Never Judge the Book by the Cover

That's what I learned from buying the Sony Ericssson P990i. I had always despised all the versions of the model. They just looked ugly. Possibly the ugliest you could find in the market for the same class and range from other brands.

Had I had a choice I would not have bought the P990i, for the ever same reason that is because it is just ugly! However, strangely enough once I started using it, I just fell in love with it. It looks ugly, but: very comfortable to hold, has all the right buttons at the right places, has dual keypads which are just so practical, top class camera pictures of 2 MB, top quality sound, 3-G enabled, name card scanner and wireless access among other features.

Check out the complete overview at the official web site of Sony Ericsson

"A phone, PDA and imaging machine packed with media and applications to support business and leisure activities. It takes the work out of the job." - Sony Ericsson

The Rest of the Days in Munich

My litte girl's condition worsen on the second day. The temperature was not settling. As a result, I had to stay in looking after her in the morning while my other half went out sightseeing. In the afternoon, when her condition improved, we took a short walk to the main pedestrian area, and took some pictures and visited some of the shops having sales. The Cathedral on Marienplatz was amazing.

Dinner time ... it's pizza and pasta.

Short Break in Munich

Last year, the destination was London. Not a great place to be in winter, but it was not best option given the free (sort of) accommodation at the Berjaya Hotel and cheap flight ticket (99 CHF, how much cheaper could it be!). This year, with my daughter in the new classification of "child above 2" ( i.e. no longer an infant), travelling by flight could become quite expensive especially when you wait till the last minute to make the bookings. So, in the end the decision was to take a 5-hour train journey to munich and spend a few hundreds EUR on a 3-star German hotel for a few nights. What a way to waste money.

Actually, it's not that bad taking a long train journey. Apart from the daughter getting too excited at times and decided to go up and down the seat for like 20,000 times, the journey was quite relaxing. We arrived in Munich just after lunch time. What a freezing day. Sooooooo freaking freezing. The moment we stepped out of the train station, I could immediately see a few halal kebab takeaways. Hmm ... looks like eating will not be a problem then in the next few days. Locating the hotel was not difficult, especially when you employ a humanoid navigator. The cost is probably much higher and comes with no warranty. But, definitely much better in terms of user friendliness and functionality. She also comes with other goodies.

Munich is a dead city on 26th of December, likewise any other locations in Europe for that matter. I took a quite stroll along the main street to get a quick glimpse of the city. Pretty nice with some really amazing old buildings around. 26th of December was also the day we practically spent the whole second half of the day killing time in the hotel room. Too cold to get excited, and my little girl also began to get sick again. Thank god there was a German TV channel with back to back EPL matches.

Dinner time ... what else, kebab.

The rebirth of my humble blog

After stopping blogging more than a year ago, I thought it was a good idea to start it again. All the entries below this one are those transferred from my earlier blog.

6th., final day in KL

Finally, it comes to the end. The last day in KL.

After dropping by at my condo’s management office to settle whatever matters still remaining, my cousin Emma took me to KL Sentral. As a gift from Malaysia, we got involved in a “honking argument” with another fellow Malaysian driver on the way up to the parking floor of KL Sentral. Not only hoking involved, but also fingers and shouting. Oh … I miss that. What a stupid girl. She stopped exactly in the middle of the entrance to the parking floor. She basically blocked us and everyone else from entering, and she absolutely refused to budge! The honking exchanges between us + other motorists blocked and her went on for quite a while before it was finally concluded with a few “finger signs”. That’s life in KL …

Faradina (a former colleague from iNet Solutions) and Imran (her husband) came down to see me before I took off to KLIA. We had dinner at my favourite Chicken Rice restaurant. Faradina was looking good after all these years and two children (in case you guys read this, it’s a compliment to both of you :)) and Imran is working hard on his diet (mesti mau maintain handsome mah …).

At KLIA, just as I was about to enter the shuttle train to the boarding gate, I bumped into Tom, a former colleague from KL who’s now based in Jakarta. It’s good to see him again. The last time we met was in Baden a few months ago during an “all Malaysians + Tom” dinner at *James’ restaurant.

Bye-bye Malaysia … see you again in October!

*James is another Malaysian who owns a restaurant in Baden.

5th. Day in KL

It is ironic that today Shahana was the driver and I was the passenger. We went out for lunch at Karyaneka and on the way back to the office she dropped me off at Wisma Genting to settle some personal matters at the Maybank branch there.

