Nina's champagne

The next day on Sunday 21st, I treated myself to an early Christmas and birthday lunch with fellow colleagues and friends at Madsen, a Scandinavian restaurant at South Kensington. We experienced the traditional Danish way of celebrating Christmas with Dorte, a Danish colleague, explaining the order and significant of the dishes and drinks. What I understood from her is that Danish Christmas is a little bit like an extension version of the Chinese New Year, where people visit friends and family to eat, drink and get piss drunk for a week until New Year!

Dorte explaining the Danish Christmas traditions

Lunch at Madsen

On Monday 22nd, Petrina treated me to dinner at the Oxford and Cambridge Club at Pall Mall London. Petrina was from Jesus College, Cambridge and elevated her membership to the exclusive club for OxBridge Alumni. Dining there reminded me of formal halls; strict dress code and table manners. I wore a Wolfson College tie to enhance the "Cambridge" experience. Notable differences in the hall include diners as working professionals, not students in gowns and we are seated in round tables rather than the usual long rectangular Harry Potter dining tables. Just as formal halls, we started with a glass of sherry but didn't end with port though. We ordered cakes instead. I had foie gras with saute duck egg on brioche croute as starter and guinea fowl with grand marnier sauce and citrus fruits as main.

On Tuesday 23rd, I went to catch a live football match with Eskandar at Stamford Bridge, London. It was the Champions League where Chelsea was playing against MSK Zilina of Slovakia. Chelsea won 2-1. It was my first time seeing a football match live. Come to think of it, I have never seen a live football match in my life even in Malaysia! I'm a little bit late in this aspect of my life considering I have lived in England for more than four years now. But better late than never.

Chelsea vs MSK Zilina at Stamford Bridge

On 25th which was my birthday, I joined my colleagues and client for ice-skating at Canary Wharf. Skating in circle repetitively is boring if you already know how. So I interspersed skating with chatting with the Client and colleagues. It wasn't a big rink but it was well compensated by the great vibe in the area. If I fell flat on my bottom, I would see the rink surrounded by big banks and international companies like KPMG, HSBC and Barclays. Somehow skating in Canary Wharf provided a moment of inspiration. An hour of skating was more than enough. We adjourned for drinks at a nearby pub afterward. We couldn't have chosen a better one. The Fine Line seemed to be a favourite. It was teeming with bankers and salarymen from Canary Wharf.

Ice-skating at Canary Wharf

View when fall flat on the bottom

On Friday 26th I had drinks with my colleagues. The rule in the UK is that the birthday boy buys the cakes in the kitchen and continues with drinks outside. I hadn't had to stay long as I had to rush off for dinner with Noris who treated me to a sumptuous meal at Four Seasons. Half a duck and two main dishes between the two of us! It wasn't gluttony because we finished them all. He also presented me an Austin Reed wallet as birthday gift which was timely since the current one is wearing out.

Drinks with colleagues

Dinner at Four Seasons

This evening on 27th culminated the week of my birthday. I organised an Eritrean dinner at Adulis with 11 friends. Was extremely happy to find out that everyone enjoyed the Eritrean dining experience. It was something out of the ordinary. Despite temperatures falling below freezing in the whole of UK, they braved the treacherous weather to come for the dinner. For this I am extremely grateful. Fiona homebaked a blueberry and strawberry cheesecake which I enjoyed heaps. Irene and Noris shared a strawberry and chocolate cake. So there were two cakes to share around for dinner. A fortuitous encounter eating a combination of two cakes was more pleasant than I thought. They were so good people didn't hesitate packing the leftover slices. Received with many thanks presents from Fiona, Owen and wife, Eskandar, Vinita, Priti, Amy and Bakhtier.

Eritrean dinner at Adulis

Eritrean meal - meat and injera

Birthday cakes

Also many thanks to everyone especially daddy and mummy for your kind birthday wishes.

I would also like to regurgitate a Facebook wall message here:

Today 32 years ago the folks were looking down at the 7-month premature baby thinking what's he like when he grows up. I guess he's done pretty well with his friends. Thank you all for your wishes!!

Begging for Upbringing

2010-11-21T21:36:00.012Z

I don't come from a posh family but my parents did teach me a thing or two about manners. I suppose this upbringing has enabled me to interact easily without the risk of making anyone upset.

Yesterday my six-year old friend in the house asked for a Christmas present in front of her nanny. "A, can you please get me this play house for Christmas, please please please?" she asked pointing to a Christmas gift brochure and showing a sad puppy face.

Little friend, Ka-Ya

Her nanny appeared shocked and immediately reprimanded her, "Excuse me! What did you say?!...Ka-Ya you are so rude, do you know that?! I am telling your mommy!" She was immediately summoned back to her room.

This is in striking contrast to what my Malaysian friend would do. She is a mom of three and would happily encourage the daughters to ask me buy them presents - Christmas, birthdays, scoring straight As in exams, etc etc. Whatever reason sells.

When I was young, this would have been disapproved by my parents. My brother and I were taught to work hard for something we want. Begging wasn't part of the lesson. We were brought up never to look a gift horse in the mouth let alone begging for one. It is one thing to announce birthdays and achievements but another to use them to beg for presents. And dare I ask what difference does it make as compared to the professional beggars in pasar malam? Both are beggars in training.

Professional beggar in pasar malam
(photo by sesku)

Recently I attended a birthday party. The event was in short supply of food when I arrived. There were still people arriving. Something had to be done so I volunteered to do a food run at a nearby supermarket. What took me by surprise wasn't the short supply of food but the manner in which I was asked to pay for the food I volunteered to buy. I was told, "Hey A, it's my birthday, why don't you treat this as my birthday present?" Alarm bells rung immediately. Something was very wrong.

Never mind this was on top of what I bought earlier to the house. That was altogether thirty bloody quid already to subsidise for someone else's party to look good. To put into perspective I would have happily spent thrice the amount and buy a separate gift on top of the food run if perhaps the request had been put nicely. But since it was asked upon me, I resented it.

My defense is simple and pardon me for being calculative. Will you in return give me a Christmas present? Will you in return buy me the new IPhone if I scored straight As in my professional exam? Will you in return spend 30 quid for a birthday present for me?

I am certainly perplexed if it's just me and my upbringing or the people whom I encountered happen to be different from the norm? Don't some people consider that the person they are begging from may have an untold difficulty too? Or are people like me supposed to be all graceful when being taken advantage of and accept it as a bloody fool? What about you? What do you think?

My Philosophy of Friendship

2010-11-21T00:10:00.008Z

Friendship is an investment and I take my investments seriously.

Investment in friendship does not necessarily lead to spending money. However, on some occasions investing a little money to know the person better is a necessary evil.

In financial investment, things are straightforward. The good outcome is when you gain a profit and the bad outcome is when you lose money. It's a little different in friendship. The outcomes are assessed differently. I assess friendship by looking at the direction of the investment - is it one way or two?

One-way investments happen when someone becomes the absolute taker with no intentions of reciprocating in whatever circumstance. Unfortunately this type of people are a disappointment in friendship investment. These are people who will kick your face when you are down and knock you out when you are of no more benefit to them. Fortunately, this type of person is easily identified. Which is why I mentioned earlier that spending money to exorcise this type of person is a necessary evil. It is also a stop-loss in future investments. There is no room for such friendship in my portfolio of investment, so I get rid of them in a flash.

Two-way investments happen when there is a dynamic exchange of investments between both parties - mutual trust, respect, empathy and positive vibe with each other. Two-way investments are rare and far between. That is why, a good friendship is hard to come by.

Backed by this philosophy, I draw parallels to what I'm doing elsewhere in life. For example, I have started the cull in Facebook; trimming down from 683 "friends" to 400ish. Of this, only a select few are granted visibility. I am sure I too am assessed the same way by other people.

2011 London Tube Fares

2010-11-15T23:58:00.006Z

The following is the approved Tube Fare for 2011 which I obtained from an "insider" who gave permission to share this out:

Off-Peak Price Cap
Zone 1-2: £6.60 (previous £5.60)
Zone 1-4: £7.30 (£6.30)

Peak Price Cap
Zone 1-2: £8.00 (£7.20)
Zone 1-3: Withdrawn (£8.60)
Zone 1-4: £10.00 (£10.00)

Bus Fares
Oyster Single: £1.30 (£1.20)
Oyster Cap: £4.00 (£3.90)
Cash: £2.20 (£2.00)

Celebrities

2010-11-11T22:57:00.006Z

Two and a half years after living in London and just across the road to the oldest commercial TV network in the UK, I went in to one of the studios on a priority ticket to see the live production of The Graham Norton Show. Ironically the chat show was a BBC production, a rival network to the ITV. But not much of a surprise with this sort of thing in the UK. Cross-fertilisation with rivals is commonplace here.

Graham Norton Show

Rihanna, Daniel Radcliffe, Colin Farell and Rhod Gilbert were present. Can't believe I met all of them in one night. I was particularly impressed with Daniel Radcliffe who rushed to the event from the movie premiere of his latest Harry Potter movie in the evening. He was shorter in real life than I thought! He shared that the craziest fans he had were from Japan. A Japanese fan gave him a rubber ear!

Rihanna announced her upcoming album "Loud" and sang the album's lead single "Only Girl" on stage to the rousing applause from us.

Certainly a memorable experience for me and hopefully the three of my friends.

Paris Marathon: Registration

2010-10-29T18:11:00.015+01:00

I signed up for the Paris Marathon 2011 after failing in a bid for the London Marathon. The race cost me €90 inclusive of €10 insurance to get a full refund in case I pull out. This is the most expensive marathon I've paid to-date.

One of the requirements to run the Paris Marathon is to produce a medical certificate showing I'm fit to run 26.2 miles. It's the first time I ever needed to do that.

Today I had to rush back from work before five o'clock to go for a medical check up. Clinics here don't do 24 hours like kebab stalls. Doctors here only work on weekdays and till 6pm. So if anyone falls sick, it better be life-threatening in order to see a doctor in the hospital. Otherwise, see one on a weekday!

The checkup was simple but slightly humiliating. Not saying about nudity. Yes the normal heart rate checkup was done but what took me by surprise was the doctor asking me to do thirty squats with both arms stretched in front, in one minute. I felt like a school punishment because that was what my primary school teachers prescribed when we behaved like monkeys. So as I was doing the squats, I felt like back in SRK Bukit Bintang all over again.

It probably wouldn't be so strange if she did it with me like in a gym session. No, I take it back; it would be more strange! She was looking at me and I was looking at her while I counted the squats; just the two of us in a consultation room. Odd! Odd! Odd!

Squat like this

The initial reading was 120/63. A reading was taken immediately after the squats - 175/84. At this point, the doctor looked, shook her head and said, "Too high..tsk tsk tsk!" She laughed. Obviously she was trying to make me feel nervous. She took two more readings a few minutes apart. The readings were 150/74 and then 125/64.

"Ah! Good recovery. That's what I'm looking for. I'm happy to sign the form now", the doctor said, then penned her signature and put a stamp on the form.

After stepping out of the clinic, I looked at the name of the doctor. It read "Dr Lefeuvre". Sweet! A French! Now there's no way the French organisers are going to reject this!

Chilean miners - the miracle debate

2010-10-18T22:39:00.011+01:00

Last week's international news were dominated by the successful rescue operation of 33 miners in Chile.

For some reasons, the operation has made me proud to be an Engineer and a Christian at the same time. Chileans are staunch Christians - Catholics to be exact. This catastrophe has tested anyone with a strong faith to the limit. The rescue operation lasted two months and would have debilitated the strongest of faith.

I have experience working with holes in the ground - from small trial holes to big tunnels. There are all sorts of complications associated to boring through vertically and horizontally e.g varied ground conditions, building settlements and cracks, unforeseen "craps" in the ground and equipment playing up. I was therefore biting nails when I read the Chileans were buried more than 700m below ground and the only way is to bore through 700m to get them out. I was doubtful anyone could survive the ordeal.

Working with tunnels and holes

To appreciate how deep 700m is, consider putting two Eiffel Towers on top of each other! And to understand the complication of boring at such depth, consider hammering down a 9" nail into the slender side of a plywood without breaking out from either side.

As an Engineer, I understand screw ups do happen at anytime even at the first 10m e.g deviation, hitting cavity or soft spots and groundwater pressure. I recently oversaw the boring of three tunnels the same size as the Chileans', with a total length of 200m. They took us three months to complete because of an unforeseen site condition. So, 700m would have its own set of problems. To compound the problem, 33 lives are under the machinery. Therefore, any collapse induced by the boring machines would have a devastating effect on the operation.

Long story short, two months later, the machine managed to get through 700m and exactly at the spot where the miners were trapped. Absolutely brilliant engineering!

The Chileans have a great ending to this story. They have prayed and their prayers answered. They set up camps around the site known as Camp Hope, and rightly so there was hope.

Yesterday morning there was a discussion in BBC about the Chilean miners. The discussion was more like a debate if this should be attributed to miracle or mere coincidence? How was it likely that 33 miners were trapped in a hole that didn't collapse with the surrounding ground?

A pastor said this could not be explained but convinced that this was certainly a miracle.

A human rights activist dismissed this possibility and said that it couldn't possibly be a miracle or divine intervention. He challenged that if there was a God, then where was He during the 2004 tsunami?

For me I respect both opinions but I would personally choose to think there was an element of divine intervention. Choosing to believe this doesn't in anyway downplay the established path of the rigour of science that helped rescue the miners. This is as good as drawing parallels to an HGV not reversing into me at site when I'm protected with concrete barriers, hard hat and with all the right PPEs.

Yes, there are two sides of the argument. Some will continue to use tsunami victims and trapped miners in China as anecdotal evidence that miracles cannot be supported and that they are purely psychological. The other side of the argument, as I feel is that these events are isolated but also relative in some ways. They made me realise that, "Bloody hell! The worst could have happened! Thank God it didn't!"

Road pricing in the UK

2010-09-05T20:42:00.000+01:00

Imagine one day, the North-South Expressway is toll-free. Imagine seamless travel from Bukit Kayu Hitam to Singapore without having to worry about Touch n Go credits. But also imagine the toll-free condition of the highway during festive and school holiday seasons...Read more.

Customer is always right

2010-08-22T23:31:00.014+01:00

I never liked the customer service in London. Some shop assistants behave like I owe them a living. One day in a supermarket I asked for help to locate a cereal brand which I liked. Instead of explaining where to look for it, I was told that if I didn't see it, then it's sold out. The shop assistant didn't even bother checking if I knew where it was or that if it was really sold out.

Supermarket careless attitude towards customers

Another incident was dealing with a mobile network operator. Instead of resolving my problem with my voice call, the customer service officer had the gumption to ask why I didn't resort to texting instead!

With so much displeasure dealing with the people whom I owe a living, I decided to fight back. I decided to exercise my right as a consumer.

The first attempt was writing to the manager of the mobile network operator. I told the manager I was absolutely disgusted by the behaviour of his staff and that I was made to feel like I was in the wrong because of the way I used my phone. I received a call the following day with an apology. As a gesture of goodwill, the mobile operator awarded two months free line rental and a written apology in email and in text.

The second attempt was with EasyJet, the airline that inspired the founder of Air Asia. In my recent trip to Malaga, there was a 2.5-hour delay to flight departure. I was really unhappy when I nearly missed the car rental pickup because of the late arrival. I read EasyJet's policy and filed for an appropriate compensation. Anyone who's flown on no-frills would attest that it's easier to squeeze blood out of rock than for them to compensate passengers. I tried my luck and was delighted they responded with an apology and the amount we asked for.

