Roaming sucks!

I seem to be getting my sms ONE DAY LATE! Thats not the only problem. Some sms comes in broken into half.. and i wont get the other half until the next day!! I dont understand.. i'm paying so much monies for roaming and this is what they are doing to me?!?!?

Funnily enuf, this only happens when i'm here in europe/uk. When I was in Cambodia, I dont hv this prob. Speaking abt charges... my phone bill sky rocketed to around RM350 for the 3 wks stay!! and this is only minimal call made.. mostly only sent sms. Sigh...

The other irritating thing is that I keep getting the same sms damn alot of times!!! On avg I think I get them like more than 10 times before it decides to stop. Frus man just deleting sms... The only good thing about this is when my bf send me nice, sweet sms and I keep getting them for like a day.... it really brighten up my day... :)

Hamburg

As I promised, some pics taken in Hamburg. Remember I was only there for 2 days, i.e. dont hv time to explore the place at all except for the path I took walking from the hotel to the office & the car journey to & from the airport and hotel! I am starting to understand why ppl say business travel is no FUN!

Max is always with me, everywhere I go... so cute rite. This was taken in the hotel room.

















Morning view from outside the hotel restaurant.

















The walkway to office besides the lake. Bloody slippery to walk on snow on non-spikey shoes! Luckily didnt slip and fall on my face...
















The view of the lake besides the walkway. Its soo cold until the lake is frozen!

WEIRD!

I have been forbidden from my own blog!!! Anyone can explain to me why pls???!!??

First Day in London

The world is getting smaller and smaller. I bumped into my ex-EY partner while waiting to get out of the plane upon arrival in Heathrow. See, even going to another continent also will bumped into ppl from KL. On top of that, my ex BOSS!

We were both sitted upstairs in business class, with me in front and she at the back. Thats why didnt see her at all. Me no need to walk to the back you see. The wash room is in the front. She told me she's here to attend her sis wedding.

I told my manager here that I bumped into her, and he asked me whether she was on economy class or business class. It would be quite funny to see her in economy class and me in business class... it would really justify why I left EY!! haahahahaha But of course, it didnt happen.

I'm just curious if she would compare the benefits between EY employees and MNC employees... Maybe then she will not be so 'angry' or feel betrayed when ppl leave...

Off to Hamburg tmrw for 2 days!

Assignment No 2 - HELLO LONDON!

Hv been tryin to get ready for my second assignment... Back to London!! This time its for a longer period... 3 weeks! Within that 3 weeks, I'll be going to Hamburg for 3 days.

Everyone has been quite 'envious' of my current jet setter lifestyle. A part of me thinks that "Wow! I have gotten quite far in my career path... to be able to fly around for work (which is what I wanted to do." The other part of me is thinking "How long will I be able to sustain this kinda lifestyle?".

In all honesty, its not all that nice... visiting different places & meeting diff ppl are probably the nicest thing abt this job. What's 'not so good' ? I can list down a whole bunch of things:

• Being away from loved ones for a long period of time
• Screwing up my body clock, esp when it involves going to diff time zone
• Eat like a pig! I think i hv put on like 2 kg from my last trip
• High expectation from the bosses. If not, they wont send me ard rite?!?!
• You get too tired at nite after work to do / think about anything else.

So you might be thinking, since there are quite a few 'not so good' things, why i still wanna take up this job? I think maybe cos I love the challenge, I wan to experience different things. An ex-colleague's mother told me before I joined "You're too comfortable in EY already! Time to experience other things"

Of course I dont like to face challenges ALL THE TIME. But sometimes its good to hv a challenge. It sort of test you how far you can go and perform. When you fail, it gives you a chance to improve on areas which you're not good at.

Cambodia Pics

You can head to Flickr to view the pics I took while I was in Cambodia --> http://www.flickr.com/photos/34674549@N00/

Took quite alot of pics but only loaded the highlights.. enjoy :)

Bye Bye Phnom Penh!

I know I promise to put up the pics.. but I was too lazy last weekend. Must spent quality time with my babe and sleep! heehehehe Will try n upload them this weekend.. I promise.

