Thoughts and experience of a city girl

It’s been such a crazy period for me so far during my stay in Houston. I went to Austin to party at 6th street, there’s a coyote bar there and halfway thru the night, gladys and I went up the bar and danced with another 48 girls. It was so fun and CRAZY. Pictures will not be shared for this event. Haha.

Went nuts in San Marcos where there are more than 130 outlet stores (armani, gucci, escada, hugo, BCBG, Lacoste, Nike, CK, the list goes on!!) The most important shop, to die for…is COACH. It’s ridiculously cheap. I bought 6 items for less than 800 dollars. Impossible to get this deal in Malaysia or anywhere where I reckon. I am so contended now, though with a burnt credit card. Oh, I should mention that when the Greyhound bus we took arrived at San Marcos, there is no single taxi around to bring us to the outlet mall, it’s 6 miles away. This really nice cop offered to give us a lift and we sat in his cop car to the mall. It’s such a cool experience, especially I am not in there for criminal reason. Haha. We were just so lucky

Attended NBA game, Houston Rockets vs New Jersey Nets. It’s so entertaining and just like what I saw in the tv. The songs played throughout the game was awesome, every break, there’s cheerleaders, gameshow and silly competitions. It was so hilarious, I enjoyed it so much and I felt that I accomplished some of my dreams of going to an NBA game, not that I am a fan but it’s just so commercial and famous. Haha.

Almost everynight, I went out for good dinner, activities, dancing. It’s tiring and I feel like a zombie during the day but my body just keeps on going. I think I am crazy and unstoppable here and I need to cool down when I go back to Msia in around 2 weeks time. I partied mostly with ppl from another BUild-IT cos they are much cooler. Haha. Except my new found best friend, Gladys.

New agenda is to go for ROdeo show and then NYC! Got my flight tickets already, and I am so looking forward to go to the BIG APPLE. Can’t wait and will definitely blog about it.

Last weekend was crazily fun. Was at Paparuchos dancing away til 2am, regathon, salsa, meringue, R&B. I love the music and the ppl dancing around me. Slept for 4 hours, got up and went to Katy Mills for more shopping til 6.30pm. Was planning to go back to hotel right after but then the G&G guys convinced to leave my shopping bags in their room and go Maggie Rita for dinner. Wasn’t hungry so just ordered a Margarita, half way down the glass, I was feeling dizzy and feverish, insisted to go back to sleep but was again convinced to go to The Lounge.

Not in the mood to dance, so a few of us went back to a friend’s room to sing karaoke til 1.30am. Next day, woke up at 6.30, waited for Brent and wife to bring me and Gladys to San Antonio. 3.5 hours later, I reached San Antonio and fell in love with the place.

Such hectic week but was really really FUN.

And I think I am having a crush! I am confused.

Adjusting to the time difference is a challenge but managed to overcome it within 3 days. My training class has superb SIS people from all over the world and happening too!
The first week of training was pretty slow and dull, learning about petroleum engineering. But our instructor, Richard was nice to invite us to PK’s Blue Water Grill at Voss Road for dinner on Friday and yes we all had fun there with Gladys and Sicilia singing for us with the piano man Jeff.

Headed to Roxy club which is close to where I stay. I must say there’s alot of crazy antiques and actions going on in there but we all just had our fun dancing away. Ricardo was good with his south american moves, so is Jose and Horacio. It was fun fun fun.

Slb organized a field trip for us to Galveston on Saturday to visit the Ocean Star Kack Up rig and lunch at Joe’s Crab Shack, the food was gooooooood but tooooooooo much. The portion of food here is just crazy for me. And off we went to Moody Garden after lunch, it’s a really great outing no doubt.

I am heading to Sugarland today for more shopping (my hotel is really close to The Galleria Mall too!) and I am so drowned with the malls in Houston. I just got myself a really nice Burberry wallet…

Second week of training will start soon, and I hope it’s going to be a great one.

Crappy birthday boy, I hate to say I really miss you. Wish you have all the best things in the world. Don’t know what else to say. Hugs.

Had a wonderful Christmas vacation with my family recently, destination TURKEY! It’s the most open minded and secular muslim country I’ve ever been. Went there with not much expectation (because of my lack of knowledge about the country except Troy? haha).

Our Turkey guide, Metin is extremely hilarious and interesting. I am not over-exaggerating it when I say everyone in the tour group actually love him. He is gifted with the PR skills, so gifted he’s able to make us laugh everyday and get us hooked on to Turkey’s history. Weird but true.