The third attempt was my recent long-distance swim in the Thames. I bought a £325 high-performance wetsuit to swim in the competition. Everything went well until the last part when I tried removing the bib off my wetsuit. The adhesive held on to the wetsuit like a leech. And like a leech, it damaged the surface when I tried removing it from the wetsuit. That was exactly what happened to the wetsuit. A chunk of rubber was ripped out with the bib sticker leaving the neoprene exposed. I was horrified to see that happening to the new wetsuit. It's like driving your new car and being involved in a horrible accident on the same day!

Damage on wetsuit

I was really upset that I couldn't stop talking about it to my "supporters" and thinking about it the next few days. To put the matter to rest, I wrote in to the organiser and complained. I didn't expect a response but to my surprise the organiser admitted it was the bib sticker manufacturer's fault. She conceded I wasn't the first who complained. She offered to settle the complaint amicably by offering compensation in kind and fees for future races. I took account of the total compensation and it was well worth more than half the price of the wetsuit.

By now I would have given the impression that I complain a lot. But I would argue with that notion because I don't. I am a stickler for perfection. So I do commend and praise for good performance. This article proves just that. I have also commended the customer service officer for the car rental in Malaga who stayed back until 3am to sort out a car for me.

I have taken the position that I don't owe anyone a living because no one owes me one as well. Yes, customer is always right but most importantly, customer must do what is right.

Andalusia

2010-08-12T22:17:00.006+01:00

Recently I made a trip to southern Spain with three other friends - Noris, Eskandar and Nash. It was one of the most fun trips I had in Europe after my family's.

We had a bad start. The flight was delayed 2.5 hours, arriving at 2ish in the morning and nearly missing our car rental booking. We arrived at our hotels at 4am and took whatever rest we could before we hitting the roads.

What was thought to be a cursed start, never materialised. In fact, it was the start of a fantastic journey. Andalusia, I call it the magic of southern Spain.

I grew up learning about Andalusia in the history books. It was the starting point of Islamic civilisation in Europe. Christians, Muslims and Jews lived and celebrated the diversity of art, culture and power for seven centuries in Andalusia. This is no wonder Spain today has the most UNESCO world heritage sites after Italy. Many of them are in Andalusia.

Malaga

With only five days to cover, we started at Malaga where we landed, drove to Granada, broke the journey at Jaen and Ubeda, before stopping over at Cordoba. We flew home from Malaga. We intended a relaxed trip. So we didn't try pushing to the west where Seville and Cadiz were. Both of these cities were highly recommended before we planned the itinerary. A relaxed trip it was, we managed to cover more places than we planned. Our ancillary trips include Marbella, where I bought a few HRC t-shirts for friends and I, and Torremolinos where the "sexy" beaches of southern Spain are.

The sun was shining everyday. Average temperature ranged early to mid-30 deg C everyday. We experienced 42deg C when we were in Granada. It was so hot it wore me down. It's like being in a sauna and you can't run away! Still it was a relieve from the miserable weather where we came from.

The number speaks for itself

The highlight of Granada was the Alhambra, palace of the Moorish rulers from mid 14th century. It is one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Andalusia and rightly so for a number of reasons. The intricate carvings of Arabic writings are echoed through the nook and cranny of the palace walls. It struck me standing in awe marveling the engineering and architectural splendour of the palace like the Vatican City of the Muslim world. Both are tourist sites but the difference is only one is functioning.

Alhambra courtyard

Fine carvings

We thought we have seen everything with the Alhambra until we arrived into Cordoba. Cordoba was like a country on its own. It didn't look Spanish. It ticked all the boxes of what I imagined Middle East to be like - palm trees, dessert-like, hot weather, exotic food and a little bit chaotic. Cordoba's answer to the Alhambra, is its Great Mosque. What is unique about the mosque is that it doubles as a Cathedral, called Our Lady of the Assumption. But it wasn't always like that. It was built and used as a mosque until the Spanish Reconquista (recapturing) of Cordoba about 300 years after it was built.

The Great Mosque (Mezquita)

Much thought was put into the building. The symmetrical design of the double arches were meant to provide an infinite sense of the mosque. The lower columns supporting the first layer of arches were designed smaller than second tier columns to accentuate a wider sense of space. The mihrab was constructed with 1.6tonnes of gold and was the highlight of the mosque. As beautiful as it was, then came the bombshell to put a Cathedral smack bang in the middle of the mosque. It was like sticking a knife right through the centre of a birthday cake and twisting it! The irony was converting it into a church was perhaps the best thing that happened to the mosque during the Spanish Inquisition where art, doctrines and culture from other faiths were destroyed.

Cathedral in the mezquita

Cordoba

A trip to southern Spain is not complete without a visit to the beaches. So we went to Marbella and Torremolinos to satiate our fascination with the sun, sea and sand. Marbella is "infested" with British tourists. Almost every corner we turned to is a British. You can easily spot one when they speak. Marbella does look like a posh beachside resort, and probably that explains why the only Hard Rock Cafe (known to be very selective) in southern Spain is located here.

Marbella

There's just so much to talk about the trip which I didn't and couldn't possibly cover here - the food, flamenco, language, World Cup, warm people, hotels we stayed, museums, hospitality, surprises, stunning sceneries and friendship. That's just writing them but there's more traveling to do. We have Andalusia Part 2 where we will take on Seville and Cadiz. See you next year.

Salmon Fried Rice

2010-07-26T19:15:00.014+01:00

I started making salmon fried rice since year 2000, inspired by the occasional visits to a Japanese buffet restaurant in KL.

I started with failure. The wok was burnt and the rice was soggy with uncooked salmon. It was a disaster. But it was failure that kept me perfecting this dish.

I experimented with different ingredients, different types of rice, different sauce, different sequence of putting the ingredients. I explored the science of taste and temperature.

This is the tenth year I am cooking salmon fried rice. I've lost count the times I've made this dish. But Blogger did give an account of me doing it in 2006.

Salmon Fried Rice

Last Friday was the latest. It was for Fatin and Hannanah's farewell. Their guests and them liked it. For the past gatherings and parties, people have liked it.

People have asked that I cook salmon fried rice again. Running friends request for it when I am back in KL. I guess it's safe to say salmon fried rice has become my signature dish.

This is the recipe (serves two):

1. Two Chinese rice bowls of refrigerated rice (preferably overnight using Japanese or fragrant Thai)
2. 200g of salmon fillet, cut to bite sizes
3. One teaspoon of ground pepper
4. Half tablespoon of fish sauce (alternatively you can use ikan bilis granules)
5. One egg (preferably organic)
6. One tablespoon of cooking oil (don't use low temperature oils like Olive)
7. Half bulb of garlic, chopped finely.
8. Half Chinese bowl of mixed vege (optional. I didn't put this but seems sensible for a healthy diet)
9. Salt to taste

Garnishing:
1. Fried ikan bilis (small)

Method:
1. Heat cooking oil at medium fire
2. Fry chopped garlic until light brown
3. If using mixed vege, stir fry mixed vege at this stage
4. Stir in diced salmon. Salmon cooks and disintegrate easily, so stir until quarter cooked
5. Put in fish sauce and ground pepper. Fry until ingredients are well coated.
6. Put in chilled rice. Make sure lumpy rice are broken down in wok.
7. Break an egg into the rice and continue stirring. Egg will coat rice at medium heat. A way to see if you've done it right is by looking at the colour of the rice. If it's turned yellowish, you're there.
8. Increase fire at this stage so the egg will cook with the rice. Otherwise rice will turn soggy by the egg.
9. When the rice stopped looking soggy, turn fire down to low.
10. Add salt to taste and continue stirring.
11. Rice is ready to be served.

Tip:
1. Before serving the rice, I recommend to garnish fried ikan bilis on the top. It will accentuate the taste and texture of the dish.
2. Will also go well with sambal ikan bilis
3. If you like eggs, it will also go well with a sunny side on the top!

Enjoy!!

Prime Minister of Lithuania

2010-06-23T23:43:00.006+01:00

Yesterday I attended a public lecture by the Prime Minister of Lithuania, Andrius Kubilius.

If you don't know where exactly is Lithuania, don't worry, I didn't know too when I first heard that he was coming to London. Lithuania is a country in Eastern Europe surrounded by Poland, Belarus and Latvia. It is one of the least known countries to me until I met the PM.

Lithuania's official vehicle in London

He gave a lecture on "Lithuania 2030". The title reminded me about our former PM's Vision 2020. Only thing this is a vision a decade later than ours. This is because Lithuania is still an infant, gaining independence only in 1990 from the Soviet Union. The country is barely a generation old!

Hearing from the PM himself, Lithuania is small in size, but packs a punch. Lithuania is registering the fastest growth in the Eastern European community, only second to Estonia.

One of the interesting facts presented by the PM was that Lithuania is a country that gave birth to 15 Nobel prize winners. These were mostly made up of Lithuanian Jews, which gave an interesting perspective of this country and the role it played in WWII and the Holocaust, if any. I shall look this up later.

The PM's presentation was done in an interesting and witty manner, interjecting with jokes in the slides. One of the funniest was when he juxtaposed Lithuania's economic performance in 2000 and 2010 under his leadership. He admitted jokingly that he didn't have a fantastic CV. He showed a slide of Lithuania's GDP of -1.7% in 2000 when he was at the helm of the country; 10 years later the GDP was -14.8% to which the audience burst into laughter.

The PM's track record in handling the economy

He quoted George Friedman that the balance of power within Europe will shift from the West to the East because of the dynamism in growth opportunities. He based this on the assumption that by 2030 the geopolitical geography will be very different in the following way:

1. EU will be consolidated and become more federal
2. EU-US free trade agreement will divide the innovative north and manufacturing south
3. The Baltics will catch up with the Nordics
4. Russia will have a lasting post imperial syndrome vs modernised European Russia
5. Belarus, Ukraine, Modova and Caucasus will transform as permanent gravitation to Europe.

Lithuania's calendar of dynamism. Basketball victory included! LOL

What took me by surprise was Lithuania's GDP drop by 15% also resulted in a drop in total nominal labour cost by 11%. The PM has admitted himself that many Lithuanians have fled the country in search of greener pastures. He himself took a pay cut of 40%!

I could draw parallels with Malaysia's problem of being stuck in a middle income trap, only difference is that our PM's salary has remained the same and increased with inflation. Malaysian engineers for example are not as fortunate. They earn the same salary as engineers twenty years ago! Lithuania is promoting world class standard workers for the price of third world wages. So if you want the same in Asia, look to Malaysia.

The PM was a Physicist before getting into politics 20 years ago

All in all, the PM's evening lecture was informative and presented in an entertaining way. Most importantly I have known so much more about this country than before and it has made me want to visit Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, one day.

I always feel grateful to be able to meet high-profile figures like this once in a while. Lest I forget, I should remind myself that this is one of the incentives of staying in this great city.

First Hospital Visit

2010-06-22T23:02:00.007+01:00

I was in the hospital yesterday.

It was the last resort because I couldn't remove a contact lens which was stucked and lost at the top side of the sclera. I knew I didn't drop it because I could nearly feel it lodged uncomfortably behind the eye lid.

I hurried out of the office and headed to the hospital across the road. At the reception, I was told the eye machine was not working. So I was sent away to another hospital.

I was referred to the Western Eye Hospital which was some 2.6km away from UCLH where I went. Once there I had to register as a new patient. I was told to wait for 20 minutes to be called. I was told a nurse would assess my eye condition before letting me see a doctor.

My name was called 20 minutes later. I told the nurse what happened. She rested me on the patient chair, took a torch light and inspected my eyes. She lifted the eye lid and asked me to look down.

"There, I think I saw it", the nurse said. She took a cotton bud and delicately removed the missing lens.

She displayed the lens on her index finger. "It's folded in half, that's why it got stucked. Do you feel okay now?" she checked.

I blinked awhile, closed my eyes and confirmed, "Yeah, a lot better."

The nurse dismissed me and said I was good to go. I didn't need to see a doctor.

She returned the lens and stubborn as I am, I wore it again and to be safe I did it in the hospital toilet. Thank God it didn't give me anymore problem.

I left the hospital and straight to the gym which I was already late by one and a half hours.

The Ampelmann

2010-06-07T19:14:00.012+01:00

This is Ampelmann.

I have been meaning to write about the Ampelmann since returning from Berlin but thought the excitement to blog about it would fade away after awhile. It's been a month since I returned from Berlin and the image is still in my head. Like a virus in PC, it has refused to go. So I guess I must write about it to give it a final resting place.

The Ampelmann is the green man on the pedestrian light and represents a passing resemblance of the positive aspect of a failed East Germany social order.

When the Berlin Wall fell, East and West Germany were reunited. The status of the Ampelmann was suddenly thrown into uncertainty. The future of the Ampelmann was threatened.

There were calls for it to be taken out entirely not only because the Ampelmann represents the side of Germany many are not proud of but also because it didn't meet the road regulation standards of the new country.

However, the Ampelmann has acquired a cult status. There were cartoons of the Ampelmann. Teachers used the Ampelmann for children's road safety education. Publishers came out with Ampelmann bedtime stories. Kids loved the Ampelmann. This inadvertently made parents and adults love the Ampelmann too. East Germans were absolutely thrilled with the reunification but they didn't want to see the Ampelmann go.

This led the East Germans to launch a protest called the Ostalgie to bring the Ampelmann (and other East Germany icons) back. The protest was successful and the Ampelmann was saved.

Like all good bedtime stories, the Ampelmann lived happily ever after with his partner - the red man.

RPK

2010-05-23T15:44:00.004+01:00

RPK has for the first time yesterday appeared in London after being in exile for more than a year. He has publicly spoken about the evils of the ISA and challenged the Malaysian government to bring charges against him in the UK courts.

RPK said: “I will take on the government and I will fight them but I will do what Sun Tzu said, ‘Fight him in your territory.’

“So my territory is here in the UK,”

This is a snippet of the video taken during the talk yesterday.

Berlin

2010-05-08T14:34:00.023+01:00

I was in Berlin during the first May bank holiday.

This year Berlin is celebrating its 20th anniversary of the union of the east and west of the city and the fall of the wall that once separated them. So this is a good time to be in Berlin. Yes, this city is relatively a teenager in the scale of history.

Mark showing the alignment of Berlin Wall

This city was once bombed heavily during the Nazi occupation. The British bombed the city almost every night from August 1943 to March 1944! Almost everything in the city was in rubble.

Berlin Dom

National Gallery

One of the landmarks that suffered heavy damage was the parliament building known as the Reichstag. The reconstruction of the building and Norman Foster's distinctive glass cupola have made the building now a top attraction in Berlin. The queue to the Reichstag took me 1.5hours. Fortunately the shows by street performers broke the monotony of waiting in queue. I'd have happily spent half an hour watching the performance without the incentive of being in line to the Reichstag. So it wasn't that much of a torture really.

Reichstag

Street performers entertaining people in queue to the Reichstag

Norman Foster's cupola

At the vantage point from the cupola, I enjoyed the view of the city skyline. This city reminded me of Osaka (even though the official Japanese sister city is Tokyo). Clean, systematic and safe. The transportation systems are brilliant! I had no problems traveling in Berlin even though I didn't speak German. The people were as nice as the Japanese too - friendly and polite.

Berlin main train station

Haven't seen a train this clean for a long time!

If there are any more similarities to draw between them, it would be their technologies and ideology to perfection. They have everything worth mentioning from generous public space, safe cycle lanes to clever designs for the disabled. Am not sure if I'm allowed to speak so well about the Germans in the UK, but really, if I get an opportunity to work here, I would certainly take it!

Brandenburg Gate

Victory column
(under refurbishment)

Holocaust Memorial

Jewish Museum

I've also enjoyed the many historical and artistic parts of Berlin especially those as a result of the Nazi occupation and the Cold War. Life in those two periods was to me like a living hell. People were not allowed to express their opinions. Freedom of speech was a taboo subject. The freedom they grew up with was a different type of freedom. It was the freedom to listen. Just as I would like to draw parallels with Malaysia today, I guess Berlin at the time was much worse. People could be shot on the spot for saying the wrong thing!

Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous military checkpoint between east and west Germany

It must have been so difficult for the people then. It seemed to me like it's a curse to be born an east German or a Jew in those periods. Life couldn't be any harder for them. Now these are the baby boomers. Today they leave a legacy of establishing a robust system of democracy from the political rubble of their predecessors.

Depiction of life of East Germans during the Cold War

Germans now have a lot more freedom than they ever had 40 years ago. The East Side Gallery in Berlin is a clear testament of that freedom- the once suppressed freedom of expression.

East Side Gallery

But how far is the freedom of expression now in Germany? Far, very far, in my opinion. If you are one of the people who tend to associate nudity and European cities after numerous encounters of nude sculptures, then Germany is a proper example of that. Germany is not only a country that boasts nude sculptures freely but also much on public nudity. In fact, a naturist movement called "freikorperkultur" or FKK is a German by-product of the freedom of expression. The FKK protects people's right to be nude or a free body in public. It has successfully removed extensive restrictions to public nudity in Germany for 30 years now.

Nude sculptures in Berlin - Three girls and a boy

But you need a good weather to be naked. No, I wasn't attempting that but in the time when I was in Berlin, the weather was still cold to dress in t-shirt only, let alone in skin. So, the real opportunity for that to happen is limited to the summer months. Now this explains why many German tourists flock to southeast Asian countries during winter to bare all! At the time of the year like now and towards the end of summer when the weather starts to cool, Berlin should be a good place for running and sports. I could imagine the Berlin Marathon in September will be absolutely brilliant!

Currywurst is the most popular German sausage in Berlin

Just as many German tourists flock to other countries for holidays, there are also many foreign nationals who flock to Berlin for holiday or work. The walking tour guide was an Aussie, the Hard Rock shop assistant who served me was a Malaysian and the hotel concierge was a British. In the Hard Rock store the two people behind the queue were Singaporeans, in the cafe the family sitting across the table were Filipino and the majority of the tourists were either Americans or British. This makes Berlin quite an international city, which explains why I didn't have problems with language at all.

Amy, a Malaysian who works in Berlin Hard Rock Store

A video of the Berlin Wall walking tour animated well by an Aussie tour guide
(notice the Conference Bike in the background!)

I took a train out of Berlin city to Oranienburg, where Sachsenhausen is located. Sachsenhausen was a concentration and mass extermination camp where more than 30,000 prisoners were brutally murdered. Even though this figure pales into comparison with Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen was nonetheless the first model that set the tone and standard for the mass extermination in Auschwitz.

Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the cynical slogan "Works make you free"
Panorama of the semi-circular concentration camp

Sachsenhausen memorial

There were more things in Berlin to see than I could cover. It was a shame I couldn't find time for the Charlottenburg Palace and Olympic park. This means I had to come back here for another time. Maybe a good reason to do the Berlin Marathon in September if I can't make it for my cousin's wedding.

Athens

2010-04-17T19:42:00.019+01:00

The Erechtheum in Acropolis

I was in Athens two weeks ago with Eskandar, Noris and Rizal during the Easter break. We flew in on Good Friday and left on Easter Sunday. So I didn't get to celebrate the Easter triduum this year but the experience of observing the Greek Orthodox Christians celebrating theirs brought a whole new perspective to Easter.

Four of us

Easter Vigil in a Greek Orthodox Church

I've heard and read about the Greek civilization since secondary school. Athens, capital of Greece, was a powerful centre for arts, philosophy and a home to great philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates. The philosophers existed more than 300 years before Christ was born! In other words, wisdom has existed way before the Bible was conceived.

A street in ancient Athens

A relatively flat landscape of Athens

A pretty part of ancient Athens

I was overwhelmed by a sense of achievement when I made it to the Parthenon. A sense of being able to see the edifice right in front of me; a photo in the history textbook came to life. It reminded me of history lesson 16 years ago. I could still remember asking the history teacher about the architecture of the temple and telling her that the building looked like an administrative building than a temple.

The Parthenon in Acropolis

16 years on, I have developed more "matured" questions about this temple and the rest of the ruins. When I saw the ruins in Athens, I had been asking myself the question, "Why didn't the Greeks clear the ruins when the buildings were fallen? They had more than 1500 years to do so!"

Perhaps, coming from a civil engineering background, I tend to see ruins as something not pretty. I mean, the World Trade Centre in New York was not left on its own to become a tourist attraction in the next two millennium! Unlike the Acropolis, the WTC site's been cleared and is now being built over by the Freedom Tower.

The Agora

The Parthenon

Theatre of Dionysus

Temple of Olympian Zeus

So, for the Greeks to have left the site in a state of ruin for more than 1500 years seems strange. They just didn't bother to clear up! But this "laziness" has paid off well. Tourism account for nearly 20% of Greece's GDP.

To be fair, there were other great monuments which are still in good shape and use. For example, the first stadium of the modern Olympics is still in use today. The stadium was all made up of marbles. Standing in front of the stadium gave me a sense of awe and inspiration of the same project I am working in. It was also the finishing point of the marathon during the Athens Olympics in 2004.

Panathinaiko Stadium: First modern Olympic stadium built in 1896 and made of marble

And talking about marbles, most ancient parts of Athens are paved in marbles. Yes, such excess is obscene in the modern context. But that was what Athens was built on thousands of years ago. As part of their conservation programme of the ancient city, they have also spent huge amounts of money to use marbles as their road kerbs to keep up and match the material of the pavement. And you thought why the Greek economy isn't doing too well?

Marble pavement

Many places were closed early on Easter because it is a big thing for the Greeks. Even though we didn't manage to visit the famous museums, we didn't miss the ruins. Furthermore, we had Noris' friend, Kostas, who drove us around Athens. So instead we covered a wider radius of Athens than we would have.

Stunning view of the beach and clear seawater

Kostas is a local. He was the real deal. With him bringing us around, we had the advantage of seeing and knowing more of Athens. For example, he brought us around in and out of Athens in his car. Having a car helped a lot, as he introduced us to the places we wouldn't have seen or known.

We also visited his summer home nearby a beach resort for drinks and dinner. Then he brought us to meet his family who prepared us another sumptuous dinner - yes, second round! Their generosity reminded me of the Japanese hospitality. Generous and friendly.

The Greek host

To say the food we had at Kostas place was Greek, is an understatement and does no justice to him. I would say it was high quality home-cooked traditional Greek food because of the difference I noticed when we ate out.

So what's Greek you asked? Greek salad, Greek coffee, Souvlaki, Moussaka, Ouzo, olive oil, olives, seafood and beautiful islands, to name a few. The beautiful island in the movie Mamma Mia, was Greek too. An observation of Greek food is that their presentation was always impressive which made me think Greeks enjoy their food a lot.

Greek salad, potato salad and squid in olive oil. Fried calamari hidden at the back

Ouzo, 40% alcohol

Chocolate mousse dessert

Greek coffee

Greek dessert and baklava

Souvlaki with yoghurt topping

Seafood platter

Lamb roasting during Easter

I am fascinated by Greek letters. We use them in science and they look familiar, yet I can't understand a word made out of these letters. For example, Greece is written as Ἑλλάς. I wouldn't have known! Even if you've done science, you wouldn't have guessed it. Their words looked like equations.

I've enjoyed my three days at this ancient city. Three days should be enough, as long as the museums are opened when you're there. But since we didn't cover the museums, perhaps it is worth making another trip here en route to Santorini or Mykonos in future.

Mother nature as teacher

2010-04-06T19:03:00.003+01:00

Looking up the clear sky today brought me inspiration. So I wrote down my thoughts:

The four seasons are a teacher. They taught me to say goodbyes and accept that misery precedes happiness precedes misery and the cycle goes on. In misery I once lived, but in Spring I believe that things can only get better.

Proving a point, fulfilling an objective

2010-03-29T23:45:00.019+01:00

In fulfilling one of the fifteen Development Objectives to becoming a Chartered Engineer, I had to demonstrate that I have achieved an "effective interpersonal skills" throughout my professional years. The examples given to demonstrate this, according to the Institution of Civil Engineers, were through these:

"Reports. Letters. Drawings etc. Presentations. Exchange of information. Advice to technical and non-technical colleagues. Contribute to meetings. Consider the views of others. Consultation. Knowledge and use of IT. Present your case and defend it. Conduct discussions."

Seven years ago, I presented a highway tunnel project that I was working on to a television production team. The team was doing a documentary on the project as it was the widest tunnel and most expensive highway link (price/km) in Malaysia at the time. I led in the general presentation of the project while my manager led on the on-site technical presentation of the tunnel. I didn't appear in the TV since it was a general briefing but my manager did as he presented the "more relevant" bits.

I found it difficult to put this in writing for my professional review. So I uploaded the video in Youtube and attached the URL in the report. That way, I provided an opportunity for the assessors to evaluate easily this skill set that I claimed to have acquired, if they so choose to view it, and for me to demonstrate that I've not only left a legacy of my work there but also proven a point that I've fulfilled all the criteria including playing ~~as an extra~~ a VERY small role in TV (try 4:07-4:12 and 4:39-4:41).

I only hope someone from the panel of assessors can understand Malay language! If not, just evaluate those slides in the documentary. After all, they were all done by me and the good news is all of them were in English. Or at least award me points in "knowledge and use of IT" with this Youtube!

Now just to share the video with you....

Dressing the devil in a cassock

2010-03-23T20:22:00.006Z

Today after rehearsing for the next organ "performance", Nat who's an active church volunteer, lamented how he wished more people could help out.

He said the Church was not only short of musicians but also readers and altar servers. I joked, "Well, I can play the organ, then run down, do the reading and be an altar server all at the same time!"

Nat was like, "Really if you are up for it that'll be great! Would you like to be a reader and an altar server?" Nat thought again, "Wait, I don't want to get you too distracted, because you're already playing the organ."

I paused to think about the offer and my other commitments in life - work, running, traveling, friends, CEng professional exams etc; then agreed with a condition. "I will only do one at a time. Not all. I was just joking."

Before we parted ways, Nat promised to consult with the wife, who's another active volunteer, to get me in to the reading rota.

Back in Malaysia, I was never a volunteer. I am a passive participant of the Church. I was never playing the organ. I was never a reader. I was certainly not an altar server! Besides altar boys in Malaysia are usually children or teenagers. It's only in the UK that altar servers aren't gender and age specific.

Here in the UK, many things are possible. I've never played the organ for 15 years, now I'm playing again. I certainly can't speak the Queen's English, but asked to read. I certainly am a bad, bad, evil person, but now asked to serve at the altar. The Catholic church is already in so much trouble lately. Dressing a devil in a cassock is the last thing anyone should do.

A thoughtful evening

2010-03-16T21:08:00.008Z

As I looked out the window into River Thames, I thought about life.

I thought about what I am, where I am and how I am today?
I thought about what I have and haven't achieved at this stage of my life.
I thought about what I may be doing if I'm not in London.
I thought about how long more will I be in London.
I thought about how long more do I want to live like this.
I thought about friends. I took account of them.

Once in a while, I look at the photos my friends share over Facebook. Many of them showing their wedding photos. Also as many of them showing their newborn. A few of their kids are toddlers now. They make me smile.

People say friends come and go. That's a fact of life. But these friends are still in touch even after so many years. 15 years to be exact! The same group of friends, all with the same but older faces. Not one less, but many additions; wives and children are now in the photos.

These friendships are real. They date back to pre-Facebook days when keeping in touch wasn't as easy. They've never failed to keep in touch. They've never failed to drop a line. They've never failed to send an invitation for the next gathering even knowing well I'm not able to attend.

The smile withered. I sat back and swept up my hair.

I thought to myself: Where am I? Why am I here?

Today another picture was shared. This time of my good friends holding their babies, as if it was a parade. I could recognise the lad who once called me a fatty, another lad who once made fun of my surname and another who once stabbed my finger with a technical pencil. They made me smile. What aspirations we had then and what aspirations we have now. How innocent we were then to think that the world revolved around us.

I thought to myself: What are my aspirations now? Why am I looking at them from here?

Will I ever have kids to play with my friends' kids? Will we ever get to take a photo together? Will their kids be much older than mine? The "math to conformance" is to get married now and have kids by next year. Only then, the age gap is marginal.

What's next? Another Masters? Or a PhD? What am I after? What do I want to get out of it? Where would all these lead me?

Still, I was thoughtful about what comes after this. What about growing old? Who will see me breathe my last breath? Who will bury me? How would the ending be? When is the last posting of this blog and what is it going to be?

Still there is another angle to this. My friends look at me with envy. No wife, no kids, no commitment. Traveling here, traveling there, eating this, eating that, doing this, doing that, achieving a childhood dream, living life to the fullest. What else can one ask for? Stop thinking about dying!

But of course, there is a trade off to everything.

I've been very thoughtful today. Spring comes after winter. New life springs after the previous ends. I've reached a stage in life now I want to cross the fence and be like my other friends.

Ski Trip at Courchevel 1850

2010-03-13T21:25:00.016Z

I just returned from a ski trip to Courchevel.

Courchevel is located on the French Alps and is one of the "Three Valleys" touted to be the largest linked ski area in the world. There are four ways to get there - via Geneva, Grenoble, Lyon or Chambery. I came in through Geneva because I wanted to see Switzerland as one of the side trips. My other mates came in from Grenoble.

Courchevel 1850

There are four towns in Courchevel; Courchevel 1300, 1550, 1650 and 1850. Each of the numbers represents the altitude of the town. There were eight of us. We stayed in 1850 as it was the heart of Courchevel. Because of that, it was an expensive place to stay too. According to this, Courchevel is a winter playground for the rich and famous especially the Russian oligarchs. That explains the €20 a chicken we had for dinner.

Courchevel 1850 town centre

The bus transfer to Courchevel cost 1.5x the flight ticket here. For €130, this would be the most expensive bus ticket I've ever paid to-date! And just a little more cost insight, we estimated to have spent £420 just to arrive into Courchevel without skiing! And to start skiing, this is what we've paid:

Weekly accommodation - €230 (average)
5-day lift pass - €180
Ski hire - €130
5-day lessons - €170

*All of these are not inclusive of insurance which would be another 3% uplift.*

So it's easy to imagine why skiing is an expensive sport. We were told to set aside £1000 for the trip. Almost two return tickets to Kuala Lumpur! And the weak £ is not helping either. Well, it's experience, isn't it?

I thought our timing to ski couldn't be better. Courchevel was quiet when we were up there. So this was good for us visitors. For example, the 40-seater bus that took me up to Courchevel only had three passengers in it.

Being a newbie, I took ski lessons. First at Hemel Hempstead (nearby London), then at Courchevel. I started earlier at Hemel Hempstead because it would make it easier for me to get into gear once at Courchevel. At least I got the clumsy bits out of the way first. I was glad I did because I started skiing the first day before the lessons started. Because of the quiet season, there were only three of us for the group ski lessons. During peak periods, it could be 9 to 15 people in a group.

Our ski instructor Mr Pierre (in red) on the ski lift to our training ground

There are two ways to determine ski skills. One is by knowing how to ski and two is knowing how to control at slopes with different difficulty levels. Knowing how to ski doesn't mean you can handle any slope.

By the second day, I could do parallel skiing and stopping, which were the intermediate skills in skiing. The basic was to snow plough. The earlier lessons in UK helped. According to the instructor, this was fast, as it would usually take 5 days for people to attain the level; which was why a basic ski programme takes 5 days. So I didn't carry on with my lessons. I went straight to the more challenging slopes.

Kids' snow plough lesson

The difficulty level of ski slopes are categorised by different colours: green, blue, red and black. Green runs are fairly gentle and flat while black runs are the most difficult and should only be attempted by experienced skiers.