Today is my last day in Phnom Penh... been here for 3 weeks.. time really flies.. in a flash and I have complemeted one assignment! How do I feel? Not too bad.. helped the general auditors with 2 processes and I came up with 2 memos... but of course since I'm new, am not too good in writing the memos their style. But it has been a fun process, ppl here are very nice and helpful. Of course being an auditee sometimes they tend to be abit defensive and question every sentence you put in the report. Overall it has been a good experience!

Next stop, London & Hamburg. Will be flying off to London for 3 weeks in another wks' time. In between, will be going to Hamburg for 3 days. Seems like its snowing in Hamburg.. its gonna be bloody cold!!! :S

Cambodia!

I know, we have not been updating the blog. Am starting to wonder if Dav is aware that we have a blog... heehehehe

I've been quite busy for the past 2 weeks cos I'm on my first assignment with BAT in Cambodia... Phnom Penh to be exact. Been here for 2 weeks already. Going home tmrw for the wkend and fly back here again on Mon for another week.. so this blog will be mainly on Cambodia.

The team consists of 6 ppl (2 singaporean, 3 malaysian & 1 cambodian). We've been given 2 cars & drivers to send us to the places we want to go. Of course, mainly for travel to and from hotel and office. But of course, all meals are taken outside the office. We have been living like expats here... makan also makan in expat restaurants. Been having really good food. Didnt really dare to eat local food cos my stomach is not good... even then I had some stomach problem for a few days.

First thing we did upon arrival was to have superb vietnamese lunch in the city then my boss took us to a genocide museum called Tuol Sleng or S-21. It was quite scary and sad to see the things the Khmer Rouge regime did to the ppl here. Apparently during 1975 - 1979 a few million ppl was killed. You can find out more at this site.

Last wkend the team flew to Siem Reap for 2 days to visit Angkor Wat. It was a superb trip! It was really amazing and it was quite scary and tough to climb the steep stairs all the way up to the top of the Wat. Also managed to catch the sun set on top of a mountain with a great view of Angkor Wat.

Then this week, I had to go to one of the small province to follow the sales ppl selling cigarettes in the province. OMG!! Its like some kampong 20 yrs ago! Hotel was horrible... wont dare to go back there again.. apparently the hotel is haunted.

I will upload more pics in flickr when I get home this wkend.

Flight Attendant

A joke I came across while surfing other ppl's blog... enjoy!

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A British Airways passenger cabin was being served by an obviously gay flight attendant, who seemed to put everyone into a good mood as he served them food and drinks.

As the plane prepared to descend, he came swishing down the aisle and announced to the passengers, "Captain Marvey has asked me to announce that he'll be landing the big scary plane shortly, lovely people, so if you could just put up your trays, that would be super."

On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed that a well-dressed rather exotic looking woman hadn't moved a muscle.

"Perhaps you didn't hear me over those big brute engines." he said, "I asked you to raise your trazy-poo so the main man can pitty-pat us on the ground."

She calmly turned her head and said, "In my country, I am called a Princess. I take orders from no one."

To which the flight attendant replied, without missing a beat, "Well, sweet-cheeks, in my country I'm called a Queen, so I outrank you. Tray up, bitch."

Research on Cambodia

Am doing some research on Cambodia as I will be heading to Cambodia next week for work. Was reading about the visa requirement to enter the country when I came across this paragraph...



Not sure if you can read it... basically the website says "Visa can only be extended in Phnom Penh at the inconveniently located Department for Foreign..." My god!! How funny is this?? (ROTFL) A country telling its potential tourists that it has a very inconveniently located immigration department??? Haahahahahaaaa This is truly a first!

You can read more from the title link.

Mahjong

wwaaaaaaaa!!! (crying) lost alot of money to Mr. Gan yesterday nite over blackjack!

started the nite with learning how to play mahjong... got no experience at all and yet i won all the mahjong game!! mr. gan got very frustrated.. i think cos he didnt really get the game and at the same time losing.... then he wanted to play blackjack... n so i started losing my winning in the last 3 games to him.

i think i have the talent to play mahjong. will try to enhance my skill by playing more! muahhahahahaha

New Gadget!

Yay! Finally got my lazy bum to Sungai Wang to get myself a new digital camera... after much thinking n advise from the camera experts, I hv finally decided AND bought the new Canon Digital IXUS i zoom. It is also called Canon PowerShot SD30.

