Friday 31 August 2007

One week in Johor

Day 1 (Sunday)


Here's an update for my first ever outstation job with another 2 MALE colleagues. The flight was scheduled at 815am but there was a slight delay which was rather predictable.



Can see the rainbow?


Thick white clouds

Estates

After 35 minutes, we reached the Sultan Ismail International Airport which is also known as Senai International Airport. This airport is much better than LCCT as they have MarryBrown, Lavender Cafe&Bakery, Dunkin Donuts, Coffeebean, Famous Amos compared to LCCT's only McDonald's and Asian Kitchen.


We couldn't start working on that morning because the manager wasn't around to assist us so we decided to check into our hotel first. The name of our hotel is Sofitel. I thought Sofitel is some 2 or 3 stars budget hotel but I was so wrong. We headed straight to the taxi counter to purchase a coupon which cost us RM 10. Actually for 3 person with luggages, RM 10 is cheap lar but bloody hell, the taxi ride is only 2 minutes. So freaking near.


Sofitel Palm Resort is a 5 star resort hotel with three distinctly individual 18-hole championship courses and voted No.1 in Johor.


The reception


This is one of Sofitel's restaurant. This Japanese restaurant caught my attention once I looked at the name, So Ba Sei. If you can read chinese, the last word means Star. If you translate the words into Cantonese, this restaurant's name is SOH BA SING. Still don't get it? Your Cantonese sucks.
The swimming pool from different views



By the way, they also have an Olympic size swimming pool, sports facilities, bowling, snooker, gymnasium, jacuzzi, sauna and etc etc.

The bar

The garden... Oops, I mean the view of the garden from my balcony

Ok, let's proceed to my crib. I am going to stay here for 4 nights. Each of us has one room. It's impossible for me to fall off with a bed this size.






Spacious bathroom


Feeling jealous? Yea, I probably will as well but guess what. We are only entitled to free buffet breakfast everyday. That means our lunch and dinner will be on our own. Fair enough. But this resort hotel is far away from the town and the nearest is Kulai. We can't afford to travel there every evening just for dinner. The price of one way journey to Kulai from Sofitel is RM 25.

For the first ride, the hotel called a taxi for us and we had to pay RM25 and we reach Kulai's shopping complex which is also called the IOI mall. It's something like Summit USJ shopping complex but the USJ one is better.








We had our lunch there and went shopping for grocery. These are my meals from tonight till Wednesday night.




That's all for now. I am going for a swim before I get my ass to work tomorrow. Thank God, Man Utd won Tottenham 1-0 that night.

Day 2 (Monday)

We were entitled to free morning breakfast everyday at the Ishwara Cafe. Bacons, fried kuay teow, nasi lemak, buns, nestle koko crunch, honeystars, cornflakes, pineapple juice, guava juice, manggo juice etc etc. The nicest part is having your breakfast facing the swimming pool.

After a long day at work, the kind station manager brought us to Johor Bahru for seafood dinner. The journey took us around 30-45 minutes and according to him, the food is delicious, cheap and atmosphere is way above average.


The chefs are all Orang Asli


Dining above sea waters and facing the Singapore port.

Too busy eating and forgot to take pictures of the food. =_="

When we reached the hotel, the time was already 10pm. I took a quick swim as the hotel restricts customers to swim from 11pm to 7am. From 8pm to 11pm, you swim at your own risk.




Day 3 (Tuesday)



Today is the official launching date for AirAsia flights from Macau to Johor Bahru. The lucky passengers who reached the arrival hall were greeted by Dato Tony Fernandes and a few more big shots. The goodies bag contain souvenirs and postcards given by Malaysian Tourism Board with the tag VISIT MALAYSIA YEAR 2007. The funny thing that I noticed was that almost all the passengers look like Malaysians and Singaporeans who just came back from gambling in Macau. Welcome, my fellow Malaysians and Singaporeans to Malaysia!!!