Black run

However, as some green runs intersect with the blue, red and black runs, they can be quite steep in those areas. In fact, after doing a blue slope, some intersections at the green runs were steeper than the blue!

This is a little steep but it's a green run!

Yes, I've tackled a blue slope before coming back. But it wasn't without falls. I could still remember vividly the trail of snow mist coming down on my face as I lost control of speed and rolled down on the blue run. The poles swung out of grip. The poles were stranded up at the slope and it was where they were that I realised I've rolled down quite a distance before grinding to a halt. The high speed fall was scary but exhilarating (as long as I didn't injure myself)!

There were many kind skiers who were willing to help. For example, two skiers picked up the ski poles and passed them to me as I skied down. At other falls, some stopped and asked if I was alright. I am really grateful to these nice people. I also aim to be as good and helpful as them when I become a better skier.

All in all, Courchevel was a great place to ski. I hope the next time when I ski, I am able to do the red and black runs.

Newham London 10k Run

2010-03-07T21:56:00.008Z

Stratford Park

Today I ran the inaugural Newham London 10k Run. Newham is one of the 32 London Boroughs. A borough is like KL's municipal councils, only smaller. The race started at Stratford Park and Stratford is the home of the London Olympic Park. That is why the run was also known as the Olympic Park Run.

Start line

On this occasion, participants had the rare opportunity to run into the Olympic Park site, which would otherwise be out of bounds to the public. In fact, when we ran into the site, there was a human chain of security personnel stationed at the secured areas.

Main stadium at the Olympic Park

It was a clear and sunny morning. The temperature was -4 deg C when the race started. I wore three layers on the top and a pair of long runners. Luckily there was a warm up session 10 minutes before the race. That sort of warmed up the body a little.

The race was well organised and marshalled. Chip timing; good supply of water and isotonic drinks. Course was mostly flat with short sections of undulation. Also the first time I wore the Asics Gel Nimbus 11 shoes since I bought it in January. No pain or chaffing encountered on either foot. An absolutely great pair of shoes; ready to run without seasoning.

Got a medal and T-shirt at the finishing along with sport snacks and drinks. The design was similar like the Great North Run, because it was organised by the same Great Run committee. Only grief was the pink medal lanyard and font in some parts of the T-shirt which was "too soft" for my liking, albeit a first of its kind in the collection of medals and T-shirts I have to-date. Please promise you will not do this to us again!

The medal

The T-shirt

Results are out in the website. My time was 44mins 50secs.

My 10k PB was 44mins 6 secs in the 2008 Nike Human Race.

Post-article note: You are right, Raymond, I didn't train for this.

Where exactly is London and Kuala Lumpur?

2010-02-24T23:18:00.005Z

I've always been wondering where exactly is London?

When we say the distance between London and Edinburgh is 535km, where exactly in London is that measured from?

I found the answer two years ago from a chanced discussion with another Engineer but decided to write about it now because I have found the physical reference point.

In London, the point of reference is nearby Trafalgar Square where the statue of King Charles I now stands. A plaque can be found on the floor behind the statue stating that mileage distances on road signage are still measured from this point. Why is it there, you can find out here.

Statue of King Charles I

Location of plague behind statue

The plague written with "..on the site now occupied by the statue of King Charles I was erected the original Queen Eleanor's Cross a replica of which stands in front of Charing Cross Station. Mileages from London are measured from the site of the original cross. "

There you go, another interesting find in London!

What about Kuala Lumpur? I've also Googled the same for Kuala Lumpur. Apparently, no answer was found.

Fortunately, I knew the answer. Back in 2005 when I was a Highway Engineer in Malaysia, I was once asked the same question about KL when I gave a presentation to UK's Institution of Highway & Transportation. The answer was the main Post Office in Kuala Lumpur.

I know this is silly but if the distance between London and Kuala Lumpur can be measured based on the two references, it is 6,553 miles or 10,554km.

Sustainable mobility in KL

2010-02-21T01:21:00.001Z

The answer to resolving congestion is not by having more lanes. Congestion must be tackled by taking vehicles off the road; not to accommodate more of them....read more.

Organ

2010-02-18T18:31:00.005Z

Classical organ

The RC Church I attend plays the hymns from a CD-player. It’s beyond solemn by Malaysian standards. Last year the parish priest thanked a parishioner for playing the organ. He was a visiting organist and hasn’t been seen since then. The priest lamented how he wished an organist could play for the Church every week.That was nine months ago.

One evening after a good chat with Fiona, we decided to do something for the Church. I think it was a conversation about “being thankful”. Fiona is a pianist and she plays the guitar too. So I suggested we show our “gratefulness” by playing for the Church. She didn’t take long to agree. It was such that I play the organ, she plays the guitar.

Call it coincidence or miracle or blessing or providence...whatever, a gentleman approached us one Sunday after mass and asked if he could join us to play the guitar. It was quite random, yet coincidental.

Last Sunday, for the first time we played in Church. Amy who came to support, was given a last minute role to handle the maraca. We formed a band of four at the 11th hour, quite literally, and played four songs.

It was a memorable day for me - an achievement to say the least. Not because I've overcome the inaugural performance jittery or that it was the first day of CNY, but also because many parishioners thanked us afterward for playing the instruments. The priest also thanked us in front of the congregation and personally afterward. I felt extremely humbled by this gesture. I didn't feel I did much. I've only played the organ.

Many thanks to Fiona, Amy and Nathaniel.

Prague

2010-02-09T22:43:00.017Z

Eastern Europe has never failed to mesmerise. That is why when I booked the flight to Prague two months ago, I knew I would be in for something special.

Being in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, was like a pilgrimage back into history - how I used to know this country as Czechoslovakia when I was in secondary one, before it became two separate countries; the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It was once a communist state. Like Krakow and Budapest, the appearance of its public transportation system bears a passing resemblance to a communist country that it once was two decades ago.

Airport bus

I was quite impressed when the plane landed safely at the airport in the midst of thick and heavy snowfall. Coming from London, 5cm of snowfall could easily shut airports and train stations. So this was absolutely impressive. Which made me think that the case for the UK was not an issue of learning from the best, but from the rest.

Welcome to Prague

The many interesting shapes of snow

Noris came too. We were quite nervous when we learned few days before the trip temperatures were going as low as -14deg C. I guess we were fortunate that the temperatures averaged at -4deg C daily with the lowest at -9deg C.

With Noris at Prague Castle

There were lots of snow on the pathways. The snow has become ice making the pathways difficult and dangerous for walking. However, the air was fairly stable, so it didn't have the chill factor like in London. Still, the cold cuts through the layers of clothes I wore. That was when I followed my mom's advise of putting on a pair of long johns. I used the Adidas running tights instead since that was all I had.

Old Town Square

Night view

The Czech population is fairly homogeneous. So we did stand out when we were there - what more Noris wore a striking red coat too! What I do like about Prague is that, language is not a barrier here as it was in Krakow and Budapest. Most Czechs were able to speak English. However, I struggled to pronounce some of the names when I needed to ask for directions e.g words like "strc", "skrz" or "svejk". Apparently, they are pronounced as they are spelt!

Inside Hard Rock Cafe

I can live with Czech food easily. They serve lots of meat, pork especially, Noris' favourite. Just joking. However, we abstained from eating pork but had beef, duck, rabbit and fish instead. One of the interesting things I learned about Czech cuisine is that they serve most of the meat dishes with dumplings. These are not the Chinese style meat-filled dumplings but bread dumplings. This is probably what Malaysians would recognise as "pau" cut into slices.

Roasted rabbit in cream and cranberry sauce with bread dumpling, all washed down with a pint of Pilsner

Czech is a beer (Pilsner) drinking nation. A mug of Pilsner cost less than a glass of fresh fruit juice or a bottle of mineral water. It's ridiculous. I had to have a mug for every meal in order to "save" some money from drinking rubbish like coffee or tea. ;) But it wasn't a torture because their Pilsner was light. Apparently, Pilsner is said to be the origin of all types of beer. It was the world's first golden beer.

Prague was interesting in many ways. For a start, we stayed in a boat hotel (called botel), which was a new experience to me. The botel was docked at the Vlatava River, which was considered central to all tourist spots.

Albatros Botel

Ice sheets dotted the Vlatava River. View from Botel

Other interesting parts of the city include Prague Castle and Charles Bridge. Both of them were Prague's icons. The snow provided an interesting visual effect to these spots as they looked white as snow, quite literally!

View of Charles Bridge and Prague Castle at dusk

St Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle

One of the guards at Prague Castle

One of the statues in Charles Bridge and Prague Castle in background

View from Charles Bridge

Charles Bridge is a unique pedestrian bridge graced by 30 statues dating from the 18th century. It was the only bridge in Prague until mid 1800s. However, there was one thing that I didn't like about this bridge. The public space on the eastern embankment. To cross the bridge from the east, one has to cross a busy road running perpendicular to the direction of the bridge. It was a killjoy and an anti-climax as the journey to the majestic bridge was disrupted by the passing of vehicles.

Charles Bridge

When I told my mom about my planned trip to Prague, she recommended me a Carmelite-order church, called the Church of Our Lady of Victory. Based on the stories she told, I stopped by to find out about the church and got her a souvenir. I attended Sunday mass at the church too. She was right, it's quite well-known among the international Catholic community as I found out when they celebrated mass in English for a large English-speaking community.

Church of Our Lady of Victory

Prague is a lot bigger and more modern than Budapest and Krakow. However, three days was enough to cover a large part of the city even with the snow and slippery footpaths slowing us down. In fact, we ran out of places to see on the third day. So we took the metro and trams to explore the rustic part of the city. It was when we were out of the city that we realised there are actually young people in Prague. Otherwise, Prague as we thought, was a geriatric city.

After traveling to the three major Eastern European cities, this is how I would rate my experience in top three positions:

Food: (1) Budapest, (2) Prague, (3) Krakow
Scenery: (1) Budapest, (2) Prague, (3) Krakow
History: (1) Krakow (Auschwitz), (2) Budapest, (3) Prague
Value: (1) Krakow, (2) Prague, (3) Budapest
Overall: (1) Krakow, (2) Budapest, (3) Prague

Globalisation 3.0

2010-02-05T11:54:00.003Z

Professor Dani Rodrik, a professor from Harvard University presented at LSE last year about Globalisation 3.0.

What is Globalisation 3.0? Well, let me first establish how we've come from 1.0 to 3.0.

In Globalization 1.0, which began around 1492, the world went from size large to size medium. In Globalization 2.0, the era that introduced us to multinational companies, it went from size medium to size small. And then around 2000 came Globalization 3.0, in which the world went from being small to tiny. Today the world as we know it, is borderless.

For example, there's a huge difference between making long distance phone calls on the Internet today and sending letters twenty years ago, which were the most affordable means of communication at their times.

I have a Globalisation 3.0 story to share. It happened this morning.

A Canadian colleague burst out a familiar tune and sang, "...and the weekly top fortieeeeeeeeee..."

I looked over and said excitedly, "That's Rick Dees isn't it?"

Another Canadian colleague joined in, "O yes! How did you know that?! Did you hear that from the UK? Do we have it here? I miss that."

I told them I heard that from Malaysia and that we already have Rick Dees since the late 90s when a new radio channel was launched . This is globalisation 3.0, I suppose.

Bak Kua

2010-01-24T17:25:00.014Z

I've always liked bak kua. Bak kua is basically a type of meat jerky usually eaten during the Chinese New Year.

It is very expensive for Malaysians or Singaporeans. For the price it is sold, it's presumably expensive by London's standard as well. That is why bak kua is a "presentable and posh" gift in house visits during CNY. It's not so much about people giving you meat, it's the price of the gift!

A kilogramme of bak kua is £14.50. But that's what we pay in KL. In London, that's sold at £50/kg. That's approximately 12 slices of bak kua, 13 if I could chat up the cashier. That's like paying more than £4 for a slice of ham! That's why I think it's still expensive by London's standard.

And it's not worth "smuggling" bak kua into the country as foreign meat products are banned from entering.

I'll be celebrating CNY in London this year. But CNY without bak kua is like Christmas without mince pies. So enough is enough. I decided to make my own bak kua this weekend.

With the wonders of the internet, I found plenty of bak kua recipes. One was Lily's recipe. The recipe was simple and ingredients easily available. With so many recipes available on the internet, it's just a matter of time someone perfected one to give Bee Cheng Hiang or Kiew Brothers' a run for their money. After all, bak kua as I realised, was neither too difficult nor expensive to make on our own. At the end of this article, you'd realise how much it cost me to make bak kua here.

Fiona came to help. We took 2 days to prepare and cook. One day to marinate and the other to bake and grill.

Marinated pork mince

Engineers work around constraints. In the absence of a rolling pin, we used a glass.

Meat over a baking tray to 3mm thickness

Baked meat cut in squares for grilling

The finished product

The result was surprisingly good - in appearance and taste. It was better than we expected, considering it was our first time. In fact, the appearance was so convincing when we served it to Amy, who came to visit, she couldn't believe we made them from scratch.

We got 9 slices of bak kua with 500g of pork mince. Total cost: £4.

Now I'm quite confident of an affordable supply of bak kua well into CNY. Orders, anyone?

Time Value of Money

2010-01-20T21:28:00.007Z

Today the UK's Office for National Statistics announced that the annual inflation rate is at 2.9%. Our office has frozen pay for two consecutive terms now. Based on the time value of money and the inflation rate, we're effectively taking a pay cut of 2.9% now.

If we started earning £100 a year ago, this is equivalent to earning £97.10 today. But if a product was bought at £100 a year ago, the same product would cost £102.90 today. Simple maths. What does this mean? That we have to pay more for less, or having less to buy. Either way, this is not good for the economy.

What is anyway? In this time of recession, I guess we can only count our blessings that we are still gainfully employed. The time value of money is meaningless without an income.

Meeting the Deputy PM - Part 2

2010-01-13T23:30:00.006Z

In the afternoon I received several emails from friends saying that they saw me on TV. They informed me of the news channels that I appeared on with the Deputy PM. Also in the video was Noris and Eskandar.

The following are extracts of three news footage from TV3 and NTV7 channels dated today.

Buletin Utama, TV3

Mandarin 7, NTV7

Meeting the Deputy PM

2010-01-12T23:44:00.014Z

With the Deputy Prime Minister

Today after work I went to the Malaysian High Commission to meet the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin. Noris and Eskandar were also there with me. The meeting was attended by over a hundred Malaysian professionals and students in and around London. Some came from as far as Plymouth and Oxford.

Before the meeting, I knew very little of our DPM because he was the new man who's taken up the portfolio only recently, some time in April 2009. I was not particularly interested in politics at the time because of petty political bickering that were happening in the country.

Tan Sri took on the questions thrown at him by the floor with tact. The questions touched on race-based politics, national key result areas like the state of our public transportation, education and tackling of crime; and the general state of our economy.

Speech by Tan Sri

He acknowledged that we still have lots to improve and there are challenges ahead. He was very honest about it. One particular subject which particularly drew my attention was on brain drain. He dismissed that as a serious problem at the moment. "We haven't reached a critical level yet," he said. He pointed out that we were still fortunate to have "brains to export" at the moment. However, he quickly added that the government was also working hard on a "brain gain" programme.

When I shook the hands of Tan Sri, he asked where I was studying. I said, "Cambridge but I've graduated." Then he asked, "Ah Cambridge...dah habis pulak. Bila nak balik ni? " (Ah Cambridge....so you've finished. When are you planning to return?). Feeling a little odd with the question, I quipped, "Soon Tan Sri. But let's take a photo of us in London before I go back to Malaysia." He smiled and obliged for the shot.

Also at the meeting was Datuk Saifuddin, Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Dr Rosman, Director of the Malaysian Student Department for UK and EIRE.