The tour in Turkey is mostly road trip, and at the end of the vacation, we traveled 3,000km by road. That’s like going up and down the peninsular Malaysia a few times. Best place is Cappadoccia, where I board the hot air balloon, breathtaking scenaries from up above but the temperature (minus 5) isn’t impressive at that time.

We visited the best leather factory in Kusadasi and there’s a fashion show done for our tour group. All 3 of us, my brothers and me was picked by the models to back stage and put on a leather jacket. Nice experience cos the male model escorting me is HOT!

This scenario show how Hollywood has corrupted us:

Metin: Who is the strongest warrior in Troy history?
Our tour group answered immediately: Brad Pitt

See what Hollywood has done to the history? Poor Archilles. Haha.

Overall, I would recommend Turkey to everyone, except ppl who’s road sick and can’t stand being in the bus for 9 hrs a day (yeah, we had that for a day…wake up…go into the bus, get down after 9 hrs…to the hotel and sleep)

Conclusion of the trip: I love it cos my younger bro could join us from Germany. I love Metin. I like Istanbul. And lastly…Turkish guys are actually pretty hot, *grin*.

Something really surprised me today. I went for my usual Sunday hiking with my parents at Bukit Gasing. We took the path after the over-hanging bridge. As I was walking up the bukit, I didn’t realise I was walking faster and faster. After awhile, I noticed my parents were way behind so I decided to stop and wait halfway. The moment I stopped walking, I could feel that I am gasping for air. My parents caught up and I told them I am feeling dizzy. Then, very quickly my vision was blurred and I only see white images. A few hikers stopped and offered help but before I knew it, I collapsed. Was a slight blackout there but I could still struggle and stood up with my parents help. I heard people telling me to lower my head and take many deep breaths. A few hikers actually came down to check on me.

After resting for 15 mins, I was ok but there’s so much cold sweat and my towel was soaking wet. This has never happened before, I mean I go to gym so often and walking in Bkt Gasing was a weekly routine for me. Perhaps, it’s the sub-conscious stress I am going through? I don’t know..but this really did surprise me.

I love the sceneries in Greece but I love ITALY. Haha. I had so much fun when I was in both places for almost 10 days and I found myself not wanting to go back to Malaysia (yeah, I didn’t really miss anything about Malaysia). Usually I would be yearning to go back after 6 days or so because I miss Malaysian food or something else but this time I didnt feel that at all, even on the last day. That explains how much I love this vacation.

As you could notice in my pictures, Greece is beautiful except that the food was alittle of a problem for Asian. Stuffed spinach with cheese in a pie isn’t exactly the perfect meal for me. :p But boy I like Roma, maybe cos I did have good company and definitely because I did party one night in the city. One mojito actually got me alittle tipsy (this has never happened before!) I wonder what they put in it and the second margarita, I need Danny to finished it up for me cos I was already floating alittle. So I insisted to go to a club and we did! Never have I clubbed in a long-sleeved sweater before, haha…well, it’s winter and I didnt bring any sleeveless top. Was a fun night definitely.

Now back in kl, a couple of days back, my work department had a team building in putrajaya, dragonboat race. And yeah baby, my team got first. Was unexpected cos we were the underdog and the team we were against with had many strong guys. And my team having me is like having a semi-handicapped member because of my problematic back. But the true winner prevailed at last. Was a really nice event. Though I realised I wouldnt pick dragon boat or any rowing water sport as my hobbies cos it’s just too much for my arms, haha.

Back to work and work is crazy. I look forward to another vacation next month, will surely blog about it…the mystical turkey.

Work is picking up for me, I am gradually taking support calls and going on-site to provide support. And my manager has given me my first project with Talisman, my senior is actually handling this but since he’s going to be transferred to another country soon, I am supposed to take over from him. I am excited with this opportunity and hope I could deliver as good as my senior.

Done my first presentation for the production team last friday, I am satisfied with the outcome, and I believe my manager was too. Got another presentation coming up, more technical this time but looking forward. My team members have all been nothing but supportive, I really count my blessings when it comes to work. It’s just unfortunate that 2 senior colleagues will be transferred this December, nonetheless, they are all an inspiration to me.

My health, I will be finishing my last 2 sessions of back reconditioning program by tuesday. There’s some improvement but nothing that significant. One thing for sure, I won’t enrol in this kind of program anytime soon, cos it’s taking so much of my time and I don’t see immense improvement out of it.