(L->R)

1) YB Dato' Haji.Latiff bin Yusof; State Secretary Johor Bahru

2) YBhg Dato' Tony Fernandes; Group CEO of AirAsia

3) YAB Dato' Haji Abdul Ghani bin Othman; Chief Minister of Johor

4) YB Encik Freddie Long Hoo Hin; EXCO for Tourism and Environment, Johor Bahru

5) YBhg Dato' Kamarudin Meranun; Deputy Group CEO of AirAsia






During the press conference, I too joined in the fun and



I was this close to them and managed to get some nicer angles compared to other reporters. LOL



Better get back to work since I sneaked out for almost an hour already. That evening, my senior who was engaged in another assignment in JB came to find us and took us out for dinner. We had...

Tom Yam Fried Glass Noodle


Malat super spicy steamboat



Cheese baked rice with sliced turkey ham

After dinner, we went to play 2 games of bowling at Ampang Superbowl. My senior and I were very confident in beating the other 2 colleagues who only played a few times in their life. Guess what, both of us were humiliated by the 2 amateurs. I have never gotten so low marks in my life before since my early secondary school days. Anyway, I blamed the lane as it wasn't flat, the bowling ball wasn't round enough and the bowling pins were too heavy. Felt so much better after that.

When I reached back my hotel room, I wasn't feeling very well and vomitted my dinner out. I guessed it was food poisoning as my other colleague experienced the same thing as well. Yummy!!


Day 4 ( Wednesday)


For the whole day, I don't have any appetite to eat and only had bread for lunch. We finished our Johor task early and went back straight to hotel to rest. Since it was our last day in this wonderful hotel, I went straight for the jacuzzi, a 15 minutes sauna session and 30 minutes swim. By the way, it's so relaxing to soak in the bath tub filled with hot water and lie down for 30 minutes. I did that everyday.



Day 5 (Thursday)


All good things come to an end eventually. Originally, we were supposed to leave on Friday but we had to be in KL on Thursday to attend a meeting but due to some miscommunication, our flight itinerary wasn't changed from Friday to Thursday so we had to take a bus back to KL from Skudai. We bought the VIP seater bus which cost RM24 for each ticket.

At the sales office, I saw this notice.


Grace Tan yang Bertauliah, I found your favourite word in Johor!!!

The bus ride was almost 6 hours and this fella is more VIP than us. He got his own bed the bus.

I bought myself a plane!!!
RM 139.00 !!!!!

Saturday 25 August 2007

Quick update

Hmm...It's been quite some time since I update my blog because I have been quite busy at work. Imagine spending only 5-6 hours of sleep and the rest of the hours are spent on travelling and working in LCCT.

Nothing really special happened since the day I met Datuk Tony Fernandes and Sir Richard Branson. The only recent one was celebrating Grace Chng's birthday at TGIF, The Curve. One thing nice about celebrating birthday sessions in TGIF is that the waiters and waitresses will request the birthday boy/girl to do something before they mumble sing their own version of birthday song. After we got our desserts, I went over to one of the waiter and asked him to prepare the cake that I brought along and asked him to embarrass Grace to the max. Yea, they did. We forced her to stand on the table and we requested her to sing the BARNEY song with a bottle of sauce as her microphone. She claimed that she don't know the lyrics and we had to sing along with her. We managed to sing the first few lines and surprisingly Lin Lin can sing the whole song. That's 18th of August.

On the 21st of August, I received my exam results. It was kinda disappointing but life goes on anyway. I was very anxious the whole day and kept refreshing my hotmail every single 5-10 minutes.

Oh well, on the bright side, I enjoyed my working days in LCCT as I managed to experience alot of things that people can't. I visited the hangar, went close to the airplanes and watched their operations etc. Trully a wonderful experience. I can't post any photos here because it's restricted and confidential.

Anyways, that's all for now. I got to pack my luggage now. I am going to Johor tomorrow!! 815am flight.

Tuesday 14 August 2007

I am on TV.....

Back to the previous post on Datuk Tony Fernandes and Sir Richard Branson, don't you think that the photo that I took with the both of them is kinda "personal"? I personally like the picture very much because of the two of them.