Datuk Saifuddin (3rd from left) and Dr Rosman (4th from left)

All in all, it was a good evening and meet up with other Malaysians.

Snow in the UK

2010-01-10T11:20:00.018Z

The winter deluge that gripped the country has become a palaver. Turn on the news, the radio or eavesdrop a conversation and you will hear people talking about it. The heavy snow in the UK is unprecedented in the living memory of many people. It is said to be the worst in 50 years. Even the older people will stop saying "we used to have a lot of snow before the climate changed". Because it is unprecedented, no amount of salt and grit that we currently have is going to be enough to cope with this type of event. Still, the blame game by the media has not stopped. Local councils, Highways Agency, Transport Ministry and the Prime Minister are all getting a lot of flak from the public for something that is beyond their control.

One of Trafalgar Square's frozen fountains

Yes, it's climate change, not global warming. The language has changed. Even gas-guzzlers are getting back their respect. They used to be seen as "lepers" by environmentalists. The media are now calling them 4x4s as they continue to make news of how they've become heroes of the day - lifting stranded vehicles off snow-covered roads, rescuing stranded hikers off the mountains, rushing pregnant women to hospitals and delivering medical supplies and food to villages cut off by the snow.

In London, we're not as worse off as compared to those in other parts of the country. Our lives are only disrupted by the public transportation systems. But those in Scotland and the highlands have to live with cut off access to the basics like medicine, food and power. Poor things.

As for me, the snow has certainly altered the way I did things for the week. For a start, I did not cycle and run the entire week. Only simple workouts in the gym. I've also bought a heater to supplement the heater in my room. It's going to cost a bomb on the bill soon. But what is money if you're dead right? On that note, the snow has also made me think about how those innocent white fluffy stuff can be dangerous and fatal to many; and how I've taken basic things for granted, like the warmth from the heater and easy access to food as some parts of the country are still deprived of these as we speak.

Outside the house

The morning after the first heavy snow fall, I nearly slipped and fell in front of my own doorstep as I stepped onto the "white carpet". It was then I realised my working shoes weren't made for this type of condition. The sub-zero temperatures relatively made my fridge the heater. But this also means that the snow on the roads will stay for some time, i.e more slippery roads and risk of falling.

Snow covered walkways at the Southbank

Wellington boots to prevent slips and falls?

The weather is forecast to remain like this until the end of the month as the North Pole and Siberia send more snow and chill over. But the weather forecast in the UK is only accurate for 24 hours. So I do hope this is the last of Siberia for now.

View of Regent's Park from the office

Jubilee Gardens and the London Eye

Yesterday was alpine conditions. It was clear, sunny and cold. Great for photography. Most of the gardens and fields are still covered in snow. At the moment, the daytime temperature has inched a little. It's 1 deg C now. This means the ice will have a chance to thaw in daytime. Without new snow falling, things should get better. We'll see.

Christmas and New Year in KL

2009-12-27T09:38:00.022Z

Happy 2010!!

I remember the first year when I was in the UK, Christmas was cold, quiet and lonely. But it was also fun and interesting. It was the first time I benefited from charity. Foreign students who had no where to go during Christmas were invited to attend a Christmas party in a church. I also remember how I celebrated Christmas Eve in London with other Malaysians as they too were away from home.

Three years have gone and past just like that. This year I decided to return for Christmas and New Year. I was very happy to be back with family, friends, warm weather and all the delicious food. The miserable weather in London that delayed my flight home for 7 hours further convinced me that I've made the right decision.

Dinner with family and relatives

Christmas was celebrated in church. Jenn, my ex-housemate in London visited KL for Christmas. Irene was with us. All of us went to church as Jenn wanted to experience how Christmas was celebrated in Malaysia.

Christmas in Church

The Christmas decorations in KL were not bad. Colourful and generous. In London, most of the decorations were out on the high streets for shoppers to enjoy when they shop. However in KL these were housed in the shopping mall because Malaysians do their shopping in the malls.

Decorations in Pavilion

Decorations in KLCC

We went to Melaka the following day which proved to be a silly idea because on a public holiday everyone else was going out. We were stranded on the road for hours. Armed with a GPS, we used it to guide us through the trunk roads and onto Seremban. We took the opportunity for an eating spree. We brought Jenn to eat the Seremban siew pau, hakka mee, beef noodles and a variety of tropical fruits. I am more fluent with the history of Malaya now than in 2007 when my Cambridge friends came. So tour guiding Jenn this time was much easier. I guess I would never have known and appreciated Malaysia's history so much more than I had to narrate it to my friends.

Melaka with Jenn and Irene

Good old friend Raymond was also back from HK. So it was really nice to catch up with him after our last meeting in Taiwan.

Catching up with good old friend Dr Ray over Japanese in KLCC

This time I was also back for a wedding dinner as my Singaporean colleague was marrying his Malaysian partner. Winson who's back for good also attended the wedding. So all three of us who were once from the same office in London managed to catch up in KL!

Colleague's wedding

New Year's Eve was celebrated in Charmine's condominium, a vantage point overlooking The Curve and Tropicana which the fireworks in PJ took place. We had a potluck. She invited other colleagues whom I still keep in touch with. We were like a family and still are. In fact, my godson was also there! It's a delight to see him grow to this cute little thing now!

Godson

I made my own recipe salad which I discovered while experimenting with food in the UK. I guess after staying abroad for a while, you tend to try new things and be more adventurous with food. I made them a salad with wild rockets, hearts of romaine, prawns, hard-boiled eggs, seedless red grapes, cherry tomatoes, sea salt, ground pepper, extra virgin olive oil, lemon zest and lemon juice. This was somewhat inspired by Jamie Oliver's wild rocket salad, only that I tore everything apart and reinvented my own to suit with local ingredients. Still it was a good way to deliver some sort of a taste of "life in the UK"; all summed up in a bowl. Wild rockets have a unique taste and sometimes bitter, so that's quite a good summing up of life in the UK.

Ex-colleagues

After a good night out on new year's eve, we reached home at 2am. One would expect us to wake up late the next morning, right? No. Instead, we went for a run. It was the Pacemaker Network Run 2010, a run I signed up for two months ago. The lack of sleep, Christmas, tour guiding and new year eve's countdown took a toll on training and performance. The four-loop run which came with a series of steps sounded the death knell for the exhausted body. My 12.2k time was 1 hr 4mins and 39secs. Not sure if it was good but I knew I could do better than that given the right conditions. Oh well...

Run in Lake Garden, KL

The torturous part in Network Run 2010

So we're in 2010 now. Some people say the ushering of the new year is overrated. Some say the new year is just another number. Whether or not it is a number or a commercialised event, every New Year to me is a milestone of life. It is marked by the successes and failures of the past 365 days; and how we can now make use of those experiences to tackle the next 365 days. All the best in 2010!

**Post New Year's Day note: I've finally gotten myself a Christmas present. The Asics Gel Nimbus 11.**

Running Shoes for 2010

Budapest

2009-12-12T18:19:00.018Z

I was in Budapest three weeks ago and was enthralled by the stunning views and spectacular scenes of the city. The autumn colours were amazing!

Autumn in Budapest

This McD's is classic!

Budapest is a city that comes from two banks of the river Danube - Buda and Pest. You can probably read more about Budapest elsewhere.

Liberation Monument

Vajdahunyad Castle

Heroes' Square

Anyway, we spent a lot of time doing very few things. Budapest is not about packing as much as you can. Talk to a Malaysian about traveling to Europe and you'll know what I mean. First timers to Europe tend to go for travel packages like "10 cities in 12 days"- quantity rather than quality. It's a luxury to travel to Europe for many. However you can't do that in Budapest. In fact you can't do that in any European cities for that matter. There are things that need time to appreciate. Just like the public bath which Budapest is known for. No one gets into a public bath as quickly as a bored Malaysian going into the National Gallery in London for the sake of telling his mates that he's been there and done that. In a public bath you need at least two hours. That's what we've done. We went to Szechenyi and took two hours to enjoy the outdoor thermal pool just by doing nothing. We sat there and let the water fountain hit our shoulders and back. It was therapeutic, especially against the ambiance temperature of 3 deg C. The water was 35 deg C. The public baths in Budapest weren't like the onsens in Japan where bathers were required to go nude. Everyone was required to wear something. Well, I heard they do have onsen-type ones as well.

Szechenyi public bath

Hungary had a tragic past like Poland during the second world war. It was the first country that resisted the deportation of Jews to Poland during the Holocaust. Many Jews fled to this country for asylum. This provoked the German Nazis to invade them. In the end, Hungary accounted for the highest number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust. About 450,000 of them were forced out of the country and killed.

The Jews were killed in cold blood. The photo below must have been the moment before the Jews fell to their death. Standing by the bank I was already frightened to death of falling head down. But that was how the Jews fell to their death. They didn't need to be shot.

Memorial site - spot where the Jews fell to their death

The resistance of the past now bears a passing resemblance of the tenacity and steadfastness of Hungarians. Hungary, along with Bulgaria and half of Russia, represents a large number of sumo wrestlers from Europe. Hungary is more than a sumo-wrestling country. It is for sports lovers. In the time we were in Budapest, there were many blue and green patches shown in the city map. These were swimming pools and playing fields.

Parliament

Chain Bridge

The apartment owner asked if I've brought a pair of running shoes, as he recommended me to run in Margaret Island, a pedestrianised recreational island in the middle of the Danube River. The island is well known among avid runners. The island has a track and field stadium, tennis courts, Olympic-size outdoor and indoor swimming pools. At 2 deg C, we saw people attending swimming classes in the outdoor pool!

Fisherman's Bastion

I can see why the locals are active in sports here. Margaret Island alone, was an inspiration to indulge in an activity. There's just so much energy here. When you see other people doing something, you want to do it too! And I can see myself doing a race here one day.

Running in Margaret Island

Budapest is cheap. We can do a lot for much lesser than other European countries; just like Krakow. For example we attended an opera for only 400 Forint. That's only £1.40 or RM7.50 for a 3-hour seating. I don't remember paying anything less than £2 for entertainment either in Malaysia or UK. So Budapest was definitely cheap.

Opera House

Another delightful part of the trip was meeting up with Sue-Anne, another Malaysian whom I met through Chevening back in 2006. I've met her in London, Madrid and Budapest. All but except Malaysia. We've never been able to meet up in Malaysia despite several attempts when I was in KL. Thanks to her she brought us to a posh French restaurant in nearby Opera for lunch. That was the first time I had foie gras and it was absolutely delicious despite all the bad publicity about it. Well, I guess it's just like the Chinese and shark's fin soup.

Lunch with Sue-Anne

The lunch came out to be very affordable by London's standard. It was certainly going for a song considering it was of high quality. So Irene and I did it again in the evening but we went for Hungarian cuisine. We tried their famous local delicacies like goose liver and Tokaji wine. I just found out Hungary is the biggest producer of goose liver in the world!

Second dining

Budapest is also known for its Christmas Market. We had plenty of mulled wine and tried their local food for two days. Interesting to find how different and similar their food can be compared to other countries. That's why traveling is always an enriching experience.

Christmas Market in Vorosmarty Ter

My opinion of Budapest comes with a few contradictions. But they are not necessarily bad. They are traditional, yet modern; old-fashion yet creative; appeared poor yet classy; looked posh yet plain; faces of people looked stern yet friendly, architecture of buildings looked simple yet elegant; serious designs yet funny; pretentious yet original. It's just something mystical about the city which makes it special. Ever tried saying, "Pretty girl, you're ugly." Know what I mean?

Serious yet funny

Posh yet plain

Road as straight as the eye can see

Pretentious yet original

Traditional yet modern

Simple yet elegant

London with Air Asia X- Part 2

2009-12-08T18:28:00.006Z

Recently I wrote about my experience flying with Air Asia X from London.

I have informed (Datuk Seri) Tony Fernandes, CEO of the airline Group about my article, who then forwarded to Azran Osman Rani, CEO of Air Asia X. Yes, it's a big loop around. That's because I was not introduced to Azran when I met Tony in London. But I am glad Azran took time to respond to my article.

I received a feedback from Azran and thought it's only fair that anyone who has read my review, to read the response by the airline boss as well (with permission):

Dear Alden,

Thank you for referring your blog article to us. Really appreciate the honest review.

Some points:

On the price of the food - please note that on long-haul flights, we must, as required by quarantine rules, source our food from the UK, for the London-KL portion. We cannot carry meals from KL. As such, the pricing is based on UK catering suppliers - inevitably they are much more expensive than from KL - and unfortunately, we cannot have full control of the food quality, as it is produced in bulk by the UK caterer. Airline food costs are also more than the price of food in a restaurant, because there are extra handling costs, including security scanning, Customs/Quarantine checks, and uploading to the aircraft.

That's why we have to resort to differentiated pricing. Otherwise, if we average out the cost, someone flying to Hong Kong will have to pay a lot more to subsidize the cost of someone buying a meal from London-KL.

We also know our product is not as comparable in quality as Emirates and MAS. We're here to create a different product to tailor for a more affordable price point. Your points on price comparison on the blog is valid, but I'd like to add that, before AirAsia X was introduced, you'd be hard-pressed to get fares on MAS at 500 pounds and on Emirates at 400 pounds. The big boys starting dumping fares only in response to our entry. Without us, customers will have less choice and MAS will undoubtedly increase their fares again. We're determined to stay - they can't keep dumping fares indefinitely because they've been suffering significant losses this year.

Kind regards,

Azran Osman-Rani
Chief Executive Officer

My Line : (603) XXX XXX
My Fax : (603) XXXX XXXX
My Mobile: (60) 12 XXX XXXX

Contact details were omitted to protect his privacy.

November update

2009-12-07T22:19:00.016Z

I haven't updated my blog for a long time. Whenever I had the inspiration to write, I passed on that energy to writing up my professional reports instead. I've been extremely busy in the three weeks leading up to this week since I last updated the blog. Just this morning at 2am, after so many weekends, I finished writing an experience report and fifteen development objectives of how I have become a competent engineer. All this accomplished in between the workload from the office. Now the reports would be reviewed by a delegated engineer in the company. Once finalised, the reports would be formally submitted to the Institution of Civil Engineer for a career appraisal. This means I have to satisfy the ICE that I'm ready and "matured" to be a Chartered Engineer before I could make a formal submission. It's more difficult than I expected.

It wasn't easy consolidating 7 years of work experience into a few pages of report. I've written too much for an experience report. At 25 pages, I still think I haven't finished writing but there has been pressure to compress everything into 2000 words. That's effectively 5 pages!

But many things have happened in between. I celebrated my birthday with a few close friends. Less is more. Thanks to Irene who planned her trip around to coincide with my birthday. I am also grateful to those who came for dinner and the musical. And thank you everyone who called, texted, emailed and left messages in my facebook on my birthday.

One and a half duck for five of us

Second time seeing Les Miserables

Before that was a visit by Nik Rahini et al, who stopped over and took a break here from her European tour. We caught up over dinner and a play called Stomp which was absolutely brilliant. Thanks for organising that, Nik!

Dinner with Nik et al

I was involved in a bid submission for work in the O which literally sapped me off my energy, mood and everything that the world is made of. I was working late hours for the past three weeks. Malaysians wouldn't believe I had to work late hours here and return to work before 8am the next day. This continued for two weeks. I am really knackered. The last time I did any meaningful exercise was three weeks ago and that was when I ran 5km on the treadmill.

But in the midst of all these madness, I made a trip to Budapest with Irene over a weekend. It was planned months ahead. I was hesitating to go because of the workload but was glad I went as it was a good antidote to the stress I was living with in the office. The following weekend we went to Oxford.