Driving in KL, gosh….arrrgghh…so many ignorant and inconsiderate people out there. There was once I was driving on the fast lane, pretty fast I would say, and this crazy wira driver cut in front of my car out of a sudden, nevermind about that, I thought he was going to accelerate and go along with the speed of the car in front. But no no no….he has to press on his brake! I was so taken aback and thank goodness I managed to brake in time and barely milimeters before hitting his stupid car. His car practically was stalled for a couple of seconds. He showed no guilt and I could tell by him eagerly looking at his rear mirror to see if I did knock into him and then he slowly sped off. I suspect he did that on purpose and might want to get something out of me. Silly, pure stupidity. So many drivers who change lane without signals, use HID lights (irritating!!) and the most fantastic scenario I encountered recently was 3 huge lorry drivers(one carrying a crane), all in one lane each and at the same speed! All the cars were practically being held back by their selfish act. Just because the 2 lorry drivers on the right think they could be faster than the other by a tiny bit, so they tried to overtake and rammed their accelerator but obviously the effort is to the drain. Only created frustration among other road users.

Enough rambling for now…looking forward to Greece/Italy next weekend. Til then, adios!

I was away at Macau and Zhuhai for the 4 days Raya break. Well, the first day wasn’t that fun because the direct AirAsia flight to Macau was full (yeah, late booking!) so we flew to Shenzhen instead and took a ferry to Macau. 3 ala carte rice+meat and 3 drinks costs us RMB255, alittle cuckoo the pricing but what the heck, we were hungry.

Once we reached Macau, we patiently waited for a cab and it was me and my mom hopping into the cab first while the men loaded the luggages. I told the cab driver "President hotel" and he mumbled back something similar which I nodded. I’ve studied Macau map while waiting for the cab so I knew the hotel is just 5-10 minutes away from the ferry terminal and it should cost no more than 40HKD. But then the cab driver took the island bridge and went across to another island, Taipa island and it was then I thought he’s taking us for a ride and at one time, I doubted my map reading skills. But I saw the new Venetian hotel, it was breathtaking, and I saw many other nice casino hotels, so I didn’t bother about the cab driver taking us for a ride. But the taxi meter soon surpassed 90HKD and he stopped us at Westin hotel! I told the cab driver we wanted to go to PRE-SI-DENT Hotel and he replied in cantonese "Yeah, I know u said WAI-SI-TEN" It was then I realised he misunderstood my words and WAI-SI-TEN in cantonese means Westin hotel! I was speechless and was struggling to comprehend what’s President in Cantonese called? Lucky my dad was there to rescue, (now I see the consequences of being a ‘banana’ haha…I should learn my language well). And I should add that the word president in cantonese sounds nothing like PRE-SI-DENT. The taxi ride cost us about 150HKD at the end, what a mistake.

Macau is like a smaller version of Las Vegas, so many casinos but doesn’t attract me at all, I went in to Lisboa casino just to lose 70HKD and then I’ve completed my purpose in Macau. Haha. Boy, I must say the prostitute business is such an open thing there, the girls are everywhere parading themselves and giving away their business cards. They are pretty but after seeing so many of them, on the streets, in the casinos, outside the hotels, I felt alittle uneasy about it. I mean, why would any girls do such thing and be proud of it (well, at least they looked like that from what I see). It further annoyed me when I see men walking behind the prostitutes towards a small hotel/motel. Uncomfortable and speechless…

Zhuhai was shopping paradise, lets not mention how many things I’ve bought over there and a meal with 4 dishes and rice only cost us RMB59. How cheap is that?!

Many more experience but not going to blab everything here. Worth going to both Macau and Zhuhai and in case some of you have no clue where Zhuhai is, it’s part of China and it’s walking distance from Macau to Zhuhai. Até a vista Macau!

It never fails to amuse me how blur men can be when it comes to love. Well, not exactly love but the process of getting there. Guys can be so ignorant about hints or signals from the opposite sex, sometimes it’s frustrating. I have personally experienced many blur cases and the day they realised was the day me or someone confessed to them DIRECTLY. Gosh, couldn’t it be any more obvious?

There’s always an extreme side of course, guys who think the opposite sex is giving the signals but in actual fact, we are NOT. This is going to be alittle tacky cos obviously these category of guys belong to the "higher self-esteem" group, so dealing with them must be handled ‘delicately’.

Partly the female species is not easy to interpret and handle but come on guys, differentiate between real hints and ‘imaginary’ hints. It’s really not that hard. How much hints do u expect a girl to give when u always fail to notice even one.