Sleepless in Sydney

Sydney oh Sydney! What a beautiful city with its sprawling concrete skyline interspersed by the deep blue waters of the harbour. I had a wonderful time there over the Anzac day long weekend.

Admittedly, one of the main highlights of my Sydney visit was to see the lovely Miss Sam.
The first time we met, there were instant sparks between us and Miss Sam had visited Melbourne twice more since then.



Could this be the beginnning of something serious?



The Sydney aquarium was a really nice attraction.


The shark display captivated the masses as visitors walked through an underwater tube with these predatory kings of the sea swimming above your head.


I also had the opportunity to catch up with an ex colleague, Vik and his wife over dinner at the Chinta Ria restaurant on Darling Harbour, which just had some of the most authentic south east asian food other than asia itself.


Andy & Miss Sam messing around with our camera outside the QVB building in Sydney's central



The taronga zoo was absolutely amazing. Not so much in terms of the quality of the displays and variety of animals on show, this zoo if nothing else has breathtaking views of the city and the harbour.

5am on the island that never sleeps

I'm back home in Singapore!

Christmas 2007 was brilliant, with me spending the eve with my lovely housemates (a separate post coming up on that with photos)

Much has happened since then, I was trying hard to get home to Singapore for New Years on the 30th December and it was a last minute stroke of luck that I managed to get a seat on Singapore Airlines.

Prog girl came by early on Sunday morning to help me pack (it was more like supervising and then falling asleep on the bed than helping really....) and drove me to the airport.

8hours and many thousand miles later, I'm back in the tropical jungle heat of Singapore and going straight into the crowds and traffic to dinner with the family. It was mum's 60th birthday dinner which officially makes her a senior citizen complete with benefits like cheaper public transport and discount movies during the afternoon.

So far, I've been living the good life. Visiting the gym in the afternoons, eating the cheap and plentiful local food, and catching up with friends in the night.

New Year's eve was spent at Zouk with no other than French marathon DJ extraodinairre Laurent Garnier at the helm of things, bringing us on a 10hour journey of house, techno and everything in between.

Last night, I went to meet up with my buddy Kyo, who was teaching Salsa at the O-Bar. We ended up dancing a few rounds with 2 cute girls there and turned it into an instant mini double-date when we went out for a late dinner at 2am (Nobody seems to sleep in Singapore!). Turns out they were stewardesses with Singapore airlines who were in town for a few days.

So here I am, 5am on a Saturday morning and I just got back from another night out of hanging out with friends at Zouk and its time to get some shut eye to recharge for another big weekend in the Lion City that never sleeps!

800 miles from home

I’m 800 miles away from home and sitting in a café at Brisbane airport’s domestic terminal.

View from my seat at the Virgin Blue terminal.

An interesting shot within a shot, I took these photos on my mobile and sent the pictures via Bluetooth to my laptop. Red Rooster chicken salad and a cup of tea for my afternoon snack.

Actually I’m starving as lunch was hours ago and I’m still feeling sore from a hard gym workout last night at what I fondly nickname “The Dungeon”. The Fitness First branch at 320 Adelaide St in the city has a great windowless weights room in its subterranean basement, filled with big heavy dumbbells and barbells. Blood and guts is the order of the day, and I love working out there whenever I get time away from the office.

The past week has been a daze as I was up at 4.30am on Monday morning to catch a 7am flight. I’m up here again to work with the development team as they fix the defects from the last trial conversion. I’m also the only person currently tasked to work on the reconciliation aspect of the project, which accounts for every single record that we process and tracks that record from start to wherever it ends up. In essence, this is like auditing, except with data instead of cash flows. The business and external auditors will want proof that nothing falls through the cracks when we crunch, transform and spit out this tremendous amount of data.

I think I’m finally used to working as a consultant now. The short notice to fly interstate doesn’t even faze me this time around and I’ve rehearsed the packing of my luggage and toiletries like a marksman disassembles and reassembles his rifle with a map burned into his memory. I can be ready to leave for a week’s trip in under half an hour.

My toiletries bag is always filled with miniature versions of what I’d normally use, packed neatly and stored away in the little compartments. My electric toothbrush is charged and ready to be transferred to its clear blue plastic travel case, the battery good to last for a week.

