Triscribe

Category: KL/Ipoh, Malaysia

  • Curry Rendang

    Arrived in KL yesterday afternoon.  After a bit of a mix up with the pickup whereby the company forgot to inform the hotel of my change in plans, I finally got on the road back to the hotel.  Quite posh @ Le Meridien the newest member of the Starwood Hotel chains.  Racking up the loyalty points.  Even get free laundry service each day I’m here.  Service is quite nice, better than Westin Chicago and The Essex House (formerly Westin) and those were really nice.

    I relaxed and didn’t turn on the computer much but BlackBerried (I love verbing nouns) a couple of times.  Today, slept in, had a leisurely breakfast then headed over to Suria KLCC for some shopping.  Picked up a new navy blue slacks, a new billfold style wallet (to hold the extra large size HK dollars) and belts (buy 1 get 1 free).  In addition to that spree, I went to town on some books at Kinokuniya getting some English books for my English students and a couple of management books for myself and colleague.

    Came back and met up with some old M’sian colleagues and chatted in the lobby lounge.  Evening, went out for dinner with a PM e-colleague who I finally met up and another PM trainer colleague.  I always have a good time when I come back.

    Now I look forward to a hugely busy 5 day meeting fest with conferences, meetings, project planning and all fun stuff.  Going to be a long week.

    March Madness seems to have lived up to its namesake this year.  Good :).

    Cheers all!

  • Belated Happy New Year Greetings

    Thanks FC for the always enjoyable year end recap. One of the things I look forward to now that I can’t do it in person.

    I’ve been traveling a lot, actually almost constantly for the past 6 months now. Currently back in the hometown, Ipoh Malaysia . B- and I have been running errands and took a couple of days off to visit Damai Laut (see previous postings) at the Swiss Garden Hotel Damai Laut. The trip started out very nice, our stay was extremely relaxing and we bummed around a lot in bed watching TV, eating and sleeping. But the experience leaving the resort was very disappointing and leaves much to be desired. In terms of the overall experience, I think it was bit better than the Mutiara Burau Bay Resorts Langkawi except for the poor spa service and travel arrangements from the resort to Lumut bus station.

    Next stop to KL for some meetings and a B-‘s cousin’s wedding to attend. Tonight is a family dinner for my cousin who’s getting married tomorrow in Ipoh. Non stop eating of course but getting slower in my old age. Can’t pack it down like I used to :-(. I suppose that’s a good thing. It’s sobering when you’re insurance shopping :-|.

    Limited email and internet (by design) to enjoy myself here. Let’s see how it works out.

    Cheers all,
    =YC

  • Posting the FF Miles

    Back in Kuala Lumpur today. Last night, spent some QT with friends over dinner and drinks, Choya Umeshu over a big block of ice. Great stuff :D!

    This weekend, me and B- had an extra helping of sushi and sashima and it was all good. Taipei definitely was festive with X-mas with bus drivers, store personnel all getting into the act and dressing as little Santa helpers.

    Kuala Lumpur is hosting the ASEAN meeting this week. It’ll be fun and hectic here while I do my second training for project management.

    In a month I’ll be back in the States. Woooooo.

  • Running around

    Getting ready to head out for 2 meetings and then a close mad dash to KLIA for my mid afternoon flight. It’ll be a Mach 4 shave.

    Looking forward to coming back again. So much to do in Taipei once I get back. I heard another Typhoon is on the way. So you guys come out of the rain yet?

  • More Malaysia

    Ramadan celebrations and the 9-God Festival for Buddhists are all happening this past week. Just came back to KL from Ipoh. Got in a little late and luckily picked up a Chinese taxi-driver. The bus terminal is a bit rough around there at night…. reminds of the bad times of the Port Authority.

    Checking in and eating some famous Ipoh egg tarts.

  • I’m surprised we missed this…..

    Craving Hyphenated Chinese Food

    Awesome article and review of the kinds of “Chinese Food” there is out there… Makes some interesting points on the food and immigration patterns.

  • Training

    I’m in Malaysia and the weather has just been fantastic. Flew in Saturday morning, day before the unfortunately named Typhoon Longwang. From KLIA went directly up to Ipoh to see my cousin who was on holiday from China. It was nice as my uncle’s family was all back and could spend time with them. Always enjoy that greatly. Definitely a Mastercard moment.

    Sunday, came back down to teach a Project Management 5-day Boot Camp class of 16 people who will mostly sit for the PMP cert exam. A few glitches with the logistics created some problems and we’ve been scrambling to fix things up. US HQ held up the books and materials and then shipping seemed to have it stuck in a facility somewhere. Its not easy to do training 9 hours on your feet and trying to not bore people to death. Not to mention that while the material isn’t new to me, their presentation of it is so had to tailor on the fly my presentation. So far, I think so good, and enjoying myself, but got 3 more days of this. Wish me luck.