In London, I told myself that I wouldn't need to care about my visitors as long as they can speak English. The truth is, I do worry once in a while; if they would be cheated, know where to visit, how to get there, how to save some money, have enough cash to spend and what and where to go for dinner? Because I also want to share some tips about London since I'm a lot "smarter" going about doing things in this country than in the past 3.5 years.

Pots of lontong and trays of satay by Noris

Hari Raya Haji at Noris'

Hari Raya Haji was in November too. Noris hosted a dinner for us and some friends at his place. It all felt like a real Hari Raya because we had rendang, lontong, ketupat, satay and lots of desserts. The guests were dressed up for the occasion too. Most of them in traditional Malay costumes. Thank you Noris for making us feel so much at home!

I did some Christmas shopping for Irene to bring home to my family. I'm glad I am not the type who would buy on impulse. That is why I still haven't finished buying presents for everyone. But that's fine, I give presents to people whenever I go home, even without Christmas! So if you didn't get a present from me this time, it's because you've got one in my recent trip back!
And if you haven't received a present from me the last time and this, that's because you haven't been a good person the whole year and Santa knows!;)

Marmite Lover

2009-11-16T23:08:00.018Z

Marmite - "love it or hate it". That's how Marmite brand themselves. I am a Marmite lover.

Yesterday I found a Marmite store at the southern end of Regent Street (or nearby Piccadilly Circus). I was really excited by it. I mean, a store dedicated for a vegetable spread brand smack in the heart of London?? That must be really expensive! It's like having a store for sambal belacan lovers next to KLCC's Zara.

Marmite store by Regent Street

I walked into the store and looked around. There were lots of Marmite merchandise and the spread itself in different sizes. A book caught my attention - "Marmite Tips".

Interesting tips

I browsed through the pages and found a few interesting tips. However, there was a silly one; "...Marmite will aid recovery from a hangover". They certainly got the right target audience in this country!

There were two floors in the store. At the upper floor, I was greeted by a lady who asked, "Are you a lover or a hater?" I told her that I am a lover. She smiled and offered me a "Marmite Lover" sticker. I guess that means I am now an "official member" of the Marmite club.

I told her that I grew up eating Marmite in rice porridge and hard-boiled salted duck eggs. In Britain, rice porridge is easily misunderstood as rice pudding, a type of dessert. So I explained to her the difference. She asked if it was sweet; then if it was like oat porridge. I told her it's basically someone crazy who is trying to cook rice with eight times the amount of water normally used. She got it immediately.

I have yet to try it on toast though. I never bothered. The thought of it sounded disgusting. I guess it's like slapping tar on bread.

I have a small bottle of Marmite at home that was finishing. The shop reminded me that I had to replenish supply. So I bought a big one this time - a 500g jar. There's now a Marmite and its mini-me in the kitchen cabinet.

Marmite and mini-me

A meaningful top prize win

2009-11-11T22:52:00.012Z

I was woken up at 4am yesterday by a call from Malaysia. The lady on the other line was from the Standards Agency. She announced that I have won the top prize in a national essay competition held in conjunction with the World Standards Day.

I've checked my CV awhile ago. This marks the fourth time that I've won the top prize in essay competitions. However, this is not the fourth essay that I've written. I've written in many essay competitions. Sometimes I win, many times I don't.

Many in FB have congratulated me and I thank you for that.

The prize money is especially meaningful to me this time.

Coming from the older generation, my grandmother doesn't have an insurance policy to support her health care. When she was ill two months ago , she needed to go to the hospital and needed a lot of money for the operation. The cost of the operation was shared equally by her three daughters. My mom was one of them. Being retired and living only on savings, my mom asked for help from my brother and I.

We did the logical thing as anyone would imagine. So we chipped in. The planned Taiwan trip, wedding angpaos and multiple events that I have arranged in Malaysia have set me back on my finances. So my cashflow was a little tight at the time.

But I had to do my best to help out the family nonetheless. After all, I've been working in the UK, so I do not hold much cash reserves in Malaysia. Somehow by God's providence and a modicum of luck I managed to get the cash out for my share.

After the incident I've been praying for my grandmother. I'm always worried that we will lose her one day. At her age, it's something that will come one day but it's not something that I want to think about too much. I think she prayed for us too.

But God works in mysterious ways. I found out that the winning money for the essay competition is the same as what I've paid for her bill. Not a penny more, not a penny less and I praise God for that!

Christmas Lights in London

2009-11-07T22:19:00.005Z

Photos taken from Oxford Street and Regent Street. It's dark already at 5pm.

Paintball and the lesson on war

2009-11-01T22:03:00.009Z

The six of us braved the heavy rain this morning to Hemel Hempstead and joined force with twenty others for a paintball shootout against thirty others from the enemy side.

Our team

Members of our team include young children. Military gear provided.

Paintballing is basically shooting at each other with paintballs in military fashion. Had I been in a real war today, my neck, right arm, two fingers and the right leg would have been blown apart. That's right, these were the places I took the "bullets" from. I came home with mosquito-bite soreness and red spots on the neck, arm and leg. Two of my fingers bled a little on impact with the paintball. Nothing too serious otherwise.

Paintballs

I never had such an exhilarating fun for a while, where I had to run and hide like a kid. We hated the rain but later felt it made the "war" more exciting. The terrain was slippery and thus, more difficult to overcome.

The itinerary consisted of 12 games. We fought off our enemies until everyone was annihilated. Annihilation in the paintballing context means everyone in the team is shot.

Paintballing requires a lot of body movement, strategy and teamwork. These sounded like serious stuff for a Sunday morning but it was equally entertaining. One of the funny moments I could remember was in a game to protect the leader in our team. While defending our fort, a member in my team had several clean shots at an enemy but the enemy refused to die. Frustrated by the enemy's immortality, he shouted to the marshall, "Marshall! I've hit that lad like a million times on the shoulder and he's refused to die! Get him out! Get him out!"

In the midst of the hail of bullets exchanging between the enemy and us, the enemy surrendered. The man beside me shouted "What took you so long to die?!" Then he fired a cold-blooded parting shot at him.

Long story short, we won the game by a huge margin. On the way back to London we shared our experiences. There were important lessons to be learnt from an innocent game like paintballing.

It made me feel blessed that I am not living in a war-torn country. It made me appreciate that the pain I encountered today is artificial. I paused for a moment to think about the troops who have to take these for real and with live bullets. The outcome would be so much more different. I've learnt that in a war, no matter who's right or wrong, innocent lives will be sacrificed. I have learnt that for every troop who is still alive now could be at the expense of another troop's life who protected him. I have learnt the practical meaning of "curiosity kills the cat". I have learnt the importance of being calm in adversity. When our enemy was raining bullets on us, we stayed calm and assessed the situation before closing in on them. I learnt that in a war, there's no such a thing as a winner takes all. There will always be losses of innocent lives no matter who wins in the end. I learnt that no matter how hopeless a negotiation has turned, no one should ever go into war.

Sakana, the friendship song

2009-10-28T20:03:00.012Z

On a Saturday afternoon back in 2007 as Raymond, Irene and I were walking along the sushi and sashimi aisle in Jusco* Mid-Valley we heard a Japanese song playing in the background. It sounded like a nursery song but it also sounded like an adult song. We couldn't make up what it was but it did tickle us at the time.

I've finally seen the video (below) awhile ago. The name of the song is O-Sakana Tengoku which means "Fish Paradise". The music video actually made it appear sillier than it sounded! A typical masterpiece of silly Japanese song I would say.

It was very easy to follow. We soon got hung of it and started singing along. As I just returned from Japan at the time, (on transit to the UK for my masters), I roughly made up that the lady was singing about fish. It was a befitting song for the sushi aisle.

Two years have passed. On my recent trip back to KL, I visited the same spot and to my delight, the song was still playing! I exclaimed to Irene, "Oh listen! That's the funny song!" We burst out laughing and recounted the good old days we had with the three of us.

Video of the Sakana song by Shibaya Hiromi

The song sticks to the mind like singing the ABC for the first time. Whenever I hear that song again, it will remind me of the three of us. "Fish!", you may say, but I shall now make "Sakana" our friendship song.

*Jusco is the largest Japanese store chain in Malaysia

London with Air Asia X

2009-10-26T23:04:00.023Z

People raise their eye brows and follow on with plenty of questions whenever I announce that I flew on Air Asia X on my trip back to KL this time. Sympathy comes through their face as if I've lost a limb in a war.

But their reactions are completely understandable. For the past few years, Air Asia X have been known to provide cheap and new flights in exchange for uncomfortable black leather seats and outward bound school treatment by the cabin staff. So the assumption that I went through the same treatment for 14 hours must have surprised them. In fact, the two FAQs to me were on legroom and service.

My experience with Air Asia X flight to and from London was completely different. It was more pleasant than I expected. One of the reasons the London flight was more comfortable than other Air Asia X flights was because of the aircraft. I read that the aircraft was leased from full service Air Canada for a year to test the viability of the route.

The Oakland Raiders Air Asia X aircraft.

When it was time for boarding, I saw for the first time the hideous aircraft we were boarding in. You don't know how embarrassing I felt as a Malaysian to know that this "chav" design aircraft was going to land in London! It's like knowing the guy on the street in a yellow tank top, with a scarlet feather scarf around his neck and in tight pink jeans, a pair of orange socks and light green leather shoes, is your cousin. I was prepared to betray Air Asia and announce that it's a Singaporean-owned company should I be asked if it was actually Malaysian.

Anyway I have some photos taken during my flight back to London:

For a start, the legroom was much better than I expected. To provide a meaningful description of the space in my seat, I have taken The Star newspaper as a measure of the legroom.

A good half-foot space available

Then there's the adjustable headrest

I have pre-booked my meals. Two meals were served - the first, one hour after take off, and the second three hours before landing. Don't expect to be filled up by the meal box. They are served in calculator-sized boxes. You can estimate the size of the mealbox by looking at my mobile phone case placed next to it.

First meal

Second meal

I took the international meal option on my trip back to KL. They served lasagne on the first meal and pasta on the second. In hindsight, it was surprising no one was killed eating that sort of stuff. It was the worst flight meal I've ever eaten. I'm glad I took the Asian option on my trip back to London.

If you're not filled up, you can buy an extra. But I was quite put off by the size and indiscriminate charging of the mealbox. For example, it cost me RM12 for Pak Nasser's nasi lemak on my flight to Taipei but the same thing cost RM36 (£6) on my flight to London! That's a complete rip-off! Don't get me wrong, I am not against paying £6 for a plate of nasi lemak and Pak Nasser's nasi lemak is up to mark. I've paid more in London and they satiate me. It's the size and two-pricing arrangements that I am against.

Flight menu and price discrepancy

In terms of service, I think they have improved a lot since I flew with them to Hong Kong. There were smiles most of the time. The cabin crew were also friendly and polite throughout the flight.

Another drawback is the lack of in-flight entertainment. As you can see from the photo below, the personal visual display units have been taken out of the seats. You can rent their entertainment kit for £6.

All in all, it was a pleasant flight. 14 hours is not a long flight if you can sleep most of the time or have a book to read in the absence of in-flight entertainment. But these sacrifices and the inconveniences of traveling to Stansted (which is a setback) for the flight must come with a lower fare price.

I don't think I am asking too much for the price they are currently charging. If I remember, they are supposed to be a no-frills airline! To justify my argument, I checked recently on Emirates doing £400, MAS £500 and Air Asia £404 (w/o meals and checked-in luggage) for a return ticket to KL. The first two flies out from Heathrow and Air Asia from Stansted. At the current price, I struggle to find a reason to fly with Air Asia except that I save two hours by not transiting in Dubai. But that's marginal difference. Therefore Air Asia's fares must go lower. I would start paying attention to anything near £300ish inclusive of meals and checked-in luggage.

Friendly cabin crew

Air Asia X is now the second airline company that flies direct to Kuala Lumpur from London. The first is Malaysia Airlines. If Air Asia X can offer more competitive fares than MAS and other full service flights, I wouldn't mind flying with them again. For now, I need to stop flying back to Malaysia and start exploring Europe. That's why I am based here in the first place!

Once Taihoku, Now Taipei

2009-10-17T08:51:00.018+01:00

For those who are crazy about Japan but can't afford to travel there, there is an alternative - Taiwan.

I went to the capital of Taiwan, Taipei, last week with Irene and Dr Ray. I am really grateful to both of them. Irene has planned the itinerary and Dr Ray flew from HK to join us. We have planned for this trip months before I returned to Malaysia. We chose Taipei because of what it has to offer - food, scenery, friendly people and value. It was also highly recommended by friends and relatives.

Chiang Kai Shek's memorial

National Palace Museum

One of the main characters of Taiwan (or at least for Taipei) that was never mentioned to me was that Taiwan has a close resemblance to Japan. At first I thought it was just my observation based on what I experienced in Japan. Then I Google-ed for affirmation and found that this observation was discussed some three years back (I believe it was much longer than that even before there was such a thing as the internet). The forum was interesting and you can read it here. The Chinese characters of Taipei (台北) when translated in Japanese is Taihoku. Therefore when the Japanese ruled Taipei, they renamed the capital to Taihoku.

One of the high streets in Taipei.
Doesn't this crossing look like the one in Shinjuku?

A busy Taipei Main Station

From the building architecture, road design, sundry and departmental store arrangements to the way Taiwanese present themselves, they are every bit Japanese. Their train stations have as many Yamazaki bread stalls and sushi take-aways as they are in Japan. The only missing fixtures are the Tokyo Banana and Goma Tamago omiyage (souvenir) stalls. They even call their High Speed Rail "shinkansen", which is the Japanese term for bullet train.

All of these further convinced me that Taiwan is like a copy of Japan

Throughout my stay in Taipei, I kept seeing things with strong association to Japan. Dr Ray was rather annoyed by this. Oh well, I do miss Japan if u ask me.

However it's difficult to blame the Taiwanese for having an identity crisis. After all they were once colonised by the Japanese for half a century. Like the British in Malaya then, we can easily draw parallels to what they have experienced - our roads and judicial systems are as much similar to the British, as the Taiwanese are to the Japanese.

But if you take these resemblance off Taiwan, there are still plenty the country has to offer. Food and scenery to name a few. They command an epic proportion of all things Taiwanese. The night markets alone are typically Taiwanese. One can easily name a few of their food off the cuff - sausages, bubble teas, beef noodles, fried chicken and pineapple cake. On the scenery side, they are known to have one of the best sunrise views in the world.

Night market in Shilin

Some of those food we tried

Magnificent views from Jiufen

In terms of weather, Taiwan doesn't get any colder than London's summer - mid 20s. However, Taiwanese fashion follows a virtual four season religiously. At the time when we were in Taipei, it was October and the temperature was hovering mid to late 20s but the people on the streets were in fleece and scarfs! I couldn't even take enough layers off to prevent a wet forehead! Once we were looking for swimwear to go for a hot spring in Beitou. However, we were told that the swimwear collection has been taken off the shelves as it was autumn (which our trip coincided with). What autumn I was asking!

Four days in Taipei were certainly too short a stay but we have done plenty within this short period of time. We explored out of Taipei - Danshui, Keelung, Yehliu and Jiufen. Packed to the brim, we managed to cover the historical monuments of Taipei towards the last day before we flew off. Yes, I am still very much a last minute person. One of the attractions we found was the changing of guards in the Sun Yat Sen memorial. We also managed to catch another in the Chiang Kai Shek's memorial. Guess it was our lucky day as we didn't plan for this.

Changing of guards at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial

Lover's bridge at Danshui

One of the benefits of traveling in a group is we get to eat and see more. Traveling in a group is also cheaper and faster. Our travel time to Yehliu and Jiufen (some 35km away from Taipei and 15km from each other) was cut half and the cost for three of us to take the taxi worked out to be only a slight difference from taking the public buses.

