Brotherhood

Yesterday noon, I'd msn/ call few people to drink with me, by tonight, and I get lots of excuses, from busy, gf's sick, play futsal, and put airplane... sigh, it's abnormal for non-drinker to drink during weekday...

Thanks god, I have a reliable brother, pzd, he is always beside me when I feel like wanna drinking, never absent, even once!!! tonight, we'd gone for dinner, then drink few mug of beer in barcelona, the beer is cheap, during happy hour, 83 bucks/ 3 jugs.

Just finish drinking 2 hrs ago, had called a wrong person on my way back, damn...

Bank Negara Project

Had spent whole day to dealt with this project. This is not the most costly, not most profitable, not most tough, not so troublesome, but this project is the most memorable that I'd ever done.

Bank Negara had built a museum, behind it's building at KL city center. My scope is to provide the Nederman's fume extraction system for the Art Conservation room and Coin Conservation room. This morning, I'd my meeting with the main contractor about the pricing issue, noon with the floor-designer about the design of our system, and late noon site visit with the site supervisor, and meeting about some technical question... worst thing, have to rush back office to settle some account thingy...

Last 5 months, I'd received a called from Aju, the designer's wife, to requested about our system, after meeting with her, I went for my lunch at The Curve, I'd sent a sms, said that I'm lucky since I knew you... last 4 months, I went for the site visit, after visited, I was having lunch with you, last 3 weeks, I'd received the called to finalize everything, and I went for site visit again this afternoon, before visit, I'd drove-thru the road that I used to be very familiar with, went to the restaurant, and today is the first time I eat alone there, ordered the same meal, same drink, but the one that sitting beside me had changed to my laptop bag, and I can only chat with my msn-mate only this time...

I have to deliver everything before August, and the opening ceremony will held by 8th August, 2008, same day as Beijing Olympic, Bank Negara, 888, I thought only Chinese is superstitious about no.8, mana tau malayu jugak...

p/s: the designer, Wan, told me that his Mivec 4G91 had did 10 sec. for 0 - 170kmph, amazing...

1-Day Journey

Had came back from Helsingborg by last 5 days, and the journey took me 24hrs+, it's more than 1 day...

Had left Helsingborg by 4pm, via train, direct to Copenhagen, thanks god that I don't have to take ferry with my 26kg's luggage + ~4kg backpack.

We'd reached Copenhagen by 5.30pm, and had took a flight to Frankfurt via Luftansa, we checked-in at Frankfurt by 10pm, and flight to Singapore via SIA. Sitting beside me is a newly married couple, Marcus and Solia, from Spain, they're on their way to go honeymoon at Bali, and SIA had gave them a surprise, by giving them a cake. Hmm, I'll consider SIA if I'm going honeymoon in the future, if I get the chance...

It's a long and tiring flight, 12hrs and 15mins, in a very pack environment, can't sleep, no space for me to do stretching, and had reached Singapore by 4pm (after +6hrs time adjustment), and I have to wait for another 4hrs, to transit another flight back to Malaysia, too bad I'd missed the 5.50pm flight, or else I can jump the queue, after suffering in Changi airport for 4hrs, I'd depart, and this is the first time I sleep very well during flight, until Malaysia, by 9pm.

After checkout and clearance, it's almost 9.30pm, and had took cab back home, reached home by ~10.20pm, total traveling time, 24hrs20mins, *exhausted, I missed my bed~ and had sleep for 1 whole day during the next day.

p/s 3 days after coming back, surprisingly received a sms from someone... jag saknar henne som galen

Final night in Helsingborg

After my favorite's Hi-Vac training tomorrow, I'll finish the training in Helsingborg for 2 weeks, and will spend total of 18 hours flight + waiting time to back to Malaysia.

It is a very nice and memorable experience to attend the training here, the hospitality of Nederman's principal is perfect, the advance training is useful, and I'd get few satisfied answer that I'm unclear during the fighting about the Sunway's Hi-Vac project. My feeling is excited on the first few days I reached here, followed by boring (Helsingborg have nothing but nice beer, nice food and peacefully), then had gone to spent a night in Copenhagen, back Helsingborg again, until today, feel a bit unwilling to left this place, missed the bright night (it's 12.07am now but it's still not total dark), and the nice weather.

Beside, I get to know a few friends from the Nederman's branch, all over the world, and had eat LOTS of nice food here, yay, I love food, especially seafood, and Helsingborg is located beside sea, and it is summer now, so they have a lot of nice and fresh seafood here. Fyi, Ikea HQ is only somewhere between the hotel where I stayed and Nederman's HQ, unlike Malaysia factory with big Ikea wording, it is an all black building without any signboard of Ikea, but the very Ikea-style curtain outside had betray it.

