Adventure

I booked a seat at 10am but I woke up at 7am. So I decided to try my luck whether there are seats for earlier trips. When I reach the Tomang at 7.30am, the guy told me that 8am has been sold out. There was also a grandma in waiting list, she'll get the seat if someone never turn up.

The guys told us that in another station, there's a 8.45am trip. So the grandma ask whether I want to share a taxi to the station and take the 8,45am trip, I said sure.

We got to Blora and got our tickets. Ibu Diah and I chatted while waiting for the Travel (mini van). I told her I'm going to Bandung for a 1-day trip. She asked why don't I stay over night. I said I want to save money. She offered me to stay at her house. I declined by saying it's ok. As our conversation continues, she asked me to stay in her house at least 5 times.

In the end, convinced by her sincere offer and her kindness, I said ok. My colleague - Indah is waiting for me in Bandung so I told Ibu Diah that I'll spend the day with Indah and will go to her house later the evening. She said ok.

Indah and I went to Sariater first. It's a Hot Spring Waterfalls. I'll let the picture speak for themselves.

Imagine the water is hot!


Find a spot and soak your leg :)


Indah - my colleague, I'm younger than her, lol


Pak Selamat - happy go lucky driver


Downstream

Next, we went to Tangkuban Perahu, a dead volcano.

Volcano Pit


Road around the pit


The sulfur from the pit very smelly


From another angle

Ari, Indah's fiance joined us for dinner. After that, Ari dropped me some where near Ibu Diah's house as we don't know how to go to her house. Shanti (Ibu Diah's daughter) picked me up and we went to join her friends for dinner. We went to Cloud 9 for a drink, its very cooling there. Bandung's weather can be compared to Cameron Highlands. After the ladies had a bottle of vodka each and I had a glass of beer and vodka we went home.

I was given the room of the eldest son as he's migrated to the US. Shanti told me to wake up at 5am as she and her colleague plan to climb Punclut. I woke up at 5am as my alarm rang. When I looked at my watch, its only 4am. Damn, I set 5am Malaysian time. Went back to sleep again.

Long story short, after picking up the colleagues, we head out to climb Punclut. I didn't bring my camera as they say we would be doing some senaman. I regret dearly, the view is like what you see in National Geography documentary. Damn, beautiful~~~~~~~~~~ How I wish my gf can be with me, I'm sure she'll love it.

There were many Ikan Bakar shop on top of the hill, the food was superb, worth climbing every step.

After climbing Punclut, we went home to rest and I went shopping. Bandung is famous for their factory outlet. Many branded stuff have their factory in Bandung. Bought stuff worth more than Half million Rupiah.

After thanking Shanti and Ibu Diah, I took an 8.30pm Travel back to Jakarta. I'm so busy with work till the extent that in Jakarta, I only know my office and my hostel. Now, at least I can say I visited a few beautiful places in Indonesia.

In an unrelated event, hmmmm, sounds like newspaper already, lol, my colleague in Bangladesh is facing a problem. His visa is going to expire soon and he can't manage to book an air ticket home. What's worst than being a Pendatang Asing Tanpa Izin in Bangladesh.

Long lost friend

When I learn that I'm going to Auckland soon, a thought came to me, I have a friend there.

During Form 5, there were two foreigners came to my class through student exchange program. One from Japan and another came from New Zealand. I didn't had her contact when she left, so I turned to the internet.

I googled using her name with different combination, with the middle name, without it, shuffle it around. Finally, I found out that she got a scholarship in one of the university in New Zealand. In the description, she studied Psychology there. So I look up the website for the Faculty of Human Science and contacted the lecturers there to see whether anyone know her or not.

It turned out that one of the lecturer knows her and forwarded my e-mail to her. She's not in Auckland so may be we won't be meeting up.

I'm still so amazed, the internet is really wonderful and scary at the same time.

Blogging Spree 3

This job is also like a geography lesson. First I need to know where are all the countries. Last time we just need to know which continent the country is but now I need to know exactly where it is. After knowing where it is, I need to know the terrain there. Is it flat? Lots of mountains? Lots of island? How big is the city? How dense is it? The list goes on forever.

