AdamGiles.com

Finally got my vistitors visa approved. I’m now legal till the middle of January.

Wow, that went quick. One year to the day since I arrived in MY.

Pros:

• The money on the current package is good
• Travel to places that I wouldn’t have been able to visit prior
• Falling in love

Cons:

• It’s bloody hot
• Worrying about timezones when calling home is a pain
• Everything here is just so inefficient
• Food poisoning on a semi-regular basis

I’ve had my contract extended, so basically, I’m in MY till the end of the year.

In other news, the Amazon reviews of the bible made me smile.

UPDATE: There may be visa problems. sigh…..

Oooooh, an earthquake (but only a small one). Nothing to write home about - does a blog post count?

Update: That’ll teach me for being flippant about this - 70 dead in Sumatra. It’s about 250 miles away, and the wobbles we felt were causing building to collapse at the epicenter.

What did we learn today? When buying Malaysian milk, always turn the carton round so that you can read the small print that says “Banana Flavoured Milk”.

That way, your tea doesn’t taste funny the following day.

Chinese New Year is quite a big event here in Malaysia (with about a third of the population being Chinese). Those pesky chinese dragons got everywhere. They raided the FujiFilm store downstairs.

Some even got into the office.

But nothing beats the traditional Carlsburg CNY display. How a Dutch beer gets to cash in on CNY is beyond me, but, there you go.

The real benefit was that I had two extra days off (which I spent fixing the server -see previous post).

Is a go.

PS This will only make sense to one person. If it’s not you, deal with it.

Ahhhh, at last. A bacon sandwich. Being a muslim country, it’s hard to find pig-related products in Malaysia. However, a supermarket in an ex-pat area has a special part of the store dedicated to ‘non-halal’ food. Including bacon! I was so excited about this I was forced to buy 5 packets of the stuff and arrange an ex-pat breakfast with others who live in the same appartment building as me.

A bacon and egg sandwich with brown sauce! Lovely.

In a spectacular display of organisational skills, I’ve been given 6 hours notice that I need to be in Hong Kong tomorrow. Last minute bookings of flights, hotels, cars etc. Quick nip home to pack and then off to the airport. What fun.
Will update with news + photo’s if they happen.

This is where you leave the country to work on a project in a far-away-land and then get insanely busy and don’t update you blog often enough. You then get SMS messages and emails from both sets of parents complaining about the lack of info!

Admittedly, I have been lax in my blog updates, but unless you want a daily dose of ‘Got up, skipped breakfast, went to office, worked hard, fell even further behind from the schedule, went back to apartment, passed out’ you’ll have to wait for something more interesting to happen.

As is happens, since I last posted, I’ve been to Brunei and gotten drunk (which is quite an achievement given that Brunei is a dry state), toured the Empire Hotel (that’s where Bill Clinton stays at when he’s in town) and watched the most gorgeous sunset across the south China sea (but no photo due to dead phone battery – DOH).

Back in KL I’ve discovered a drinking buddy from one of the vendors we’re working with, so some normality in the Friday-night-out-for-a-beer stakes has returned (photo’s coming soon). We’ve been exploiting insider information to locate the clubbing district and an open air bar on the 34th floor of a tower looking across to the Petronas towers. Luxury by local standards, regular pub prices for us. 50 ringits cover charge (about £7.70) to get in – no problems. Then you realize that a local restaurant will give you a plate full of food for about 5 ringits. Hmmm eat for a week or get into the bar? No contest.

I’ve also adopted the local custom of leaving bottles behind the bar. This is something unique to the East and is where, instead of buying drinks all night, you simply by a full bottle of your favorite tipple (Vodka, naturally) and pay for mixers as you use them. When you’re done, they mark the side of the bottle so you know how much is left and you leave it behind the bar. The next time you return you simply ask for your bottle back. The only problem being is that you need to have something left in the bottle at the end of the night – I need to work on that

In other news…
My laptop has died and has had to be rebuilt – so I’ve lost most of my abilities to check mail, upload photos etc etc. I’m slowly rebuilding it so should be back up to full steam soon.

I might be getting broadband in the next few days (I’ll believe it when I see it!) so hopefully that will also help in the update-frequency-rate.

Gathering by the emails and SMSs from home, life is ticking along with a gratifying level of normality.

And before I forget, work friend Rashni has given birth (2 weeks late) to a bouncing baby girl, Maia. Many congrats.

Phew, I guess quite a few things have happened since my last update. I promise not to leave it so long next time

Hugz
-Adam

PS Instant noodles again for dinner tonight - No wonder my body hates me.