Trip to Keelung

Stunning rock formations in Yehliu

Eating in a group helped us eat many different types of food. We did not have to have one dish for one person but a different dish shared among us. So we get to try lots of different things in the end. While this means we have to share the delicious ones, this arrangement has also saved us from having to finish the lousy ones all by ourselves! We once had a bad experience with a vegetarian dish (from the sewer) which looked as bad as it tasted! So we were glad we did not have one for each of us.

We guessed this was from the sewer

On the last night of our stay, we celebrated Dr Ray's birthday in Ximending, one of the hippiest parts of Taipei. We had a wonderful catch up with the latest happenings between our last meet up for a good few hours.

The last night was also one of my most memorable experiences as we went up to Taipei 101, the world's tallest building. One would expect that the tallest building would be located amongst other tall buildings like the Petronas Twin Towers adjacent to Menara Maxis and the multitudes of high-rise condominiums. Taipei 101 is different. It is located amongst midgets. It wouldn't even have the chance to dwarf other high-rise buildings, because there aren't any near it!

Night views of and from the Taipei 101

View at dusk

Damper to prevent Taipei 101 from swaying violently

We took the lift up to the observatory at the 89th floor. The lift experience was much better than I expected. We were on the fastest lift in the world! The speed of the lift was recorded at 1010m/minute; that's 60kph!

I couldn't feel it was moving at all even though the digital display showed how fast it was moving! The floor numbers on the display changed like the count of a stopwatch! If I were blindfolded, I wouldn't have known I was being shot up to the top of the world except for the change of pressure in the eardrum. The ride was over in 37 seconds (45 seconds to go down). At the time when I was in the lift I did pray that there wouldn't be an earthquake! We were fortunate there was no earthquake and the outdoor observatory on the 91st floor was opened to visitors at the time of our visit. The outdoor observatory is only opened when the weather is good. So we actually went up two floors higher than we paid for!

A video of the digital display in the Taipei 101 lift

All in all we had a wonderful trip to Taipei. The company was great and the weather wasn't too bad in the days we were there. Thank God the two typhoons that were forecast to hit Taiwan missed the island entirely. They went for Japan instead.

Wedding in Tampin

2009-10-01T06:52:00.010+01:00

I flew back to KL on Thursday to coincide with three weddings. Two from Eric's. No he's not marrying twice! One from my cousin.

Even though I have been a "best man" on two past occasions, every ceremony was different from each other. The first was a Christian holy matrimony and the other was a low-key event. This time was a typical formal Chinese tradition with a rich array of customs and superstitions.

The pick up and return time from the bride's house were planned months ahead by the "Superstition Master" (sorry I have yet to find a suitable name for this person). The belief is that certain times of the day is the most auspicious time for an individual to do certain things; this include the time to get married, to pick up the bride, to return to the groom's house and probably to procreate?? Hmm...

But no one has bothered answering my question what if these times were not followed? After all, $h!T happens. Marriage wrecked? The sun turn green and the moon red? I guess no matter what happens, these times must be followed - do or die. Yes that is why we broke all traffic rules on the way to the bride's house in Masjid Tanah, some 45 minutes away from Tampin, just to be on time, as instructed by the Superstition Master.

Wedding car

We left to pick up the bride at 5.30am and this meant we woke up much earlier - at 4.30am! This was the earliest wedding ceremony I've ever attended.We flew past almost every red light but thank God the roads were deserted in the wee hours of the morning. Eric warned us to look out for cows (yes, we were in the suburbs) while we did a 140kph on a winding trunk road! As best man, I could only sit and act calm. With him telling us at every 5 minutes that the ribbon across the windscreen was blocking his view when he did 140kph made my stomach churn.

Eric pleading for the bride to come out

We arrived safely - of course we did. As best man, my role was varied. The role went from anything like wiping off the sweat of the groom to keeping a stash of cash (red packets) near him. Yes, read butler. Cash and tissue papers were the currencies of the day. Another important role of the best man and groomsmen is to help the groom overcome the "obstacle course"planned by the bridesmaids. This include doing all the silly things like eating a raw bitter gout, bursting balloons between legs, wearing lipsticks and dancing like synchronised swimmers.

Dancing our way to the next obstacle course

E&C 's wedding had one unique aspect that set them apart from the rest of the Chinese weddings I've attended. A pair of dogs were anchoring the set of their wedding photos and ceremony. This underlined their love for dogs. The couple even dressed the dogs up.

Hebe and Hugo

It was a tiring day but we had a few hours to rest before the wedding banquet. The nap made plenty of difference afterward. We had to show the guests to their seats and double as photographers at some point.

"Flower girls"??

One of the things I've learned in this wedding as a city boy, is that people in the suburbs are very punctual. All of the guests turned up by 7pm, as stated in the invitation card. We were served a 9-course dinner. Being someone who comes back from overseas occasionally has its advantage. I was treated very nicely by my friends. They fed my favourite dishes to my holding plate to the point I had double and triple servings! We even had extra portions from an adjacent table when we ran out of food. I was really touched. I guess I have drawn the sympathies of those who kept saying that I have lost too much weight.

Dinner spread

One done. Two more to go...

Great North Run 2009

2009-09-20T22:10:00.015+01:00

I ran the Great North Run this morning. There were 54,000 of us and one category for everyone - the half marathon. It was a point-to-point race - starting in Newcastle and finishing in South Shields, at the coast facing the North Sea. I've never ran in such a crowded environment before until today. Well, London Marathon was another one but that's twice the distance of this. The energy from the crowd itself was an encouragement!

I was lucky to win the ballot to run two big races this year. After winning a place for the London Marathon, I have also won a place to run the Great North Run. I first came to know about this run from Uncle Sonny who encouraged me to sign up for the ballot. After reading what it was, I discovered why it was so famous. It is the world's biggest half marathon and probably one of the few (or the only) half marathons that go by lottery. Because it is a well-known run, the goodie bag and medal that came with it, were also good. There were many sponsors for the race.

The crowd

Runners at Tyne Bridge and the Red Arrows
(photo by MailOnline)

At 6am when I arrived, the temperature was 6 deg C. The race started at 10.40am and by the time, the temperature went up a few notch, 8ish. Still it was too cold for me. It was certainly much colder than London!

Baggage buses

I kept to a pace of 7.5 mins/mile for the first 10 miles. The undulation of the course was too much for me. I was exhausted by the 11th mile and slowed to a pace of slightly more than 8 mins/mile. This took a beating on my goal to smash my previous personal best. I ditched the plan as soon as I realised I've screwed up at the 11th mile. So I did a relax pace all the way to the finish.

My time was 1hr 40mins 53secs.

The Great North Run is "Great" for a reason. In my years of running, I've never come across a race so well supported by celebrities, the Royal Air Force and us, the runners, despite it being far away from London! Come on, we are talking about the Red Arrows performing for a running event!! The last time I saw the Red Arrows was during the Trooping the Colour for the Queen.

Red Arrows

Celebrities who were there include Gordon Ramsay and wife, Sting and more than 30 soap stars from Britain's Emmerdale and Coronation Street.

The cost and time of travel were too much for me. I came back feeling like I just returned from war. I have a feeling my body is going to give up on me soon! Two days, 10.5 hours of travel, a 2-hour run, and a 2-hour sightseeing of the city. For non-runners, these numbers do not stack up at all to make a trip there!

I stank of dried sweat because I returned straight after the race and a walkabout in the city without shower. The huge crowd meant the organisers couldn't provide shower facilities for everyone. My feet are bruised and my body is feeling heaty possibly from a lack of sleep from the bus travel and dehydration. Don't get me wrong, it was a great race and something very different from the ones I've done before. In fact, I would recommend runners to do this race if they have the chance. But for now I am not sure if I'll do it again. Like always, I say the same thing for every marathon or "unattractive race" (like those requiring me to travel long distance), yet I find myself doing them again and again when my thoughts are clearer.

Krakow

2009-09-06T23:00:00.027+01:00

Krakow Glowny - central train station

Moving on from Western Europe, I've always wanted to venture Eastern Europe. Krakow jumped out as the most attractive of all shortlisted candidates like Prague, Budapest and Vilnius because top of my list of things to do before the end of 2009 was to visit Auschwitz - where the Nazi Germans slaughtered 1.5million Jews. Poland thus appeared to be the best destination for the bank holiday.

Before I came to the UK, Poland to me was where Pope John Paul II was from. That was all I knew about the country. But Poland to the UK, is what Indonesia is to Malaysians - a vital source of cheap but skilled construction workers.

Drivers in Poland are required by law to switch on their lights when driving

My understanding of Krakow fell much shorter than that until I was there. The city was much better than I expected. For a city half the size of Singapore, it has four UNESCO-listed sites three of which we went to- Old Town, Auschwitz's mass extermination camp and Wieliczka's Salt Mine.

Wavel Castle

Bernardine Church

Krakow Cathedral

Old Town

Galleria Krakowska

Salt mine in Wieliczka. All of these were made from salt

Descend to salt mine

Krakow to me, still shows it was once a communist country. The ageing infrastructures and transportation system that now provide the impetus to development are the only scars that left behind to what was once a stranglehold of communism. There are as many old and dilapidated buildings on the streets as there are friendly people everywhere we went to.

One of the train stations en route to Auschwitz

No one will believe me more than I believe myself when I say Polish people are the most forgiving people in the world, next to Christ. After all that the Germans have done to the Polish during WW2, they are still allowed to roam in and out of the country freely without being stoned to death on the streets. Yes, and it's easy to recognise a German if you ask a Polish.

Podgorze

In fact, we've ended up traveling with a group of Germans who've stepped foot into Auschwitz to find out what their country has done in the past. I don't know if it was meant to vindicate themselves from being stoned to death but they did proclaim from the very beginning that they were members of an anti-fascist movement - Nazi fighters they call themselves. Okay, to be fair, they were a nice and fun group of lads who helped us locate a brilliant place to eat before they left.

Walking tour with German friends

I determine if a country is developed or developing by using the McDonald's as a yardstick. Adapting from the Big Mac index, I have created my own indicator. If McDonald's is a luxury in a country, it has to be a developing country. McD's is a luxury in Krakow, so Krakow is a developing country and rightly so. McD's are not as cheap as the milk bars.

Krakow Cathedral

Milk bars are not places where you buy milk and get drunk. I never thought you could anyway. It's just figurative. Milk bars are where the poor, homeless and students go to have their free/cheap meals. Tourists like us are also allowed to go to the milk bars and we are charged the same as the students. In fact, these were the recommended places for tourists who want to try Polish food in a typical Polish environment. You could for example, have a hearty meal with dessert for only £1.50(RM8)! Of course, do not expect high standards - think canteen food.

Pierogi and pork cutlet from the milk bar

When it comes to food, Poland becomes Porkland. There are plenty of opportunities to eat pork which means it would be difficult for Muslims to come here. However, there are always halal kebab stalls around. So it is not a problem afterall. For pork lovers, you must come to Krakow as pork is served in all shapes, form or style - cutlet, in soup, dumpling filling, roasted, stewed, sausages, bacon, etc. By the end of our trip, I felt so pork-ey I had to abstain from meat for a week!

Porkland

But despite it serving the best meat in the world after fish, Krakow is rubbish with coffee. As a coffee addict, I was absolutely disappointed with the artificial stuff from the instant mix that I was served with. The taste was next to drinking a cup of diluted watercolour - only that this was hotter. Coffee must have been banned in Poland during the communist days as it was a foreign commodity I supposed, or I was at all the wrong places at the wrong time? I suspect the latter. Oh well, since I was only paying 1/5 of the price I pay in London, I should not complain.

Krakow's public transportation

Two years ago, I boasted that if I can travel in Japan without knowing how to read the kanjis, I can travel anywhere in Europe easily because I could make up the words in their respective languages. Not so for Poland. When we had our first Polish meal, we realised we were handicapped by the language. None of us had an idea what was in the menu and Polish couldn't understand English either. To make matters worse, Polish words are not pronounced as they are the English way. To avoid embarrassment and to survive, we ended up pointing a series of names with prices that are not too cheap (because we don't want to end up eating paper towels, toothpicks or plastic fork and spoons since we didn't know if those were charged too) and prices that are not too expensive as we may be ordering the entire roasted hog! So somewhere in between was the best solution.

We were quite good or you may consider it as lucky. We ended up randomly pointing to two main meals and a dessert! We remembered what we ate and made up those words in the menu. For once, there's taste to language! Our understanding of those words later helped in how we ordered our meals for the rest of the trip.

Food was an antidote to depression after Auschwitz. Our German friends were familiar with Krakow and so we tagged along to see new places and tried new food. So we also tried food introduced to us by people who were familiar with Poland.

Anti-fascist Germans introduced us to the Zapiekanki, like pizza served on baguette

On the itinerary was a trip to the former Jewish ghetto in Podgorze (pod-gor-jay). The ghetto was created for Jewish people to resettle into during WW2. It was horrible. The ghetto was demarcated clearly by a boundary wall and residents were made to wear the Jewish star everywhere they went to even within the walls of the ghetto. They have no business out of those walls. They were like housed in a borstal and treated like animals if you ask me! It was a crime if a Jew did not identify him/herself as a Jew to a non-Jew during meetups. For example, if they were walking into a job interview, they must first say along these lines: "Sir, I am legally obliged to tell you that I am a Jew", before they can proceed. This was absolutely derogatory. Things went from bad to worse day by day. In the end they were rounded up from the ghetto and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau to be exterminated. In the heyday before the war, there were more than 60,000 Jews. Today I was told there are only 200 of them. Most of them were murdered by the Nazi Germans.

Remains of the Jewish Ghetto wall in Podgorze

Kazimierz on the other hand is a Jewish district where Jews built their lives around. This the place where Jewish synagogues, cemeteries and restaurants are located. It's like a Chinatown of the Jewish community - Jewishtown? It was my first time having a Jewish meal too - the cholent. It was also the first time we were sure we wouldn't be served pork since stepping into Poland.

Synagogue

Fiona's perspective of this trip can be found here.

Auschwitz

2009-09-01T19:22:00.016+01:00

I just returned from Krakow, Poland. This was one trip that I have planned and looked forward to since three months ago. I will blog about Krakow later on.

My main intention of visiting Krakow was to see Auschwitz, the former Nazi German's main concentration camp during WW2.

Friends in Facebook would have read my status messages about how depressed I was after reading about and seeing Auschwitz.

Fiona and I took a train to Oswiecim (pronounced as Osh-vyen-cheem), the town of Auschwitz. Auschwitz sounded like the Polish town but spelled like a German name because of the Germanisation that took place during WW2.

The 70km ride, almost like from KL to Seremban, took us 2 hours to reach. That was how slow the train was. The train service was a stopping service, which means the train pulls over at every stop along the route. As the train was approaching a major station, my goosebumps raised for no apparent reason.

I told Fiona, "I have a feeling we've arrived into Auschwitz".

She said, "How do you know?"

I explained about the goosebumps.

As a Chinese, I grew up listening to old folks that sudden goosebumps could be a sign of the presence of spirits. As the train slowed to a halt, a signboard emerged from the right - "Oswiecim". I was right. We have arrived.

The train station looked like a deserted place, in the middle of nowhere. We stepped into a quiet station. One could never have imagined how this was once a town marked by one of the darkest histories in mankind and the world- the Holocaust.

This was the place where more than 1 million people were killed by Nazi German soldiers. Some accounted 3 million people but the atrocity was so great that the numbers became irrelevant. This wasn't the same as saying the whole of KL's population wiped out once or thrice, but half of Singapore's population being transported to KL to be exterminated. This is difficult to fathom, but that was exactly how it happened in Auschwitz where 90% of those murdered were Jews brought in from all over Europe. Two-thirds of a race wiped out in a blink. Now you know why I was so depressed even though I am not a Jew.