Yesterday I learned a new country - Federated States of Micronesia

Sounds like a place from a cartoon or comic.

Here's one pic of me while I was in Bandung. Remember I said about the customers site which is very beautiful while the extreme poor lives outside the gate? Here is it.

Blogging Spree 2

Tiger, Mickey, Goal, God, Lucifer, Pig, Monkey, Fly, Dance, Bat, Super, Handsome, Pretty, Speed, Light, Wind, Sweet, Dash, Random, Gold, Kuku, Elf, Magic, Beckham, Water, Bingo, Power, Tulip, Rose, Slide, Mouse, Bobo, Thunder, Storm, Rain, Water, Stone, Rock, Benz, Ferrari, Blade, Fire, Wood, Air, Charmer, Charming, Bright, Baby, James Bond, Mango, Banana, Watermelon, Bounce, Tea, Max, Lion, Sky, Zephyr, Bug, Athena, Window, Lala, Echo, Limit, Timing, Witty, Free, Lucky, Fox, Hippie, Deer, Purple, Greenline, Flaming, Giant, Tiny, Toy, Aibo, Puff, Opal, Barbie, Boxing, Heaven, Mouse, Bold, Kitty, Rex, Bridge, Marble, Hero, Owen, Gray, Roger, Rich, Bonemann, Hunter, Hamilton, Mildsea, Winner, Sunder, Mascot, Jupiter, General, Eagle, White, Swallow, Honestly, Truly, Book, Tears

What does the words above have in common?
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They are the names of the employees here. I had a great time exploring them.

Blogging Spree 1

Ok, I've promised to talk about my job, here is it.

Brand Promo

We have to prepare seminar/workshop for the operators. The main reason I was at Bandung is for CDMA Forum. My job there is to educate the management of the operator (CEO, CTO, Product Manager) on the new products, direction of the industry, get feedback from them, etc etc.

Opportunity
The main reason I'm in Jakarta now is to find opportunity. I need to prepare WiMAX's potential in Indonesia from many aspects. The economy, government, people, operator, geographic, etc etc. The report will be quite thick.

Project Support
When an operator contacts the local staff (Asia Pacific) to know about a new product (eg. WiMAX), the local staff are not trained to promote it. They'll contact us for assistance. That is the worst case, an ideal case (like now) is where I come to the local staff before they are ask.

I'm in Jakarta to train the local staff on WiMAX too. For those people who think that my jobs is shallow, here's the technical part. During last weekend (the only spare time I have), I had to swallow tonnes of information including advance modulation techniques (SOFDMA), Fast Fourier Transform, Signal Attenuation, etc etc so that I can teach the local staff.

Today was my lecture, now I know why its hard to be a lecturer. Try teaching people who left university for few years about the topics above is very challenging. The topics were so damn dry where everyone was giving me the blur expression all the while.

Other than educating them, we have to assist them in bidding process and building trail/demo network also.

That very much sums up my job. I'm going to Auckland for initial discussion with 2 operators there.

Very random

The gap between the rich and the poor is very far in Indonesia. My customer's office is mainly built from aluminium and glass, some sort like KLCC. Heavily guarded with concrete wall with barbed wires on top of it. There will always be at least 2 guards on duty to protect the 50 staffs working in it.

Outside the fence is another story, the road is only wide enough for 1.5 cars. If another car is coming from the front, each car have to go into the grass beside, after that its the drain already. Kids playing in the drain and almost each and every corner, there are people begging for money.

How rich is rich? I'm staying in Taman Anggerik. The shopping mall below is dubbed the biggest in SEA (why does everyone claim that they are the biggest). There are 8 46 floors condo here. The thing that amaze me is the parking. Yeah, the cars are impressive, all damn nice cars. Smallest car I've found is Honda Jazz, may be I wasn't paying much attention to small cars, but the parking is equally impressive. Every single inch of the floor and half of the wall is covered with tiles. No cement to be seen anywhere on the floor. Different colors of the tiles is used to draw the parking lot, directions and decoration. The floor is covered with two design of tiles layed chequered to make it more interesting.