    Oh, and Malaysia is really nice…. I might make that circle complete after all……

    =YC

  • En Route ….. still

    I thought after thousands of miles of traveling I know pretty much most of the “finer print” stuff related to travel. I was mistaken. Apparently, under the code “G” for group, everyone under that code must travel together. So in my case, me and my wife with the plane tickets in that group needed to check-in and board together. We didnt’ know that until B- needed to stay back in Malaysia. I thought I’d just go ahead use the ticket and reschedule B-‘s portion. Bzzzt, thank you for playing. So spent the day scrambling to find tickets back to Taipei.

    Thank God for JetStarAsia, which I think will really compete head to head with AirAsia operating out of Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. It is now much cheaper to fly into and from Singapore Changi to destinations supported by ValueAir and JetStarAsia. So much so that there’s no need to fly into KLIA as the bus tickets from Singapore’s Golden Mile on Beach Road costs no more than US$7.50 to KL’s Puduraya. There’s about a dozen or so bus lines that do this trek and lots of people use it. You can save hundreds of dollars just by doing that if you’re willing to deal with the inconvenience of a 5-6 hour bus ride into KL. I am.

    Having said that though, my trip last night was a real pain in the ass. Thought I was buying a Grassland bus from KL -> Singapore but found that it was really a ticket for Eltabina Ekspress. Well, the bus was okay, decent shape and not too full so I was able to lounge out for the bus ride down. It was getting to the Singapore’s customs that became a problem. I got stuck behind a bus load of Thai migrant workers. The individual time for custom’s to process them took about 5-7min each. I was standing in line for about 30+ minutes. Just enough time for my bus driver to leave me there at Singapore customs’s in Woodland. I was pissed needless to say.

    Luckily there were plenty of taxi’s at 5am there and I was dropped off at the nearest MRT station. For SGD 2.90 I traveled from there to Changi Airport. One of the cheapest, cleanest, efficient and worry free trip one can take anywhere. Trip took about an hour with the two transfers along the way.

    Now I’m banging away at one of the many free Internet terminals here…. can’t focus on the technical writing I need to do so I’ll just have to flush this day, relax and go with the flow. Next week will be a doozy — faced with having to move my office, apartment into a new place without B-‘s super efficient packing and cleaning skills. And having to finish some deliverables….

    Thank God for coffee… I’ve fallen off the wagon. Oh well. Such is life.

    BTW, based on the news reports, the New Orleans Katrina disaster seems totally off the wall. Is it worse than it reads? Tsunami devastation we’re talking about there? FEMA another disaster of a Federal Agency….

    Laters,
    =YC

  • It’s summer doldrums

    So global warming is the real deal….Scorching hot all around the world.

    This past few days in Ipoh, even the locals are complaining that it’s been really unbearable. And I thought it was just me. Lamenting about the lack of I-infrastructure here, making it difficult to get online without finding a nearby I-cafe. There are some nice ones. Currently borrowing my cousin’s Streamyx system. Satisfactory.

    Some days I just need to vent and wonder why. I”m tired, hot, and over-stuffed (from the non-stop eating), over-socialized and just need some time alone. I’ve got to get some paperwork out for the latest PMBOK 2004 rrevisions and then tomorrow, 6:30am ride to KL for two meetings, one with the US Embassy and then another in Petaling Jaya. Doing it without wheels will be challenging as M’sia has become a motorized country – like California. No wheels? SOL.

    It’s been good to visit family here and getting to know M’sia again. As I get older, I realize that all the times that I spend with my family here are the happy times for me. Family is important. All the rest, I leave it in God’s hand.

    =YC

  • Ipoh and another year under the belt

    Back in the clan hood this past week. Came over for a number of reasons. Mostly to attend a conference on IT Project Management. You can find out more about it from the Mastering IT Project Management: Best Practices in Asia Pacific brochure

    Met quite a number of important people associated with Malaysia’s Cyberjaya program Multimedia Super Corridor. The Multimedia Development Center is again pushing hard to the world companies. It’s an impressive area and definitely reminds me of Silicon Valley but with nicer palm trees. While a nice achievement, there’s still a lot of work to do and more push to speed up development to be world-wide competitive, not just SE Asia or ASEAN competitive.

    Also taking care of some personal things and then head back to Taipei next week. Reacquainting myself to the food again. A lot of nice things :).

    Cheers,
    =YC