I'll depart from Helsingborg by 4pm, take a ferry and train to Copenhagen, and transit from Copenhagen's airport by 8pm, transit to Frankfurt, follow by a 12 hours and a quarter flight to Singapore, 4 hours waiting + shopping time, then transit from Changi, and will reach KLIA only by 9pm Thursday, due to the time alignment, this flight will spend me 1 whole day+++...damn!

Last but not least, I appreciate the effort and hospitality of all the trainer, and the coordinator, and would like to said thank you to you guys, see you guys again.

p/s: Koenigsegg's HQ in Sweden is one of the customer of Nederman, cool!

It's 21:30 but the sun haven't set yet, it's a bright night~

Drunken???

I'd just finish dinner + drink tonight. It was the best dinner I'd ever taken in Sweden, Magnus (he is a tall, handsome, friendly guy and have a pretty wife), had brought us to a restaurant called Svanshalls, nearby a fishing village. this aftenoon, it is nice not because of the food, but the environment, it is peacefully, quiet, nice weather, nice food nice people and nearby sea, and I don't think you can ever find such place with such environment in Malaysia!

Before he dinner, as Swedish traditional, we have to a snaps of vodka (again, hmm), the vodka that served is very very hard in this restaurant, and after vodka, another mug of beer, I felt dizzy before the dinner.....

The appetizer tonight is the lobster soup, I missed soup,and I missed spicy food more, so I'd order the spicy fish as my main meal ( yeah I love seafood~), it's real spice, but not as spicy as the sambal, but the fish is real FRESH, as the restaurant is just beside the sea~~~~

After the main course, I'd ordered the strawberry as my desert, the taste of strawberry + vanilla ice cream + egg yolk, yummy~~~~~~~~ Another mug of Swedish beer.. and lots of photo on the ship, the seaside after dinner, it's a nice experience, the weather was just nice, temperature was just about 11 - 13 deg. C, damn I start to talk like a Swedish...


I'd took A LOT, A LOT of picture in Magnus's Audi A6 while on the way back to the hotel, the scene around the road is just SUPERB, it's a country side along the road, together with the sunset by 10pm, PERFECT!

Another 2 mug of Kilkenny after dinner in Harry's bar nearby my hotel, now I'm stunning, I'm gonna sleep after this cup of Latte, thanks for the hospitality of Magnus.

Traditional Swedish Dinner

We went to Per and Anita's house for dinner tonight. They're staying somewhere nearby our hotel, and they have a traditional-look house, with an A-shape roof, 2 floor, and a dungeon, staying with their dog, Leo, it's a fierce-looking but very friendly dog.

We'd treated by a wonderful traditional Swedish dinner, started with the appetizer, it's smoked salmon, sill fish and bread, and together with beer, and the hardcore Swedish vodka, 1 snap after a piece of bread with smoked fish, the alcoholic is hot, bit mint, and mixed perfectly with the smell of the smoked fish, we took this at the main hall, together with Leo.

Follow with the main course, in their lovely kitchen on 2nd floor, it's Swedish meatball, fresh carrot and their homemade bread. This is the first time I ate meatball with jam, yeah that was their traditional dinner too, butter with bread and meatball with jam. It's the 8th days in Sweden, and now I understand why ang mo always said they earn their bread and butter, instead of rice and bah kut teh, because they eat bread and butter every meal, from breakfast to dinner...

The dessert is the traditional Princess cake, according to Anita, they serve Princess cake on everyones birthday, together with the english tea. The cake is not too sweet, the cream is not too oily, and the taste is superb!!!


Per said, if you don't eat the traditional Swedish dinner, means that you never been in Sweden, so, I think I'd been to Sweden since I'd taste it, this might not be the best dinner I'd having in this trip, but this meal cooked with 'heart', and I appreciate it. To Per and Anita, thanks for the hospitality.



p/s while Per fetched us back hotel, we dropped by Henrik Larson home, he is a famous football player that born in Helsingborg, to be serious, I'm not really into soccer match, and I only knew about him today, lol~

Religion??!!

It's 12am, as usual, the sky is still not-so dark.

Just finished my dinner 3 hrs ago in the hotel's lobby, it is an interesting dinner, because I took it with 3 others people from different country, different race and different religion, and we'd discussed about some sensitive issue, the RELIGION...