There's also 2 swimming pool here (add 2 more if you include kiddies pool), but I've never been there yet as my peeling skin from the Terengganu trip will freak everyone out.

Now I'm a bit worried about Auckland, it'll be winter there for the whole August and I have only 1 jacket. May go back to Malaysia for few days for some training and back to Auckland again. Sometimes I think the company has bad planning, why spend NZD1400 to send someone back to train for few days? Oh well, its not my money anyway.

Applied for Enrich card. With the flight to and fro Auckland, my Enrich point is enough to upgrade me to Silver Card already. Yeay, no more queue in the boarding gate.

Another quick fact, the DVD here is only IRP5000 which is less than RM2. PS3 games, movies, software, etc etc is so cheap, but too bad, I'm going to Auckalnd so I don't think I want to be barred from entering.

Sorry for the messy arrangement of information, lack of sleep.

What is Bandung?

Day 1
Jakarta > Santika Hotel > Bakrie Office > Hyatt Regency > Santika Hotel

Day 2
Santika Hotel > Hyatt Regency > Santika Hotel

Day 3
Santika Hotel > Hyatt Regency > Bakrie Office > Valley

Day 4
Santika Hotel > Jakarta

Bandung is famous for shopping cheap branded goods such as Versace, Guess, Hugo Boss, etc etc and volcano pits. Above is the itinerary of my trip.

To those who think that my job is fantastic, to be honest, yes, when I'm with guest. I'm chauffeured in Merc and CRV, signing off bills, good hotel, good food, etc etc.

There's the down side too, from the above itinerary, other than work, I'll be sleeping. Everyday, I sleep less than 6 hours. There was a ray of light when my senior asked me to accompany customer to Bali Island, but in the end, they found someone else.

Last week, I had 1 week to read some materials before the event. I would say my preparation could be better, but not too bad. It was a challenge but I pulled it off. This morning, after coming back from Bandung to Jakarta, I'm thrown another challenge. I'm to read up on another product which as I've always said a few phone books thick and train the local staff.

I, myself need to learn something new in 2 days and train local staff on monday/tuesday. There goes my weekend.

I understand my work more and more now, when I got everything right already, I'll blog about it.

Raise and Shine

Every where in the world the day starts early, it's only peninsular Malaysia and Singapore is using the wrong time zone. Well, at least the places that I've been outside peninsular Malaysia (Sarawak & Sydney). It was 6 in the morning and its bright already. Packing up my things now, leaving for Bandung today.

RM384 = RPH1000000

Flight was delayed, so arrived at 10pm local time. Was too late to go Bandung so decided to stay in Jakarta. As my colleagues in Malaysia told me before, in Jakarta, staff be staying in hostel rather than hotel.

When I reached here, its totally different from what I imagined. Its a mid/high class condo with shopping mall below it. I'm on the 13th floor, they have a floating garden at 10th. Before entering the building, 2 security guards scanned the cars for explosives. Hmmm....... Indonesia is very dangerous..........

There are 3 person staying in this unit. The two others are Chinese ex-pat. Staff in Huawei are really very friendly. My guess is since all of us is away from home, there are only ourselves to watch each other's back.

Tomorrow 8am morning we'll leave for office then to Bandung. I was told that its an 2hrs ride. Why didn't I fly to Bandung straight away leh????????

I heard that the broadband here is bad, but up till now, I find it better than Slowmyx back at home.

Will continue blogging if I still have internet connection at Bandung, or else it will be 1 week from now - when I get back to Jakarta.

ps. not so used to Bahasa Indonesia interface for everything (Google, Blogger, etc etc)

I'm not the same anymore

Tuesday was my second day on the job. Received an e-mail from my boss who has forwarded the mail from an overseas counterpart.

