Author: Y C

Back on the ROC!

Lots of people, when they ask me “How’s it going… how are you?” My reply has been “I’m tired”  I am really, I just can’t fake it anymore.  6 weeks on the road since mid-May, I’ve travelled on Cathay, Singapore Air, China Airlines, to KL twice, Singapore twice, Jakarta, London, Hong Kong twice…. Loads of FF and hotel loyalty points, but I need a rest :o.

B- was already here when I came back on the 5th.  She’d done a great job on the new apartment to make it very homey.  It’s nice to come home now.  New beginnings for the both of us in many ways, from the apt, being away, catching up, and also celebrating her b-day as well.  So it’s been good.  We did some apt shopping together, got a new convection oven, microwave oven as well as accessories for her new Canon A-530 digital camera.  Apparently she only had 16Mb so automatically upgraded her to 1G so she’s got like almost 700 pictures and she’s excited about it :).

Brought back a lot of goodies from the States… I got my b-day gift in advance already and definitely some of the best gifts I’ve ever got :D.  She picked out this awesome watch and a crochet scarf :).  Is very handy already!

Hope everyone is doing well.  Keeping cool here in the hot and humid Taipei summer. 

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The last leg!!!!

Arrived at KL this afternoon… and almost predictably, my immigration  experience at KLIA was a facsimile of rush hour traffic … loads of people queued up and inching slowly forward.  A potpourri of Malaysian visitors from Republic of Yemen, India, US, Taiwan, Commonwealth countries, Japan etc.  Luckily I got there because soon after me, there was another couple of plane loads that pretty much filled up the snaking lines.  My time at the immigration officer takes up time now as they check out my passport and the stamps going along with it.  A well-travelled passport is a bit of a warning I guess because they’ll look through all the pages and if they see something, they’ll look at it some more.  Been getting that a lot in all my destinations – arrivals and departures.  I still think it’s cool though… but my 6 months passport validity is coming up soon and will need to go to AIT Taipei to get a new one in case they reject me from entering Taiwan (or elsewhere).  If I had more time, I’d do it in KL ’cause I know those folks better.

So back in my favorite KL hotel, Le Meridien.  Unfortunately their new Prime steak house isn’t open yet (mid July) but can’t wait for my next trip. Even so, the past 5 weeks of non-stop travelling has gotten me fat.  I wonder what my upcoming health checkup next Friday is going to say about me :s

I definitely need a lifestyle change I think but this travelling isn’t helping much. It’s really more mind over matter.  I should just step away from the computer!  At least having my Blackberry shut off hasn’t proved to be too devastating.  It’s off because I didn’t pack my charger cables and in Asia, getting BB accessories is really hard to do and my model, 7730 is old so it’s particularly troublesome.  Even asking the IT staff of the company is coming up zilch….

I’m going to decompress here in my hotel room this weekend and try to catch up on my personal emails and get back to my current project of establishing a new project management community, SdB+PM Forum.  We started out as a Yahoo Group joined by the LinkedIn and common interest and experience in project management. A year ago, what started as a hobby with a dozen or so people has grown to over 300 people world-wide :)!  We’ve adopted the SMF platform for expansion which I think is a good fit which allows for greater growth as a portal via Mambo if necessary.  A little lean on the frills and development but solid and simple.

Anyways, time to watch some World Cup matches!

Popping In ….

Haven’t blogged in a while.  Last week was in London for a Global IT conference at the Riverside Park Plaza hotel.  Cost of the conference for two days was 1500 sterling.  Fantastically crazy price.  I’ve been spoiled with the relatively low cost of Asian hotels at 5 star levels.  Riverside Park Plaza was pretty crappy blah :(.  Have to say that the Cathay Flight on business from TPE – LHR was great.  Cathay is certainly a top airline without the BA or Sing Air pricing.  Just excellent! 🙂

Tomorrow, on the way to Singapore and staying at the Shangri-La for Prince 2 training – Foundation and Practitioner.  Company standard.  Project Management is pretty common sensical stuff though.

Summer has arrived in Asia and I’m glad no more rain.  The humidity though… oh well.