My mobile has got the numbers of airport pick-up and transfer services in 2 different states which I use to avoid the nightmare that is queuing for a cab and dealing with smelly foreign drivers. Its always nice to have a guy in a suit holding your name on a piece of paper and offering a clean and comfy ride to your destination when you trudge off the plane.

I’ve also learnt the fine art of catching up on sleep during the interstate flights. I always bring a book to read while waiting to board the plane and when in the air, as it serves a dual purpose of feeding the brain and inducing sleep. There’s nothing better than falling asleep shortly after take off and waking up just when the plane touches the ground.

So here I am, the week before Christmas and I have never worked harder in my life before with all the overtime hours I’ve been putting in to make this project run. I’m hoping to go home to Singapore in time for New Years Eve, but all the flights are full at the moment and I’m stuck in limbo on a wait list.

Here’s hoping for the best anyway….

Pictures from Falls Creek

Its been a pretty full on week since the weekend that just past.

We left for Falls Creek at 4.30am on Friday morning to make the 5hr drive up.
It was almost 10am when we got there amidst pretty bad weather of strong wind and rain which meant the ski lifts were closed for most of Friday.

The accommodation was ok, with the 2 couples getting the better end of the deal with their own rooms equipped with queen sized beds.
Greg, Marika and myself had the honour of sharing the dorm room with double-decker, single sized bunk beds; I probably haven't slept in such uncomfortable conditions since I was in the army, not that we really got much sleep anyway with the excitement of a weekend away together and way too many Jägermeister and red bull shots during the first night

Irregardless, it was a tough challenge to learn how to snowboard. Nothing could possibly feel more unnatural being strapped into a board and having to use your body, knees and ankles to set the direction you want to head in. First lesson we learnt was that whatever your body feels it should do, ignore it! Its like learning to walk all over again.

I had a smooth start on the first try and forgot to secure the snowboard strap to my leg before I got the bindings on which resulted in a deadly runaway projectile snowboard zipping down the mountain and almost taking out a group of skiers before crashing into the village.



The view from the balcony of our apartment


Bad weather conditions of rain, wind and hail on the first day meant the ski lifts were shut. So we walked around the resort instead


The village center up in the snow


Getting ready to hit my first beginner run


Somehow did survive the run with the exception of some spectacular falls that sprayed snow everywhere


Group shot of the entire team


Me and Marika getting ready to hit a blue run on our third day of boarding


Just managing to skid to a halt for a quick photo before zipping off again


Pat who's a very experienced snowboarder cruising along taking a video of us

I survived the weekend of snowboarding to arrive back in Melbourne around 10.30pm on Sunday night, then I had to get out of bed the Monday morning at 5am to make a 7.05am flight to Brisbane for work! I swear to god, it felt damn bloody good to get back home on Tuesday night and sleep in my own bed for the first time in days.

Brisbane Day 1 + 2

Up in Sunny Brisbane now.....

Day 1
Brisbane is nice! I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised despite all the 2nd hand accounts from friends telling me how boring it is over here and the food is poor with nothing going on in the city. On the contrary, I found quite a few nice restaurants for food and drink and the usual gamut of small shops and stores. I’m staying at the lovely southbank area (bigger than Melbourne’s southbank) where it’s a bit of a tourist strip with the fancy restaurants, cafes and even an artificial beach right alongside the river.

Monday went by in a blur. Straight from the airport into the office and we sat in a meeting the whole afternoon with a manager and a contractor and I could hardly understand anything they were talking about as they knew the systems we were working on much better than I did.

By night, I had dinner at a nice steakhouse along southbank before getting on the CityCat for a scenic ride up the river to Brett’s Wharf and back. River transports like these are a fantastic idea! The catamaran was sleek, quiet and fast as it nipped from pier to pier dropping off office workers, students and city folk to their homes along the river.

I stood at the bow of the boat and just gazed into the Brisbane skyline, mesmerized by the city lights.

Day 2
The 2nd day in Brisbane was crazy, I sat through yet another gruelling long workshop session which could have been conducted in German for all I cared as it sure sounded like they were talking in another language I didn't understand. True to my guns however, I diligently took notes and put on my 'I'm on top of everything' face while ignoring the sinking feeling in my stomach. (Note to self: sinking feeling in stomach might also be due to crap coffee from downstairs)

It was a welcome relief when our manager pulled us out from the meeting early and back into the office for another long meeting with him instead. (definitely better than the meeting in german earlier)

That evening, our small team from melbourne went out for dinner by the riverside. It was nice to have the tab picked up by the company and since it started raining when we were through the meal, we had not much choice but to order dessert and more wine! =)

I'll try and upload some photos if I get the time later tonight or tomorrow...