I was drawn to the Holocaust subject not because I felt sympathetic to the victims or that I abhorred the Nazis. Don't get me wrong, I still am, but I was more interested in how the Nazis carried out the systematic killing against one particular race with such precision and detail that resulted in millions of deaths before they were intercepted. For example, the Nazis have a sophisticated system of prisoners' record and way of identifying Jews by their facial dimensions as well as sorting out the myriad class of prisoners in the camp, a system of retribution for each type of offense even though all would result in death, a process of salvaging prisoners' uniforms and sterilising them before they were recycled for other prisoners after the death of previous owners, a comprehensive infrastructures system to run the concentration camps, a system to handle prisoners' possessions and distributing them and a system supposedly to be efficient but also dotted by the mischief of staff in the form of bribery - as told in the movie Schindler's List.

Stockpile of shoes from prisoners

There were three main camps -Auschwitz I, II, and III. I and II were the most talked about.

Auschwitz I was the original concentration camp, served as the administrative center for the whole complex, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people. The entrance to Auschwitz I was—and still is—marked with the sign "Arbeit Macht Frei", or "work makes (one) free". The camp's prisoners who left the camp during the day for construction or farm labor were made to march through the gate to the sounds of an orchestra.

Main entrance at Auschwitz I
(Arbeit Macht Frei - work makes you free)

Auschwitz I looked like a boarding school campus. Reminded me of Kyoto University campus

Fiona and I had a discussion about this camp. Taking away the atrocities that went on in the camp, Auschwitz I did look to us, like a proper boarding school campus. But it was through revelations of what went on in the camp that made the whole difference. The execution yard was between Blocks 10 and 11.

Wall of Death between Block 10 and 11 where prisoners were brought to be shot to death

Windows in Block 10 were closed to prevent prisoners from knowing what's happening

Crematorium I - 3 bodies are burnt at any one chamber

Auschwitz II, known as Birkenau was the largest and built as the "Final solution of the Jewish Question". It was an extermination camp where at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Gypsies were killed.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau

700 prisoners squeezed into this barrack!

One cell sleeps three - one column sleeps nine!

People were mostly transported there by train. That explains the train track in the middle of the camp. Incoming Jews were divided into those deemed able to work, who were then admitted to the camp, and those who weren't, who were immediately gassed. 60% of those who arrived - old men and women, children and the disabled, those deemed unfit to work - were sent straight to the gas chambers. The victims were told they were being brought to shower but instead gassed. They used Zyklon B, or hydrogen cyanide. I was told 1.5kg of Zyklon B could exterminate 2000 people at one time!

Then - new prisoners are shaved and cleansed before given prisoner uniform
Now

The more I read and see Auschwitz, the more questions I asked. How can one human have so much hatred against another human? How can technologies, which were created by humans, be allowed to end the lives of humans as well? How can anyone consider spending so much time and money to wipe out a race that was defenceless?

Trench hand-dug by prisoners

High-voltage fence surrounding Auschwitz II

Accounts from the witnesses who survived the camp were particularly heart-wrenching. Some of them left me feeling disturbed and thinking that life was once so cheap. The following extracts are those that left a deep impression on me:

An account from an SS officer: The job was assigned thus: three at the heart, three at the head. I took the heart. The shots were fired and the brains flew through the air. Two in the head is too much, they almost tear it off. Almost all of them fell to the ground without a sound. Only two of them it didn't work. They screamed and whimpered for a very long time."

"An officer gave the order: Men to the left! Women to the right!..eight words spoken indifferently, without emotion; eight short simple words, yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother"

One of the survivors was asked if she can ever forget what she went through, she replied, "It is as if you stand by a lake and throw a stone into the lake, you see a large ripple at the beginning. It gets smaller and smaller and then the water is calm again. But the stone is still at the bottom of the lake."

Photo collage of Jewish victims

"For evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing" by Edmund Burke

I was asked by some colleagues why I would consider spending the bank holiday in misery? My reply was simple. Auschwitz is a lesson and a reminder to us all regardless of race, creed or colour. It is a lesson about respect and tolerance. It is a grim reminder that even a nation that once produced the greatest poets, writers, scholars in the world, a nation that is now in the forefront of technology could be and was once fooled by one crazy person. This in itself reminds us only one thing: "the one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again."

Latest note:
I would highly recommend the following movies and documentary about Auschwitz and the Holocaust:
Documentary: Auschwitz: The Nazis & the 'Final Solution' (BBC, 2005) ...personal favourite
Movie: Life is Beautiful (1997)
Movie: Schindler's List (1993)

Fleeced - Part 2

2009-08-20T23:07:00.007+01:00

Three weeks ago, I wrote about how I was fleeced of £25 by a Pakistani.

Today I bumped into the swindler outside Waterloo Station. We came face to face with each other. I pushed my bicycle in front and stopped him. He didn't try to escape.

I raised my voice in public and said to him, "You have the bloody gumption to show up in Waterloo! This is my area! How dare you lie to me and cheat my money!"

I certainly drew lots of attention from the public. Knowing that Waterloo Station is constantly patrolled by police, I threatened to get him arrested in no time.

He tried to calm me down. He said he was trying to contact me but lost my number because he returned the mobile phone to the company he was working with. He was probably trying to pull a fast one but I knew he was BS-ing. I knew he didn't resign recently. I knew he wasn't with the company he said he was. I knew he didn't keep my number in his phone because I wrote it in a piece of paper for him.

But as I've already gotten over the loss, I decided to give him a long lecture instead. People walking pass gawked at us. I told him that he was a disgrace to the religion he used to cheat me.

"£25 is not a big sum to me. Keep the bloody money if you want. But I want you to know that you are a disgrace to your religion. Shame on you. You used Islam to cheat people - to cheat me and many others, I'm sure! I trusted you and you took advantage of it. You took the money and ran. You thought you could run away from me. No, I live in Waterloo. I live here! As long as you don't get your bloody ass out of this area, you will continue to bump into me. This is how you make your luck! Sorry but you chose the wrong person to cheat." I lectured.

He promised to return me the money and asked for my address and number. I told him not to bother. He insisted to have at least my number to prove his intentions. This time I gave the number and him another chance. I told him that it's up to him what he wants to do with it.

"You know I don't believe you anyway. I've already knew you're a con artist. Since you've showed up, let me tell you that I've given your photo and name to the police. You must have forgotten I had your ID! I called your previous employer and we have jointly made a police report against you. They've also given me details of where you lived and all your telephone numbers. Let me be very clear to you. Your records are with the police. People like you deserve to live in fear."

This must have gotten him really troubled. He knew he has lost the bargain with me. He promised to get the money back to me by Monday with the promise that I'll drop the case against him. I told him the number he's holding was the only opportunity left for him to prove it.

He tried to talk me out of this but I didn't want to talk to him anymore. I walked out of the conversation.

For the very first time, I felt extremely good for being a snob and said all that I've wanted to say to a criminal without the risk of being harmed.

Looks

2009-08-18T23:00:00.006+01:00

I was exploring a website recommended once by BBC's technology segment. It's a face transformation website.

I cropped one of my photos and played with the transformation. The first choice was to reverse my face into a baby's. It turned out like a killer Chuckie! In fact I discovered I have an extra set of teeth than I wished for.

Then, I went on to transform myself into a child and then an old man. It was really scary looking at myself becoming old. I looked dry and haggard.

Then there was a function to make myself an Afro-Caribbean. Hmm, I actually liked the way I look as an African! I've also made myself a Caucasian. I thought I looked like one of my colleagues in this one, and had I been one, I would most likely be another John!

Then I tried immortalising myself into a manga character. I thought this made me look like an evil manga character. I should show less of my teeth!
I went a little further to see how I would have looked 3 million years ago at the early curve of evolution. I must be the first fossil to be unearthed with a pair of spectacles!

I haven't found any of the transformation near to what I was, so I hope I wouldn't find myself near to what they say I'll be!

After coming out of the site, it's become clear that there is so much more to know in the world than our human understanding can understand and grasp. I am now more convinced there is such a thing as God.

London Pride Run

2009-08-16T23:42:00.008+01:00

The weather looked promising for the weekend so I checked the RunnersWorld website to sign up for a race. The "best 10k race in London" was happening on Saturday.

It's the London Pride Run, organised by the London LGBT runners. But it's not a run only for LGBT. It's also opened to the public. Places to run was filled two months ago. So I didn't get a place through the proper channel. One of the runners in RunnersWorld was injured. So I took over her place. She was very kind to give me her race number without asking me to pay. Feeling a little bit guilty, I bought her a box of chocolates from Marks and Spencer. So I hope that would help heal her injury faster.

The race was held in Victoria Park, down at London's East End and participated by 800 runners. As this was an LGBT event, there was a good mix of LGBT runners too. It was a strange run actually. I was surrounded by some males who were more feminine than females and ladies who were more masculine than males.

Victoria Park and Tower Hamlets AC clubhouse

The event was well-organised nonetheless. It was chip-timing. Yes, for a 10k race and only 800 runners, this is really something.

New system with chip deactivation after race?

Still, I don't know why it's the best 10k race. Not like the goodie bag came with a day pass to dress as drag queen or sexy underwears. Or perhaps there was a goodie bag for a 10k race was admirable? I don't know.

Breakfast and goodie bag to all runners

I didn't see much difference between this and other 10k races. Well, to be fair, the LGBT volunteers/marshalls did a marvellous job in organising this event and I had a good time in the race.

I smashed my previous PB with a time of 43mins 18secs.

Math play

2009-08-05T22:31:00.006+01:00

I received an email of a math play this morning. I thought this was quite clever and whoever thought of this must have plenty of time to do so!

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 +5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

1 x 9 +2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 +5 = 11111
12345 x 9 +6 = 111111
123456 x 9 +7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 +8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 +9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10 = 1111111111

9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

Finally someone has found a way to make mathematics as pretty as a Christmas tree.

The Idea of Justice

2009-07-31T00:54:00.001+01:00

Amartya Sen presented at the London School of Economics this week on his new book “The Idea of Justice”. I set the alarm to remind me book a ticket for the event. However, 800 tickets were snapped up in 5 minutes as soon as they went live.....read more

BBC Proms - Cambridge University

2009-07-26T22:07:00.005+01:00

Last Wednesday, the three of us attended the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, in conjunction with the celebration of Cambridge University's 800th year anniversary and great musical tradition.

In front of the Royal Albert Hall

This Prom was particularly interesting because everyone on that grand stage had a Cambridge connection. The choirs were from St John's and King's colleges. Five of the six composers either studied or taught at Cambridge. And a friend of ours was also in the choir.

The Proms lasted for more than 2.5 hours. Based on last year's experience, I found it strange that this time the Proms started with the national anthem - God save the Queen. When the song was sung, Priti tapped on my shoulder and asked to look back. She pointed at the seating behind us, "There. That's Prince Charles."

It then became clear he was there to grace the event. After all, he was from Cambridge too. The Vice-Chancellor was also present with him.

Prince Charles leaving RAH

The Proms started with an interesting contemporary piece of music. However, the second half of the play was too melancholic to my liking. Perhaps I don't know how to appreciate it. Overall it was a good night out with a good company.

Fleeced

2009-07-25T22:14:00.014+01:00

I was walking along the southbank. A decent man approached from the right. He looked desperate. He asked for help.

"Brother I need a favour from you", he took out his ID from the pocket and showed me, "I am a despatch and my vehicle has ran out of fuel".

I suspected something amiss. Deep inside I knew what was going to unfold. I expected he was going to tell me a sob story and then ask for money. It's something I have heard many times.

I brushed him off and told him I was rushing to the Royal Festival Hall to meet some friends, which was 15minutes from where I was. I told him I was already late. I looked at the time. It was 6.10pm. I showed him my watch and explained, "Look, I am supposed to meet my friends at 6. I'm already 10minutes late!"

I apologised and moved on. He came from the side and pleaded again.

"Brother please. I am an honest man. I don't have money with me now. I would be really grateful if you could help me. I am from Pakistan and I am an honest Muslim man trying to make an honest living in this country. Please trust me. I have a family and I am not what you think I am. I just need some money to refill the tank. Once I'm done with my delivery, I'll return you the cash. Please!"

I stopped and listened. In my heart I was doubting him. Then I started questioning my conscience. What if he was genuine? Why should I be another Londoner who's always wary of the public? Is there really no one in London that I could trust? What would I lose by helping him anyway, even if he was a fake?

I asked how much was he after. He said, "£25"

"£25?!!" I exclaimed. "Why do you need so much money for? It could last you a week!" I reasoned.

"Big vehicle, brother. It wouldn't last the day but still will help."

I asked for a collateral. He suggested his driver's license and mobile phone. But it wouldn't be appropriate since he needed both to drive and return my cash. I asked for his mobile number and ID. I took a photo of the ID. Only now I realised the ID was expired!

Mahmood Khan, the scam criminal

I agreed. We went to the nearest cash machine and I withdrew £25 for him. I didn't pass the cash to him immediately. I insisted to see his stalled vehicle. He said it was a mile away from where we were. I said I will still want to see it. Still, I felt something was amiss.

I called his mobile number and found the number didn't work. I told him that. I was waiting for him to convince me. He said it was in the car turned off. That was strange. Why would anyone put his phone in the car in an emergency??! The £25 was still in my pocket. I refused to let it off easily. I made him work for it. We walked a little further and stopped. He took down my number and name and promised to return call.

He sensed I wasn't comfortable with him. He reiterated, "Look brother, you can trust me ok. I am an honest man. I am Muslim. My religion forbids me to lie. I will go to hell if I lie."

I took little comfort from his words. I was weighing what I should do next. I thought we have taken each other for a ride too far for £25. It wouldn't worth my time for £25. That's what I pay for a 10k run here and the effort he took to fleece me, if he intended to, was much more than I would put in a 10k run.

I wonder who took who for a ride now. I already have in possession of his ID card and mobile number. I have his photo. I had the better side of the bargain now. He would have more to lose if he lied.

I didn't want to waste anymore time. I thought I had quite a good experience indulging and learning how the whole scam was taking place. I had enough. I passed him the notes.

He thanked and offered a hug. I backed off and wished him luck. He dashed to his delivery van, perhaps.

I called the Metropolitan Police immediately and made a report. The officer heard the entire story. But the officer was optimistic. He said I could be doing a good deed and have helped someone in trouble. He praised me for it. I was the pessimist. I told the officer that I wasn't uncomfortable with the £25 but the number that I rang from my phone. The engaged tone was a little disturbing.

I stopped short of being a racist. I didn't emphasise his nationality but I did emphasise of the need to be very concern with anything that has got to do with mobile phone, southbank, petrol and the month of July. He could immediately connect the dots.

I reinforced this by telling him, "You know, it's shocking what people can do with mobile phones nowadays. They can go with anything. You never know where they'll detonate next!"

The officer comforted me and asked not to worry too much. He took down my statement and thanked me for flagging this up.

I called the Pakistani swindler's office awhile ago. It was a despatch office and they work 24-7. I asked for verification of the person. They confirmed he has left since February this year. They gave me his other mobile number and house telephone number. I called both numbers and they didn't connect.

I reported to the office again. I was passed to the operations manager immediately. They considered this a breach of the company's security. Many more people could be swindled through the misuse of the company's ID. The manager was very concerned and promised he would raise the issue to his bosses and report the case to the police immediately. He also promised someone from his office will follow up the case with me come Monday.

Mahmood Khan is a disgrace to his religion. He obviously messed with the wrong guy. I hope and I believe the law will catch up with him soon. For me, I've had a good time with his ride even though I knew I would be fleeced. It's weird I allowed this to happen. Who would?!

I have lost £25 today but he has lost more. Mahmood Khan's life is now ruined. I have successfully made him a listed criminal, cracked the scam and got him having sleepless nights and living in fear of the law catching up with him soon.