We have a visitor (Mr. V) and he's bored at night and asked us to arrange some programs. My boss assigned me to accompany Mr. V (1 to 1) as I was the only local boy. The approved budget was USD500 for the night. The mail also mentioned that Mr. V enjoys massage a lot. Figured that he must be someone damn important, so I planned everything out. Called my friend Ben G up to ask for the best massage in town and he told me LeSPA is quite good. Just in case, I also asked him which spa has extra services and he told me ****** (censored to avoid Billy and Pro-ngong friends from indulging in such activities).

I called Mr. V and he told me he has plans for the night but he's free the next day (Wednesday). So the next day, I picked up my guest with my company driver at 6.30pm. First, we went to KL Tower, he enjoyed the visit a lot.

Next we had dinner at Chinoz (as recommended by Pro-Ngong), to me it was only so so. Anyway, Mr. V liked his pizza a lot.

During dinner, I asked whether he wants to try the massage in Malaysia and he told me, "I heard that Malaysia is a Muslim country and its hard to find good massage here, women is Thailand and Singapore is so beautiful". Straight away I excused myself and tried to call my boss but to no avail. Called up the overseas counterpart to get the green light and he said of course, as long as its within budget.

When we reached ******, he asked to have a tour around the neighborhood (Bukit Bintang). We walked on the streets while discussed about work and different culture. After the walk, at the door of the spa, the bouncer asked, "What plans do you have?". Since Mr. V don't understand chinese, I straight away said my boss wants special treatment. Then he told me, karaoke upstairs and spa through the (heavily tinted) door.

At the reception, again I was asked "What plans do you have?", same answer, my boss wants special treatment. Both the bouncer and front desk gave me the same kind of expression, they must be thinking, surely its the first time for this feller.

I was led inside and we had a short session of steam bath. After it, the captain came. He asked what do we want, so I told him, "This is my boss". Slowly he explained to him in English and asked him what he wants. He chose head and shoulder massage.

While he's having his massage, I was watching tv and reading outdated mags. When he's done, I called for the captain and told him, "Both of us wants full body massage. My boss also wants 小姐 and I want foot massage".

After the body massage, I told Mr. V that I've arranged something for him, he said no need. Trying to grab the chance, the captain said, "Boss, no worries, I'll show you the ladies and you decide later".

We are led into a room behind a hidden door. There were a few guys inside there already. The captain asked the ladies to stand in a row 2 meter in front of us. About 15 of them came out with skimpy clothes, all Chinese. Honestly, some are so damn pretty and all have huge assets.

It was awkward, when I look at them, they'll stare alluring at me, so most of the time, I was glancing around, mind you, 15 of them! Deep down inside, I felt sorry for the ladies, I kept thinking, I'm sure most of them were forced into this. After Mr. V picked his prize, he went through another door and I went out to get my foot massage.

Ok, to be honest, I thought about trying, well, at least a blowjob but my moral values won the better of me. Although I had the thought, damn, my company is willing to pay for the chicks but I gave it up, damn stupid. But seriously, no regrets. I don't have to worry about STDs and the guilt of infidelity.

When I got home, I told my gf about everything. She forced out a smile. I expected more since I gave up a great opportunity and I was totally honest but I can read what's the concern in her mind. I myself don't know how many visitors I have to entertain in the future. Next day, the foreign counterpart (Country Manager) told me that Mr. V was very pleased and hope to see me personally to thank me, my boss also congratulate me but I don't want to be praised for all these.

Third day on the job and it changed my life. I've seen an ugly side of the society.

A bit update on my job, been so B-U-S-Y these few days. Next Monday, I'll fly to Jakarta and will be back on 31st. My boss also told me, you may fly to NZ very soon after coming back from Jakarta. When you read the word "very soon" understand it as in 1 day.

Early Sign

My 3 months schedule has been vaguely planned out. Next week going to Indonesia for 1-2 weeks, then Australia (not confirmed) then China. By the end of this year, Taiwan and Japan.

Before all that, have to swallow few phone book thick of manual..............

The Best Telco in ASIA, beat that!