When I was still in KL more than a year ago, I used to drive Shahana to the Ampang Park LRT station after work almost everyday. Towards the end of my stay, she told me she was getting herself a Kelisa with modifications for disabled driver. Today I saw with my own eyes how competent and comfortable she was driving her little purple car. What an amazing girl.

After work, I quickly went to see Sharleen again at SOGO LRT station to pass her the bank drafts I’d prepared for the unit trust investments. From there, I took the LRT straight to PWTC to meet Dr. Badrul (my former university colleague in Surrey, who is attached to the Institute of Medical Research). We had a quick dinner at the Mall.

As my meeting with Fauzi didn’t happen last night, we set up another appointment today. Fauzi and Ann fetched me from the hotel at around 9 and we shot off to Brickfields for yet another dinner for me. The place is called B-Station if I’m not mistaken - a mamak (Indian) restaurant specialises in Southern Indian cuisines. The talks were pretty much all about life in Switzerland. There were some opportunities within my current company which I’d forwarded to Fauzi and he was interested to find out more. In the end, we came up with the conclusion that although working in Switzerland sounded exciting, it won’t be a comfortable life for everyone, them included. The reasons being:

1. Although the salary may sound quite good, he has to consider that the wife may not be able to work or may find a job but not in the same seniority and profile as she currently is.

2. As a result of 1, the household income will most likely be less than their combined income now. Even if it’s more, it will not be so much, and with the high standard of living in Switzerland, it will not help.

3. A young family like us will find our life now more comfortable than it used to be in KL. We don’t mind living in a small flat now since we never experienced anything a lot better anyway. Using the Swiss public transports is also not an issue. Some minor inconveniences are not such a big deal. But, the same may not apply to everyone.

4. Bear in mind that Swiss are very strict with social rules - no toilet flashing after 10 PM, no laundry on Sunday and all these shits! Can you take it???

5. For those who are used to having domestic maids (pretty much every middle class and above in Malaysia) it’ll be a big bigggg change. Unless you earn a fortune (like 30K Swiss Francs or more a month), don’t even think about having a maid. The minimum wage here is 3K Swiss Francs, and that does not include her insurance etc.

6. Life in Switzerland is definitely less colourful than Malaysia. For the past 4 days, my day ended at around 1 AM. In Switzerland, you should expect to sit in front of TV not knowing what else to do at 7 PM latest every day. Swiss in general go to bed at 9 and wake up at 4 or 5. Shops close at 5 everyday except Wednesday, and on Sunday nothing is open even clinics. How much more boring can it be?

7. Even if they move to Switzerland, I’m pretty sure they want to keep their property back home. That is an additional commitment and may eat up quite a bit of his income.

The same sort of thing I was telling another colleague this morning who was also contemplating moving to Switzerland. Honestly, for middle-class families, life is much more comfortable in Malaysia. Even the Swiss agree.

4th. day in KL

After work, I met up with Sharleen at Starbucks in KLCC to register for Public Mutual unit trust investment. We have some savings and thought it’d a be a wise idea to invest them rather than letting them making peanut profit in bank.

Sharleen is my wife’s former housemate in Mahsuri and Intan apartments in Setiawangsa before we got married who has recently re-established herself as a unit trust agent. She’s a Sabahan and still single. Anyone?

Finally I got a good lead to find the replacement strap for my Timberland watch. A shop in KLCC gave me the number for the Timberland watch service centre in MidValley. I called them up, and it sounded promising that they might have the strap for my model. Good. The only question is, how the hell can I find time to go there…???

Once the stuff with Sharleen settled, I caught Putra LRT to Setiawangsa to have dinner at the famous R&K satay restaurant with Shaikh. Shaikh was my senior during my student days in Glasgow, Scotland in 1994. He was, if I’m not mistaken, from the first batch of Petronas scholars who were sent there to do the so called Scottish International Foundation Programmed (SIFP) at Langside College. I still have vivid memory of meeting Shaikh for the first time upon arrival from at the college from Glasgow airport before being taken to our foster families. I happened to live in the same Pakistani populated area as Shaikh and a few other senior guys. Their flat was our usual lepak place in the evening or whenever there was a sudden urge for nasi and kari (rice and curry). Staying with foster family forbade us from cooking :(. — that’s why once I and my flatmate (Nashrul Hadi) were fed Pepperoni pizza! Our first taste of pork produce. Yikes!