Back in Melbourne, and leaving again !

I'm still tired.

I spent most of Wednesday hurtling through the air in a tin can with wings, flying from Singapore to transit in Kuala Lumpur for 2hrs, before taking off again to Melbourne.

I hate flying Malaysian airlines. No offence to the Malaysians out there, but comparing Malaysian airlines to Singapore airlines is like comparing economy to business class. Its the small details that count, like attitude of flight staff and quality of meals. I always frown at the supposed dinner that comes with the longer flights: what looks like a small baguette with some kind of stuffing, on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in cellophane. Yuck. Only bonus points I'll give are the episodes of Firefly and Extras on their in-flight menu.

Total flight + transit time = 12.5hrs. You can add another 1.5 hrs to that with Australian customs' warm and friendly methods of screening, x-raying, prodding, poking and sniffing every bag for possible traces of organic produce and illicit materials that might harm their precious farming eco-system. Somehow that episode of the Simpsons where Bart introduces the cane toad to Australia comes to mind as a pretty funny poke at the irony involved. Read more here

Thur 9am.
I really miss the coffee here in Melbourne. Nowhere else I've tried can compare or come close. Malaysia and Singapore was littered with dozens of Starbucks which make the most disgusting coffee I've ever tasted (but my gripe with bad coffee deserves a separate post later on). I got my usual skinny cappuccino with no sugar from Spiga downstairs, was even glad to see the regular blonde barista make my coffee.

Walking into the office and I hardly gotten into the chocolate sprinkled crema on the top of my coffee cup when Vik greets me and asked how the trip was, how the unpacking was going along. Great news, he said. Don't bother unpacking because you're gonna be flying up to Brisbane next week to help the functional team do data mapping at the Charlotte St office.

Huh? What?! I did a double take and pondered on this for a minute. Then I looked out of the window to see the freezing winter wind lashing out at people bundled in layers running across the street before a smile appeared on my face at the prospect of a few days up in sunny brissy weather. A further phone conference later that afternoon with our guys up there confirmed the finer details: I'll be flying up there on Monday morning with another contractor and returning on Thursday.

Did I mention that I like my job and company at the moment? Well I do.



Almost finished unpacking......... almost there...........

Resolutions

4.30am, Singapore (post Zouk)

So here I am, stepping into the realm of the blogging world finally.
I did make a resolution eons ago to make an effort to try to improving my creative writing skills but procrastination reared its evil head time and time again.

One can however argue that as with all new technologies, it takes time for it to be improved and mature. So I'm reassuring myself that its with remarkable 20-20 hindsight that I was procrastinating to give the blogging technology time to develop and mature to what it is today. Thanks goes to Tammy for pushing me over the edge at dinner last night by confirming that she would bother to read my ramblings which reassured me somewhat that I won't be the equivalent of a crazy drunk in the online street corner talking to himself.

The past 2 weeks have been exhausting, I was in Kuala Lumpur attending Accenture's Core Analyst school program where we all learnt the necessary skills to talk the talk, walk the walk and deliver value to clients as an Accenture analyst. Its incredible to learn that the company has its own methodology and model for practically everything under the sun with pretty graphics and diagrams to support. I won't be surprised if I needed to make a oven roast and they already had a methodology in place to deliver to you the ISO9000 best practices for roasting a bird in the oven.

Seriously though, it was a fantastic networking opportunity to get to know all the other analysts from the Asia pacific offices. In our group we had: Japanese, Indians, China'rians, Koreans, Singaporeans, Australians. Great fun was had by all, in spite of the gruelling 10hr days in class and working in teams with obvious language barriers in place. The Japanese were great fun, clicking away on their digital pocket-sized English to Japanese translators in class and getting pissed funny drunk when you go drinking with em.

I'll post up some photos from the past 2 weeks when I get back to Melbourne and organize my stuff. (and of course figure out how to upload photos in blogger)

Meanwhile, my bed beckons me and I'm going to recharge my batteries for the few days I have left in Singapore to tackle the Great Singapore Sale and play catch up with friends


Gd'nite!
..... Andy