Anyway, my senior called me in the morning when I was in KL office and she was at LCCT,

Yee Mun: Wei,Stephen!! Do you know how famous are you in AirAsia now?
Stephen: Really ah...sounds good!! How famous..tell me!
Yee Mun: Your stupid face appear on TV!!
Stephen: Aiyar, photo only mar.

No wonder my senior said my face look stupid.

Friday 10 August 2007

Datuk Tony Fernandes & Sir Richard Branson

AirAsia has become a common brand name, not only among the Malaysians but around the world. Datuk Tony Fernandes, the boss of AirAsia Bhd has done so much that NOW EVERYONE CAN FLY.

I received news that Sir Richard Branson is visiting the AirAsia HQ office with Datuk Tony Fernandes on Friday. Sir Richard Branson is a British Entrepreneur and also the founder of The Virgin Group which provides services in sectors such as mobile telephony, transportation, travel, financial services, leisure, music, holidays, publishing and retailing that generated US$20 billion in revenues last year. Check out the website here, it's one of the coolest websites I have seen.



Fortunately, I will be in LCCT when they make their visit, I must make sure that I can get their signatures and autographs. Think about it, getting world famous people to take photo with you, just that both of them are from the business world. Sir Richard Branson is in Malaysia because he is buying 20% stake which worth US$6million in AirAsia X, the world's latest low-cost long-haul airline. For more news, visit here and here.

Stephen: Sirs, can I have your autographs?

Datuk Tony: Err..mine or Richard's? You want mine as well?

Stephen: Of course yours as well!! *Sir Richard was busy waving his hands to everyone*

Datuk Tony: What's your name?

Stephen: Stephen.

Datuk Tony: Oh, Stephen. Are you an AirAsia staff as well? I don't think so rite? *Wrote "Dear Stephen, dare to dream!! From Tony *

Stephen: Nope. I am not.
Datuk Tony: Okays...thank you very much!!


Then Sir Richard signs and they were very nice enough to pose for photo when I asked to take a photo with them.



I really find it amazing to be able to stand between them and take a photo. How often do you have such a chance? Anyway, 9 out of 10 person will write out my name as Steven instead of Stephen when they ask my name. Datuk Tony was the special one and he didn't even ask me if he spelt my name correctly. Amazing rite?

Friday 3 August 2007

First week of work

Yahoo!!! Not the website but the yahoo feeling. I am officially a new staff once again and I experienced it twice in a year. Hmm... don't sound too good anyway. I was working in Oilcorp Bhd last time because I needed more time to think about the career I wanted to be in and at the same time, my friend approached me and asked me to take over her place as she's about to give birth that time.

After 6 months of analysing, questioning and doing some research, I have found my interest. A career which the nature of the job that suits my needs, satisfaction, desire to travel around and my ambition. Internal audit.

As a newbie, I have yet to be allocated into any assignments but have been doing some reading. Being an environmental friendly guy, I decided that I will take the LRT to work if I am not going to client's place. Another reason is that, I am lazy to exercise sometimes so talking LRT and walking to office from KLCC seems quite reasonable, I guess.

I don't know why but I like the feeling of rushing into the Kelana Jaya LRT station after parking my car, walking faster than the person beside you, rushing to take a copy of free The Sun newspaper although there is 3 stacks of human height of newspapers, reading the headlines while walking into an empty KLCC with only bakeries and coffee house operating, walking on the right hand side of the escalator instead of stoppping (exercise-ma), ignoring the traffic lights and rush across the road when no cars are coming, having a light breakfast opposite office, read up the main news (nation, business & sports), scanning my thumbprint and iris tagging before going into office and finally, the view of KLCC from my place. Everyday after work on the way back to KLCC LRT station, I like the feeling me myself as a foreigner as well because KLCC is packed with foreigners. Oh ya, everytime I walk into KLCC, it reminds me of my Harry Potter adventure.


I'm loving it.