Today is an emotional day for me as its my last day in Maxis. In the morning I tried to finalize everything and my team and I had a handover meeting. After the meeting, I started to write e-mail to all the users of my system, it took quite sometime as there are 100+ users of OSS-RC.

I feel like leaving a big family as my job function allows me to meet everyone from end-to-end. There are so many people that I would like to thank. I personally wrote e-mails to a few mentors which I admire, owe and wish to thank.

Working is Maxis is wonderful, people here are not selfish and will cover for each other. The slow pace in Maxis allowed us to bond quite well, thus we know each other at a very personal level.

In one incident, my vendor accused me of not maintaining the server properly causing a tool to fail frequently. My HOD question my boss why was I not doing my job. The whole team was behind me and my boss even told my HOD that if I'm not doing what I'm suppose to do, he asked my HOD to fire him.

After lunch, e-mail started to flood my mail box. Its getting more and more emotional. Even vendors was surprised that I was leaving. I started to pack my stuff and deleting my stuff from my PC. At 3.30pm, Bala suggested that we go out for tea since I'm leaving. Its the first time we had tea outside the office during office hours.

When we got back, its already 5pm and I went around the office taking pictures and saying good bye to all. I even video called colleagues from Penang I-Center to bid farewell to them. Like the Maxis slogan goes, Technology isn't special, Life is. Its just amazing, surely beats calling someone to say good bye.

At 6.30pm, I decided to logged out of my baby servers for the last time. I even recorded the moment. Before shutting down my PC, I was so sad. Immediately, I logged back into my server and hid a file with the text "Damien Leong, System Administrator for OSSRC 2G 1-12-2006 to 4-07-07". Finally, I logged out of my server for the last time. With a heavy heart, I shutdown my PC aka print server and bid good bye to my desk. After a small tour, I left Maxis Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park Technical Operations Center.

Thanks to my big family
Zul, Azmi, Hafidzah, Halim, Kak Yat, Hardi, Raie, Zuhril, Muthu, Eric, Jagdev, Shamin, Logan, Zamri, Zuhaila, AL Lee, SW Teoh, Wai Yee, JT Poon, Andrea, Mugunthan, KH Phang, All Network Managers, Azman, Saravanan, Rafi, Alizan, Jeya, Ganesan, Thiban, Muslim, LF Cheah, NY Chan, KH Tan, Matthew Chan, Dharma, Faizan, Zahari, Zulhilmi, Chew Bee Lee, Pang Tek Liong, Wilson Lee, Jackal, Amanda, May Low, Sheryll, Alex Foo, Alan Tan, Kuo Shen, Jackie Chan, Jimmy Yap, Anna, Jamie, Shane Liew, Elaine Chee, Vanessa, Teresa, Kartini, Gaya, Wong Kam Wah; Yvonne Chung , Alvin Ng, Roy, Raymond Tan, Rajoo, Thana, Alyzan, SB Soo, MK Lee, Filzuraini, Eddy, Saffari, Uzaini, Azli, Engku, Rozmi, Prasad, Yun, Sreeratha, Kissie, OSS Team, Transmission Team, Network Performance Team, and many many more.

Thanks to all my E/// vendors
Kok Meng, Yau, Rafiq, Kairul, Kenny, and Mohan,Rahmat, Sara, Yen, Ramanathan, Danny.

Thanks to SH Low, my trainee in assisting me in daily job and wish him all the best in the future and may our path cross again in Telco industry.

ps. Touched leh, type out each person one by one. The list is not in any order so please don't attempt to sabotage my line.

Now for some pictah


My work place


Lepaking at the mamak, Jagdev hiding behind :)


MCA


Disturbing Jagdev while he's trying to work


Zamri, thanks for helping my bro ;)
Yeap, me out and my bro joining soon.


Thanks for eveything guys!


The the lobby


From another angle, Double thumbs up for the people in this company


In the lobby


At my old desk


Junk Room


Bye bye ol' friend


Bye bye again

BTW, our GCEO resigned today. Must be too sad to learn that I'm leaving today.