Monday, July 16, 2007

Mod Tech

Mod Tech

I was having lunch with LL at the Food Loft in Centralworld. Typically, a very n ice food court with great service.

As usual, I am always late paying my phone bill (and astro, and electricity…)

My hand phone services has been interrupted because it has been overdue.

I had my Mac with me (thank God!). LL asked whether wi-fi is available at the Food Loft. Yes, it’s free for the first 30 minutes for the customers.

I switched on my Mac, log in into the network, surf maybank2u, and.. voila! My phone bill is paid. In less than an hour later, my phone service was reconnected. And as soon as it was connected, I received a call from D who just arrived from Hong Kong asking me out for dinner. Yeah…

I love modern technology…..

To LL & BG

This post is dedicated to LL & BG

One of the best host I have ever met

Yeah yeah I stay at their apartment for free whenever I am in Bangokok, but we’ve known each other for more than a decade!

LL now is a taitai since BG (a metallurgist), hard worker (and drinker and party animal) still have the time to do his PhD despite his busy schedule.

Back to my lovely host (and a personal shopper?). Like me, she is not the type of person who can just let the time goes by without anything productive. This is a wife who manage the household (well, it a job too) and domestic CFO. She is one of the CIMBs agency supervisors and she operate out of BKK via Skype and all…

When they moved to BKK, the first thing she did was taking up Thai language. Now, she can speak the language quite fluently and get around quite easily with the locals. I think BG would be lost without her, for sure.

Hey have 2 lovely cats, Kamahl and Cotton. Kamahl is a fatty, and Cotton is flirty. She keeps on following me everywhere; and yesterday was sleeping in my bed. How sweet. I miss my little (which is now big) Shemeq.

LL prepares the room before I arrive. Without fail, its like a hotel. You know with towels hanging properly in the bathroom, all the new set of toiletry and a couple of bottle of mineral water, a set of BTS commuter map and magazines on BKK points of interests.

LL, this is the fourth time I have been here since you and BG moved to BKK. Thank you for the wonderful hospitality every time I spend my short holidays in BKK.

One thing though, you are a very bad influence. You make me SHOP SHOP SHOP.

But, I like……..


See you both in Kuala Lumpur in August.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Bangkok Revisit

Welcome back to the land of tuktuks and massage parlors

As usual, I hang around LL the whole day since BG is busy with work. I just arrived 15 minutes and I was ordered to accompany her to Siam Paragon. Glad I went because the whole Bangkok is on SALE. It’s not MEGA sale. It’s BETTER.

And, as usual, we had lunch by the roadside, with the locals. Delicious and bloody cheap!

I was shopping the whole day with LL. She is a shop-a-holic, I m NOT. After shopping, she consolidate all the items purchased into one big shopping bag so that when BG (hubby) greets her at home she appears to be shopping only at one place. As a matter of fact, we went to 4 shopping malls today. 4 big ones.

I have to say, shopping can really make you happy (until the credit card bills arrive, of course!). We keep on convincing each other that we’ve got the best deal, better than KL and we need whatever we just purchased. It’s true! We do! Or else we wouldn’t be shopping.

Seriously, this is not my first time shopping in Bangkok. It is just a lot better than in KL. It’s cheaper, and ample of choice! Besides, when you are hungry, you can always chill at the food court where they have vast variety of food and, again, reasonably price. Service: EXCELLENT!

I ordered mango with sticky rice (each trip, without failed) for dessert at the food court. After a while they came back and said: sorry sir, the mango we have is not sweet enough. Could you wait for a few minutes for us to get better mango.

I was like: Yes, please.

I love this place.

Some of you might think Bangkok is always jam lah, dirty lah, sleezy lah bla bla bla! To me, that’s Bangkok. If its jam, take the BTS (skytrain). Sleezy? Go to the nicer venues which are available all over the city. Dirty? No lah! Go to the clean area lah.

Tomorrow, no more shopping. Just a day of relaxing. Breakfast / Lunch, massage, spa… (Ok lah, we have to check out just one more joint: Thomas Pink. I hope there is something affordable….

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

SAYONARA RB

It has been a decade with RB Group of companies. A long learning process and I love every bit of it. Of course there were bad days too but, I can hardly remember any of them. Looking back at it, it has been a nice sailing.

TSC

My greatest mentor, ever. A self-made man. Workaholic. He just doesn't switch off. Extremely creative and shrewd. One of the ex EDs of RB use to say: he can sniff where the money is. His brain is like ideas churning machine which turns opportunities into MILLIONS from ZERO. I have seen it, many times. A self-made man, still working despite his trying very hard to convince people that he has retired. To him, I think, money is meant to be made, not spent....


DS


Quite a number of friends have met him, even my family. My friends said, he is a cool boss. He is, big time. Very low profile and unassuming. Despite his simple (sometimes scruffy for his position) representation of himself, he is actually a strategist. I learned less is more from him. This man has countless friends. A loving father, a considerate boss and a romantic husband. But be extra careful, he is a charming man and girls are crazy about him.


TAR

An ex senior cabinet minister who I know since I was in college. Very British. A great Chairman of the Board. Without fail, he'd crack a joke or two in his speech or when chairing shareholders meeting. A man with vast experience especially in international political arena. He use to tell us about his meeting with Ayatollah and then Saddam Hussein. In h is room, hung on the wall a picture of him with Deng Xiopeng... and also a picture of his football team of Penang Free School. P Ramlee is one of them. He is in the 70's, still golfing. His contribution to the development of this country, international and local politics is definitely undeniable.


All these fine gentlemen have one thing in common. They are very successful in their profession and ventures yet humble individuals who treat me like their student / son / friend. The most privileged position to have in my job was to be able to discuss various issues and strategies with the 3 of them in one room. It helps me to understand the tapestry of the corporate world, its intertwinement with politics and royal houses....

Being in ONE room with these fine gentlemen is like diving into more than 100 years of combined experience.

Ahhhhh.....

What a decade!
One chapter closed.
One new chapter just opened.
Wish me luck!

Monday, July 02, 2007

WANTED WANTED WANTED WANTED

I am venturing into a new business entity soon and looking for a good Office Manager. You know like an experienced Personal Assistant or Executive Assistant.

Any recommendation?

The office: North Point Mid Valley.

Salary: Very attractive

Experience and background: Personal Assistant (with strong recommendation and reference)

To start soon.

HELP!

Bon Weekend




As usual, more often than not, I had a good weekend.

Didn't get to do my cycling because DS was not available for a spin in RRI's network of single tracks (bummer!). I really wanted to go but DS was not available. My Kiara buddy TIGER HILL was not contactable and just found out he was in The Land of the Rising Sun last week.

Luckily KLw came out with this brilliant idea to go canoeing in PD - Port Dickson. It was a good day trip. Since I was driving the shift stick, I decided to drive through the old trunk roads - the roads I used to ride my bicycle on several times and one of it was the Merdeka Ride when we rode to Batu Pahat from Bangi. (the slim and mean Zain was there too!) That was a great ride of the year!

Apart from being able to really exploit the handling capability of the shift stick on such roads, it is interesting to go through these roads as there are more things to see (or perhaps more food to eat?). We actually stopped by a couple of times to buy some dragon fruits and ate durian by the road side. The durian - SEDDAP GILLER!

I still remember one trip to PD right after the JE (Japanese Encephalitis - a disease that is spread to humans by infected mosquitoes in Asia, related to pigs too) outbreak, some smart ass doctored the "WELCOME TO PORT DICKSON" sign with a graffiti to:

WELCOME TO

PORK DICKSON

**oink oink image is from www.allposters.com