What's the damage ?? It costs RM1655 and the package includes the following:
1. Canon camera n the custom accesories
2. Canon IXUS Leather case
3. Sandisk 1.0 GB SD Memory Card
4. Crystal-PRO Screen Protector
5. Litepro Memory Card Holder Case

It comes in 4 colours (black, purple, red & gold) and I choose red. It even has a remote control!

Amir & I reckon the camera looks like a handphone from a far... havent really played with the camera yet. But will try n put up some pics when I come around to installing the software... so excited!

While he is away...

Been gambling .. twice since I got back. Was kinda lucky... only bet very small amount but still win in total approx RM 21.. heheheheh

Am having major probs adjusting my body clock to m'sian time.... can u believe it, already been 3 days since I got back and yet I"m still awake at bloody 4am!!! sigh... seriously dunno wat to do...

Been reading to kill the time.. besides that, a friend took me to zouk's ghetto heavan tonite... My god... you wouldnt believe it... its the first time I saw SOOO many black ppl in M'sia!!!! I was told that there will be alot of malays... so I was expecting malays... but then its not true... there were more black ppl!! AMAZING! no offense to anyone.. just merely pointing out an observation I made... plus this was only my second time in zouk.

I'm back

Not really, just reached LA last night. The holiday was great. I had a great time meeting new friends and eating unhealthy foods.

I took the train Coast Starlight from Union Station, downtown LA to Oakland, before taking a bus to San Francisco (SF). The whole journey was to scheduled to take about 11hrs. But series of unfortunate events happened, resulting a 4 hrs delay. Someone died from a train and car collision, this very train could be the train I'm in, if not because we stopped to let them pass first.. I reached SF at ard 3am in the morning and was dumped downtown without any direction on where to go. It was supposed to be 9 blocks away. In the end, I took a cab. Checked in the hostel and went to bed. The room stank of BO (I found out later on that it was because of the previous guy that slept on the bed that I was on, yuck).

Anyway, just a brief info on the hostel that I was staying. It's about USD25 a day, with new towel everyday, free breakfast and dinner (Mon, Wed, Fri). There's open mic performance, pub crawl, and etc activities there. It's a bargain. So check out Green Tortoise, the next time you travel to San Francisco.

I've met up with this German guy there, that came for an interview/holiday. We made plans to go around together. Great guy with loads of love for his hometown, Berlin. I guess we had something in common, being so far away from home, families and loved ones. I'm missing every second that I'm not around KL since day one.. Steph, my family, and friends. I love you guys.

The 2nd phase of the trip was to be Carmel/Monterey. I loved this place for the simple reason that it's near the sea. Anyway, I have updated the photos there, do check them out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidseow/.

To Patrick, Robin, Claudia, Deryn, John, Pat, and the rest. Thanks for making this trip such an enjoyable one. I had loads of fun meeting you guys. Keep in touch.

Beer bottle EXPLODED in my freezer!

My friend gave me a bottle of China beer "Tsingtao" from Kuching for me to try. She brought it to my plc yesterday nite when I had some friends over for drinks and to play cards. Seeing that I have kept some can beers in the freezer for everyone's consumption, she also left the beer bottle in the freezer thinking that we will be drinking it the nite itself.

Then another friend advised me not to keep the can beers in the freezer too long as it will explode... So few hours later, since no one wanted the beer and not alot of them wanted to drink.. those who did, drank whiskey, I very consciously shifted the can beers from the freezer to the fridge. Of course I have forgotten about the beer bottle.

After a few rounds of blackjack, everyone went home either happy (from winning) or sad (obviously from losing). And I, so smart... started cleaning up the hse and went to bed. Didnt wake up till noon, then went out for coffee. Didnt even open the fridge until nite time... opened the freezer lookin for food, it smelled weird... saw some stains on the door... then finally saw the beer bottle.. all cracked with beer stains all over the freezer door... the beer bottle EXPLODED! Glass bottle some more...

Spent half n hour cleaning up the beer stain, the broken glass, washing the freezer.... wasted la.. didnt even get to try the beer... well thats the highlight of my day ...... :)

Tmrw is working day liao... and i still cant adjust my bodyt clock back to local time! gonna be so tired tmrw...