I'm Chinese, and I'm a Buddhist, Luiz is from Brazil, he is a Christian/ Soccerian~, Kunar from India, is a Hindustan, and Karim is from Egypt, is a Muslim. Christian and Muslim is enemy, since few century ago, thanks god Luiz is a Soccerian, although he is a Christian, but he loves soccer more than all others thing, a typical Brazilian.

Karim is a very nice guy, he is a peacefully Muslim, and he appeared not as extreme Muslim in CNN or the paper, today is the first time I get to know so much of a Muslim, altho I'm from Malaysia, but I don't really care about their religion, Muslim in Malaysia is bit extreme, they force their fionce, force their son, to become Muslim, change their family name, and it's supa hard to leave even after you die... that's why some non-malay Muslim try to keep their identity, and when the day they die, the Muslim Department comes to grab the corpse with their relatives, because if he believes in all*h, he will belong to him even after he pass away...#@!$#@!$#@$@#

From the discussion about the Islam, I get to know that praying 5 times/ day is a 'bread' for Muslim, according to Karim, Muslim pray, even on the plane, but due to some 'limitation', they don't have to face to the west during praying in the plane... (we*rd), I'd told him that there's a Muslim astronaut from Malaysia had do the so called research on how to pray on the space (I never feel proud when I told him bout' this), guess what, he never heard bout' this fella, after our 'rich' government spend almost a billion RM to tumpang him with the Russia astronaut to the outer space... It's really nothing to proud with this... Beside, he explain to us the meaning behind the fasting month.

Muslim believe there's only 1 god, and they thought that the world, the human is created by god... hmm, in fact, human being is revolution from ape, scientist had prove this, the 'debate' started while Kunar condemn about Saddam Hussein, Karim is not agree with him, altho he do not agree about what Saddam did (declare war between Muslim), but in the heart of Iraqi, he is still a warrior... and he'd take some example to prove bout this, yeah bro, your history is very good!!

According to him, CNN had filtered by the US govt, just like TV always shown that Egypt have desert, pyramid, sexy girls that shown only their bare-stomach only, actually it's not, there's modern city there, and Karim able to speak very very fluent English, hmm I'll go Egypt if I have the chance.

Brazilian is always calm about the religion issue, because they loves soccer, and Brazil women is just toooooo hot!!! Of course only if they're not in Egypt, that doesn't match at all.

On the way back, Karim had asked me whether want to have a look on their al-Quran, I said 'NO'. He had make me change my impression about Muslim, actually there's some Muslim that are not that extreme-minded.

Dine within Sweden and Denmark

It's getting colder in Helsingborg, the temperature is around 5 - 8 deg C tonight, it is only slight dark, although it is nearby midnight...

Tonight, we'd took our dinner with the Nederman's principal on the ferry that travel within Helsingborg (Sweden) to Helsingor (Denmark). The distance between these 2 country is just like the distance of Georgetown and Penang Island, around 30minutes ferry trip.

I love sea, because they provide very me nice seafood, so for this dinner, I'd order 'fish'. For the appetizer, they'd serve the mixed-seafood, the volume is a lot, and it's just like the main course. Beside Japanese, Swedish loves wasabi too, and their wasabi is not as spicy as Japanese one, the white sauce on this dish is the Swedish wasabi. I'd addicted to it, and I eat the Swedish version wasabi, almost on every meal. The smoked salmon is very fresh, it looks raw, but it is well done.

Here comes the main course, the fry salmon, Helsingborg is nearby sea, so the seafood is just toooooooooo fresh, and it is perfecto!!! I'm not sure what the white sauce is, but it is bit creamy and nice with the salmon.




The dessert is this vanilla + strawberry ice-cream. It is too sweet, I found that Swedish loves sweet stuff, because lots of their side dish/ dessert is extremely sweet. I did not finished this, it's toooooo sweet.



For this dinner, it took us to travel between Sweden and Denmark,twice... picture on the left shown the same ferry that we took for this dinner.

Thanks Lotta for bringing us the wonderful dine and the hospitality.

Sweden vs. Greece

I'd under-estimate the weather in Sweden, it is very cold tonight...

It is early-summer in Sweden now, and for the last few days, the sun is bright, either in Copenhagen or Helsingborg, and the temperature is slightly above 20 deg. C, but not tonight. Vegar from Norway had ask us for a dinner + watch football tonight, and as usual, I worn only sweater + short pants, but it is a windy night, the wind is very strong and cold, and it is only about 10 deg. C only, I'm regret for never wear my long pant along.

Beside beer, European loves football, I'm not really into it, but tonight is the match between Sweden and Greece, and I'm in Sweden now, so we are looking for a dinner place with TV, but all pack, after searching for fews restaurant, we end up our dinner in a restaurant without TV, and it is all empty. After dinner, we search for a pub for watching the match, all pub in the city is flooded with the supporter that wearing the Sweden jersey, and we can't even get a place to sit after looks for a few pub, Swedish are patriotic, and the result is 2:0, Sweden win the game, the atmosphere in the pub is superb, the fans was shouting, jumping, clapping, dancing and singing around, you can see the youngster running on the street, it'll be nice if I can watch match live in the stadium. Too bad I never bring my DC along.

Picture above is the souvenir that gave by Jonas on his last trip to Malaysia, and I'm wearing this on the match, lol~

Helsingborg

It's 11pm now, but it's still bright in Helsingborg...

I came to Helsingborg by yesterday noon, it is a small town in Sweden nearby Copenhagen, and our Nederman HQ located here. The daylight is extremely long here, it start to turn bright from 3am, and turn dark only after 11pm...

The weather is slightly cooler in Helsingborg, and the food is 'cheap' if compared to Copenhagen, the ham, the sausage + sauce, and the beer here is superb!!!

What's impressive here is the beer, European loves beer, they drink beer 24/7, and the price of beer in Helsingborg fluctuate a lot, depends on which place you buy it. I bought my dinner at 7-11 on the first night, it's 10pm but it is as bright as 5pm in Malaysia, and theres not much food left in 7-11, but a LOT of beer inside there, and it is only 17kr/ bottle for a Tuborg, while a bottle of coke cost 11kr, the only left spaghetti cost me 35kr, and the volume can't even fix 1/3 of my stomach.

Monday morning, I took a very full breakfast, inc. sausage, omelet, salad, coffee, apple juice in the hotel, in Nederman HQ, they provide free lunch for their stuff, erm, it's ok, some Malaysia company did this too, but, they provide free beer too, they called it as light beer, only 3.5% alcoholic, so my lunch is fish + biscuit + beer, lol, 5pm sharp, the factory is almost empty, European enjoy life, because it is not worth for them to earn much, as they have to pay almost 50% of their salary to the govt.

Their mall closed latest by 7pm, before they closed, I'd went to shop around there, and whats surprising me is, the beer is only 25kr, for half a dozen........ 1 bottle of Tuborg is only about 4.2kr, it is cheaper than the tax-free beer in Langkawi... the consequence, as you seen on the picture, there is 2 dozen in my room's fridge now, haha. Dinner is provided free by the hotel, ang mo version rice and very nice sausage + coleslaw + coffee (yeah I drink only beer and coffee here, never even drink a drop of plain water for the whole day).

After dinner, I went to drink + watch Euro 2008 with Nederman's people from Sweden, Siberian, Norway and Singapore, a mug of Tuborg here cost 40kr, so the conclusion is, you can buy a Tuborg at Helsingborg, range from 4kr to 40kr, it's all depends on where you buy it. So the summary of the beer price as below:

Beer in drinking place: 40kr - 50kr
Beer in 7-11: 17kr
Beer in shopping mall: 4kr - 6kr
Beer in Nederman HQ: FREE, lol!!!

I'm drinking the 0.5L 4.2kr Tuborg while typing this blog, listening to Radiohead - Creep, and it's 11.30pm, but the day is still not-so-dark, and there is still 22 cans of Tuborg in my fridge, lol!!!

*RM1 = ~1.82kr

Copenhagen

I get my chance to attend for a 2 weeks Nederman advance training in Sweden, and before I depart to Sweden, I'd stayed 1 night in Copenhagen, Denmark.

This is the first time I come to Europe country, everything seems impressive to me, the weather, atmosphere, building, and the superb high cost of living here.

It is summer now, the sun is bright, but not as hot and wet as Malaysia, and, whats surprisingly for a tropical-country boy like me is, when I woke up by 10pm (due to time adjustment, I'd slept from 4pm), it's still bright, and the night is not that cold.

There is lots of Gothic style building here, and it looks so natural, erm, actually it is, unlike some tourist place in Asia country, looks fake, even the hotel's building where I stay is those old European style building.

What's make me unsatisfied is the extremely high cost of living here (just Google, it is the no. 6 costly city in the world) . The hotel where I stayed, without air-conditioner, no bathtub, cost 1300dkk+ (about rm900+) per night, and the lunch I took, a frankfurt + coke, from a hawker stall, cost me 48dkk, (about rm30+), my dinner on Burger King, a 'best price' package which inc. a cheese burger, fries and a regular size coke, cost me 39dkk, terribe...